Surf's Up

i heard a big wave's been killing a bunch of people lately. i know everybody loves water, but i just feel that it's wrong for it to kill so many people. it's not right. there i said it, and i don't care what you think.

so i don't know if that tsunami took out aol or what but i haven't been able to connect to either AIM or my e-mail account for days now, so i apologize if you've sent me an e-mail lately and i haven't responded yet. on top of that, blogger has been frustrating the shit out of me for quite a while because everytime i attempt to log in it sends me to some random vietnamese person's blog regardless of what computer i use, restricting my access to my only other communicative outlet. and, as always, the internet connection has been extremely slow and unreliable, so i've been spending most of my time online staring at blank, brain-scraping screens that grate my ripe, smelly face into parmesian cheese. so given that i guess i'll just heap it all onto your plate then:

christmas day was pleasant. i had intended to go to church but forgot, but i prayed that night and jesus said i didn't miss much, so i didn't feel so bad. later i went to alison and carrie's for their holiday bash and, after politely refusing the offer to eat the head of the roasted duck we had as a main course, i was given the revelrous responsibility of being the surrogate santa in place of the always absent "secret santa." pretenses aside, alison got me an awesome tie (you know my life is changing when i get excited about something like this), and i in return got her a little stuffed doll with a cute troll-like face, long brown hair, and red lips that was wearing a pink caveman-thingy that wasn't quite long enough to cover the centerpiece of the plush doll: its explicitly conspicuous cock'n'balls.

after dispensing all the gifts we decided to hit the town, but before we could make it there our friend, the (pronounced "tay"), one of the kindest and most light-hearted individuals i've met here, was pulled over for speeding through a red light, which is total bullshit because absolutely everybody, including every single police officer in this city, does this on a daily basis. well not only did they levy a fine on the poor guy, but confiscated his motorbike for 20 days. as a real estate broker, this bike was vital to him and it was christmas fucking day. so the night ended on a sour note, but we alleviated the sorrow by renting him a motorbike the following day. fuck the po-lice, fuck the po-lice, fuck'em... but have a merry christmas.

the next morning i had 2 classes i was supposed to teach from 8 - 12, but since i had already been hired by another school, i decided the best way to notify them of my termination of employment would be to just not show up or answer the incessant phone calls from administration. it worked. merry christmas to you too, VUS!

nothing much else is new. i've been training this week at APU, alison and carrie's school. every aspect of it is an improvement over that other school and i look forward to begin teaching there next week. there was a power outage today and so us 3, mike, and a bunch of the students went bowling while i got paid for "observing." nice.

i'm also excited about moving into my new house, for which i've signed the contract just hours ago. it's beautiful: the house [balconies and tv's in each of the 4 spacious rooms as well as in the common room, 3 bathrooms (one with a tub), a kitchen with all the necessary amenities, a washer machine, and a huge roof top terrace with an incredible view of a big, fluffy pink church across the street), the lively neighborhood, and the cool roommates. i'll be living with euan (an awesome aussie whom i met at tefl), his fabulous vietnamese-australian girlfriend tiana, mike (mr. nostarwhere), and the lovely linda. i'll be spending this new year's partying with these friends and others in our humble new abode, and i think this year couldn't end on a better note, tsunami or no tsunami.

War Is Over

i was running and panting and sweating and screaming, all in hysterical desperation, when i made a magnificent realization that rejuvenated my joviality, inflating both my ego and the suit i was wearing to larger than life proportions: no one had ever done what i was doing just then. i was certain of it. and then i looked back through the ridiculously oversized sunglasses i was wearing at the dozen or so kids chasing me with their mouths wide open as if they were trying to swallow the sheer cheerful air trailing me, and chucked a few packs of chewing gum their way as i stuffed my pillow-stomach back up into my red-cloaked abdomen and gleefully proclaimed through white cotton whiskers a chuc mung giang sinh to the cute vietnamese girl seated on the back of her boyfriend's motorbike i was running alongside.

you can crumple my last post and throw it in the garbage bag overflowing with torn segemented superficial sentiments because what i experienced this past christmas eve has completely changed the way i feel about christmas here and the vietnamese people in general. i have absolutely never in my entire life seen so many people smile at me. it's impossible to convey to the reader what 8 hours of smiles, laughter, and goodwill from people you'd expect to spit on you is like, but i'll simply say that i woke up christmas morning pulling confetti out of my hair and laughing my ass off.

having missed out on the high jinks of halloween and wanting to avoid any wallowing about missing my family and friends, i decided it would be a good idea to dress up like santa and show'em how we do in america. except in america, nobody but drunk mall santa pedophiles sitting on their fat-asses and salvation army volunteers politely ringing a bell to politely beg for polite money put on the big red suit for christmas. and they're rarely foreigners and they're even less likely to run around the city handing out an estimated $100 in candy. and america isn't a developing country and it isn't run by communists.

check out dave's blog for the play-by-play and i'll try to fill in the rest and do some color commentating. but first just let me inform you that in vietnam, for whatever reason, christmas is celebrated on the 24th. they are well aware that jesus's birthday isn't until the following day, but they'd all much rather forego what's "right," forget the snow white, and gather together out on the streets under the colorful lights of a warm christmas eve night. and who can blame them.

so the fun began when dave entered lucky's around 9 donning that jolly old fat man's suit, and when the girls saw him their faces all cracked horizontally with grins that pushed their cheeks up and squished their skinny joyful eyes. despite searching absolutely everywhere i could think, i was unable to find the holiday globe (or even an indefinite article qualified holiday globe) i had originally intended for them. so i settled on a couple of fish whose names i declared were rudolph the red-tailed fish and frosty the snowfish. they didn't understand the names but were thankful nonetheless, and i let them know that if and when they died (most likely sooner than later) i'd eat them. MMMMMmmmmmmm-erry christmas! i hopped into the suit and we were out.

that initial street scene is well documented in dave's blog, but just one quick note. the only run in with the law came when dave was in the suit and we got split up. i found myself surrounded in a tiny alleyway by at least 15 onlookers and about 5 or 6 gum-selling munchkin-sharks, who at first we couldn't find anywhere but who quickly caught on to the potential profits and swarmed to us like we were chum. i was desperately trying to negotiate a reasonable price for a box of 20, when a couple of police officers showed up. one came over to me and demanded i buy at least one (not sure if he meant one pack or one box) and i told him i wanted to buy all the gum these kids had. i thought he'd be a dick about it but he was actually quite helpful, ensuring everyone a fair transaction. with all the antics that ensued this night not once did the police ever hassle us which, at the time, bolstered my respect for them, but an incident that occurred the following day mitigated this veneration and i'll talk about that some other time.

