Expat-tacular

i know full well...

2011-03-04T23:49:00.000-08:00

....yet am always somehow surprised at the strangeness of british people.

the little blurb in the middle of this tesco box of fruit & fibre cereal says that it is "suitable for vegetarians."

i am not a vegetarian, and i have no pressing plans to ever become one. but i have a very hard time conceiving of a universe where cereal is not vegetarian-safe. isn't all cereal vegetarian-safe? is there narwhale in my rice chex?

m-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

2010-10-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

there's a lot i enjoy about being back home with my family. chiefly, my family and butterfinger candy bars. and netflix. and ice cream with butterfingers in it.

but the other day i noticed a nice, unintended, non-candy-related little perk of being in mississippi. no one ever spells the word mississippi in an attempt to amuse me. if you're from mississippi and you end up some place where there are not that many people from mississippi (say, like, south korea), people will invariably, once they learn you hail from mississippi, spell the word mississippi, then look at you for a reaction, as though being able to spell the word mississippi is the most original and entertaining thing that has ever happened. ever.

it's not. to the point that when strangers in far-flung places ask me where i'm from, i reply: "mississippi. don't spell it." if they DO spell it, i take their drink out of their hand, finish it for them, and walk away.

imagine if this was how people greeted each other within the state.

A: Where are you from?
B: Jackson.
A: J-A-C-K-S-O-N! [holds hand up aggressively, demanding a high-five]

ugh, i say. ugh.

my passionate love affair with america is over

2010-10-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

i just got home from the grocery store, where i bought - i swear - healthy foods to promote asia skinny retention. and a glamour magazine. it was my stop-over at the magazine rack that brought on my disdain for america. because i counted THREE (3)magazine covers featuring one of the girls from Teen Mom. if you don't know what Teen Mom is, go in peace, my friend, and never look down that road. it will kill your soul.

i want to like america. i really, really do. but i cannot abide by a culture that turns sixteen year-old girls too stupid to make their boyfriends bag it up into celebrities.

and, from looking at the covers, none of these magazines are offering cautionary tales, about how you don't end up pregnant before you can vote, living without furniture, struggling to get your GED. maci is back with her baby's father! amber has lost a ton of weight! farrah isn't pregnant! i made note of all the covers, since i like to have accurate fodder for my indignation.

i would never categorize someone else's child as a mistake, but i feel like these girls are being put on a pedestal for making really bad choices. it grosses me out.

vegetables

2010-10-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

i've been back in america for about two months now, desperately trying to hang on to what i call my "asia skinny." it's not the same as being actually skinny, just skinnier than i am when there's butterfingers everywhere. grocery stores in asia don't have butterfingers. i cannot be trusted around a butterfinger candy bar. i enter a fugue state, and basically black out for a few minutes and wake up covered in chocolate and crispity-crunchity crumbies, with no memory of having actually eaten the butterfinger.

i've been trying to eat as well as i can, lots of fruits and veggies and very few trips to cold stone. since the last time i was home, america has become seemingly obsessed with getting enough veggies, since every commerical on the television claims that product X contains A FULL SERVING OF VEGETABLES! chef boyardee, apple juice, manwich, pasta sauce and many, many more contain a full serving of vegetables. exclamation point.

you know what else has a full serving of vegetables? broccoli. you want to get veggies in your diet? you think your kids need to eat more vegetables? then buy a damn vegetable. because manwich is not vegetables. at. all.

oprah

2010-09-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

and, today, some i-have-too-much-time-on-my-hands thoughts on oprah.

i watched the season premiere of oprah. you know, where everyone gets to go australia. whee! what lucky, lucky folks.

and, then, the next day on oprah, wynonna judd! wheee...? she's a great singer, with a hot sister and mom issues and a skeevy ex-husband. which makes for plenty to talk about, but wynonna judd is no trip to australia, my friends.

which got me thinking about oprah's audience. one day, everyone gets a car and a recording contract. the next day, the world's most inspirational dog. really. once there was this dog that only had two legs, and the pound wanted to put the dog down, and a family stepped up and took the dog in and NO ONE IS GOING ON VACATION.

i ask you: does this seem fair?

top chef

2010-09-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

i'm currently unemployed (or, "retired," if you will), and instead of socializing with, dating, or in any way relating to my peers, i've been watching a lot of television. in my defense, people on television are generally better looking and better scripted than actual mississippians.

last week was the top chef finale. i love top chef. i especially love when william and i watch entire seasons of top chef while having a mcdonalds picnic, but we are sadly separated by an ocean at present. but i digress.

in my many, many free hours that i spend watching television, i come up with ideas to make it better. so, here's my advice for top chef. the first season was hosted by katie lee joel, then trophy wife of billy joel, who may or may not be a robot. in the second season, she was replaced by padma lakmishi, who was married to salman rushdie.

padma's been the host ever since, but i think the bravo network missed out on a great hook: each season is hosted by some old dude's trophy wife. you could even host for mulitple seasons, as long as you remain trophy-wifed. as soon as you get divorced, sorry, new host.

of course, if you got divorced and traded up, then you could keep your job. like if katie lee joel had become katie lee springsteen.

living in a foreign country can turn you into the worst possible version of yourself.

2010-08-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

right now i am back in america: visiting with my family, hitting up the sturgis south biker rally, eating fattening foods, trying to determine which city's housewives are the real-ist. i'm going with new jersey, mostly because they are the housewives i fear the most.

