On progress

What holds this year over last is that when the students walk up and say, "Teacher, what my name is?" I can have them write it in Thai and generally transcribe a couple of syllables with reasonable accuracy, especially if there's verbal distinction (in Thai, the first consonant and vowel are pronounced while the rest are left to implication, i.e. the nicknames Milk, Mild, Mile, Mind, Mai, Mie all sound like "Mie").  The only problem is that it's really funny to write bad words for teacher to sound out.
Sigh.
I know I had a rough time between 12 and 18, but did I do that much to spread it around?

On sport

I'll confess to a certain amount of exhibitionism in sports: to play tennis, badminton, football, I want the setup--a court with a net and lines and set boundaries, let alone the intricacies of gear.
Each is a game of rules and prescriptions, of black and white verdicts and judgments.
With boundary lines, there is a set "IN" and "OUT." With a net, there is a set, "FAIR" and "FOUL."
I love it.

Then came Thailand.

Badminton, tennis, volleyball: play on the street and just keep the damn thing airborne.
Football: the "goal" is to get "it" past the other team. The farang in me looks at a game of kickball with a deflated basketball on a heaving cobblestone court randomly and liberally perforated with tree stumps and thinks, "Who would play soccer with a deflated basketball? On a 'field' without boundary or goal lines?"
Then I'm climbing to the top floor classroom and see more investment and engagement in a game of bottle-cap soccer than any American student would willingly show.
Later, the thirty-and-under crowd from the eight families on a block are batting around a shuttlecock, up down and sideways, among the cars parked on the neighborhood block. Again, the Westerner in me wonders where the boundaries are, where the net is, how they can play without rigidly defined "IN" and "OUT," without the arbitrary black and white.
In this hemisphere, the only golf I've seen has involved two people, two clubs--a putter and a sand wedge--driving a ping pong ball down the street. After great discussion and gesticulation, a "hole" would be agreed upon. One of the guys would hit a "drive" and walk after it until it bounced off the street. He would mark the spot and pass the single ball to the other player, standing where his last drive went out as the other guy backtracked to make his shot.
It had the intensity of a triple-overtime showdown on the PGA tour.

It's a good lesson for me. Especially for me. It's not about the trappings, not about the appearance or display. Exactly the opposite of physical appearances. It doesn't matter what the conditions provided the substance--getting it past the other guy--is present.

Which is odd, in a way, because it's exactly opposite with people--as a teacher, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the lesson as long as you look good. If you're svelte and suave walking in, have incomprehensible-looking notes on the board, you're set.

I want this to be some sort of morality and objectivity issue, to say, "SEE? It's not about the trappings but the content! It doesn't matter if you have the right decor and trappings as long as you have the earnest desire." But it keeps falling flat: Thais need personal trappings while pastimes are matters of an essential, internal drive.
In America, we give the individual the benefit of doubtful trappings and look for personal aptitude, while sport is a matter of trappings. So I wonder if it isn't an instinctive need for substance as well as show--a human adaptation of mating displays, which makes sense for the American displays of activities and pursuits, but makes me wonder about a country where daily life is a hyped-up sort of ritual.

On baggage

This struck me as interesting:
To pack and prepare for a weekend out of town, I got my school bag
ready in the morning-doublecheck pens and notebook and toss in some
sustenance carefully packed against columns of ants by precious
Ziplocs preserved around the Himalayas-but before adding the bottle of
soda, I put in a couple of lightweight tees wrapped around lightweight
boxers, a comb, and, in the most extravagant use of space, my sandals
in a grocery bag (so I can leave the shoes at work).
I already carry toothcare and 70% isopropyl alcohol (which I use for
deoderant in the morning and sanitized thereafter) and the
forementioned pens, pencils, and a notebook or two. With the addition
of clothes-a volume of about a quart-I'm set for 2-10 days. Up it to a
gallon and I'm set to live (anyplace tropical).
I guess what I find interesting is that not only do I not pack a bag
for the weekend, nor would I for a week, but that the additional
weight and volume is less than the bathroom bag that spent the past
fifteen years as a foundational component of even an overnight trip.
And the load of loot I brought back was pretty telling, too: colored
pens (I was hoping to find rubber stamps but no luck) and foodsttuffs
I can't find here--miso packets, rolled oats, lemon pepper, a bottle
of dopplebock dunkel, ginger snaps, and, wonder of wonders, zip-close
baggies.

And the funny part is that even though Had Yai is known for its
markets and bazaars and cheap upper end retail, I doubt anyone with a
Gucci, "Gucci," or Guci bag was happier with it than I was with whole-
flake oats and ziptops.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

On relativity

Funny--nothing inspires an urge to write as much as not having a computer at hand, and nothing inspires procrastination and paperpushing deskwork as much as a blank screen staring out from the computer.

So the update. Back to the hospital and all.
They're getting a great sense of what all it's not.
"It's good that the [parasitic] tests came up negative, but is very easy to get false negatives. And since all the other tests came up negative, too, I want to keep you on the parasite medication because sometimes giardia is hard to kill. It's good that some of the symptoms have been going away, and you have made some physical progress, but I was hoping you'd get further."

My weight was up to 42 with a BP of 92/48 and the edemas have subsided--It's a mixed blessing because now instead of devoting every scrap I can muster to staying upright and appearing fully functional, there's the occasional chance to realize and explore how bad my body feels. When there's enough other distraction, it's easy to overlook the way it hurts when your knees pinch and knock against each other all night, or how knobby the coccyx gets if you don't roll over frequently enough, or to feel how sore and tired the muscles get by the end of the day.
Ibuprofen or something comparable is tempting, but at the same time the ache of muscles exerted beyond their comfortably relaxed state isn't necessarily a bad feeling--it doesn't sap energy or kill interest/enthusiasm like the soggy blanket of aching fever and chills with nausea and joint inflammation and an additional bit of voracious nastiness in the leg. It's just embarrassing how little it takes to get the post-workout feeling.
And in bad moments it's also disheartening to catch the new habits or failure of the old--putting a soda bottle between the legs and having it fall straight through, cinching the tie to neckline and realizing I just crinkled and scrunched my collar, walking up in a beeline to the toilet without becoming aware of needing it, having the gift of an afternoon hour when I don't need to be flat on my back with my legs in the air to help them drain, cranking the watch down another notch. I keep tripping over my shoes because I'm used to the feeling of my feet being clutched by leather stretched to ripping, not cavernous space.
But how fantastic to have muscle and joint aches and pains, especially with enough energy to recognize and pay attention to them! Ankles! Real ankles over working feet! Cool!
Damn my legs hurt--wow! It's not the sickly ache of infection or acute and piercing scream of inflammation! Just imagine how great it would be if there was enough oomph left over to bulk up the legs as they squat over the pit, let alone getting rid of the need to do so in the first place! (In my head, I'm hearing Satchmo singing with cartoon birdies twittering around amid Kinkade-style God light.)

