Blanket Birthdays in a Snow-Cloaked Dream

january's a big month for birthdays. not only does it contain the birthday of every american president in history (all on the same day nonetheless!), but also many of my friends' birthdays, as well as the birthday of martin luther king, junior. i don't know who that guy was... but somebody did, and had a dream about him. then one day this impossibly ambitious man actually made his dream a reality, and shot king in the head. i think that's wrong, which is why i believe that if you have a dream, you should just keep it to yourself...

unless you have a blog. for example, i dream about a big blizzard dropping a blanket of snow a foot thick all around me while i sit at home and complain about how i can't go out, as i think of ways to convince my mom that the roads are fine and everyone else is driving through it and so should i. and then she would threaten to make me shovel the whole damn driveway if i did go out and so i'd quickly search for some videogame or old movie to entertain me while i wander within the warm confines of my oh so comfortable cell.

it's ok though 'cause i have time to kill, watching the inches whiten on my window sill, thinking about how every night i ever went to sleep in conversation with god was to ask him for enough snow to close school the following day; and how my fingers would throb and writhe in pain as they thawed indoors after a gloveless snowball fight; and why my nose drippings left a snot-colored outline on my sleeves and if anyone ever noticed; and what snow plow drivers do for the other 360 days of the year; and if whoever made the first snowy effigy with a disproportionately-sized icicle-weiner did it for laughs or because he just wanted to see what it would look like.

but it's 5 am, and the roar of motorbikes racing up and down the street instantly inform me that today will not be a snow day. in fact, i have absolutely no time to kill because i have a class in 3 hours, and i haven't yet prepared for my 6 hours of teaching ahead of me today. but i can't unwrap myself from my blanket, turn off the a/c, and open my bedroom door because i know i'll be smacked in the face with a brash breeze of humid sneeze. i turn over and pull the blanket closer, "not yet..." not yet, so i snooze for another hour before awaking from these white-washed dreams.

I bought a stack of postcards within the first couple of weeks of being here and had one simple goal: to send out a handwritten note to my friends and families on their birthdays. i've written about 2 and a half, and now i can't remember what happened to them and the rest... but i know they didn't all write themselves, jump on a stamp, and walk over to america, though i wish they had.

it's been days now since my father's birthday and i simply haven't been able to get in touch with him, partly because of the time difference, and partly because we had a bad connection one night, but mostly because i don't have time to go to an internet cafe before i go to sleep or work. bad son. ange's birthday is today and it's the same deal; i know i won't be able to talk to her so the best i can do is send her an e-mail. lame brother, i know. then there's kelly's birthday, which i believe is the 18th, and adina's which is the 28th. jael's is either the 10th or the 11th (sorry bro, really late on this...) and steve poloskey's got a birthday in here somewhere as well. on top of all that, my friends/housemates euan (freebird) and tiana have both had birthdays this month, and i'm unsurprisingly late with a gift. i know i know, what an asshole... i'm sorry.

i know a blanket HAPPY BIRTHDAY is about as comforting as wrapping yourself in a block of ice, but given my recently obliterated free time it really is the best i can do... at least until i awake from this dream and come back home - a home that is now painted a frozen, blinding white. i apologize, but wish all the january babies the happiest of days they can call their own. peace, love y'all, 'mout.

Gooday, Bidet

is it wrong to say that i enjoy squirting water on my butt hole? and if so, how can something so wrong feel so right?

i don't know why eveybody always shits on the french. so what if they're all pretentious pussies with silly accents, silly laughs, silly hats, and even sillier moustaches; they're responsible for some of the undeniably finest pleasures found in this world. take french fries for example. could you even imagine eating a hamburger without these salty little sticks of fried potato. i know i can't. in fact, whenever i eat western food here it's usually with french fries. with my burger, with my sandwich, with my steak, with my fish. it's the one dish of familiar food i can be almost certain to find in any of the restaurants around here. the french really got this one right. it's so delicious and such a simple preparation of the potato, one wonders why the irish didn't come up with it first. and then one remembers why...

what else? whores? for some reason i'm inclined to think the french invented whores. when i think of what the first whore ever looked like, i think of some uhhh french-looking coquette with french braids in a maid's uniform, smoking a cigarette while eating a croissant. and by croissant i mean cock. i don't know though; i think prostitution might be just a bit older than france. maybe just burlesque houses? not sure. let's compromise and say they invented strippers. i think stripping is a lovely idea. and again, it's so simple: girl wears clothes, girl dances, girl removes clothes, man slips dollar bill in girl's g-string.

