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Stalking
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Goodies

phone home

8/29/03
I’m so not a beach person. I think that must have something to do with why I got so charbroiled. It’s hard to believe it was a whole week ago to the day that I was in tropical, jungle hot, Hua Hin, actually swimming (that really scared me because if I’m correct, the last time I went swimming was almost exactly 14 years ago, and then I started thinking that if I waited that long before I went swimming again I’d be 45 and that’s absolutely frightening. Being equidistant to 17 and 45 seems so wrong. Can 14 years creep up so easily?). I was dumb and didn’t think I was outside that long and we started walking on the beach trying to get to this rock where a temple and monkeys were supposed to be, but no matter how much we walked, it seemed to stay in the distance, but I didn’t think we’d walked that far, it was probably just an illusion because it takes a lot of effort to walk on sand. So, we got off the beach went up to the sidewalk and started walking back, and it was like an eternity. I had no idea where we were exactly and how we’d managed to trudge that far on the beach. By the time we got back to the hotel I was neon red, a week later and I’m still in pain and peeling. I swear, I get an unusual amount of sun maybe one day every year or two, and I’m probably now on the path to skin cancer thanks to two hours in Thailand. I feel like I have a lot of vacation-related blather to digest/articulate. I hope it’s not a total bore. People kept asking what I did, and I must admit, it’s nothing of note. Everyone into S.E. Asia seems keen on things like temples or buying silk, or getting massages and spa treatments, or snorkeling, surfing, and general island-hopping sporty things, or paying children for sex, I suppose (one hotel had a pamphlet entitled Sex With Children is Illegal and detailed all these cases of foreigners [no Americans, I might add] who’d been prosecuted and the crimes they’d committed. I never thought I had real issues with prostitution or any of that, but it totally grossed me out to see these disgusting white guys who couldn’t get a date if they tried in their own countries, groping their Asian lady friends in elevators, in restaurants, in bars, on the street, pretty much everywhere. I just don’t get the mentality [of the men, I mean] that feels so proud and entitled to such things. Singapore residents by contrast, are said to have the least amount of sex per capita. The government has even taken to advertising and promoting having sex in cars using the slogan "Just think you're smooching under the stars, but in the cool, air-conditioned comfort of your cars” to help boost the declining birth rate. Thailand is crazy in all the obvious ways while Singapore is obtusely weird. You can buy practically anything over the counter in Thailand, it was bizarre to see birth control packs sitting on the shelves [though nothing comes boxed, meds are always in blister packs, never in bottles or boxes]. James was obsessed with getting erythromycin for some lung condition he’s convinced he’s had for like ten years [why someone with health insurance wouldn’t just go to the dr. is beyond me] and bought shitloads of it. You had to ask for it, and the “pharmacist,” in one case a teenage girl, writes up a prescription with dosage directions. But erythromycin is also used to treat syphilis and gonorrhea, so I had him convinced that they all thought he was a typical sex tourist casualty. He could go on about a lung infection all he wanted, but no one was going to believe him. Singapore, however, won’t even dispense that Crest teeth-whitening stuff without a prescription from a dentist. I’d also heard they were going to lift their notorious chewing gum ban, but that to buy gum you’d need a prescription.) but I was primarily there to eat. We started eating so many meals (small ones, mind you) that we had to create new categories like first and second lunch and first and second dinner. That sounds a little wrong-headed to Americans, but Singaporeans are totally food-obsessed, it was no big deal. They have all these food-related TV shows like “Food Train” which I could only barely get the gist of (the two cute female hosts talked to people on the subway, then got strangers to eat with them in food courts, but it was competitive and that part was lost on me), as it was in Mandarin. So, Singapore was a great food city. I wish I’d had more time to spare there. Everyone always says it’s the kind of place that’s a great springboard for rest of Asia, and how you only a need about two days there, and it’s only appealing if you like skyscrapers, sterility and air-conditioned malls. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Thailand too, but when it comes to comparing chaotic, hot squalor to cool, clean modernity, well, I have to side with the latter, bland as it may be. We spent most of our time inside, you don’t even have to walk up stairs, there are escalators galore, the subway platforms are even air-conditioned, the food courts are unbelievable, there are orderly regulated queues for taxis, underground walkways on busy streets (none of this seemed terribly revolutionary until we got to Bangkok where crossing the street is taking your life into your own hands), but you can’t buy cigarettes or lighters anywhere, except 7-11 practically. I hadn’t seen a 7-11 in years (I don’t think they exist here) but in both Singapore and Thailand, there’s one on nearly every block. You start to feel like littering or spitting or shoving someone or eating on the subway or having sex, for crying out loud. Two unrelated things I was also struck by in S.E. Asia were the tiny limes and tiny cats. They have regular limes (as well as k/calamansi, a Philippine lime-citrus fruit that I’ve started noticing recently as an ingredient on NYC menus—just you wait, it’s only a matter of time before the NY Times dining section does some single ingredient focus on it), but also these tiny ones the size of cherry tomatoes. I don’t know why, but I was totally fascinated by them. And the cats are all super small, have little triangular Siamese heads and half-tails. They’re not Siamese-colored, they’re striped or orange-white, regular cat patterns, they’re just small and have freaky half-tails. I don’t think you’re supposed to play with strays, and I don’t think they want to play with you either, they’re not tame, but I tried my best to get their attention and tried to figure a way to smuggle one out of the country. I mean, the poor things were homeless anyway. Even though it’s meandering, this is supposed to be my Singapore entry so I’m not talking about the insane stray dogs in Thailand yet (why do third world countries have dogs all over the place? So cliché, right?). The dogs aren’t insane, they completely mind their own business, it’s insane that they exist like that. Hmm, I just rambled so long about nothing that I didn’t even get to the heart of the matter: the food, dammit.

8/27/03
Maybe one of the only good things about jet-lag is waking up really early, not tired (though I’m still really annoyed with myself for forgetting to buy coffee before leaving. Awake or not, I have to have morning coffee (we were never able to figure out why no one drinks real “brewed” as they call it, coffee in S.E. Asia. Aren’t they right near Java, Sumatra, all these coffee-growing hotspots? Everyone, if they drink coffee at all, even at the very upscale restaurants, drinks instant Nescafe. I even heard Germans specifically demand Nescafe [I’m not really down on Germans, despite what you’ll gather in the next few bits]. Is it the faggy Frasier, Northwesterner in me who thinks the world is filled with whole bean coffee and microbrew?) Green tea just isn’t cutting it, and it’s not as if I haven’t been exposed to enough green tea flavored things in the past few weeks—my favorite being KFC green tea soft serve with red beans). I’d better take advantage of naturally getting up at 7am while I can. Urgh, especially since school starts Tues. I wasn’t even completely aware of that. I mean, I knew Aug. was drawing to a close, but somehow I’d put things like paying bills, cleaning my house (my backyard weeds are now like 7’ tall, really) and preparing for school totally out of my head. Often after a decent vacation I feel relieved to be back, comforted to be home, but I’m not really. I could’ve definitely stood an extra 2-3 days away. The only things about America I missed were being able to put my fork in my mouth (Thais only use forks to push food onto spoons, forks don’t go in the mouth, not that I think they really care how foreigners eat) and use my fork as a knife (I’d never really given this one much thought, though I’d had British people make fun for cutting things like French toast with the side of the fork rather than use a fork and knife. Well, S.E. Asia is apparently a playground for Germans, like 90% of non-Asians I encountered were German [with Australians second] and