So she doubled the parasitic treatment. "If you were Thai, I would have given you something to stop the diarrhea, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't parasitic first. And I will book you for an endoscopy and colonoscopy in a couple of weeks. If it goes away, call me and we can change the appointment. Otherwise, you need to come in for more testing."

So that's where it stands. "Better" and "good" are entirely relative, but for the first time in a very, very long time, they're appropriate.
Which is a damn good thing because I don't have any more holes in my watchband.

On glory and hilarity

With ten minutes left in class, I was feeling the pinch of an extremely successful initial activity that I milked for an extra ten minutes before cutting it short so the students will enjoy it next time.  A roving dictionary salesgirl walked in.  Per custom, she had the floor.  All progress detoured to her stop.

One of my students, a precocious little girl who pushes me to be at least a long leap ahead of where this lesson's grammar is going and next lesson's content will head, started a whispered cadence of what, in America, would translate as "Yes'm, yes'm, yes'm," spaced about every other of her heartbeats while she finished the assigned work.  .

I was sorely tempted to "shush" her.
But I was laughing.

The salesgirl kept waving the translating dictionary about, with excited waves of "Only 380 Baht!"
And Mook kept whispering a steady stream of, "Yes'm, yes'm, yes'm" without looking up.

I guess you had to be there to see the humor.  But when the salesgirl left, carried by a wave of cheering, Mook held up her sheet and shouted, full volume, "TEACHER, FINISHED!"

And the class went silent because Mook is a dark-skinned Isaan girl who's not supposed to be smart and certainly shouldn't finish before the rich kids.

It was a glorious moment.

On intent

In general, I would characterize myself as fairly slow to anger.  

Granted, I peeve and ruffle easily, but I like to think it takes a lot before I show it, especially in classroom environments.  I'll also say that I strive toward interpersonal lovingkindness and patience and acceptance.  

So I practice reminding myself that the M1 kids need mainly sympathy and understanding.  

I realize that, to a thirteen year-old Thai boy who's accustomed to sitting in the back of the class and trying to find ways to disappear or mouth off without getting beat, a skinny foreign teacher yelling out nonsensical gibberish while clapping is easy to take lightly, especially as that foreigner is about the only person in his life who won't beat him with a bamboo cane.  

From my perspective, I'm trying to get past the drunkardly recitation or repetition; the ambient tempo of Thai students reading off the board or repeating a verbal prompt makes a lurching drunk's "No, occifer... I am... NOT... punk... in... in... drublic" seem articulatedly staccato.  

So, capitalizing on the predilection to set up a desktop groove, I get the beat going and chant modulating rhythms--once we can say, "what is your name?" it turns into "what/ is/ yourname" and "what/ isyour/ name" and "whatis/ your/ name."  Then, when we practice on each other, the cadence is somewhat less unnatural.  

In the meantime, even the students who don't want to talk are involved in keeping up the cadence.  

And then there's the gem who's shouting "JACKOFF" at every breath, and starting up an alternate cadence of bawdy lyrics.  Which of course kicks off the back row or three to join him, and pretty soon the six kids who are really trying are saying, "Teacher, tell them QUIET!"  

Deep breath.  

Go back and shush with the teacher look.  

Yeah, what was that about exercises in futility?

In some cases, I can understand these kids: they're bored and looking to get a laugh.

Like the guys sitting outside the door, laughing and chanting and disappearing when I wave them in.  

Deep breath, try again.  Class gets rolling again and I set up question-answer cadences: "What/ isyour/ name?"  I write an example on the board to demonstrate, and the class chants it back.  It takes a few minutes to get across, "No, this is MY name, you say YOUR name," but eventually we get to "Myname/ is/ Bam!"  And first it's shouts of "PAPAYA BOK-BOK," which some of the kids called me last year.  Then it's a laugh-inducing Thai song.  Then it's "JACKOFF JACKOFF!"  And all but six kids are gone.  Again.  

So they're instructed to step outside of the classroom.  

Deep breath, try again.

Three minutes later, they're standing in the doorway, chanting bawdy lyrics.  

The class is gone.  

It will not come back.  

Deep breath.  Call the kids in.  Have them write their names and numbers in my lesson book.  They must sit on the floor in the front of the class, on the floor under the whiteboard.  

Half the class starts up the bawdy chant--from what I can understand, it's the equivalent of "There once was a man from Nantucket...."--at the same time kids start running behind me and ruffling my hair without touching my head.  

Deep breath.  

"If anyone wants to learn English, I'll be outside."  

Here's what burns me: the first round was the worst group of kids trying to get me to scratch out their names and numbers.  

The second group was the kids who wanted to learn saying, "Goodbye, teacher!"  

The third group was the peripheral kids who were too image conscious to enjoy the lesson but still payed enough attention to get the idea.  We had a decent interaction for a couple of minutes.  

And then the back row of kids who destroyed any patience or understanding I had for them comes laughing past, and the loudest little jackhole shouts, "WHAT MY NAME IS! WHAT MY NAME IS! TEACHER WHAT MY NAME IS!" (local parlance for "what is your name" from those who don't know that much English) at me.  

This is when I have to close my eyes and focus on the air moving in and out of my nostrils.  And as soon as there's room for outside thoughts, I'm grateful for not having a bamboo stick like the Thai teachers, because I would use it exuberantly.  

And now I pretend to think the world wouldn't be a better place for it.  

Yet somehow, when a G4 student comes up and says, in a mix of Thai and English, "Teacher like to play swimming at the home, right?" it's a warm fuzzy.  

How is that?

On revenue?

Gotta wonder how deliberate it is that the mototaxi drivers outside
the hospital start swigging Chang just after the administration--is
the hospital really that strapped for cash? And what's the likelihood
that someone would go BACK?

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

Just in case it wasn't obvious

Not a real bright idea to hold the new bottle of hydrochloric/citrus
bathroom cleaner right under your nose to give a squeezy sniff test.

I mean to say, "Thai food and contact lenses don't mix," but I have to
keep qualifying it:
Eating Thai food doesn't mix with contact lenses.
Nor does preparing Thai food.
And then there's wearing them in the combination of heat and humidity
and pollution.
So maybe it's more 'thailand and contacts don't mix.' But why stop
there?
Thailand and health are a losing combination.

