Garth Bigelow - Thoughts

I am very sore when I get up, but my head is clear the storm has passed. My blood sugar level is 119, but then I only had a bag of nuts from the mini-bar for dinner.

I am so glad I figured out how to get hot water out the shower previously. I sit on the floor of the shower and hold the nozzle very close to my shoulders. I stay like this for a long time, then get up and take a regular shower. I'm still sore but not as badly.

I look in the mirror. I've had a bruise on my stomach for a week now. I obviously hit a vein while giving myself an injection but the thing seemed to get bigger and bluer each day. Just enough to have me wondering about infection - I'm not very insistent about cleaning my skin before or injections and I am in the third world country - but today it finally looks like it is healing. In a couple of days it should be reabsorbed.

I don't feel like going out yet. Somewhere in the last few days I've rebooked the hotel through March 7th. I have a stack of breakfast vouchers on the dresser. It is after 9am when I get it together enough to get dressed, put on my sandals - which do not want to stay on my feet. No good for walking outside the hotel - and trudge down to the breakfast area. One person is waiting the area and i quickly tell him not to make me anything I'm just going to grab a plate of food and go back to my room. Surprisingly he seems to comprehend.

I run two 'croissants' through the toaster and make up a small plate of pineapple and watermelon while I wait for them. A knife and butter complete the feast. I shuffle back out and up the lift back into my room before it barely knew I was gone.

I eat slowly, drink lots of water and think about the broad scope of my plans. My Visa lasts until March 17th. I have a cheap plane ticket for Kuala Lumpor for March 15th but I don't really want to use it. So I have two weeks to research a border run or Visa extension.

I like it here and my wander lust - if that's what this really is - is cured for the moment and I don't fancy starting over getting use to some place again so soon. Plus relatively everywhere else is rather expensive. So my very tentative plan of the moment goes something like this:

So that's the outline of the grand adventure. As my plans for each day never go as planned, I expect this will change greatly with experience, fortune (or mis-), or situations.

Feeling a little looser and much better in my mind and stomach I watch TV and catch up on the website. I am not up to tackling the problem with the DVD website.

Around 1pm I am starting to feel hungry again. I keep having to pull my pants up, and so I move to the last hole on my new belt. A bit tight so I won't need a new one for a few more pounds. Wow, it is bright out. But oddly, not just dry but actually rather cool. My muscles want a massage, and I best to get that before I eat.

At the head of the lane I cross directly over. There is a restaurant "Khram Marine House (and Room to Rent)". It has plaquard showing pictures of their various dishes. The Thai style noodle in Egg Nest catches my eye and make not of it. Directly connected to it is a massage shop featuring Body Scrub: 300 baht. Sounds good to me, let's find out what that is. Again I taken up a flight of stairs, but just a single flight. And this no darkly light narrow staircase. Nice mahogany stairs, wide and lit. I am taken to a room with a massage table on one side and tiny tiny sauna in the middle. I could perhaps stand up in this and still get the door closed. It would be close, and thankfully I never have to find out.

I am instructed to undress and take a shower. I stand there dumbly until this is repeated and I'm sure I've got this right. Sure enough there is a tiny bathroom with sink, shower and toilet. It is impossible to shower without getting the whole room wet. I've seen similar, but not as extreme, versions of this. I shower. I am dried and told to lie on the table. A few hand signals later, I'm clear on face up or face down.

I am covered with a some kind of oily gritty lotion and it is worked into my body for an hour. The motions are much more gentle than I would have wanted, but when it is over I shower again, dry and dress and must admit that not only did my skin feel great, but my mind and body felt much more relaxed as well.

Outside I walk the four steps to Khram. I grab a very comfortable seat in the center of the place. Three fish tanks: one with prawn, one with crab, and one with some very large fish are between me at the street. Their bubbling protects me from the sound of the motorcycles and the short beeps of the tuk tuks. A fan blows directly on me, making the temperature perfect. I have a return to that moment at the beach. I am perfectly content, comfortable and serene. I have no wish to change anything lest it upset this balance.

But I must eat, or feel I must eat, I not unsure I could have sat there all day with no one bothering me. A menu is brought to me, full of the same pictures as the board and more. Cream of Mushroom soup again. I decide to compare their's to the other place's. I also order the Thai Style Glass Noodles with Shrimp, and of course an Iced Coffee. The soup is a cup not a bowl, and the mushroom pieces are smaller and not as densely packed. It is however just as good. I am brought four condiments in identical square plastic containers. One has sugar, one has a light syrup with hot peppers in it, I can't figure out the other two.

The glass noodles taste exactly as I remember the Korean glass noodles in Biloxi tasting. Not spicy at all - which I was kind of looking forward to - but very nicely made. I put some of what I figure is the hot sauce and slowly eat the meal and sip my coffee.

When finished I sit back. The waiter, and I suspect owner or manager (I asked him his name but it did not stick), spoke extremely good English with excellent pronunciation. Unlike most Thais, he seemed to be in constant motion: cleaning, restocking the beer chest, busy, busy, busy. I could not tell from looking whether he was Thai or not. I complimented him on his English and asked where he was from. Northern Thailand, vague answer. Where did you learn to speak so well. School, vague answer again. Still he had an air of mystery around him, like a martial arts master in an Asian flick. A charisma about him.

Even after eating I still felt great, relaxed and blessedly cool. I did not want to move; so I didn't.

I stare at the fish tanks, at the street. I was enheartened to find that my sex drive was working again (I know it is more of a hassle than anything else but it unnerves me when it shuts down. I take it as a sign of health when my libido is functioning correctly.) and there are some exceptional pretty young women walking the streets this afternoon.

Eventually - hours it feels like - the glow wears down and I start to get bored. I thank the manager for his food and his English, ask his name and instantly forget it. I say I shall return - and I will.

I go back to the hotel. I marvel at how dry I am as I enter the lobby. And a spring in my step - I should be taking advantage of this. I turn and wander up the street again - glancing at the Visa place - nope, still not in the mood to tackle that unknown - and then across the street at an inviting laundry place. Yes, I really should do laundry. If I go back and drop it off now, I'll have it tomorrow night.

The Steps and Glassy slope in front of Villa Panalee

Back at the hotel most of dirty laundry is in one pile. The only thing that takes any time is my short pants. I have to go through all the maybe 40 pockets to make sure there isn't anything in them. I also have transfer these contents to the nearly identical but clean pants. Passport, wallet, coins and key - these are the main important items. Laundry in what was originally my laptop carry bag, I strut out the front door. The approach to the hotel is a unique hazard. Steps lead you down to a, let's say four foot, glassy surfaced slippery slope, which runs from the steps to the street. I'd hate to be on this when drunk or in the rain. Like much of Thailand this would be a lawsuit in waiting back in the States. As always I take it carefully and slowly - when I am converged on from three sides by motorcycles in various stages of changing direction. This startles and confuses me and I almost fall over.

At the laundry one man is slowly working on first finding the receipt pad and then writing everything up. I think receipts are not the norm here, but I easily forgot what or where without one. While I wait one of the three elder women on the stoop is asking for my life story. Her grasp of English is impressive, and she gets the tumor version. Or at least the start of it, the story is cut short when the man returns with the receipt.

I am still feeling good and cool so back passed the hotel to 7-11 to restock on water. At least that was my intention. On the way in, distracted by the young woman in front of me I stumble against the step. You really have to keep part of your mind on the ground at ALL times. I do not fall but the action wrenches my arm and my neck screams. I wander around the store rubbing both for awhile and somehow come away two large bottles of beer, water and a large expensive sack of smoked almonds. I am not sure exactly how that came to pass.

The 'Teen Dream Massage' sign beckons to me with a promise of 'Lotion Massage,' but there is no price list and besides Jib is scheduled to come over tonight, so this seems like gilding the lily even if my arm hurts now.

In passing I notice a flyer for "Swimming with Dolphins". This and being with the Elephants are two things I definitely want to do here in Thailand. I grab the brochure.

Checking it out on the website mentioned it takes me a while to find where the details and costs are mentioned. 2300 baht per person - and I'll want to take Jib. I wonder if this can be charged? I fire off a long winded email asking that very question.

Beer, sleeping pills, tryptophan and mild horsing around proves to be the exact perfect combination. I don't even remember falling asleep - I just go out like a light and don't wake up until the sun has arisen. Of course this also means that I haven't been tossing and turning so one of my arms has fallen asleep and is both numb and sore. Thankfully the shower fixes that for the most part.

Between the lack of dinner and the beer my blood sugar is only 91. The best reading I've taken in ages.

Jib and I return to Khram's Marine (I do not know why it is called marine - it is not on the water - maybe it has to do with the tanks of fresh fish and seafood out front) for breakfast. I order the Thai Style noodles in eggs nest. The picture of this is what first caught my attention to this place. Jib orders her usual Spicy seafood soup with pile of rice.

The 'nest' turns out to be more of an omelet wrapped around a pile of noodles with shrimp and other good things. A mere month ago I do not think I would have thought so, but now this looks huge. I add some of Jib's spice oil and some salt, but it isn't until I add the lime that the dish really comes alive and is too good to stop eating it when I get full. So at the end I am stuffed, but not uncomfortably so.

We sit and I try to recapture the peaceful calm of the day before. But the lights seem brighter, the honks and cycles seem louder and the breeze isn't as cooling. It's nice but the wonderment eludes me.

We return to the hotel and rest for an hour.

I want to go back the beach. Jib keeps saying too much sun. Umbrellas I insist - no sun gets through. The too much sun turns out to be the walk there. I notice I walk everywhere now. I think the trip to the aquarium was the last tuk tuk I used. I've got the path to 2nd road down cold now. Soi 9 to Beach Road turns out to be a mistake - no shade and lots of mind hurting construction. But then we are at the water and into some beach chairs we go.

With Jib at my side, I am no longer hounded by massage hecksters, but now have to shoo away one's I didn't before all approaching with the same line "You buy for lady?" I do get her a cap. If they had had one that fit I would have gotten it myself.

I lie in the hammock like chair and again try to recapture the calm but it seems to be as much a function of my brain as my surroundings. The chair isn't as comfortable, sunlight occasionally finds a way to sneak in, birds swoop at me (at first I am not sure if they are real, but later I get a good look at some on the ground,) it's a little more humid, etc.

I realize that I am over the fullness of breakfast as the constant flow of food hawkers starts to look better and better. A lot of it deep fried and I'm sure will upset my stomach. Some of it just seems a little too cumbersome and/or strange to tackle in a beach chair. And the rest is too sugary. The strawberries still look good but I remember that it was only the application of sugar that made them remotely interesting last time. What does look good is the spring rolls. I pass them up a couple of times, and resolve to get some next time by. At which point of course they vanish from the trays going by.

A dog is lying under peacefully under a chair n front of us. He does not seem to belong to couple that sit over his head, but she gets up occasionally and gives him a bite to eat. Dogs are everywhere here, usually sleeping or resting on a curb. You rarely see them in motion. Another obstacle when walking. A read a chapter or so in my book; Jib naps for a while.

Eventually I see a spring roll tray and signal the lady just as she was starting to reverse direction. She comes over. I could tell if she said 35 or 135 baht, so I hand her two twenty baht notes prepared to wave her away if it is the latter. And I am given a bag with 4 spring rolls and a smaller bag of duck sauce. I figure the odds of not pouring duck sauce all over me in this position and decide against trying. The rolls are lukewarm - I should have thought they would be but my mind was picturing the piping hot ones you get right out of the grease - but things and the lack of duck sauce allows me to really taste the contents. While not as greasy as egg rolls or even US spring rolls, they still have some grease and I stop on the third one lest it upset my stomach.

A couple of hours pass and we trudge the long hot road back to the hotel.

Having been to the beach, I am in a mood to swim. Jib has not brought her bathing suit (that I bought last time), also her cell phone battery is dying again. So I give her a hundred baht for tuk tuk fare to go her suit and charger and I settle back and watch television. It seems to take for ever, but in reality about an hour.

Suitted up we take the stares instead of the elevator. Now this is only three flights but I can't help comparing it to the six flights I took just a week ago. I am not winded at all. I am definitely in much better shape for being here, not being able to drive, and mostly eating two meals a day.

The sun is behind a building by the time we reach the roof and it is a bit windy. Once in the water, something feels wrong, but it isn't until Jib says 'salt water' that I realize that is what it is. That seems like an odd choice for a pool on a roof. and it doesn't quite feel buoyant enough for that, but that is definitely the taste.

I am actually cold. Oddly, Jib seems unaffected. I swim underwater, as I reach my arms forward and pull them back I here the familiar 'crack, crack, crack' that my arms make when first swimming. It is a scary noise, but does not come with pain.

We swim and play and after a bit I am no longer interested in swimming but don't want to get out because it is cold up there. I don't get out until Jib does. There is a shower to the side and it is blissfully warm for a few moments, Jib tucks in around me. The water cools off and try limiting the pressure but the warmth never comes back. We towel off a little and then make a break for the stairs.

The stairwell curls around the elevator shaft and is glass when on the outside edge of the window. The steps are made of the same slippery substance (imitation marble I'm guessing) as the front steps. In wet feet it feels like it would be easy to careen out of control and right through the glass window. We take it slow and careful.