their eating habits are nuts, cutting every little thing up, even spring rolls, with knife and fork. It’s very, very wrong. Stereotype or not (ha, in the “Straits Times” we were given to read on the plane there was an article about Germans trying to lose their alcoholic, humorless image), I came to think that Germans are kind of scary (they’re also huge people. I don’t know where the world gets off dogging Americans for being fat. Well, the Germans weren’t really fat, they were just enormous. I’m not sure the proportion, but there is definitely a decent percentage of German heritage on my mom’s side, and it makes sense now, they’re all totally giant, too. We had a layover in Frankfurt (Amsterdam the other direction and Dutch…German…it’s kind of the same) and I don’t think I saw a woman under 5’9. And I don’t mean tall, leggy, model-esque. Sure, they were blonde, chisled, Aryan, but in a ruddy, scrubbed-face, Brueghel painting way. It made me think Germany might be a good place for me to find knee-high boots, as large calves were not unusual (ha, clothing in Thailand was totally out of the question. A size 10 was the largest I saw, and 9.5-10 shoes were no where to be found, nine was the biggest I found. James, who’s pretty average-sized for a guy, kept getting told “no large sizes” when trying to find a pair of tennis shoes. He ended up doing well in Singapore, though, while I was still shit out of luck). My favorite part of being briefly in Frankfurt was this guy at the bar (we went to smoke, but it didn’t really matter, as the whole airport appeared to be cigarette-friendly. It was also stifling hot, and un-air conditioned. This was right before the whole France heat-wave thing hit, and it made me wonder why Europe is so darn backwards. Call it old-world charm or whatever, but it struck me as odd) in an NYPD baseball cap and Iraqi war t-shirt, and I was like oh god, an embarrassing, obnoxious New Yorker (this was before I realized absolutely no Americans are traveling anywhere. I only heard one American accent in the entire two weeks). Then, I noticed the tailored, pleated jeans and sandals…so Euro. Like any NYPD guy would be caught dead in woven footwear or trouser-jeans. It made me very glad I was going to Asia. I just don’t get that whole European aesthetic. Maybe I’m just gauche. I think I’m probably just culturally intolerant. Well, I’m way off track, I was just meaning to mention how I was glad to be able to use my fork properly once again without fear of ridicule. I’m also thankful to be able to write my dates like this: 8/27/03 rather than 27/8/03. Yuck. I’m also glad to be able to walk on the right again. I totally excited by the new MTA ads hammering it home to retarded New Yorkers that they need to stay to the right on stairs, only to be faced with whole nations of left-walkers (a symptom of their left-driving, of course), escalator signs commanding you to stay on the left, entrance doors on the left, exits on the right. Oh, so wrong. Oh yeah, and I’m glad to see bagels again (though I’ve yet to eat one, as I’m back on my half-assed weight watching program. Amusingly, I didn’t gain or lose a single pound while in Asia, despite eating like an insane animal). Whenever I’m away, there will be one or two food items that I could care less about while here, but that get stuck in my craw just because I can’t have them. Like in England I was dying for Rice Krispie treats and fluffy, store-bought, wedding-style cake with buttercream frosting (their cakes are all dense and hard). They did have bagels at the beach, but they weren’t with cream cheese, they only came as sandwiches with fillings like Caesar salad chicken. At a Thai Starbucks I did see this thing in the glass case they were calling a Pita Round Sandwich, which looked to me exactly like a split sesame bagel with lettuce and chicken on it. Once again, so wrong. Maybe I’ll just get a bagel for lunch and put this godforsaken craving to rest. Oops, I’ve got to leave for work in half an hour. More superficial international observations to come, don’t you worry.

8/26/03
Well, I’m back but I’m still too tired to muster up much of note. I’m just glad I missed the blackout. The only casualty was the ice cream cake I had in my freezer. Oh, and my phone isn’t working. I just now managed to get my cable modem to kick in. Technology, I swear. Huh, now the modem is down again. Whatever. Hopefully, I’ll be able to deal with all this when I’m more together. I’d just better post this tiny entry before it all conks out altogether.

