Sandy Does Southeast Asia

Hey cut me some slack – time moves at a different pace here in Asia!

Me, Caroline & Jessica at Surreal…

The Lady Bacchus…

So on New Years Eve – after my resounding IT victory – I was feeling pretty damn pleased with myself. With my favorite Brit Pop MP3 mix playing in the background, I danced around the house getting ready to go out. I put on makeup and the ‘Sex Tourist’ t-shirt John sent in my Christmas package. I was ready to party.

But when I got to Caroline’s bar, it was closed. Not a good sign. I went up to the Mut Mee barbeque and there everyone was – sitting around chatting quietly while one of the Nong Khai New Agers played soft rock on an acoustic guitar. No! No no no. I wanted Scissor Sisters, not John Denver. I half-jokingly asked Caroline when the dance party was going to start at the bar. She said, “There’s not going to be a dance party. We’re having a chill New Year’s.” Chill, huh? I left, saying I would come back later but seriously, New Year’s Eve without a dance party is like coffee without caffeine.

Now if I were a very cool person or if I had at least one fun partner-in-crime, I would have gone back and tried to get the party started. As it is, I decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and anyway maybe it was better to spend New Year’s hanging out on my own instead of ending up sitting around disappointed and bored. (Which probably would have happened, considering Caroline’s summary of New Year’s celebrations: “It was shit.”)

Cut to: kick ass solo dance party at my house. I busted some fierce moves but since I was alone, you’ll just have to take my word for it. I also gave a moment of thanks for how fun my friends at home are – ‘and wherever two or more are gathered, there also a dance party shall be,’ as it says in the Bible.

At midnight, I broke the seal on a new bottle of water and poured myself a coffee mug full to toast the new year. Then I ran outside at the sound of fireworks. I only saw a few big ones through the trees but then I saw something else, something strange in the distance. It looked like a very slow moving flare. I could not for the life of me figure out what it might be. Then suddenly over the top of the monastery appeared a floating procession of translucent lamps lit from inside with flames. I stood in the middle of the street staring transfixed at the fiery little ships as they sailed far overhead and then away toward where the full moon backlit high, silent wisps of cloud.

I am really superstitious about the first things I see after midnight on New Year’s and whether they are omens of good luck or not. As I watched the lamps floating away, all at once I felt sure that it’s going to be a really good year. Maybe even better than the year I saw the midget dancing. Maybe.

We’re still three hours shy of the new year but it’s not too early to start counting my victories. Like how, at the end of a grueling 24 hour period during which I paced, cried (only once for a few minutes, I swear), and punched my fist in the air like a high school jock, I have fixed this damn laptop.

It all started yesterday evening during a perfect storm of boredom and despair when I seriously needed the distraction of a borrowed DVD and was met instead with utter defeat. Not only did the DVD not play but my computer appeared to finally get its shaky last legs kicked out from under it. Hours of hilarity ensued during which it freaked out, crashed repeatedly, and finally wouldn’t restart at all.

Try for a moment to understand how devastating it was. This computer has become my lifeline to sanity in the entertainment void that is Nong Khai, aka The Town Without Magazines. It may not have Internet or anything fancy like that but it does play CDs and MP3s. Without it, I would be left to lay on my couch and stare at the wall while listening to the rooster convention in my garden. Even more important is the fact that I’ve started writing a lot, like six or seven hours a day, and I’m totally dependent on my creative routine.

I was not about to take this lying down. This time of year being all about new leaves turned and whatnot, I was determined to succeed. 2007 is not going to be another year of accepting a bad turn of events and walking away.

Luckily, I love boys who love computers. I am drawn to them because they tend to be patient, calm and intelligent. They are logical and analytical problem solvers. Sexy! So apparently I’ve been at least half listening to my boyfriends over the years, because their words began flooding back to me. Strange phrases started to form themselves in my head – safe mode, running utilities, defragging hard drives. My two-year incarnation as A/V Tech Girl (TM) stepped in and started troubleshooting.

I’ll spare you the details and cut straight to the part when 24 sleepless hours later, my computer is not only back in action but it’s running about a million times better than when I first borrowed it. In your face, 2006!

My friend Michael said in an email recently that this blog gives a good idea of the experience of living in Thailand…as filtered through “Sandy’s weird, weird brain.” OK wiseacre, that’s it; you asked for it. Here is one half hour inside my brain**:

“I’m hungry. I’m so hungry I’m going to faint. Hungry hungry hungry. I need one of those baked bananas, that’s what I need. I’ll have that instead of dessert today. Much better than chocolate. One baked banana while I’m walking, then a small piece of bar-b-que pork from that one street stall, then another baked banana for dessert. Perfect. Where the hell are my shoes? Eat! Eat soon! Wait, tie the shoes first and then go outside. Yay! Food! Dinner!

