trotzen protzen kotzen

Those chompers! His shriek! Her pinwheel hat!

I’m finally on the up and up after a nasty bout of strep throat. It was no fun, but playing hooky and watching a bunch of movies (including Jawbreaker for the 462nd time) was a treat, and I had an excellent nurse (add ‘nurse’ to the revolting words with ’s’ sounds list). The only downside was the trip to the hospital to gets me pills. Hospitals here are shitshows. Privacy doesn’t seem to be a big thing, which means that you could be mid-colonoscopy and have an old lady barge into the room wondering if she’s in the right place. Like she didn’t know. 

I did manage to kill two birds with one stone though. The doctor burned off a wart that I’ve been cultivating for a while. I was sort of sad to see the little guy go. It means that people can no longer use one of my favorite expressions in reference to me: warts and all. You know, like “Lachy’s great to have at hot tub parties, warts and all.”

I registered for classes this morning. I was in a hurry, but I noticed a few of my classmates in line with me: a dreadlocked jam-bandy type from the States, a bloater from Canada who wouldn’t stop talking, a stern Slovenian girl, a British skinhead, and Japanese girls as far as I could spy. Can’t wait to see which class I’ll be in. Tenterhooks.

The weather’s spectacular right now. Here’s a photo from my ride home this morning. Feel the hot wind.

Best headline of the day: Handshake gone awry puts Cindy McCain’s arm in sling. Brittle biddy! An inevitable result of pill-popping and living in a desert climate.

I know I’ve been off the radar for the past couple weeks, but shit is getting hectic in these parts. Believe me when I say that I can’t wait to take a bite out of this neglected inbox. I need to find a new apartment closer to the university and a body to replace mine in my current squat. One to file under ridiculous: I’ve been taking care of an extremely annoying Persian cat (fecking hothouse flowers, those things) for my Mongolian ex-roommate until she returns to Taiwan at the end of the month, but she just informed me that she’s pregnant, so she may stay in Mongolia. She’s twenty. I hate cats. I don’t know what to say or do. Vom. Vod?

Speaking of vod, I just had a dream that I was living in Berlin with Judith. Judith, if you’re out there, you should consider it. Cack-in-einer-Pfanne.

That’s it. Low-level stress, re-watching old episodes of The Sopranos and Murphy Brown (those shoulder pads only make her zingers zingier), and sexy chillin with a hilarious Dutch boy.

Three videos that made my week:

Latifah’s Had It Up 2 Here (I’m allergic to wack crews), Whitney Houston and F-16 Fighter Jets, Lucky Bitches.

The Nineties were simply a better time.

I’ve been hearing the term “No Fun Olympics” being tossed around a lot lately in reference to Beijing 2008, and I find it confusing. When were they ever fun to begin with? When have they ever been apolitical? I think this is one of the few reasonably inconclusive articles I’ve read about this whole non-issue. Now, would everyone kindly move on to a new non-issue?

Things here have been pretty boring for the past few days. Mostly just bubble baths in the dark and late-night strolls. I think it’s worth mentioning, however, that I had a student today named ‘Yureen’. Try calling that out in a crowded room while keeping a straight face.

The typhoon was nothing to speak of, just a bunch of rain and a day off. I survived.

Now for some Nina Hagen. This video makes me think she was having some sort of mid-Eighties showdown with Grace Jones. Who won?

I had a great night with the Austrians. They’re what the Germans would call Lebenskünstler (life-artists?), a term that I found had romantic, lone-wolfish connotations among my friends in Berlin, but which is used with a bit of a deprecative tone by the Swiss. The Swiss like to have plans, whereas people in Berlin are usually content to float down the river and enjoy the ride. Na ja.

I just found out that I have the day off tomorrow for Typhoon Fung-wong (Chinese for ‘phoenix’). It should be a window-cracking, cat-flinging, hair-tousling rip-roarer of a day. The last typhoon, Kalmaegi, just seemed like a heavy rainstorm, so hear me now Fung-wong: I demand satisfaction.

First things first: Happy Birthday Claire! I tried calling you but an angry Frenchman answered. It was 1:30am there. Quel est le grande problème? He was probably just whipping up a big late-night batch of pea soup and didn’t have time to chat. Mange mes briefs!

I made it to San Zhi yesterday. I was surprised by how short and beautiful the drive to the beach was. After skulking around a bit to make sure there were no cops, attack dogs or living dead in sight, I weaseled my way in. The place felt more haunting than haunted. A broken waterslide? Those poor children! In a strange sort of way, it gave me the same feeling as an abandoned hippie commune in Nova Scotia my mother took me and my sister to when we were wee. Like there was a big messy pseudo-visionary party, and then somebody said something awful, and everyone else shuffled toward the door awkwardly while mumbling something about needing to work tomorrow. Or about not needing to work, as it were.