you might think the french are fucking perverts but i think they're geniuses. and nothing testifies to this better than the bidet (sounds like 'bih-day,' with the acent on 'day'). like you, i was skeptical of the idea of spraying my ass with water after pooping. sincerely skeptical. for 22 years toilet paper seemed to do the trick just fine. i mean it's a simple process, why complicate the matter?

well then why should we change anything we do? why bother inventing anything at all? i'll tell you why. it's not because we have some innate intuition for innovation, as if because we are the most adaptive organisms in the known universe we are predestined to invent everything we need or desire to ensure both our survival and pleasure. and it's not because we're all just lazy slobs. it's because we like it when a stream of rapidly moving water massages our delicate sphincters. and that's the only reason.

before, pooping used to be a chore - a total and literal waste of time. but that was before i moved into a house which had a bathroom outfitted with a bidet. now i look forward to that first shit of the new morning like i look forward to one day having a wife and kids. except i get to satisfy my excrementory aspirations everyday. try having a wife and kids everyday. bet it doesn't give you the same sense sense of relief and accomplishment as my daily rendezvous with the toilet. no matter how upset i am about having to wake up i always know that that beautiful bidet is just a few footsteps away. i sit down, drop the wife and kids off at the pool, and say "gooday to you, madame bidet!" as i snatch that wonderful slut from her cradle. then i aim her at the nexus of my anus and wait for her squeaky reply: "au revoir, masseur poop!"

i make sure the polluted waterfall cascading from the mouth of my foul cave doesn't wet my hand as i drench every nook and cranny harboring the doomed residue of doo-doo that clings desperately to its euphoric creator. i think: "that could be all of it, but let me just make sure i get this spot right over - yup, that's the spot. don't want people thinkin' i'm dirty. hmm yeah, better make sure again. oh and what about over he- yeah... yeah." finally, at some point, i convince myself that the bidet is no longer of any use, and i return it to the hug of its horizontal holster. now all i have to do is wipe the pipe of the old whistle (using way less paper than when i was bidet-less), and then i find myself sitting there with my pants down on the day after christmas - 364 more days until tomorrow morning. "oh well," i sigh as i flush the toilet and wistfully watch probably my sole product of the day being callously consumed, spiralling brownly away. "but perhaps today won't be so bad. maybe i'll have diarrhea!"

oh what a good day that would be for mat and his bidet.

How's It Slangin' Happy?

i walked into the classroom and a few of the students greeted me with a pleasant 'good morning,' to which i of course replied 'what's up,' and was met with about 25 blank expressions... again, 'what's up." nope. 'this is idioms in conversation, right?' 'yeah, so have any of you ever heard this phrase before?' a couple guys nod their heads and the rest stare at me unslangfully. i grab a piece of chalk and scrawl on the blackboard this immortal phrase and offer 4 responses:

a) the ceiling
b) the sky
c) the stars
d) nothing much, you?

'which is the correct response?'

and thus began my self-designed course on 'idioms in conversation,' or as i explained that first day, slang. i let them know that "what's up" is the most popular slang phrase in america and then told'em that if they understood, they'd die right then and there: "hieu chet lien!" which, to my knowledge, is currently the most popular vietnamese slang phrase, at least among the teenagers and young adults i've met.

every language has an ever-changing lexicon of slang that helps keep the language fresh. but not fresh like that prince of belair ('cause now he's wack); i mean fresh like punky brewster slapping arnold in the mouth for not knowing what she was talkin' 'bout... nahmean?

"hieu chet lien!"

yeah these people got slang too. in vietnamese, my name, said the way i'd say it, is slang for crazy: mat. i can't find it in any dictionary though, which would genreally mean that it is in fact slang. i'm not sure, but i think i remember someone telling me it's actually an adaptation of 'mad,' as in: "I'M MAD!! AB-SO-LUUUTE-LY MADDD I TELL YA!!! MUAHAHAAHAAAHAAAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" but i wouldn't know the first thing about being crazy. ok so to be honest, it's a title i wear proudly, declaring to 'most everyone i meet when i tell them my name: toi la mat, ma khong khung dien, which (i'm told) means "i'm crazy, but i'm not really crazy" - a good opener that at some point i usually follow up with a mat mat, haa?. Except this phrase is much harder to pronounce correctly and i usually end up saying "did you just lose your eye?" instead of the intended "you just lost face, huh?" which is an idiomatic expression that actually operates in both english and vietnamese [still part of the first lesson].

