Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Combining old with new.
Sorry for the repeats, just wanted to get rid of old site since redundant, not helpful and never visited by me. So... going to shut that down now. YAY. Less shit is always good.
2007
Other observational stuff.
Over the Xmas period, we spent a couple of days in the car. On our return journey, at a pit stop, we pulled over to eat and fill up with petrol, as you do. Behind us this four wheel drive Volvo family wagon monstrosity pulled in to park, and a 6 foot, label written, toxic, man looking Barbie (I think it was female), practically fell out of the front passengers seat, dragging her litter with her. Taking stock of her, I got somewhat curiously excited to see what type of reality she had come from, with her botoxed plastic looking surgery-ised face, her peroxide hair, complete with Louis Vuitton patterned shoes and matching hand bag, covered in an all over sunburn, off set by her too small for whore shorts and white bikini top.
Gauging the car, it included 3 kids aged around 12, 6, and 4, an Asian middle aged woman sitting in the back, and a middle aged, young looking, but balding Mediterranean father, sort of warm and friendly which i picked up on when he asked if his daughter (son actually but he had 2 older daughters, so obviously got a little confused sometimes, it happens if you aren't around much) could pat our dog... which was perfectly fine.
This mismatched bunch straggled inside, the Courtney Love crossed with Pete Burns creature taking one of the younger children's hands, talk about faux parenting. They were such an... interesting bunch of people (is the nice way of saying it) I couldn't help but watch them whilst waiting for our food (actually my eyes were peeled, it was like a gruesome car crash I couldn't take my eyes off, not even if I tried). I figured the children didn't look like her, no way in hell, and there was definetly no wedding rings, so she wasn't the wife or mother, so I surmised she must be the trophy whore. The real mother couldn't have been out of the picture for long though, as the youngest was still young. And this new 'Thing' must have been around for at least a significant amount of time, to be taken on a long drive in the family wagon, with three kids who probably don't like her very much at all.
She was unintrested in the children, constantly teetering off outside in her impractical high heels to smoke, and preoccupied with her own image, yet looked uncomfortable in her own skin (maybe it had been pulled back too tight the last visit to the surgeons, who knows)... She wasn't I don't know, ugly or horrific looking, until you looked at her head. She had a great body, that's probably the nicest thing I could say about her.
The middle aged Asian woman was the nanny I figured, there was just no where else she fit in. her body language, and obvious concern for the children's wellbeing (someone had to care for them whilst daddy got his dick sucked), as well as her deference to the other adults made her seem like hired help. The children, as children always are when reasonably comfortable, where oblivious of the spectacle the plastic, glamorised, 6 foot something inches, peroxide Thing made of the weird family pack.
I couldn't figure out why, if you had enough money to divorce the ex, make sure your kids were looked after by hired help, and could keep your trophy whore souped up on plastic surgery and presented with expensive designer labels as a possession should be... why the fuck would you pick one that looked like this. I mean the only reason we figured that he brought her along on the 'family holiday' was so he could get serviced. I don't think it would have been for the deep soulful connection they had (she looked devoid of soul), or the mental stimulation they inspired in each other (her voice grated on my ears as a true trailer park person would). If I was having a mid life crisis, upgrading to the trophy whore and paying for the privilege, I would be wanting something a whole lot finer than that coochie cutter. But who I am to say that it wasn't true love... give or take a credit card with a 50k limit.
It did, however, keep me amused for a good half hour. It was a sideshow spectacle on the road, which could be read and on a surface level, be analyzed, pathologised, and categorised... and I love taxonomy. It made for light, long driving, and small space confinement, entertainment. The beauty of sexual economy always fascinates me.
Trophy Whores 17.01.07
Over the Xmas period, we spent a couple of days in the car. On our return journey, at a pit stop, we pulled over to eat and fill up with petrol, as you do. Behind us this four wheel drive Volvo family wagon monstrosity pulled in to park, and a 6 foot, label written, toxic, man looking Barbie (I think it was female), practically fell out of the front passengers seat, dragging her litter with her. Taking stock of her, I got somewhat curiously excited to see what type of reality she had come from, with her botoxed plastic looking surgery-ised face, her peroxide hair, complete with Louis Vuitton patterned shoes and matching hand bag, covered in an all over sunburn, off set by her too small for whore shorts and white bikini top.
Gauging the car, it included 3 kids aged around 12, 6, and 4, an Asian middle aged woman sitting in the back, and a middle aged, young looking, but balding Mediterranean father, sort of warm and friendly which i picked up on when he asked if his daughter (son actually but he had 2 older daughters, so obviously got a little confused sometimes, it happens if you aren't around much) could pat our dog... which was perfectly fine.
This mismatched bunch straggled inside, the Courtney Love crossed with Pete Burns creature taking one of the younger children's hands, talk about faux parenting. They were such an... interesting bunch of people (is the nice way of saying it) I couldn't help but watch them whilst waiting for our food (actually my eyes were peeled, it was like a gruesome car crash I couldn't take my eyes off, not even if I tried). I figured the children didn't look like her, no way in hell, and there was definetly no wedding rings, so she wasn't the wife or mother, so I surmised she must be the trophy whore. The real mother couldn't have been out of the picture for long though, as the youngest was still young. And this new 'Thing' must have been around for at least a significant amount of time, to be taken on a long drive in the family wagon, with three kids who probably don't like her very much at all.
