I Didn't Know It Went Like This

Bangkok, oriental setting
And the city don't know that the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world
In a show with everything but Yul Brynner
Time flies, doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change, don't you know
That when you play at this level there's no ordinary venue
It's Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings
Or, or this place

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a God in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the God's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

One town's very like another
When your head's down over your pieces, brother
(It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity)
(To be looking at the board, not looking at the city)
What d'ya mean
You seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town
(Tea, girls, warm and sweet, sweet)
(Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite)
Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest
I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

Siam's gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would
A muddy old river or reclining Buddha
Thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it
I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you
So you better go back to your bars, your temples
Your massage parlors

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a God in every golden cloister
A little flesh, a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok

Wanna Bet?

I am insurance shopping. Vegas-style, I am choosing how much I am willing to gamble on the possibility of a overwhelming catastrophe.

Here is a conversation betweem Bryson and I:

Asrai Maiden (2:04:41 PM): I had this picture in my head:
Asrai Maiden (2:06:04 PM): You get a call from the hospital. It's me. "Baby," I say, in pain, "My appendix ruptured. The surgery would cost 50,000, but my insurance pays all of it but 5000. I have 3000. Will you help with the extra 2000 so I don't die?"
BigFishUCSD (2:06:50 PM): i think so
Asrai Maiden (2:06:59 PM): "Sorry," you say. "But I've already overdrawn my margin account, and there's this great new stock I want to invest in."

And they say love don't cost a thing.

Why oh why am I re-reading The Hot Zone?

Have you read it? Good book. Except for the long descriptive passages where, vicariously, I feel my own back aching, my own eyes burning red, my own cells bursting, my own liver liquifying. Ebola. That is why Africa terrifies me.

What terrifies me most about Thailand? I can handle bugs, snakes, wild animals. It is people that frighten me. Not just those commiting crimes, but the tour guides and taxi drivers, the people behind me in line, the people pressed beside me on the local buses. I am especially wary of the people flying the airplanes, and the people who built the airplanes in the first place.

It's the same anywhere. Every night I work downtown, I must park east of eighth, and pass dim figures crumpled and coughing, hacking and vomiting in doorways. I must walk briskly with my bag clutched tight against my hip, facing forward, my eyes endlessly darting. When my shift starts late and it is very dark, I often cross the street to avoid footsteps approaching from behind.

Back in high school, Danielle took a college class on religion. The professor was a profound sort of fellow, and Danielle shared some of his sayings that stuck with her, which in turn stuck with me. One had to do with how so much of our society is built on trust.

That is true, I believe, to an extent. However, in so many ways it is just the opposite. There are laws and there are lawsuits. There are locked doors and lockers and background checks. And these, we all agree, are necessities.What we hear on the news, and from our friends, is enough to keep us locking our doors and to keep us nervous in the dark.

I am a people-fearer, yet just as much I am a people-lover. I am absolutely obsessed with people. I don't mean interacting with them, but with observing them, recording them, figuring them out. I want to know what pains them, what is fascinating and poignant, what they remember best. I want to consider their lusts and daydreams, their mothers. I want to live each of their lives without changing them, without leaving myself. On good days, I love every single human being, even the worst ones.

Despite this love, I know that trust is another thing entirely. What excites me about humans, the human condition, is in part its volatility. It's like in The Hot Zone, where a scientist compares a virus to a confrontational cobra. Would you be fascinated in its presence? Or shit scared?

Both, perhaps. People are my greatest interest. They are also my biggest fear.

That isn't quite true.

I fear Ebola more.



For the Sicker of You Plushies!!

How cute can perversion get??


Ebola Virus

Check 'em all out at http://www.giantmicrobes.com!!! Kissing disease is my favorite.