Hey y’all (a la Britney’s accent), this is just a small annoucement to my (almost non-existant) readers that the blogger of this blog is back — just like Britney!

After a series of procrastinations, rehabitations, law run-ins, child custody battles, flopped comeback and slackitude, I reckon it’s high time I gave this little space a fresh update after a long hiatus of more than a year.

Stay tuned, and while y’all waiting, make sure you bookmark it, del.icio.us it, favourite it and facebook it!

I lay here with such elegance,
at the bottom of this ocean -
my so-called home,
questioning my odd existence.

Staring up in the vast infinity,
where the glimmer of God’s grand creations
scatter symmetrically,
I possess their same perfect proportions,

——-Equal
—–length
—-width
–height
-and

body crafted

-in
–five
—-di
—–rec
——tions.

And still I lay here with such elegance,
at the bottom of this ocean -
my so-called home,
questioning my odd existence.

Did I
accidentally
fall from the great blue above,

OR

is it this humble blue below
that I belong,
and must learn how to cope?

~ Chanun

Despite the rumour that’s fast spreading the WWW, trashy tabloids and fag rags worldwide, I am still pretty much alive and kicking it high like a cancan danseur on crack.
Stay tuned for more crack-induced posts…

That’s hot…

Blood, Tears, Tap Water & Shaving Foam

Like an unforeseen razor nick,
The thoughts of an old love cut in deep,
From my skin oozes a puddle of blood,
Trickling down my face to the sink – creating a small flood,
Celebrating my carelessness I smile,
Yet looking into the mirror I see myself cry,
Blood, tears, tap water and shaving foam,
The quaint concoction’s stinging my open wound -
D’you hear me groan?
Drying my face, I drained the subdued crimson water
The raw pink flesh swells, the stinging pain lingers
It’s a reminder to be more careful next time
Be it with shaving, or committing a love crime
But when the scab’s shredded itself off the scar,
Together with the wound that’s no longer ajar,
How can I be certain that tomorrow in the morn’,
I won’t be bleeding again,
And the love I give won’t be scorned?

Bangkok’s current weather can do strange things to you. Besides the fact that it induces severe lethargy and narcolepsy (and all you want to do is lazing around in bed, eating large amount of chocolate while listening to the lullaby of muffled thunder), it also evokes in you a sense of inspiration, which, ultimately, leads to creativity.

Ooooh, how very Wordsworthian!

Below has been a product of such activity.

A Drizzly, Drowsy Morning
Waking up to a drizzly, drowsy morning,
When the early birds ignored their caterpillars,
I reached out to pacify the clock’s howling,
Re-shutting my heavy eyes, I snug back in my pupa
Oh my, that damned clock cried once again,
Go on, you Nuisance, go wake those sleepy sparrows,
They shouldn’t be sleeping now – not even in this rain,
But please don’t wake me up, just leave it ‘til tomorrow
I wanted to drift away in the rainbow-laced Slumber Land,
You know, where the oddest of dreams could materialise,
Where little birdies would eat off my hand,
And every brand new day would be a pleasant surprise,
I’m waking up to the same sleepy, drizzly morning,
Shit, it’s 11 now, how come the fucking clock didn’t do anything!?

I’m thankful to God – whoever He might be,  not because he brought salvation to mankind, but for destroying the tower of Babel and made it impossible for humans to communicate with each other. Can you imagine how dull it would have been for us to have and speak only one language?

An individual who can speak a foreign language(s) with ease and flow is often admired by those who wish they could. I’ve always wanted to be that individual. Having been fortunate enough to attend the best university in this country (and this is an absolutely unbiased point of view), I could pretty much vouch for my alma mater. At my faculty, we were taught to embrace the wonder of languages. We read a sprawling list of textbooks and literary works. We carry a dictionary (or dictionaries, in some cases) around like a mad linguist. We bitch about how excruciatingly difficult to grasp Dickens’ seemingly endless sentences and paragraphs. Then, there’s Wolf’s stream of consciousness, which usually induces narcoleptic stream of unconsciousness. And, how were we supposed to read five works of literature written in archaic 19th century English in one semester? All of these may have seemed like a disguised form of torment at the time, but what I hadn’t realized until later was it was just a series of ‘tests’. And, I’m confident that every graduate emerging from the Faculty of Arts is academically and mentally toughened (no, not challenged).