Remember, this is Thailand: you can't just pick up your camera and
shoot without first scraping the mold off of all reflective surfaces

Even if you're really hungry and the corn is really good, even if the
first bite goes through the entire, tender cobb and you discover that
you can eat it like a hotdog, biting straight through the fresh cobb
that's already young and tender before steaming and a salt bath, even
if it tastes all the more delicious with pig whatnots, it is a bad,
bad idea. As you'll discover tomorrow.

Can always tell the newbie by phrases like "someone's going to eat
that? A person? But there are flies on it!"

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

On Whatnots

Many many years ago, Dad and I were sitting in the KB KFC, eating a chicken.  I had a drumstick and breast, as was typical.  And one of the oysters--Dad had just showed me how to find those gems.
"When I was young" he said, "I used to eat the drumsticks and breast, too.  But as you grow up you learn to eat the back and neck and let other people have the big pieces."  Something like that.  I think he also brought in Gram.  The storyteller in me wants to re-imagine the scene, but the nonfiction writer cringes and the realist says, "Remember, Dad will read this," so we'll go with that reconstruction.
I thought he was nuts.  What could be better than a chicken breast?
And then Thailand happened.

One of the great local customs is for butchers to sell chicken carcasses: hack off the wings, breasts, and legs, then sell the remainder to a cart vendor to deep fry, along with the hacked-off bits.  And fun factor aside--how much more fun is it picking out all the juicy bits than having a ready-cut hunk of meat? (yes, I live and eat alone, remember)--a nice breast chunk costs more than a fried carcass.  What's not to love?

And then there's breakfast.  Organ meat soup with leaves collected that morning.  For some reason, farangs have issues with intestines and livers and bowels and spleens.  And locals are surprised when I enjoy them.  About all I can say is, "Bring it on!"

cellular snapshots

This is morning assembly.  We stand in formation, practice turning on command, sing the national anthem, sing the King's Anthem on Friday, recite the school motto and spirit (Fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom; Thrust me while I am here, mess me when I am gone [sic, sic]), and listen to significant announcements.  

I try not to comment about local fashion.  When not in school uniform, the boys like to wear death metal tees from America, or at least hardcore seeming images.  Notably, one kid was strutting around with early-adolescent pride for a shirt that said, in vampiric font, "sample text."
They're kids.  They're trying to be cool with the tools available.
But I had to say something to the kid wearing a black shirt with white font around a red swastika: "Nazi" above, "Punk" below, smaller "FUCK YOU" subscript.
He was standing next to his mom and staring at me.  I walked up, traced "NAZI PUNK" as I said the words, then gave a roughly literal translation of the subscript.
Funny, no matter how accurately I tell a Thai person where I want to go or what I want to eat, they don't understand for at least three repetitions.  But say, "fuck you" and eyebrows snap up.
I doubt he's been allowed to wear that shirt since.

That's right, nonfat pork rinds.  Gram is rolling in her grave.

The last package my grandmother sent me was a bag of pork rinds.  She poked holes in it so it would fit in a smaller envelope.  The note was something like, "Russ, these are called pork rinds.  We used to call them Cracklins.  My land are they good.  

"I poked holes in the bag so I could mail it.  Just put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and they'll be fine."

[Those of you not laughing were not in on her last year or so.  Her diet consisted primarily of sachets of sugar with bits of coffee or packets of jam.  Naturally, nothing the care home served was hot or sweet enough, and none of the plates of food were right--which is prone to happen when your vision has deteriorated after nearly a century of worried application.  So instead of dipping the turkey into gravy and finding it to be mustard, or dipping the fish into tartar and finding it to be tapioca, she ate pudding cups and pork rinds and microwaved cups of coffee-infused syrup.  

And then she put a cup in for 90 minutes, not 90 seconds, and set off fire alarms all along the wing.  A quick-thinking nurse told her it was a new policy: no more microwaves."

On the Ecological Frontlines

First off, there is nothing about Thailand in this post. I'm guessing that it will take years to clear the smog and crap from my lungs. I pointedly ignore, well, nothing to say.

So.

Inklings came when I was in Togiak Call it cognitive dissonance: here's the lefty eco guy with a ponytail looking at Lund V-hulls propelled by decade-old two-strokes pissing oil.
Hey! You should be operating a four-stroke!
A four stroke costs as much as I make in 6 months.
Oh.

Pebble mine is hope--it's a place with steady, year-round work.
A man without teeth, wearing worn-through jeans, a wool shirt that looks as old, and a slicker as much duct tape as vinyl in the 40-degree driving rain. "If I could get that job driving truck, I could buy my daughter a new jacket, the first in three years."
Of course you want this guy and his daughter to succeed.
But it's the biggest open-pit mine in the world, at the headwaters of the last great salmon run in America.

"Burnables go in this bin, stuff for the dump in that one....
"Plastic? It burns great."
I snuck plastic into the dump bin until it was time for a dump run and I helped toss bags of toxic and rusting waste onto an open patch of tundra before lighting it on fire as much as possible. When a gust of wind came through, anything light enough to blow away--namely plastic, flaming or otherwise--blew into the bay.
Which is the greater evil: burning plastic outside your back door or giving it a chance to blow into the bay, first?

Nepal has big energy problems, especially above the snowline. It's too cold to support harvestable forests, but there isn't enough electricity to provide heat (and light) enough for basic survival cooking, let alone accommodating tourism or providing comfort.
Options?
Raise prices and pay for the wood you can't harvest or haul yourself.
Or get one of those solar oven things.
I saw two solar ovens. The first was set up in a front yard. It had an umbrella-like dome on top of a satellite dish that held a black box with a couple of large downpipes.
Eventually, I found a set of instructions on one side of an interior panel. Something like, "Pour water into Holding Tank One. Seal with Rubberized Stopper and Invert to Activate Osmotic Filtration. Once Osmotic Filtration has completed, attach Hose A to Outlet C. Assure Hose B is secure on Tank D, secure the Reflector Panel, and invert unit to working position."
WHAT?
No wonder it was rusted stiff.

The other filter/solar heater was two stops down. A buffalo was eating out of the main reflector bowl. A goat was standing in, and trying to eat, the interior dish.

Meanwhile, every establishment in town belched sooty green-wood smoke from its chimney.

And in the developed world, well out of sight, scent, and sound of electrical production, oversized televisions belch messages of conservation to the portion of the world removed enough from it to live with--through?--cable.