(side note: it turns out that when one is actually sober enough to walk around the sturgis south biker rally, it ends up being a little bit like every other outdoor happening in mississippi. sunburned people who have no business being shirtless eating funnel cake and drinking beer at 11am. but maybe with a tad more racism.)

amongst the many things that i miss in korea (kimchi, my girls, being able to afford stuff), i really miss being able to talk about strangers with impunity. yes, i understand that makes me a bad person. you see how polite and civilized you are when there's a 97.8% chance that no one else on the subway will understand what you're saying.

a while ago my good chingu william and i were walking in downtown daegu when a poorly dressed woman ran into traffic.

william: she just tried to kill herself!
me: oh, god, look at her shoes!
william: look at her hair!
me: it's like she's already dead.

just can't do that in america.

the first and second ammendments

2010-08-20T13:20:00.001-07:00

let me begin by saying that i may never forgive the media for making me re-think my stance on gun owners. i do not like being wrong.

also, i do not like guns. i think guns are terrible, awful things. guns are the only things in the world that exsist solely to take life. sure, you can kill someone with a knife, but you can also slice bread or spread peanut butter. can't slice bread with a gun. i guess you could make some fairly leaden bread crumbs, but that's another story.

i've, like every other person with a television and eyes, been watching the controversy over the islamic center in new york unfold. and i don't understand the big deal. the first ammendment says that everyone has the right to practice the religion they choose. so, you know, case closed.

which got me thinking about the second ammendment. which says that people can own guns. i don't really care for this ammendment. i like the ammendments that let me vote and make my classmates not slaves, but i just don't think people need guns. oh, if only that were how the constitution worked!

plus, if we're being honest, it's not really the guns i have trouble with. i don't like the people who like guns. in my mind, people who like guns are this guy or these guys .

here's what i've come to understand: i don't have to like gun owners. don't have to invite them into my house or meet them for drinks or swap bread crumb recipies. but i do have to respect that the constitution gives them the right to buy guns and sell guns and keep guns in their homes. and the people who want to buy guns and sell guns and keep guns in their homes are only asking to do something the constitution promises them the right to do.

you don't have to like what a person does, and you don't have to like what a person believes, but until someone shoots up a school or crashes a plane, he isn't a criminal. he isn't evil, and he isn't out to destroy your way of life. he's just doing what the single greatest document ever written affords him the right to do.

nostalgia

2010-07-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

i'm going home soon, which has me thinking about all of the things i like at home.

i grew up in a dry county - no cold beer, liquor store closes at ten, last call is midnight. i hear vague rumors that my county is getting less dry, but i'll believe it when i see it. when i was little, sometimes on a sunday, my dad and i would drive out to the crossroads in his old beater truck to get a six pack of cold PBR (for him) and a grape slush puppie (for me). those are, honestly, some of the very happiest memories of my life.

the last time i was home my dad and i went out to columbus, the next town over, for some sunday beers. on our way we passed the latest addition to the crossroads: The Pony. the pony may be the skeeviest strip club ever. outside the pony is a huge metal statue of (natch) a pony. with a raging boner. the pony boner. a poner, if you will. during the daytime hours, the poner is covered with a neon pink thong. imagine that being your job: time to go put the thong on the poner, steve!

that, in a nutshell, is small town mississippi. if you're laughing, then you understand why i miss it.

what i love #3 - procrastination

2010-07-02T02:04:00.001-07:00

and i'm not just saying that because right now i'm at work not working. i truly, deeply love procrastinating. i love the feeling of knowing whatever i am doing is not the wisest, most sensible choice. i remember, in university, the feeling that would overtake me the night before a final exam, of being equal parts so very deeply screwed and so excited about organizing my huge collection of magazines (#4 - magazines).

right now i should be editing the kindy monthly objectives for my school. but i am blogging. awesome.

right here, right now

2010-06-23T05:11:00.001-07:00

i wish that all of you reading this, all of you who aren't in korea anyway, could experience just five minutes of living in a world cup-crazed country perched on the brink of war. because, when the air raid siren goes off, small soccer-mad children just run around screaming "vuvuzela!" makes it kind of hard to be terrified.

what i love #2 - candy

2010-06-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

because nothing goes with diet coke quite like candy. except for popcorn, pizza, hambugers, and everything i do during my day. there's a reason diet coke is number one.

tonight i went to costco, and i bought another giant tub of jelly beans. don't worry, i still have most of them. in honor of the fact that my heart most likely pumps hugh fructose corn syrup, i present a list of my favorite candies.

1. hot tamales - number one with a bullet. i once ate three pounds of them in a single sitting. on a day that i wasn't sad. once on a day that i was sad, i ate so many the inside of my mouth started bleeding.

2. nerds

3. everlasting gobstoppers - much like "the neverending story," it's a delicious treat wrapped in a lie.

4. sprees

5. cadburry creme eggs - last easter i made my then-boyfriend drive me to like six different stores buying them up. what i love 3# - hoarding!

party in the usa

2010-06-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

last night i was out dancing for a friend's birthday (many happy returns, annabelle!) and one of the songs that came on was "party in the usa" by miley cyrus. not only is this just a plain, old bad song, it's the kind of bad song that drunken twenty-somethings don't really want to dance to at 2am.

the song created kind of an awkward lull in the bar, where we all just sort of looked at each other and sobered up a little bit. it gave me a chance to listen to the lyrics. (which you can go find on your own, since i am not wasting my newly accquired mad linking skillz to direct you to a miley cyrus video. i have standards.)

anyhoo, if you don't know the song, miley name-checks jay-z.

i don't know jay-z. i don't know what kind of music he likes to listen to. but i feel like maybe, just maybe, he really doesn't enjoy being name-checked by miley cyrus. additionally, i feel like it's the sort of thing beyonce might throw in his face if they were having a tiff. about whatever it is that hip-hop royalty has tiffs about. not making reservations at nobu? i'm drawing a blank.

jay-z: i thought you were calling nobu!
beyonce: i thought YOU were calling nobu!
jay-z: you always do this!
beyonce: party in the usa, asshole.

what i love #1 - diet coke

2010-05-31T05:34:00.000-07:00

i am stealing the idea for this blog from my good friend william, who freely admits that he borrowed it from someone else. this will not stop william from being mad at me for stealing his idea, but i think it's a good idea. and i like making lists of things.

(ps: can we totally high-five me for learning how to link to things on my blog? up high!)

i love diet coke. i believe that i could give up eating meat, or cheese, or even jelly beans sooner than i could give up diet coke.

i used to not like diet coke. at all. back when i was an office worker in university, there was a fridge full of carbonated beverages, and i could have one whenever i wanted. a month of having a coke whenever i wanted led to some fairly serious clothing-zipping issues, and i basically just talked myself into liking diet coke as a way of making my jeans fit again.

i would take a diet coke out of the mini-fridge, and, before i opened it, say to myself, diet coke is soooo delicious! eventually i came to believe it. now if i'm stuck with regular coke or coke zero (which i will drink in a pinch, since carbonated brown sugar water is the gas that makes my engine go) i feel like i'm drinking cough syrup. which is also something i enjoy, for sure. just not during a movie.