we met up once again and ducked into a small indian restaurant to avoid the herd of rabid kids. after a coke and a breather we exchanged santa privileges, and i hit the street once again (having my aforementioned revelation). we had to leave the backpacker area because all the street kids were repackaging the gum we gave them and trying to sell it back to us. what do they think, santa was born yesterday? i deked right, head faked my way to the left, and then turned around and bolted up de tham street, running like santa had dropped a load of christmas cheer in his trousers, tossing gum to people and handing it out to the motorbikers that were passing by, then stopped traffic to run across pham ngu lao, and "ho-ho-ho"ed my way up through the park as the kids began giving up on their jolly prey.

we rested on the corner, awaiting santa's sleigh to arrive, but instead settled for a taxi driven not by a red-nosed reindeer, but by some yellow-nosed vietnamese asshole who took us around the corner to restock on candy, but refused to take us downtown where the action was. no matter, we walked to one of the busiest roundabouts, getting more candy along the way, and dave jumped into the sea of motorbikes and handed out candy mostly to children. my version of santa was a little less discriminatory, spreading my holiday generosity to everyone young and old, but mostly to cute girls. either way, everywhere we went we were greeted by people with big smiles who were grateful for a pack of gum, a piece of candy, a mint, or just a boisterous "merry christmas!" (it was especially bizarre for most people because dave, a vietnamese-looking american, often used the english greeting while i translated it to "chuc mung giang sinh!")

this went on until almost 1 when the streets began emptying, so we headed over to billiards coffee club (bill's), my pool hall of choice, to attend their christmas party. but along the way, we passed a club i had never been in and dave suggested it would be a good idea if we tried to get in. i agreed, put my beard back on and crossed the street. i greeted the young lady at the door with that now-familiar vietnamese phrase, one that will forever be ingrained in my mind, and she looked rather bemused at me, and then looked at the security guards who didn't seem to mind, but it was too late anyway because i was already inside handing out candy. i headed upstairs, passing more authority figures who i thought for sure would pick me up by my elastic-waist britches and toss me right the fuck out, but simply stared and smiled at the sociable santa. and then i entered the club.

i wish i were better at estimating so that i could tell you about how many people spun their heads around to see me, santa claus with sunglasses, ong gia noel to the all-vietnamese patrons, moving past tables of twenty-year-olds, with my hands in the air waving'em like i just didn't care, nodding my head and bouncing to the beat, and dancing with the ladies so that you could understand just how crazy this shit was. all i know is that there were 2 floors (the top floor could see the action on the bottom floor where i was), more or less packed, and everyone was staring at me. it was cool while i was gettin down with the ladies but then people started grabbing at me and shit and it got a bit out of hand. that's when a security guard grabbed me by the hand, and i thought i was getting thrown out for sure, but he led me over to a table with a chubby sharp-looking man who i assume was a manager of sorts (dave says mafia, but i doubt that), and then he shook my hand and we may have taken a shot of something together (maybe it was with someone else), before he led me over to a young boy i, once again, assume was his son, to whom i of course gave some candy.

after dispensing with the rest of my minty-flavored goodwill, the security guard reached his hands in my pocket and took out my sunglasses, inviting anyone and everyone to grab whatever they could off me. i took some more shots with people and then got my shit back briefly to dance on what wasn't a proper dance floor, but was central and empty enough for all to see me attempt to boogie to that perennial christmas anthem, jump by house of pain. "i came to get down, i came to get down, so jump out ya seat and jump around, jump around...." my moves were pathetic for sure, but probably because vietnamese people absolutely cannot dance, they seemed to love it. then that same security guard started tearing my santa guise off until i was stripped down to a wife-beater and pants. so i of course cease the silly girations immediately, and just stand there looking up at everyone with both arms raised in the air, that absurd pair of aviators hiding my wildly-beating eyes.

we soon exited, each smiling handshake an unwrapped gift, and once again emerged onto the street, but this time in plain clothes. we walked around the corner to bill's, and when i walked in i was instantly greeted by the owner, kien, whose pool hall i've contributed generously to since i've been here. i handed him a card and a bottle of wine for which he thanked me, and then sincerely startled me when he said that they had been awaiting my arrival. he led me outside where a small table was set up and me, dave, the owner, and 3 of his lovely coworkers and their boyfriends sat, drank brandy, ate sandwiches, and talked (mostly in english despite their limited exposure to the language). it was the perfect chill-out to the preceding night of madness.

after we were all sufficiently wasted, i mentioned how i liked the decorations in the parks and buildings in the downtown area, but hadn't really seen any houses that were decorated. kien suggested we take a ride out to district 8 to check out the scene there. dave had an early morning commitment to attend to so he called it a night, but i hopped on the back of kien's superfast suzuki something-or-other and we, along with 2 other guys and their girlfriends, were there in no time. i was impressed to see all the decorations: bright lights strung all along the street in every color, the nativity scenes, lit-up snowmen, all erected by people who are no better off than most others in this city. it was here that i quietly observed and contemplated the vietnamese christmas spirit and was awe-struck by its different but no less enchanting logic and ashamed of my earlier judgements.

on our way back we stopped at quite possibly the only pho (noodle soup) restaurant open at 4:30 on christmas morning, and chatted some more with these unlikeliest of christmas comrades. i said at one point: "i don't understand why the vietnamese people are so friendly and welcoming to americans like me. we came to your country and fought a terrible war that killed so many of your people and destroyed your land. i don't think americans would forgive so easily." the guy who i had only just met tonight (whose beautiful girlfriend shoots pool with me often at bill's and i'd been praying she was single) replied in a calm and honest tone: "we forget the past because it doesn't matter anymore. my father was killed in the war... but it doesn't matter. we forget and look forward." he raises his glass, and before i can think we clash them with a clink, and then drink each in a dash.

...and so this is christmas.