OK where are the stupid banana baking people on this street? Where did they go? They’re here all the time except when I want one. Hungry. Cute little monks. Oh my god I think that monk just turned and said something to me. Why are the rest of them snickering? Oh that’s where the mini-supermarket is. No bananas today, I give up. Those people are staring at me. Why are people always staring at me? [Play tape of Simeon’s voice: Do people stare at you like this all time on the street?] They see farang all day, every day. Alright already, take a picture, it’ll last longer.

Watch out, two-way traffic. Go! Wait! Go, go! Phew. There’s the meat place; there it is! Hello nice man who gives me bar-b-que pork. Which piece, which piece? Ooh that one looks delicious. I have dinner and I will survive! So hungry. Hurry home. Ugh, for crap’s sake get out of my way. Do we really have to walk this slow all the time? I’m hungry! Stand or walk, people. Can’t do both.

There’s 7-11. Walk on the other side of the street because I’m not going there. I’m going straight home to eat dinner. No dessert tonight. No. No! OK I’ll go to 7-11 but no chocolate. And no cookies. Asian sweets section – perfect. Let’s see, packages of little dried things covered in…hmm, is that sugar? Could be salt. Ah, here’s English-language packaging. Biscuit crackers with anchovy flavor? John Ringhoff would love this. He’d be pawing through everything looking for the treats that said: Now With Extra Fish Eyeballs! What a dummy. I can’t believe I actually ate a fish eyeball that one time. It was chewy. That was so gross. I must remember to never, ever eat anything he holds out on a fork and says to eat because it’s delicious. Oh here we go – crisped rice with something that looks like caramel sauce. Yum. I will eat this entire huge package. This is going to rule!

OK I get to eat right after I take a shower. If I survive this shower, I get dinner. I can do this. Quick, quick, under the water! Oh my god! Oh my god!! I can’t breathe! This is not okay. This is the coldest cold ever. Refreshing, invigorating, exhilarating. Just keep thinking of synonyms. It’s almost over. Stimulating, bracing. Done. Now I get to eat! I will eat all the food! Dinner! Food now! Eat all the food! Yay!!”

And then I ate dinner. The end.

* Name this blog entry’s title reference and be entered in a drawing to win a trip for two to sunny, fabulous Nong Khai, Thailand!
** Edited to exclude rude/irrelevant/private thoughts about people who may be reading this (and yes, gossiping to myself about my friends represents a significant portion of my inner dialogue, sadly).

In the past couple of weeks I’ve been feeling a pull toward home. It started with a longing for San Francisco. That’s always how it starts.

Yesterday when I told a friend about my homesickness, she asked what I missed. I had no answer except that it was less like missing anything specific (I was not going to admit that celebrity gossip rags and the E! channel would be high on that theoretical list) and more like feeling that I had done everything I came here to do. I have found what I was looking for, on many levels, and answered all the questions that have been plaguing me for years.

It’s not necessary to be here anymore but I enjoy having lots of free time to write and not working in an office. I thought I’d just stay and not make any decisions about my return since I don’t have any real reason to go home. Or rather, I didn’t.

Today there was an email in my inbox from my best friend. The subject line read: I hope you’re sitting down. We’ve been friends since we were 15. When I saw that potentially ominous subject line, moments from our lives together flashed through my head…

I saw us sitting on the steps outside our high school auditorium on the last day of school wondering what the hell that long, horrifying experience was all about. I saw us singing Madonna songs in the rain, waiting for a ride outside a tollbooth while hitchhiking through Europe. I saw us writing on the walls of the San Francisco anarchist collective house where we lived. I saw myself hiding in her house in Alaska for a month after sustaining a one-two punch of being cheated on and having another friend die. I saw us laying on the beach in Tahiti on my 31st birthday.

Over the years we did a lot of acid and drank a lot of wine and danced to a lot of 80s pop. We moaned about dreary office jobs and made zines that mocked this endlessly confusing world. We invested seventeen years in developing a shared vocabulary of life that only we speak fluently.