Back in the room, it has not had enough time to warm up and for once I am sorry about this. Shivering I dig out my robe and laze about drying off. We watch some rugby on TV which only holds my attention because I can't souse out the rules. It's like American football without all the protective gear and near as I can tell almost no rules. Hard as I try I am unable to determine what ends a play. Each round ends when a whistle is blown but other than a touchdown, what causes a whistle to be blown is a complete mystery to me.

It is after seven when I realize I am hungry again. Quite often I have skipped dinner, if I've had lunch, but I guess my stomach doesn't consider 3 spring rolls lunch. Outside Jib says she is so hungry she can hardly wait. I don't have a firm plan on where to eat, but a vague one. This turns out to be too vague as I can't find what I'm remembering. Jib points to an English Pub Restaurant back across the street. Seems a strange choice for her to be suggesting. Closed doors - that means A/C - I'm sold.

The same rugby game is playing on a huge flat screen, and some British lads are cheering them on. This makes the place a bit loud for my ears and I wish that I had brought the headset. Jib runs into a friend she says later she hasn't seen in a year and she starts to talking while I look over the menu.

The waitress takes this opportunity to swoop in. "Your lady friend does not want to sit with you. I sit with you," she giggles. I tell you, if I had working parts, I'd have been all over this girl. What a knock out. But I laugh politely and go back to the menu. And soon Jib is back at my side.

I mean to order the roast lamb, but either I pointed at the wrong thing or I am misunderstood, and end up with Roast beef and don't remember the mix-up until I am halfway through the meal. It is huge ridiculous portion when it comes. Three full potatoes, huge slab of beef, popover, peas, cabbage, carrots and gravy in a boat. By skipping most of the potatoes I am able to put away most of the remains. The popover is amazing, the rest so so.

Jib says something about me eating a magazine. She says it quite clearly. I can't imagine what she is talking about and say so. We go round and round on this. Clearly something important or she would have dropped it after the first couple of rounds. She makes gestures of a beaver gnawing on wood and says 'magazine'. Stressing it. "What the hell around talking about: magazine?" I say slowly (it is so hard for me to talk slowly.)

"Not 'magazine', 'magazine' she says with emphasis. I'm stumped. She reaches across me and jiggles my cell phone pocket. The light goes on in my head: medicine. Thus 'magazine' becomes a running joke between us for quite some time to come.

The atmosphere is noising and grinding at me somewhat. We do not stay long after we are done.

Back at the hotel I type at the keyboard a bit and when I turn around Jib is asleep. Less then 9pm I shut everything down and go, take some sleeping pills and eventually drift off to dream land - where I have might weird dreams I will not bore you with.

If you can feel sorry for yourself in this place then you are a professional. Today I turn pro.

I awake in a funk. I try to break the mood but it will not lift. I do not want to get up. Jib watches TV, and I of the mind to send her home after breakfast. It is a strange mood, my head is not noisy and my thinking straight (perfect for fixing the DVD website had the problem not corrected itself as mysteriously as it appeared) but I just feel grumpy and sorry for myself.

I'm worried about the finances. I'm pissed off that I can't afford to do everything I want. I want to be the type of person that can just beg for things they haven't earned and feel they deserve them. I want my body not to hurt, and my mind not to attack me. I pout and do not attempt to explain any of this to Jib, how thankfully is ignoring me.

Hunger - her's, not mine. I strangely have no appetite this morning - eventually drives us up and out. Jib leads the path to Khrams. I'm glad she likes it too. I haven't seen the manager since my first time here, he must not work in the morning. I order the ham omelet, she orders god knows what. It is different from usual but contains a lot of seafood and a multitude of garlic slices. She picks around these and I add some to my omelet. The omelet is the best eggs I've had in Thailand by far. Really good.

I notice the fish tank is down to two fish. I guess three were dinner yesterday. I try to unfurl my brow and relax, but peace will not come. The air is dry, the breeze is perfect, the chair as comfortable as ever but my brain is pumping out some chemical that makes it unhappy.

I become aware I am staring at the bank across the street. I look at other things but I keep finding my gaze back at the bank. I put more attention on it and finally become aware of what my subconscious is picking at: the MasterCard logo. Is it possible I can turn my credit card into cash here?

I drink two iced coffees and pick at her garlic slices while I wait for Jib to finish eating.

Across the street I walk up to the glass window on the noisy street and wonder how I am going to hear and be understood. I pick my most isolated and almost full MasterCard, the Citibank card, and hand it through a slot in the glass. The pretty teller looks at it and says something. I press my ear to a hole in the glass. "Your passport please."

I pull out my passport, feeling certain that at any moment she is going to need my PIN, which I have never set one up for any of my cards. She says something else. Ear to the glass again. "How much do you want?" That's a promising question. Hmmm, how much do I want? Will this be treated as a cash advance? It doesn't have to be. i got money from the casinos on the cruises and it was treated as a purchase. I want to tread lightly, I have the feeling that a cash advance could lower my credit score and we could have a repeat of the American Express situation. I don't want any more credit evaporating out from under me.

"10,000 baht" I say to the glass. That's less than $300 and in a few days I can check online to see how it was billed. If all goes well this will be method of shifting one the three forms of capital into one of the others. This will greatly relieve some of the financial pressure I feel.

Two signatures later, I've got a receipt and ten crisp thousand baht notes. It is a bit difficult to count the bills, while juggling the passport, credit card, and receipts. But when everything is counted and the items put where they belong we return to the hotel. One pressure slightly relieved I still am not in a good mood.

Perhaps it is the new cash in my wallet, but I don't tell Jib to leave. Even though I largely ignore jib and spend the afternoon working on this website.

Early in the afternoon I get angry at Jib for no reason and tell her to leave. She refuses to go, saying she is worried about me. Later I find this very interesting. I alternate reading and pacing around the room. I do not wish to go outside; it is too light and too bright. I am glad Jib has stayed, I can send her out for food. I leave the selection up to her. I use the time alone to try to reset my head with some success.

A good bit later she returns with three bags of prepared food:

There are also three bags of sauce: sweet, hot, and don' t touch. There is still a lot of food left when we are both stuffed.

My mood is largely better when I go to bed. Backs pressed together, I go to sleep while she watches TV.

I'm feeling fairly good when I wake up.

Two days ago when we were headed to the beach I saw a place that offered the waffles and that sounds awfully good right now. The place is exactly where I remember, unfortunately it is closed. The sign says 'open 19:00 to 24:00.' Hmmm, must be the Irish version of waffles, where they have it for dinner. Strangely short hours for an establishment regardless.

We wander around Second Road, this section of which is oddly absent of restaurants. A ways down and up a side Soi options appear and small shop looks inviting. It is open air, but the day is still dry. It has been a week of dry days and begin to wonder if the few few days here were a fluke for this time of year, or have I adapted to some degree (dare to dream?)

The waitress can't understand me, whether I am speaking, pointing at the menu, or Jib is translating. I flash back to when unemployment got so low in the nineties on the Cape that the totally unemployable were being employed. The service feels like that. I don't get close to what I ordered, but what I get - a sausage and egg sandwich - is good, so so what?

Jib's food takes longer to make and despite eating slowly I almost done when her meal arrives. Having been unable to get an Iced Coffee (it took a few minutes to get the concept of Diet Coke across despite it being both in word and picture on the menu (admittedly the word was written not in Thai)) I take this time to cross the lane to a Dunkin' Donut type looking place and get a Iced Coffee to go ('take away' when has to remember to say. 'To go' has no meaning to any one.) and bring it back to Jib who is now almost finished eating. Good coffee but I forgot to order it without sugar. My blood has been great lately - not sure if it is the food, weight or exercise - most likely all three. I am curious to get try to get an A1C blood test in 6 weeks or so. Assuming that I can charge it.

We continue down the lane back toward 3rd road. Without warning there is sound. Someone is cutting a steel I-beam with a rotary saw. The sound, like a thousand expertly applied fingernails on an amplified chalkboard, cuts through my head like a nail gun. I blackout. The noise is gone when I become aware of Jib waving fingers in front of my face.

I am still standing, but head is ringing and hurts like hell. Now every little noise, car honk, the sun, birds, everything startles and hurts me. I want to be back at my hotel room alone. I must have kept walking while I was out because I do not know where I am and I am turned around (do not fear gentle reader, even if i was alone and this happened, I could wander until I knew where I was, or grab a tuk tuk and have him take me to a land mark.) Jib knows the way. It turns out we are already on the road between 2nd and 3rd that the lane to my hotel is off of, just further south in an area I have previously bypassed - so I don't recognize it.

Back at the hotel I send Jib on her way, with instructions to return Thursday. As I not angry, she leaves without protest. I had paid her yesterday when I was attempting to get rid of her and she does not ask for more now.

Alone, I spend a little bit of time creating a list of things I want to do the next two days. Chief among them is go talk to the shop down the way about mechanics of a border run. It looks simple enough, but I think I'd rather have some hand holding than go it alone. Plus I'd like to know if it is possible to get a 60 day visa, rather than have to make another border run 30 days later.

I send an email to the R-Con people. Their place looks incredible, with a price even cheaper than where I am now. The only downside I see is that they don't mention Internet, but for a week I can check my email at the Internet cafes. And if it turns out of have it, by feature or luck, then this may be where I will stay next month.

Either my mother or I are having trouble with our email. I have assumed the problem was on her end, as I was getting at lot of email from others, but now I am having trouble getting a confirmation email from PayPal, so maybe the trouble is intermittent on this end. That would suck, but what can you do.

My plan now is to sit in the dark and listen to meditation music until my brain calms down. Then when I can face the world again, I noticed a head massage offered back down where I was disoriented earlier.

I find the place pretty easily and request a head, neck, shoulder and foot massage (the combo in the price list) but leave out the feet in mime and word. Which is in fact what comes to pass. The massage wanders a bit and doesn't have the power needed but must at some point hit the spot enough as my arm stops hurting for awhile.

I am feeling better as I leave the shop. Good enough in fact to tackle an unknown and walk into R-Con which is on the way back to the hotel. Inside I ask to see a room. Only on the second floor - that's a plus I can bypass the elevator, save a bit of time and get a bit more exercise at the same time. The balcony is another plus - both shaded by and visually extended by the building's marquee it is out of the line of sun enough to actually be useable by me.

Unfortunately during this tour the adventurous feeling evaporates and forget to ask several key questions - like is there a lady tax? Important. Is there a pool? Not vital, but nice. Is there an Internet? Not mentioned on the website but that would be a nice plus. I am surprised that the 790 baht per day is inclusive (no 21% tax and gratuity to be added later.) The price seems to good for the room. There will be a catch somewhere, but at the moment I just want to finish the business and get back to the hotel.

They take credit card, but there is a 3% fee - a minor catch. I book a week - from the 7th to the 14th. That leaves two days uncovered but I want to leave my options currently open for the border run as I still haven't checked that out. Whether communication problems or protocol they only take a 500 baht deposit and refuse to charge the whole thing. Receipt in hand I walk toward to the hotel.

I still don't feel quite right - confused almost drugged. I decide to eat at Khram's as I pass it. Simple food: Club sandwich and fries. Damn good fries. It's a small meal but I am surprisingly full. Whenever the manager comes near my dizziness clears up. This guy has an almost mystical quality about him I haven't felt since college.

The feeling of wellness passes when I leave. back at the hotel, I try to read but fail. The TV has only three real channels of any use. Yesterday one of those channels lost picture, today that problem has spread to another channel. Very strange. The TV is useless. I try to type in my journey. I can't spell or correct. I make some notes I have a lot of trouble deciphering the next day. I try to listen to the iPod.

My stomach is upset. I consider going for a swim but the sun is almost down and I remember how cold it was last time.

Can't do anything, can't not do anything. I do the only thing I can - I go out. The city is much louder at night. I usually avoid it for that very reason. I wander dizzy and directionless pretty much in circles as I hemmed in on all sides a few blocks wide by impenetrable cacophony.

I think about sitting in the lobby but figure it will be a lot like sitting in my room.

The 'Dream Teen Massage' sign catches my eye for the thousandth time.

Pattaya is a city of contrasts. It is a city of sin, in a country that legislates modesty. Sex is everywhere, but it slightly hidden from direct site. So it is in your face, but if you don't want to see it, you can deliberately ignore it. For instance, the girls are everywhere, most in very tight fairly skimpy outfits, but there is no outdoor nudity. You see farang and Thai couples everywhere, but very little public displays of affection. When I am not with Jib girls approach me (and everyone within earshot) with constant come-ons, but they are all euphemisms: "I walk wit you", "I go wit you", "I be wich you", or "Where you go?" That sort of thing.

Behind closed doors it is very different. Closed door bars have nude dancing for instance, with blow jobs going on in the knocks and crannies.

'Dream Teen Massage' is a closed door massage parlor. I have avoided it for this reason. Currently it strikes me as an inviting way to pass some time until I can sleep and my brain resets. As I enter I expect it will be a fishbowl type establishment like I have read about on the web. I am both saddened and glad that it is not, I am not up to making a decision like selecting which girl I like.