Wrapping Paper-Miss

it started just days after having arrived here. i would be seated at a restaurant or internet cafe when i'd faintly hear the melody from "here comes santa" interrupt a mix of otherwise non-christmas muzak. or i would be walking around outside and hear a monotonal version of "jingle bells" begin to play. except when i'd excitedly turn to look, expecting to see ol' saint nick in a big red reindeer-drawn sleigh, instead i'd be greeted with some vietnamese dude in a taxi motioning for me to get the hell out of his way cause he's trying to back up. at first i was like: "...the fuck?" but i soon realized that the best way to warn people that your vehicle has reversed direction and is now a human waffle-maker is in fact by playing christmas music because now, the instant i hear those first 3 quarter notes of the same pitch, the third held for just a little longer than the first 2, i think "danger!" and dive out of the way.

i've spent this past week looking for one of those holiday snow globes everywhere. specifically, one displaying a winter scene and preferably including some icon of christmas. no luck: no santa, reindeer, elves, christmas trees, snowmen, snow, houses, people glowing with christmas cheer... only birds - plastic birds in glittered water encased in glass. unbelievable. right now, i could run blindfolded in any mall in america and knock a whole shelf of holiday globes over before i ran into any walls, but here... i just don't know. it's like they have no respect for christmas chachkas in this country.

it's now christmas eve's eve and i still have shopping to do, except it's not for my family or the friends i'm used to buying for, but for the girls who work at the bar i frequent (for whom i search the globe for a god damn globe), the guys at the pool hall, and someone who i should not be able to say but because alison picked her own supposedly "secret" santa, i am a santa in full disclosure.

it's not snowing, or frigid, or cold, or cool, or windy, or even breezy. i'm not running from the mall entrance to my car with my hands shoved in my pockets and the tips of my ears so frost-bitten they're brittle. my sweaters aren't chafing me, and the heat that isn't heating my home isn't making my nose feel like it's crammed full of boogers. my coat isn't stuffed with feathers or zippered all the way up to my chin; it's nonexistent, along with my upside-down adidas earwarmer.

i'm jonesing for a good shiver. i've gotten into the habit of cranking up the a/c as high as possible just before i leave for the night so that when i come back to fall asleep i undress, lay down, pull the thin cotton sheets around my clothes-less body, ignore the noisy hum of the motor driving artificially cooled air into my room, and pretend that it's fucking freezing. but by the time i leave my room the next day, it's just as hot as it's always been (don't believe her!). i swear this summer simply refuses to give up. it's lasted 7 months for me now, and i'm still waiting for halloween before i can even start to think about christmas.

no non-stop christmas jams on every radio station - only cheesy pop remixes of the classics like "jingle bells," sometimes sung in vietnamese and otherwise in venglish. no grinch, no charlie brown, no rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (or abominable snowman), no frosty, "no christmas story," "no muppet's christmas carol," not even that annual sleeping pill "it's a wonderful life." how can a culture understand that banks are not to be trusted, but not know that every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings? this can't be christmas.

we americans grasp onto our christmas tooth and nail, and take the necessary precautions against the erosion of its artifice. in the states, the holiday is celebrated so fervently in part because of its rich tradition, both commercially and religiously. every year the familiar cast of characters and their stories, and chachkas and their stores, are passed onto the younger generations. but here, there's less effort given to construct the illusion of christmas. there's only one character, and his name isn't santa, it's "father christmas," and every year he delivers presents to all the children of wealthy households on december 25.

having no thanksgiving to signify the beginning of the holiday season, i was impressed when i started seeing the first christmas decorations sprouting up right on time around the end of november. at first in the shopping centers, and then spreading to some of the cafes, bars, restaurants, and smaller shops that could afford the plastic greens, reds, and yellows: those little lights, millions strung up everywhere, linking and blinking; artificial wreaths, styrofoam snow, and aluminum foil christmas trees all produced to imitate the western christmas, that is, to simulate christmas; the chuc mung giang sinh signs placed next to the merry christmases; and of course my favorite, the dancing santa robots, that remind me way too much of the 'beat it' dancers.

the custom that is perhaps the most different from the american christmas is the popular activity of dressing up one's children in santa costumes and parading them around, combining the spirit of halloween and christmas like peanut-butter and jelly, with the intention of making a sandwich, but having it smushed into a gooey, unappetizing mess.

snow-miss, friends-miss, family-miss, christmas... miss.

Good Mood Food

what a difference a day makes. woke up feeling pathogenless again, a nice change from the mucus dripping out of my nose and eyes. had breakfast with linda, a delightful korean girl who continues to insist that she's american... [as she's winding up, about to smack me in the arm, let me tell you a quick anecdote:

The Irony Is Crushing Me

i was in the park one evening walking back with sam and linda after a session of awesomeminton, and for whatever reason we were talking to a man who claimed he was australian. he didn't look like an aussie, and his accent definitely wasn't australian, but because he was born in australia he completely denied his obviously vietnamese heritage. on top of that, he refused to believe that linda was american, even though she speaks with a midwestern accent ("byack-pyack"), because she looks asian. so after getting all tangled up in this ironic web of language, heritage, and nationality, the exchange crescendos when they begin first saying, then yelling:

"you... american?"
"you, australian?" [now pointing at each other]
"AMERICAN?!?!"
"AUSTRALIAN????!!!"
... etc.

this goes back and forth for a while until i'm keeled over from laughing so hard, prompting sam to deliver the titular line.

WHHACK! oww stop, i can't keep telling my students that i've fallen down the stairs again...]

anyway, so after subjecting her to chinese water torture (or is it korean?) for about a week straight, (the drip of death: why-don't-you-wanna-live-with-us-c'mon-you'll-never-find-another-house-like-that-what's-the-matter-with-you-c'mmonn-why-do-you-hate-us-please-please-please-please-i-hate-you-you're-not-american-oh-c'mmmaaann-c'mmmmaaaannnnnn-you're-the-best-the-best-korean-american-i've-ever-met-c'mmaaaaaaaaannnnn-fine-"you're-from-chicago-and-therefore-you-are-american"-happy?-ok-awesome...), she finally agreed to live with the 4 of us in the 'mansion' mentioned in the preceding post, thus saving me the frustration of negotiating for a $70 cooker in that crap hole i saw yesterday. oh and by the way, check out her blog because she might grant me the priviledge of being mentioned in it soon (!!!).

great, so what else?

how about a newwwwwWWW JOB! [cue the price is right music and release the confetti] yeah, well unless my employer finds out about this blog and reads Putrid...Mood, or 'most any of the others including this one. it's at the same school alison and carrie teach at which rocks because now i can bug them and get paid for it at the same time! i'll work normal hours (something like 8-3, m-f), i'll have students that don't draw on the walls and try erasing each other in the middle of class, and an employer who actually respects and supports me rather than simply hands me a pile of books, points to little vietnamese kids, and says "you suck, now teach" using bigger words and longer sentences.

other random good news items:

- this open letter to a huntington fuckhead is hilarious, and serves to remind me that no matter how bad i'm down, there's someone else out there unwillfully smashing his teeth out, and having the car he generously loaned out to some friend set ablaze, and having the stereo from his other car stolen just days before christmas... and his name is blatt. by the way, i only list it under good news because it made me laugh, which is good... for me.