(i have tried and failed to talk myself into liking other things, most notably flossing and the stairmaster. though maybe i just wasn't trying so hard those times.)

between an oil slick and an a-bomb

2010-05-30T06:41:00.001-07:00

like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. only, you know, worse.

if you're the sort of person who reads the news, and i really hope you are, you may have heard about troubles in the waters around both korea and mississippi. the two places i think of as my home.

here in south korea there's the chance that kim jong-il is really sad about dying without ever trying out his military. this is, i admit slightly worrying. i do not want to be blown up before seeing river again and convincing my brother and his wife to name the new baby ephraim. it's a good name!

thus far, however, the only ill effect i've felt is a kind of sucky exchange rate. i remain confident that any north korea soldiers who accost me could be easily distracted by the granola bars i keep in my purse, just in case. not much food up there. if that doesn't work, i'll invite them home and demonstrate how my television turns on and off when i want it to, and has many, many fine channels. plus: more granola bars in my house.

and back at home in mississippi there's a chance that British Petroleum is trying to ensure that my american family evolves into some sort of x-man-esque half-human, half-tar ball nature-destroying crime syndicate. like, i am actually more worried that i'm going to come home in august and discover that my niece is now made mostly of crude oil.

and now i will cease making fun of the oil spill in the gulf of mexico, because it makes me physically ill. i cannot watch the news without crying. i cannot speak of it to other people without crying. i am crying right now as i type. that is my home. that is where i live. and it is being destroyed in a manner that was completely preventable.

medicinal frog

2010-05-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

so, i've got some allergy, asthma type issues. perhaps, because, against medical advice, i refuse to chuck my kitty out. mama loves luna!

one of the medicines that i've been prescribed is this here cough syrup.

i believe that i have been prescribed a frog-based product. i believe this not only because there is a frog on the packaging, looking coyly offstage as if to say, i taste gooooood, though that is certainly reason enough. but also because the medicine tastes like hot buttered ass. now, tristan, you may be saying, ALL medicine tastes like hot buttered ass. A) not true. nyquil tastes like happiness. B) this particular medicine tastes like swampy hot buttered ass. it tastes like swamp. you know, the place where frogs live.

a foreign country is not bourbon street, you jagoffs.

2010-05-18T01:38:00.000-07:00

sometimes foreigners living in korea get a bad rap. we get blamed for-slash-accused of a lot of things that are not really our fault. like mad cow disease.

and sometimes, foreigners living in korea make the case for a cleansing mass deportation in a stellar and unflinching manner.

the other weekend i happened upon a group of expats participating in what was unabashedly billed as an "alcoholic scavenger hunt." some of the tasks included, apparently, running naked down the street in the middle of the day, jumping into a moving vehicle driven by a korean, and climbing to the top of a very well-know landmark (which is at least 25 feet off the ground). all whilst drinking. on the street. at, like, 2pm. at 2pm on a saturday people are buying their children ice cream.

i really hate sounding like a miserable old fuddy-duddy who hates the young, with their hairless nether-regions and joy, but fo' realz people. fo' really realz. we are guests in these peoples' home.

korea is not mardi gras, and it's not college. if, honestly, you'd have no problem running down the street naked at 2pm in your own personal north american hometown, more power to you. but korea's not the place for you.

bikini waxing

2010-05-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

for some ungodly reason, i keep falling into conversations about bikini region upkeep with the people i know. i need you to know that A) i don't start these conversations and B) i'm all for maintaining good hygene. but here's the thing. i have never, and never plan on ever, getting a bikini wax. why?

because i feel like if you were to make an itemized list of all the things a lady should never put near her cooch, it would go a little something like this:

1. alligators

2. razor blades

3. hot wax

4. kevin federline

numbers one and four are easily enough side-stepped, assuming one is neither a japanese porn star nor brittney spears. so why the hell would i go running into the arms of numbers two and three?

sweet belly

2010-05-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

sweet belly is the affectionate name i have for what surely must be my second stomach. for you see, no matter how much salty/savory food i manage to shove down my gullet (hint: it's a lot), i always have room for something sweet. like a giant, costco-sized tub of jelly bellies.

i've had this particular tub of jelly bellies for just over two weeks now. that's right. fourteen days. i like candy. it's about 2/3 empty. and about half of what's left are just the jelly belly flavors i don't particularly care for. we really need four flavors of coffee jelly beans? not, say, more peach ones?

i'm keeping all the flavors i don't particularly love (cappuccino AND cafe latte?!!? really?) because one day i may be so desperately in need of something made entirely of sugar that i'll eat them. i don't want to know what that day looks like. there will probably be no mascara, and i'll be kicking puppies. but you gotta be prepared.

orphan sandwich

2010-05-09T02:23:00.001-07:00

firstly, yes, i realize i went away for a very long time. called out by my dad. sorry, pops.

anyway, the purpose of this blog, one of the very many i plan on writing to explain what the all i've been doing for the past months, is to tell you about the orphan sandwich.

there's a place in itaewon called suji's. apparently there are other branches in other parts of seoul, but i've only ever gone to the 'twon. the make a rueben sandwich that is completely ridiculous.

how ridiculous? well, if you told me, four bites in, that the sandwich was made entirely of orphans, i would finish it. it's too delicious to discard, and it's also too late for angelina to do those orphans any good.

perhaps not the ringing endorsement a fine dining establishment might want, but i can't think of a higher compliment.

pithy pop song wisdom

2009-11-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

you say you wanna go there?
ride, then.
you say you don't wanna be here?
leave, then.
time comes to get gone.
--greg dulli

and the time will come
when you add up the numbers
and the time will come
when you motor away
why don't you just
drive away?
--robert pollard

here's the thing. i used to be unhappy. desperately so. to the point of being a cliche. and then...i left the place that made me unhappy and i tried something new. i have no patience for unhappy people. i just don't. the world is full of ways to be joyous. try harder.