I am presented with a large grid of massage choices and lengths of time to choose from. It is on a large lamented sheet of paper. I am grateful that it is very clearly typed, but I unable to think clearly. I say nothing and study the chart. Like most places here, they are in no hurry.

Finally one choice stands out from the others: Green Tea Lotion and Ball Massage. That sounds soothing and strong. Now, I just have to choose between one hour, hour and half or two hours. I choose the middle, I think for no other reason than it cost 550 baht and that was what I paid a couple days back for a box of Alka-Seltzer and a bottle of suntan lotion. They ask me to pay upfront - so far the only real difference and I am momentarily confused by what she wants.

My masseuse is neither a teen or a dream, but that was never really a major consideration other than in grabbing my attention.

So far I have not uttered a word and that fact opens possibilities to me. As I led upstairs I realize that my masseuse speaks fairly good English and is chatty. I am far from in a talking mood and it occurs to me that people here are from all over the world. I've tried to start conversations with plenty of people that did not speak English. And I make up a language on the spot - sort of a pig French by way of Germany (bear in mind my only real connection with these languages is the semester of each I flunked in high school.) In my mind it is dialect of remote northern Iceland but of course there is no way to convey this.

I feign some confusion at her requests (some times I am not feigning) and I gibber in this made up but surprisingly consistent language from time to time. Largely we communicate with gestures. I am led to a shower, and I shower. i am lead to the hardest mattress I am ever felt and gesture hand up or hand down? Hand down, I lie on my stomach. Already being upset it does not like this mattress.

Green Tea Lotion is rather expertly applied all over my body and several knots - especially those in my neck that everyone here seems to miss - are worked out. This goes on for some time and mind wanders in and out.

Now I've been expecting that there will come a point where she asks me what else I want and I will feign confusion until she gives up.

Now, call me naive, but when I read ball massage I actually was picturing a massage using a ball. That was the image that drew me to this selection. It sounded like it would really be a strong massage. Silly me, it is just what it sounds like, a massage of the balls. As my mind is usually in the gutter, I can attribute not thinking of this only to my confused state. I am glad of this misunderstanding, an expertly applied ball massage is more relaxing and less stimulating than it sounds. It was an interesting experience.

Following that was the 'What special would you like?' and I feigned confusion, until she touched my penis and I gestured negatively. I tipped her 200 baht and walked back to Villa Panalee in a much better mood.

I still felt weird. I hoped tomorrow would be another day.

It was now almost 11pm, so I decided I would take this opportunity to skip the sleeping pills for tonight. Thus I tossed and turned for a few hours.

I awoke late - almost 8 o'clock.

There was a surprising amount of email, both personal and business. Still nothing from my mother, she most have broken her email again.

The business was is a pain in the ass. The processing network for the credit card end of the DVD website is making changes and they are telling me of the changes I must make to not get errors. This is a continuation of some emails back and forth yesterday. The only problem is the error they are telling me about works fine for me. And I keep trying to tell them there is no error. And round and round we go for eleven emails.

Attempting another tack, I look at the code (I had had to download all of this several days again for another problem - and guess all things do happen for a reason because otherwise I never would have gone through at that work at this point just to look at the code.) and how the offending line works. And my mind must be fairly sharp today, for the idea crosses my mind that some unknown browser might not process this command the same (proper) way. That would explain why it has only turned up as an error once out of hundreds of sales.

An hour of trail and error coding and lots of Internet searches later, I have written a working routine to compensate for a browser that might function as I suspect. Breakfast becomes all the chips and nuts in the mini-bar.

Showered and dressed it is nearly noon when I leave the hotel in search of lunch.

This is when I learn to my surprise that it is once of those days that I can not make a decision to save my life. back home it would be a day of channel surfing and prancing back and forth between the computer and the fridge getting nothing accomplished. Here I wander the streets meandering up and down streets unable to pick a place. Do I want a place I've already been too, or somewhere new? What type of food do I want? Breakfast or lunch? I am unable to make up my mind.

I end up for reasons unknown at an upscale outdoor Russian restaurant with music that is on the edge of being too loud for me. I don't remember how this choice came to be made, but here I am staring at a menu that is in Russian and Thai only, with pictures that not only can I not tell quite what they are but I can't tell which description - or more importantly price (the only thing I can read) - goes with which picture.

I order an iced coffee. The waiter goes away for a long time. I stare at the other customer, at the lady behind the bar, at the tour bus off to the side, and back to the menu. Round and round. When the waiter eventually returns with my iced coffee. I point randomly to a picture of what might be shrimp.

I successfully mime for the overhead fan to be turned on.

When lunch arrives I still don't know what it is. It is halfway between in looks and taste between a very small lobster and the biggest shrimp even seen. There are four them, fully shelled, tail shell split and cooked in a nutty brown sauce. And sharing the plate a small salad with thousand island dressing.

It is messy, but very worth the effort. I use a knife and fork as a) they have given me a steak knife (they only supply what you need after you have ordered) and b) I would quickly run out of these ridiculously small and thin tissues they use as napkins everywhere. I order a second iced coffee. Both loaded with sugar.

The meal finished, I wander a bit until I know where I am and orbit back toward the hotel. I am still somewhat hungry. Across from the lane to the hotel one if the most attractive Thais I have seen to date enters a restaurant I have not previously noticed and I follow in her wake. Once again no decision made.

She is sitting a table with two young English looking lads and I take the table further in. Glancing at the menu I notice that I finally get to have my waffle. For no earthly reason I order a lime fruit drink. When it arrives I order the Waffle with bacon (that is actually how it is on the menu) well done. The lime drink tastes like it is around 300% sugar. I actually make a decision (probably to save my life) not to have syrup on the waffle.

The waffle is some kind of whole grain, is great, and comes with a ton of butter so is just fine without syrup - which they have forgotten to deliver anyway. The bacon is perfect. Finally my crusade for good bacon is quenched. And it's been here right across the street the whole time. Even indoors and air conditioned. Exactly what I was looking for the whole time I was wandering through half the city.

I read the newest Pattaya Today as I eat. Occasionally I remember to look up and stare discretely - this is optional it is nearly impossible to offend by word or stare. It's hard to imagine another city where "Nice tits!" would be taken as a polite greeting by local or tourist alike, but I have heard it several times. And it is responded to with a smile or a 'Thank you.' I like that lack of games playing. I've never understood why 'You've got beautiful eyes' is a compliment, but 'Nice ass' is objectifying. Anyway, I digress.

After lunch I feel overly full and the full weight of much too much sugar coursing through my veins. I get up to go back to the hotel and instead find myself trying to walk off the sugar. I stop every few blocks to be dizzy and change direction randomly. Where possible I stay in the shadows but otherwise make no conscious attempt to keep track of where I am.

Some time later, over heated, dizzy and tired I duck into a 7-11 to replace my empty water bottle. Suddenly I am shivering in the air conditioning. I do not feel at all well.

Water in shoulder carrier, I hurriedly leave 7-11 and look across the street at the beach. Lying down, that sounds great. I have to wait a bit for a break in traffic - no one is crossing here - but soon I am lying in a beach chair under the umbrellas.

For reasons known only to my addled brain ordering a Heineken sounds like a good idea to pile on top of too much sugar.

I dozed off for a bit but when I came around there was a gorgeous blond teenager with (literally) an outstanding rack and beautiful blond hair a few chairs over. Still dazed a bit I must have been staring and before long she came over and started talking to me in such perfect English I thought she was an American. Turns out she was from Hungary, she was 19 and her name was Caleen. She was here traveling alone for a few days of sun and fun.

She listen, with what appeared to be genuine interest about my bout with illness, and my travels here.

Somewhere around the time of this conversation my brain came back online and I realized she was a daytripper. I really am quite naive at times, as I have learned repeatedly the last couple of days.

I re-explained that my illness makes sex impossible and apologized for wasting her time.

She arched her back and asked if I liked her tits?

Perfect, ripe and mildly over-sized she emphasized that they were real and giggled them a bit as they struggled against the skimpy bikini cloth.

I may be a middle aged, sickly dying man, but I am first and foremost a man, and thus subject to the adolescent fantasies that beleaguer most of my gender, regardless of age or firmament. A patch of calm, a grasp of the fountain of youth, unresolved forgotten high school fantasies - she probably represented all these things. But I also know that climax equals serious agony, and most likely unconsciousness. I also know that once you head down this path, the rationalization part of your brain kicks in - hard.

I knew this starting as I was already figuring in my mind the odds, that having overlapping implants would dull the pain some. Time to apply the brakes, before I find myself coming to with a splitting headache, walletless on the beach.

I must have been talking to her while all this was running through my mind and my protest was preempted with, "I'll let you play with them for 200 baht."

My mind barely had time to register the math ($6.50US!) and no time at all to ask about the logistics or parameters of how this would work. Without answer she slid her beach chair directly in line with mine and unfolded her towel to full beach towel status lying it down covering us.

She then turned on her side and placed my hand on one of her breasts.

The wood frame of the chairs was biting against the other trapped arm, but such thoughts were banished from my brain by the simple tactile wonder of this experience. I found curiously that I was fantasizing about Sheila, the young waitress back home who had recently joined the Navy - the hopefully unwitting focus of many mid-aged fantasies of mine. and I realized that this girl did look a quite bit like Sheila probably looked now that the Navy had had their way with her for a month or so.

A couple minutes passed and I kept assuming that Caleen would say "Time's up" or something similar. Truth be told, while I can look at them endlessly and I never got tired with any pair belonging to various girlfriends, groping for cash - even a spectacular specimen like this - got boring after a few minutes.

As if sensing this, Caleen reached around - I thought at first she was ending the 'session' - and undid her bikini top with a simple pull of the string. She accidentally knocked off my glasses with a flourishing hand gesture as if completing a magic trick.

Stopping only to put them back on, my hand returned to the now bare and suddenly reinteresting boob.

Again, amazingly intuitive, she turned to face me, just as I was mentally bemoaning the fact that I could only comfortably reach the one.

The fact that we were on a well traveled and fairly crowded beach, surprised me by turning me on more. Tracy have always been the extrovert and those exploits had always made me more nervous than excited.

The fact that no hecksters had bothered us during this time, proves to me our activities must have been fairly obvious to all. But Pattaya is a town based on the act of thinly veiled - of the studiously not noticing.

As far as I could tell she did not lie, they were real, very firm and simply marvelous. But as Bob Crafts once described ogling woman "It was like counting another man's money." And he should know, he was an accountant. And in the end there is just so much you can do with a breast and after what was probably about five minutes, but felt like an afternoon. I also suddenly became uncomfortably aware of how profusely I was sweating under the blanket.

She retied her top under the blanket with a skill that implied she had done this particular dance many times before and whisked off the towel - this time careful not to hit my glasses.

"1000 baht, you won't be sorry," she said as I used my poor sweat rag to dry myself off.

"Of that I have little doubt,' I said adding, "but as I've explained the parts just don't work."

She got up, kissed me on the nose, took the 200 baht, and sauntered down the beach in search of healthier targets. I watched until she was out of sight, distracted only by the returning hecksters.

Smiling I relaxed under the umbrellas, letting the pounding unchanneled testosterone be reabsorbed into my system.

A while later I got up to leave and a woman came over asking for 50 baht for the chair time. Had really been there that long? I gave her sixty and did not wait for my change.

So that was my interesting bit for the day. Youth is wasted on the young as someone once said.

Paid for or not, it is a sensation I shall cherish until I am hopefully back with Tracy near the end.

As the t-shirt once said; 'I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy.'

Back at the hotel I take an extra shot of Lantus for all the sugar and vow to skip dinner. I spend a lot of time typing up the last two days and messing around with Photoshop.

I watch a very stupid movie about super ants terrorizing an airplane and then fall asleep.

I have dreams about Sheila and about ants. The first is not surprising, the second is unusual as movies almost never impinge on my subconscious. Not wanting to get up I lay under the comforter (if I haven't mentioned it previously the Thai do not use a top sheet. It is fitted sheet and heavy comforter, the same everywhere I go. This a pain if you overheat easily. I end up sleeping with limbs extended like cooling rods. And in some body moods the comforter is much too heavy. I keep thinking of buying a sheet of my own but I haven't yet.) and ponder just who the archetype of Caleen/Sheila might be. Sarah Young and Mary Main pop to mind but neither feels right. My mind moves forward in time to Kerri, then backward to Susan Phillips. No pings rising from my subconscious yet. Some forgotten high school unrequited lust interest? Some girlfriend of my brothers from my early childhood? No sense searching my memory there, I have none. Eventually the call of nature outweighs this mental parade and the day begins.

And abruptly runs into the first snag. The Internet has stopped working in my room. 'Lan cable as unplugged' it flashes at me. So three possibilities, the cable has mysteriously and untimely broken itself during the night, the built-in lan card in the laptop has gone bad - these things happen, or the 99% favorite - the hotel has screwed something up on their end.

On my way to breakfast I mention to the lady at the desk that it isn't working. She says something about a manager, and clearly is unaware that there was a problem. I get online in the lobby and check my email. That is working fine, so the server is working. The problem exists between the computer and my laptop.

