so i got back on american soil yesterday in the early afternoon. as soon as i saw my mom all of the energy i thought i didn't have came back to me and i haven't yet had much sleep. the ride to the bangkok airport was amazing; bangkok was the emptiest i had seen it, no traffic jam to speak of. it was drizzling and there were tanks everywhere. people were nervous but excited and just trying to go about their business it seemed.

on my trans-pacific flight i was seated next to a burmese orthopedic surgeon about my parents' age on his way to the us (for the first time ever) to attend a conference. his english was flawless and he was so friendly and asian and so normal and not creepy. usually i do not speak to my fellow passengers but with him it was a good move.

when i got home i cleaned up dried cat excretions(from which end i have no idea) and unpacked my bags while listening to aqua. remember aqua? the cd just appeared on a bookshelf in my appartment and i thought, hell yes. today i'll apply for some jobs. i'll be needing one of those soon.

happy 20th tyne, make it a good one.

also: it's not like i want/need to feel feminine and dainty all the time - i certainly don't - and until steve and i started dating, i almost never did, i just don't like my un-asian size and whatever else to be used against me as an insult, like i'm not trying hard enough to be thin and beautiful or something, like i should be small enough for any man to carry me, when in reality it would be easier for me to carry some of them. i really think that's how he was sort of trying to make me feel. he says he is not angry with me but i'm pretty sure he is deep inside.

back in bangkok and it is raining torrentially. it is a lovely feeling to watch a rain storm from a safe, warm place. deaw's puppies who i haven't seen in a week or so are walking around all by themselves now, chewing on my hands and chasing their mother.

any place i go becomes my home, but a lesser home. my room here in deaw's house has become my home, but when i was in phuket, the room i stayed in felt like home and when i thought of going home i thought of that room, except that it was not a very comfortable home, with no refrigerator and ants devouring our food, sand everywhere despite daily sweeping, no furniture whatsoever and clothes that were either sandy and dirty or still damp from the last hand washing in the bathroom sink.

one night deaw got drunk and insulted me many times, but i don't think he quite meant it, he didn't seem angry at all. i think he just wanted to see what would happen if he called me fat in thai and said i was funny looking in my glasses, - the latter of which is true, at least with my head shaved, so i could hardly disagree. one thing irritated me, though, and it was that he said i was 'so heavy', referencing the several times when we were together years ago that he tried to pick me up and carry me against my wishes. he had wanted to be manly and carry his girlfriend even though i told him we were too close in size for that to work well and i didn't want him to do it, but he had insisted, with little success. so now he rehashes that memory and teases me for being heavy because he's embarassed about not being stronger?

i don't mean to be ungrateful, mostly he's very nice and kind and generous of course. nobody's perfect.

i had a pretty good day, but sort of shitty. deaw's uncle works for a tour agency and there were some empty seats on a speedboat set to travel around the tiny, forested, limestone islands off the coast of southern thailand, so deaw, mae and i got them for free. it was gorgeous obviously, unlike anything i had ever seen. we snorkled in a placid bay full of bright tropical fish. i saw one (only one) huge red jelly fish about three feet away, and i swam feverishly in the opposite direction.

but the tide was going out and if we didn't leave, we would be trapped ther all night, so to compensate, our guides took us to another island to swim. it isn't on the normal itenerary, and for good reason. i swam out unscathed, but once i was out in the bay and wanted to return to the shore, i found i was trapped, basically on all sides, by coral reefs. it was low tide, as i said, and the water was about two feet deep, and underneath were trecherous, barnacled rocks and spiky, sharp (endangered) coral. i was sooooo pissed. i didn't come here to hurt myself and kill endangered animals, and i think it was incredibly irresponsible of our guides to have taken us there. the tide was making it harder to swim towards shore at all, and i was panicking. i knew that was the worst thing to do, but tell that to someone who is panicking........ deaw grabbed a life jacket and swam out accross the sharp coral to help me. together we made our painful way back to shore, him mostly carrying me. i was embarassed as hell and seriously pissed for having needed to be rescued, and he was seriously pissed for having to deal with scrapes all over his body and moreso, for having to deal with my pissiness and indignance (so much so he gave me a lecture later, which i responded to like a sulky, humilated child).