She was unintrested in the children, constantly teetering off outside in her impractical high heels to smoke, and preoccupied with her own image, yet looked uncomfortable in her own skin (maybe it had been pulled back too tight the last visit to the surgeons, who knows)... She wasn't I don't know, ugly or horrific looking, until you looked at her head. She had a great body, that's probably the nicest thing I could say about her.
The middle aged Asian woman was the nanny I figured, there was just no where else she fit in. her body language, and obvious concern for the children's wellbeing (someone had to care for them whilst daddy got his dick sucked), as well as her deference to the other adults made her seem like hired help. The children, as children always are when reasonably comfortable, where oblivious of the spectacle the plastic, glamorised, 6 foot something inches, peroxide Thing made of the weird family pack.
I couldn't figure out why, if you had enough money to divorce the ex, make sure your kids were looked after by hired help, and could keep your trophy whore souped up on plastic surgery and presented with expensive designer labels as a possession should be... why the fuck would you pick one that looked like this. I mean the only reason we figured that he brought her along on the 'family holiday' was so he could get serviced. I don't think it would have been for the deep soulful connection they had (she looked devoid of soul), or the mental stimulation they inspired in each other (her voice grated on my ears as a true trailer park person would). If I was having a mid life crisis, upgrading to the trophy whore and paying for the privilege, I would be wanting something a whole lot finer than that coochie cutter. But who I am to say that it wasn't true love... give or take a credit card with a 50k limit.
It did, however, keep me amused for a good half hour. It was a sideshow spectacle on the road, which could be read and on a surface level, be analyzed, pathologised, and categorised... and I love taxonomy. It made for light, long driving, and small space confinement, entertainment. The beauty of sexual economy always fascinates me.
2008 Intro to Brave New World.
These are quite dated now... things have changed.
2008.
Welcome to my Brave New World. Quite an apt title I thought, considering how life turns out as each day passes. Certainly not how I imagined it would, when I was deciding what I wanted to be as a small child: Actress, Lawyer... and for that one nano second, a Police Person, * scratches head *.
Now, I think about the night I told my parents that little doozy, they probably looked at me horrified. Like some little demon spawn. We were driving home in our classic E.H. Holden, home being a house? (that’s being generous I suppose), in the middle of nowheresville.
They were smoking weed (it was the fashion of the time), and my dad had a bottle of Beam between his legs (entertainment for the drive home I’m guessing), not an unusual occurrence. They had probably just ended another weekend of boofing up and having sex with other people. They were nudists, it was the early 80's, and they were children of the revolution * shrugs *.
In an instant, their proclivities disappointed me to the extent of wanting to be the person who held the power to imprison and persecute them. It was a small, but overwhelming feeling, momentary and fleeting.
This was around that age where the world makes some, but not that much sense to a young child. A young’n who can write the symbols of their name, yet the letter ‘E’ has at least 10 horizontal strokes. Where I was convinced I was adopted (which both delighted and terrified me), and I would ape cartoons I had seen, by trying to pull my mum’s head off to reveal the alien life form that existed beneath. Go He-Man, Master of the Universe (I didn’t really identify with She-Ra, nice costume though).
[I would also shove small pieces of lego up my nose, the little red flowery bits you could pull off the tiny green stems... repeatedly]
With a little time passing and reason forming, I wanted to become the person who kept them secure, alive and protected. All the while though, having dreams of being someone else, any fucking one else, in a world where wearing clothes to bed was perfectly fine with me. Acting was the way to go... for a short time, until I learnt a life of rejection would not stand me well. Then, a life in the adult industry (not much rejection there)... I have some stories I can share later, if you're interested.
I don’t want to be a changeling anymore, no more shape shifting for me. I’m just the kid they told to stop frowning because my face would freeze like that... Hey guess what, ‘they’ were right. But now I’m a 30 year old kid with the same frown of that 3 year old. It’s just more furrowed.
If you ask me why I frown so much... There is a plethora of reasons which are inexplicable to the common man, (read you). It’s easier just to say I frown, because... well, how about for a second, you just think about the state of the world right now, and how it might turn out (and then I think about how I am situated within in it)... My glass was not half empty; it fell on the floor, cracked into a million pieces and jabbed a great big gash into my foot.
I am the sum (math equation) of them, hoping to create problems (fractions) of my own.
This is my brave new world or I am a new world brave, (Google had run out of options on the Huxley title, sorry) – both are relevant. One in which we leave fascist western doctrines behind, starting afresh, with hope, security and freedom in this great time of flux. One where I smile, laugh, and regret no longer. One where we get a maid to do the housework (paid handsomely and treated well I promise).
All about me 2008
All About Me
Hmmm....
Well lets see, I’m not quite tall enough to be a model, nor good looking enough. I Don’t have straight teeth, and I sucked my thumb until I was 13 (insecurity issues, but it did prove useful in other areas). I Have an asymmetrical face, quite noticeable in pictures. We all think we are not normal... but really, I am not normal.