No such thing as a free massage

I went to the masseuse to celebrate feeling not as bad.  I've found a lady with magic fingers--first time in Thailand I've found someone whose touch is comforting and whose fingers know how to find the spots that need them and work the kinks out without a fantastic level of pain.  

So I'm half asleep and blissed out as she's working on my legs and blood is circulating to places it's been avoiding for a while.  

It is Thailand, of course, so it's nothing close to the drool-inducing deep tissue work back stateside, but it has the comforting discomfort of a rigorous, post-workout stretch.  

There's a position where the masseuse sits at your feet and throws one of your legs out in a canopener sort of figure-four, a-la Captain Morgan but flat on your back.  She holds your foot and braces your knee with her foot, then she kneads your hamstring with her other foot.  (The pic is as close as I could find without hitting the point of critical temporal devotion and needing something perfect to justify the time investment.)

She starts with her feet close together, her left foot behind my right knee, right foot just groin-ward from my knee.  It's a strong position, a position for the masseuse to use bigtime pressure, a position designed to work deep into big muscles.  Muscles and ligaments popped and flexed and released blood into areas that had not seen it in quite some time.  

Alarms didn't have time to sound.  Suddenly one of the boys was between her foot and my leg and she was exerting considerable pressure.  

I've been floored before by accidental blows in sports, stray tennis or soccer balls, the occasional dog jumping up and getting in an accidental thwack on the way down.  And I haven't been there, but considering that a deliberate blow is measured to dole a certain amount of damage at a relatively controlled rate and under full consciousness, it has a degree of built-in control mediated by the anti-sadistic nature of the population at large.  

This had the control, glancing misdirection, and restraint of a meteorite.  

Not even screaming, just rolling over and puking.  A green-gray-out for an indeterminate time until a flock of blabbering hands patted and prodded me to another explosion.  A big guy picking me up by wrapping one arm under my belly and swinging me half sideways, half face-down onto a foot-massage lounger.  After stabilizing in an atrociously uncomfortable fetal curl, puking came as I was broken into an open and exposed foot-massager recline.  

I won't get frustrated.  In Thai, the basic "nahm" sound has seven or eight different meanings, depending upon your inflection.  There are as many for the basic "keng" sound.  Still, "Nahm Keng" means firm/solid water, or ice.  "Cha Menow" is hot lemon tea.  I don't see how the two overlap, but somehow asking for "ICE" and "NAHM KENG" produced a cup of boiling hot lemon syrup tea with three people trying to pour it down my throat while half a dozen people kept up a constant commentary.  

Such "assistance" provides great motivation to get up and walk out of the nausea and pain.  And the option of a private squatter pot or public bench/corner in a Saturday afternoon mall also helps the recovery process.  

What's odd is that I am enthused about returning for a session with the same masseuse, especially since I have a voucher for it.  

But I will NOT call it free.

When things break down and thumbs get bitten

What's to say?
This is the post where I've been staring at the screen, writing a word, erasing it, writing another word, erasing it, pushing out a full sentence, erasing it, staring at my fingers on the keyboard and trying to find how to get into what wants to be said.
Usually, I go back to my thesis advisor's advice: just show what's there. Usually, I would try to describe one thing, then another, and hope the description was tight enough to explain or express why it seemed significant enough to write out. Problem is, there's nothing to show.

After a night urping bubbles of acidic chemical bile and making hourly trips to the geyser pot (waterfalls are a tempting metaphor but too passive), I put on the shirt that fit pretty well when I came over. I rolled up the sleeves because I don't like the cuffs hanging down to my knuckles and wished for a similar trick with the collar that hangs open down my chest. Pants, belt, well, it was the smallest belt I could find, stateside, and it's two holes smaller, now. I started putting on my shoe at the same time I started brushing my teeth, hobbled around with the last of the day's packing, and still couldn't hold in a whimper at the final, stomping, squeeze.
Morning descents of the staircase have given me a huge appreciation of a big, solid bannister. The left foot fights to move under the edema and the right is somehow able to scream louder from under the layers of edema, inflammation, and pain, with veins swollen and as stiff as the ligaments and tendons that haven't really been used in a couple of months.
Outside, it's just after 7 and already in the high 30s. Without direct sunlight, the ambient humidity has condensed into misty haze in the trees. Homicidal drivers roar and honk every whichway on the road, songtaus honk and hoot at me, and scooters loaded with three or four of the dear students I get to try to yell over for most of the day in hundred-plus rooms packed with sixty kids blow past with the little darlings cackling "HARRYPOTTYHARRYPOTTYHARRYPOTTY!" well above the ambient roar. I've learned, very painfully, not to notice, though, because the sidewalks are an uneven minefield of missing cobbles, raised cobbles, unexplainable sink holes, sewer drains, rusted drain covers, missing drain covers, dog poop, piles of burnt garbage, piles of fresh garbage, sooty piles of burning garbage, scooters, bicycles, cars, pickups, military transports, shagged-out tour coaches, the odd cow, sometimes an elephant, all packed in between the breakfast carts that serve noisy groups of commuters sitting on stackable chairs at folding tables--look up and you're flat on your face, which is about the only way in the world to quiet such a crowd of Thais. No mention of how scary a scratched knee has become.

But I'm walking toward an airconditioned office at the top of 3 flights of stairs invariably loaded with smiling, "Hello teacher! Good morning!" and the occasional reach for a hand or arm.
Across the street is the cart where I just smile and point to the display case of leaves and pig whatnots and the shriveled lady makes a soup without the cubes of coagulated blood and extra liver, then smiles and hands me an extra baggie--rinds trimmed from strips of deep fried pig belly. She saves them for me.
Overhead, egrets glow pink in their commute to the swamps and paddies, and whooping jungle sounds come from trees around the stadium.
I'm in Thailand. I live here. This is my commute.
And at this point, I'm not afraid anymore.
There's nothing to show for it, but that's what's changed.
Not delusions of indestructibility or confidence that nothing else can go wrong. THAT is one set of illusions living here has broken down, beaten to a pulp, kicked holes in, and, on a bad day, pissed on.
It's that the prospect of losing or hurting something else is no longer scary, it's simply an experience. Getting to see a one-horned rhino and watch elephants bathing in the morning; getting another intestinal parasite. Getting hooted and cackled at; getting to listen to Pali chanting before the traffic kicks up. Being sick away from home. Not having running home as a reasonable--or even as a desperate--option.
How to say, "It doesn't scare me anymore" without being cliche, without failing to communicate what I really mean by that.

