Stuck inside of...

It takes longer than 6 months to appreciate anything. 

A new relationship. You're thrilled for a week, maybe more. Then the sex gets common and you have to talk about "issues" after what should have been a simple dinner with friends. You curse how mundane it all suddenly feels. Then as time wanes on, a practically imperceptible shift occurs--you notice things you didn't before, you kinda like it when she pops your zits now, the thought of leaving tugs you closer to her, you feel an investment gurgling inside of you. 

A good book. Oh, to begin a new book! A new book that isn't garbage, that is. Hell, I'd take the book over the woman...6 times out of 10...well, maybe 4--but to start a new book! And by the time you reach the 80s you're thinkin' about how long it'll take to get to 200...until there's only 30 left and you wonder why you didn't pay more attention. You scramble to read back through the parts during which you were thinking about that girlfriend, trying desperately to re-absorb them and to no avail. 

A fine instrument. You can't bear to return it to its spiffy new case. You want to caress her, to hold her, smell her--the wood, the brass, the ivory...and when your fingers get tired and your eyes want to shut you put her in the corner, maybe pick on her a bit the next week, until Netflix, or your books, or your women, become more and more appealing...until you hear the song no one has heard before, it is there, YOUR song, and you pick her up and pick her for hours on end, throwing your head back into bliss's dark oblivion, wondering how you could have ever given this up...

It isn't quite the same with moving to a foreign country and then facing the curses and cradles of home. But semblances linger. 

I am just getting to know this town, this strange place, this Suratthani of Suratthani of Thailand.  I've spent the last 5 months cursing it, in general (once the sex got common and the protagonist got predictable, if you will), only rarely letting a smile break across my lips to shatter my haughty rigidity re: teaching ESL, Thai culture, and all the ways in which my life lacks... 

(the jingling of the forlorn broom salesman like Sisyphus eternally trudging up and down my street in hope of a sale that will never come is not helping my perceptions--I'd prefer the caterwauling of feisty street dogs with their balls strangling their discernment between flesh and food, love and destruction...)

And from this seat, with 2 more weeks left in this dump, I can only feel fondness for it. My feelings, of course, require absolutely no analysis: we could use any number of cliches to categorize my present store, and it all just sounds like a violent cuckoo clock ringing in every corner of my life, reminding me that unless I get it together, I'll never be satisfied. 

I think that boy needs more tenderness though. So let me put it like this:

I griped in Virginia. 
I gripe here. 
In 15 days, I embark on the journey that has absorbed all of my desires, the bet that's used all my chips, the basket where rests all of my finest fruit: I'll be climbing volcanoes and swimming with sharks in Indonesia. I'll be exploring the mountains and rivers of Vietnam, a blemish (crater!) of our pock-marked (scarred!) past, the object of my obsession for over a decade. I'll be puttering around northern India in ruins and palaces alike, not a razor in my rucksack nor a pair of boots to clad my ever-turning churning wheels, to climax at 15,000 feet in Nepal's Himalayas on the symbolic birth of a man who's legacy has made some REAL dents in the History of Man--Christmas, you blubbering fool, out with it! But ah, to speak any less extravagantly surely would not could not do or give due the justice my overwrought expectations truly deserve!!!!

I'm scared. 

I've created a reality in which my happiness utterly depends on thrill. I've constructed a paradigm of constant change, adventure with the wind at my back and the sun on my face--but the wind, my friends, the wind, it can blow dust. It can cease to blow. And the sun--it burns. And what happens when the sun sets--every day? 

I'm scared because I'm scared. Premature griping has gripped me and it ain't something I can see a shrink about or take a pill for or just improve my bedtime communication with my significant other to remedy. No, this brand of prematurity is utterly INSIDIOUS my friends and faithful readers, a sort of tumor buried so deep within the linens of my anxieties that to remove it would perhaps shake the fundamental systems by which I manage to survive...

Basically, this is what's going on: I am plagued by a sheer inability to remain in the present. Always racked by past nostalgias and future dreams. But it is this perpetual discontent that keeps my engines running, that keeps me on the go, that motivates me to get through the day so I can just taste the next one...a simple equation:

inability to feel gratitude + fear of feeling anything but joy = discontent = lack of commitment to accepting the doldrums of humanity = thrill seeking = discontent = cycle  

How can I be so candid? Only because there is hope.

Yesterday I drove. I drove, a long way, alone. The sun hit me. And it was hot. It burned me. But I did not curse it. I smiled. The wind began to howl as the sky turned black. And I simply let it continue to carry me forward. I revered the droopy palms, sad that greed in the name of their oil has destroyed rainforests, but still proud, still brimming with beauty--beauty that I saw, that I could see.