I hate shopping, and don’t really like wearing dresses. I walk into shops and admire the mens clothing (I’m not gay... I don’t like fish or chicken). I’ve got some weird hairy gene, I think it’s the Indonesian in me.
I’ve been called racist, sexist, misogynistic, agist, and a bitch... they are probably all correct in some way. I’ve also been called a feminist, I’m not quite sure what is worse.
I love my family and my closest friends. Trust and loyalty are ‘must haves’ from people who I consider worth spending time with... [what is this, a personal ad?] I get depressed easily. I haven’t turned into the person I thought I was going to be.
I had a four year obsession with Elvis Presley, from age 9 to 13, where I could have told you any facts you wanted to know. I have forgotten most now, apart from he was born a twin (Jesse Garon died at birth) on 8th of January, 1935, and died 16th? of August 1977 on his ‘throne’. He was 42 years old. He met Priscilla when she was 14 and he 24, and married her 10 years later. Lisa Marie was born 9 months to the day after their wedding ceremony. It took me a long time to believe he was dead, and for a couple of years I was positive I was going to marry him. Delusional one might call it. And last, but not least, apparently he was into coprophilia... or at least a lot of sex to do with asses (And I didn't need to wiki any of that).
I also loved Archie comic books. I identify more with Veronica than Betty, just her personality though, because I’m not rich. I fell in love with older men at age 9, when I saw Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October. Men just look right at about age 40... Oh, and I married one. A 40 something year old that is.Thats me, in a nutshell. This place is for my closest confidantes to scrutinize my latest adventures.
What you should know
Name:
Two Vowels and a consonant. It’s not phonetic.
Occupation:
What ever takes my fancy on the day.
Favorite Subjects:
Sex, Deviancy, Anarchy, Avoiding the ‘Others’.
Favorite Vacation Spot:
Where ever the tourists aren’t.
Personal Motto:
Fuck Me!
My 5 Albums on an deserted Island
- Night Clubbing
- Off the Wall
- Second Toughest In The Infants (minus the Trainspotting song).
- Stop Making Sense
- ... still mulling it over.
November 2008, Cambodia
The first time I tried to start blogging, with google sites: FAIL.
Some time in NOVEMBER 2008. Cambodia
Eugghh, great font choices they give you on this piece of shit site...
Some time in NOVEMBER 2008. Cambodia
Ok. Verdana it is. I'm not blogging, I'm slogging... It makes more sense to me.
Here I am, in Dodgy Cambodgy, as I like to call it. I'm staying in a lovely hotel, 50 meters from the beach. We have a full staff of Khmer's, who if you're very lucky, will produce about 3 hours of half decent work a day, even though they are supposed to work a full day (who can blame them, some annual wages would be a dinner in an up-market restaurant, and night out on the town without drugs, and by dugs I mean alcohol and nicotine). Getting them to do something how you want it done, is not unlike pulling teeth out of an abscess which has festered for weeks. So obviously, now being as close to as a Khmer citizen as I'm going to get on my business visa (import/export clothing – apparently), I'm trying to adapt my way of thinking and being to just... go with the flow: "be like the reed in the wind Lisa". Sometimes, well actually never, does anything go to plan.
Cambodia is a funny little place. It works on graft, not unlike most Asian countries I imagine. Alcohol is cheap, whores are cheap, drugs are plentiful, and you can buy anything you want, without a prescription, over the pharmacy counter... and I do mean anything (as long as it is in stock)... eat your heart out you valium freaks. If you know where to go, the food is good, at a price no one can contend – just watch for the over charging. And the 'type' of tourist you get here now, is changing. Yeah, you still get your miscreants, pedophiles, and vagrants from western countries, exploiting the young, abject poverty pussy to be had. But increasingly, since it has been voted one of the top destinations in Europe to go in recent years, generally due to it's insanely cheap prices, you now get backpackers, eurotrash (I'm talking fat, blubbery, cottage cheese whales in little g-strings – male and female), families, young couples and a variety of other people escaping the cold northern hemisphere winters, for months at a time. You come across some pretty interesting people with some wildly fantastic stories.
Temporarily living at the hotel, while I wait for my life to piece itself back together in this current economic climate, is kinda like living in a bad asian soap opera. Every day something goes just a bit wrong, and as you would expect, shitloads gets lost in translation. Don't get me wrong... even though the Khmer's have absolutely no work ethic, they are kinda humorous to watch. It's like hanging out with a bunch of sweet, naively modest but manipulative children. They love karaoke, their mobile phones, they share their food without question, even if they have nothing. They have like five changes of clothes, basically no possessions and are generally a happy bunch of little monkey's who speak a lot of jibber jabber. Their language seems non specific, picking up leaves off the beach means the same thing as picking up the plastic off the beach... they say the best word you can learn here is 'What?'... mainly so they explain it so many times that you finally understand what they hell they are trying to tell you. And that's for those who actually speak the language.
The town is so small, everyone knows your business, but really, that isn't any different from any other community I have ever lived in. Here people might know it, they just don't give a shit. I love that, oh yeah baby, thats the shizzzz.