Don’t mistake my alma mater for a temple…

The very first foreign language that I learned is English, just like everybody else. Although at risk of sounding like an arrogant prick, I’m going to confess here that I didn’t learn much from high school English classes. OK, they did teach me about those 12 tenses, and that was pretty much it. Everything else they taught revolved around these tenses. I believed I shared the same predicament with the rest of the Thai students: we knew the rules and structures by heart, yet we couldn’t really put them to use. We’d just smile our Siamese Smile and nod when a farang approaches us. Something must have gone wrong here, teacher. I decided at that point that if I wanted to improve my English, I must take matters in my own hands. Well, after a year on scholarship in Canada, four years of studying English at university, another four years of relationship with an English boyfriend, and two years working with the English language, I’m still learning new things everyday…

Erm…. not really. Il n’est pas facile!

I’ve studied French, German, Portuguese, and Japanese. I’m now starting to learn Italian and Spanish. I used to be so passionate about la langue de français back in high school. The genders, the ‘la’ and the ‘le’, the subjoncif, and other million and one rules didn’t faze me at all. The only problem was je ne peux pas encore parler français! I didn’t have one chance to converse with a French person, ever! The teachers had always been Thai, and they spoke French with recognizable accent and tones (meaning they spoke it with a Thai accent). I never had a native French speaker, a ‘role model’ to emulate, so basically my speaking skill (which is, in my opinion, the most important skill in learning a language) sucked. I went to university with every intention to better my French. I hoped to major in it. But the more I went to the compulsory French class, the less I wanted to do it. There were some nasty, show-offy, ass-kissing people (the ones that’d previously been to France on an exchange/summer program) who enjoyed putting other people down by boasting their speaking fluency in the class. I dropped the course and delighted in my new found freedom spending free afternoons just being an excited freshman, and not having to worry about subject-verb-gender-number agreements.

Second year rolled around. I managed to get into English major, perhaps the faculty’s most coveted major. Life then became a bit of a bore, so I decided to add some excitement (burden?) into it by taking the ‘Accelerated German’. Excitement or not, I was acceleratingly
overwhelmed by the intricacies of the language; the three genders, the spelling, the cases, dative, genitive, the plural forms, and words that seem to go on and on. Trust me I’m not alone in feeling this way (taken from http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/German_grammar):

“German grammar will fuck you in the ass until you can’t walk. It will then tie you up and leave you alone for days on end with an all-you-can-eat buffet just out of reach. Then it will go crazy on your face with a cheese grater until you are dead. Stay away from German grammar. Seriously.”

And, don’t even get me started on the pronunciation… We all know German’s not exactly the most ear-pleasing language in the world. Anyway, it was like a language crash course for a future CIA. Everything went so quick and the teacher was very fanatical about the grammar. By the time we started a lesson on the plural, I chucked all the notes away and gave up. I’m still dumbfounded to this day about the fact that I received a B+ when I had no idea what the differences between Die, Das, and Der were.

So French and German didn’t happen. Third year came along and I had too much free time so I thought I wanted to give another language another shot. I wanted to do Chinese at first, but it was too late, the class was packed full. I guess I wasn’t destined to say anything else in Chinese other than ‘ni hao ma’ and ‘zie zie’. Coincidentally, a friend of mine who took Portuguese last semester told me about the course. With nothing better to do, I took the class. As it turned out, this one went pretty well. I ended up taking Portuguese II the following semester. There were about six people in Portuguese I, and three in the II, which was a really good thing because the teacher could focus on everyone of us individually. I was quite happy taking these courses. Muito, muito bem, I shall say.

An interest in Japanese language came long after I graduated. It was during my first job that I wanted to learn the language properly (I worked as an English tutor at an English school and had many students from Japan). I self-taught the Japanese katakana, hiragana, and a few basic kanji’s. I even took a Japanese course on Saturday, but that was a really, really bad idea. The class was at 8 o’clock on Saturday! I managed to attend the class three times before yielding to the temptation to sleep in. Now I have an extensive collection of Japanese learning materials (a lot of money went into that I’m telling ya). It’s a bit sad, though, because I thought I made a good connection/progress with the language.