And don't it always seem to go that we don't know what we've got til it's gone? So ought we put up that parking lot just so we can know paradise? 

No. Because with paradise paved, we can only know of it. How about instead we choose to know paradise today, now, in those who we contact in every way...and instead of being too young to know where we're going and too old to go back again, let us notice life's in-betweens, and I'm not talking Mobile and I'm not talkin' Memphis, I'm talkin' the walkin' blues, the walkin' bliss! the living breathing brand new companion who saunters into your saloon when you most need him and least want him--

give that fucker a hug 'cause partner he's all any of us have really got. 

The House of Degeneracy

Ah yes, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the moment between moments when I feel ready to share a bit more of myself with the world. 

Does it take an event that I deem interesting? Perhaps. I'm sure if I jotted down more of my thoughts, you'd be reading your own autobiography, picking up threads of this experience that sew us all together, and as we discovered last time, it is that fabric from which we glean meaning...

But you'll have to raid my journals for that. 

I've seen the poles of ways in which we entertain ourselves in the past 2 weeks, and realized they aren't so different after all...

2 weeks ago I ventured into Ang Thong Marine Park--a beautiful delegation of islands chosen by Mother Nature or the humans who inhabit her to be a place of calm, of restoration, of reflection. 

Until we discovered we could make money from this archipelago and built speed boats and cameras and snack shops.

BUT for its still apparent faults, it has been the least inhabited place I've seen yet in this fair country of the East (well, west of California...you may find a theme: everything is the same depending on how we look at it...). A place where the park ranger joins you on the beach at midnight to sing Bob Dylan and blow into a harmonica...

And I spent my days doing...nothing. Reading East of Eden mainly (a true masterpiece of American literature!), getting extremely tanned, and thinking, growing, contemplating, not yearning to fill up the spaces of my solitude...

These silent moments add inches. They make you feel taller, or full, after a good meal. And  yet...they left me longing still, grasping--which brings me to my next point: 

It is hard to be alone. At the fundamental root of us, all of us, we simply seek love. We look outside of ourselves but that well is only so deep. And because we've been so generously bequeathed with such egos, that self-love can be hard to come by. I am a confident man. And yet I possess the same insecurities we all do. And I am ashamed of this! To think that I am not perfect!? How can I accept this??? Why does everyone struggle with this???

We were given this body. That is it. So it is yet another way to progress--it sets the path of our lives, this underlying search for self-love, and the way to it..........to stop searching and experience ourselves, wholly and purely, as we are. We know this though. 

I haven't been perfect. I've indulged in the pleasures of tobacco, high fructose corn syrup, and television. I've run miles and miles to try and mitigate these aberrances. I judge myself harshly. But I celebrate the small victories too. 

Yesterday, I did not pay for sex. 

A little background: I traveled to Pattaya on Friday, Las Vegas Thai Style, replete with hordes of members of the world's oldest profession lining the streets from dusk til dawn and til dusk again, offering you "boom boom," showing their skin, grabbing your genitals, brandishing menus of all sorts of acts surely to shock the newcomer and perhaps even please the seasoned vet. Where in human history did we reach this sort of entertainment? It is bizarre and simultaneously totally understandable--we reach limits so we transcend them.

And I was tempted, enticed! I'm only a man after all. 

I entered one of these Houses of Degeneracy, ubiquitous as flies on rotting fruit, partly curious and partly...seeking. I guess that's the best way to put it. 

And oh the circus I witnessed! A gaggle of old men from all corners of the world pumping their fists in the air surrounding a ring of unsmiling bedraggled Thai women sticking various objects inside of themselves and doing silly tricks with them--smoking cigarettes, blowing horns, drawing pictures...and it was very fucking bizarre to be honest! Spectacle, certainly. 

Then the sickness sets in...the compassion, the questions...why are they here? What are their lives like? Why are we paying to watch these creatures suffer?

So I left. But also, because I was quite bored. 

(Oh, I realize I didn't tell you why I went to this port of disillusionment--I was in Pattaya for an NA Regional Service Committee meeting. Ha! Ha ha!) 

What does all this mean? Take what you will from it. Come see it for yourself. Or don't. But the point is--we can exploit the wonders of the Earth--trees, islands, and bodies. We can remain blind and accept their pleasures no matter the expense. Or, we can come back to ourselves, experience the inherent lonesomeness of the soul, and let it grow into self-love. 

