Rich man's dogs

When we walk outdoors, Maiyuu takes the lead.

Every so often he will signal with his hand for me to move off the road to avoid traffic coming up from behind (he has eyes in the back of his head, or at least better ears than I do) - or to avoid dog poo, which is everywhere in Bangkok.

‘Why do these wealthy types who raise dogs around here let them poo on the footpath and the road?’ he asked.

‘They don’t want it in their front yard,’ I said.

Before 8am today we walked to the local 7-11 to pay the internet bill which Maiyuu had forgotten the month before. The last day for payment had passed, so that when I turned on the computer this morning I found the internet had been cut off.

After paying the bill we visited a small morning market on Pra Ram 4. This evening we shall visit another collection of stalls, closer to home. This part of town is good for markets, places where we can buy snacks and odds and ends.

We squeezed through crowds to make our way past the stalls. Many people were dressed for work or school.

As I watched the young Thais bustling around me, I caught a glimpse of myself as a new arrival in this land nine years ago, when everything looked so mysterious and exciting.

These days, in my bad moments, it is just another place to live. Instead of looking for fun outdoors or in the company of strangers, I amuse myself in other ways, by putting my energy into work or the boyfriend instead.

Liquor fast, anyone?

If gym queens are a bore – I imagine they talk about little else – are diet queens any better?

I have decided to ban whisky from my diet. Liquor can add weight to your hips, even when taken with water.

One glass of martini, according to one depressing website, puts on the same amount of calories as a slice of pizza!

I am a good whisky drinker, as the booze helps me think. No more! I shall just have to use my brain at a slower pace. Will anyone notice?

‘The body processes alcohol before fat, protein or carbohydrates. Thus, drinking slows down the burning of fat.

‘This means that if you love your drink AND want to lose weight, you have a major uphill task in your hands,’ says one nutrition consultant.

How dispiriting, so to speak. While I am devising some low-cal substitute, read more about the booze-calories connection here.

Hide that bottle: Social etiquette for the foreigner

Like anyone else, foreigners have to observe social etiquette in the Land of Smiles. Many Thais think foreigners are drunks.

Most Thais wouldn’t mind, but the hi-so crowd might object. This morning I took an empty whisky bottle out to the rubbish bin on the landing outside my place.

I poked my head out the door first, to make sure the coast was clear ... it was. I crept up the stairs, and deposited my bottle in the rubbish.

Back inside, I took a new bottle of whisky out of its box. Intending also to deposit the empty box in the rubbish, I opened the door again – then stopped.

A high-so Thai-Chinese woman in her 50s, possibly from the place opposite, was on the landing.

She had her hair bouffed up (sure sign of a hi-so), and was wearing a waist-length silk jacket (another reliable sign), the type which middle-aged Thai women seem able to wear without breaking into a sweat, even in the 45deg heat.

Thankfully, she had her back to me. I quickly withdrew and closed the door. Maiyuu took the empty booze box out to the rubbish instead.

He rarely drinks, but more importantly doesn’t care what Thais think.

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Earlier, a security guard stopped me as I was about to cross from the condo across a vacant lot to the local 7-11. I was intending to buy the bottle of whisky I mentioned above.

‘Why don’t you try the shop to the left?’ he asked. ‘It’s closer.’

He knows I go over there to the convenience store to buy liquor, as he sees me returning from the shop with my bottle in a bag.

However, it's a long walk, if you're a Thai. They'd rather hop on a motorbike than go by foot, even if the shop is only 50m away.

'It's too far to walk over there,' he added.

At his suggestion, I tried the little shop next to the condo, which is part of the slum. I had never seen it before, and in fact didn't know it was there.

Half a dozen men in their 50s were sitting on the step outside when I approached the shop, set in a small block of slum housing which has grown up on one side of the condo carpark.

‘Hello!’ they said.

I returned the greeting, and asked the owner if his little shop – it looked like a rough cupboard cut into a wall - stocked my brand of whisky. No.

I was walking out again, heading for my original destination, when a motorcyclist stopped by my side.

The girl, aged in her early 20s, was riding one of those smart Yamaha Fino motorcycles, and invited me to hop on. We were strangers, but she must have known I was in need.

‘Sit carefully,' she advised, as the bike wobbled.

'Am I heavy?' I asked.

'Yes, you are.'

My new friend took me to another 7-11 store, in the tourist district.

I enjoyed travelling behind her, as we whizzed down side streets behind the condo.

Thai guys looked at us as we passed. I hope they were envious.

The girl, who did not give her name, had just showered. I could smell the shampoo in her hair.

She stopped outside a 7-11 in the tourist district.

As I clambered off her bike, I tried not to touch her body. Some Thai girls are sensitive about that, especially if it's some farang stranger.

‘Ask one of motorsai guys to take you back,’ she suggested, as she sped off.

Motorcycle hire guys were sitting at a stand across the road.

I looked at them. A rough-looking bunch, they were wearing their regulation motorcycle hire vests. No, thanks.

They could not compare with the pretty, soft little thing who had just appeared out of nowhere, and because she was a generous soul, offered to give me a lift.

Bottle of whisky in hand, I decided to make the journey back on foot instead.

Into the Wild: Unlovely are the young

I missed several hours of sleep last night, after watching Sean Penn’s Into the Wild.

Images of the young man who starred in the film kept haunting me. Memories from my own youth came back and intermingled with those I saw in the film.

