ish

I'm kicking myself for this. I think, I almost know that I'm changing my mind about going dirty backpacker in December. I just don't want to admit it yet.

A month ago I was certain about doing this; go travel, rough it out without the usual luxuries, go at it alone, see new places, have new experiences. But now that I've booked my flight and have gotten down to the little details - transport, budget, accomodation, things to do - I'm chickening out. I don't really want to rough it out. Been there, done that. I've gone without hot water for a month, collected a layer of dirt on my skin so thick that I could rub it off in the shower, stayed in places that were so filthy the bathroom soap had pubic hair encrusted on it, had my bones shaken and bum bruised by 7 hour long bus rides on dirt roads. With no air conditioning. In the hot and dry Indochina season.

It was fun, I liked playing that role. And I've been wanting to do it again for the past few months (not so much the filthy guesthouse thing though). But do I want to do it now? I don't think so. I am not relishing the thought of going dirty backpacker now and not very enthusiastic about doing it alone. I like my creature comforts and I don't want to be alone with only myself for company. No Internet, no cellphone, no communication with the 'normal' world. And I hate to admit it but lying to my mom about having a travelling companion is killing me. It is safe to go alone, I know that from everyone I've talked to who's been there and who lives there but there is no way she would let me go alone. Which is why I have to lie to put her mind at ease. Knowing that doesn't help with the guilt though, and each time I speak to her about the trip it gets harder and harder.

So I'm re-examining my reasons for wanting to go.

i. final fling (kind of) before having to work and be responsible. Throw off the shackles of everyday life and just wander.
- I don't feel the same urge to do it anymore. I'm content. I'm not quite ready to go back to KL yet but taking a side trip doesn't hold the same appeal it did before. I've done it before so it's not a novelty. And I don't want to abandon civilization any more. The shackles of everyday life are actually very comfortable.

ii. see places, eat things
- I do still want to do this, but the list of places I want to go to now is considerably shorter. Bangkok is obviously still on the list, Chiang Mai is a probably, I would still like to check out Luang Prabang. But Phonsavan, Vientiane, Si Pan Don etc. not so much. I want a lazy chilled out holiday. Rushing from one place to the next isn't lazy, it is stressful.

iii. an interim between KL and Sydney to heal and be alone
- I don't need this anymore. Melbourne did me good and I think being alone with myself for three weeks might actually undo that.

Sigh. I am truly a fickle little twit. I'll probably rebook my ticket to shorten the trip. A week or two maybe. Bangkok is a must, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang maybe.

chew the cud

So i was thinking about this in the shower. it's been in the back of my mind for awhile now but I've skirted the issue deliberately, not wanting to have to change my habits. but ultimately, I believe that this is something no thinking person can avoid confronting. it's a small step to take from purchasing food to wondering where it came from, who made it, under what conditions, and at what cost (not in the dollar sense but in an environmental and social sense, which could and should be translated into economic value but I'm not the person to do that). whether you acknowledge it or not, the answers to these questions have a direct relation to you.

Once these questions have been asked, the answers are easy to find. Michael Pollan is a good place to start, as is Peter Singer but there are other writers out there I haven't read who have written on the subject. There is too much to go into here and I can't pull the facts out of my head automatically but trust me on this (and if you don't, investigate for yourself) the issue of ethical food matters. Where was your food grown? How far has it travelled to get to you? Who grew it and was s/he paid a fair wage? What is in your food (this is particularly relevant when you're looking at processed foods)? Under what conditions was your food grown and are these conditions sustainable? These are the questions that ought to be asked.

It's funny that it took a bar of chocolate I picked up out of curiousity to lead me to this point. See I started thinking in the shower about the trade-off that I make as a consumer in choosing to purchase that expensive ($5 for a 40g bar, to compare $5 for a 250g block of commercial chocolate) piece of chocolate. Simple math, if you look at it from a purely economic angle but then think about what was on the back of the 40g bar. Organic. Fairly traded. Locally made (if using imported cacao). A short, explicit ingredient list (I had a packet of Dove chocolates around. Ingredients: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, milk solids, emulsifier, flavours, Note the ambiguity of 'flavours', 'emulsifier'. Dove chocs are made by the Mars company too so that means that the cocoa used was not fairly traded).