Now the last two closely-related languages, Italian and Spanish, are the ones I never thought I wanted to learn. I’m slowly self-teaching Italian (not making much progress at the moment as time doesn’t allow). Spanish is my latest obsession, and I’m hoping to take a course at Instituto Espanol in the next two weeks. So, fingers and toes crossed. I hope I can at least stick to the course until the end.

Buena suerte a mi!

Please accept my apologies for having neglected this blog – my latest self-imposed responsibility – for so long. I’ve been busy with work and personal life (reads: going to the gym and spending a ridiculous amount of time online into ungodly hours… yeah, call me shallow). Well, as you can probably guess from today’s very suggestive post title: my muses hated me, but my tonsillitis loved me. Now, let’s deal with one issue at a time…

Yeah, I know right, those bitches! I had an unprecedented influx of short story ideas for my MFA applications (for those not in the know, MFA stands for Master of Fine Arts, and it usually refers specifically to the field of Creative Writing), but once I transferred these ideas onto that dreaded white realm of Word Document sheet, I seemed to develop a case of severe writer’s block. I got stuck. My brain stuttered and positioned itself dangerously on the verge of shutdown. Fingers numb. Legs weak. Eyes suddenly heavy. I’d sit in front of the computer and stare blankly into the whiteness of the digital paper. I’d wait for an ‘echo’, and more relevant ideas to hit me. But, alas, nothing would come except a few sporadic MSN flashing alerts. Hmmm… there’re people wanting to chat with me despite the ‘busy’ façade I shelter myself behind. Well, why the hell not? Some of these conversations may even inspire me to produce a masterpiece. This, by the way, usually proves futile. The confabulations are enjoyable, needless to say, but they just don’t prompt any inspiration. Perhaps what I need all along is a good spliff?

On to my swollen glands. I don’t know what actually causes tonsillitis in the medical world, but I wholeheartedly blamed it on the heat. Nothing else but the big bad Heat. I had to go to Kanchanaburi (one of the provinces in the west of Thailand) for work last Wednesday. And the sun was just brutal. It was atrociously sinister. The day seemed to drag on and on endlessly (we left Bangkok at 6.30 a.m., and didn’t get back to the city until 6 p.m.). I was beat, and couldn’t wait to get home and take a long, cold shower. The van dropped me off near my office, where a couple of taxis refused to take me home – a clear indication that I was officially back in Bangkok. But seriously, WTF!? My apartment is only ten minutes away from there, why wouldn’t they just drive me home? I honestly thought about telling them to take me wherever they pleased, just so I could lie and die quietly in the backseat in the comfort of air-con, you know. Fuck it, I’m done. I decided to walk halfway and get a motorbike home. To top it all off, that very night I woke up with ferocious fever, painfully dry throat, splitting headache (the one that’s capable of squeezing tears out of you), and a body that felt like it’d been hit by a bus. To cut the long story short, I spent the next day doing nothing but shivering and sweating myself off in a blanket, went to see the doctor the day after, who told me I had tonsillitis and gave me lots of interesting pills, then spent the rest of the day doing nothing but lying on the couch, semi-watching TV and semi-dozing off to the land of angels and faeries. It’s been four days now, and I believe my glands have returned to their normal shapes and sizes. Still haven’t returned, though, are my Muses…

O Muses, o high genius, where art thou?

Please refrain, only temporarily, from all your gaiety and jubilation

Come aid me now!