- dave has a great entry about some of the girls that work at lucky's. it's titled un-seeing the cracked patterns (12.21.04). read that and then read the rest of his shit 'cause it's all good.

- booked a flight to hanoi, the capital, for the tet holiday along with alison, carrie, and mike. should be fun. [the first link is to alison's humorous entry about her angry tit, the second is to a thoughtful (but irrelevant) comment made by a concerned sister about her awol brother (how embarrassing for him!), and the third link there is to mike's homebound blogging adventures. note: no link to carrie's blog because she refuses to update it with stories about how she skirts out on bets (i think another punch is on its way...]

- it's racquel's birthday (dec 23)! happy birthday!

one bit of bad news is that it appears there's a bit of american capitalist anti-asian propaganda circulating the internet. it's truly despicable. i think the people responsible for this are no better than my vomit...

happy and healthy again, 'mout.

A Putrid Half-Chewed Acid-Dewed Mood

there's something in me that shouldn't be. i'm not sure exactly what it is, but i feel it gnawing away at my insides. a parasite, i suspect, feeding off the raw discomfort of its pitiable, inhospitable host. it migrates slowly from my stomach up to the bottom of my esophagus, and then with the burst of a bubble, retreats back to its base. i think it wants out, but not until it is deprived of sustenance: well after it has defiled my substance, but before it strands me without a pittance.

i wish i could vomit at will. it would certainly be a useful talent. for one, it would allow me to better express my level of displeasure in any circumstance. example: i spend over a month looking for a new place to live, going through virtually every permutation of living arrangements, and after being just one person shy of living in my dream house, a mansion by saigon standards, i'm shown an ugly, cramped, decaying, no-kitchen-cabinet-having 2-bedroom house for the same price per person... and the owner simply refuses to put in a cooker (small stove). "hmmmm, i dunno. i mean, can you even call that a kitchen if... excuse me, may i use the bathroom?" [BLEECCCCHHCKHHCKH] "thank you. i'll sleep on it."

or maybe i finally get a job, but the person who hires me, the same woman who observed my unpaid 3 hour demo lesson and ripped apart almost every aspect of the 30 minutes she saw, tells me the school will only give me classes at night and on the weekends... and for one fuck-me-in-the-ass dollar less per hour than i had requested. "hmmmm... well, i appreciate the offer. i think maybe if i can just - if i - hhhhuuuuu..." [HHGHGHAAAAAAUUUUGGHHGGG] "ummm, you can keep that."

opportunites for expressive vomiting present themselves almost everyday here. phuong, just a couple days after kindly giving me a card and christmas gift (a week early), all of a sudden drops me like a head-between-the-knees drunken cyclo-driver's puke. i'd like to reciprocate her generosity though with a christmas gift made by yours truly, wrap it in cellophane and leave it at her front door.

sure i could just drink myself stupid, god knows it's done the trick before, but this technique isn't as instantaneous as i would need it to be. maybe if i carried around some liver with me everywhere i went and just shoved it in my mouth real quick... but it would be embarrassing if i could only manage a girlish little gaffe of a gag when a spit-filled spew of projectile food-chunks is the desired reaction. it'd be like saying "ok, cool... you hungry?" after your girlfriend agrees to marry you. no, using artificial puke-inducers will never suffice. i must have the ability to vomit according to my whimsy, so that i have a prepared response if that future girlfriend ever declines my proposition.

it may take some practice, but i don't mind. despite my heavy drinking, i actually haven't thrown up at all since i've been here. the last time i threw up was late summer at camp cromie. twice successively but separately, both violently, right after taking uhhh medication, and just before tripping my face off. i remember my body spasming so hard i thought i would start leaking bile out of my eye sockets. i can still envision perfectly the orangey-brown that speckled the pearl white toilet bowl, painted more skillfully than pollock. that was a good night.

and then before that was the morning of my birthday, july 25. i woke up smelling a horrendously familiar odor with someone shuffling about next to me. i was face-down halfway between the couch i had presumably been sleeping on and the bathroom i had presumably been requiring, with my belt unbuckled and my pants half-unpantsed, and a wet, stinky pile of last night's dinner (mixed with just a hint of tequila) splattered half-digested next to me. sal's dike roommate was cleaning it off her softball gear (i assure you the clinical term for a lesbian who plays softball is in fact 'dike'), so i of course pretended to be sleeping. after she left (to go to her softball game), i got up and informed sal that someone had apparently thrown up in the middle of his apartment, and that it should be cleaned immediately because the smell was rather offensive. sal wisely got up and blocked the exit so that the culprit couldn't escape, and then, after no more than an instant of deduction, told me to clean it up. i respect his distrust because i was only one item of clothing away from bolting out that front door. damn that jacket.

i don't remember throwing up that night but i'm sure it was pleasant. to be honest, i appreciate a good barf more than the presence of most people. it's both emotionally and physically cathartic, and lucrative as well - a fleeting moment of extreme discomfort traded for some quantity of relief that at the very least grants one a reprieve, and at best, makes one feel fully replenished. i don't revere every retard i meet, but i relish every regurgitation.

so i'm not sure if i owe my current desire for dislodging my insides to some pathological sickness or to the fact that i'm a pathological sicko. all i know is i'm sick... and i want it out.

Perturbing Picturesque Perversions

i believe that photographs are innately perverse, but the one i saw a couple nights ago actually redefined my conception of 'perverse.'

i was walking home from lucky's late one night, and i heard someone shout, "hey! hey, matt!" now i've become conditioned to ignore all pleas for my attention, especially in this, the backpacker's area, because everytime i acknowledge one of these sudden bursts of broken english, i meet someone who wants to sell me something i don't want to buy. but this time i had heard my name called, so i turned and saw a young vietnamese man lit by dull neon lights sitting amongst a group of his friends at an outside cafe. he waved to me, motioning with his hands and facial gestures that he wanted me to sit with them. on my short trip from the middle of the street to the seat he was pulling out for me, i sorted through a catalog of half-remembered faces in my mess of a memory, but was unable to identify who he was and how he knew my name.