The bottom line is, I can eat the expensive local, organic, fairly traded chocolate with a clear conscience knowing I have not contributed to a company which condones unfair trade and does not practice full disclosure to the average consumer of its products. Instead of giving money to a large corporation which prioritizes its growth, I'm giving money to a company which funnels it to a community which has worked for it and needs it. This I can live with, even though this chocolate costs 6 times more than the other. I don't need to eat that much more chocolate and I'm willing to cut back on my intake of what is essentially a luxury since the little that I will consume has been ethically produced. It won't make a difference to my food budget (don't really have one, but hypothetically speaking now) because I'll be spending the same amount on chocolate. Less of it, to be sure, but of ethical origins. Extending this to other food groups means that in some, maybe many cases, what I pay for will be of better quality and better nutritional value (fresh produce gets main mention here).

Coincidentally, I'm painting my nails a shimmery rich chocolate. yum.

Dinner: tortilla-base pizza (because the one thing I baulk at is yeast. Especially when I'm hungry) with prosciutto, rocket, bocconcini and tomato. I have some prosciutto to use up and it's too intensely flavoured to eat in a sandwich. shouldn't have bought so much. damn DJs. d-oh. melons and bocconcini and I'm set.


There was a woman in the bus today with a funny hiccoughing laugh. haha. stop. haha. stop. literally. at some point on the way to the city this woman in a suit scooted into the empty seat in front of me. i was distracted for awhile by the hiccup-laugher and then spaced out like you do on bus rides. then i noticed that the woman in front of me appeared to be sleeping, leaning against the side of the bus. she must have had a rough day. since it was 1 in the afternoon, maybe she had to work really early too. as i exited the bus, i glanced at her. puffy faced and tired-eyed. a twinge of sympathy.

word (song) association

there are songs i will always associate with particular men. they have a mood and a setting attached to them and without fail take me back to a certain moment when they were playing. here's a list. take a guess if you can. i have the first two playing in my head and on my computer now (these two are a sequence). it started playing in my head first so now i've got to get it out.

The Veronicas - Untouched (bowling alley, first time out with B)
Boys like girls - Hero/heroine (walking past a pizza shop, after leaving his place)

Alicia Keys - Falling (way back when, like waaay back!)
Javier - Crazy (sometime last year)
Colbie Caillat - Magic (while lying in bed with S early this year)
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars (in the back of a car with another S in the front seat, knowing that things were changing)
Presidents of the United State of America - Peaches (outside a fruit stall, this popped into my head and infected him too)
Ne-yo - Sexy love (first dirty dance >p)

and that's all i can remember for now without going through windows music player song by song. there are others, i know, but it's would take up too much time now

-this is how I feel, and it's so surreal-

140 km/h

they say there's a storm coming. "batter down the hatches because we're looking at 115 kmph winds"

as long as it doesn't cut my power supply it'll be fine


there's always a storm coming

past midnight

At this time of night
the silence is palpable and
the air is almost oppressive
thick and heavy
the way it is before the rain comes

My mind skitters
from thoughts of you
to thoughts of freedom from this self-imposed tyranny
this endless work that consumes my mind
my life

Briefly wonder
'is it arrogance if it is justified?'
the right of the intelligentsia and the merciless
to judge others of inferior intellect
even the brilliant need compassion

My thoughts of you will go unwritten
even as they haunt me
in the depths of the night and the clarity of the morning

The night creaks
and this darkness which has come before
will pass
as it has

grace

philosophy:
how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. and so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. in the end, it all comes down to is one word. grace. it's how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.

- off the bottle on my desk. amazing grace.

cheers darlin'

"the same human frailties, the same human weaknesses"

resonance. The manifestation of these words lies in me, in everything and everyone around me. It is inescapable I suppose, that we repeat the same thoughts, repeat the same mistakes over and over again until something clicks. There is comfort in the familiar, like a well-worn path through the shrubbery. Like treading along such a path, treading the same thoughts and emotions ensures a certain regularity and is facilitated by that which has gone before. It is easy, even when it is not. The dangers of repetition. The comforts of repetition.

It is both dangerous and comforting, this repetition. Like the recitation of a prayer, commited to memory, it requires no new thoughts and no exploration of the unknown. It is already known where they will lead. It is almost an article of faith, to know what lies ahead and to have that certainty, if not consciously, then in the depths of your mind and far underneath the surface of superficialities and self-torment. Because that is part of it, a secret masochistic tendency to inflict pain upon others and yourself. It is this pain that reminds you, that reminds me that I am human after all. That I am not, as I sometimes think, dead inside. To feel emotion, any emotion, is an indicator of life and of humanity. A vital sign, if you will. Possibly, it is proof that the mind does not and cannot conquer all. Sheer intellect and willpower is not enough sometimes.

I forget why repetition is dangerous now.

TBC