November 2008, Market in Cambodgy
Some other day in November, don't ask me when, I have totally lost track of time, and I'm too lazy to go to the top tool bar to look at the date. Cambodia.
The Market: there is no better way to give myself an anxiety attack than going shopping at the market. It's smelly, dirty, busy, lots of people brushing past you, touching you, hawkers, poor people begging, just horrid, horrid, horrid. Every time I get back from market it takes me at least an hour to get my heart rate down, back to normal. I know with the OCD training I've had many years ago, more exposure will get me used to it... but seriously, I can't handle it. Most of you will think, oohh how cool, the market, it seems so alive.
The thing I think I can't handle the most, being a pseudo vegetarian ('why Lisa, whhyyyyy?'), is looking at animals freshly slaughtered, or waiting to be killed, kinda makes me sad. Still for all you meat eaters, you're meat was killed before sunrise this morning; or you can take your pick of the living shit, and they will kill and pluck, and bone, and fillet, and whatever it is the fuck they do, while you wait.
Hmm, my tone sounds a bit bitter... I don't think today is a good day. The only reason I go to market is to help Anny, she can't carry twenty kilos of food by herself. Although, she does a damn good job trying. They charge me more anyways because I'm barang (khmer word for french person, but it translates to all white trash).
Man, the world would be better place if I just liked people more, and shopping didn't make me lose the will to live. (omitting pics, too lazy to upload on this shitty bandwidth)
November 2008, Weekend in BKK
Later November... still unsure of dates, (I'm thinking mid).
Got invited to Bangkok for a sexy times weekend with my husband. He hadn't slept for a few days, coming from two hard core Freelance months in Singapore, so the first day he crashed, and the second day his body finally decided it was so exhausted, it let the cold which had been threatening to erupt all week, take over. Fun times, not really sexy though... He said the next time he was throwing up, a caring wife would come in and hold his hair out of the bowl, not yell from the other room mid-hurl 'are you ok in there?'. He couldn't answer, obviously, because of the projectile vomit.
What we did establish though, after the sleeping and vomiting, is that we think we are moving to Bangkok this coming year. Why not. The job offer is good, the guy offering it fun (Mike said working with him previously in his career was the best time he ever had), and there is plenty of opportunity for free enterprise while every other boat in the joint sinks because of company debt. We get a small house and a small car, we can supposedly import the dogs with little hassle *insert graft payments here, and are allowed to choose how much work to take on. That means Mike only does a hundred and forty hour week if he wants to. I am very excited.
I have often thought business meetings in strip bars would go well. Now I get to test my theory. I can't wait to corrupt a whole bunch of clients in the seedy dens of inequity, downtown Bangkok. Although, I'm betting most of them are well versed in the nightlife of Pat Pong.
We stayed in a nice hotel. Sukhamvit soi 5, right down in the action apparently. The water pressure was good, but not particularly hot. We didn't really go anywhere, apart from the trip to the post house. And just because the hubby loves me so much, he gave me his cold as a parting gift. Sharing is caring dontya know?
Tony is the guy we, meaning more Mike than myself, will be working with. In all the post houses I have walked into with Mike, Tony's is the one where I have been made to feel the most comfortable. He has a laid back sensibility and a ribald sense of humour. However, the two things which appealed most to me about Tony is 1. he works in cash, and 2. he wants to fuck the market. Music couldn't be sweeter to my ears (it's not really, music generally just sounds like noise to me these days, but you get the analogy). I'm not exactly sure what he would be like to hang around all the time. But with those two objectives in mind, he won my vote.
So people, heres to a free place to stay when you next visit thailand. Must love dogs. Normal People need not apply (you know who you are).
MARCH 2009
Ok, fuck it’s half way through March. The year is nearly over and it hasn’t even begun to feel like it’s started yet.
Well, what an eventful few months. I have no idea of any timeline anymore, but I can honestly say that I think Australian healthcare was trying to kill me, I probably helped them along a little though.
For 3 years, well actually since the beginning of blood, I’ve had incredibly bad ‘wimin’s problems’, but over the past few months with everything that has been going on, they had become completely debilitating. With the amount of stress and duress I was under (moving country, crash course in farm management, a perpetually medicated dog, house packing and a month of organising last minute shit where 3,800 km’s were traversed, a thousand changes made, and finicky fine details by unreasonable people has to be adhered to, oh and a husband who had an acquired a drinking problem and liked to give me a stern talking to for a few hours a day, whilst drunk) and the upping the tolerance of self medicating to keep pushing myself and to stay sane, I also incurred another stomach ulcer. Third one before 30… can anyone say ‘bonus round’?
This period of time also included a couple of doctors appointments in December, and a ultrasound at a private hospital, another couple of doctors appointment, all to say that there was absolutely “NOTHING WRONG WITH ME’. Well my insides anyways… everyone knew I was starting to go crazy. So they helped medicate me to stay sane so I could sleep, breathe and speak in sentences instead of frothing at the mouth and stuttering. Thanks for that.