I spun the Beatles for hours upon hours last night, all during the long trek home. What a fantastic thing to happen to the world. The chemistry of 4 (or 5 if you include the 2nd George) individuals coming together to change the world through music...the evolution you see in 6 years is utterly breathtaking, tear-inspiring, sublime. John Lennon died before I was born, and I still miss him, and here is why:

Love

Can't you see, can't you see??

Sweeter than Saccharine

27 days is certainly a long stretch without sharing much, at least in the way of writing, with the outside world. 

Surely each time we walk out the door we share at least something with the outside world, even in the confines of our own worlds, as people of THIS world, we can't avoid sharing and of course, being shared with--a nice way of putting it. If only feeling the despair of a world gone mad was simply a passive act of "being shared with!" And maybe it is. 

And why this 27 day lapse? Because I am scared that my thoughts are boring? We generally provide the correct answers to questions we ask ourselves. And also, because that is where I've been--in the confines of my own world, holed up in my 2nd-floor bedroom, curtains drawn from the world outside; plastered by motorcycle helmet as I impatiently move through traffic with a head full of words; behind a veil of smiles as I teach rich kids a language that will make them richer...

Whoa, that all sounds pretty bad. Yeah, so the midsummer's day's blues have come around. I keep forgetting what season it is, the weather is so consistent here. I'm too caught up in how things sound, it seems. 

I sat at the bow of a ship whisking me upriver to the sea at midnight enjoying the blackness around me and the thrum of the engine. The same site of my languishing 3 years prior, almost precisely--sitting at the prow of a riverboat a diagonal line across the globe away moving like an elephant down the Amazon. Nothing had changed, but I was 3 years to the wiser, and yeah, fuck, I had changed, and I felt the weight of the world pressing down on me so heavily, in the most profound way--time felt incomprehensible,

--I was a speck, the most important thing in the world and simultaneously utterly devoid of significance...

(in the space between "--hensible" and "--I was," hours lapsed. Because after writing the final "le" I was crushed by the perception that what I was writing was stupid, that no one cares, that it was forced, fake, all for show, worthless. I couldn't type another word. What brought me back? Apathy, in the best form. This isn't for anyone else anymore. This is mine. So I'm going to own it). 

Before arriving to Koh Tao--the island--I expected a tiny haven, unspoiled. My colleagues assured me it was the least developed of any place around. Maybe it is, and that saddens me. I was naive to think anywhere teeming with natural beauty has been left unspoiled. Of course that isn't true--there is a foot-wide band of dirt that travels from Georgia to Maine (there and back again) that is beautiful and unspoiled. But fuck man, Koh Tao was a tourist pit. And you know, aspects of it I took advantage of: for one, the diving was outstanding, and once I got past the initial paralyzing anxiety of unnatural claustrophobia 18 meters beneath the air, I eased into the beauty and freedom of the world underwater. 

But even more so, the food. Isn't it funny, food? We need it, and it can be so rudimentary in its refinement, so limited, downright gross--and yet we have found a way to make it so pleasurable. Did we do that? Yeah, we did--otherwise we'd still be eating twigs and berries. 

The only food options in Suratthani are greasy Thai food and soup. So good until you do it for 3 months. And yeah, dirt cheap...but...yeah. You know. So last weekend I spent 75% of my time out of the water sitting at a table discussing large ideas with complete strangers-turned friends. Traveling can be so lonesome and so joyful. Not that the two preclude each other. but you know, it provides an opportunity to connect with people without a filter. Because we're all in this together, desperate for connection, and constantly on the move. Life on the whole is really like that, but usually we're much more inhibited. So I got my decadence at the dinner table. Korma, quesadillas, burgers, carbonara...cheesecake...what a feeling a good meal can provide; and a good meal should never have to be enjoyed alone, for it is conversation and connection that complete this eating ritual. Satisfaction there. 

The other 25% of the time I spent walking, exploring. It turns out the tourist pit of Koh Tao is essentially concentrated in one area, one strip of beach. But when you branch out just a bit, you aren't thrust into lush pure jungle, no...more like lush Thai poverty singeing a heavy burn through what was once a pure jungle. And now all that trash on fire...depressing. But walking is something that can and ought to be enjoyed alone--I don't experience that kind of solace and joy anywhere else, really. So I climbed mountains and skidded down dirt paths into the trees, stumbling upon abandoned beaches and resorts, napping in the sand, reading Steinbeck, feeling wistful...

"having a feeling of vague or forgetful longing..."