I return to the restaurant I over sugared myself at the day before. I order the English breakfast. Two eggs, scrambled, bacon and English sausage (an actual sausage, not a hot dog), hash browns (no relation to hash browns but made out potatoes and rather tasty), mushroom slices, one cooked tomato, baked beans and two slices of toast. It is even bigger than that sounds: the sausage is think like a bratwurst, but tastes like a sausage should. The toast is huge, and made of (praise Buddha) non-white bread - one slice a wheat bread, the other a darker denser flour. And tons of butter and some jam. And guava juice, water and coffee. 160 baht! plus 10 to make it iced coffee. An incredible deal - especially considering that it is all cooked perfectly. I eat everything but only pick at a few beans - I'm not a big bean eater, and having saved them for last was rather full.

Sometime during the night I must have had seizures and my calves have knotted up terribly. My morning shower had appeased them temporarily but when I got up from the breakfast table the muscles started yelling up a storm. I'll get a massage and go to the beach again. I don't want a Thai massage because that involves my whole body and my stomach doesn't want to pushed around at the moment. A foot massage with extra attention to the calves. I should be able to get this idea across.

I wander - no place looks inviting, but now that I am looking for a massage, several places to get a shave appear. I always find what I am not looking for a the moment - usually in great abundance. And I realize that I hot - and that I haven't had a shave since the last time I wrote about it. As I am standing in front of a place advertising both shave and air-conditioning I take a detour. This place does a much better job than the first place, and I feel much more cleanly shaven and relaxed (except for the damned calves.)

Back on the street, I pass up massage place after place - I wish I knew what my criteria was. Eventually I end up on a previously unexplored section of Third Road. None of the stores have any English in the windows or signs. Clearly I am no longer in an ex-pat area. i walk on for a bit waiting for it to pass, but it does not, so eventually as much to get in the shade as to return to the known, I take a right down an unknown lane. And nearly back to what I will now refer to as 2 1/2 Road because I can never remember its real name, I find an inviting shop: a/c, price sign in the window. The masseuses English is better than my Thai (I now know three words: Sa Wah Dee (hello), Soon (zero - no reason I learned this - it just stuck) and Alie? (Why?)) but not by much. An hour later, my calves ache less, but still hurt. My feet feel great though.

After passes several scores of times this last week I decide to go into the Border Run Office a few doors down from the Panalee. The door opens but no one is in there. Years of living on the Island have prepared me for the patience needed in Thailand. I look around, hoping to find a brochure, or an employee asleep in a corner or something. Twenty minutes or so later a tiny old lady comes in from a back door, looks at me, turns and yells something in Thai out the door. Presumably that a customer is waiting.

Meanwhile my search of the office has turned up nothing interesting except for ex-pat magazine that says 'free copy' on it (and I would later notice was dated January 2007.) The woman calls twice more over a couple of minutes but the other person does not appear. I trust my instincts and leave.

Back at the hotel, I enquire if the Internet is working. Seems the manager has still not arrived. I'm checking out tomorrow, I'm not terribly concerned. Both terminals in the lobby are now occupied. I sit on one of the comfortably couches and burn holes in their backs for a while. When this fails to produce any reasons, I return to the room and check the connection there. Still broken.

I find it hard to believe that breakfast, as big as it was, was the only thing I had that day, but other than a packet of nuts and mixed chips from the mini-bar I don't remember eating anything else.

Around six I become convinced that Jib is not coming. Think over the last time she was here and the 'fight' the day before that, and try to figure any reason for my certainty. I tend to trust my instincts in this matter. The last time I was certain with no reason, was the Christmas Tracy dumped me. My mind runs in circles, I know a lady friend is one of easiest replaced commodities in Pattaya, but I am used to her, trust her (trusting my instincts again) and have the illusion firmly in place of not just being a walking wallet.

Yup, I miss her. And I begin to wonder exactly my plans if (when) she doesn't show up. I have an email address - I go downstairs and send an email. Although it worked just a week ago or so, when she gave it to me, now it bounces back. Crap. And tomorrow I am changing hotels. And where she worked no longer exists (literally that whole side of the soi is gone.)

There is nothing to be done about it so I do my best to push it out of my mind or at least into my subconscious. I flip through the movie channels. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is on. I've never seen it, but have seen enough parodies and commercials to recognize it. It is an intentionally ludicrously over the top film. Perfect for not really watching if you know what I mean.

Just slightly after 10 there is the tiniest of knocks at the door. That's Jib's knock. I open the door but no one is there - I assume I have imagined it but as I start to close the door Jib jumps out from the side. A joke. All the more remarkable because she has a cold.

I try to explain that I was worried she was not coming. I think she understands this about as well as she did the original 'fight.'

She tells me she has come straight from the first day at her new job and is not feeling well. She takes a shower, and afterward I end up getting trapped actually watching this stupid movie because now Jib is watching it too.

Afterward I fall asleep with surprisingly little trouble.

The Internet in the room is still not working this morning. Were I not checking out this morning I would have pressed the issue last night. I go to the lobby to check my email, and one terminal is broken again, and the other one is still occupied by the old German man that seems to living at that terminal.

I go back up to the room and begin to methodically pack up everything. To avoid a repeat of last time, I lay out Jib's assignment for her. Which is to look everywhere something might be hidden and throw it on the bed. Meanwhile I start taking apart the electronics and packing it away in the laptop carrier. Then the medicines from fridge and dresser top. That case then full, even thing else was now on the bed and it was an easy job to place it neatly in the remaining suitcase. As half my close were still at the laundry, the case was not very full when everything was packed away. The I double checked the room, and Jib rechecked after that. All that turned up was the belt that no longer fit, and the flip flops I had not liked - the latter I meant to leave - the former I would have meant to leave if I had noticed it. Jib took the flip flops for an uncle. She had no used for the belt which she joking put around herself, revealing that it could have easily encircled three of her.

Jib, still sniffling away (I wonder briefly while I am not at all concerned about catching it, or more to the point convinced that I will not,) follows me up to 2nd road and the restaurant I am now enjoying for the third day in a row. It is slightly before 9am and we appear to be the first, or at the very least the only current, customers. I take a table inside. While yesterday's breakfast looks good I remember how huge it was and order the western (which has a slightly different ingredients list here in the East) omelet instead. Jib's order usually has about 20 odd syllables to it, and today only one or two. So I know she has ordered something else. And indeed when it arrives, it looks different. While it looks milder, apparently it is not for even she has trouble handling the spice. My guess is she is trying to clear out her sinuses.

My attempt at a smaller meals is thwarted. The omelet would be considered large even at a Bob Evan's back home. The same wonderful but comically oversized slices of toast, one wheat, one darker, as yesterday and loads of 'home fries'. All this and iced coffee too. And it is too good to stop eating. I do manage to avoid the wheat toast, and halfway through the omelet I start picking out the sausage, ham, mushrooms, leaving the egg behind. I also force the guava juice on Jib, figuring the Vitamin C will do her better than the sugar will hurt me.

For what I think is the first time, Jib is finished eating long before I am. An astonishingly cute dancing girl comes in accompanied by two young men. No, cute the wrong word - too trashy to be cute, but definitely a sex bomb. The group tries about four different tables before settling on one outside on the deck instead. I must have been staring because Jib said (and worse I had to have her repeat it several times for me to understand) that "would have to go to club to get a girl like that."

I have no intension of being anywhere within earshot of the dance clubs at any time - with or without the headset - which by the way, it is almost always too hot to wear.

Eventually I digest enough to move and we stroll back to the hotel (the German still staring intently at the sole computer screen) and cool down for the final hour.

Checkout is surprisingly easy and fast. They must have counted up yesterday's mini-bar consumption when we were at breakfast (the keycard serves as a perfect 'we are out' indicator as well as energy conservator) for there was not the usual wait while they check it. Humorously, or possibly suspiciously the week's mini-bar bill came to within 10 baht of the 1000 baht key deposit taken at check in.

I carry the two bags down the slippery front steps and then Jib rolls one while I take the other. It is only about three or four blocks to R-Con, but in the chaos of cars, buses, carts, motorcycles, scooters, shaws and pedestrians it feels somewhat longer. I am somewhat relieved and grateful to notice that R-Con has an access ramp and I don't have to haul the cases up the front steps as I am already starting to sweat.

There is one of the omnipresent fried meat cooking carts on the unusually wide front side walk and I don't notice the smoke in time to hold my breath as I usually do. It is like getting stuck in a room of chain smokers (which actually doesn't bother me) and I start hacking up a lung (actually it is very close the feeling when they had the gas powered mini-fork lifts at conventions. Just like inhaling that exhaust out of nowhere.)

Once up the ramp and through the doors things are very nice. Even though it is prime checkout time, there is no line at the cashier and they have no problem with me checking in at this time. If there is a fee for Jib it is not mentioned at check in. The aforementioned 3% charge for using credit card (illegal in the States, here I'm just grateful they take plastic.) seems to be the only extra. The room works out to be about $21 a day, tax and tip included.

While I am signing the paper work, our bags are loaded on a cart and soon we are waiting for the elevator. There is only on shaft and it is taking quite a while. This is not a problem - we are on the second floor so other than this trip with the luggage I have no plans to use the lift again.

The room is much larger than the one at Villa Panalee and so much nicer. While there is a fridge, it is not a mini-bar so that temptation is removed (although I will still fill it on my own.)

I have put the idea of taking the day off in Jib's head, but she is unable to contact anyone by phone. She leaves, she will either return in a few hours or late this evening. This is after all her second day at a new place of employment and I have no idea the work ethic or custom's at play here.

A sign in the elevator says you can pay for wireless Internet. Very reasonable: 350 baht per week. But for some reason I am unable to interpret it is not working at the moment. Some one comes to room, looks at my computer and leaves. Hopefully I will be able to get online soon. I go to the lobby to use their computers but they aren't connecting to the net either. The universe seems to not want me online today.

The key does not command this room, but there is a separate card - like a credit card - that does. And I'm thinking 'yeah right, I'll be taking that out.' but when I get downstairs I notice that the door to the elevator area requires the keycard to open, and while it has been lodged open on the few trips thus far it is closed now. So while I can go out with the card left leaving the room on, I might not be able to get back in without schlepping to the front desk saying I forgot my key. So back up the stairs to get my key - this is around my sixth trip up and down the stairs - it is becoming more exercise than I had originally intended.

No cold water in the fridge. A quick trip to the 7-11 - located as always within a block - is in order. 108 baht later I have two large bottles of water, some lychee nuts, salted peanuts and dried mango strips in plum powder. and some betagen. My own little mini-bar created.

Oh, the mango strips reminds me of one of the hundreds of things I have forgotten to mention. A couple of days back I bought a similar type package labeled salted Jujubes. Now having had great success with the package of dried tamarind rolled in sugar (don't bother looking back I forgot this detail too) which was both time consuming to eat and tasted rather nice - and also had the weirdest seeds, like mahogany beads looking completely manufactured, I was tickled to learn that jujubes were named after a real 'fruit'. Did you know this?

Anyway, I can't vouch for a real fresh jujube, but salted dried jujube is the single worst thing I have ever put in my mouth - a position formerly held by the raw giant clam sushi in Atlanta.

Unpacked, stocked and Internetless I explore the television. More channels but no HBO or movie channels. This is actually a good thing as these are room traps for me and there is an exciting city to continue to explore just outside my door.

Oh, in the three doors between the 'residence' and 7-11, actually part of the same structure as the building I live in but accessible only from the outside is Blue Dolphin Visa. A visa agency, offering in the window, "same day visa run to Cambodia - leave 7:30am return 2:30pm 2,000 baht." This is better in terms of schedule and price than most offers I've seen. And I think Blue Dolphin was one of the outfits recommended in the Ex-Pat magazine. Assuming no catches I'll make use of this service next Saturday.

While I type this in the much more comfortable typing station in my new hotel room I have the iPod playing randomly from the decades of music in my collection. 'Nowhere Fast' from the Streets of Fire soundtrack comes on. The song triggers an image of a young Diane Lane wiggling around the stage in a tight red dress. It is amazing how clear this image from 3 decades ago is.

Having cooled off the room and myself by taking the time to type all this - even if I can't connect to up load it yet - I leave now to pick up my laundry and talk to the Visa run people on the way back. This plan is temporarily interrupted by a phone call from the lobby asking if they can send someone else up to look at my laptop.

As I stare at this kid, I wonder how difficult it is much be doing computer work in a second language. Eventually though he does get to the problem of why my laptop will not interface to their system and back to the front desk we go. Turns out they are out of one week Internet passes - I can wait until tomorrow, buy a one day or a one month. One day is half the price of one week, no a good deal. However one month is only 700 baht, less than the price of two weeks - and assuming all goes well at the border and no surprises pop up I plan to be here all next month.

Okay, so now up to date (other than yesterday which has not been fleshed out yet) back to the original missions.

Outside the hotel, I reverse my plan and go to the Visa Run Office first lest my mood change before I return. It is a tiny office with two Thai women in it. It is everything I feared it would be. They understand only enough to get the job - hopefully - done, but I don't get any of the handholding I was expected. Well, when forced to, learn by doing. They also don't take credit cards, unlike the two places I have already rejected. Dauntless, I am getting nervous as their is only a week left to my first Visa, I book the trip. What I like best about it is that it has a quicker turn around time than the other trips I looked at. Simply out and back. If I understood everything correctly, I will be picked up in front of the hotel (nice little coffee bar there) between 6am and 6:30am. An air conditioned bus takes me and several others across the Cambodian border, and then we come back and get another Instant Visa the border. As I have no ticket for thirty days later it will cost me an extra 200 baht at the border for a train ticket 30 days later. The next border run I have airfare for 30 days later. I don't think I'll be using that ticket either, but at least that one was paid for a long time ago.