The silence was what made this place strange, because it’s never quiet here. Scooters, jackhammers, filthy screaming children, and my personal favorite: the recorded promotional message hooked up to one of those mini-megaphones, just laying on the sidewalk in front of a store screeching the same eight unintelligible words until the end of time. Kick it! The stillness actually made me a bit nervous at first. I think I was also a tad concerned about who I would meet in there. There was a little statue underneath one of the houses that I spied from the corner of my eye, and I was sure someone was standing there watching me (see photos). Not so. I did hear giggling inside one of the houses, and I looked up and saw an obese Taiwanese girl wearing a gray wig standing in the window. Her friend was taking pictures of her (I’ve noticed a lot of friend-on-friend photoshoots here involving gray wigs). That was somehow less frightening than the statue, because unlike the peering statue, they were oblivious to my presence. 

After a good look around, I hopped back on the bike and visited a couple of charming outposts, then found a nice unsupervised beach without too many people or children. Most beaches here have designated swimming areas that resemble factory cattle farms, and the lifeguards start yelling and arm-flailing if you go in past your waist. Something about people here not being very good swimmers and the “treacherous” currents that swirl about. I swam out and floated on my back in the warm Pacific water for half an hour, and all was well in my world. Then I went to 7-Eleven and got a large mango ice-based beverage (can’t say which, it’s one of the more disgusting S-words), and all was even better.

Tonight I’m going to a concert with my Swiss friend Daniel, his girlfriend Penelope, and a bunch of Austrians, so I should be able to learn plenty of quirky idiomatic expressions, like the one he taught me yesterday: Das ist mir Hans wie Heidi. Translation: I don’t give a shit. Sounds more like a declaration of bisexuality to me though.

(Click photo to see the rest)

Vive le weekend! I plan to drive up to the coast tomorrow or the day after to see something creepy I heard about a few months ago. It’s an abandoned Sixties-futuristic complex of pod houses, by most accounts haunted by the ghosts of workers who died during its construction. Have a look at it here and here. I mentioned it to one of my students today, and he said it was going to be torn down soon to make way for some ghastly resort. When I asked him if he believed that it was really haunted, he replied “not by ghosts, but by the many gays who frequently make love there.” Whatever happens, it promises to be interesting and sexy. 

This has also reminded me of my ultimate B&E dream, which is to walk to the top of the Ryugyong Hotel and remain there until I run out of supplies or get sent to a North Korean prison camp. A dream which I’ve just discovered may never be realized, because an Egyptian company has just resumed some sort of construction on the upper floors. Keep your GSM towers in GIZA, for Christ’s sake, and stay away from my potential lair!

Life is going to be loco as of September. I’ll be working full-time and spending roughly twenty hours per week learning Chinese. There will be no time to breathe, no more staying up until 3am watching endless episodes of all the things I never got around to watching back home (it’s a bit of a problem – it’s hard to find good English books here, so I’m getting my edification from HBO series and movies. Combine that fact with the heat fact and you start to get an idea of how feeble-minded I feel most days. The perfect time to start a blog).

I must find a doctor in the next few days, because the college I’ll be studying at requires me to pass an HIV test before they’ll let me sit near other people and breathe the same air as the instructor etc. I don’t even know where to start with that. Jump through this bullshit hoop, that bullshit hoop, bullshit hoops all around.

Hospittyhorn is currently working on an epic AAdvantage Miles scam to fly over here in September. Can anybody suggest the ultimate scam that would allow me to spend four days in Toronto, eight days in Nova Scotia, and ten days in Berlin in August? It shouldn’t be impossible. How expensive can it be to circumnavigate the globe during a ‘fuel crisis’? Hide in a suitcase? Drug mule? Fake medical emergency?

It’s another scorcher! 35 degrees, “real feel” 45. It’s windy though, so I couldn’t be happier. The best weather combination is, without a doubt, hot and windy. If it’s hot outside with no wind, I’ll whip around extra fast on my loyal steed to simulate those conditions. It’s like pointing a hair-dryer up your shorts. You know, that old chestnut. I suspect I would thrive in a desert climate. Like a majestic cactus.

Now for the colorful medieval potato (the look for 2006) part. Most of the gas station attendants in my area are sweet, dainty girls. Fine. What’s not fine, however, is that they’ve recently decided en masse that they no longer want to unscrew gas caps themselves, so they stand there with gas nozzle in hand waiting for clean-handed old me to do it. Call me set in my ways, but I think that if you work at a gas station, you’re the one who should get your hands dirty. These days I just stand there, and we stare at each other for a few awkward Mississippis until they cave and reluctantly unscrew the cap. Can somebody explain this? I don’t exactly need people thinking I’m a gas huffer or a mechanic.