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Cocker Rage
A few years ago on a fine spring morn, I found myself with a cocker spaniel attached to my face.
After prying the dog off my newly pierced lip, then once again off my newly mauled finger, I made a shocked and bloody beeline to my friend Morna's front door.
A little while later, when the ER doctor started sewing me up, I whacked him a couple of times.
It was nothing personal, you know? I'd just had enough of various life forms attacking my face with sharp objects.
After the second whack, the doctor politely asked me if I'd please stop hitting him, then turned back to his work as a glorified seamstress...
I am telling you this because yesterday afternoon I found myself with a dentist attached to my face, and I felt that same urge to whack him silly. This time, however, I exercised superhuman powers of restraint and kept my whacking limbs firmly clenched and glued to my lap.
That's what they call personal growth, people! (plus a healthy dose of wanting him off my face ASAP, and when you start swingin', things seem to take a bit longer...)
I go back for Dental Torture, Phase II on Monday with the firm intention of NOT clobbering my assailant. Ah, sweet pain...
Also, in order to preserve my newly pearly whites, I'm going off coffee, tea and other staining beverages. Heaven help the people around me for the next few days (that would be Penny...sorry in advance, P!)
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It's Not Me, It's You
Do you ever have people in your life who don't act the way you want them to? Yes?
Well, I have a couple of people like that Right At This Very Moment, and I am other than thrilled with them.
To these people I now say:
- Why must you be SO who you are?
- Whose universe is this, anyway?
- Don't you understand that your life is all about making ME happy?
- Fuckers.
A while back my friend Lisa gave me a shirt that says: "It's Not Me, It's You".
To all those people out there who are not behaving to my satisfaction, this shirt's for YOU!
(insert big raspberry here)
So there.
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How I Spent My New Year Vacation
Penny and I chose to spend the early part of New Year's Eve seeking out one of Bangkok's infamous "ping-pong" shows. For those of you who've never heard of this, it involves women in go-go bars shooting ping-pong balls out of their hoo-hoos at great velocity. I also have it on good authority that certain bar girls are able to open beer bottles with said hoo-hoo. Ouch.
Normally, I don't go in for this kind of thing...however, this sort of spectacle is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and seeing as how the apocalypse is coming and all, it's best to ping-pong while the ping-ponging's good!
However, in what was probably a fortunate turn of events, we were unable to find such a show, despite being in one of Bangkok's infamous red light districts, Soi Cowboy.
After watching some supremely uninspired pole dancing by girls wearing numbers on their g-strings (yes, everyone's up for sale), we headed on home, where we found a raucous Thai rock-and-roll band playing to a mostly whiskey-soaked Thai audience. I danced like a weirdo, counted backwards from 10, and brought in the new year with a fresh cold coconut. Yummy!
The next day, I had another coconut (man, I love them coconuts!), then followed the heaving masses into the local Wat, where, after lighting a candle and some incense, I was whacked on the head several times by a monk with a wet stick while crawling on my knees.
Happy New Year's!!!
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A Dream I Had Last Night About the Apocalypse
It's really happening and I am among those in the know, maybe some branch of the military
and the apocalypse is caused by man, by carelessness by a bomb dropped in the sea a chain reaction of epic proportions
and my crew and I know it's coming
and it's time to evacuate that the end is nigh
and we're in a movie theater passing the time then it's almost time to head out
and we put on what will be the last outfit we ever wear go to the bathroom for the last time everything that happens from here on out will be the last time
so I tell my small crew of maybe 5 people to take their time to do what they need to do to fully experience their last ablutions
so when the commanding officer shows up we're not ready and I stall her for a while until she grows impatient
and I go to the bathroom door and bang and try to act tough and impatient too
and I even give them to the count of ten which I belt out in the strongest meanest voice I can muster but they're taking their time just like I told them to so I have to light a fire of urgency
and they get dressed and we go outside and Armageddon is already well underway
and the sky is an odd shifting array of orange and gray and brown
and red
a storm to end all storms brews above while the ocean roils heaves breathes is scary and ugly and poised to blow to explode with a deadly force and velocity
and we make it to our plane just in time and fly just out of reach of the tsunami (safe now for a moment, but this is not going to end)
and we land watch wait
and I'm with a friend and Drew Barrymore and my friend and I leave the observation platform go singing and dancing on the tarmac the wind whipping like crazy
and many people join in singing sounding joyfully expressing full of energy and life until this curmudgeonly old salt storms up and chastises us for our behaviour is angry and frustrated because we don't seem to realize the gravity of the situation when actually this gravity is why we are expressing joy one last time to the fullest
and I'm full of energy elation boundlessness and so we leave the freaking-out man and go into the nearly- deserted streets of San Francisco the wind is whipping violently in all directions the sky's grey and rumbling
and a couple of people are braced against the wind heading up the hill a mother and her boy of maybe 7 and he's glowing with a bright white Aura and he's happy and his mom is letting him call the shots it's his special day his last day and her demeanor is both resigned to the situation acceptance and deep love and selflessness and generosity towards her son
and my friend and I pass them and we are running up hills down hills leaping yelling frolicking with the endless wind boundless joy boundless energy
and we find a small old pool hall only one pool table
and it is abandoned except for a group of Japanese engineers young
and geeky who have pulled out all of the building's wiring in an attempt to create the most ambient atmosphere possible, to manipulate the lighting into something soft colorful festive
and christmassy
and sparkling
and candlelit
and this seems like as good a place as any to bring in the end.
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love,
jingles