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.