And around 2:30pm we arrive back at the hotel. All for 2000 baht. It cost me 1300 baht to get a taxi from Bangkok to Pattaya when I first got here.

After I leave as I walk toward and then passed the Villa Panalee to the laundry, I start thinking about the odds that I will have any trouble at the border? Supposedly this is a done deal, but I've heard horror stories that may or may not apply to my situation. So do I take it easy and bring only the cash? Buy a backpack, and take the laptop, and money? Or play it safe and bring everything - which has its own dangers.

I'll still have the room booked for almost a week at that point, so I can easily leave most of my things. But what if by some fluke they won't let me back in? I think I like the backpack idea. Just want I can't live without and can keep on my person. If somehow things go horribly wrong, I'll deal at that point. Somehow.

Arriving at the laundry (one of the few if only signs I can recognize in Thai, although if you tried to trick me it would not be hard.) it feels like it is going to rain, which here means pour. Like last time my laundry is sealed in thick transparent plastic. Even if it pours the cloths will stay dry. In an attempt to avoid the chaos of second road I take the crossway just after the laundry. The lane it connects to turns out to have a crossway only a little bit back toward second. The lane it connects with I don't think I've seen and most of the signs are in Thai only - I always find that uninviting. Nut as it turns out this lane is the one that connects at Second Road where R-Con is. Back at base without ever hitting the main road. And I keep thinking of it as Second Road but actually it is the road parallel between Second and Third. If you have a mental map adjust them accordingly.

I have to use my access card for the first time. I see a number pad but no noticeable slot to insert the card. As I am fumbling for one I discover that proximity works and the glass door unlocks. I wonder if a credit card magnetic strip would work just as well? I'll try that next time and if so I can look forward to returning to a cool room on hot days - until I get yelled at <g>.

I have not been gone long enough for the room to cool down and I think I will go back to my original plan of taking it easy today. It is nearly 5pm and I have finally digressed dinner. I can assume by this point that Jib is not returning until after work - around 10pm. I think I'll read my book for a bit and then go out in hunt for dinner.

Thinking if the dryness has held I might walk back to the All Seasons and finally try that Cuppuccino of Lobster.

I wish the planning center of my brain would be in any sort of contact with the decision making controls. I left in search of food. I even had a tentative destination in mind - although I think that had been forgotten about before I got down the stairs - and yet less than a couple of blocks down the road I find myself in a massage shop having been successfully seduced by a "head - shoulder - hand" offer even though this a hold over from a mission of maybe a week ago - it was my calves that wanted attention now.

My masseuse does not Thai. My best guess would be Chinese, young and heavyset. She proceeds to be merciless on my back (which you'll note is neither head nor shoulder nor neck) and my lower spine, which usually never hurts, is screaming. Thankfully she moves on the shoulders, just as mercilessly though. Somewhere around the arms she yanks them over my head. I wince expecting pain, but am surprised to find there is none. When given a chance I wiggle my arms around. No pain - a major miracle.

Then she moves on to my head with the same ferocity. But here it is appreciated. No one has given my head the kind of strong action needed to relieve the stress there. She has remarkably strong hands even for someone in this business and in a few spots I'm worried my skull give way. In some areas the force of the attack hurts like hell, but it is the good kind of pain that I know will be followed by blessed relief.

I am grateful for the massage, but equally grateful I had chosen one hour and not two - I'm not sure I could have withstood that. But I feel great - if a little woozy - and my arms don't hurt. I get her name: Kane, and make note of the name of the shop: Jeans Massage and it's position relative to R-Con. When my arms return to really hurting again, I'll definitely be back.

The 200 baht she charged seemed way too little for the effort she applied, so I tipped her a hundred beyond.

Back on the street I still haven't eaten, but now I am not feeling very hungry. But I should have something. I wander up 2 1/2 road toward Central Pattaya Road and there isn't any restaurants. And I don't mean, none I'll accept - I mean none period. Taking a right on Central I double back at the second lane I see (the first did not look inviting.) At least here there are some diners if none I wish to eat at. Shifting directions as the lanes force me but trying to remain parallel to 2 1/2 Road, I somehow end up on Third. Now, I'm just looking to recognize the lane that takes me back to the hotel. I'll try the room service.

I overshoot by one lane, and so am drawn into 7-11 as I pass. I buy two beers, a lager for me, and a Heineken for Jib. Then I point the teller to the sign that shows a lovely looking picture of shrimp dumplings. We come to understanding that quantity I want is one, and she goes to a freezer in a far corner of the store and returns with a quart sized container. She unwraps it and pops it in the microwave. She waits on several customers while it takes what feels like forever to heat up.

Back at the hotel I stop at the front desk to request a third pillow. No problem being understood and they almost beat me to my hotel room.

In the room I discover that the plastic container has cracked and while it is near the top quite a bit of liquid is in the plastic carrying bag. Thankfully there are no holes in that. The shrimp is, as one would expect, seriously overcooked but otherwise the dumpling is much better than I expected and just the right amount of food.

I drink the lager and watch Chinese MTV. I can't understand a word they are saying or singing but the girls are cute and the music while very poppish, agreeable. One beer and I am surprisingly drunk when Jib arrives around 9:30. She says that although at work, she could not work, and has slept all day.

She drinks the Guinness, letting me know that she doesn't really like cans, just bottles.

While me talk, Chinese MTV has turned in Jackass, which amuses Jib so I leave it on. I can longer say I've never seen Jackass. I take Tryptophan but not sleeping pills and my body responds ass-backwards - fall asleep quickly and wake up midway through the night.

Two negatives of the room become apparent during the night. The second floor is not high enough to escape the noise of the street below. This is easily overcome by turning up the iPod a little (the music of choice tonight is Natalie Merchant.) Second is that the balcony curtain is very thin and does not block the light from the street either. This is a more difficult problem, but the overhang of the marquee should a least limit the morning sun.

I drift in and out. I switch the music on the iPod many times. I assume myself with Jib's skin - truly amazing what she can sleep through. Around seven I decide to tackle the shower that so confounded me yesterday. I have seen this configuration in a couple of the massage shops: shower and toilet in one small combined space. It is very strange to my American sensibilities and more offputting than it should be and I'm not sure why.

Anyway, yesterday I tried unsuccessfully to get hot water out of the thing, but I must have don't something right at the end for today it comes out hot right out of the starting gate.

I slide the door separating the two sections of the bathroom closed and immediately realize that the soap (one tiny little soap) and shampoo are in the other room. I can't get the door to slide open again. I try lifting, twisting, gentle, forceful, the thing won't budge. And looking up at the track on the top I can see that the protective wood has been mostly unscrewed (only a single center screw keeps it attached) like they have been working on it.

Remaining calm, I fight with the door randomly and somehow hit upon the right combination of gestures and it slides open. Shampoo and soap in hand I step back in and do not close the door quite as far this time.

The hot is wonderfully hot - so much in fact I am forced to turn it back some. The space is confining mostly because I am trying to avoid the toilet. Once I get over that, it becomes much more accommodating.

I return to bed, changing the iPod to Meat Loaf, and dry off in the air conditioning. Jib is still not awake at 8am. This is unusual, her cold must really be throwing her for a loop. I take extra vitamin C and Echinacea just to play it safer.

It is light enough now to go to the computer, which I left in standby mode last night rather than turning it off (initially I was leery of leaving the laptop plugged in for long periods because the transformer which says it can handle 110 and 220 volts was running noticeably hotter on 220v. But overtime I can to realize that it soon topped out at merely hotter and did not continue to warm up more so I relaxed about it.) and now appears to be locked up. As the hard drive light is on and the mouse responding I leave it on while I dole out two days worth of pills (I do up my pills every two days), test my blood (104) and take an injection of Lantus.

The computer still doesn't have a desktop so I power it down and reboot. For the first time in days the fingerprint scanner gives me a hard time but eventually I out-stubborn it and it lets me in. Checking my mail, I have three emails from my sister and one from Dan. Dan's contains a forward from the processing company - my fix did not solve the problem and I am going to have to do it the hard way. It occurs to me as type this that this would be a good project for today, while I stay in and Jib sleeps.

Jib awakens and showers while I type. No shared showers in this hotel room - the shower is too small. It's only major draw back thus far.

Yesterday, I had told Jib I would have whatever she had for breakfast the next day. I doubt she remembers this, but I act as though she did and let her lead the way. This draws us back to the breakfast house of choice this week. I make a point of catching the name this time: Caffe Pitini (yes, two efs.) she likes this place or just knows and I do and bereft of instructions has gone here I do not know.

I do not look at the menu. She eventually questions why? And I say I'm going to have what she has. This clearly causes her head to hurt (more) as she won't order without taking my taste buds into account. But I hold my ground and she is the only one to talk to the waitress.

When our meals come I do not end up with the same dish as Jib, but I correct this by us both eating from both plates. Her dish is only mildly spicy so I think she anticipated this move (and I was so looking forward to a battle of a meal) and mine is barely spicy at all. Hers tastes much better to me, but better still is both of them mingling together in the rice. She thinks so too.

Unlike American food which I will eat until I practically pop (damn starving kids in Africa) I have no such compulsion about stopping with lots of Thai food still on the plates and so we stop just comfortably full. My iced coffee long gone, I am glad I have brought my own water with me, and drink about half of what I have with me. I have been sloppy about drinking water lately and really need to step that up a bit. Dehydration is a large problem here - although admittedly I go out in the sun as little as possible.

Now feeling quite comfortable with 'Sa Wah dee' and 'Alie' (although the latter I sometimes can't recall with certainty whether it is How? or Why?) I ask Jib to teach me how to ask for the check. She does, but it does not stick yet and unsure of my pronunciation from the get go, and just gesture writing on my hand - which universally has worked do far.

The bill is half again what it was yesterday for all that food, but still well worth it.

Jib sneezes and an automatic circuit in me says 'bless you.' Funny how those things stay with you. I still will yell 'Jesus Christ' if startled or scared enough - and that is an uncontrollable circuit. I know because Tracy was religious enough that she that upset her, and I found myself unable to tame the reaction. Just hardwired from a childhood in a Catholic household. Funny what we can't shake.

On the way back to the room, a street vendor is selling fruit from his cart and it looks good - especially the watermelon wedges. I can not communicate with the vendor, but with Jib's help come to understand that he is not open yet - it is after all only ten minutes of 10. We walk three feet to the next cart where the woman happily sells he a watermelon slice and a healthy helping of pineapple, fresh from the plant itself: 20 baht. It sits in the cooler still calling to me now that I think about it.

Jib is staying and plans to sleep all day here rather than at work. She bought the medicine (magazine) t she had forgotten on the way last night, and from the ingredients list it looks like aspirin substitute, caffeine and a decongestant. All just symptom relievers, but then not much you can do with a cold curewise I guess. I try to offer her some Echinacea and vitamins but she isn't going for it. Not taking pills from 'strangers' is probably a good survival mechanism in her line of work.

Finally, an email from my mother, who has been away. And Tracy is the first to reply to my 'Things about You' form I responded to yesterday.

Time for some fruit, reading a chapter in my rapidly dwindling book, and then to tackle the problem with the JennyVision website. It is a simple, but invasive fix that will require making the same change to hundreds of lines of code. But as it is the names of the pages themselves that must be changed I see no way of automating the task. It is going to be a slow tedious job.

There is a point where the software end of the changes to the site are finished and the whole thing has to be uploaded to the Internet. As this change has effected nearly every page and much needs to be deleted and replaced, it is an upload of some twenty minutes. However that proves me a break while the computer chugs away at that.

I look over and Jib is no longer sleeping but quietly knitting a black and white cap. The TV is on but the audio off. I torture her for a little bit until the computer throws up. The internet system in this hotel while much faster than the one at the Panalee, likes to trip over itself and crash occasionally. Luckily the changes already uploaded take so once reset, the new upload is much shorter, only the parts that had not been done yet.

Once this three hours of tedious work is finally uploaded the real ugly part begins. I have to update the Adwords to match the new URLs. I have hundreds of ads, and each has to be individually changed. What makes this really bad, is that a) Adwords is one of the most unintuitive websites (because it is so complex, not necessarily because it is badly designed) I've ever kept using, and b) it is incredibly slow even back home. Here it takes about 3 to 4 minutes to change each single ad. And during that time I try to keep in my mind the screens and links I've just used so I can do it over again without all the hunting for where I need to go to change each ad.

I'm done about 30 minutes, during which Jib is working out the newly created knots in my wrists, when she says she is going to the doctors. She gathers up her things. I get no clear sense of when or if she is coming back, and off she goes.

I go out in search of a backpack and a small electric fan. I don't try very hard and find neither.

I decide I'm hungry and stop for a small bowl of glass noodles.