8/12/03
I'm not sure how much time I'll have in the next few weeks to contribute here. In fact, I'm not sure how much time I have at the moment, since I don't have the luxury to goof off massively at work. All I know is that I will be heading to the airport in a couple hours, and hopefully the whole excursion will go off without a hitch. I'm not really scared of flying, I just get insanely bored (and at nearly 24 hours, the trek just might kill me). I guess if someone's going to terrorize us mid-flight, there's nothing to be done. However, I would be incredibly pissed if my vacation was ruined by a bunch of hijackers, let me tell you. I mean, I've never really been anywhere except England and France (the latter all the way back in '89) so I'm excited about taking a "real" trip for once. So, maybe I'll report from Singapore Thurs. (is that creepy of what, to leave on a Tues. evening and get where you're going Thurs. morning? Wednesday always kind of sucks anyway, so good riddance).

8/8/03
Hmm…double post (and confusing because I don't know if should come before or after the original). I haven’t done that in a while, but I also haven’t been home alone during a weekend in a while. It does weird things to a person. I’m way more productive, for one. Like I had a couple drinks, only a few, it’s not like I’m curled up with a fifth of J.D. (I can’t believe I just said J.D., now that’s pathetic) or anything. Contrary to the supposed depressive properties of alcohol, I’m way more motivated when drinking. I probably used to drink 2-3 times more than I do now when I lived in Portland and I was always up to something, never bored. Now, normally, at night, I check my email, goof off way too much on the internet, eat dinner, maybe talk on the phone and read in bed. I have this huge to do list that never gets touched and that has been growing for months and months. I just can’t be bothered, it’s pretty sad, it’s like I need a life coach, but not one like Dr. Phil. But tonight I practically knocked-off the whole list. I came up with pitches for articles (though to be fair, I didn’t actually write them), I went through all my clothes and shoes and bagged up stuff for Salvation Army, threw-out old bathroom toiletries, picked up an extra pack of birth control pills (I’m supposed to get my period Tues. which is totally unacceptable because that’s when I’ll be on my 24-hour plane flight and that sounds like a worst case scenario in the making. I need to be operating at an optimal level, no wild cards. So, I’m doing that thing that everyone seems to do these days where you just keep taking your pills so you don’t have a period, which frankly creeps me out, but apparently it’s the trendy thing to do as a new pill is being launched any day that works upon this principle. You’ll only have four periods a year on it. Weird.) vacuumed, did one of those Biore (actually it was CVS store brand) black head strips (very satisfying to see all that gunk that was stuck in your skin), cut and filed my nails, bleached my moustache (I used to be totally humiliated thinking I was the only one who had to deal with facial hair, but as it turns out that’s so not true), scanned and made pdfs of my newspaper clips, and wrote up restaurant reviews/impressions that I’ve been putting off since like April because I don’t think anyone reads them anyway and I’ve been mental blocked about it. I also had the free time to notice a new mole/tiny brown spot behind my knee, which I’m convinced is pre-cancerous, and to note that I’m getting lines next to my nose and between my brow and went nuts applying this sample of new Olay Regenerist like it’s going to approximate Botox or something. I never thought I was vain until I started noticing all these obnoxious creases. You know, I was thinking about those Lerner pork chop pants this evening. Why would you make pockets for pork chops? I mean, I think it’s brilliant because I love pork chops, and I do realize they’re referring to the shape, not the function, but why even associate clothing with pork products? I’m not one to test boyfriends as it’s pointless and always backfires anyway (my last boyfriend, the one whom I just realized would be 50 now, which totally freaks me out, didn’t know what color my eyes were when I asked. I was just asking as a joke because that’s some cliché question an exasperated woman would ask. His not knowing did throw me for a loop, but the guy was a nut, he just didn’t function within normal parameters, he didn’t even finish 7th grade, if that means anything) but last week I asked James, “if someone asked you what Krista’s favorite meat is, what would you say?” because that’s serious business. If you don’t know a girl’s favorite meat, well then, don’t even bother. He was totally confident in answering pork, which pleased me greatly. About half an hour ago I got a Friendster message from someone posing as Pork. You know, how people make fake profiles to get a laugh (damn, that sort of free time eludes me completely). This guy (I’m assuming it must be a guy) is pretending to be Pork and he found me because I mention pork in my profile. I swear I’m going to order those porkchop pocket pants from Lerner. It has all the makings of a great Halloween costume. I want to be a Lerner catalog (not Lerner store) shopper like nobody’s business. Do you think anyone (who hadn’t read this particular post) would get it?