And today.
Waking up as I'm already lurching toward the bathroom, the constriction of which squeezes out a juicy drop. At one time, this would be embarrassing. Now, I'm just glad it wasn't more and that I woke up in time to reach the pot.
I had a start when I saw what looked like a huge mezzaluna bruise circling the inside of my left ankle, the "good" ankle, but when I looked more closely, it's a crazy dense web of blood vessels under skin that hasn't seen much sun since, um, well, I guess the last time I really wore shorts was in Italy. It's not a bruise but the beefy vasculature to help with the edema, and in fact most of my ankle is a similar web of blue veins in pasty skin on what could just about be an anatomy class model of a "working" ankle: no longer are there the odd muscles from climbing mountains and refusing to not tap my foot while playing music, just a framework of bones and tendons with a couple of sadly emaciated ligaments.
HOW FANTASTIC!
For the first time since about March 12, just after leaving the Himalayas, I can see my ankle!

And it goes on. How to avoid cliches while conveying that you might not have a choice in what happens to you, but you do have a choice in reacting to it.
This morning, I woke up and knew that the only way Thailand will beat or break me is if I allow myself to be beaten or broken. And no way in hell is that going to happen.
In fact, the only good choice I see is to come out of this a whole helluva lot stronger (spiritually and mentally, certainly not physically), smarter, and happier than when I came here.
I guess I'll tell myself that I've earned the cliche and declare to the past year(ish) that's been dragging me down like an ape on my back that I bite my thumb at thee, and I will not allow the flaming wads of poo flung my way ruin a trip to one of the strangest zoos in the world.

The Greatest Prescription Ever

The good doc likes what he's seeing in the reaction to the medication. It feels about like swallowing a ball of swamp muck (it took me a while to come up with that--I keep picturing the vats of fermenting sardine goo with wafting waves of durian and getting hungry [really]) because the pills sit and stew and send bubbles of acidic chemicals in all directions, but the inflammation has gone down and taken the fever and some of the fatigue with it. If it comes back, he'll keep me there on an IV until I'm clear. But at this point, his main concern was my shoes. With my sausage foot, my beloved Danskos further restrict what bloodflow still exists. This is a problem.
So he sent me with an extension of the meds, and a prescription for, and he smiled and hid his mouth to say it, flip flops.

New Souvenir!

Last term, there was an outbreak of Dengue Fever. My mantra was, "It's only a matter of time."
But no. Dengue would've been too easy.
Try filariasis.
The doc is optimistic about the range of treatments. Maybe, if the work as well as the others, I'll get to be the 86 pound guy with a 96 pound scrotum.

On Beauty

There really are some beautiful places and moments that I would love to share:
-Students running across the street or square shouting, "HELLO TEACHER! TEACHER!  HELLO!"
-Finding fourth-grade arms wrapped around my waist, or the former student who smiles and says "I love you teacher!" whenever our paths cross.
-Watching egrets, herons, and other long-legged waterfowl glowing pink in the twilight as I walk to work
-Successfully giving directions to a mototaxi driver, and the laughs I get when I say, "No, I don't really speak Thai.  I understand a little, but I'm a foreigner.  Speak I cannot."  And later, "Thai food is delicious, Thai women are beautiful, but Thai drivers are horrible," all in Thai.
-When I go back to the same lady who makes the best papaya salad and grilled chicken in town, and she proudly explains to onlookers that I really do like it traditional Thai style except that even though peppers are delicious, they hurt my belly.
-The smile when I stumble through an order with the lady who sells pig whatnots--as I ask for twenty baht of belly and point to my ear, she laughs and corrects me; she absolutely loves when I make up some word and ask for 20 TB of nonsense while pointing at my nose; she always asks me to say it a few times amid gales of laughter, just about ensuring that I won't remember the actual term.
-The wonderful, anti-drug pharmacist lady who has given me much of the best medical advice I've received, who has a slight German accent and always flags me down to ask how I'm doing.

But then there are so many disgusting things--all the therapeutic unloading (which is to say, "bitching and moaning") I do on here, the pollution and grime and unavoidable stenches of sewer and charcoal and burning trash, the bruises on the nice butcher lady's neck, deciding that "Giardia with something else and a nasty leg infection" is good news because it's an actual diagnosis, debating whether staph or elephantiasis would be a better diagnosis, trying to figure out how to clean up myself and the squatter stall using half a bucket of larvae-infested water--that I wish I had a better alternative than sticking out this gig through a better one or improved health.

What I would love to share are the personal matters.  I came here with the presence or near shadows of many unpleasant things that I have since dropped, and now have many more things of which I would crow praises to the world:
-The joys of being positive and working with likeminded individuals (even if 9 years old) toward a greater happiness.
-Metta meditation, the conscientious practice of spreading lovingkindness to self, surroundings, loved ones, feared and hated ones, and the world at large.  I stumbled on this not long after one of the bike wrecks and can attest to a firm belief that month after month of practicing being happy and loving and fulfilled has improved my daily life.
-What I'll call "Prayerful Visualization," or spending more time flat on my back with my legs up on the wall to drain the edemas while picturing how great things could be--camping on the beach, climbing waterfalls, exploring trails, camping in the national parks, learning to be a cultural--not medical--tourist, having stamina for an actual gym workout, jogging through the park, teaching a full day without an emergency bathroom run.  So far, this has been an utter flop, but it makes my head feel better for spending some time in a happier place, and it makes my legs happier for giving the edemas a chance to drain.
-Scripture study.  So far, I've read straight through the Torah, the New Testament, the Quaran, Dhammapada, Lotus and Diamond Sutras, and now I'm going back with more nuanced study.  What I love is the commonality: here's how to be a good person, and here's why and why not people succeed and fail.  And at the same time, I love how utterly distinct each book is in its theories and means.   Why, exactly, should you not eat pig?  Or shrimp? Or cow?  Of course people are killed for X, but consider Y; who's the worse transgressor?
-The daily application thereof, i.e. when a group of kids surrounded me, said something in Thai until I repeated it, and then started screaming "TEACHER JACKOFF TEACHER JACKOFF JACKOFF JACKOFF JACKOFF!"and I tried to focus on their one day growing up to be kind and considerate daddies.

What gets me is the sense that I've justifiably paid off any witting karmic debt, and the firm belief that I've atoned for more than I've acquired in this or the past couple of lives, I still keep getting the opportunity to incorporate new and previously horrible conditions experiences into my daily reality.
And at this point, I sit back, look at myself, and wonder what it'll take to stick out this gig until I have a better stateside alternative.  