Then, a memory sparking in from a week or so ago, I strike out in search of a pharmacy that takes credit cards. Xanax (well alprazalam anyway) is available over the counter here. But at 280 baht per 10 one mg pills, that is a $12.50 a week habit. Okay, now that I've done the math it isn't as bad as I thought. It is however well over the $18 a months it cost back home. It is also the first drug i will run out of. I think I will start using the over the counter stuff, keeping the 'legal' pills for when i leave the country just in case the one's bought here might be a problem at the border. Always think ahead. I should price out Metformin in the next month. It looks like a big supply but that is because they are huge pills. I should have about 6 weeks worth left.

I don't feel like being out today. I wanted to relax, and programming was anything but. So I think I'll go back to the room and take advantage off its emptiness to just chill and listen to music. And that is exactly what I did.

For a while anyway. Later I remembered that it was Saturday and I needed to do the weekly finances. I have come to hate this, as it makes me realize how tentative my fiscal position is and each week brings a new terrifying discovery. Add to that the Internet at this hotel is wireless (better than nothing with was what I expected so I am not complaining on that score) and I will not do my finances over wireless because of the possibility of having my accounts and passwords hijacked. Admittedly there is also a chance of running into keystroke loggings programs in wired computers at the pay for Internet shops, but that seems the less dangerous option given that the finances have to be done.

All the shops in his neighborhood are uniformly 30 baht per hour and I remembered the one back on Soi 10 being 20 baht per hour. Why 10 baht (32 cents) possessed me to walk to Soi 10 I can not tell you but not only did it, but I had trouble finding it as I got turned around coming out of the market onto Second Road and I walked all over hell and back as the sun went mercifully down. And when I finally found the place, I had remembered the price wrong - 2 baht a minute, 100 baht an hour. As I knew my work would be between a half hour to close to hour depending on the cantankerousness of the so called high-speed Internet connection, this whole thing was a wasted trip.

Walking back up Soi 10, through the endless cat calls 'Hey, Sexy man' and whatever it is that they yell in Thai, enduring music that would be against a noise ordinance anywhere else in the world, I finally break free into 2 1/2 road. About half the distance back to the hotel, I pick an Internet cafe based solely on the cuteness of the clerk. I order an hour and an iced coffee. An odd choice given the hour, but I am rather hot. She turns a fan on me thankfully.

Until recently most of my credit cards have been in the 0.00 to 3.99 percentage rate range, but now some of those introductory periods have expired and so the minimum payments (I always pay a little bit more on the theory that that effects your credit rating) have gone up substantially. The American Express card that lowered my credit limit has done so again after I freed up the limit by paying off a chunk. I won't make that mistake again.

My bank accounts are going down faster than I would like paying the credit cards and a minimal household bills, but it is too early in the game to know if it is too fast to complete the race. Also hopefully there will be some income from the sales of my possessions that Shaun and Marilyn are working on. Also, it is possibly that sales of DVDs will pick up. It isn't time to panic but it makes me worry and rumbles my gut a little.

Finances done with 20 minutes to spare, I suck down the forgotten iced coffee, pay and return to the hotel.

Jib returns around 9:30. She has gotten a shot from the doctor and seems not as sick.

I try the new Xanax and as I don't get withdrawal anxiety terrors, I assume that they are not counterfeit (a problem I have read about in the paper.)

I awaken in the middle of the night with muscle aches, mild cough, slightly stuffed nose and I am hot. Jib's cold is trying to get me. I get up take more Echinacea and vitamin C, blow my nose and return to bed to stare at the ceiling forever. There is an ache in side that will not quit.

At some point I must have dosed off because suddenly it is morning, and a strange dream evaporates before I can lock it into memory - leaving just the impression of strangeness. My nose is clear and my body dry - I have beaten the cold before it could take hold and hopefully my body is busy building immunities o one more thing.

The Internet is being cantankerous again. It keeps logging me off if I hesitate for a few moments in activity, and then is hell to get back online again.

Breakfast is becoming a routine as we both seem to agree that we like the same place. Today in effort do get their portion size down to reasonable I order ala carte: 2 scrambled eggs, English sausage well done, and that wonderful toast - plus the ever present iced coffee. It is still a lot of food, but not as overwhelming as previously.

We eat outside. I figure this will be a nice change for Jib as air conditioning is not her friend. The extra noise makes it hard to communicate, but she seems oddly untalkative today.

Two older men are eating at the other end of the patio, a third that they obviously know approaches them, and one of the seated men says 'Hey, Sex Money' in a very good impression of the bar lady cat calls of 'Hey, Sex Man.' I find this very funny and can stop laughing. I am pleased to be able to explain the joke to Jib who also minds it funny when she gets it.

I find it hard to believe that I have been here three weeks. On one hand it seems like I've been here forever, and yet it also seems like I just got here. Weird.

Jib is out for the count. I don't feel like staying in today. I weigh leaving her alone in the room. The front desk has her ID and a copy there of (that is standard practice in most hotels. Panalee did not do this, and All Seasons charged for the service (not that it optional)) - the laptop is the only non-secured item that I would miss if it disappeared. Everything else of importance is in the safe. And leastly my instincts trust Jib - although my time so long ago in Toronto has taught me that you can't always adjust your senses for cultural differences and I don't fully trust my sense of reality all days anyway. All that weighed up I am going out.

[Note: I tend to make brief notes to myself on the fly through out the day when I am near the computer. But then flesh them out later during that couple hours in the morning that I wake up before Jib and/or the few hours at midday when it is just too hot to go out. This week however Jib has been gone (details below) and my midday flee from the sun has been taking place on the beach. Thus I am working on this here and there and it is now the 13th before I even start.]

Now at a new hotel I could walk a few blocks to the old laundry shop, but why would I when there are laundries every few stores. I pick a new laundry a few shops down the next lane. They give me a receipt without me even asking and tell me come back tomorrow.

My next task is to get my toe nails trimmed. What is a pedicure back home (nail clipping and skin scraping are two different things down by different vendors. A lane that seems to be heavy with barbers and salons and such is nearby so I walk down it. Most of the shops look uninviting. I pick one I would have normally passed up, because the lane is coming to an end soon ahead. The shop looks empty, but it turns out a woman is lying on one of the chairs.

She calls to someone outside and I am motioned to sit and my feet are placed in a basin of warm water. Then the girl that came in, starts working on the hair of the lady that was in the chair. Both customer and worker as it turns out. When they are done they both take one of my feet and after a few questions are mimed to me and answers are mimed back, they begin working on my nails with a wide array of instruments.

Quite a bit of interest and attention is paid to my left big toe, which has been hurting me. I had chalked it up to my nail having become too long and banging against the end of my shoe. Now they they are fussing over it, I become a bit concerned. As a diabetic I have to be very careful about infections and cuts on my feet. Losing a foot would be a real inconvenience. They keep working on each toe and then returning to the big toe. I'm thinking ingrown toenail. They pick and scrap and pry - a red liquid is applied, later removed and some kind of alcohol is swabbed on - which stung quite a bit - and later a thick petroleum jelly type goop is packed on.

When the older lady is done, the younger one continues and then switches to the left foot, explaining that her eyes are better, and she redoes everything including picking at the poor big toe. When it was over I asked what was up with it - expecting ingrown toenail. Using a Thai-English dictionary (I really should get one of these - the computer is a big let own in this area) she shows me a word that translates to: marsh, swamp, pus. Isn't that encouraging? Well, at least the swabbed it and encased it in goop.

Directly across from the hotel is a mostly empty large parking lot during the day. As the sun begins to fall it fills up with tents and vendors, selling various foods, knick knacks, towels and the odd items. I walk through the few carts that are set up hoping to find a fruit cart. No luck. But as I cross the street to the hotel, there is a fruit cart now open on the promenade to the hotel. I buy Jib some cantaloupe and myself some pineapple. Then I drop next door on a thought and buy beer (I try to keep one beer for each of us in the fridge and replace them when used) and more water.

Back in the hotel room it is now late enough to be cool enough for Jib and I to go looking for a fan and backpack. The fan is so I can keep the temperature in the room hotter and yet keep himself more comfortable. A win-win for both of us. The backpack is so I can take the essentials on my border run Saturday - just in case.

We stop for dinner at Khram's. I order something with spicy in the title. Jib orders a fish soup (with whole fish) that comes with it's own volcano heating system. We share both. I don't know if my tolerance to spice it building up or Jib said something that countered my 'full spicy' instruction when ordering, but it isn't as much as fight as I am expecting. And her fish soup is good - very limey - but I dislike having to remove and be wary of the bones.

On leaving Jib says it is too far to walk and we should get a tuk tuk. I remind her that she said that about the theater and we walked just fine. I like walking and it is good for me. She takes (slightly miffed would be my take) at a slightly faster pace than usual for her, and hardly ever looks back to make sure I'm still following. She's right, it's a long walk. We go all the way down to North Pattaya Road, along stretches of 2 1/2 road I have never been too. Much of it rather difficult to navigate.

Thankfully, when we reach North Pattaya road it is practically directly across the street. Crossing North Pattaya Road takes some time even with Jib picking the timing. It is a mall that we enter, but I never did see a name for it, nor did I catch a name on the store we entered (the receipt was all in Thai.) It did describe itself in English as a place of reworked technology.

We quickly found the perfect floor standing, 18" inch oscillating fan. It is cheaper than I am expecting: 750 baht. While I am asking questions and they try to find the price, Jib has found the backpack section. I find her and look through them. None look quite right until Jib points my attention to one I already passed up, and I notice it is bigger than the one I had actually looked at. It also have a feature that it could also be used as a rolling case with extendable handle. An odd combination, but in this case perfect. It is a bit more than I am expecting: 750 baht.

Tax is included - everywhere it seems - so 1500 baht ($47) and we are done. I try to gesture to have a hole cut in the box so I can carry it easily. Instead the salesman carries it out the store. I'm trying to figure out what is going on. Jin follows him, so I follow her. Up the escalator, I give up asking questions. Through the mall, out the front door, across the street. he is still carrying the box. He stops a tuk-tuk and with Jib's help directs him where we are going and negotiates the price down to 80 baht. He loads the box on the back of the tuk tuk and off he runs before I can give him any tip.

I stand on the back end of the tuk tuk - held on slightly by the curve of the side bar at the end. From here I can see more of this unexplored end of town.

At the hotel - I navigate the clumsy box through the security door and up the stairs and into the room, while Jib carries the backpack.

Once unpackaged the fan instructions are in Thai, but it is a fan - how hard can it be? And there are pictures. Well the first step is the problem. There is a knob to remove and despite being given a diagram and an arrow describing direction, this knob is on a rod that spins. I am unable to hold the rod stationary and twist the knob. Jib can not translate the instructions but can read them. She has no more luck than I do. She mentions that the store would have assembled it for free. I'm thinking - that sure would have made it a lot easier to get back the hotel - boxless.

Eventually I hit on the idea of using a towel to hold the rod and finally I am able to twist hard enough to loosen the knob. From there removing it and the assembly of the fan is straight forward. It works like a charm and I am very happy with my fan.

Soon after this Jib announces that she is leaving. She is going to temple for a week. She was invited, via phone, in the morning, and deciding this is why she has been so quiet all day. Whether any of this true of not, is anybody's guess, but we make plans for her to come back after my border run. She will return to me next Sunday. And suddenly she is gone and I am alone.

I go out in search of a massage. I walk around the city in large squares until I am tired and soaked. Eventually I find myself at Central Pattaya and walk 2 1/2 road back toward the hotel which drags me past Jean's Massage about a 1/2 hour before closing. Kane is sitting out front and calls to me (btw: it is at this moment that I finally realize what they have been saying that I thought was something in Thai: it is 'Welcome' but they do something with the 'W' (swallow it I think) that makes the word unrecognizable to me.)

I go in, and ask for oil this time. An hour later I am almost asleep, but have to drag myself the few blocks to my hotel.

As tired as I was a few moments ago, I have become (quickly) unused to sleeping alone and have a lot trouble falling asleep. After some tossing and turning I take a few sleeping pills, set the iPod and eventually fall asleep.

[Note: I only got yesterday done since the last note, but also started up in real time on the 14th. This is being back filled from notes on the 16th. Everybody follow that?]

I had a much more terrible time falling asleep alone than I expected. I don't think I got much more than six fairly piss poor hours of sleep total.

Without having to wait for Jib I go to breakfast a good hour earlier than usual. There is a man in his early 40s typing at his laptop on a table next to me against the window. I ask how the connection is here.

His name is Pete, he is from Vermont and we talk about nothing much for quite some time. He has been to Thailand many times and was married or engaged to a girl here for awhile.

After breakfast I am in need of a few more sets of clothes, and I plan on trying one more pair of sandals before giving up on the idea. I walk down to Mikes Shopping Center. This is a largish mall. It is difficult to tell whether it is one store with individual vendors inside or many stores with individual vendors inside each. There are two sets of escalators that force you to fold back into the center of each floor to proceed to the next floor. It's rather brilliant to force you to see most of the place in order to keep going up or down. There is a central shaft in which the middle escalator moves that is open at the inside that at the high levels bothers my fear f heights something fierce.