Like many, I’ve been getting a kick out of the new Queer Eye show. But the reason I initially became sucked-in was to see this guy Andrew, get a makeover. He was the one used in all the print ads promoting the show for the last few months, but his episode hadn’t aired yet, which seemed very fishy. Now, I come to find out it’ll be on Tues. right while I’ll be waiting for my flight at J.F.K. I don’t even know Andrew really, he got me into the NYC Jeopardy taping a while back, he got mad at me for making fun of moms at a brunch some time ago, but I know all about Andrew through friends Jessica and Deann. I think I’ve mentioned these brothers Andrew and Michael that they had things with/for and that I could never understand it because they’re annoying, husky frat guys. Jessica was all nuts for Michael which was crazy because he was rude and sleazy and had a girlfriend from Texas who wore a Yankee baseball cap with her pony tail sticking out that little space above the plastic snaps. But the one story that summed up Andrew was how once he stayed over at Deann’s (she’ll probably get mad for my telling this story, but everyone we know already knows it and she doesn’t read my website anyway) and she has this mailman who has one of those loud, squeeze horns like clowns use and always honks it when walking down the street. They were in bed and the mailman was outside honking as usual and Andrew mimicked the honking sound by squeezing Deann’s boobs. So wrong. And that’s Andrew in a nutshell. We can’t wait to see him getting his back waxed on TV (it must run in the family—I recall Jessica telling me how Michael’s dress shirts didn’t flatly touch his skin because a layer of hair kept them at bay). We also want to see this girlfriend (who we’d heard was also named Deann, but on the episode guide it says Diana) he was getting cleaned up for (who has since broken up with him). Completely unrelated though equally unimportant, I can’t figure out these catalogs I keep getting bombarded with in the mail. These hideous Lerner catalogs show up week after week. The store Lerner, that changed into New York & Company a few years back doesn’t bother me. In fact, I have one of their credit cards and have used it frighteningly frequently (though not recently because everything in currently there is velour tracksuits) because in my NYC life I’ve always lived near one. Now this is the store, nothing special, but passable for basics and the occasional cheap, yet cute item. Here’s the confusion, the Lerner catalog is filled with scary-ass things like these slim-fit, stonewashed leggings and porkchop pocket leggings (what the heck do pork chops have to do with clothing? I’ve never heard this term in my life). How can two stores with the name sell completely different styles of clothing? And how did I get on the catalog list? Even creepier than the Lerner catalog is the Lane Bryant one (same parent catalog company Brylane. Well, I just delved deeper and it appears that the stores and catalog companies are not affiliated with each other, which doesn’t explain why they use the same names). I’m not a huge fan (ha, no pun intended) of Lane Bryant (though I do get a twisted kick out of walking into a store and being able to wear the smallest size offered. I don’t think even my skeleton would be able to fit into a size 0. Huh, that’d be an interesting experiment, I could stipulate that in my will, having my decomposed corpse forced into a pair of 0 jeans for shits and giggles), but compared to their catalog, the blah stretch twill, knits and denim offered at the store is pure high fashion. (Speaking of blah, in addition to Queer Eye I’m also amused by What Not to Wear. Maybe it’s seeing people's taste torn apart and ridiculed that gets the blood flowing. But they had this chunky dolphin trainer from Florida on and I was dying to see where they’d send her because usually the victim gets to go all over Soho and to boutiquey places blowing their $5,000. Well, the chunk got to go to Old Navy, Lane Bryant and H&M and couldn’t even spend the entire $5,000 which was just fucking sad and pathetic and make me way more angry than it should’ve. I’m not even sure whom I was angry at. Normally, the guest can breeze through $1,400 with one shirt and skirt. But those $19.99 cargo pants and cotton-poly blend button-up shirts just don’t add up. Like not only do fat people have to dress like ugly frumps, they can’t even waste money