I am looking for other ways to cope with life. Any dissatisfaction I feel is just trivial, really. It mirrors my mindset in Charlottesville before I came out. I haven't felt really at ease since I was hiking, and that's probably only because I was constantly on the move, and had this well-defined goal, so I never had to accept any place I was...and of course, I neglect in my memory the times characterized by misery rather than ease, joy...the point is, happiness is an inside job, and even though I'm doing all the "right" things, I'm only doing them, I'm not feeling them, internalizing their purposes or intentions, because I am not listening to the hurt little boy in there, wanting to be heard, communicated with, and grasping, wanting to be fed...in fact, I loathe that boy, so when he overtakes me, I start to loathe myself and sink further...

This is too much--of course it is honest (haha of course? why should we ever assume anything is honest?) but it's too vulnerable for such a public venue. And so I have the urge to temper it with "well it's ok's" and "really I'm fine's" but fuck! That is TRUE. It IS ok. And really. I'm FINE. I'm just where I need to be. You know, I had a GREAT day today. I felt the warmth of Thailand without the stickiness. I smiled at Thailand today. I smiled at my life. I found joy in the mundane. Presence in the moment--that's right--this one, right here...

And this is indulgent, is it appeasing anybody's need to live vicariously through this fellow, me, this guy, who "gets to travel...?" I was on the phone with Capital One Bank the other night reminding them I'm in Thailand and the girl back in Kentucky or Pennsylvania said "you're so lucky you get to travel!" No, I've just structured my life this way 'cause I'm scared of being put in a box and not having a way out. Maybe she is lucky that she gets to have a family and a steady job that she can endure for longer than 6 months, unlike me. Maybe we are all unlucky to be perpetually dissatisfied. Or just lucky to have even the mere capacity for gratitude. Recognition without even feeling it--isn't that something? A small blessing?

But that isn't why people read what anyone else has to say. It isn't just for information or vicarious living. It is to connect, to relate, to not feel so alone, because in the end, this body is all we have, it is a lonesome thing, being human, and ironic too, because there are SO MANY OF US...what opportunity to connect! So maybe it's just as selfish--connecting--but you know, really, seemingly less so than using someone else's words just to feel, alone. 

How to be unselfish while burdened with this self: love. Plain and simple. And also the most complex thing we know of! Ha! Life never really is simple is it--and by that virtue, it is infinitely simple via the acceptance of its complexity. Ha! Ha ha! Oh, I could just pop up and bop with joy right now! For a second anyway, before those sediments of joy resettle into the ocean floor of waking life...I mean, what's the difference between calm acceptance, cold indifference, and numbness???????

And about that little boy. A modern neuroscientist would say that there is no separation between the physical and the emotional--emotions are just neurons firing. There isn't a "me" and a "him" within the same body. It is all just "I". All just a brain. But emotions aren't tangible the way neurons are. Maybe all the different people within us are just different parts of the same brain, and so to distinguish between the self and the other within is incoherent, but fuck, don't tell me we all don't feel controlled by ostensibly outside forces which apparently exist within us called emotions!! Don't fucking tell me that!! I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong here. 

I watched Good Will Hunting again last night. It's a bit corny. But you know, it's real, and it is so essentially Boston, the greatest city in the world. I'll put my cowboy boots on and stand on Thomas Jefferson's coffee table and say that, too. 

Doesn't make Virginia any less my home. Or Thailand. Or anywhere--even this corporeal temple I'll always be trapped in, this governing body of bundles and neurons...fuck, it's just as ethereal as anything else we perceive as tangible, putting it all back into the realm of emotions, spirits, gods, love, whatever exists out there and doesn't...without distinction, it's all a void, but how can void exist without substance? 

You need both.

So what?

Finding creativity has been a struggle--

Well, no, because there has been no resistance to its lack: 

I have been content to take in good films and eat well when I'm not teaching. 

I ask myself the purpose of this sort of venue: 

--to thrill an audience?
--to expose said audience to a new culture? 
--to provide a forum for your humble narrator to express his thoughts? 

How honest can you be when you write for such a varied audience? In such a public domain? 

How honest can you be when you create for any audience? Does art imply an audience, necessitate one, or does the potential for an audience taint the art? Is purity not to be witnessed? 

(more on this here)

Last weekend if I sunk further I may have actually hit something.  How else do we bounce back?

I took a jaunt to the beach for the weekend to clear my head--the previous week was characterized by frustrations in the classroom. No, not frustrations--more like resignations. And not surrenders either--rather than acceptance, the preceding motivations involved dejection. 

An art festival was to occur anyway--on the beach, you see--and naturally, I was intrigued. 