It's the story of a university graduate who runs away from home – fleeing the materialism of middle-class life represented by his parents - for a road, forest and river adventure in the US and Mexico.

Based on the non-fiction best-seller by Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (2007) depicts the true story of Christopher McCandless, who was to die alone in the Alaskan wilds, two years after setting out on his journey. He is played in the film by Emile Hirsch.

‘He looks like you when you were young!’ Maiyuu exclaimed as we watched the film. He was commenting on the bearded, slightly built Hirsch.

That was a sweet thing to say. Years ago, I showed Maiyuu a picture of myself taken from my late 20s, back in the days when I wore a full head of wavy hair, and a beard. I was surprised Maiyuu remembered it.

For me, the best part of the film was the friendships between rebel Christopher, who dubbed himself Alex Supertramp, and people he met on his travels – including a young girl from a hippy community in the desert; and an old leather worker, played by Hal Holbrook, who asks if he can adopt the young man.

I cared less for Chris's idealism, which ultimately was to cost him his life. I was moved more by the effect which Chris's optimism had on older people around him.

As a youth, did I ever make people happy, just by being me, or being around them? I hope I did.

So many young people, however, are just naive and disappointing. Sean Penn himself can’t explain why Chris should have such a positive effect on the sad, non-conformist types he meets.

The lad – whose solitary adventures are likened to those of Huck Finn, or Holden Caulfield – befriends strangers, but cares not a fig for the distraught parents he left behind without so much as a goodbye.

‘Chris is pure and Christ-like and leaves an indelible mark on everyone he encounters, although the film does not convincingly make clear why and how. He is always aloof,' says a review taken from a most unlikely source (at least for this blog) - the World Socialist website.

In real life, as in the film, Chris died after a swollen river traps him in the Alaskan wilds, where he spent more than 100 days living on an abandoned bus used by moose hunters.

He carries about tattered books by author/philosopher Thoreau: ‘Rather than Love, than Money, than Fame, give me Truth.’

They must have given him great comfort as he lay there starving.

From the WSWS:

A park ranger quoted by MoviesOnline said the real Chris McCandless was ‘not particularly daring, but just stupid, tragic and inconsiderate.

'There was a hand-operated tram a mile away from where he tried to cross the river [his inability to do so led to his death by starvation] that any decent map that most hikers would carry in a national park would have shown.’

The trailer is here.

A cockroach for the neighbour

Even though I am on a diet, I still take my duties as Maiyuu’s test taster seriously. For if it were not for me, where else would he turn – the condo cleaner? The poor kids who live in the slum area across the way? He has to know whether his creations have worked.

The rest of the diet is going well. Maiyuu went out last night, so ordered a pizza for me. I ate most of that too, but I sure it won’t make much difference.

Earlier, he made pasta with pesto sauce. It’s green, so it must have been good for me.

I am now jogging up the ramps of my condo building twice a day, up from one previously. I am also trying to go without my afternoon sleep, though it is hard. At work last night, I felt sleepy, lethargic, and generally non-alert. In the Land of Sleep - oops, Smiles - Will anyone notice?

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A couple of bitchy gay readers left nasty remarks recently about how this blog has descended into a cooking farce...a mere food blog, where before I used to post exciting things like guy pics, for example.

‘Maiyuu’s cooking is just poor knock-offs of that lousy stuff which Martha makes,’ they said.

You snobs! When you can whip up something this delicious after watching a TV show, let me know. When you are spending even half an hour a day in your kitchen creating, please do likewise.

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Thank you for the responses to my diet plan, discussed in yesterday’s post. I deleted several bitchy responses. One said I would have to take ‘drastic’ measures, as I was way too fat.

Another suggested I toss out everything from the fridge. Oh, disappear, food Nazis.

Anon the Shrink also waded in. Normally I would post the Shrink for his entertainment value, but this particular post failed to make the grade...he can’t have been feeling his normal bitchy, resentful, envious self. I deleted him.

I would like to meet Anon the Shrink, to give him a piece of my mind. We can match wits. We can even compare waist sizes. How about it?

Small caveat: We would have to meet in the centre of town, as I don’t like leaving my comfort zone. I propose that we allow ourselves to bring along one friend each, for moral support.

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I found a large cockroach in the bathroom. I grabbed a dustpan and broom, and tried to scoop it up. I couldn’t hold it. Next, I tried to crush the thing with the dustpan; that didn’t work either. It ran for cover under the couch.

I pondered what to do next. Boyfriend Maiyuu was away, so I couldn’t cry like a girl for help. I looked up. The bugger was scuttling across the floor, on the other side of the condo. How do they move so fast?

I found a plastic bag. By the time I looked up, it had moved on again. I was determined not to touch it. I am a clean person, but cockroaches are not. Even if I grabbed the thing with the plastic bag, in my hand, I could probably still feel the thing squirming – no thanks.

I grabbed the dustpan and broom again. By this time, it was running across the floor towards the front door. Oh, happy day. I opened the door, and gave the thing a big swoosh with my broom – straight at a primary school student sitting on the door step opposite.

I didn’t see her– honest.

My neighbour was putting on her shoes for school, but didn’t seem to notice that I was sweeping a cockroach her way. She looked scared and apprehensive, but no more than the average Thai when she sees a foreigner.

That’ll learn you, dear – get close to a farang, and there’s bound to be trouble.