back by personal demand

i'm starting this puppy up again. hold please :)

in the meantime, some tunes! http://www.youtube.com/kamilambertable

Logic

The cement ship crumbles at the foot of the plank pier

Undeniably symbolic of a time when dreams were not weighed down by the sum of their parts...or reality...or physics...

Cement ship - are you afloat or grazing the ocean floor from weight

Philosophy told you that a cement ship was impenetrable

Gravity insisted your buoyancy was a joke

But who wins between the Gods and the moon

Between pull and push - who tugs harder and eventually releases

Cement ship - you sit with your stern barely deterring the waves that overcome you

Your bow bows to the beach, seemingly unfazed by the mediocrity of your construction

Maybe your soul lies ashore, sheltered from the insistently persistant salt in open wound of the waving ocean

Maybe your demons remain in your stern

Stern fathers and passengers that questioned your logic

Separate the good from the unknown to remain afloat

But maybe that's logic only a cement ship could know....

Toilet Tales

i knew that the hour long orientation to proper toilet etiquette/strategies/wtf to do would not be the last of the potty talk for the 4 months to follow. don't worry - i'll try to keep it peeG-13 (tehehe).

allow me to paint the picture. imagine the toilet you have come to know and love. now, imagine they made the toilet seat flush with the bathroom floor so that there was no way you could possibly sit on it. if we have any (female) campers out there, reminisce about the delicate balancing act in which you squat far enough back as to not pee on the back of your pants, but not so far that your donk meets ground.

in many ways, that camping scenario is more logistically pleasing than the Thailand squat toilet...at least dirt doesn't provide the perfect curvature and splash-prone surface to make sure that absolutely every ounce of pee manages to splash back onto your feet. now that you've managed to semi-successfully aim into the basin, it's time to flush. and by flush, i mean take a scoopful of water from a sketchy basin and allow the laws of gravity to (hopefully) take your excrements with it. Try to go numero dos and you're pushing your luck with the water gravity method.

once in a blue moon, I'll come across a "normal" toilet. Before you get too excited, let me say this -- Thailand doesn't do toilet paper. Don't get me wrong, they'll always have the toilet paper holder...empty...reminding you of the good 'ol days of clean butt-hood. luckily, my (thai) roommate studied in Australia long enough to have the toilet paper tradition rub off on her (no pun intended).

p.s. all jokes and discomfort aside - once i got used to it: 1) i realized how much effing toilet paper the U.S. wastes and 2) we should take a couple notes from our Thai friends on the squatting position as it relates to going number 2 - all i have to say is that it is much more conducive to success (and with all the rice i've been eating, god knows i need all the help i can get)

Mai Pen Rai

Much like love, Ke$ha is universal. I naively thought that taking a hop, skip, and a jump across a couple continents and multiple oceans would free me from her blahblahblah -- but no, there she was...blaring from a street vendor selling everything from Eric Benet to Joss Stone at Marshall’s prices (1 for 20 baht, 5 for 80).

It’s hard to go deep into my experience thus far without giving you one simple equation that has had me waking up feeling like P. Diddy:

30 baht = $1

So yes, those CDs were in the ballpark of 80 cents, and I have yet to pay more than 90 baht for a meal.

We spent the first two days in Bangkok, doing all of the things that tourists do best. Visiting the Grand Palace and weaving down Kao San Road (equivalent to a backpackers’ Cabo) -- a blissful mix of Westernized bars/clubs, dogs with sunglasses riding on handlebars of their owner’s motorcycles, sizzling pad thai, and the best kind of clothes (very, VERY cheap)...all to the soothing tunes of JT’s timeless Sexy Back.

In all seriousness, there is something indescribably beautiful about this place. Bangkok was a city much like other cities - busy, dirty, and tireless. However, the “land of smiles” has welcomed me with a hug that simply says “we’re thrilled you’re here”. Coming from the states, I found it hard to rid myself of the dog eat dog, every woman for herself mentality. But here, it’s as if those expressions hold no meaning. I can see already why people get hooked.