imaginary daegu, giver of very real hangovers

2009-11-09T03:33:00.000-08:00

this weekend my co-worker/chingu jacks and i went down to daegu, the city where i used to live. we call it imaginary daegu, since i claim often that daegu has many amazing features that i have yet to find in seoul. chiefly, oven-baked pasta, crab rangoon and cheap and lovel pedicures. and we found all of these. we also found some bamboo soju. and when i say we found some bamboo soju i mean i personally drank my weight in it. ugh.

sunday afternoon i set an alarm to make sure that we'd get back up to catch the train up to seoul. an alarm for 2pm. and i remember being upset that we had to get up that early.

don't get me wrong, it was an awesome weekend. that i would really prefer to never, ever repeat again.

we wish you a merry hamburger

2009-10-21T05:40:00.001-07:00

tonight i went with some friends to a new-ish restaurant in the sinchon area. the allure of the place was two-fold. first, i was told there were really great burgers and fries. second, it was entirely christmas themed. both turned out to be completely true. i had the bacon burger, which the menu called the "santa bacon burger," though i think it's a safe bet it was pig bacon and not cured side of saint nick. all that, plus coke in glass bottles!!

(and yet, because i can always find something to complain about, the joint's one christmas tree was a triffle on the sad side. like, charlie brown would try to adopt it.)

the scenic entrance

glass bottle clink!

nerds!

2009-10-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

i just participated in the seoul players "night of 1000 plays." (i call the people in my drama group nerds. to their faces, which makes it okay.) amongst my quibbles with the night of 1000 plays are A: the fact that there were, like, 40 plays which were B: spaced out over two nights. you say po-tay-toe, i say 40 is a whole fucking lot less than 1000.

i learned many things during my time with the nerds. i learned that you must never, ever tell drama nerds that you don't like the play Rent. fyi: i don't like the play Rent. why? because you wanna know how you're gonna pay the rent? you're gonna get a damn job, you waste of space hippie. however, drama nerds don't want to hear anything about you not liking Rent. they will stare at you like you're Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and they're the UN General Assembly.

really, people. it's not a good play.

still the night of (insert sarcastic air quotes) 1000 plays was quite a lot of fun. i got to play some guy's subconscious mind, as a lesbian. and a weird character called Baby Boo that totally defies explanation. and william came up to visit. whee!

the things that keep me awake at night

2009-09-27T02:43:00.000-07:00

the other night i was thinking about the rapidly approaching new year, and where i would be spending in. southeast asia? mississippi? little bit of a no-brainer, right? anyway, i realized that the new year is going to be 2010. and i had the most troubling thought: what are we going to do for new year's eve novelty glasses? observe:

2009 was the last year the two zeroes would be together, making convenient eye holes. basically, the novelty eyewear people have had an entire decade to rest on their laurels. "two goes here, eight goes here, eyes in the middle, badda bing, badda boo!"

but what now? my god! what now!?! the zeroes are no longer together! do we just stop wearing novelty glasses to commemorate the passing of another year? do we wear really truncated awkward 1s on our noses and have lopsided 2010 glasses? fail!

the world's most perfect bad movie

2009-09-23T06:05:00.000-07:00

if you've spent any amount of time with me, especially after a few cocktails, i have made it perfectly clear how badly i love a terrible movie. not just any ordinary bad movie - i'm looking at you, mission impossible franchise, but a movie so bad it transcends terribleness and swings back around into a thing of beauty.

for good or ill, i am very hard to please, cinematically speaking. movies that i consider legitimately good are few and far between: singin' in the rain, big fish, blade runner, l.a. confidential, wall-e, sunshine. after seeing each of those i thought, i will never see anything like that again.

which is why i like bad movies. they're comforting, like mcdonalds. i swear it off ten times a year, but can't get away. bad movies have just the right combination of irony, un-intentional irony, actors who know the score, and actors trying for their oscar reel that it just adds up to pure magic. throw in a hangover and a pizza, and it's like looking into the face of god.

thanks to korean cable (jean claude van damme: still relevant on channel 201!) i have rediscovered what may be the single greatest bad movie ever made: 3000 Miles to Graceland.

let's put it this way: if bad movies were the winter olympics, figure skating, and there were certain technical elements to be met, 3000 Miles to Graceland would have an unstoppable lead going into the free skate. let me break it down for you, in terms of dick-flick movie cliches

nineties heartthrob, trying to hang on - kevin costner

teen heartthrob, ditto above - christian slater

former child star - kurt russell (totally counts, google it)

cast member of friends - courtney cox (arquette)

an aquette (by birth) - david

black dude who dies 20 minutes in - bokhem woodbine

athlete - howie long

plucky kid - some poor s.o.b. who hopefully went to college

as i was sitting in the theater (yes, i saw this movie in the theater, nachoes and all) i thought to myself, "holy crap, all this movie needs is a rapper. it has every bad thing ever. where's the rapper?" and then, like some beat-slingin' deus et machina, Ice T descends from the ceiling. upside down. on a cable. firing uzis. yes, plural.

i have not done this film justice. trust me: like looking into the face of god.

In Retrospect

2009-09-22T03:09:00.000-07:00

i just finished reading In Retrospect by Robert MacNamara, who was the secretary of defense during the vietnam war. it took my quite a while to finish this tome, because i kept having to put it down out of anger. why? because i feel like if you had a copy of the book and performed a simple "find and replace" function, swapping the word Vietnam for the word Iraq, you'd have the story of our current adventure in the middle east. lack of planning, lack of understanding of the culture being invaded, lack of victory strategy. it's all there.

but here's the really galling part: the book was written in 1996. that means it was just sitting around, waiting to be learned from, for a full 7 years before the US invaded iraq. "hello," it called out from bookshelves and libraries, "garner some knowledge from my mistakes. i'm begging here!"

homophones.

2009-09-13T01:15:00.003-07:00

sometimes they are confusing. sometimes they are malicious. misuse them at your own risk.

you'll have to believe me when i tell you....