"hello."
"hello, you sit and drink with us."
"...how do you know my name?"
"i see you and i say 'hi.' sit and have a drink..."

confused, but thirsty, i sat down on my unfolded plastic throne. i didn't know him, or any of his friends, of which 2 were girls and 2 were guys, but didn't feel the least bit threatened or awkward. the one who had called out to me was definitely gay. the way he spoke, dressed, and particularly the way he shook my hand all informed me of his sexual preference. the other guys seemed straight: one was bigger, heterosexually cordial, and well-dressed; the other was shy, and wore clothes that made me believe he was a xe ohm (motorbike taxi) driver. the girl sitting next to the big guy was kind, friendly, and uninteresting looking. but the girl sitting between the queer and the plain girl caught my attention. she was simply sexy, though she seemed slightly offput by my presence.

i ordered a beer from the waitress standing over my shoulder and then gay canh, who spoke good (but sometimes unclear) english, initiated the standard string of questions: what-ya-name-where-ya-from-how-old-are-you-how-long-you-go-here-how-long-you-stay-here-do-you-like-vietnam-do-you-have-vietmy-girlfriend? when i got to the last question i hesitated and answered 'no,' which visibly excited canh and, in a much subtler manner, piqued the interest of sexy thao.

"why?"
"because i think the vietnamese girls are very beautiful but they only like foreigners for their money."
"i don't believe you... [to the point] who do you like?"
"i like her." [nodding at thao]
"oh yes, she's very beautiful. and she don't care about money. she is very rich, she don't need money, she don't like money."
"saoooo." [everyone laughs because i just called him a "liar," probably the most useful conversational word i've ever learned.]

so after trying to convince them that i was a really good english teacher, worth $20 an hour for private lessons (to which they of course replied "saoooo") i exchanged numbers with thao and obligingly, canh, before they asked me if i'd like to join them at sahara, easily the most disreputable bar in the neighborhood. i said maybe some other time, and stayed to finish my drink. canh said he would meet them there, and moved confessionally to the seat next to mine.

"i am gay. i have a boyfriend. i know you are not gay, but you are very handsome."
"uhhh, thank you... so what's with thao?"
"she has boyfriend, he in china."
"oh."

it's not at all a surprising revelation. many girls here end up meeting some rich transient bastard who can afford to send them money every now and then, just so they have a piece of ass when they're in town. i later found out that she's a retired working girl. again, unsurprising. i check to see how much beer is left in the bottle: just enough for another question or two.

"so where's your boyfriend?"
"he in sydney."
"oh, australian. that's great..."
"yes, he very rich and send me money. he loves me."
"awwww... and you love him?"
"yes, i show you picture..."

as he fumbles around in his pocket, i heard him say that his boyfriend is 17-years-old, in the same way that i had earlier heard him call my name. i can't remember how old canh is, but i know it's something around my age, 22. i think about how something doesn't seem right about it, but before i can prepare myself he pulls out a dangling key chain, and grasping a small, thin, rectangular, clear plastic case between his feline fingernails, shows me the picture of him and his lover.

had it not been for the alcohol that numbed my senses and slowed my reactions i'd have definitely either broke into violent laughter or hysterical vomiting (a picture of which i'd very much like to see). in the picture he carries around with him everywhere he goes a young, gay canh is straddling a resortish lawn chair on a sunny day while his boyfriend sits in his lap... who's actually 70-years-old: bald, pale, wrinkly; definitely not a salacious seventeen-year-old, but a saggy lumpy slump whose massive, shirtless body eclipses the inexplicably elated canh, rolls of fat draped over one another and onto his vietnamese man-bitch.

i have no further recollection of the picture or what i said or how i left (though i know it was something close to 'immediately'), and that's exactly how i'll leave you.

Perfect Picturesque Perversions

i wish i could get a picture of the young man next to me looking at porn. it's a different guy from the one i saw the other day, sitting in the corner of a different internet cafe during the middle of a different day. it's different porn as well: hentai, cartoon porn. i only know it's called hentai because i researched it just now, and had never known that such detestable material existed in this pristine world of ours... and even if i did i would never ever be tempted to view those sexy big-eyed, impossibly voluptuous, petitely perfect little lines of lust. ok well at least not while there's a little kid playing videogames right next to me, with over a dozen people packed into the entryway of a family's house that they've converted into an internet cafe.

the reason i can't get a picture isn't because i'm afraid of shaming him. it's because the light from the monitor is turning out too bright in the photos i've secretly taken. the picture is no good if you can't see the ridiculous images this guy is ogling. they're all cartoon characters, drawn by someone much like this guy, except the artist is probably more skillful at manipulating the slender shaft of a pencil rather than that of his penis, though that's admittedly only an assumption. why doesn't this guy just look at actual photos of hot asian pussy like that guy the other day, my hero? i mean drooling over cartoons?! what a shameless pervert.

i hope i never forget this absurdly abnormal moment. given my impressionable but imprecise memory you'd think that i would love photos. you'd think that i must carry a camera with me everywhere i go so i won't forget where i've been and who i've met, but i don't. it was only just recently that i realized how little i remember about my past and how few pictures i have to remind me of it, particularly from my days at nyu. my fear of forgetting everything about my experiences here in vietnam prompted me to buy my first camera just before i left. it was a procrastinated purchase however, because even though i desired this mechanical memorizer, i despise the product of its function: the photograph.

before i get into why, let me bolster the contradiction by telling you that i love photography. the art of capturing the essence of a moment through its colors, composition, characters, and their motivations in a form that allows others to see something that they would otherwise be forced only to imagine is a paradigm-shifting wonder. by creating artifacts of actual moments, the camera forever changed the way we regarded the past, and necessarily, changed our approach towards the future.

but i hate pictures, particularly of me. my grandmother hates to have her picture taken too, and so did the native americans. she's never given a reason, but i believe it's because she prefers to remember herself the way she would like to be: more beautiful, possessing a form more perfect and aesthetically pleasing than the one she has. the injuns, on the other hand, refused to have their picture taken because they believed that it would steal their spirit, something more profound than our fleshy forms.

i am in agreement with both grandma and tonto. a thousand words can be said about each picture and not all those words will be complimentary. that's disappointing. but also, there is a tendency for people to ascribe a picture with a degree of reality (often absolute truth) that is rarely offset with the recognition of that picture merely being a static representation of an arbitrary, artificial moment in time, a characteristic that is diametrically opposed to the dynamism of life and reality. i am not a mute 2-dimensional statue like those pictures would lead you to believe, and it upsets me when people believe i am. or that is to say, "it totally steals my spirit, too."

the first night we went out, phuong asked if she could take a picture of me. pictures taken without my knowledge, and preferably no one but the photographer's, are generally fine. but the "say cheese" kind of pictures always leave me feeling raped. like i know it only took 10 seconds of my time, but now that suspended state of an unnatural circumstance has been captured for all eternity and there's nothing i can do about it. so before she could snap a shot, i told her that i didn't like pictures and without any further prodding she put down her camera, that also happens to function as a mobile phone, a crowbar and lock pick for the safe that contains my soul.

i felt bad about being so coldly dismissive, so the next day i reluctantly brought my camera and we took some photos of and with each other. they turned out uhhh... well let's just say she's much more photogenic than i. after uploading the pictures to my computer, i edited myself out of one of the pictures because she looked great, but i had ruined it with a goofy smile and crossed eyes. funny, i don't remember trying to look at my nose with one eye while smiling like i just found out i came in second place in a shit-eating contest. fucking pictures.

anyway, i really want to get a good picture of this guy looking at naked cartoons while sitting next to a 5-year-old. fuck, and now the battery's dead so this perverted moment will never exist for all to see in the static megapixels of a digital artifact... only in my mushy momentum-maddened mind.