Then when the pain started really bad, horrible abdominal cramps, the ulcer coming on (sure signs of this is acid reflux, inability to eat food without pain, and rapid weight loss) I had a trip back to emergency, (got seen to pretty quickly – acute pain room 2) where again, I was ‘stabilised’, internally examined, tested for everything I had been tested a month beforehand, knowing it would be negative, and sent home with really strong painkillers this time, and again told that there seemed to be nothing wrong with me.
I did mention I was moving to Asia though, and the Australian doctor there was VERY encouraging about how good the health care system was where I was immigrating.
Anyways, I went back home after emergency, started taking the new meds, promptly throwing them up, rang the hospital three times the same day to hopefully talk to the doctor who looked after me to find out any more results that might have come through, but only got through to nurses whose medical advice was ‘oh yes, that would be the morphine making you throw up, when your stomach settles and you’re in pain again, just take another pain killer’. It was at this time, I pretty much gave up pain killers, and Valium, and everything but the sleepers, so I could at least sleep till I could get out of the country. What a fun week that was. Rapid detox, full of fun and pain and anxiety.
So, I made it out of Australia, waved the customs agents goodbye, and slept my first night without the help of sleepers for about 3 weeks on the plane. The sleep of relief, and of the vindicated.
I get to Bangkok… the next drama is waiting for the dogs. Will they arrive, wont they arrive, what day will they arrive, are they going to arrive with their 1.67 mean average of eyes. Another stress, to deal with. Well they do arrive, healthy, alive, happy to get out of a small box they had spent the last 24 hours of their lives in, and with their mean average of eyes. Thank god. Another catastrophe averted.
I do get a doctors appointment though. And get put on a full course of stomach ulcer medication, which means I can start digesting food again. W00T. I’m not going to die this week. And next week, they can do something about the ‘wimins bits’.
Then there is 6 of us: 3 dogs, and 3 people in one small room. A house still needs to be found. The husband has spent two weeks of fruitless two hour drives in Bangkok traffic to dumpy little places in the middle of nowhere with a 2X2 metre squared garden, to scoff, and start the process all over again.
When I arrived it was my turn. I did it twice, and was so depressed about ending up a suburban wife with no friends in the middle of nowhere, having no transport and drinking gin at midday, with the stoic expat wife grimace I have become familiar with, that I cried. Then I totally changed the MO of where we were going to live.
We did haggle with the 30 mins out of town, 6 bedroom house, one acre block people, to no avail. I am sure I will look back at this period of my life and laugh… much, much later. Anyways, after a week of doing that process, dancing around, you lease this, take it off that, don’t pay taxes here, yadda, I got fed up. Woke up next day and decided, “we are going to choose a house TODAY”. I am not living in the suburbs, and the dogs are just fucking dogs, fuck the garden, and the pool.
We looked at 3 houses that day. We chose the second one. Extremely central, close to work, five storeys, five bedrooms, a shared common area of park for the dogs, security, etc. Lots of space, I can hang things in/on the walls, tons of flights of stairs, so my ass is going to look great, and the dogs will get more than enough exercise, running up and down stairs all day. Of course we have to pay to get the place cleaned. And a couple more days of price haggling and lease signing, dancey dance, dancey dance.
So now we have the dogs, a house (which needs cleaning and repairs), and our stuff has arrived in sea freight, but we don’t have a work permit yet so we cant get it out of customs. Ok things are looking up. I go back for the second doctors appointment, with the gastro, my stomach is better. Well the top bit of it. Then I go downstairs to the Women’s department and check in with the gyno. Not much he can do for me that week, because we’re back in bad pain territory. So 5 days later. I get booked in.
I like this doctor, he has a picture of Melbourne on his back wall, he speaks good English, he is ever so polite (he says stuff like ‘may I look into your vagina now?, may you spread your legs now? may I stick my Fingers into your vagina now?’ etc). I had already explained to him my experiences with the Australian health care system, where he had shaken his head and kind of laughed at their treatment of me and made the appropriate ‘tut tut’ sounds.
When I go for the actual INTERNAL ULTRASOUND – (here is the clue Australian medical healthcare practitioners: when someone complains of chronic ongoing pain in their gyno area, maybe suggest the internal ultrasound, which can actually pick up the problem that they could have… dickheads)… anyways, when I go for the internal examination, he finds all the problem spots he suspects I have. Now when he says ‘Suspects’, I pretty much take that as… well you probably/maybe definitely have something wrong with you here! And he was right.
He asked ‘when do you want it fixed’, hubby and I turn to each other, look back at him and say ‘A soon as possible’, and he says… “how about tomorrow morning at 8am. We can do the preliminary tests now, and it is a good time of month” etc.
So Hey Presto: 3 hours of hospital time that night, a taxi driver who speaks good English to pick me up at 6.45 am the next morning, surgery pretty much as soon as I walk in the door. A 5 star hospital hotel room, 3-4 hours in surgery, a fuck load of sedation – 6-7 hours of it afterwards, seeing double of everything, including a nice something, something inch flat screen TV, 4 nurses on call, drugs when in pain. 6-7 bags of saline, a catheter for my pee, (kinda disconcerting). I went in 49 kilos, and less than 48 hours later I was 55 kilos, (until I did a shit… and man did that hurt), but I think I had eaten a total of maybe 2 meals in there.
