Chika la Vapidique - Cooking, Cinema, Randomness, everything but the hair dryer.

My life in Chiang Mai, to date, is largely a series of little vignettes; little scraps that bring amusement and joy, but would be rather incoherent if one were to try to patch them all together into a broader quilt.

In Boston, my friend Jon mused "I love going out with you, it is great getting to see people's reactions to you." It is of little surprise that I am equally or more stare inducing here in Thailand. Like America, my striking appearance facilitates interactions here in Thailand as well, the most recent experience acquired was walking down some local soi (side street) one night, trying to find a yoga studio, a slight man pulls over and indicates the back of the scooter to me, given he is going in the same direction as I am walking. I shrug, get on, he smiles, we scoot. Passing a local counter side cafe garners expressions from locals and he shouts to them "Hey look what I found!" At least, that is what I imagine, given their tone of surprise, and the stupid big grin on my escort's face.

We get to the end of the soi, and I am dropped off, about five minutes of walking from where I started. Hey, I'm not one to turn down potential for random adventures. I completely fail at finding the yoga studio, however, I attributed it to overshooting on the scooter. Little did I know at that time, finding that yoga studio would become a near-bane of my time in Chiang Mai.

I need to muse more about my train ride... I didn't think a 14 hour train ride could be such a sublime experience, but I was kinda sad to get to our terminal point of Chiang Mai. It was very introspective, reflective, generally meditative/relaxing. Lovely views, the hypnotic rhythm of the wheels as sights unfamiliar to any I had ever seen passing by. I observed everything from hillsides to burning rice paddies, sending bits of ash into our car's open windows like summer snowflakes.

The windows are glass panels you can slide down and stick your head out of, similarly you can hang out of the car doors, the interior is a warm woodedn room. Even the view of our very train, antiquidated, hammered sheets of steel snaking around the corners had the same surreal feel as if you were interacting with your own reflection for the first time.

Windows you can stick your head out of, similarly you can hang out of the car doors. The interiors of the trains are wood, windows sliding glass, outsides hammered and bolted steel. Was always fun seeing the antiquities ahead, when going around curves. Tomorrow renting motorcycles or scooters and driving up north to forest temples and waterfalls.

I meet some interesting souls out here, no less than two people whose lives were meaningfully directed by ayahuasca; a refuge of a Brazilian drug cult in Oregon, and someone who feels like he was saved by it at the Blue Morpho center in Peru.

Now I must run, high fives to my self for actually writing... I need to commit down the musings of future post card contents, my perception and pangs of loneliness and wanting to experience building something, riding steel horses up concrete rivers... yannow... its Asia!

Once upon a time there was a young woman who was aware of her own feelings were, but didn't really understand the feelings of others, the thoughts of others, others' thoughts on her self. All of these things were oh so very confusing. Mostly, she just didn't understand why no one seemed to want to be her friend, or why people seemed to go out of their way to make her own life less pleasant. All through this was the constant discovery of just what her feelings would be to the various stimuli that she bumbled into or life threw her way.

Honestly, some or much of the above is still true, but now my feelings are not so overwhelming, not so bright and sharp. I would say I am jaded. My most recent relationship def't shows that I can fall victim to obsessive, crazy love, which wasn't a particularly familiar experience.

So, life is far less confusing and in need of dissection and reflection less necessary. I feel like I carry little baggage with me, so I am not haunted by emotions from past experiences... Scarred, maybe, but they only twitch when relevant.

Maybe I'll try to write down something about my feelings and experiences at Burning Man, when I get back in September.

Since I last posted to this thing... Maybe I'll ramble, but if you want an update on what I've been up to, I am likely to be much more responsive to something personal and private.. Everything, nothing, failure, survival, aimless wandering with mixed levels of (dis)satisfaction, Burning Man Burning Man Burning Man, and remains of my vanity... Becoming better at learning how to interact with people, yet this sometimes has an inverse relationship with how happy I am with my social ability (Oh, to see what comes so natural to everyone else...).

So, to those people who have been following me for the 5 to 10 years since I started publically journaling my life... Hi, hello, sorry (to my self) that I haven't been keeping up like I used to. The acute pains are less than they were before. The gaping failures are not so present, but rather it seems like I am never short on rough edges to sand down, even though they will never ever be smooth.

Ramble ramble ramble. I am happy to share, all you need to do is ask.

*warning* not particularly interesting material follows.

I feel like I should write. I feel like there should be more to say.

First, I don't feel like commenting on this, but I would recommend looking at it: http://www.emotionallyvague.com/index.php

Second: Matea and I got our auras photographed at Dahn Yoga before work this morning, then each received some healing work.

Yes, we had our auras photographed. No I have no idea what that meant before I did it, either.

There was a silhouette that was my head/shoulders. Slightly below the shoulders it was practically a straight line across, above all a bright, light yellow. I was told this represented compassion. There was a line down the middle of the bottom half, across my chest/torso. It was slightly off-center, the larger half was red, the smaller green. Apparently the red was stress, the green was healing.

I was told the yellow had to do with growth & openness. I was told I had a lot of energy, I was very physical.. Though my spiritual and mental areas were strong, they were not meaningfully attached to the physical. I was progressing toward that, but needed more work**.

After reading my aura, Sooji performed some healing work on me that was.. interesting, enjoyed, and quite well executed. If I am ever to treat my self to some healing work, I believe it may be hers. She said it was a type of Korean massage, the name of which did not stick with me and I have yet to be able to look it up.