but vietnamese doesn't have nearly as rich a catalogue of slang as english. that's word to my momma. what other language could shit all over another as graphically devoid of effort as this one. shit, did you even catch that? this is actually part of a lesson (without using those exact phrases) i taught on monday: the slang found in an unreleased ghostface track called the watch. go'head, read through it. do you understand what he's talking 'bout? 'cause these 20-something-year-olds i played the song for didn't have a clue. i left the title blank on the lyrics sheet i'd handed out and one of them straight-faced guessed it was called 'the nigga.' i thought i'd shit myself because i asked the whole class and nobody knew what 'nigger' meant, so i had to provide a brief explanation of slavery, racism, and bananas. ok so i didn't mention anything about bananas, but i did let them know that if they said that word in america and/or in the presence of a black person (actual words) they were liable to getting their ass kicked. interestingly, some of them already knew what an 'ass kicking' was.

the best part of the lesson though came when i asked them if they knew what 'shit' meant. they did, but only understood the strict definition of the word, feces, which for those who might not have understood, i modelled by pointing to my butt and then the floor, and making a stink-face at it (oh and i said 'poop,' to hint at it but they'd never heard of it... imagine that). at one point in the song, ghostface uses it in 4 consecutive lines to mean 4 different things and we discussed each of these meanings. given their preconceived notions of what 'shit' meant, they found the line "i'm the don of this shit" particularly amusing after i'd told them that 'don' meant boss or king, and then asked them if they could guess what the line meant.

what an awesome class. over the course of just 2 weeks at 1 hour a day, i have allowed these hopefully american-bound vietnamese students to distinguish between 'hanging out' and 'chilling,' a 'dork' and a 'nerd,' a 'dickhead' and a 'carpet licker...' uhhh, well the last two just sorta came up. one girl said that her friends sometimes call her an 'airhead' and a 'dickhead,' and i had to explain why it's generally incorrect to call a girl a dickhead. "dick means penis. do you all know what penis means? ok good because i didn't want to have to draw a picture." but actually yesterday i did draw a picture of a penis... with arms and legs and a smiley face because a student said that cocks would go to his imaginary restaurant, so i had to explain why that would be virtually impossible. and earlier one of the guys from that same group had asked for some slang terms for lesbians and i came up with 'dike' and 'carpet licker.' of course i made sure that they also knew what a carpet was and what lick meant so that they could understand the metaphor... but only because i think understanding metaphors is important.

today was the last day so i told them my choice for the honor of 'class clown,' a student who, for one of the in-class activities, came up with the term 'lowman:' a man who can't have babies. i laughed because at the time i didn't understand what the hell he was talking about, and then later laughed some more when i realized that what he really meant was something like 'limp dick.' classic.

then, right at the end of class, the student who i deemed the 'class nerd,' who's actually a cool kid but had the highest average, blew me away with this gem: i told the class i'd be going up to hanoi in a couple weeks for tet, and he pointed out that his friend, one of the other students in the class could show me where to go. his friend chimes in that yes, he is indeed a tour guide, but it sounded like something different came out when he said it. "tour gay? oh yeah, you're gay. that's right, he's a tour gay" and continues to harass his friend as the other one tries to clarify, "guide! i said guiiide!" yes. i wished i could go back and give him an even higher score for his excellent usage of one of my favorite slang words that was not only impromptu, but accurate as well, but decided that would be gay.

You Got 5 Minutes, Startingggggg... NOW!

this past monday i decided to exchange 5 hours a day of my previously abundant free time for $70. sounded like a bargain at the time... until i found out that 5 hours is actually closer to 10 when i factor in the time it takes to prepare each lesson. i started half-way through a 4 week session, taking over classes from 2 other teachers, which means that if any of my students fail (and they will), they don't have to look very far for someone to point a finger at. oh, and on monday, the class sizes doubled and tripled to accommodate the new students from vietnam airlines. slather on the fact that i'm writing the curriculum for an "idioms in conversation" class as i go. that's right: a direct injection of my brain juices into my students' spongy heads with no textbook to facilitate the transmission. the poison: slang, and it wasn't even my idea...