i'm so tired now, i had better go to bed soon. my face hurts from squinting this afternoon. it is hard not to squint riding a motorbike though, with dust and sun and who knows what else hitting you square in the eyes. today was amazing. deaw and i went to the national park and gibbon rehabilitation center i mentioned before. mae stayed behind, doing what i don't know. it is illegal to keep gibbons and other wild animals as pets, but not everyone knows that or cares. baby gibbons are captured from the wild and sold into captivity, mostly to be used as tourist attractions. but when gibbons reach sexual maturity (about age 6 0r 7) they become aggressive and territorial and are then usually either killed or abandoned by their owners. this organization teaches them to be wild again and reintroduces them into the forest. those who are unable to be released (like one who was abused by her owners and as a result is missing a leg and part of a hand, or one who had her canine teeth pulled out by her owner and would not be able to defend herself) are kept and cared for for the remainder of their lives. the organization also works to educate local people, school children and tourists about rainforest conservation and trying to prevent poaching. i really want to volunteer there, but i am not going to be here long enough to do it. the gibbons were so graceful and beautiful, i would love to be a part of that project to help them.

i swam in a rainforest stream today too. isn't that magical? i never thought when i was a kid that i would get to see a real rainforest. during the early ninties it was all about saving the rainforest and they made it seem like some mythical magical land so different from our world. and i suppose it is, but i mean, it is a part of the earth just like us. there is beauty everywhere and it gladens my heart to see it in such a complete and dramatic form. but at the same time, i think everywhere on earth is sort of normal.

i am in phuket now, which i guess is the tropical paradise where the rich come to spend their money. but it is just a sweet little tourist town on the low season, with lovely uninhabited beaches, sand that sqeaks when you step on it, and water so clear you can see your own feet. the waves are the color of young jade. there is a tiny forested island close to shore that i wanted to swim to, but deaw's uncle (a local who is taking care of us here) said this time of year the undertow is so strong it is impossible to actually swim in the sea. this town was partly destroyed by the tsunami but looks fine now. most people here speak a few broken english phrases which are useful to them, but are very funny to hear. someone asked me, 'how you doing tomorrow?' i saw a white woman last night who was incredibly sunburned. she was leaning forward with her forearms resting on a table, and i could see the sharp line between her pale white armpits and tomato red arms and back. there is a cat who seems to live on our porch. very sweet. her face is scabbed over and missing huge chunks of furr, but her coat is sleak and she seems well-fed, presumably on geckos and trash. fish heads, yum yum. we were going to ride our motorbikes to a national park to the north of the island and hike to the waterfall there and to this gibbon rehabilitation center(which trains captive and injured gibbons to be wild again) which deaw and his cousin had no interest in whatsoever but agreed to accompany me to. but it rained torrentially this morning and his uncle's car broke and deaw had to help and i am trapped alone at his aunt's office waiting. i think we might wait until tomorrow, do something else today. swim, climb a closer mountain. we'll see. i lost my wallet, or it got stolen somehow and am waiting for money to come from my parents. very dramatic. i hope whoever found it hasn't been able to use my debit card, because the banks have been closed and i haven't been able to cancel it. not too much cash though, needed a new driver's license anyway....meh.

nobody livejournals anymore, including myself, except now that i am in another country wanting to talk to my far-away friends. i miss you guys.

for two hours yesterday i was stretched, kneaded and pummeled to within an inch of my life by a smiling thai woman under the guise of 'traditional thai massage'. i thought i would have bruises but i don't and the pain was entirely gone within half an hour afterwards and i actually felt pretty good. the owner of the massage place was a famous thai actress, deaw said. many actresses here work really hard, earn lots of money, and then quit the business to have children and do somthing else less demanding. the place was gorgeous actually, completely beautiful. after the massage, they gave me sliced guava with a tiny wooden fork to spear it and a cup of hot chinese tea. (10 dollars for everything)

i am itching to get out of bangkok though. it is driving me crazy being couped up here in this huge city. i didn't intend to spend so long here, i had wanted to spend most of my time in the provinces doing nature-like things, but so far mostly i have been here with the stray dogs and the geckos. tomorrow is the 100 day funeral rites for deaw's grandfather so of course we'll stay for that, but the next day, early in the morning, i'll be thankfully on a bus to phuket.