There were some lovely prints there, truly--but it was a festival, in the sense that it was a party, and the "art" moniker was, well, a moniker...depending on your definition of art, of course. 

Because the artists put on a show, yet they didn't realize it, and I was the only audience member. 

You see, I don't mean to judge the acts of drinking large quantities of alcohol and making loud noises that essentially preclude genuine connection--it is fun, and I have done lots of it. It just isn't quite where I am today. In fact, a bit quite far from where I am, today. 

It was very nice to walk down the beach and notice that the moon was full. I passed multiple sets of lovers in the sand and felt lonely and free and heavy.

Unbridled emotion on my part generally leads me to an act of consumption, devouring really. With work, I've been able to let non-action in the front door of many of these living situations, but we can't always remain in the light can we, so we go out the back.

It was like a scene from a movie: accelerating, fast, on a motorcycle at midnight under a full moon on a deserted beach highway, heading for something big--

Not 7-11. 

Ok. 7-11. The place that had the ice cream. 

I am so predictable. 

And ice cream is never just ice cream. It leads to chips, cookies, milkshakes, pastries, etc--I mean, for God's sake, I intentionally ate on the stoop of that convenience store so I could return 3 times for more junk food, munching noisily as I read the news. And feeling really pathetic. 

I sought more solace in the moon, and it left me empty. Just sleep. 

When I awoke I felt like I had cheated on a girlfriend. But not only was I the betrayer--I had also betrayed myself.

And you may scoff: how trivial! So you ate some junk food 'cause you felt lonely? Please, you're not the only one...

On 1 hand, you are wrong: it isn't about what I did. It is about everything associated with it. The sentiment did not reflect the act--it felt like more. 

On the other hand, you are right--and I realized this after more than 10 minutes of cognizance. I offer utmost diligence to my physical, mental, and spiritual health all week, and then the weekend comes, or some small jolt of inadequacy creeps in, and rather than merely meandering from the path momentarily, I dive into the fucking bushes searching for water and avoiding hypothermia. Basically, because I don't permit abberance, when I deviate, I really do it right. 

I laughed. I thought of how insignificant I am. I felt freed. I ate a breakfast of kings and relaxed on the beach all day with a book and my thoughts. And when my bike broke down in the pouring rain 15 km out of town upon my return, instead of cursing the guy who sold it to me or blaming the rain for damaging the engine (thoughts I had!), I walked to a gas station, and some friendly customers took me to a mechanic, and 15 minutes and 3 bucks later I was back on the road. Folks here are refreshingly willing to help. Surrender --> Winning. 

This past week has provided me a sort of extended release of these realizations. Instead of eating a week's worth of junk food when the moon is too massive or distant to comprehend, why not eat a cookie a day? It will keep the demons away. 

Or why work out and eat well? To strive for the perfect idea of a body I'll never have? I had lost the point: I have fun sweating. Panting. Exertion clears my head. And vegetables my heart.  So I covered up my mirror with a sheet and tried smiling more. 

And so yesterday I got on a karaoke bus at 7:30 in the morning with my colleagues, farang and Thai alike, and went to the ocean to get dirty planting mangroves. And when I felt hot, and tired, and bored, I said "hello exhaustion. hello heat. hello boredom. I smile to you." And I was simply and wholly right there. 

And right there when I stayed up until 3 am watching good movies, eating pizza and ice cream, discussing politics, religion, and love, and cheering on the World Cup with my good friend Kevin--right there where I needed to be, the same as being at that party, and planting those mangroves, and hiking that trail, and teaching those children. The difference was that I was just smiling to it all. 

Oh, and as for the classroom: rather than entering with resentment, I approached this past week with innocence funded by gratitude leading to JOY. A teacher is a mirror: our enthusiasm defines the class that day. My attitude sculpts their clay--and yet there is never a finished product, nor an audience--so is teaching an art? 

I'd say yes. 

I spoke from my heart today. This is Nick unmasked. No bells and whistles or flashy language to make you swoon or twirl. The stray pun here and there but who can resist the lowest form of humor? 

so, So what? Ask Miles. Always apt. 

Central Plaza does not exist

Like Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Suratthani's brand new super mall enters reality only through ripples and waves in consciousness--now you see it, now you don't!--a magic trick performed only through the deceptive comfort of treats and goodies, plush chairs and Disney Lands, Dolly Parton and Big Brother manifestos...but how deceptive is it? Comforting, yaas, but real? 

Way before all that: existed (exists!) a geological bounty, a cavern of snakes, spiders, rocks and bats, bones most likely! Buddha wall-impressions, mold like cotton, and all the dank drippings a cavern of this sort has to offer...