And now she’s going to have a baby. As I read the email, I was laughing but tears were running down my face. I couldn’t decide between the two so I let both come. My heart was pounding as I ran outside to face my mortal enemy – the Thai phone system. On this trip so far, the battle stands at 2-0 in favor of telecommunications, so I was not hopeful. But necessity has a way of weighting one’s chances and in the end I got her on the line. There was a lot of confusing chatter because what can you possibly say about something that as she pointed out is a thing – like winning the lottery or getting cancer – that only happens to other people.

What I did tell her is that I will come home mid-summer at the very latest, in plenty of time to be in Sacramento (where she lives) for the end of the pregnancy and the birth. “Really?” she asked. Oh yeah right, as if I’d miss the chance to point and laugh at her big-as-a-house misery. I’m a good friend like that.

So life made the decision for me, as it has a way of doing. I now have a firm end-date to this trip. In the meantime, I’ve already written the first in a series of letters to the baby that will document its journey into the world and will include as many embarrassing stories about mom as I can come up with. And considering our ridiculous lives, that’s gonna be a lot.

In the waning hours of 2006, I am reminded of how late last fall my ex-boyfriend Matt overheard a homeless guy in a liquor store saying to no one in particular, “Next year was a bummer.” At the time I did not understand the eerie prescience of his words. I just thought it was funny.

At the end of 2005, Matt was not yet my ex-boyfriend. He was not even officially my boyfriend. I was dating two very eligible bachelors – both handsome, talented, kind, affectionate, funny and head-over-heels in love me. I was in perfect health. I was finishing up a novella. I had a fun, satisfying job as the executive assistant to the president of a high-profile entertainment empire. I pretty much had life by the balls.

And then 2006 happened.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know at least part of the story. I started having scary symptoms in January, and then soon after committing to a relationship with Matt in February, I fell seriously ill for the first time in my life. Not a week passed over the next three months when I wasn’t either in my doctor’s office, in the lab getting buckets of blood drawn, or in the hospital.

Just as my health mysteriously rebounded, my relationship fell apart. I really didn’t see that one coming. I chose to commit to Matt because I believed he was the real thing. Then suddenly, here he was yelling at me all the time and saying he needed to focus on himself more. He promised me that if I trusted him this wouldn’t happen. Needless to say, the relationship came to an ugly end.

As my world crumbled, I took shelter in my cubicle at work. I’d won the boss lottery with that job. Even when I couldn’t stand the sight of anyone else, my boss always brought a smile to my face. He let me know every day that I was appreciated and needed. Whenever I got kicked out of a relationship, I naturally clung to him and our job for stability, and this time was no different. Until one day – about a month after the breakup, while I was still heavily in the laying on the bathroom floor sobbing phase – when he broke the news to me that our job was going to end, could be tomorrow, could be six months.

So that was it. My health, my heart, my livelihood. Oh yeah and did I mention my novella had floundered and I’d finally accepted there was no chance of getting a piece of that length published? Life had officially kicked my ass all up and down the street. And then spit on me.

I did the only thing I could – I met it measure for measure. You want to take everything away from me? Fine. Take it all then, every last bit of it. I quit my job, gave notice on the apartment I’d lived in for four years, got rid of my possessions, and flew away alone without a plan to Bangkok.

Mr. Man said the funniest thing to me about a month ago. With great drunken earnestness he said, “I am afraid I’m having a destabilizing effect on your life.” To my credit, I managed to not laugh in his face. But boy oh boy did I want to say, “Honey, after the year I’ve just had, you’d have to actually cut my legs off to destabilize me.”

It seems fitting that there is no happy ending to a story that began with a psychic bum foretelling doom in a neon-lit liquor store at the corner of Sunset and Alvarado. As 2006 ends, I am living alone in a small city in Thailand, tutoring children and writing short stories. Sometimes I think of a quote by Joan Didion that goes, “There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.” And she’s right, there just isn’t. All you can do is walk away and try not to look back too often at the smoldering remains of your life. Who knows? Maybe that is a happy ending.

I spent Christmas Day ill and wandering around the admitting area of the Nong Khai hospital. Considering everything that’s happened so far in 2006, this seems somehow right. To be honest though, I did not spend the entire day at the hospital, only about an hour. That’s as long as it took for me to decide that if there were even the slightest chance I was going to die, I would at least prefer to limit the ridiculous stories told at my funeral about the circumstances. Because I know you bitches would be shaking your heads and snickering about how “isn’t it just so typical that she actually died like inches from a doctor because she was too dumb to figure out how to get admitted?” Anyway.