i don't think they do anything here to keep the canine population down. it's true that some of the dogs are healthy and shiny-eyed, but mostly not. it is sort of a buddhist thing not to kill animals except to eat them, and i don't think anybody ever cuts their nuts off either, so they just multiply and wander the streets in their diseased filth and sleep under cars and trees, drink out of fetid filthy puddles, their anuses swollen and distended inches beyond their bodies (why? i don't know), and females' teets swinging almost to the ground. some are sort of cute but mostly they are such a mishmash of indescriminate canine fucking there are not many pretty features left.

i said i would update frequently but i ws wrong i guess. and now i don't even know what to say. everything is different here.

fried flowers and bugs, cheap food and clothes, politeness all the time, bowing, mangey stray dogs, food poisoning, vomiting undigeted food from the day before, squatter toilets, waterfalls, traffic jam, pictures of the king everywhere, sitting sideways on the back of a motor bike, open air taxis, delicious food, being a racial minority, whole families riding one bicycle, overeating, geckos on the walls

i'll take a nap now.

yesterday my mom cried and accused me of all sorts of things, among them being that i was selfish and not supportive to her. she left and i called to check on her about three hours later, at which point she cried and appologized and said she didn't really mean anything she said and that i wasn't selfish at all.

sometimes i feel like the whole world has gone insane.

i just bought a round-trip ticket to bangkok, thailand for $1,080.44. buying tickets stresses me out much more than it excites me. sometimes i wonder if travel is worth all the hassel, but i usually decide that it is.

Date:	2006-05-29 18:48
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	depressed
Music:	none

sometimes i feel like i am in some kind of a contest and i compare myself to other people. when i think they might be cooler than me - and this happens frequently - i can feel really threatened by them and uncomfortable. i really hate it and i don't know exactly why i feel like this, like there is only so much respect and love to go around and if i'm not the best i won't get any.

Rachel and i are having a huge yard sale this thursday and friday, all day, both days. there will be a crap ton of clothes, as well as furniture and the other usual items, for cheap, cheap prices.

1414 C st., baby.

i started a garden in my front yard, and since we finally got the kitty her hysterectomy, they both join me outside. (roll around in the sun, explore other people's yards, meet the friendly neighbor cat, chase butterflies, rub their faces against my leg.) i'm growing herbs, wildflowers and hopefully tomatoes and onions. my neighbors come over and talk to me.

sometimes i wish my breasts stuck out more than my belly. i told my mom this once and she said to take a look in national geographic and see the other women accross time and space whose bellies stick out more than their breasts. i never actually did it but i imagine she is right. and there are always people who find you attractive and people who find you unattractive.

i'm ready for a new job.

today is my last day in minneapolis. i was sort of wondering to myself yesterday what it was i hoped to gain by coming here in the first place. i realized that other than spending time with brad what i wanted was to satisfy my curiosity about this city everyone talks about. even though i am not a very effective or energetic traveller i want to understand the world in a more complete and experiential way. (even though i spent like three hours of my precious minnesota time reading lolita - thanks steve - and a little more than that watching twin peaks.)

apparently i have a bad attitude. maybe it is because my boss and most of my coworkers are assholes. but the latino kitchen guys make it worth it. i don't sniff glue in the bathroom anyway.

i don't mean to hold myself back from love and honest emotion but sometimes i just can't help it. it really is sort of shitty not to be able to fall in love, shitty for the other involved i mean, but i'm already doing the best i can. i used to have so much to give, but quite a lot of it is gone, or gets depleated soon after being replenished anyway. i work like 15 hours a week. that might change next week -i have a job interview - but 15 hours is plenty somehow.

i spent all morning altering a skirt i bought at family thrift and i'm not even done yet. i'm slow at everything. i feel dizzy and ready for a nap. looks like i'll have time to take one, too. and oh i start chinese lessons tonight.

steve and i didn't do anything for valentine's day, which sort of made me laugh. rachel and i went to the gammagoat show together, two non-single girls acting single for various reasons and non-reasons.

i went to the doctor with my mom today. she will begin chemo on wednesday, at long last. on saturday we will go out for mexican food and i'll cut off all her long silver and brown hair. if she takes charge of the hair loss herself, she says, it is easier than letting the chemo drugs do it for her. i would do the same thing.

the long absence has been due, more than anything, to the fact that i no longer own a computer.

today:

-finish doing laundry
-visit mom
-go grocery shopping
-work on painting

i have been stressed out lately and i'm not sure why. it's like i just can't calm down, i have to keep moving, keep doing. i come up with new projects all the time.