The picture shows my Muses bustin’ a move

“Sathorn Soi 1 krub,” I told the taxi driver as I threw myself in the backseat. The driver took a gander at me through the rear-view mirror, then asked if I was on my way to Babylon (not the same one in QAF, by the way), the most famous gay sauna in Bangkok. “No krub, I’m just going home…”

That isn’t the first time I’m mistaken for someone who looks like he’s heading to engage in a sexual activitie(s) with a stranger(s). Perhaps, although some people may disagree, that’s a downside of living near the infamous sauna. There have been quite a few occasions after a night out on Silom Road when – no matter who I was with at the time, myself, a Thai friend, or the boyfriend – the second I finished saying Sathorn Soi 1, the quasi-omniscient chauffeur immediately presumed that I was/we were off to have sex! Well, at times (when I was with whoever I intended to get intimate with) he was right because we were really off to do it – but in the privacy of our own home, not in some seedy, cum-accumulated fuckville. 99% of wrongful accusations happened on the Silom Road, Bangkok’s unofficial ‘gay village’, and that’s fairly understandable. People, gay or nay, tend to become erotically charged after passing the night of free-flowing alcohol and flirtations.

The above conversation, however, didn’t take place at Silom. I’d just had my dinner in Sukhumvit Soi 18, which is five minutes walk from the gym I go to. The area is as straight as Bangkok’s subway lines, yet the cabby thought I wanted to go relieve myself of carnal craving at the Babylonia’s capital. Was it the hair? Was it the way I dressed? Was my t-shirt too tight? Do I have a face that screams “I ENJOY SEX WITH MEN”? It’s intriguing how you appear to other people and how they perceive you. I was once hit on by this Thai guy in the city’s most popular gay club (a rare happenstance, I shall add, since my looks aren’t what most Thai guys would go for). He first asked me if I was alone. I said yeah. Then out of nothingness, he asked me if I was gay (!?). The boy must have been blinded by DJ station’s strobe lights because I looked as gay as a gay guy can be that night. Sporting a tight-fitting black top (with no collar upped whatsoever), gelled hair, and a gay face and lips, and yet he wanted to know if I digged boys? Ironically, he didn’t look remotely like a gay man at all. He was in straight clothing: normal, almost boring, jeans , oversized t-shirt, a pair of slippers (who the hell let this guy in?), and his hair was down!

Looks can indeed be deceiving.

(FYICR* No, I didn’t take a trip down to Babylon or anywhere with that guy…)

*For Your Information, Curious Readers

Before I sign off, I have one question for my dear readers who’ve seen me in person (for those who haven’t, please contact me to schedule a rendezvous now.) Any input is gay-ly appreciated.

Do I look gay?

G’ Day!

…you hear the Cranberries’ decade-old ‘Zombie’ on the radio, and you’ve realized that it’s being played during a regular program, not some Classic-Wonder-Hit-Wonder-of-the-90’s sort of show.

…you’re at a local pub and the ‘Zombie’ still haunts you in the disguise of a Thai female singer. It’s mandatory. You have to be able to sing this song (note that being able to doesn’t necessarily means you’re good at it…) or your career is over.

…you visually experience ‘yellow fever’, being virtually the only one in the crowd not clad in the monarchic color on Monday.

…the meeting place between you and your friends tend to be either one of malls in Siam area or Starbucks.

…the best-selling newspaper’s front page features nothing but well-illustrated homicides, rapes, accidents, celeb nipple slips, and people worshipping offbeat stuff like 3-headed pig, penis-shaped bamboo, and used fever relief pad.

…you can’t remember the last time you inhale the uncontaminated, carbon monoxide-free air.

…you resort to iPod for the much-needed peace of mind, because the city is-just-too-freaking-noisy!

…your bags are (cursorily) searched upon entering most public premises.

…you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve been refused by taxi drivers.

…you’ve read/heard from somewhere that another mall is due to open.

…you’ve adopted the habit of going to the malls even when you’re not looking to buy anything.

…you’re beginning to believe that going to the malls is the only enjoyment in life.

…you see a teenage elephant roaming the streets among humans.

…you often have to slow down because a herd of office ladies, who’s moving as quickly as a group of pregnant sloths, is monopolizing the footpath in front of you.

…you see monks leisurely browsing for IT supplies and the latest karaoke compilation CD at Pantip Plaza.

…you’re mercilessly pushed and shoved (and, at times, kneed and elbowed) by the ferocious throng of oncoming human traffic on the BTS or MRT as you’re trying to get off the train.

…your pre-office hour breakfast usually revolves around omelet on rice, ‘moo ping‘ (grilled pork on skewers), or 12-baht Farmhouse sandwiches.

