traveling space and time

Flying long distance on an airplane can leave a kid like me a little disoriented. Maybe it's the meals served at odd hours, maybe it's the seeming sterility of the plane's interior, maybe it's the awful films they play, or maybe it's the plane's ability to break out of the terrestrial headlock, provide staff that can ask me if I want coffee in more languages than I can understand, and then deposit me somewhere in a previously seen hour.

http://www.okienoodling.com/okienoodling2/press.html

When I left for Asia many of my family and friends inquired as to my intentions with the women of Asia. Are you going to bring back a wife? they would ask.

As I'm preparing to leave Thailand for the States I am surprised to find I'm often asked, mostly by middle aged Thai women, whether or not I'll be taking my Thai girlfriend home with me.

I suppose I could.

china flashback #1

muslim chinese food (featured on the green board in the upper lefthand corner) could be the best in all of china. so there i was looking forward to eating some when this yung fellow whips out his phone - a phone twinkling with more blinking lights than even LAX probably - selects a song, turns the volume up to "ridiculously loud and distorted," takes a drag on his cigarette, and then bursts forth in what i understood to be completely sincere, heartfelt song. i thought he might be crying. no one else in the restaurant seemed to notice or care.

body hair pt. II

My trip from Vang Vieng down to Vientiane took place in the back of a crowed truck, but two men up near the cab weren't being crowded. I'm not sure why, but a young lady sitting next to them was really pushing the lady sitting between us hard up against me and I was trying to subtly push back because to the other side of me was a fellow with no legs and I figured he'd probably had enough of being crowed to last a handful of lifetimes. The lady getting sandwiched eventually ended up preferring the bed of the truck, where she sat hunched over a barf bag, and within seconds the younger lady who was doing all the pushing ended up scooting right up next to me making the gap between her and the men even more painfully obvious.

I don't really know what to say except that when the young lady got off at her stop I ended up next to the men, who both took turns touching my arm and leg hair.

proud to be an American?

cluster bombs + Lao PDR

http://www.itvs.org/bombies/story.html
http://www.maginternational.org/MAG/en/where-we-work/where-mag-works/lao-pdr/

My brother just posted 5 essential albums on his blog. I was pleased to see Lee Hazlewood had a spot. This is a picture of Stuart A. Staples, the living expression of Lee's sad side. He sings sad songs to make us happy, because human beings really enjoy sadness.