  
Yet perhaps no more real/less real than Central Plaza Super Mall, supper mal, sniper mail, slightly male, knightly snail, itself...

Entering this cave yesterday from the early morning mist of Thailand's lush altitude, hearing only the quiet squeaking of thousands of bats fluttering above, peace and isolation descended upon me, or I into it, and my stroll through Earth's depth left me awestruck wondrous love, and thirsting for more geology...

...that which gives life: 

On the trail again, friends! The trail that provides, that always does provide, yaas, the same trail, be it through Appalachia or Southern Thailand's jungles, that generous pathway, always enough and never in excess, like a garden who's zucchinis will complement your pasta but don't grow big enough to be baked into bread...

I walked through level upon level of rushing water, even letting some of it bathe me, and then: smack wham BOOM life again loneliness emptiness worthlessness comes at you like a 1000 mile an hour freight train skidding up the coast--and just when your world seems balanced, maybe not perfect but at least easeful in spite of all this dis-ease, the feeling that in the end all we have is this body and it is desolate and separate, that same thought UNTRUE THOUGHTS but real thoughts that dissect humanity, causing us to suffer, our false perceptions like tendrils splicing The Trail into negatives all too often developed into colored prints, distorted arrows rearranging order and harmony, union...

This feeling sticks with you--me. Into the evening, compelling you, me, us to go on what we can playfully dub a Cake Mission, to the Cake Store (caught by the neighbors too!), to buy Cake, and a good deal of ice cream to go with it--but ah, even we must permit aberrations, no!?--and make a big old pot of tea and get into bed, turn up the noise and slip into frigid North American landscapes, the home of Paul Bunyan to be precise (ok, fuck, yes, I ate a pint of ice cream and watched Fargo alone at 7:30 on a Saturday night 'cause I felt the Great Emptiness, so sue me)...

(At some point in the night Jif and spoons, well just 1 spoon actually, entered the equation. Yaaaaaaaas).

...and the feeling persists my friends and colleagues, you, the receivers of these words, which are truly just products of the empty spaces between silence and home, inter-tonal vibrations within the notes of a reed flute...these words, the taxis of emotion requiring us to give in to the unavoidable relatability of one living being to the next...for what else do we need to connect other than the experience of living?

Fuck! Ok, yes, so I awoke still feeling kinda yucky, and throwing on my best Polo I sauntered out the door at 7 am to go golfing with my boss. That's right--king shit. 

On a military base. During a coup. Knocking divots in the green, catching glimpses of generals in I Love New York t-shirts (hell, these guys don't seem so bad), sipping ice cold water on a misty Eastern golf course after a night of rain, and just trying to put balls in holes, all we're ever really trying to do, isn't it though eh? 

And here enters Central Plaza (pursued by a bear), perhaps the biggest ball of them all, can it fit into the hole I'm trying to fill? Oh too easily--for it only disintegrates upon entrance and woosh! out the other side like the mere apparition it is, this Super Mall, Snooper Hall, Stupid BALL scruples n' all...

Right. Central Plaza. First some herbs to soften the stools, because, you understand, my lower intestines often feel like they're perpetually paper cut--''If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even—for that is the seat of sympathy—he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.''--thank you Henry David! And into the jangling intestines of this city's streets, thinking "oh yes I'll find this monstrosity! Directions, or even any remote inkling of a hunch on where this place is, will only throw me off!" Hubris, my friends. Hubris.

And as Achilles and Oedipus and the rest of my predecessors--ha! talk about ego! But really, don't we all simply precede each other, or perhaps revolve, yes! revolutions, circles--accompanied by, including, as it were, reformations--I stumbled blindly into danger's way searching for a Holy Grail...

Wait a minute, fuck, Holy Grail? No, we were talking about Greece here not King Arthur...fuck, this boy must have an ENGLISH DEGREE and clearly a flare for the dramatic, because danger?? No. Let's be more accurate and call it "getting lost." Driving aimlessly, I mean without any basis whatsoever for where I ought to be going, down unpaved sidestreets until I re-entered the jungle, ended up at one too many dead-ends, and decided to let that hubris rest--and it wasn't thumos that was gonna get me outta this one, no, but instead, metis....ah, that's better!

And could Odysseus be called heroic if he had a smart phone? 

Shit man, Google Maps are just part of the illusion though--yes. Offering us a version of "objectivity" only portraying non-existent establishments like Central Plaza??

A VERSION of objectivity??? Excuse me???