2009-09-10T04:18:00.000-07:00

that the yonsei funeral hall (a very modern, large building near my house) has it's own starbucks. the reason you have to take my word for this is because i couldn't bring myself to photograph it with iPhone. at least not in my walking clothes, which are cut-offs and a tank top. when there are stately people clad in back, coming and going. and drinking coffee. but, really, for reals, there is a starbucks in the funeral hall.

secret single behavior

2009-09-05T06:56:00.001-07:00

so, sometimes when i'm bored i count my spare change. i tend not to spend any of the change i accumulate during the day, and i keep it all in a glass vase in my closet. and sometimes when there's nothing good on tv or i don't want to read my book or just because, i count al of my spare change. i make a big pile of chage on my floor, and then count it all. i start with the ten wons, which are the smallest, and work my way up. stacks of ten coins (of course) and rows of five. and then i always feel such a sense of accomplishment. and then, shortly thereafter, i feel sad for myself, and my sad, sad life.

luna

2009-08-25T07:04:00.001-07:00

because she's white like the moon. and crazy.

with apologies to my father, who may or may not be reading this

2009-08-17T03:18:00.000-07:00

so, on friday after work me and some ladies went to mcdonald's (we walked, which means the calories totally don't count). afterwards, keen-eyed Gal A spotted a sex toy shop on the third floor of a building nearby. lacking anything better to do, Gal B and i accompanied her up the treacherous stairs and down the hall (past a rival english academy. that's right, porn and ESL learners happily share a mailing address!) to the shop.

which was staffed by...a man who was seventy years old if he was a day. his gray hair was in an immaculate old man pompadour, and he was wearing what appeared to be an addias track suit. picture grandpa crossed with tony soprano.

i cannot stop thinking about this man. i am dying to know how his life's journey came to a room full of vibrators. is he a free-loving hep cat, who wants us all to be having better sex? did he inherit the business from family? win it in a poker game? is he judging his customers while taking their money? was he minding the shop for a sick friend or relation? how the heck did he end up there? hooooooooow? how?

Daegu. Now with 100% fewer calories.

2009-08-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

this past week i pojang-ed myself down to daegu, since my school had its scheduled summer vacation, and i had not enough money to get myself shot of the country. many of my friends still live in daegu, and i spent the week couch surfing and pretending food is made of delicious air. see, william and i have a tradition: no calorie day. whatever we manage to eat magically has no calories. just like that, no matter what the fit of my pants is trying to say to the contrary.

day one: pizza and chicken

day two: mcdonald's delivery.

(that's right, in korea you can make mcdonald's come to your house. ice cream and all. we got the Triple Set, even though there are only two of us, and william hid to make the delivery man think all the food was for me. whatev.)

sarah is not here.

2009-07-30T01:04:00.000-07:00

last friday i finally got my hands on a functioning korean cell phone, as my co-worker MK was leaving the country and hooked me up with hers. i collected said phone at about 3:00am in the morning, in the middle of a downpour. MK and many other people were still going strong, getting their party on, but mama likes neither being wet nor being awake past midnight. because i am your grandmother.

about 4am i got a call on the phone, from one of the girls, let's call her sarah, whom we were out with. she doesn't yet have a phone of her own, and she borrowed a phone from some korean man to call MK. suffice it to say, there wasn't a whole lot i could do for sarah from the comfort of my jim-jams. even assuming i was naturally a helpful person. which i am not.

the next day on the KTX to daegu (tales of daegu adventures to follow) my phone rang. it was the man whose phone sarah had borrowed the night before, looking for sarah. apparently sarah had promised to call him, and she hadn't. leaving aside that no one you ever promise to call at 3am ever gets a phone call, sarah borrowed the phone at 4 am and it was not yet 2 pm. dude hadn't even given her 12 hours before dropping the crazy bomb. i told him i wasn't sarah, didn't know sarah's number, was probably never going to see sarah again, and hung up. because you shouldn't talk loudly on the KTX. it's rude.

homeboy called back three more times, demanding to be put in touch with sarah. the last time he called i told him not to call ever ever ever again, and used my new phone's handy spam function to block his calls.

later, that very same night: dude calls from ANOTHER number, as number A is blocked. after i explain that i am not only not with sarah currently, but in a whole nother city, the following conversation takes place:

dude: where is sarah?
me: i. do not. know. sarah is not my friend. i do not know how you can talk to her again. stop calling me.
dude: are you with sarah? how can i speak to her?
me: i. don't. know. you must stop calling me.
dude: you are not sarah?
me: NO.
dude: may i have your name?
me: if you call me again i am calling the police.

second number: blocked!

a new spin on Christianity

2009-07-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

so my nightly, post-work routine (booze. chicken and veggies. is Constantine on? c'mon, Korea, i know it's on one of these channels...and Yahtzee!) was interupted by a pizza ad taped to my door, which i discovered while taking out the recycling. side note: i live on the fifth floor, so, to my way of thinking, taking out the recycling and the garbage in separate trips is totally the same as going to the gym.

it's not uncommon to find food ads taped to your door here in korea. some of them have come in pretty useful from time to time, like when you want your blog readers to believe you're eating chicken and veggies, but really you got soy sauce chicken and a pizza. it happens.

anyway, the pizza advert i discovered not fifteen minutes ago had a very interesting addendum in the upper right hand corner.

it says, and i quote, "Jesus loves You. Since 1967." really? because that would suck for the puritans. i kind of love the idea that these people are offering me a pizza with tempura shrimp in the crust and the rather incendiary knowledge that our Lord and Saviour only started digging us at the tail end of all that dirty hippie nonsense.

spite vomit

2009-07-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

(this story is not for anyone with a needle phobia. like my friend jenny, who tried so hard to be supportive at the hospital.)

the last time i was in korea i got a pretty nasty case of food poisoning, and ended up in a hospital. before having my IV shunt put in, i had been talking to a doctor, in english. this man spoke pretty good english, for which i am really grateful. i am not one of those people who thinks koreans should all speak english to make my life easier. because then i wouldn't have a job.

anyhoo....

the doctor put an IV shunt in the top of my left hand, but before putting in the IV line, decided to draw some blood for tests. at this point i was hit with a terrible wave of nausea (food. poisoning.) and asked the doctor to just hold off for a few seconds.