needless to say, updating the blog has been impossible despite an ever-growing stack of ideas and intentions. here is a list of blog entries i have lined up, that hopefully i'll have time to write on friday and saturday:

Gooday, Baday
Thermodynamics, and the Second Law of Wiping My Ass
How's It Slangin' Happy?
L-Bombs and Napalm
I'm Sorry or the Fuck Did You Just Say?

and there are more, they just don't have good titles yet...

in the meantime check out blatt's blog because he's been knocking'em down left and right. Bathroom Etiquette, SARS-ry, Freedom, and Aws'em are all good for a laugh. the rest is just blatt crying like a bitch about reparations (???) and robots taking over the world of humor (but the line, "the future is coming up soon," reminded me of that great comedian of modern times, g.w. bush).

fuck. i've already gone way over my 5 minute time limit, and i still have to work to prepare for work tomorrow while i work at that place where i work. what a dirty word, "work."

'mout.

wait one last thing: aol is once again denying me entry into my mailbox no matter how many times i slap my passport on the computer screen. i haven't had access to e-mail in a few days so if you've e-mailed me... and you haven't, then don't worry because i don't yet know that you don't give a shit about me.

okokokok so you want a pic: here's one of blatt smashed looking like he wants to smash out more of his teeth on kenny quagmire's front door steps.

now imagine this fucking slob deciding whether or not you go to jail. ahhh blatt BlAtT bLaTt BLATT BLAATTTTT!!!

Phuong-us: A Relapse of That Itchy Rash

i was impressed. i had met her on a monday, seen her a few times throughout the week, and by saturday she'd already realized that nothing truly good could come from dating me, informing me of her wisdom by not responding to any of the messages i sent her from that night onward.

dropped, like wile e. coyote blindly chasing that elusive bird off a cliff, who falls only once he's realized that he's mid-air while the roadrunner's somehow made it to the other side, mockingly sticking her enticing tongue out at him before she's out of sight.

she set me up for a good fall too, requesting to meet me all week, messaging me with "i miss u" 's, and even giving me a christmas present a week early (craig david... "my favorite! thanks, that's so nice!"). when we went out together, along with her best friend hieu and my right-hand man dave, we found ways to laugh and genuinely have a good time despite our limited ability to express everything we wanted to say to each other. (imagine variations on "you're beautiful." "no, you're beautiful." "you lie." massaged repetitively upon the ego.)

yeah it was a shallow love, lust technically, but i couldn't help but feel utterly baffled at how suddenly the whole charade had ended. what kind of mine had i unwittingly trampled upon? was she miffed that i didn't get her a gift in return? i told her i'd give her something on christmas, when gifts are supposed to be exchanged, and she seemed to understand. had she read this website i absent-mindedly mentioned one night? my entry about how we met wasn't exactly flattering. nah, impossible. i use words with more than 5 letters. (a testament to my confidence she'll never bother reading/translating this blog.)

i suspected she had a boyfriend. that would be the easiest explanation, or at least the easiest on my constitution. in retrospect, it seemed strange to me that she said she had to be home before 11:30 every night, even though i'm almost certain we stayed out past midnight the first night we went out. to be honest, i wouldn't have wasted a moment of contemplation on the matter if she had just given me any excuse. "i'm sorry. you're just not attractive enough for me" or "you looked taller when i first met you" or "oh, i thought you had more money" or "fuck off, you cross-eyed dirtbag" all would have sufficed. but as it were, she left me hanging with no reply at the exact moment i thought i had her, and i couldn't help but feel gnawed at and in awe at the boldness of her actions. i had seriously underestimated this one, or so i thought.

about 2 weeks and one forgotten beginning of an impossible relationship later, on the eve of new year's eve, hieu messaged dave. she said she had been in thailand for a while and just got back. ok. i messaged phuong, inviting her and hieu to the party at my house the following night. no reply. ok. so dave told hieu to come and she said that both she and phuong would meet us the next day. ...ok?

by this point i had abandoned all expectations. fuck off or fuck me, i really didn't give a fuck anymore. we met them at dinner on new year's eve, where they met the rest of our friends for the first time. hieu was her usual bubbly self and phuong appeared to me a block of ice. i asked her where she'd been and she said she didn't know. "ok." she said she had changed her number. "ok." she asked me if i wanted to give her my number again. "ok." she asked if dave and i wanted to leave our friends in the middle of dinner to go somewhere else. "ok." and in the time it takes a single ice cube to completely spill, i once more found myself in inexplicable pursuit of that exotic avean flu.

