Junk
God, this has been the shittiest few months of my life. Since I have been in the States my mind has totally fled any sense of rationale. I am going to skip any sort of linear narrative here because if I wait to finish this whole story this blog will end, as maybe it should.
I thought my girlfriend was pregnant twice for basically no reason. If she were, it wouldn't have quite been a case of baby Jesus but it wouldn't have been too far off.
The thought entered my mind that first month (probably because I had no reason to worry for a year prior) and wouldnt leave. It came again the second month and after watching too much fucking Teen Mom on MTV and looking up adoption plans I realized that it all probable meant I was in no sort of mental or emotional maturity to deal with any of that.
In this fear I realized certain things that I desperately wanted and likewise desperately had no desire for.
Kids, for instance.
Then I thought I had cancer. It ended up being basically nothing but god dammit it was scary for a while. It started as the normal paranoia that became alarmingly common since I landed but then graduated. I went to 4 clinics before I landed some poor person insurance.
Short story is that I spent months obsessing over the idea that my 5 or 6 years of moderate smoking landed me with a fairly rare instance of throat / tongue / oral cancer. So, I quit smoking 3 months ago with basically no issues.
Docotor told me I have an allergy and that my ears have been full of fluid for months. Now, I am on a nasal steroid and have to "nasal douche" two times a day.
Ha, nasal douche, ha.
Anyway all of these things combined and really really freaked me out. Deep down I realized that my issues probably werent really pregnancy or cancer but something inside of myself. I realized that maybe this whole Korean thing had some reverberation inside of myself, and maybe my panic was really panic of it being over when I wasn't ready.
So, I decided, fuck it.
Kelly moved to China two months ago and I will be back in Korea in February. The vast majority of my friends think that I am a "one trick pony" or a fucking idiot. My mom thinks that I am delaying real life and I do not disagree.
I want to live an apology free life.
I have no idea how to insert this into a link so here it is:
The Russians and I hopped from the bed of the pick-up and said our goodbyes to Mary (or whatever I named her, I forgot) and her friend. Her friend, a heavily tattooed American gave some recommendations as far as places to stay that were either closer of further from the hotspots, depending on what we were looking for.
I found out shortly thereafter that what people in Pattaya are generally looking for, is sex.
I followed the Russians into a hotel run by Russians. Girls sat on a dirty couch and looked at me. The guy at the desk disappeared for a time and I listened to pumping techno for a while until I decided I wanted to try my luck elsewhere.
This was the situation: My bank card was sitting under my bed (or what was until recently my bed) in Korea. My cash was starting to dwindle. I was searching for a cheap motel that I could put onto a credit card so that I wouldn’t have to worry much about what would be the largest bill in Thailand.
No luck. Cash only. Apparently people don’t want others to know they were in a place like Pattaya. I walked over a mile down the only stretch of road near the coast that was barren of hotels. Occasionally I would pass these weird combo gym-hotels but I didn’t fancy the look of any of them. By the time I found a place I was covered in sweat, my arms hurt from dragging a couple of pieces of luggage, and I was frazzled and close to losing it after trying to avoid the constant rush of scooters.
I finally walked into a wide open room, asked for a room for the next handful of days. I was stuck behind a fat, bearded American biker guy as he waddled up the steps. I found my room, opened the door...
The room was actually quite large. That is all it had going for it. As I turned on the light a lizard scurried across the plaster ceiling. This is not a lie, nor is it even a slight exaggeration. My hotel room had a fucking lizard in it. The funny thing is that didn’t bother me at all. Grain and dirt covered bits of the linoleum floors. A bound menu sat atop a broken table. The menu, it turned out, was to some other hotel that had room service / a kitchen. I turned on the TV for a little background noise as I looked for the remote to the air conditioner. CNN was on and talking about some compound in Pakistan. I turned off the TV and headed out for some food.
I returned with a plastic baggie full of cellophane noodles, chili peppers, tripe, sausage, and vegetables bought from a vendor outside. It was delicious. The whole atmosphere of Pattaya that night was of a wild party. Foreigners shouted from scooters and in bars amidst bright TVs and the prospect of cheap sex, I could hear cheers. I was missing something maybe.
The bathroom was the worst part of the entire room, maybe even the worst part of Thailand in general. It existed on the same level as my bathroom in Korea in that the shower was not separated. The millipedes that sat dead in the middle of the tile should have tipped me off.
I turned on the shower found that the drain was clogged with all manner of black, mucky debris and that as the water level was raised, all of this shit just floated along the bathroom floor. I turned off the shower and tried to do some laundry in the sink and found that this water also drained into the same pipes and soon there was an inch of water on the floor and a bunch of gunk floating around. I did what I could and hung my clothing to dry on the balcony.