me: sir, could you please wait a minute? i think i'm going to throw up.
doctor: (throws his palm in my face, "talk to the hand" style) HEY! Calm. Down.

now, my friends, there are many things in this world that calm down. vomit is not one of them. i turned my head over my shoulder, because i sure as fuck was gonna puke, and i didn't want to get any on myself. then i thought, "oh, no. i warned the man." so i turned my head back to face the good doctor, and puked all down the front of him. because i had warned him.

at the time this happened i felt worse than i have any memory of ever feeling in my entire life. while sitting on a toilet puking into a garbage can, i actually told God that his two options were to cure me or kill me, but He had to stop dicking me around. however, in retrospect, if i still had the wherewithall to throw up on a virtual stranger out of spite, i should have known that a full recovery was emminent.

not playing in the mud

2009-07-11T07:13:00.001-07:00

this weekend is the mud festival here in korea. all of my coworkers have gone, as have several other people i know. and i am in no way trying to disparage the tastes of others, but, seriously, mud is wet dirt. it is where pigs live. there aren't even, like, bands at mud fest. it's just mud.

it's worth mentioning that i have an aversion to large groups of drunken people. ergo it stands to reason that i will like them even less when they are muddy. it also bears mentioning that this is supposed to be theraputic mud, with healing properties. or something. fair enough. leeches are theraputic, but i bet leech fest would totally bomb.

today in class

2009-07-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

in one of my afternoon classes the following conversation took place.

Me: A grown-up is the same thing as an adult. Who can name an adult for me?
Kid A: Mommy and Daddy.
Me: yes, Mommy and Daddy are adults. They are grown up. Anyone else?
Kid B: Adolf Hitler.

parking spaces

2009-07-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

this morning before work (why, lord, oh why must i work? why? so unfair. the porn's not going to watch itself.) i ran into the supermarket behind my school. i've run into this building a few times before, after my early morning caffine fix, but today i noticed something interesting.

here is, you know, a parking space. nothing out of the ordinary. two white lines, betwixt which one deposits a car. and, a bit father down, there are more parking spaces. but wait...

there's something interesting about these additional additional parking spaces, namely that they are apparently for the ladies. believe me when i tell you that that's totally pink paint. painted pink parking spaces. for the ladies.

what? the fuck? wha wha wha? they aren't even chivalrous parking spaces as they are farther away from the store than the not-pink spaces. maybe it's parking for fat chicks, and taking the few extra steps will work off the berry mocha frapuccinos.

(you know what goes awesome with frapucccinos? porn. when you're not working.)

R-O-C-K in the R.O.K.

2009-06-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

(because, person who shall remain nameless, we do not call it SoKo. we call it the R.O.K.)

you say "land of the morning calm," i say "land of the smells like clam." which is unfair really, because so far the stinkiest thing in this country is the fellow lodgers in my guesthouse who cannot, it seems, bathe or aim with any modicum of success. yup, i'm in a guesthouse because the teacher i'm replacing won't be out of the apartment until some time next week. as far as guesthouses go it's pretty alright. although it does violate one of the guiding principles by which i govern my life: mama doesn't share bathrooms. since i have to shower in the same places as strangers, i've decided to run the air conditioner non-stop. one, because i like being cold. and, two, because i'm just petty.

things are going really well so far, probably due entirely to the fact that i haven't had to teach yet, and i won't have to until next wednesday. i've only had one day of observing so far, to boot. i'm sure the school thinks it's making things easy for me, but you should never let tristan get too comfortable with sloth. mama loves sloth.

the ladies came up from daegu this weekend, and i've been spending too much money enjoying my chingus. and...that's about all. yay, korea!

first galbi of my return. no, those are NOT three empty soju bottles.

a couple of things

2009-06-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

firstly, if, in the span of two weeks, you overhear more than zero people relating stories about being injured by unruly farm animals, you have been in mississippi too long. yesterday i heard one woman say the following:

"Pig jumped on me."

this is the second such conversation i have overheard recently. the first will be related later, once i have fled the jurisdiction. ergo, i must leave mississippi posthaste.

.......

secondly, the following appeared in the top right of one of the local papers a few days ago:

i do not know what this means. i don't want it explained to me if you know what it means. i really don't care what it means. all i know is this: Miffs Nutt is an awesome stripper name.

the time amazon.com mistakenly thought i was a pervert.

2009-06-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

okay, right off the bat i need you to know something: i am not a pervert. and if i were a pervert, which i am not, i would know better than blabbing to amazon.com about it. surely.

this is what had happened. about this time last year was the 25th anniversary of entertainment weekly's first being published. in honor of 25 years of making life easier for vapid people like me, ew.com published all these list of the best blah-di-blah of the past 25 years. one of the lists was the 25 most shocking memoir confessions, and one of the shocking confessions was about former ballerina Toni Bentley. the description provided on the website was a little sketchy on the details, and sounded pretty sketchy, content-wise. so, as any intrepid online scholar would, i popped right over to amazon and looked up the book in question.

so, uh, some ballerinas like butt love. the love that dare not be googled at work.

and i'm not judging this woman's preferences at all. really. my only problem is that amazon.com helpfully generates a list of books you might like, based on your previously viewed selections. you plant the seeds in amazon's brain, amazon tends the garden.

which is why, a month later, when i logged on to find a present for my niece, amazon.com thought i might like the following books:

1) don't let the pidgeon drive the bus

2) goodnight moon

3) christina: a woman's backdoor journey to love

being on a motorcycle fills your brain with joy

2009-06-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

this was the conclusion i reached today, taking a ride on the back of my dad's bike, as we motored around outside starkville with his motley band of fellow bikers: the scooter trash. i'm leaving a week from tomorrow, and last night dad announced the scooter trash were rallying in my honor for one last ride. and then cokes at mcdonald's. it's how we roll. they even said i could have my own shirt. Trashette.

the fact that this was my last bike ride until....next sunday, when i guilt my dad into going again, just opens the "leaving the country" can of worms in my brain. when folk ask if i'm nervous about moving to south korea, seeing as how it is north korea-adjacent, i usually give them a very blythe, chipper answer. like, "when the north invades, i will distract them from harming me with granola bars, and my 87 television channels, all of which turn off." and this, really, isn't a bad plan. i have more food than i can eat! you can have some! check out tyra banks! bitch crazy!

as long as i don't get blown up first. which would f-ing suck.