I am determined to look through the whole store before making a decision, but one of the sales women is very persistent and has me try on several extremely thin shirts that while marked the same size - XXXL - as the clothes that did not fit at the market, here are quite loose. While only on the second floor I buy two. The sixth floor is largely empty and mostly occupied as a food court. I am still full from breakfast and nothing appeals to me.

There is an amazing view of the Pattayan shoreline and I wish I had my camera with me.

While looking for sandals, I find an equally persistent salesman who shows me a pair of short just like what I am wearing but white. How much did I pay for mine? 400 baht I think, I don't really remember, but he accepts that and tries to push another pair on me (making me assume I remembered high) but I'm happy with the one.

The sandals seem too high in price (probably not, but you get used to everything being so cheap) so i don't add yet a third pair despite the fact that these look like I could wear them comfortably.

On the way to the door I spy the elevator. It says floor 6, food court. Floor ten, pool. The escalator had stopped at the sixth floor. My first thought was, what kind of mall has a pool? My last thought was, what is on floors 7, 8 and 9? I may never know.

Just before the outside door is a convenience store that looks a might bigger than 7-11 and Family Mart. And indeed I am able to find liquid body soap, and deodorant. They also have the same chips and nuts packets that I found so irresistible at the Villa Panalee mini-bar. I buy several packets.

Not long before I left for Thailand, Mary K had given me the complete series of Unhappily Ever After, a TV show from the early nineties in the vein of Married with Children. I had considered putting it up on the website, but at 15 disks it would have had to have been repackaged into multiple smaller sets, and I just didn't get around to it. But I did want to watch it, so I packed it in my suitcase when I left for Thailand. It moved from hotel to hotel, but today I pulled it out and watched several DVDs.

The sun is still too high and hot. I don't want to watch another episode at this time so I finish my book. About four o'clock the sun is still up but a quick trip to the laundry feels feasible.

I put on the new pants I had bought at Mikes this morning, and at a 44 it was slightly tight but better than over loose of the 46s. I decided that I didn't need a belt and thought I would test that by not wearing one on the short run to the laundry around the corner. I'm glad I tested the short run as I spent a lot of that time pulling my pants up. I just have no hips at all.

One of things Pete and I had talked about during the morning was Soapies, which I had read about online and had known was available directly across from the Panalee but I had not tried it. Here is a description from the Internet:

Now after nearly a month in the world of sin and temptation, I am fairly certain that I am going to fully experience this situation. And that means some preparation and research first. I have tried to email Caren, and the email bounced back as undeliverable! Whether she has been fired, reassigned or whether that whole branch has been closed down I do not know.

I search through my email and documents on the my laptops, looking for the list of medicines in the mix that had previously made sex possible, even though I know it isn't on this account or computer. I remember Lithium, I remember the anticonvulsant, but I can't remember the third ingredient or the dosages. A smarter, less horny man would have waited until he had this information. I can not claim to be either. I went to the pharmacy way down the 2 1/2 road that takes credit cards. Lithium and anti-convulsant? No problem. Not even expensive. For good measure I add Cialis (which is advertised in the window next to the MasterCard logos) which turns out is expensive.

Back at the hotel it is just after 5 and, having no clue on dosage - even after a few minutes on the web - take one of each. I try to kill an hour watching TV, reread papers and such but end up at Panalee at 5:40. Now I have a lot of trouble approaching new things. So I sat on the balcony of Panalee and watched the comings and goings of P. P. Massage across the road.

Three tour busses sat out front - each with P. P. Pattaya stenciled on the top. Four older Thai men sat in chairs in the parking lot. They came and went, but never was there less than one guy. A slow trickle of women arrived in shifts. I only saw two people that I thought were customers and they were escorted inside.

I was going to sit and watch until 6pm. That time came and went and I still wasn't comfortable enough to go in. It wasn't until about 6:20 that I finally got up and walked over. One of the four men asked if I was going in. After I said that I was, he said he was security and escorted me inside.

Now, one of the sites had described the fishbowl as one way glass, the description above says 'vies for your attention.' The latter turns out to be the correct one. And it is an unsettling experience.

The room is two long couches wide by three couches deep. I is dark, and there are four or five men on the rear rows whom I think are employees. Behind glass and fully illuminated are around forty women, some wearing bikinis, some lingerie.

I am led to left hand end of the front row couch and my escort pulls out a stool and sits directly behind me. A spotlight is turned on over my head. A man appears to my left and asks what I want to drink. I have read this is part of the ritual and you want to order something. So I order a Heineken. Now I have to pick a woman out of the selection. I know that there is no rush, and I want to take my time. But I feel very uncomfortable with all these women staring at me - I can't imagine being on their side of the glass day in and day out. I distract myself by studying the various methods they use to try to get my attention. Some wave rapidly, some completely ignore me, some look like their brain shut off long long ago, some just look bored (and therefore boring), some catch my eye briefly and look away faux shyly.

I feel like whoever I chose, I'm insulting forty some odd others. I know this is silly, they will maybe miss not getting the money, but nothing else.

So I look them over. Surprisingly one is clearly sexier to me than the others. She has Japanese features, a killer body and has died her hair blonde. Each girl is numbered and I can't see her number as it is on the far side of her breast. She is not trying to get my attention, but eventually gives me some kind of facial gesture that I read as: 'yes, pick me already.'

The man behind me wants a number, but I don't know it, so I point. He is one off, and then one off the other way. By the pillar, I say. Which has no meaning. It feels like he is messing with me. Finally I am forced to go closer and point. Now he is forced to understand correctly.

I am led to another room to the right, and asked for 2000 baht. A website had led me to believe the whole experience would cost 1400 baht, but who knows how old that web page was? While that is only $60 I still hope that the girl is not extra after.

The girl, number 113 (she later told me her name but it did not stick), come out another door and was handed a key to room 303. We went up to the third floor and into an average hotel room. The air conditioning was already on but on the warm side.

A man was there having place my Heineken and some milking looking drink on a table. He pointed at the two drinks "For you. For her. 200 baht" and away he went with 200 more baht.

I sat and very slowly slipped my beer - I don't think I ever had a quarter of it - while she filled up a large tub behind a partition just out of sight. It took a while, and during this time she did not try to talk. When she was done, she instructed I remove my clothes and come over. I was showered. Then she put an inflatable beach mattress on the floor and lathered it up good and had me lie face down and proceeded to slide up and down and all around. Flesh, soap, flesh is one of my favorite feelings and I have become a connoisseur of shower with others. This was like times ten, especially when I was turned over and the whole thing was repeated.

The only thing missing was that I was being led through the whole thing. I wasn't able to pause to enjoy caressing and groping her. It was like a hurried freight train. Then I was directed to the tub, and she got in on the other end. Again, she washed me and didn't get within range for me to wash her. The water continued to run and ran over the edge and just kept going. The advantage of having drains in the bathroom floor. Wet and dry isn't separated the same way in Thailand.

After this I am rinsed and dried and led to the bed. She goes and cleans up the 'bathroom.'

I am happy to learn that I am hard as a - well not a rock, but an overripe cucumber certainly. I'll as I am we only have a couple options and when she returns she starts in on one of them. And that is when I learn that I can barely feel a thing down there. An absolute fantasy girl and a nightmare scenario. Even a man such as myself - used to being less than a man - my ego is taking a serious hit as is my sense of irony.

After about five or ten minutes I'm ready to call it over, but this girl will not admit defeat AND will not let me go. I'm not very good at asserting myself, especially when uncomfortable so I am sure I could have gotten out of there but at the time I really felt trapped.

She worked - and I don't use the term loosely - on me for what seemed forever and must have been at least twenty minutes to a half an hour before finally achieving her goal - which did not result in either a head explosion or me passing out but neither did it result in pleasure.

I was not asked for any additional money when I escorted out of the building. I was slightly dizzy and almost tripped by misjudging the final step.

Back at the room I research my lack of feeling and find I can pretty much take my pick. It is a possible side effect of Cialis, it is a symptom of Diabetes, it is a side effect of neural dampening, it is a side effect of Lithium, and of course everything is a side effect of CDS.

Okay, it is about eight o'clock and I'm realizing that there is not going to be an experimenting while Jib is away. What I need is someone to cuddle with and that realistically means going to one of the bars. I have avoided the bars due to the noise. So I need a quieter bar. A goodly amount of them are between Soi 6 and Soi 9, so I figure I will brave there.

I walk down one Soi and am walloped around from sound barrier to sound barrier. At Second Road, I see the Russian restaurant where I had what I now know was Tiger Prawn. i had it's location pegged in my mind as much further North.

I'm looking for an air conditioned place but I find a Thai place open air with lots of ceiling fans. The sign outside says BBQ Chicken. While this never sounds good to me back home, now it does. I look over the menu, and see nothing that grabs my attention away from the chicken so I order it. And as always Iced Coffee.

After not too long an older man comes over and explains that the chicken has not been delivered today. I look at the menu again, but can't single out anything. So, not seeing it on the menu, I order Pad Thai. He had a bit of trouble understanding what I wanted and in the end I think he thought I said 'Anything but Pad Thai.'

When it arrived it was purple, and did have peanuts, but otherwise bore no relation in taste or texture to Pad Thai. Regardless it was quite tasty anyway. One of the waitresses - that wasn't mine - caught my eye despite the events of a few hours earlier. Dressed flirtier - short pleated skirt - great smile and youngish, and spent most of my time staring at her. She spent a lot of her time out of my line of sight.

No longer hungry, I continued my exploration of the bar scene. It is during this that I finally figure out what they are saying beyond 'hello' to lure me in; it is 'Welcome.' I had thought they were saying something in Thai.

I don't know exactly where, but somewhere in that block I spot a very attractive girl in a relatively quiet bar. I order a beer. Getting confused I try to order a Guinness (thinking Heineken) and when they have no idea what I am talking about I settle on a local lager - horrible. A working girl sits next to me. I am not interested. The girl that originally drew me attention turns out to be a customer playing an electronic game.

I find a girl to stare at who is playing pool with an older gentleman across the bar. The bar is made up of several subsections each with their own owner near as I can figure. My thinking is I will see how much of the music I can handle and hope that these two don't come to an agreement. If I can last that long I will then swoop in. About halfway through my beer, they start playing cat-scratching-chalkboard based music that threatens to put me under. I plop 100 baht for my 55 baht third drunken beer and head to the bar area with the pool playing girl. This area is visually chaotic - lots of blinking light ropes, and yet another last gasp of disco thsi time in ball form.

I have figured out what I look for in a girl. It is largely a look into the eye. An eye that says someone is still in there. That they are still interested in life. So glint that they can cast the illusion of this being more than a job. After that, I am drawn the youth. And then I am interested in those that unavailable - whether they be already picked or not working. I begin to realize how lucky I was in finding Jib as I had.

This bar has a picture of Heineken so that confusion is cleared up for me and I order one of those. As I sit at the bar, keeping one eye on the pool game and trying adapt to the news, this Aussie slides over a couple of seats and starts talking with me. His name is Shawn, he has married a girl over here - she arrives a few minutes later, and travels back and forth between here and Australia a lot.

I am partially listening to him and partially watching the girl. At one point the older guy disappears - but he just went to the bathroom. Later she disappears and later returns - a cell phone call I think. Shawn takes interest in the fact that this is my first time here and gives me a great deal of advise. I wish i could remember some of it to share with you. Shawn gives me his email address.

After about an hour, this bar starts playing some music that I think did put me down initially, and I decide that I can no longer wait. I pay 100 baht for the beer without checking the bill and run.

Back at the hotel, I realize that I have had three partial beers this evening and it is 11pm and I haven't had my 6pm Lantus shot yet. I take it, wondering what my blood sugar level is. My mouth is very dry.

I watch another episode of 'Unhappily Ever After' and go to sleep alone.

I wake up in pain. I think number 113 has broken my penis. I shower, my crotch screams at me for it. So whatever caused the anesthetic effect is clearly over. While that really only removes diabetes from the list of culprits I feel very strongly that it is the Cialis.

I spend most of the day resisting the urge to touch myself - like picking at a sore in your mouth with your tongue.

That night I abandon bars and decide I will try my luck with a massage shop, ala Jib. Maybe I can make lightning strike twice. Going solely on the criteria of cuteness I search the more upscale looking massage shops. Today, I have very little trouble turning down unwelcomed come-ons. And finally I am rewarded by finding an amazing looking Thai girl waiting among four masseuses. They try to bait and switch me to one of the others but I firm in my choice and we are taken away to a room capable of servicing four but currently empty. I order two hours of Thai massage. The 'madam' I am nearly certain is a lady-boy, which causes me to reassess my masseuse, but I'll be very surprised if that could possibly be a man.

I am surprised at the homophobia I find in myself. I grew up on Martha's Vineyard - homosexuality is not exactly something to which I am unexposed to in concept. In fact I have been very surprised and dismayed by the homophobia I ran into on the convention circuit (via jokes and responses.)

But here I am finding myself rather scared of the prospect of ending up with a lady-boy. I tell myself not to worry, worse case scenario, you send him packing. But still I worry. Most are easy to spot - of they are too sexy and tall, especially if they are sexy, tall and aggressive - that is a no-brainer. But those are the flamboyant ones, the subtler ones are harder to tell to my untrained eye.