When I saw that billboard--"CENTRAL FUCKING PLAZA HOME OF NON-EXISTENT NOTHINGNESS"...Lord! I finally stopped muttering to myself and began to smile. I didn't even need to go to the damn mall. I just wanted to find it. 

They have strategically placed a McDonald's at the entrance for people like me in states such as this. And let me tell you--a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger my friends. Those people have it down--what mastery of replication (by the way, so does KFC I discovered 15 minutes later). 

What I learned after the burger, the fried chicken, the chocolate croissant, and the ice cream cone, upon descending the steps of the mall that doesn't exist--

nothing. 

We all knew how this story would end--ye olde lattice cherry pie, no doubt--"the holes that makes us whole"--the wholes that make us hole!!--such ingrained knowledge, holy as a sponge, wringing itself all over my self, always, yes, nothing knew here folks, no grand finale or realization, it was all there, and all never there, just like Central Plaza and the rest of existence...!

Just gonna quietly slip into evening's oblivion, again and again.  

You must touch the waves to touch the water

Yeah, time has passed since I last wrote, more than usual--I guess that means things are swimming, or swimming along, or even going swimmingly. 

There hasn't been much to write about!

I wake up. Meditate. Go to work. Teach. Work out. Eat good food. Come home. Read. Go to sleep. On the weekends, there is more lounging and barbecues and films involved. 

So, what do I even have to say? Simply that life progresses wherever--this is no longer an adventure, and simultaneously, it is all 1 big adventure. 

I woke this morning to John Prine's lilt and missed the mighty Blue Ridge. 2 hours later, I again awoke, out of my nostalgia, to the cadence of 30 second graders wishing me good morning. Wherein lies the difference?

I want to teach, travel, grow food, own a music venue, roam and rumble in the hills, sit zazen, stare at the stars swim in the sea...and why not? I am doing all of these things, because you are. 

But first, I need to brush up on my pop music knowledge if I want any hope of winning another quiz night at the local bar the foreigners overrun every Thursday. Mark Twain quotes just won't get me through next time. Grateful for collaboration. 

I wish love and peace to everybody reading. 

ทั้งหมดคือความสุขทั้งหมดที่มีความสุข ... 

Undulations, Postulations, Inflammations, and Celebrations

A dead man comes to me, asking, "What is it like to be alive?"

I reply, "Don't you remember?"

And no, of course no--for the only way to access the experience of alivedness is to live, the dead have no memory, and we cannot transmit this experience, particularly one of a human disposition, to a corpse or a martian no matter how effective our exhibits and advertisements. The ever-quarreling dogs below my balcony will attest to this. 

Undulations: 

Riding high from my travels last weekend, I went back to work with a clear head and open heart, ready to teach (learning implied in teaching). But I have this one class. A group of 2nd graders. And they are...well, 2nd graders. They don't want to learn how to offer each other markers in English. They want to shoot play guns at each other and yell and get up and walk around, and no matter how many anti-gun signs I draw on the board (I am adamant about this!) or how many times I raise my voice or take away points or use a physical response drill to calm them--nothing seems to work. And this is draining--when you give 100% throughout the day only to be met with a wall. The wound is already open, and dejection a bacteria so easy to infect. So easy to blame the children. Or blame myself! "Those little brats. No--I am just a bad teacher. No--I just have no desire to teach CHILDREN because I don't want to be a disciplinarian...especially in a language they can't understand yet..."

Planning my escape route. Through Vietnam? Maybe straight to India? Istanbul? Eventually I'll land back at my home in Boston, or the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia...

And then--! The undulation. Maybe it was a good lesson plan. Maybe just well-executed. Maybe the kids had been drugged. Maybe it was my use of the guitar? Or I began to earn their respect. Or it was completely random and meaningless. BUT. It clicked. It clicked! For 1 class--I fuckin' HAD them! Let me tell you--I walked out of there glowing, preparing schemes for indefinite elongation of my visa...and this carried me through the day, until about 6 o clock when I still had 30 minutes left of my last class and their usual respectful mature selves had been possessed by satanic unruly rudeness and I threw my hands up and handed them all books and told them to sit there silently reading until the end of class and NOT A PEEP or I'm crackin' skulls, well, something to that effect--and I don't want reading to be punishment! Fuck, when I was a kid I LOVED to read. Still do in fact (my current smorgasborg: a collection of Rumi poems, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, and yep, the Bible)--but I couldn't handle these kids--and mainly, because I was hungry. Like, food hungry. Simple shit. 

Undulations. 