I stick to soft foods for the next week. But I did get my boobs back. All the salt and sugar seem to have gone straight to my boobs, oh and my left arm is substantially bigger than my right. The entire operation cost about 4k US, and happened immediately, and will hopefully allow me to have children and stop me having 2 weeks of pain a month for the rest of my life. And I get to keep my fallopian tubes. So kinda awesome results all round, except for the recovery… because of the stomach ulcer nuisance I can only take Tylenol as a pain killer. Probably not a bad thing. And I'm out of the hospital and walking around.
So, there is so much more the story than that. But fuck, who wants to bore any of you any more than I already have. Australian health care bites the fucking weenie. I highly recommend coming to Thailand for any major surgery, and you can get it cheaper than what I did. For some reason I got booked into the 5 star hotel hospital, I’m sure you can haggle, I mean, they already were, over my hospital bill. Ahhh Asia, you got to love it.
Pssst. Just never mention anything about eating chicken feet!
Oh, And I will will post 'The Opening of Cysty Beethoven' DVD highlights of my operation on youtube later. Worst horror movie ever. Only 3 more scars though, and they aren't very big. I think I can still wear a bikini.
MAY 2009
Just reposting some old blogs here from last year, combining shit together I guess, less confusing for me. The less confusion the better here.
May: 2009
As I sit here, late at night, waiting *dreading* for my 30th year to commence, in a new country with no friends, only a few acquaintances, whom I have very little in common with, (and where I can categorically say Bangkok is a boys ‘sexpat drinking dinneyland’, and not many of these boys grow up), I think I’m having a slightly expat ‘homemaking’ wifeypoo existential crises.
Jobless, directionless, and lacking clear focus of what I intend to do when I grow up, I realise that, if the next 30 years pass a fast as the last 30 years have, I really ought to get my shit together.
At night, while the city calms to a deafening silence, alone in my insomnia, wandering the intwerweb, and reading what books I have left, I start to feel this indescribable sense of anxiety for the lack of accomplishments I have achieved in such a large amount of time. The lack of skills (people skills especially), lack of experience, lack of money and security, with the excuse of what small, pure ‘ornamental value’ I had (which wasn’t much), slipping through my aging fingers (it all starts to go south at 25, gravity’s a bitch)… Just quietly, I start to freak out. It sounds like screaming in my head.
This sense of anxiety is pervasive through my days of doing very little but sweating by sitting still, in this new country, which I know little about, a culture which is, by all means, contrary to everything I have come to know. Foreign… funny that.
I know that 30, an age defined by mass media, for a woman, is by all means the death knell of youth. If I were in a movie, I would be cast in a role, playing a mother of small children, most likely single or divorced. In a magazine, I would be photo shopped, airbrushed, freshened up, and thinned out. Yet, admittedly, although the body ages, I feel my world-view hasn’t particularly changed since I was a teenager. The only thing, which has occurred to me, is – the older I get, the less I know.
The other day, for the first time, I got this sense, finally, that I could actually enjoy living in a culture where logic is defied, reason as I understand, so far, is: there isn’t any – most clearly illustrated by their driving capabilities. I do so like their toilets though…what I call the ‘reverse bidet’, a hose with a spurty thing on the end. It’s much better than smearing faecal matter everywhere, (essentially what white people do with their toilet paper ways), the shitters here make you feel so clean.
Later that same week (I think)…
I might sound bitter and twisted, and have nothing to do except complain about the place, but there are some pretty cool things about Bangkok, which I will inventory now…
Soi’s 11 through to 7 after 12 AM, (NANA area): The cut off hour for normal bars is about 1-2 AM, so from after midnight, on Sukhumvit, between Soi 11 and 7, most of the little market stalls close down, and the little side bars open up. It is here you can drink cheap beer, or water in my case, and watch the ‘drag and pull… and walk behind’. There are 3 types of men in Bangkok, ones who are dragged home, ones who pull the chicks home, or ones who make the chicks walk a respectable distance behind them to make themselves appear less like a desperate sexpat.
It’s amusing to watch, and you come across some interesting characters, like the IT guy from Calgary (redneck homophobe city), who comes to town specifically for the Kathoeys. He makes a hand motion *two fists bashing together* and says with a little lisp “where lutht meeth lutht”. Or the Orange Juice guy who has just alighted the plane from some shitsburg in England, first destination NANA, and on his way back to his hotel room, sits down on the street for a beer and says “I don’t know what it is about this town, but I feel so sexy”, in full recognition that he is taking the piss out of himself. I kinda like the people watching down there. It’s a definite tourist attraction.
Another thing is the instant flooding of the streets in a torrential downpour. We haven’t quite hit the wet season yet, but I’m getting a taste for it. When asking why people didn’t like coming out in the rain, it took me a couple of hours to realise why. The streets flood up and over the kerbs, and little Thai people are immersed to their knees in the sewer-agy waters of Bangers. I liked it, the first time it happened reminded me of the first time snow fell in Canada, I loved it, it was exciting, the locals groaned and thought of the body count. I figure as the years (days) pass, you come to like it less and less. Cars die when the idiots beside you create a bow of a wave, which engulfs your engine and kills some compressor thingy. Or something. There is a road count of cars at the end of it, for sure.