like the rest of America. I guess if you were an obese millionaire you could just have all your clothes tailor made so it wouldn’t matter.) The Lane Bryant catalog is so bad that I haven’t been able to throw it out, I mean unbelievably bad Americana trapeze tunic and “Believe in Miracles” inspirational tee bad. Hefty kindergarten teachers, senior citizens and public librarians everywhere can now rejoice over these plum offerings. These are not clothes for regular people. These are clothes for people who can’t leave the house. They go up to size 6X/Size 44. I guess if you’re size 44 you have to wear something. I can only imagine how pissed off they must be to have to wear American flag tunics and stretch pants. But as you skim page after page of caftans and loungers (euphemisms for muumuus—is muumuu uncool or something?) what strikes you is how irrevocably un-plus-sized the models are. I realize that modeling agencies consider a size 10 plus size. Fine, but the smallest size offered in this catalog is 14, and the models are obviously wearing the clothing, but they don’t even look 14, it’s hard to tell in all that flowing polyester, but they’re just not. Here, it’s easier to tell in swimsuits. These women are not size 14. So, my question is, what are they wearing? Specially altered clothing? Doesn’t this annoy size 44 women? It annoys the heck out of me. Do I need real things to worry about or what? (A coworker was talking about her sister [whom I think is neither fat, nor on Weight Watchers] writing a letter to Weight Watchers because their packaged food contains too much hydrogynated fat. And I was just like Jesus Christ, lady, get a freakin’ life.). Whatever, it’s my day off. I’m allowed to ponder life’s little inanities. If I were a bit more focused and motivated, I could probably piece together legitimate article queries based upon these fleeing thoughts. I wish I could blame my scatter-brained-ness on A.D.D. or something.

8/6/03
This humid, rainy, sticky weather is really starting to get on my nerves (what I can't figure out is why I'm the only person on the subway--particularly the platforms--who has sweat running all over their face. Yesterday I became so paranoid about my abnormal sweating [I never used to have a sweating problem] that I became convinced my blood pressure medication was the culprit. But as it turns out, beta blockers are actually used to control sweating [as well as anxiety, stage-fright and migraines, which I find hard to believe since I have trouble with at least two of those afflictions] so I guess I'm just messed up). But I'd better learn to love the wet, stifling heat because this time next week I'll be in the thick of it. I've read that Bangkok is the hottest city in the world (on average, not that it has the absolute highest temps in the world) which I'm not sure if I believe, but amusingly, weather.com has nearly an identical forecast next week for Thailand as it does for NYC: thundershowers every single day. We're a little cooler in the mid-80s while Bangkok is low-90s (but we're at 93% humidity while they're only at 79%, so it's pretty even as far as perceived temperature). It ought to be a treat. I also woke up in the middle of the night with severe bowel trauma (thanks to, I'm guessing, these Thai fish cakes I made for dinner. I don't want to believe it was the fish cakes because they were pretty good and I was planning on having them again for dinner tonight, but the only other things I ate yesterday were toast, shrimp chips, rice and cucumber salad and those seem pretty innocent) and have had to make a distressing bathroom run once already here at work (thankfully, I'm alone from 9am-11am on Wednesdays). Do you think that's another side effect of growing old--talking casually about your bowels? So, I'm sweating like a fiend and on the verge of crapping myself at any given moment--I don't really see what I should be worried about in S.E. Asia (other than car bombs), I'm doing a pretty good job of replicating the experience here at home. I noticed this headline this morning about babies born to women who were near the World Trade Center attack being smaller than average. I don't see what the hub bub is about. Aren't Americans in the midst of some horrible, gigantism, fatso epidemic? Maybe if we were born smaller, it'd take longer for all the flabby girth to catch up with us. Trade Center rubble, dust and smoke were a blessing in disguise.