On shopping

It's time to bolster my wardrobe.  Last term, I got away with a lot being the one farang not living and working in aircon.  Now there are three of us, and we are under a considerable amount of scrutiny.  Instead of wearing polos and American buttondown tees, I'll be wearing slacks, ties, and long sleeved shirts (this is very important in Thailand: you look nice in short sleeves and tie, but you'll never be sharp without sleeves).  I figure it'll slack later on and I'll be able to wear the ever-shiek cowboy getup (anyone have an extra bolo tie you could send?) but for now, when temperatures and the pressures to establish solid precedents are at their highest, the prospect of one day going back to cooler, breathable, cotton pants--which have either elastic or string-tie waistbands in my wardrobe--does little to offset the swelter around the rivers of sweat.

It's easy to find a tailor, and sometimes a fairly cheap one, which the BIG farangs in the EP do.  I know I want to bring home a traditional, Thai-style shirt, and I'll admit that part of me likes the eventual novelty (sooner rather than later, pray everyone and everything that is holy), but I just don't want to go there.  

And while I don't expect to find pants that actually fit--the 30X30 pants I brought slide straight off without unbuttoning--I figured that a country of generally small and skinny people would be a good bet for finding clothes for the skinny, especially in the Thai-owned and inclined department stores.

Well.

I started at Robinson Ocean, the most Western-friendly--and expensive--option.  I found one pair of 30-inch black cotton, one pair of 30 inch khaki, each unhemmed blanks from an American designer (so produced in a neighboring country, shipped to the states, and redistributed, most likely), with prices inline with a US department store--not such a good option.

Second stop: Tesco-Lotus, the local Wal-Mart.  The smallest dress pants were solid polyester and, while sized in some very foreign units--18 or 49, I can't remember which--about 32 inches around.  Cotton started four digits up.

Stop three: a seconds shop specializing in American and British brands.  Most items were 250 TB: now we're talking.  BUT, the one small shirt was 575, and the only smallish pants were navy blue polyester about the shade and texture of my high school band uniform.

Stop four: Lucky Department Store, a very Thai establishment that carries such almost-original-quality brands as Levy Stress and Dickles.  Finding the men's formalwear was an endurance challenge, and once I was there, nothing had a size.  Evidently, what's supposed to happen is one of the cute young clerks comes and takes desires and measurements and provides appropriately sized garments of the desired style.
What's to say?
When I stepped into the section, the chittering knot of clerks dispersed like a covey of flushed quail.  When I did corner one and asked, in Thai, "Do you have these [khaki pants] in really small?  Maybe 28 or 30?"
Her eyeballs went from deer-in-headlights to dog-under-carwheels.
"No, no, no have" she said in English.
"Any cotton for me?" in Thai.
I left before the puppy-dog eyes ruptured.

Stop five: Saha Thai, owned and operated by Thais, for Thais, without the nods at Westernization that make for worthwhile novelty/absurdity.
This one has to work, right?  Just think of all the skinny little guys in high school, the fact that my stature, if filled out, would be abnormally large for Thailand.
As I walked around, I struck gold: a small long-sleeved shirt for 250, 30X30 cotton khaki pants for 299, and a leather belt for 229.  I also realized why I had such bad luck finding small dress clothes: while American department stores have a smaller selection of boys' dressup clothes, it's still possible to find something smaller than 30X30.  And even if the selection of fabrics is limited, you generally have a choice of khaki, black, navy, and charcoal pants with matching shirts.
Thailand is a different story, witnessed in SahaThai: young men buy either casual clothes (with local predilection toward death metal and Harley shirts) or school uniforms.  For nice occasions, they rent formal Thai wear.  By the time you're wearing a suit and tie, you've gone through your growth spurts and filling out periods, and, as I think about it, Thai men are not the whippets their sons are, but tend to be strong and solid.  Where, filled out, I'm more of a triangular shape with broad shoulders and chest, Thai guys rarely have the disproportionate shoulder girth; someone with a size 40 coat would wear at least size 38 pants, more likely 42 or 44.
So I snatched the smallest shirt, pants, and belt I'd seen, also some of the cheapest, and went looking for a register.  And met a wall of about 6 floor clerks firing fully-automatic blasts of Thai at me.
My turn to turn deer in headlights as they started gesturing at the shirt, pants, and belt, and gesticulating at each other.  As the argument intensified, I turned dog-under-wheels.
And handed back the garments and left.

New game plan: go to one of the custom tailors and see how prices compare with the farang-friendly Robinson.  If they're comparable, what the hell, right?  And if not, at least Robinson has the American brands, which hopefully are made with the same quality as they are stateside.  Consider: the boxers I bought in March have come unhemmed.  I haven't worn the boxers I bought in August for a few months because the next wash will liberate the elastic band, and a good fart would separate the component halves.  The boxers I brought are not much the worse for wear.  So maybe paying American-end prices for American brands might not be such a bad idea in the long run.  

More fun games--the angry post

Here's the fun part: there's a new cell phone tower on the roof, and in the past two days it's been struck by lightning three times (at least).  Evidently, its presence has nothing to do with the buzz on my phone that appeared concurrently, because when I took my phone to the dealer, they nodded, took it to the back room for half an hour, and returned it without any buzz, phone numbers, or photos.
During that half hour, there was a vengeful return of the leg infection, and coming home involved immediately passing out. And just to say, it's one thing to be feverish in a hotel room where the aircon can get ambient temp down to the sticky clamminess of your skin so a hot bath or multiple blankets are relieving, it's another to be home where force of habit keeps the aircon above 26 and you don't have a bathtub and sweating out the blankets gets really gross.
It's also something rather wild to be ripped from hallucinatory fever dreams by lightning striking the building.

But here's the new game that makes me really, really angry.
There was a big financial kerfuffle in December when I discovered that my automatic online credit card payments hadn't been happening after my card was rejected while checking into the hotel (and the next day I got the message that Oma died--Merry Christmas!)  I found the securest connection I could and worked out the auto payments so such things would not happen in the future.
Just for kicks, I went on today to make sure everything has been happening alright.  Which it has, save for a recurring $69.95 charge.  It took a while to find the company online and negotiate their phone tree (it proves easier to just direct dial from overseas, especially since the cell company charges the same anyway), and the nice lady told me that it was a subscription to an internet movie site, lesboblowoutmovies.com
Authorized by me, with my name correctly spelled and everything, my credit card, and my home zip code.
The very nice lady also refunded the charges, thankfully.  Still, GARRR!
There is great temptation to run around screaming.  If only I could run, and the voice weren't blown out from teaching 7th grade.

On G4

Some days--5 hours straight in classrooms without fans or aircon with
10 minutes to enjoy a break room that has no aircon, fans, water or
other nourishment while outside it's 110+--will just hurt.