More interesting, or touching to me, was the talk I had after with a woman currently volunteering at Dahn yoga. Her story is entirely unrelated to the content of our discussion, but interesting nonetheless. She recently got her MPA at the Kennedy school, and is taking a year off to explore her self... One day she just woke up and felt like she wanted yoga, and started going to Dahn. Soon she found her self wanting to go every other day, then every day, then weekends as well. Then she had an identity crisis of being one of "those people" taking up some "trendy exercise." Yet, she stuck with it, and is now working on her teacher training.

I will certainly check out one of their upcoming classes during this open house...

**I agree with this. I think the appeal of yoga is that it means "to yolk," meaning to join the mind and body together as a unified entity, which opens your self to bliss.

It seems like with the end of each, I learn ever less and less of my self and am assured only that I am the best person to rely upon... It is always less painful to pick your self up when you fall, then to be let down by those you thought would be there.

I wish there was something I could say, something wise and sage... poignant and biting... but I don't really think there is. I surprised my self with what I would do, and what I would tolerate and compromises I would make for nothing given in turn. So indeed, I know my self better but not in any particularly good way.

Now, time to make wedding cake... Lots of wedding cake.

It seems like you did everything right, your best, whatever... and regardless of not just how well you tried, but how wisely, your only options were "What isn't as worse as the other option?"

It usually seems to be only in social situations... I once made a pretty honest error with a former house mate, who then told me off in a public email. I had carefully worded a very apologetic response, with friends proofing and reproofing as to keep my living situation less uncomfortable and pretty much all she had to say was "Whatever."

Obviously something that happened a year ago didn't inspire this... The amusing question is will I read this in a year from now and remember what did.

Anyway... I do ramble.

Much more interesting is AANE's commentary on proposals for the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition reorganization of the pervasive developmental disorder, Asperger's Syndrome.

http://www.aane.org/as_dsmv.html

I am going to stay relatively unopinionated on the issue, but would recommend giving their thoughts a read.

**This was written at some other point with intent to continue... It is unlikely I will continue writing what I intended to...**

Exploration, I say I like it. Discomfort, I say it is valuable. Discomfort is the feeling that motivates me to self-explore. Without it, it is easy to float by and not really think about the sort of things you are doing, why you aren't too comfortable in situations, etc. Then some situations push this discomfort beyond that which you can overlook; you feel it in your stomach, restricting your breathing.

Somewhere between November 20th and January 20th I stumbled into what I think was (is?) love. Love for me has been a mirage, an ever changing sight and definition... but never a destination. My first sense of it had no real words, it was that I was happy... That I believed my self to be loved, and I felt I loved someone else. He was half a planet away, and it didn't matter. I floated for most of those months he was away, until personal most actions formed cracks.

I stated the word, in a relational sense, three more times, between the first time and the most recent... I don't know exactly what I meant in any given one of those times, only the reasons behind it. To Nei, initially, I said I love you because he would say it to me and if I didn't respond he would act hurt until I said that special word of placation. Eventually it started to mean something else, genuine affection for the shared experiences we had, the expressions made to one another co-mingled with the desperation to hold onto the life that he granted me access to. The break up for both such relationships was neither clean, or succinct.

After Nei, how I said it was similar enough each time... It was about three weeks in for each of the next two people. Mr. Ed was acting strange and excited, one morning, and just blurted it out. I don't recall exactly what I said back immediately, if anything, or when I said it back but it wasn't immediate. I started returning the expression soon enough in hopes to cultivate that feeling. The individual in question seemed sincere enough, and on paper they met many qualifiers that implied it would be good to cultivate a loving relation with them... Really, start walking in that direction and the feelings would catch up, ya?

So I was working a charity fund-raiser event for a homeless shelter tonight. The key event was a symphony, the caterer's part was appetizers, coffee, & dessert. During the symphony I had a little bit of time to go scope out the symphony hall's local art exhibit, "Stamford at Night," or some such. Eventually I get a little curious as to who took the photos, and I immediately recognized the name

"Oh right, he tried to sleep with me."

Though that wasn't as curious as seeing a local musical production, and recognizing the lead as someone who wanted me to make him wear my soiled panties while he cleaned my whole house with a toothbrush...

Interesting times indeed... indeed I am in an interesting place. I am sure there is much to say as what I've been up to in what I would guess has probably been over two years now... And I intend to.

Yes, intent... that is exactly what I stand here with.

Twenty-five years ago to this day there was a chemical leak in India from an American company. The immediate death toll was 2259 people, officially. There are estimates of up to 10,000 deaths during the next 72 hours. Over ten-thousand more have died because of related illness.

There are still hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste in the area, in the water, with no real appearance of ever being cleaned up.

After years of litigation the families of those affected received around 2,200 dollars.

I don't know why this is so upsetting to me...

I know that amused is not the right term... but a political statement that took the lives of roughly 3,000 Americans has opened up two wars, which has cost us over 3,000 more American lives, countless foreign-lives, multiple-billions of dollars and counting... Yet this American company on foreign soil that is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, illnesses, ruined lives...

This isn't about defending or justifying acts of war, this is about what sorts of horrible things are not considered criminal when corporate profit is the name of the game.

Learning about this, what happened, and the unfinished business that remains today leaves me having to clean up my eye make up before I run.

What the hell is wrong with us as a species?

Read more about the incident here..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

See current news here...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6942219.ece