So I’ve had this vague flu since the beginning of last week. I have dealt with it as I deal with most illnesses, which is to ignore them like one might ignore a two-year-old throwing a tantrum, until they give up. I figure that if my mind keeps pretending to be well, my body will follow suit. And surprisingly, it usually works.

Yesterday I was weak and unwell but refused to give my full attention to it. Today I got up early and went about my usual morning routine – 6 mile bicycle ride through the cool blue morning, followed by a breakfast of fresh fruit and my own body weight in coffee while sitting in front of the computer working on a new short story.

It wasn’t until lunch that I realized I might be much more ill than I am admitting to myself. My fever started to shoot up and for no reason I ran my hand over my lower back and felt bumps all over. Fever and rash are the hallmarks of any number of tropical maladies. And so off I went to the hospital.

Going to the hospital isn’t as exciting and drastic a choice as it sounds. For one thing, the hospital is close. It’s even closer than the closest 7-11 and that is saying something. Everyone goes to the hospital for everything here. It’s like going to the doctor, only it costs about $10 total. Thailand has a fantastic health care system. It’s no coincidence that ‘medical tourism’ is huge here.

Today was not my day to experience Thai health care, however. After standing at the Information desk for fifteen minutes waiting hopefully for someone to show up, I sort of wandered around the admitting hall, flushed and weak, trying to find someone who spoke English. Finally I found a woman who pointed me to Window 6. No idea what I was supposed to do at Window 6 but I figured the person at that window probably spoke English so I went to the queue. I waited. Nothing seemed to happen. People moved around, trading places, getting in and out of queues but I couldn’t see what the hell they were actually doing. All I knew is that I really needed to lie down before I fell down. I never did get to the window.

Once I was home and lying down, I started to feel better. My fever receded again. I nervously fingered the bumps on my back before remembering that I took a little nighttime slide on the Loose Dirt Hill of Death outside my house last week. Not the first time and sadly, probably not the last. But it does explain why I might have little bumps and abrasions on my lower back. And then I thought about how I take a daily ice-cold shower in 50-degree weather in my might-as-well-be-outdoors bathroom. Hmm but I wonder why I’m not shaking this flu? Sigh.

The final verdict I came to in my non-fever state is that I am not dying from a rare tropical disease but that I do need to lay low until this either gets bad enough to enlist Thai-speaking accompaniment the hospital, or until it passes.

Either way, long after my health returns, I’ll still have a story to tell over drinks, about the time I spent Christmas Day in the hospital in Thailand. Sometimes all I can do is remind myself that every experience is either a good time or a good story, and that for better or worse, I have a lot of good stories.

I am spending Christmas Eve alone in front of my computer with leftover pepperoni pizza from Outback and a selection of donated MP3s. Right now I’m listening to Madame George by Van Morrison. It may not have been originally intended for Christmas but it certainly does capture the true spirit of the holiday, doesn’t it?

So why is a lovely young woman with a stack of party invites spending Christmas Eve on her own? Well, I gave some thought to the meaning of the Christmas holiday and decided that it is a time to be spent together with the people who are most important to you in the world, whether that’s your partner, your family, or your Jew friends with whom you share Chinese food and too much whiskey.

Then I had to admit – for the millionth time recently – that the only person I have in the world is me. I am the person I go to sleep with every night and I am the person I wake up with every morning. I know all my secrets. I get all my jokes. I’m never too busy to listen to me. And I have never once turned my back and left when I cried.

I just came through seven very long years of wishing that I were not alone all the fucking time. All I got out of it was an embarrassingly vast collection of ultra-short-term relationships and seven years older. It was one big, dumb waste of time because the truth is while I was running around trying to find a partner, I was missing the simple fact that the role was already filled – I am the person with whom I will spend the rest of my life.

I guess that also makes me the person who is most important to me in the world. So Merry Christmas Eve to me! I’ll think I’ll try to get fresh with myself now.

In my fantasy, I am not living in Thailand and my life is not fraught with ambiguity and moral confusion. In this fantasy, I am sitting at Denny’s drinking coffee and reading a magazine. On the plastic table, there is a plastic bowl full of miniature plastic tubs of non-dairy creamer. Christmas lights blink in a staggered rhythm. The air is set just a little too cold and there are instrumental Christmas carols playing. The waitress wears a nametag that reads ‘Belinda.’

“Thank you, Belinda,” I say, as she offers me another refill. I have been here all evening and we’ve long since reached a friendly first-name basis.

Belinda points at a picture of Angelina Jolie in the magazine and says, “She may be famous and all, but that girl’s nothing but an old-fashioned homewrecker. It just ain’t right.”