Phuong: Way; Means; Method

at one time, i had assumed the best way to meet girls was either at school, at a party, or out at a bar/club. first i'd have to introduce myself in a bold, but friendly fashion, maybe buy her a drink or impress her with some fancy dance moves, and then tip-toe my way through the labyrinth of mines and flying guillotines called 'conversation' before getting her to agree to a date. and that's standard procedure for a girl of just about any quality. if i wanted to meet a hot chick i'd surely have to exercise and bulk up, fix my scraggle-tooth and lazy eye, have a well-paying job (or any kind of employment), and get a pair of bionic leg extensions.

i was wrong.

the best way to meet girls is to go shopping in a hyper-congested city in a developing nation on the opposite side of the world, preferably someplace where the members of the lower-classes envy the upper-class's motorbikes and apartments rather than cars and houses. it somehow helps if your nation of origin unregretfully bombed and killed their people, and sprayed their land with toxic agents that have left a highly visible portion of the population hideously deformed. my rationale for this peculiar phenomenon is that first, girls tend to be attracted to bad-boys, and since i look like the descendant of a village-burning, charlie-chopping american soldier, i get the bad-boy bonus points; and second, i look a hell of a lot better than that quadriplegic midget with a hunchback pissing himself across the street.

shop in expensive stores. it helps if you can afford what you're looking at, but it's not necessary to actually buy anything, as long as you pretend you're rich. dress nicely and maybe carry a couple of fancy-looking bags around with you. shoes are a good start, clothing is generally a safe bet, but if you shop for cologne you are virtually guaranteed a date. ask them which one they like, and be sure to try out at least half a dozen. if you're charm doesn't work, the cloud of suffocating aromas should have left the girl in a state of intoxication conducive to a number exchange.

i met phuong while shopping for shoes about 2 days ago. i walked in mid-day at the end of a laundry cycle: hair disheveled, jeans torn, t-shirt unfit to be part of the elite unit of shirts that were being cleaned that day. though i was lacking a bit in my presentation, i employed the method described above, namely, "pretending to be rich." i walked around a bit pointing to the pair of shoes i'd like to try, and in an attempt to break the ice i pointed to my sockless feet surrounded by sandals and said "no socks... is it ok?" thoroughly confused she consulted her colleague who shrugged, and they laughed and chatted in vietnamese before bringing me out some socks. i figured they were laughing at, not with me, but before i could despair or even buy the pair, she asked me for my number. name, age, where i'm from: date. it's that simple.

later that night she and her friend met me and dave for coffee. i knew phuong's command of the english language was questionable given that she didn't know what 'sock' meant, my one and only benchmark for determining a person's proficiency, but i soon realized that there were many other words she didn't know... like most of them. luckily dave speaks vietnamese and her friend speaks pretty good english so we communicated mostly through these friendly liaisons, and later with friendlier glances agreed to meet again the next day.

this, my friend, is how i met a girl named phuong. in addition to a method, or phuong, for meeting girls, i have a way of breaking up with them as well. and you can be sure that when smiling and nodding deteriorates into avoiding each other's gaze, i promise to tell you about that phuong*.




*according to my vietnamese-american dictionary, phuong means "way; means; method." by the way, the word mat in english means "something used to wipe one's shoes or feet." your welcome, dave.

The Legend of What Was Up, What Is Now Up, and What Will Be Up

"what's up?"

well i've written my resume, applied for jobs (or more accurately just 'job'), still haven't found a house yet (ok so i haven't really been looking or 'i just haven't been looking'), have scaled back the beer drinking, pool playing, and awesomeminton from everyday/all day to most days/part of the day, and still watch national geographic channel every morning before i do anything.

so you'd guess that i haven't been doing what i supposedly came here to do, teach english, but i have. you see, there's this somewhat quiet bar/restaurant near my guest house that plays cheesy 80's music, has a pool table, a chess set with extra-large wooden pieces, tv's that show nonstop football, and about half a dozen vietnamese girls that work there every night. now coincidentally, every night i'd like to talk to about 6 vietnamese girls while listening to the eagles or bon jovi, preferably in the same place i can have a drink and play pool, and maybe get some food while i watch some football, and even play chess should someone have a need for a good ol' fashioned brain slap (bleh! ach! 6 moves, linda. *cough*).

so due to this fortunate cicumstance i've been a frequent patron of the aptly named Lucky's, and am on friendly terms with the waitresses. they say i look like a porcupine because of my hair, and one of them calls me 'lunatic guy' for no apparent reason, but i don't mind because i get free vietnamese lessons from them. they told me that 'mat' means either 'eye(s)' or 'crazy' depending on the pronunciation, but according to this online vietnamese-english dictionary it can mean either eye(s), face/surface/right, honey/secret, lose/die/vanish, cool/fresh, or bird-mite/very foor(?). but not crazy so i don't know where they got that one from, unless that's what 'very foor' means.

maybe it is the obligation i feel as a native speaker that inspires me to teach english so that people across the world may obtain the knowledge of how to speak today's most important, opportunity-enabling language, or maybe i just like communicating in the simplest terms possible with vietnamese girls, but either way: i taught them how to say "what's up." as in: "hey, what's up."

yes, i've abandoned my attempt at spreading napkins across south east asia as my legacy and have lowered my ambitions to simply teaching a popular colloquial american greeting. well honestly it was only because they insist on shouting "hello" to every person that walks through the door and it just sounded too silly, even for me, so i told them from now on they have to say "what's up" instead of "hello" when they see me. it worked, except they have a hard time with the 's' and it sounds a little more like "what shup" than it should. but to be fair i still can't manage anything beyond "hello" "thank you" and "1, 2, 3, yo!" in vietnamese so i figure "what shup" is perfectly acceptable.

once they've mastered "what's up," i will move onto other variations such as "whassup" (reiss-style), "sup" (chip-style), "what up" (me-style), and "wuzzup" (cromie-style). i may even move onto more difficult ones such as "what's good" (steiding/devon-style), "what's happening" (not-sure-whose-style), and "what's goin' on?" (me-stoned-asking-an-honest-question-style). then there are all the various ways you can informally address the person you are greeting such as "what's up, yo; man; dude; bro; kid; son; dun; nigga; g; fool; b; baby; babe; bitch; hun; honey; slut." i'm sure i've left lots out so let me know, and i'll be sure to pass it on to the women waiting tables and working at bars all across vietnam.