After that whirlwind in the capitol, we threw our suitcases on top of the van (literally), and headed for the orientation site in the rural Loei province in northern Thailand. Driving through the country made me realize that here, things just work. It’s not fancy, it’s not boastful -- it just works. Void of crosswalks and pedestrian countdowns telling you exactly when, where, and how to walk - here, they use a weird phenomena called “common sense”. Their children are not on leashes and Ritalin, but riding on the back of dad’s motorcycle to the market. Cabs, dogs, tuk tuks (look it up), and children successfully navigate their way without popo rearing their ugly heads. If jay-walking were a crime, Thailand would be on Alcatraz.

I was planning on writing more, but the program ajaans (professors) are holding up beers and bingo cards (we’re learning our numbers) - duty calls.

Tomorrow, we leave for Khon Kaen to move into our apartments and meet our roommates. I promise to not be a stranger.

Until then,

Sawat dee ka

Helping Hand

Babies touch us to learn

but what do we teach?

I hope that every touch promotes more touch

and that my touch will bring your touch

and that our touch can help cure touch

Then I can cease to worry.

As time passes, we use touch to scare girls

and to kill fathers

To shackle heroes

and free our enemies

The very sensation of love is through touch

I hope that some days, the soft touch of my hand

brings you pure joy

And in a society where we hide behind our technological fortresses

I hope that the very institution of sensational connection

is not lost for good

For every gun that you grip, I challenge you

to inversely compensate for the emotional wounds you cause

And if there shall ever be a day that you see your sister smiling,

you touch her to make it last

If she should cry,

touch her to tell her that the connection she has lost is found in you

I may have touched kettles too hot

and hearts too cold

places I've been, and emotions I know

But my goal for this life is to feel this world through the eyes of a blind man

and to ceaselessly renew my appreciation for the climactic sensation of

touch

Heat

You tell me my love is a choice

My love is change

You tell me my love isn't real

But I beg to differ

You see, what you see as an attention stunt

I see as my future wife

And what you hear of Hollywood bicuriousity

does not have a home here

For when that girl walks into the room

my heart flutters and words stutter

Maybe, just maybe she will look and see

that the life I lead is meant for her

and that all the bullshit about "you like guys" will slowly fade

and I can hear the sound of your heart beating on my chest

And I'll tell you of the story of how we met,

I just haven't found you yet.

prose

"Penny For Your Thoughts"

Can I offer you a penny for your thoughts?
As a matter of fact, how about three?
One penny for you, one penny for me,
And one penny for our minds engaged not so sexually.
Getting intimately closer as we approach the
Climatic altitude of nude, mental, sensational… conversation.

Because I’m trying to get to know everything about you
From the neck… UP.

So these are not your typical, sexual, poetical prose.
I’m trying to close the door on that all too familiar freaky foreplay game.
With which most guys have chose to approach you.
While they are trying to get deeply imbedded
In the fine fibers of your bedsheets,
I’m trying to find and define the fibers of which your mind speaks.
I want to engage you
By putting a two karat solitaire diamond ON YOUR MIND
Marrying your every thought!

I want to lick every inch of every crevasse
So I can get an oral fix from each orifice
And taste you passionate IMAGINATION.

I’d rather be naked and exposed, holding you
As we’re lying and you’re crying
While confiding and describing the tough times you’ve had in life
And how you don’t know
If you can keep a relationship long enough to be somebody’s wife.

I wanna feel the heartbeat of all your inner rhythms
As they lead me toward your warm, wet, waterfalls of feminine thoughts.
…And I’ll swim in them.
From backstrokes, to breaststrokes,
I’m penetrating every entrance… to your mind.
Taking my time to find out everything about you.

Did I ever tell you about how you
Fell asleep in my presence?
And your mere essence
Kept me awake for hours
As I cowered with this feeling
Of sexually unadulterated mental connection?

And as you lay by my side
I pushed the blinds aside
And took the time in the moonlight of that night
To count 72 eyelashes
On the upper eyelid of your right eye!
Because when you sleep
Your eyes remain open slightly.

And while we probably moves in too quickly into some sexual shit
I’ve always cared more about the explicitly illicitness
That came from between you lips.. meaning your voice.

So now I am standing here
Ready to trade in all the sexual acts that we’ve preformed
For the chance to reform the very foundation
And the basis of our relationship.

So I reiterate my opening statement
And I offer you another penny for your thoughts.