Cheap Charlies is definitely a highlight when desperate for some English conversation. It’s a quirky little bar down in the lower soi’s, and as indicated by the name is cheaper than the rest. We go here when I have been deprived of interesting and varied English conversation for so long, that I have to go hunting for it. But like any conversations had in Thailand, most of them happen in a bar, and by the end of the night, if you’re the only one who can speak coherently anymore, or follow a single train of thought… it does get kinda dull too. It’s a nice little bar though, and while the boys drink (because essentially it is a male centric town), I can pop across the way and get my hair done, they know how I like it now.
Oh, there is another really cool factor: getting my hair washed and braided, for like, 8 bucks or less. I can sleep on it, and don’t have to worry about it for maximum 3 days. It does start to look like a rats nest after that. ‘Beer Tamada - nun nun’ is what I supposedly like. I think it means normal braid - tightly. Or what we know as French braids. It keeps you cool in the 100% humidity and 30 degrees + celsius days.
Food by Phone means I don’t have to leave the house. Yes, it’s somewhat expensive comparatively, to say, eating on the streets, (I can only eat a few things on the streets, I have yet to learn how to say, ‘no MSG’). But one does have a pretty good selection of international cuisine, brought straight to your door within a 45 minute period. I don’t mind me some Food by Phone. It equals out to basic delivery prices, about 1000 Baht, so with today’s exchange rate $38 AUD for 2 people.
Leaving the house at any given time and being able to find some form of entertainment, if need be, is another plus. It does get to this point sometimes, whether from lack of feeding ourselves, or just the sheer boredom of having nothing to watch.
Our very reasonably priced live in Burmese maid, who speaks very good Thai, but fuck all English. She does a wonderful job of babysitting the dogs, and cleaning, even if you don’t want her to clean. I’ve tried to tell her to sleep in, but she insists on getting up at a sparrows fart to do stuff. I didn’t realise how messy we are, but my husband assures me we wont be able to do things for ourselves soon, and I think he has a point. I try to teach her English, and she tries to teach me Thai. We are developing some kind of recognisable language where we both understand a few words to get by on. It’s an experience. I do worry about her when she doesn’t come home though, because they like to arrest the Burmese, so we have come to learn.
Starting to learn the language. Well, a very rudimentary sense of it anyways. Think it’s going to take me a while. Tonal languages are hard. The word ‘Bus’ has about 5 words (sounds) for the Thai translation. Confusing, say what. But fun accomplishing maybe one or two new words a day. I never thought Thai would be my second language though. Thought it would be something more romantic, like Spanish. I definitely decided against French though, due to sounding too Germanic for me, which I only realised when I went there… and they are rude.
And the massages. Get massaged for 2 hours costs you about 20 AUD or less. Even if they aren’t all to the same standard, they do fix one problem or other, or are relaxing enough to fall asleep to. It’s a nice way to kill some Time.
There are other good points. So I’m not too bitter and twisted yet. Watching the boys get drunk and laid, can have its high points too, I guess.
May: 2009
As I sit here, late at night, waiting *dreading* for my 30th year to commence, in a new country with no friends, only a few acquaintances, whom I have very little in common with, (and where I can categorically say Bangkok is a boys ‘sexpat drinking dinneyland’, and not many of these boys grow up), I think I’m having a slightly expat ‘homemaking’ wifeypoo existential crises.
Jobless, directionless, and lacking clear focus of what I intend to do when I grow up, I realise that, if the next 30 years pass a fast as the last 30 years have, I really ought to get my shit together.
At night, while the city calms to a deafening silence, alone in my insomnia, wandering the intwerweb, and reading what books I have left, I start to feel this indescribable sense of anxiety for the lack of accomplishments I have achieved in such a large amount of time. The lack of skills (people skills especially), lack of experience, lack of money and security, with the excuse of what small, pure ‘ornamental value’ I had (which wasn’t much), slipping through my aging fingers (it all starts to go south at 25, gravity’s a bitch)… Just quietly, I start to freak out. It sounds like screaming in my head.
This sense of anxiety is pervasive through my days of doing very little but sweating by sitting still, in this new country, which I know little about, a culture which is, by all means, contrary to everything I have come to know. Foreign… funny that.
I know that 30, an age defined by mass media, for a woman, is by all means the death knell of youth. If I were in a movie, I would be cast in a role, playing a mother of small children, most likely single or divorced. In a magazine, I would be photo shopped, airbrushed, freshened up, and thinned out. Yet, admittedly, although the body ages, I feel my world-view hasn’t particularly changed since I was a teenager. The only thing, which has occurred to me, is – the older I get, the less I know.