What's funny is how much I have riding on the 4th graders and the
extent to which unconscious actions from their daily lives--the smiles
and waves, holding my hand or arm up the stairs, the vivacity in class
and joy with the world at large--enriches mine.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

just roll with it

I'll confess to some tension on Monday when I didn't have a schedule or calendar.
Some things, like when the end of the term will be, aren't that pressing, especially as I know they're extremely variable--last term, we weren't sure of the March 10 end date until mid-January.
But things like when I'm first supposed to teach what--in a couple of days--would be good to know.
Fortunately, working in an office of three generally laid-back guys, we decided on which class we'd teach back in summer camp: I would cover grade 4 and part of grade 8, one coworker would do G5 and part of G7, the other would do G6 and some of both 7 and 8 (without having to develop lesson plans).

First came a calendar: we'll have class on Wed and Thu, then we're off on Fri, Mon, Tue.
This is a bit of a wrench with classes that meet once a week: by the time I meet Monday and Tuesday classes, Wed and Thu kids will have taken the pre/post test and received two weeks of instruction within a five-week exam schedule (exams week 5, 10, 15, 20).
Still no printer, resources, materials, but we did have desks in an airconditioned office today.  And tomorrow is a day away and will work itself out, right?  Don't worry about printing off or copying the pre-post test, activity books, anything like that.  It'll happen, right?

Then came the trainwrecks.  Sorry, schedules.
The easy one is that colleague #2 will be teaching G6 EIP, a couple sections of G8, and an unknown, unannounced, unexpected 6 sections of G6 RP.  And after the dust settled, we realized that colleague #1 will be teaching G5 EIP and not part of G7 but 10 sections of G8.  And for the kick in the nards, I get G4 EIP (YAY!) and not part of G8 but all 13 sections of G7.
Starting tomorrow morning.
Oh, and the people responsible for turning on the wireless routers and operating the pay-per-sheet copier have left for the day.

Good, good news: having aircon when temperatures are spiking personal highs, both degrees and humidity.
Bad news: aircon and cold sweat do not mix.

Neighborlies

Two Korean ladies live next door, and they have a little salon.  For about four months, they've been remodeling and updating with white walls, white tiles, and light blue accents.  Very suave.

When I pass to or from work or town, we wave and say hello, and that is the entire extent of our verbal communication.

Still, I periodically poke my head in the door, make snip-snip motions at my head, and get either waved in or a shake of the hand.  

One of the two will wave me to chair that was once shiny chrome and a harvest gold vinyl but is now a tan chrome with vinyl polished shiny.  A terry towel around the neck, a fresh-laundered cotton sheet over it, and she gathers tools: an electric shaver, a comb, and a straight razor.  For about six, maybe eight minutes there's a flurry of back-and-forth with the razor and shaver, and it feels like she's trimmed around the edges.  But then there's a pause, and I realize she's leaning in close and minutely touching up the edges with the straight razor, and I realize my head's a different shape: she's already clipped... everything.  Still, the cleanup takes half again as long as the clipping, and just like I never catch her getting my bangs or anything on top, she ends up getting my sideburns without me actually realizing it.  

I can accept that I miss how she gets the top in all the flutter, but I'd like to think I'd be acutely aware of someone waving a straight razor in my face and scraping it down my cheeks.  But no, no, somehow she gets the peachfuzz without me catching her in the act.  

Maybe 15 minutes elapse before she waves me up, and just like every other time, I look and think, "Damn, she does a good job!"

Is the secret just walking in and sitting down?  Would that have changed any of the times I left thinking, at least it'll grow back and reminding myself not to think of the cost, even after I found the $10-$15 cheap cut places?

And here's the kicker: Now that I'm a regular, the cost is 60 TB--just shy of $2.  

Mc Lovin'

Consider the challenges McD's faces in Asia: meat and potatoes do not a meal make; if it doesn't have rice, it's just a snack.  Besides, 7-11 has sticky-rice "buns" so why can't McD's?  

The endearing part came a couple hours after closing,
when someone passed out at Ronald's feet.

No beef for a goodly chunk of the religious, so you get the Samurai Pork Burger.

No pork for another goodly chunk of faithful, so you get the Spicy McShrimp.

No meat for the local majority, so you get the Broccoli McPie.  

No cheese in the local cuisine, so the cut-rate Chicken McCheese is a hard sell (special McFail?).

No sauce is sauce without chilis and fermenting fish

A local toddler could drown in an actual supersize mug. 

A local tweenie girl eats a kilo of rice with dinner, but a medium order of fries can feed a family of four

You're McDonald's and a window back home, so every expat in the southern provinces is going to come in expecting a mouthful of adolescence back home, and locals just do not understand that it is a MAJOR PROBLEM when the ketchup is the syrupy-sweet local variety, dotted with chili seeds and wafting overtones of fish sauce that was kept in the top-pump dispenser.  

oddities

Walking home from buying my smoked pig face dinner, I had occasion to reflect on how unremarkable remarkable things have become since I came here.  

Scene 1:

From a... call it a bistro.  Sunset light turns the world a glowing peach/orange.  Clouds to the E.  From the W, across the street, a lightning bolt of sorts shoots from a transformer at a power pole at one end of the block to a power pole down the block behind me. 

I can see six blocks in each direction.  I watch the one streetlight flicker out.  A waiter arrives, lamplight flickering up his nostrils.

Ah, good, dinner.

Scene 2: 

I'm on the back of a mototaxi, driving down the local red-light street toward a private teaching gig.  It's an utterly unremarkable Thursday.

There's a waterfall of sparks that lights the street as they cascade two stories to the sidewalk and bounce.  

It's an unprecedented string of firecrackers.  Except that it's coming from a power line.  

Scene 3:

A kid, maybe 16 or 17, texting on a cell phone while standing in line at Tesco Lotus, wearing CalTrans orange robes with bare feet.

Scene 4:

A guy sitting at the table in front of the chop shop up the street.  Another guy--each is in their early-20s--has his feet planted wide to contain his swaying while talking to an older guy in a business suit still sitting on his idling bike.  On the table, in front of the guy, is a glass full of, presumably, the local rotgut and soda, bottles of which constitute a forest on the table.  The seated guy doesn't need to stand up to weave.  

The brown robes make me wonder if monasteries have the same "quick, we gotta get him to bed before the authorities see!" as dorms.  