“Yep,” I say. “You’ve got a point, there.” I know we are both quietly enjoying a moment of moral superiority. We may not have her money or her looks but at least we would never steal another woman’s husband. Especially not someone as sweet as Jennifer Aniston.

“Do you think he really loved Jennifer?” I ask.

Belinda says, “Oh, I think so. They always looked so happy together in photos, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, they did,” I say. “But who knows? Maybe they fought all the time or wanted different things in life. Maybe they’re actually happier now.”

“Well, it’s still a shame, either way,” she says, as she fills up my coffee cup and then walks away shaking her head.

I am suddenly thankful that I am on firm, familiar ground, sitting here at Denny’s enjoying a strong cup of coffee and reading a glossy magazine and feeling smugly certain about my ability to judge the difference between right and wrong behavior. But mostly, in this particular fantasy, I am just relieved that I do not have to worry about these things in my own life.

A while back I read the book Conversations with God. It’s pretty interesting if you’re into that sort of thing. I certainly never thought that I would have the opportunity for my own conversation with God but that’s exactly what happened. Here’s how it went down…

God: Hey Sandy, wake up! It’s me, God.

Me: Shit, you scared me. Couldn’t this wait until morning? You know how much trouble I have sleeping.

God: Sorry but it is rather urgent.

Me: I didn’t mean to be rude, I’m just saying. Oh wait, are you the one who’s been moving the soap around in my bathroom at night?

God: No! I only come on matters of important business. It’s probably rats moving your soap around. Or possibly a monster. Regardless, right now we need to discuss this whole Life Partner situation you’ve been asking me about.

Me: I was wondering when you were going to get back to me on that one.

God: You’ve really been muddling around with this haven’t you? I keep throwing great men in your path and you keep stepping over them. All I hear from you is: he’s not quite this and he’s not quite that. Honestly, it’s out of hand. This one’s not tall enough, that one’s too skinny, this one doesn’t like the right kind of music, that one’s high-strung, the other one doesn’t share your sense of humor. I hate to bring this up but I’ve even heard you muttering complaints about an inability to spell and having the wrong eye color.

Me: I know, I know! Everyone tells me to stop being so picky but I can’t!

God: Yet I don’t think you admit to yourself what you’re doing because I also hear you loudly declaring you don’t believe in true love or in the concept of The One, even though that’s obviously what you’ve been looking for.

Do you really think there’s someone who could exactly match all these requirements? You’ve only been getting worse over the years, you know. It’s as if you’ve slowly zeroed in on a picture of precisely this one person you’re looking for. Like you’ve been recognizing aspects of him in other people and noting those but ultimately rejecting the person because they aren’t quite right. You’re acting like all you have to do is find him and that will be that.

Me: It’s ridiculous, okay? I get it. Is there some point or are you just enjoying the sound of your own voice?

God: I have some good news and some bad news for you. Which do you want first?

Me: The good news!

God: OK then – you were right all along. You were doing exactly the right thing when you built this picture of him and refused to settle for anyone else. He exists. Just to make it a satisfying challenge, I put the two of you on opposite sides of the globe, but you listened to your heart and you were drawn directly to him. I must congratulate you on a job well done.

Me: Oh my fucking God! Oh shit, sorry. But this is amazing! I knew it!! I never admitted it but I knew it!

God: Are you ready for the bad news?

Me: Oh no.

God: Oh yes. I’m terribly sorry about this, but the two of you can’t be together.

Me: What? What sort of bullshit practical joke is this? You’re kidding, right?

God: No, unfortunately not. He was doing the same thing you were – seeing pieces of you in other people yet knowing they weren’t quite the right one – but then he gave up. At the 11th hour, he decided finding his match was a pipe dream and that he would be better off settling down with someone who was good enough. So that’s what he did.

Me: [silence]

God: I’m sorry, I really am.

Me: [silence]

God: Are you okay?

Me: Go away. Go the fuck away right now. I don’t want to hear anymore.

God: Sandy, I do what I can do but I can’t tamper with Free Will. You know that. You could just as easily have chosen to do the same thing and I couldn’t have stopped you. The only reason you didn’t is that one of the special blessings I gave you is that you are very good at trusting yourself and trusting life, even when you don’t understand that’s what you’re doing. You must remember not everyone has that ability.

Me: Go away! Go away! Go away!

God: All right. I’m here if you need me though.

Me: And stop moving my soap around at night!