"Not crazy...diligent."

That's what The Island said to me other morning when I suggested he was crazy for going to work so early.

Surprise!
It’s me again! I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf and post something every week, so it doesn’t into such a chore- something that sits on my To-Do list for weeks on end, along with “Plan finances, read Katherine Graham’s Personal History, learn to speak Lao better”.
I think because my posts are so disjointed, I give a false impression of life here- that it seems to just swing between messy drunk expat parties and workday frustration. There’s plenty more in between, obviously, so maybe if I post more, I can more accurately record the ebb and flow of this fascinating life I lead.
Shit, other people do it and their lives are way more mundane.

Cocka-doodle-fuckoff
First thing’s first: to the left is a photo of a rooster. It looks very similar to the one that wakes me up every morning, and quite often several times throughout the night, with its psychotic crowing.
It’s like a sick joke- I live in a household of the kind of people who can close their eyes and fall into a deep sleep the second their head hits the pillow. I am not one of those people; among the various traits I have inherited from my father- along with his nose, his tendency to frown when concentrating, and his predisposition to worry about things which, in the middle of the night, a clearly beyond his control (but not, of course, his artistic abilities, another sick joke)- is of course terrible sleeping patterns. I’m what he describes as a ‘fragile sleeper’. I have to read before I turn out the light, I take ages to nod off, I wake up frequently during the night, and I rarely get up in the morning feeling like I’ve had a good night’s sleep.
So isn’t it hilarious that I’ve got my very own rooster to enhance my problem, and one that doesn’t even sound like a bird, but more like some kind of grotesque bird/dog hybrid.
4000 Islands tells me that in the provinces, the really rural, poor parts of the country, where no one has a clock to tell the time, roosters perform that function. Because I’m sure everyone really needs to know that it is 3am, 4am, 5am, and then the passing of every five minutes thereafter.
Anyway, I’ve posted this photo, which I actually took in Luang Prabang, in an effort to dispel the notion anyone might have that roosters are a charming feature of rural life.
They’re not. They’re pure evil. Just look at those beady eyes and withered claws.

Imagine all the people
Here’s something weird that I’d bet you’d never considered: explaining the Beatles to someone who has no idea who they are.
Having dinner a few weeks ago with the Island and my parents at a moderately posh French restaurant in town, an old favourite came on- Let It Be, I think it was. Anyway, Island had never heard of them. Turns out the cool t-shirt I bought for him in Thailand with a line drawing of the fab-four in their hippy days across the front- was just that: a cool t-shirt and nothing more.
We really had to start from the beginning- they started in the ‘60s, they had the same haircuts and wore the same clothes and made girls scream- to the middle years: long hair, lots of drugs, Yellow Submarine and Sergeant Pepper- to the later years: Yoko Ono, the band’s split- to what happened after: one was shot dead by a crazy man for no reason outside his apartment in New York, one was a narrator for a kid’s show about a train called Thomas, one made more music, died of cancer not long ago, one made very bad music with his wife who also died of cancer not long ago- to the latter years: then he married a lady with one leg, and now they are divorcing and hate each other very much.
The narrative really spiralled out of control- there was a lot of ground to cover, and the Island’s eyes had glazed over by the time John Lennon was shot.
These kids have just missed out on so much…

Sa-er
This morning I had the hiccups, or ‘sa-er’ in Lao. I get them quite a lot here. The Island is convinced that his grandmother’s failsafe method is just that: failsafe. [His grandmother is very old and blind- her eyeballs are white and completely clouded over. Every time we visit, she asks the Island to make sure I know that she’s blind.]
Her method involves taking nine (9) sips of water quickly without breathing in between.
What crapola, I always tell him. Bor maen, it’s not true, it doesn’t work, I scoff.
What I will never, ever tell him is that it does work, every time.

The life of an expat
Ok, on that I’m off to the Australia Club to lounge by the pool and start reading Katherine Graham’s Personal History. And, as my friend Chris puts it, ‘watch the peasants farm while I sip G&T’.
The Australia club is located on the banks of the Mekong, and has a smashing pool. And, most charmingly of all, in the strip of land between the pool and the Mekong are several market gardens. You know, crops and things. So you literally can sit by the pool sipping cocktails while the locals do things that are actually useful.
It’s a great place to recover from a hangover, which I course I have.
As an aside, last Sunday, also recovering from a particularly rageful hangover, sifting through the weird and varied reading matter on offer at the Aus club, I came across an old New Yorker- always a pleasure- and inside was a memoir written by awesome American journo Calvin Trillin, about his wife, Alice, who died in 2001.
It was so beautifully written, and so moving, and so inspiring. I am only now learning to accept that to be a writer, you don’t have to be able to write fiction, which has always been my weak point. I wanted to write something while I was over here, and have been racking my brains trying to come up with a good story- not a good sign. But Calvin and Alice were both writers of mainly non-fiction stuff- and so, so good at it.
Time to get cracking.

P.S. Did everyone notice how tall and amazon-like I appear in the photo in the previous post? I know, I’m loving it- I’m usually a midgey, but I tower over many people here!
Even 4000 Islands is only about an inch taller than me.