we went to karaoke, showed up back at the house 15 minutes to midnight, kissed her on the cheek (a big move in vietnam) at the commencement of the new year, and agreed to go bowling the following night. and then by far the most unsurprising event of the new year, even surpassing my having woken up that very morning: neither she nor hieu showed up at the bowling alley, or even bothered calling us to cancel. nice. i messaged phuong, and this time she replied with an apology and an excuse: hieu was busy. "ok, this is it. meet me tomorrow, just you and me, or leave me alone." she said "ok." so the next day we saw alexander together and while neither one of us understood what the hell was going on, albeit for different reasons, we had fun together and have been going out on a semi-regular basis ever since.

now don't underestimate me. i haven't forgotten the taste of shit she left in my mouth a mere million 3 weeks ago, and nearing the third saturday since she squatted wordlessly over me, i must admit that i am vengefully tempted to tell her to meet me somewhere and never show up, and never respond to a single word of hers, and never ever contact her ever again.

this is the sadistic cynicism with which i regard this resumed recreational activity of mine that resembles research more than it does a relationship. but for the time being, i am interested in poking and mixing potions, and joking and fixing emotions, seeing this concoction to its proper conclusion. plus, the other night she and hieu came to our house and cooked us all dinner, and i'm cool with that. what a sweetheart, but she probably should have left me impressed.

A Dispatch From Genghis Appleseed

**************************************************************

-hey, mat. sorry i got home so late last night. i know today was your first day of work, but i assure you that i was working hard in your interest throughout the night.

-first, remember that chick from bill's?
-the one with the boyfriend you spoke with on christmas eve?
-...the hot one?
-yeah. she said she's not working there anymore...
-yes, a shame indeed. well, before i could begin to execute plan b, she asked for your number, and i of course got hers in return. then i kicked her ass in pool and told her to message you anytime on my way out.
-your welcome.

-then dave, pat, and i headed over to club 259, that club we crashed on christmas eve.
-yeah it was cool. i told the people working there that i was santa and they smiled and shook my hand. there was a girl that worked there as a dancer and -
-yeah, she's paid just to dance with people - and she asked dave something in vietnamese but he couldn't hear, so she wrote it down but he still couldn't understand what it said. seizing this moment of vulnerability, i grabbed the paper, pretended to read it, and then said that i understood and asked her for her number.
-yeah, she was cute, but whatever they're paying her there it's too much, because she can't dance for shit.
-yes, i know that's the case with all of them, but the others aren't paid dancers. anyway, you'll have to forgive me because i gave her number to dave.
-well if it wasn't for him, she probably wouldn't have written anything down and - fuck him? but my orders are for girls... i don't understand.
-oh ok. well he probably has the best shot with this one because i think the only english she knows is "phone number."
-very well then, it won't happen again.

-oh and one last thing. after the club, we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed over to sahara.
-i know but it's the only place open that late. so there are these girls that work there...
-yes, working girls...
-of course not. we met them a few nights ago. only talked. nothing else, you know that. anyway, one is pretty cute and i kinda... uhhh. well... you see, i felt bad for them because they don't get as much business as the other girls there and it's mostly because they can't speak english so i sort of told them you'd teach them english and got her number.

...

-i seriously doubt you've 'made better decisions' while trying to find your face when you were tripping on mushrooms.
-yes, she knows it's not a 'transaction.'
-when? ummmmm... tonight. some time after you're done working and before she begins working.

...

-i apologize. i just figured since you're not getting any action from phuong, maybe you could-
-ok ok fine, i'm sorry... oh one more thing. the girls' madame is thao... retired working girl thao. and she still looks sexy...