This Gum I'm Sitting In Is Really Intriguing

last night i went to see the vietnam v. singapore match on the opening day of the tiger cup, a football tournament for the countries of south east asia. (because everyone here calls it football, not soccer, and the rest of the world seems to agree that it is a game played with the foot, not necessarily while wearing socks... err i too have taken to calling it football. so from now on if i talk about the kind of football played by super-intelligent gorillas wearing gigantic helmets, massive body armor, and wedgie-prone spandex pants, who all grapple and grab at each other, with good play rewarded with a firm slap to the ass; i will refer to it as 'american football' or fagball.)

of an estimated 25,000 fans, i'd say that alison, carrie, mike, david, sam, and i constituted nearly 100% of the foreigners in attendance. we got there on time but the match between indonesia and laos was played just before the start of the vietnam match, so there were roughly 24,994 people who had already found a seat by the time we walked into the stadium. and by 'seat' i mean everyone was sitting shoulder to shoulder on a concrete step that surrounded the field and went up about 20 rows.

as we were scoping out the situation from the closest railing we could get to, i felt someone's hands reach into my back pocket. i had my wallet and cellphone in my front pockets along with my hands so i just let the aspiring pick-pocket feel around back there for a little while which tickled, but no one's ever tried picking my pockets before and i wanted to mark it off on my itinerary. soon i got bored though and started backing up into him and elbowing him in the rib cage and saying 'excuse me' in vietnamese, but he still continued to wiggle his tiny vietnamese hands around in my pockets. if he had been young and well-groomed i'd have been worried, but he was old and filthy so i knew for sure he was a hobo, not a homo. someone later suggested that i should have tried picking his pockets which i thought was a good idea and if this happens again, i will definitely do. but before i could do anything, we began following some people making their way to the far side of the concrete bleachers so i followed them, and left ol' busy fingers to pick some other schmuck.

i was satisfied with what we found: the last row located at the corner of the field with a 3 inch ledge to sit on. it was tight though. a couple of girls showed up just a little later than us, and after getting to the top and realizing there weren't any seats, some noble vietnamese man indicated to the lovely ladies that there was still at least one, as he motioned to his crotch.

the seats weren't so bad. we actually had a great view of the only goal vietnam scored in the match: a header in the second half. unfortunately the singapore players broke out the bamboo and began beating up on the comparatively petite vietnamese players later in that half, literally flooring about 4 or 5 of them every couple minutes at one point, prompting the stretcher guys to run clear across the field over and over as if they knew exacty what they had to do to make me laugh. but there was nothing funny about singapore scoring the tying goal and the game ending in a draw, unless you find watching 24,994 vietnamese people walking out of the stadium with one big collective frown on their faces funny.

the game was a great deviation from the normal routine of eating dinner, drinking beer, and playing pool every night, even though we did that anyway after the game. i was chanting along with the crowd, and waving to the coca-cola girls, and dancing to the trance music played during half-time which actually sent the crowd into a semi-catatonic state (the music, not my dancing).

i'm especially happy about the free souvenir i got as well: a genuine wad of gum chewed by an actual football fan stuck to the seat of my pants. to be honest, i wasn't happy at the time i discovered it. i thought about how i'd like to find the person that chewed that gum and instead chew him, and then i would intentionally sit on him and walk around all day with that asshole smeared across my ass. but then i realized that this other pair of ruined pants is actually a gift from god. like everytime i see that gum stain i'll think "hey, remember when i went to that vietnam-singapore game in saigon and that guy tried picking my back..." son of a bitch. i don't think that guy was a pick pocket at all. no, it was he who stuck the gum to my pants!

[DUNN DUN DUUUNNNNN]

or not, i don't know; i can't really be sure.

I'd Shake Your Hand But...

those who know me know that everyday i nominate a new personal hero. the criteria for the accolade are simple: any organism that demonstates a feat of extraordinary character, whether it be sublime, vile, absurd, or anywhere in between, has the potential to be my hero for the day. it's that simple.

ho chi minh led the northern vietnamese communists to victory over the south which was backed by the world's most powerful military at the time. what an incredible achievement. if i had been alive at the time i'd have declared him a hero for sure. but i wasn't so he's not.

yesterday, my motorbike driver risked both my life and his own, weaving in and out of traffic while cursing at anyone who got in his way, just so he could get me to the restaurant on time. i don't care that he ended up getting lost, and we got there late, and he wanted more money than we agreed upon: he was a hero. oh yeah, and i think he was drunk, which probably makes him a superhero.

despite exploiting the al-qaeda attacks on september 11th to wage a war against a country that had never and could never attack us, abandoning key allies in the process; and despite spending more money than any president ever in a single term on such superfluous programs as the perpetually impotent 'missile defense,' and tax cuts for the world's largest and most profitable corporations, all the while losing more jobs than any president since the great depression; on november 2, george w. bush managed to win re-election and also managed to become my hero for the day.

so today, as with all days, i have found a new hero. it's the 40-year-old vietnamese man sitting right next to me. earlier i had prematurely declared a hippo i saw on the national geographic channel my hero for chasing the other male hippos around and biting them in the ass in order to assert his dominance. that hippo was certainly inspirational, but he wasn't looking at porn in the middle of an internet cafe populated by about half a dozen men and women, which is not only inspirational but an extraordinary accomplishment in unabashed public smut-viewing. and this guy doesn't even care that i'm looking over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of some of the hot asian pussy he's got loaded on his screen. god bless this man for being a true hero.