Postulations:

This is what I would say to the dead man if he could understand it:

--outside stimuli (e.g. society) + the mind are constantly trying to make you less grateful, less present, less aware, and less whole. We go through life undulating between suffering and joy. The point: to feel the waves and recognize their meaninglessness. How? Ego-relinquishment, divine nourishment. 

Inflammations: 

The Thai military assumed Martial Law 3 days ago after a few weeks of an impromptu government established due to the sudden removal of the Prime Minister. Last night the army announced an official coup and imposed a 10pm-5am curfew. I fell asleep excited to be part of this, not worried for my safety in the slightest, hoping that this conflict can be resolved peacefully, and dreading the thought of facing my innocent 2nd graders this morning. 

Celebrations: 

I awoke and began to amble downstairs for the toilet like I do every morning and was greeted by a scrawled note from my roommate--"no school, check your email." I just about pissed myself. Subsequently, it has been a day of celebrations. 

I spent the morning literally doing fuck-all: had TWO bowls of muesli, made a peanut butter banana jelly coconut yogurt shake, and watched 3 hours of Dexter--IN BED. Around noon I ambled down to the bank to try and get a cash advance on my credit card because I don't have my PIN, but they couldn't do it there, and recommended I head down the street to SBC Bank. On the way a fellow traveler guided me to a natural foods store where I spent a fortune on some deliciously select items (granola bars and real coffee!!), and Bangkok Bank happened to be right next door so I popped in there instead of SBC. It was kind of a silly situation:

As I was bumbling about in the corner trying to stir the instant coffee provided by the bank in one hand and holding my credit card and passport in the other, a bespectacled bank mistress asked me how much cash I wanted. She was a bit shocked to hear 20,000 Baht but goddamnit ain't no one here takes a credit card so I gotta stock up on cash when I can. We went through the usual rigmarole of showing ID (passport, VA license), comparing names (but this one doesn't say Nathaniel and this one does!), striking poses, spelling out L E N D E R K I N G - B R I L L ...and once again, it all came down to the fact that my card says ASK FOR ID on the back instead of my signature (that and even my passport signature is a bit dodgy, seeing I signed it when I was 16...). Dumbest thing ever. And even though the "writing-ASK-FOR-ID" trick works at the department store, it don't work at Bangkok Bank during a military coup when this silly white boy is trying to withdraw 20,000 Baht on a foreign credit card--even if his picture is on the front and ain't no one forging a name like Lenderking-Brill. 

Ah, but it pays to be a teacher in this town! I dropped that little nugget, she locked herself in an office to call my school (even though it is closed I guess she got someone), and as I fumbled a bit more with the coffee, she beckoned me back and told me to sit down, ready to hand me cash as long as I could furnish my PIN. 

Ah. 

I figured the situation was like in Brazil--when the first bank told me to go to SBC, I just assumed they were full of shit for some reason and didn't take them seriously. Happened to me a million times. But I decided to try it out anyway, I resolved it was the 3rd and final bank I would inspect, and just a few blocks down...AND there happened to be a blossoming fruit market on the way so I furnished myself with a sack of lychees...

I am laughing right now. Fuckin' SBC bank man. Walked in, got called up--on my cell phone at the time, mind you!--was asked what I needed, said between sentences of my phone conversation (which was to my school manager who speaks English fluently 'cause I thought I'd need her help translating at this bank), "uh, cash advance, 20,000" while still bumbling about with my passport, card, and now cell phone (I left the empty coffee mug on lady 1's backroom desk)--the teller did a little shuffling and scuttling in the bank, opened my passport to the signature page and turned over my card, staring at 2 completely different-looking lines of characters, and I'm thinking "well fuck here it comes again" and she asks me to sign...shit--which one?? I took a gamble and wrote "ASK FOR ID"--she does a bit more shuffling and scuttling--haha fuck I am still laughing right now--reaches into a drawer, and after having me sign "ASK FOR ID" on about 5 other documents--passport real signature still blatantly apparent--she hands me 20,000 Baht in cash! I even got her to change it for small bills. 

Celebrations. 

I know who I'm banking with from now on. SBC baby! Despite their clear lack of security, I got handed 20,000 Baht today by a young Thai girl with braces wearing pink lipstick. And you know, the great thing is, I wasn't defrauding anyone. This is my money. I did what I needed to do. It just goes to show you--money really doesn't need to be taken seriously. 

And then off to the gym in a torrential downpour to pump some iron with a smile on my face. And I still have 4 hours and 11 minutes until national curfew! During my travels today I noticed the soldiers beginning to congregate...what more havoc can I wreak before the sun sets?

It is only because all is nothing that all is bliss. Good night.