 

On Keeping IT Together

I'm generally pretty good.  Sometimes, I'm not even thinking about screaming something pertaining to fairness or the lack thereof.  But sometimes, it's especially challenging.
Why yes, I am going to tell everyone about it via the free therapy known as "blogging."
Thank you, doctor, but I think I'll pass on another.

For some reason, what should've been a 3 hr minivan ride took 5 1/2, with a driver reliving dreams of rally driving while the lady next to me was violently sick and unable to find barf bags onboard, dumping out sundry cosmetics and unmentionables from a shopping orgy and filling to overflowing or simply bursting the bags never designed to be anywhere near such usage.  When we got to town, my explanations of where to go fell short and I was kicked out half a dozen blocks from the songtau I'd need to take to get to the other end of town and unload before getting across it to a follow-up appointment at the hospital, in 15 minutes.  So I took a taxi straight to the hospital, where the nice receptionists now recognize me and the screening nurses bump my weight to the next kg or two and boost my bloodpressure to the accepted minimum.

While the infection in my upper leg and calf has been abating, the doc was concerned about my foot.  Looks like the last wreck damaged enough of the vascular system that I'll have problems with varicose veins, blood going stagnant in capillaries, and horrible circulation, all of which will be exacerbated by standing or sitting or kneeling upright, for the rest of my life.  So he gave me more meds to help beat the infection and sent me on my merry way.

After that, I was having challenges keeping it together.  It was hard not to scream back at the people shouting "YOUYOUYOU!" "HEYHEYHELLOHEYYOU!" and "HARRYPOTTERHARRYPOTTER!" or at least shake my fist at the ungodly number of vehicles passing and honking at me, either taxis/songtaus looking for a soft spot or people looking to get a rise out of the farang.
It was hard not kicking trees and walls and screaming a messy tirade focusing on "NOT FAIR."
It was hard not falling into a bubbling heap and screaming a messy tirade focusing on "WHAT'S IT TAKE?"

And then came a dog.  It's one of the local half-feral soi dogs, a little black thing about equivalent to a javelina in size, color, and texture, but with a collar put on presumably by the kindly souls who give it leftover rice it picks through for meaty bits before cruising the vending stalls across the main drag for leftovers or handouts.
We have a history.  I won't guess whether it dislikes farangs, backpacks, blonds, multiple-strap sandals, Wednesday afternoons or some combination thereof, but last week it found it appropriate to attack my ankles.
Soi dog: 1.  My only pair of nice cotton pants: enroute to cutoffs.

So tonight it came at me again.
I was not in a mood.
In fact, for the first time in my life, I was contemplating some seriously severe violence to an animal.
And then I saw the "owners" sitting on their front bench, staring.
But instead of calling off the dog, they start pointing and smiling and getting excited/giggly as the thing attacks my ankles, and they broke into hilarity as it connected and I let loose a rather foul couple of words when it connected with the aforementioned lifelong problem ankle.
Difficult spot: an act of reasonable violence would forever mark me in the eyes of these people and every single person who lives in or passes through this neighborhood.  But there's a dog attacking my ankles.

Plan C: one of the local boys, about right for grade 5, certainly not G6, comes roaring around the corner on his folks' old bike.  He manages to miss the farang/feral mutt in the middle of the road by slamming on the brakes and almost tipping as he skids all cattywhompus into a speedbump.  In the ensuing beat of silence, I take a couple of long steps away from the dog, and all the brown eyes turn to me.  There's another beat and all the voices behind those eyes started giving voice to the reproach therein.

Right about then, as I limped off with as much dignity as I could muster, it was a tall order not to loose all my frustrations and disappointments at the immediate representatives of Thailand.  They can't help themselves being Thai anymore than I can help my American perceptions.
So instead, I resolved that if I ever meet one of the authors whose written about the Thai smile and Thai laughter and how quiet and reserved and polite Thai people are, I will punch that SOB in the nose.  

On the Advantages of Pseudonyms

The funny part about watching the news today, in the Islamic part of Thailand, is how close "Osama" is to "Obama."  SE Asia might not have a phrase for "Freudian Faceplant," but today's newscasts have given great reason for it to be imported.  

an odd sort of relief

On the one hand, it's a diverse flotilla of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa:
-a drug-resistant virus in the leg
-giardia at the forefront of the intestinal distress
-something else to account for the bleeding
-tropical sprue to account for inability to gain weight for so damn long.

The doc said tropical sprue is just something some farangs deal with in SE Asia.  It has plenty of easily-observable symptoms, but no causes beyond eating food grown on the far side of the world.
Giardia is tough to spot and can be tough to kill, but it will account for the fever and frequency.
Something else will contribute to the frequency and account for the blood: most likely, if giardia could get it, so could a number of its friends.  So it could be a life form or it could be something more chronic.  Hard to say since neither came up on a test.
The thing in the leg is a nasty infection that's been appearing more frequently in the past few years and generally appears after some sort of foot or leg scrape.  So it could've been any of the dozens of stubbed toes I get walking around in sandals, the ingrown toenail or two I've had over the past 6 weeks, the scraped knee or ankle, little punctures from sundry whatnots encountered while walking barefoot, or the place where the skin stuffed to sausage-like corpulence finally blew into a rash that was rubbed raw in my shoes.  (The doc was just about disinterested as she asked, "have you had any injuries to your leg recently?" She seemed enthralled by the end.)

Generally, this would not be a cause for celebration or uplift.  But given that it's in relation to me, the guy who can aim from the back almost as well as the front, who has continuously received "Nothing's wrong, numbers are just low," it's something to go on.  And that, somehow, is a relief.

On medicine and public transport

It's the pre -oscopy day.  I woke up with that peculiar sort of hunger and did my best, eating broth with chunks of pig spleen and liver floating where there should've been leafy greens, intestine, tongue, and thick-sliced root vegetables.  And I resort to cliches to explain that hunger: the bad combination of being half (or just over) of a normal weight and accustomed to sustenance every three or so hours, coupled with the overnight fasting punctuated by great water-rocket launches of diarrhea.
It's the difference between the fat man complaining of hunger when his metabolism turns to adipose tissue, and me saying, "I need some food, right now," with the subtext, or I'll keel over, hopefully on you or something soft.
And then came the minivan trip.
I still maintain that if the colonoscopy prep is medicine's worst, it's nothing compared to Nepalese street food, and no trip in the world takes longer than a public bus ride in Nepal.
Which is not to imply it was a pleasant trip.

But somehow, the diagnosis of a hard-to-beat bacterial infection in the leg and equally hard to spot and beat giardia in the gut, plus the prospect of a multiple -oscopy, might give them something to work on, and maybe from there they can fix things up.