The other day, for the first time, I got this sense, finally, that I could actually enjoy living in a culture where logic is defied, reason as I understand, so far, is: there isn’t any – most clearly illustrated by their driving capabilities. I do so like their toilets though…what I call the ‘reverse bidet’, a hose with a spurty thing on the end. It’s much better than smearing faecal matter everywhere, (essentially what white people do with their toilet paper ways), the shitters here make you feel so clean.
Later that same week (I think)…
I might sound bitter and twisted, and have nothing to do except complain about the place, but there are some pretty cool things about Bangkok, which I will inventory now…
Soi’s 11 through to 7 after 12 AM, (NANA area): The cut off hour for normal bars is about 1-2 AM, so from after midnight, on Sukhumvit, between Soi 11 and 7, most of the little market stalls close down, and the little side bars open up. It is here you can drink cheap beer, or water in my case, and watch the ‘drag and pull… and walk behind’. There are 3 types of men in Bangkok, ones who are dragged home, ones who pull the chicks home, or ones who make the chicks walk a respectable distance behind them to make themselves appear less like a desperate sexpat.
It’s amusing to watch, and you come across some interesting characters, like the IT guy from Calgary (redneck homophobe city), who comes to town specifically for the Kathoeys. He makes a hand motion *two fists bashing together* and says with a little lisp “where lutht meeth lutht”. Or the Orange Juice guy who has just alighted the plane from some shitsburg in England, first destination NANA, and on his way back to his hotel room, sits down on the street for a beer and says “I don’t know what it is about this town, but I feel so sexy”, in full recognition that he is taking the piss out of himself. I kinda like the people watching down there. It’s a definite tourist attraction.
Another thing is the instant flooding of the streets in a torrential downpour. We haven’t quite hit the wet season yet, but I’m getting a taste for it. When asking why people didn’t like coming out in the rain, it took me a couple of hours to realise why. The streets flood up and over the kerbs, and little Thai people are immersed to their knees in the sewer-agy waters of Bangers. I liked it, the first time it happened reminded me of the first time snow fell in Canada, I loved it, it was exciting, the locals groaned and thought of the body count. I figure as the years (days) pass, you come to like it less and less. Cars die when the idiots beside you create a bow of a wave, which engulfs your engine and kills some compressor thingy. Or something. There is a road count of cars at the end of it, for sure.
Cheap Charlies is definitely a highlight when desperate for some English conversation. It’s a quirky little bar down in the lower soi’s, and as indicated by the name is cheaper than the rest. We go here when I have been deprived of interesting and varied English conversation for so long, that I have to go hunting for it. But like any conversations had in Thailand, most of them happen in a bar, and by the end of the night, if you’re the only one who can speak coherently anymore, or follow a single train of thought… it does get kinda dull too. It’s a nice little bar though, and while the boys drink (because essentially it is a male centric town), I can pop across the way and get my hair done, they know how I like it now.
Oh, there is another really cool factor: getting my hair washed and braided, for like, 8 bucks or less. I can sleep on it, and don’t have to worry about it for maximum 3 days. It does start to look like a rats nest after that. ‘Beer Tamada - nun nun’ is what I supposedly like. I think it means normal braid - tightly. Or what we know as French braids. It keeps you cool in the 100% humidity and 30 degrees + celsius days.
Food by Phone means I don’t have to leave the house. Yes, it’s somewhat expensive comparatively, to say, eating on the streets, (I can only eat a few things on the streets, I have yet to learn how to say, ‘no MSG’). But one does have a pretty good selection of international cuisine, brought straight to your door within a 45 minute period. I don’t mind me some Food by Phone. It equals out to basic delivery prices, about 1000 Baht, so with today’s exchange rate $38 AUD for 2 people.
Leaving the house at any given time and being able to find some form of entertainment, if need be, is another plus. It does get to this point sometimes, whether from lack of feeding ourselves, or just the sheer boredom of having nothing to watch.
Our very reasonably priced live in Burmese maid, who speaks very good Thai, but fuck all English. She does a wonderful job of babysitting the dogs, and cleaning, even if you don’t want her to clean. I’ve tried to tell her to sleep in, but she insists on getting up at a sparrows fart to do stuff. I didn’t realise how messy we are, but my husband assures me we wont be able to do things for ourselves soon, and I think he has a point. I try to teach her English, and she tries to teach me Thai. We are developing some kind of recognisable language where we both understand a few words to get by on. It’s an experience. I do worry about her when she doesn’t come home though, because they like to arrest the Burmese, so we have come to learn.
Starting to learn the language. Well, a very rudimentary sense of it anyways. Think it’s going to take me a while. Tonal languages are hard. The word ‘Bus’ has about 5 words (sounds) for the Thai translation. Confusing, say what. But fun accomplishing maybe one or two new words a day. I never thought Thai would be my second language though. Thought it would be something more romantic, like Spanish. I definitely decided against French though, due to sounding too Germanic for me, which I only realised when I went there… and they are rude.
And the massages. Get massaged for 2 hours costs you about 20 AUD or less. Even if they aren’t all to the same standard, they do fix one problem or other, or are relaxing enough to fall asleep to. It’s a nice way to kill some Time.
There are other good points. So I’m not too bitter and twisted yet. Watching the boys get drunk and laid, can have its high points too, I guess.
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