This Gum I'm Chewing is Really Uninteresting

it's minty, simple and artificial, but it doesn't sting like those acid mouth mints, the kind made from frozen extra-terrestrial radioactive atoms mined from intergalactic meteors travelling through the cold vacuum of space and tested on mutant polar bears with liquid nitrogen blood. the kind that upon impact set your tongue on frigid fire, blowing your mouth pores wide open, and make your breath smell refreshingly edible. instead it has that classic bubble gum taste that dominates just a hint of mint, maybe like a mint-flavored bazooka, useless for disguising bad breath, but sufficient for stimulating the repeated squishing of something between my molars that gives me purpose.

unfourtunately the gum transformed from a firm, sticky, flat stick of sugar full of potential masticatory pleasures into a chewed, inelastic wad of bland disappointment far sooner than i had hoped. i regret now not having savored those first few reckless munches that squeezed its once solid flavor into a swirling whirlpool of sensational sweetness. at first the gum had become increasingly intriguing, enticing my mouth into chewing it helter-skelter until suddenly i realized its seductive juices were depleted. i continued to chew after this point, biting down hard on the lifeless mass of spent joy, desperate to taste that mint i had once deemed 'simple,' but now passionately crave.

i had gotten the gum from a cute little street girl, no older than the age of 8, by beating her in a game of rock, paper, scissors. she challenged me, and after negotiating the terms of the deal, we threw down. she won the first one, but it was only because she threw after me, seeing my paper and cutting it with a pair of scissors. i called her on it and said it would count, but now we would play best of three. so we threw down again, this time simultaneously, and i smashed the shit out of her feeble scissors with a rock made of a tightly clenched fist. "boo ya! 1-1." we threw again, paper-paper. "clever," i thought. she knew that i knew she'd think i would be too scared to throw paper again, and having known this she prudently adjusted her strategy so that in case i did have the audacity to try paper, as long as she stays away from rock, the worst she could do is tie which is what happened. well she may have anticipated that, but she definitely wasn't ready for an ultra risky repeat of an open hand, palm down, five-fingered slap of a paper that smothered and presumably suffocated her mighty rock. "pay up," i said and contentedly walked away with my free pack of mint-flavored gum.

in my defense, i wouldn't have felt so pleased about taking gum from an 8 year old girl had her friend not taken $2 from me beating me at the same game. that girl was insane though. it's quite possible she can read peoples' minds, which i find incredible only because i was thinking in english, not vietnamese. having defeated her friend made me cherish the prize that had eluded me just the day before, and i was confident that it would taste just as i imagined victory to taste like.

alas, this was not the gum foretold in my dreams. the gum now exists in my mouth as a stale object of unconscious fixation that produces no sense of pleasure or intrigue. i continue to chew however, because there is no wastebasket within reach and i find comfort in its familiarity and security from the habit and repetition of chewing gum. but once the satisfaction of default had lost its allure, i searched for a moment to discard the wet disgraceful wad of desugared waste under the desk... success.

i had known that this time would come as soon as i began removing the foil and paper that protected and concealed this minty stick of celibacy less than 5 minutes ago. it was the second of a pack of five and i had felt betrayed by the first unsatisfying piece, but i thought maybe this one would be different. it wasn't. it was perhaps even less interesting than the first, because at least the first provided me with a brand new experience, something novel that i'd remember. this piece however was just a waste of time.

Awesomeminton and the World of Tomorrow

daily schedule since completion of course:

- wake up at around 8 or 9 when the sun begins smacking me in the face
- piss, thinking about how i didn't write my resume yesterday
- go back to bed, pulling pillow and blanket over my head and trying not to think about how i still haven't written my resume
- sleep until i can't keep my eyes shut anymore, hoping maybe today i'll write my resume
- shit, shower, deoderize, brush teeth, shave, put in hair product, put on clothes without a resume
- take wallet, cell phone, keys and go downstairs
- watch owners of guest house rock baby as i leave, wishing i was that baby being rocked while someone wrote my resume for me
- put on sandals, still no resume
- shake my head 'no' to motorbike driver who camps out in front of the guest house, as in 'no, you can't take me to a place of prospective employment because i haven't written my resume yet.'
- ignore solicitations from at least half a dozen more as i make my way to de tham, 'the backpacker area,' thinking about how even those filthy bastards probably have resumes; the backpackers not the motorbike drivers. (although now that i think about it, maybe i'll begin requesting to see one everytime i want a ride, and i'll refuse to hire them if they don't have it. i would find that amusing.)
- wipe sweat from forehead
- eat breakfast (omelette, bread, banana shake, hold the resume)
- go to a nearby internet cafe and don't even look up what a resume should look like
- make sure the other half of the world is still there, in case i ever write my resume
- while i'm busy not writing my resume, i write a blog entry:

throughout the rest of the day i might look at houses, buy stuff, or play awesomeminton, but never all three; and i will definitely wipe more sweat from my forehead, ignore more motorbike and cyclo drivers begging to take me somewhere i don't have to go, eat dinner, drink beer, ignore people asking me if i want to buy a hammock, book, gum, or cigarettes, play pool, and of course pretend i'll write my resume at some point in the future.

the last one is important because that's what has enabled me to take up awesomeminton in my abundant free time. awesomeminton is like badminton, except here it's not bad like it is on the other side of the world. it's awesome and very popular. i wouldn't be surprised if genghis khan had invented the game while he was conquering asia, probably just knocking around peoples' eyeballs or testicles using a detached limb as a racket. man, that guy had ambition. i bet he wrote his resume in a single day and it was a mile long and written on human skin.

anyway, go to any park and you will invariably see two people, rackets in hand, daintily but gracefully swatting at the feathered projectile. even though they usually don't play with a net, they take it quite seriously. foreigners are advised to never interrupt a game, even if it may seem that it's just a light-hearted knock about, because if you've ever seen someone catch a shuttlecock to the upper lip then let me tell you brother, it ain't pretty.

so i bought a couple rackets the other day and decided that, after having mastered the learning of how to teach english but before mastering the getting of the job, i would master the sport of awesomeminton. so i set out with a few friends and 4 rackets between us to the park where i figured we'd challenge the local awesomeminton gangs to a match for control of the net.

"hey you, yeah you, charlie. where i'm from we call this badminton ya see? so don't fuck with us because we're bad... but not bad like we're bad at playing but bad like, 'who's bad?' that's right, us motherfucker, real bad... bad like a rotten peach except less mushy, but just as dangerous, ya catch my drift?" i imagined parrying about using my racket as a make-believe sword while we engaged in meaningless bombastic banter in our native languages and exchanged intense facial expressions.

alas, that day was not the day foretold in my dreams. instead we gallavanted around doing leaping backhands and one-footed oopsie-daisies while the locals stared in bewilderment. we played for hours, like it was our job, but not quite because we're not being paid to be gay. speaking of jobs, it's just about that time - time for me to avoid writing my resume for the rest of the day.

...and that's why god invented tomorrow.