He Would Leave You in the Corner

2009-06-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

so yesterday it was pointed out to me, by my father of all people, that i have not updated my blog in almost three weeks. and when your dad has the techno-savy (or, more specifically, MY dad, the luddite), maybe i should try and get back on the ball.

anyway, what follows is a rough outline for what would be my self-help book, should i ever be overcome with a desire to get gussied up and pay a visit to Dr. Phil. enjoy!

a couple of years ago i was party to a breakup, the details of which are mostly unimportant except for i didn't see it coming at all. i took it poorly, drinking two bottles of chardonnay without dirtying a glass. between bottles one and two i decided to put my new bookshelf together, but lacking a screwdriver, i tried to use an exacto knife. this resulted in me cutting my feet on the shards of broken exacto when i went to the kitchen to fetch bottle two, then taking bottle two with me on the subway to wal-mart to buy a screwdriver. so, all in all, i handled it pretty well. hey, the shelves got made.

about a month later i was in a bookstore and picked up a copy of He's Just Not That Into You. now, i am basing my experience on this book on fifteen minutes in a bookstore while hyper-fragile. i'm sure dude is great. oprah loves him!

anyway, i felt like the book was judging me. i could make him into me, if only i weren't so needy and lame and sad and chardonnay-flavored. it was not a good experience for me.

another month after that, i was at home (was there wine? there might have been.) watching the bestest movie of all forever: Dirty Dancing. like all women who went through puberty in the later eighties, i feel i've spent my whole adult life scanning the bar, looking for johnny castle. then, the end of the movie, and the bestest line of dialog of all forever: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

epiphany: that asshole would have left me in the corner. heartbreak? healed! drinking problem? glug glug!!

JAG

2009-05-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

so, one of my very favorite tv shows in the entire world is JAG. it's about navy lawyers and fighting terrorists and a bare minimum of actual acting. if you know of the show, and know me, it might seem like the exact opposite of what i'd like. let me tell you why i love it so:

JAG just asks so little of you. if your one brain cell doesn't have the common sense to know it should be lonely, you can still enjoy the hell out of JAG. it's the exact opposite of The Wire (which, in case you're wondering, is the bestest thing your TV has ever thought about showing you).

there's a fairly varied cast of characters: some old dude, a black guy, a woman, some non-specific middle easterner, all flanking the lead character, Square-Jawed WASP-y Man. and herein lies the genius of the show: whatever side the Square-Jawed WASP-y Man backs in minute 9 will be vindicated by minute 46. he's never, ever wrong. ever. for, i think, seven seasons JAG was like network television's homage to the dominant paridigm. women? wrong. the elderly? keep trying. blacks? noooo. asians? nuh-uh. gays? fuck off. Square-Jawed WASP-y Man? gooooooooooooooood!

take two

2009-05-25T20:03:00.001-07:00

either every marriage has to be held to the biblical watermark test, or none of them do. if marriage is a function of its biblical definition, then it's time to start un-wedding all the athiests out there.

it's also time for dudes to start stockpiling maids, because they totally count as backup if your lady is barren.

marriage

2009-05-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

tomorrow, it would appear, the california supreme court is going to rule of prop 8, which does something legal and proposition-like, preventing gay marriage.

AND OH MY GOD. sweet bejeebus. i am so sorry, but it is apparently one hit wonders weekend on the radio and "informer" by snow is playing. i am? so sorry. i have nothing at all to say about anything. INFORMER. SNOW. he'll lick ya boom-boom down.

honest to goodness, i had every intention of writing a well-reasoned blog about the ridiculousness of prop 8 and the benefits of equality, but all i can think about is ninth grade and hammer pants. wow. just, wow. my mind is completely blown.

rolly pollies

2009-05-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

apparently, i am a closet member of PETA.

you see, my wonderful niece river has an affinity for playing with rolly pollies. you should imagine some sarcastic air quotes around the word playing, because river says she's playing, but really she's mushing and throwing the rolly pollies pieces into yard. as, i imagine, a warning to other rolly pollies that she's the captain round these parts.

and, and....this makes me feel really bad. to the point that i tell her, "river, no mush a rolly pollie." and, "river, be gentle with a rolly pollie." and, "river, stop!"

perhaps it makes me a bad person to admit this, but my empathy surprises me. i am surprised that i am so concerned for the well being of these bugs. one, because i hate bugs. haaaaaate. two, because i don't feel all that strongly about other living things. i believe, honestly, that if god didn't want us to eat cows, cows would have better evasive maneuvers.

these rolly pollies, though. man. they're killing me.

an open letter to the people who post videos on YouTube

2009-05-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

dear people of YouTube,

it's eleven pm. with the help of my trusty iPhone (Batman to my Robin, Holmes to my Watson), i decide that i want to watch justin timerlake and andy samberg sing about porking each other's moms. here's a list of things i don't want to watch:

1. a montage of still images from the video. especially a montage of still images set to the music of an entirely different song.

2. the lyrics to the song in pink San Serif font on a black background

3. you singing the song into your webcam

4. you playing the song on your piano

5. you dancing to the song

6. you cat licking its cat balls while the song plays in the background

7. you and your bro wearing salvation army blouses acting the song out, even though this one is deeply hilarious in a "laughing at you" sorta way

it's not that i don't think you, the people of YouTube, are deeply creative stories to tell. okay, i don't think that. but that's because you're not proving your worth. sew your own techinicolor dreamcoat and let go of JT's coattails.

the smart machines are coming to kill us

2009-05-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

first, i'll start with a little ancedote about a fiction writing class i took lo so many years ago when i was a university undergrad. my professor told the class she wasn't interested in reading any sci-fi stories, because they "weren't real." yes, i thought to myself, unlike other genres of fiction...which are also lies.

anyhoo....

there are a couple of things i've learned from the exceeding unreal science fiction genre. firstly, the smart machines are coming to kill us. secondly, and more tenuously, our only hope is some messianic combination of 65% keanu reeves, 35% christian bale. we are so screwed.