…some stranger on the street of Silom lovingly whispers in your ear, asking if you’re interested in purchasing “sek dvd”.

…the majority of girls you see are dressed like Korean soap star wannabes.

…the majority of guys you see are, for some inexplicable reason, sporting a polo shirt with its collar up à la Count Dracula. (If you know/see someone who does this, please enlighten him that not only it’s un-cool, it’s also very 2005! Read more about the popped-collars below)

Down with the collar, dude!

“Collars Don’t Often Warm Necks, or Collars DOWN, is a society of style mavericks and mavens dedicated to enlightening the collar-ups of the world that there is a better way. Our message is this:

After years of moving in the right direction, the collar-up fad has helped men’s fashion take a big step backwards, with quite a few confused women on the bus too. Both straight and gay men are being made to look like fools in the process. Aside from offering no functional improvement to the neck, the upped collar just looks tacky. There, we said it: TACKY. MC Hammer pants tacky. Anna Nicole Smith tacky. QVC cubic zirconia tacky.

It is not becoming of anyone of the social and style elite and must be stopped at all costs. Let’s put it this way: when you see three of four cashiers at the CVS in Chinatown sporting popped collars like some sort of battle armor, take it as a sign that something has gone horribly wrong in our society”

(Source: http://www.friendster.com/collarsdown)

So, come on people, the fad is grasping for its last breath of air. It’s dying (and hopefully it won’t make a comeback again, ever!). It’s dead. It doesn’t make you look sexual, let alone ‘metrosexual‘. It’s the ultimate fashion faux pas. It’s officially the trend to avoid.

DON’T DO IT!

Ok, all ya Bangkokians out there, your turn to contribute!

Smaller cell phones… awesome
Smaller iPods… minimalistically cool
Smaller dogs… fabulous choice pets of Hollywood hoes
Smaller laptops… convenient
Smaller automobiles (the likes of Mini Cooper)… très chic
Smaller pieces of chicken at KFC…

RIP OFF!!

A recent visit to one of the KFC chains here in Bangkok has reaffirmed to me that size, whether we like it or not, does matter (and I’m only talking about the chickens…). My two pieces of chicken – Classic Recipe to be precise – were smaller than my clenched fist! (I have quite a small clenched fist if you’re wondering…)

I casually conducted, over the course of four years, a comparative study between Thai KFC and the international ones. Here’s a lowdown on the Colonel’s meat. The first-ever foreign KFC I tasted was of Malaysian descent. The chicken was juicy, so much so that the moment I sank my teeth into the meat, the juice oozed out like a broken dam (pardon me for such pornographic description, but it’s true. I was there). What’s more, their sauce was no ordinary sauce, folks. Besides the conventional tomato ketchup, there was this chili sauce which resembles what we call ‘nam jim kai mae pra nom’ (Mama Pranom Chicken Chili Dip) in Thailand. I was on a verge of tears once I saw the bottle sitting on the table. And did I mention that the chickens were orgasmically scrumptious?

So, that was one of the Asian renditions of the Colonel’s recipe. Let’s see what the European counterparts are like. The French and the Spanish KFC chickens were pretty much the same deal. They were moist, gold in color, and came in huge pieces – bigger than my proverbial ‘clenched fist’ as a matter of fact. It was indeed ‘finger lickin’ good’! Mmmm…just writing about it makes my mouth water.

Back to my home turf before I drown in my own saliva. Like I’ve mentioned two paragraphs back, not only Siamese KFC chickens are small, they’re Victoria Beckham scrawny, which is, by the way, worse than having anorexia. It’s almost as if the chickens have been re-deep fried for who knows how many times to make sure it’s thoroughly cooked, and thus void of Avian Influenza. Well, sometimes they’re so thoroughly cooked, there is no meat left! I want to eat the chicken meat, not an over-fried strip of calorie-coated skin, or porous bones for that matter. Most consumers, of course, don’t want to pay more for a bigger piece, and producers are often too stingy to plump up their poulet. The win-win solution here, if I may propose, would be to implement the ’super size’ option for the fried chickens as well. That way a size queen consumer like me can stop salivating over the European meat…

End of rant