I then turned on the TV, popped opened a mini-bar beer and discovered that Osama Bin Laden was dead.
I thought my girlfriend was pregnant twice for basically no reason. If she were, it wouldn't have quite been a case of baby Jesus but it wouldn't have been too far off.
The thought entered my mind that first month (probably because I had no reason to worry for a year prior) and wouldnt leave. It came again the second month and after watching too much fucking Teen Mom on MTV and looking up adoption plans I realized that it all probable meant I was in no sort of mental or emotional maturity to deal with any of that.
In this fear I realized certain things that I desperately wanted and likewise desperately had no desire for.
Kids, for instance.
Then I thought I had cancer. It ended up being basically nothing but god dammit it was scary for a while. It started as the normal paranoia that became alarmingly common since I landed but then graduated. I went to 4 clinics before I landed some poor person insurance.
Short story is that I spent months obsessing over the idea that my 5 or 6 years of moderate smoking landed me with a fairly rare instance of throat / tongue / oral cancer. So, I quit smoking 3 months ago with basically no issues.
Docotor told me I have an allergy and that my ears have been full of fluid for months. Now, I am on a nasal steroid and have to "nasal douche" two times a day.
Ha, nasal douche, ha.
Anyway all of these things combined and really really freaked me out. Deep down I realized that my issues probably werent really pregnancy or cancer but something inside of myself. I realized that maybe this whole Korean thing had some reverberation inside of myself, and maybe my panic was really panic of it being over when I wasn't ready.
So, I decided, fuck it.
Kelly moved to China two months ago and I will be back in Korea in February. The vast majority of my friends think that I am a "one trick pony" or a fucking idiot. My mom thinks that I am delaying real life and I do not disagree.
I want to live an apology free life.
I have no idea how to insert this into a link so here it is:
The Russians and I hopped from the bed of the pick-up and said our goodbyes to Mary (or whatever I named her, I forgot) and her friend. Her friend, a heavily tattooed American gave some recommendations as far as places to stay that were either closer of further from the hotspots, depending on what we were looking for.
I found out shortly thereafter that what people in Pattaya are generally looking for, is sex.
I followed the Russians into a hotel run by Russians. Girls sat on a dirty couch and looked at me. The guy at the desk disappeared for a time and I listened to pumping techno for a while until I decided I wanted to try my luck elsewhere.
This was the situation: My bank card was sitting under my bed (or what was until recently my bed) in Korea. My cash was starting to dwindle. I was searching for a cheap motel that I could put onto a credit card so that I wouldn’t have to worry much about what would be the largest bill in Thailand.
No luck. Cash only. Apparently people don’t want others to know they were in a place like Pattaya. I walked over a mile down the only stretch of road near the coast that was barren of hotels. Occasionally I would pass these weird combo gym-hotels but I didn’t fancy the look of any of them. By the time I found a place I was covered in sweat, my arms hurt from dragging a couple of pieces of luggage, and I was frazzled and close to losing it after trying to avoid the constant rush of scooters.
I finally walked into a wide open room, asked for a room for the next handful of days. I was stuck behind a fat, bearded American biker guy as he waddled up the steps. I found my room, opened the door...
The room was actually quite large. That is all it had going for it. As I turned on the light a lizard scurried across the plaster ceiling. This is not a lie, nor is it even a slight exaggeration. My hotel room had a fucking lizard in it. The funny thing is that didn’t bother me at all. Grain and dirt covered bits of the linoleum floors. A bound menu sat atop a broken table. The menu, it turned out, was to some other hotel that had room service / a kitchen. I turned on the TV for a little background noise as I looked for the remote to the air conditioner. CNN was on and talking about some compound in Pakistan. I turned off the TV and headed out for some food.
I returned with a plastic baggie full of cellophane noodles, chili peppers, tripe, sausage, and vegetables bought from a vendor outside. It was delicious. The whole atmosphere of Pattaya that night was of a wild party. Foreigners shouted from scooters and in bars amidst bright TVs and the prospect of cheap sex, I could hear cheers. I was missing something maybe.
The bathroom was the worst part of the entire room, maybe even the worst part of Thailand in general. It existed on the same level as my bathroom in Korea in that the shower was not separated. The millipedes that sat dead in the middle of the tile should have tipped me off.
I turned on the shower found that the drain was clogged with all manner of black, mucky debris and that as the water level was raised, all of this shit just floated along the bathroom floor. I turned off the shower and tried to do some laundry in the sink and found that this water also drained into the same pipes and soon there was an inch of water on the floor and a bunch of gunk floating around. I did what I could and hung my clothing to dry on the balcony.
I then turned on the TV, popped opened a mini-bar beer and discovered that Osama Bin Laden was dead.