admitedly, me and my unnamed professor were kinda, sorta on the same page, until one fateful day last year. i was driving with my friend leslie (not her real name) in south korea. leslie is married to a very nice (she herself being very nice) south korean, and owns her very own land of the morning car.

said car had one of those GPS do-dads that finds the best route from A to B. and, when you take a wrong turn, the car immediately calibrates a new route to get you to B, via X and Q. the problem, it turned out, was that very nice leslie would turn on the GPS do-dad and promptly ignore its helpful ass for about 37 miles. and every time she would ignore a gadget-recommended merge or left turn, the do-dad would find a new path to our destination (which was pedicures -- woe upon the human who stands between me and a pedicure. mama will cut a bitch).

leslie kept going the wrong way, and every time the gadget would find us a new route, she would ignore it. about the ninth time this happened i had an epiphany: THIS IS WHY THE MACHINES ARE GOING TO KILL US. think about it. the machines know the shortest possible path between pancakes (mmm.....pancakes) and pedicures (oh, nail care, you sweet sweet whore). we just have to listen and obey. but, no! she just kept challenging the machine's superior knowledge. you can't make up your own recipe for pancakes, just cuz! you'd end up with eggy asscakes. with extra salsa!

the GPS knew best! and it just wanted to help us! magic nails closes at 6, for the love of all that is good and holy! just do what the GPS wants, for god's sake!!

but no. two hours later the nail place was closed. no pedicures that day. when confronted with humans, and their fickle, fickle free will, what choice do the machines have? we're practically begging for it.

the holey cow

2009-05-07T18:23:00.001-07:00

there are two absolute truths about the holey cow, which you should know from the outset. first, every person in any way affiliated with mississippi state university, or even the city of starkville, has heard of the holey cow, to say nothing of having personally gotten up in that mess. secondly, no one from outside the region believes for even one second that you are not making that shit up. seriously, they say, you are making that shit up.

the holey cow lives at the vet school on the campus of mississppi state university. and, just in case you hadn't gathered, the holey cow is exactly what it sounds like: a cow with a hole in it. you can see the cud!

every year in grade school, we would take a field trip to the msu vet school. there would be face painting, and bunnies, and soft serve in the cafeteria. even if your parents never let you have ice cream (jo durst!!) the highlight was still the holey cow. yes, from the tender age of six, i have known what digestion looks like. and honestly, it doesn't look that gross. but the smell!

i am assuming, but have not verified, that the cow in the photo is not the same cow from my youth. i imagine every few years some lucky cow wins the crappiest lottery outside of a high school fiction anthology (shirley jackson!!) and gets fitted with a gut portal. although, maybe, gut portals are the secret to bovine immortality, and that mother is thirty some odd years old.

my awesome niece, her awesome parents, the not-so-awesome american health care system

2009-05-06T18:08:00.001-07:00

that is my wonderful niece, river amelia, who loves to dance and eat cookies. at the tender age of two she has already learned the vital life lesson: "oh, no! no crayon a mommy's boob!"

river is staying with me and my folks for the next few days while mommy and her non-crayoned boob have gallbladder surgery.

okay, so i mostly live in asia. where everyone has health insurance, provided by the government, and going to the doctor costs five bucks. seven if you need antibiotics. a friend has a fairly serious operation, requiring about a week's hospitalization for about five grand. hell, i got emergecy care on a sunday in cambodia for twenty bucks, mostly cuz the doctor pegged me for an easy mark. and this isn't some crappy, substandard, "oops, now you're barren!" third-world care. i got sick in cambodia. i went to the doctor. he gave me some pills, i gave him twenty bucks. a week later i was pudgy again.

i'm not really sure why people seem to think it's not the government's job to keep its citizens healthy. i'm sure glenn beck has some very valid points which i'm just ignoring. perhaps you'd like to explain it to me. i'd rather you didn't, but, you know, whatev.

i'm no policy wonk, and i don't even have some googled statistics to back up my ancedotes. i'm just mad. the mother of my niece is sick. the hospital has treated her horribly because she and my brother don't have thirty grand laying around. it makes me mad.

seeming obvious life lessons i, nonetheless, had to learn the hard way

2009-05-04T16:34:00.001-07:00

if you're thirsty, and you have to pee, pee first

a butcher knife is in no way a boon to opening the gallon of milk

don't wear lipstick to the dentist

quitting my job (OR...i am a judgemental bitch)

2009-05-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

last week i gave my notice at the daycare where i've been working these past few months. no one at the daycare knows i've spent the last seven years living overseas teaching english. i'm not sure what, exactly, they think about my life. because basically i am a 31 year-old who lives with her parents and likes walking everywhere. to me, this is easier than explaining about taiwan and south korea. and that's not even the judgementally bitchy part. just you wait.

when i gave my notice, someone asked if i was moving to new orleans to be with the boy i'm kinda, sorta dating. and, because it seemed easier, i said, "yes. i sure am!"

okay, tristan, you're thinking, that just makes you a liar. and sad. maybe i need a hobbie, or to get out more. touche, blog readers. well played.

no, my reason for this falsehood is my belief that the people i work with are equally likely to be able to locate new orleans and south korea on a map. meaning: not likely at all.

blogging

2009-05-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

it had been suggested to me by a friend of mine that i start a blog. i used to have a blog, and then i quit. because i am lazy. very, very lazy. my HBO-inspired fantasy of becoming a recon marine would fail. and boldly.

since nothing overly interesting has happened to me in a while, i thought i might start this blog with an ancedote from my storied past. i like to call it: the time i thought sangria didn't make me hung over. years ago, in college, i went to a day of the dead party. (as jackie o, complete with pillbox hat. i looked fab-u-lous.) there was sangria at this party, and i drank about an entire punch bowl of it all on my lonesome. the next morning i woke up with nary a trace of a hangover, much to my delight. "i feel awesome," i thought to myself. "i feel so awesome, and not at all hungover, that i am going for a jog!" i laced up my trainers, stretched, bounded down the stairs, and jogged myself directly into a tree. full-on, face-to-bark contact. because i was still drunk.

three hours later i got hungover. and then i was sad.