[end of transmission]

***************************************************************

Initial Upload

i wish this album were more complete, or even organized, but simply in the interest of showing you guys some pictures as quickly as possible, i've uploaded a bunch of random pics. none of the house just yet, but there are some good ones from christmas and of the people i've been hanging around with for the past couple months. i hope to retrofit the site with links to all the relevant pictures, including the pics from other people's cameras, but in the meantime just check these out: initial upload

Resolution 1: 2005 Will Be My Bitch

i have one and only one resolution for the new year, and that is to make 2005 my bitch.

now you may be wondering how i plan on subjugating the moments of time from 12:00 am jan 1, 2005 to 11:59 pm december 31, 2005 to the desires of my whimsy, but first just know that my disrespectful attitude towards this coming year stems largely from the transgressions of previous years. for example, 2001 straight up ignored me for the most part and, and then 2002 punk'd me by telling me it's cool if i just smoke weed and sleep all day... then i thought i'd run up behind 2003 and bitch slap it across the back of its fat head, but it kicked me in the balls - several times if i remember correctly - and i don't, because that was the year i added mushrooms to my dish of life.

2004 made a grand entrance with kenny quagmire ripping his own christmas tree down, smashing those ornaments like they were 2003 all over his rug. i thought that was cool, so i gave 2004 a high five as it strolled through the front door, agreeing to get my life in order if it just let me graduate from nyu. it did, and then i sat around all summer thinking about what i could do to perpetuate the responsibility-free lifestyle of the past 4 years without getting a real job and without continuing my education. the sage year replied, "yo, just go to 'nam." i said, "vietnam? how the hell does that solve any of my problems? quit the crazy talk and get me a beer... hmmm well, if i step on a landmine that would probably mean i wouldn't have to get a job but - do you have a bottle opener, thanks - but what if it sucks?" "what if i take a crap on your face while you sleep, huh? so what? there's nothing you can do about it... c'mon." i gave it no more than a swig's worth of thought. "...you had me at "c'mon."

so i decided to trust the year that had previously persuaded me to parade around for a while with a mohawk, and had convinced me that it'd be cool if i borrowed blatt's car to drive upstate for the weekend, but then robbed it of oil and set it on fire while i watched incredulously as 2004 laughed maniacally. that year was a little nutty if you ask me, but i have respect for it nonetheless. and it was the same year that showed me what would happen if i didn't take charge of my life, pointing apathetically, unmockingly at my lazy alcoholic, TV-holed, comfortably ruined uncle chris, and then swung its large arm around to the other side of the planet, index finger still extended, and motioned towards this sliver of communist-controlled land in southeast asia they call vietnam.

so here i am, teaching the only thing i know enough about to qualify me to pass on to others: english. it's satisfying work, not deeply, but more so than say calculating the marginal increases in third quarter fixed costs. in addition to the fact that teachers are held in relatively high regard here, the kids are just as fascinated by foreigners as everyone else, if not more so, because they've had less actual interactions with us and know us mostly from the glossy effigies they see of us on tv. as far as teaching goes i'll simply say that i find it empowering to have an audience of people looking to you for instructions and relying on your knowledge. everyday my objectives are clear and a successful day is effected by no one but myself. i am constantly improving and, as long as i have an obstacle to overcome, i'm happy.

luckily, obstacles are not hard to come by here. and since most of them involve my inability to communicate with the majority of people who live here, my biggest challenge will be learning to speak the language. while this would be an accomplishment unto itself, to be honest, my true motive is simply to be able to kick it to the vietnamese hotties that seem to multiply everyday. but exchanging stares is so 2004, it's time to woo, and i think this will be much easier to do once i can translate, "gimme some suga, sweetcakes." it's well-known that women find this phrase absolutely irresistible and once i master the vietnamese equivalent i'll be beating them back with a stick. as i make progress towards this ambitious goal, it will be easier and easier to make 2005 reply, "yes, massa" to all my vietnamese commands. mark my words: i will learn to speak vietnamese in 2005.

but even if i can't, i'm still positive that this year will have purple knees come december. how do i know for sure that 2005 will be my bitch? well right now, it's 2 in the morning and i'm sitting on the rooftop terrace of my house, in my torn khaki abercrombie shorts and a white 'flint' t-shirt, thinking about how absurdly nice my life has been here and wishing you guys could share in my experiences out here in a more direct way than by reading this blog. but it's the best i can do, and it's something i'll continue to work hard at. and since linda discovered that certain parts of the house have wireless reception to our neighbor thao ly's network, (pronounced "towellie," to her unwitting indifference as well as mine. whoever the fuck you are, though, thanks.) i should be updating more often again, which i hope you'll enjoy. that and the addition of pictures which will now accompany the stories on the site.

happy new year and the best of luck to you all in making it your bitch. 'mout.

- one thing, happy birthday to devon (Jan. 1). hope you're good.