Anyway, my gorgeous masseuse gives me a wonderful massage and never tries a thing. Afterward I ask if she wishes to go back to my room (it is now after closing) and she refuses with a smile.

Two days down, still alone. Might be better just to wait stoically until Jib returns.

My still throbbing (and not in a good way) penis agrees with this plan.

[Note: I take time to eat a late lunch between typing this as the above. Painfully overcooked shrimp and very spicy glass noodles. My first taste of Thai food in the hotel. Hey. only two days left to catch up on. I should get it done today.]

My dick now only hurts when I touch it. Like the old joke goes - well stop touching it then. Advice I attempt to follow. There is an honest to God bruise on it. I did not think there was anything that could be bruised there. Such a sheltered life I must have lived. Two days and the pain is about halved. I figured I'm cured the day before Jib returns.

I arrive at Patini's at what I consider to be early. Pete is already there. We talk for a bit, and then two of Pete's friends, Roger and Tom show up. Roger seems to be a very nice person. Tom is one of those gungho a bit too loud types, but also seems to be a good guy. They are going on about there exploits of the last few days. I get to tell of my tale of woe, but at least I have a tale to tell.

Tom is heading back to Vermont tomorrow and is off planning his last night hurrah.

Roger and Pete are going to the beach, I tag along. We take various lanes and roads attempting to stay in the shade and shadows as much as possible as it is hot. Not understanding that we are heading for a specific point on the beach I keep trying to suggest courses of action and am being ignored.

Thai Ronald - Creepy McDonalds Clown Mascot

Eventually on Beach Street I finally comprehend that we are looking for a specific region. This takes us down past McCafe to an area I haven't been to before. We are directly across from another plaza with a McDonalds and a Burger King. The McDonalds is funny because the Ronald McDonald outside has his hands pressed together in the Buddhist way.

From there we cross the street. What we are looking for is a dog. This dog, Humvee, belongs to Mamon (I thought Pete was saying Ma-ma when he was talking earlier.) who he gets a massage from almost every day.

There is almost no breeze today, which makes it a bit harder at the beach. We take off our shirts and cool down quite a bit. Pete and Roger order Coconuts so I give it a try. These are different from what I think of as coconuts, instead of brown these are green and larger. The meat inside tastes the same, and the 'milk' is very tasty and quenching.

After sitting through watching Pete enjoy his two hour massage I try Mamon for an hour concentrating on the head, shoulders and arms. She is old and talented, and with a little encouragement does not hold back much. She has incredibly strong fingers.

We go back through the mall across the street on the other side of which I note is an Au Bon Pain selling real bagels and lox. I mark this down for future exploration when the urge strikes.

I don't get to the hotel until almost 3. There is an email from Lloyd, he is still in the States and wants to finish his story. This is great news as I can use any income I can get, and I much prefer that to begging - an act I an beginning to contemplate. The question of how to get money from there to here is an interesting problem. I several ideas but won't be able to work on it until Monday.

Overheated from the beach I am a lazy bum the rest of the day and don't do much until 10pm when I get a quick massage and then off to bed.

[Note: It is still 3/16. This is starting to feel like work. And is certainly talking time like work. It is after 4pm. I'm taking a short break to watch BBC America. And now I remember that I have forgotten to do the finances, so I am off the Panalee to do that and return and finish this reporting. ]

I'm up early and I decide so see what the pre-eight am crowd looks like. It is not quite as quiet as I expected. Few stores are open - only 7-11 eleven and some laundries, but there are joggers jogging, drunks stumbling presumably homeward, plenty of motorcyclists abound.

After swinging around a large block I arrive at Pitini's about five minutes before 8. The door is open, but they tell me they are not ready to serve yet. I have my finished book with me, so I swing down the Soi across the street to see if Vic is open for business.

Vic, or at least who I assume is Vic I have seen most mornings that I left Panalee sitting in front of his book renting establishment. He is just settling into his chair as I arrive. I go over to the lone bookcase and start thumbing through the options. The offerings are better than I was expecting based on items I have already read, but it is difficult to pick a new title. Having just finished a Hiaasen book I tempted to reread Striptease, which while turned into that horrid piece of trash with Demi Moore for the big screen, remains my favorite comedy book. But in the end I grab something that looks Sci-fi-ish. Vic charges me 50 baht, even though it says 30 baht on a sticky on the cover. It beats the 350 baht for new at the book store. I give him the book I have finished so that some else can enjoy it and as a gesture toward future good will.

Back up the row Cafe Patini's is open when I return minutes later. As I am finishing up a small breakfast, Pete arrives. Still hungry I order a croissant, warm. From behind the counter they ask if I want regular or chocolate. I didn't know they had chocolate croissants. Damn, that sounds good.

When it arrives it is huge. And in the end of course turns out to be way too much sugar. I feel it leeching the energy out of me.

We make plans for the beach and I go back to the room for a shower. I am now taken to taking 3 showers a day. If laundry wasn't so cheap they'd be making a fortune off me.

I head down to the beach and go to same spot as we were yesterday. No Pete, No Mamon. Eventually her friend comes along, recognizes me and shows me where down the beach they are. It isn't more than a couple of hundred feet but it might as well have been on the moon. This time I get a good look at the dog for future reference.

Pete says that he hasn't been able to reach Roger by phone, probably sleeping late after a long night.

After his massage I have him help tell Mamon not to hold back and I get a much harder and thorough massage that does a great deal of good but hurts like hell.

At one point I could swear I saw Brad. It looked so much like him I figure it is a hallucination. He sits only about ten chairs away, but now Mamon will not let me turn that way, and after a while I forget.

Pete and I make plans for Sushi near Big C (there are two Big C's and i haven't been near either one) tonight and he leaves before my massage is finished.

I head home by going through the mall across from the beach. I have two things on my mind, bathroom and Au Bon Pain's Lox. Exiting the bathroom I pay a baht coin for the scale: 125.3 kilograms. later on the computer I will learn this is 275.7 pounds. Now I was 268 before I left home, but that was on my poor sick scale, naked, on an empty stomach. Here is a different scale, fully clothed with wallet and camera, and a stomach full of breakfast and a liter of water. The question will be where does it move from here?

At Au Bon Pain, they have two things that have smoked salmon and they take from order the wrong one. But it is still lox and I am happy. I walk over to the mall behind McCafe and buy some more of that great blue cheese that I had a few weeks back and some high fiber crackers. Then I try to see if going out the back connects up to anything. There is fence with a walk through that meets a road otherwise devoid of detail. This road has no shade, and when I get to 2 1/2 road I am burning up. I decide to take a tuk tuk the rest of the way.

Back at the hotel I take another much more needed shower. Yup, my penis still smarts, but it feels like it will be better in a day or two. It is mild discomfort at this point. Risking going out I bag up my laundry and see if the place that was my clean laundry is still closed. Yes, it is. I walk around the backside of the block and find another place. The old lady doesn't have any receipts, but helps me memorize where the place is. I don't want to walk in the heat any more, so I do so.

While I haven't been in the mood to post on this blog, if I get too far behind I will lose details and it will become harder to catch up. So I finally do some posting but only in the present (3/15) time frame and adding notes for the past but no fleshing out of existing notes.

Around 8 Pete calls and says he is not feeling well and not going out. As I had given up on him around seven and relishingly eaten some of the blue cheese, this was not a big issue.

I have trouble sleeping.

I wake up dragging ass. I think for a bit that I am just going to stay in the hotel today. But then it occurs to me that I only had one iced coffee yesterday instead of my usual three or four of late.

I call my mother on Skype as I have not heard from her in several days and figure she has broken her computer again. Nope, turns out she has been using the wrong email address to try to reach me. [Folks, if I don't respond within 24 hours, use the 'Email Me' bar at the top of every page of this website to get the correct email address.] I wasn't sure that the Internet at this hotel was fast enough or stable enough for Skype, but she was able to hear me and my end was only slightly distorted. It did hang up on us about 5 times in a 40 minute conversation though.

After that I drag myself into the shower and later out the door and down to Patini's Cafe.

I feel a pattern forming. Patini's for breakfast. Followed by massage at the beach, followed by fresh fruit at the hotel. Followed by going out after sundown. This does not strike me as a bad pattern.

Pete is already there working on his laptop. I order ala cart, I'm still a bit full from having discovered a largish bag of nuts and crunchies that I ate last night. Eggs, bacon, toast and iced coffee sans sugar. I forget to tell then to scramble the eggs so they come to me that hideously runny way that just screams illness to me. My error so I settle for having them flip them. This cooks the yolk more than I like, but over easy is a phrase I have not found the Thai shorthand for.

Pete and I always end up at separate but adjacent tables. I'm not sure why, but it has just worked out that way. So w talking away, loud Americans that we are, and the guy behind me (we will call him Jim - as that turned out to be his name) starts joining in. We are talking economics and I'm trying to undersell the doom and gloom I feel certain of without undercutting it completely. Then the conversation switches to sports, and I let them yell by me as I finish my breakfast.

Two iced coffees later I am still trying to decide if I have the energy to haul myself down to the beach. I have several things that should get done today (open a bank account, get a post office box) that I know are going to happen on Monday. I also have some things that have to get down today (pick up laundry, buy sleeping pills, find alarm clock.) that I hope get done.

Pete still isn't feeling well but might be down the beach.

I go back to the hotel for my second shower of the day. Then off to see if the first laundry place has reopened for business. Sign on the door says something in Thai and then 12 - 15. Now does that mean they are open today from 12:00 to 15:00? Or does it mean they are closed from the 12th to 15th? It is 11:18 now so I can kill 45 minutes working on the website and check again. I loop around to the second laundry (which thankfully I am still able to find) and they have yesterdays wash already done, so at least I will have some clean clothes for tomorrows Visa run no matter what. Only 65 baht - a greater variance in price than expected. Maybe the ones without price lists are the way to go.

Back at the room I switch to clean and cooler shirt. The Internet has stopped working. I pick my mind over and add more notes rather than flesh out the existing notes. I am almost but not quite in a writing mood yet.

Nope, the laundry is still closed. And I can't check it tomorrow, so I'll have to get my clothes on Sunday.

I stand outside the hotel and look at the flags and awnings trying to gauge the wind. It is a very bright and hot day. If the beach is windless, it will be unbearably humid and horrible. It seems fairly breezy. It is at this point just a little after noon though, which means no shadows to hide from the sun in. No way am I walking this sun. So I grab a tuk tuk right out in front of the hotel. As I ride, I try to figure out where to get off to end up lined up with our spot on the beach. I am almost sure I came up a road that came out near the City Clinic. So I get off there.

The lane looks like the correct one, but if it was I didn't turn correctly at the end or something and got stuck short of 2nd road on a street running parallel for much longer than I would have thought possible before turning and meeting 2nd road. I recognize something which means I am now too far up. But there is a lane and I can see the ocean anyway.

Once at Beach Road, I can see the McDonalds Burger King combo of signs about six blocks down. Still zero shade by the way. Once near the right area, I cross the road (I'm almost becoming skilled at that) and start looking for Humvee the dog, which marks where Mamon is. I see the pile of inner tubes but no dog. A little farther down I find another pile of inner tubes, and looking across the street it is more likely that this is the spot. And there is the dog! But I can't find Pete - who I am not really expecting to find and I also don't see Mamon.

Then Mamon's friend is there and she points out where she is. Mamon is massaging another man. Since I am used to waiting for Pete to be done anyway this isn't a major issue. The beach is rather crowded today, and maybe I'm just hornier than usual or what, but I think it was extra hot looking girl day at the beach.

There is a trio of Japanese looking - what I'm guessing were teenagers (It is impossible to tell Asian ages. They come in four ages: kid, young, elderly and ancient with no discernable stages in between. I always thought this was just my senses, but everyone here I have talked to agrees.) one of which especially was stunning but all were very cute.

Between me and them sits down a youngish Danish man and one of the prettier Thai girls I have seen up close. Her English is really really good. He knows no Thai, but a fair amount of English. She speaks no Danish but excellent English. So they are talking in slow English. I am part of the conversation on a "How are you?" and gathering all this info above type level. But then it turns to that he is worried about the time because he has to fly out of Bangkok this evening. And she is or acting to be unhappy that he is leaving.

I joke that I have to do Visa Run tomorrow but I'm here tonight. Both laugh.

I decide I am eating fruit for dinner so I don't want fruit now. But I get one of those fibrous grapefruit like things the twentieth time it comes around. The problem with never ordering or accepting anything is eventually most start ignoring you, and by the time I want a drink I can't get the girl's attention. I stand up (it is real hard to get leverage to get out of those beach chairs - designed that way I bet) to go over to her and Mamon comes running over to make sure I'm not leaving. "No, just trying to get a drink. How much longer are you going to be?" About a half hour she says, then orders my drink, and returns back down the beach.

As my drink is brought to me, I notice food being brought to the Chinese group they have set up chairs and umbrellas for in front of me at the water line. I ask about that, and she brings me a menu. No pictures, no prices and it is hard to figure out what what is from the description. I stick to the appetizer section because I am hoping that it is small, and go with the Thai Sausage and Peanuts. I'm hoping it arrives before Mamon.

It does. One inch spheres of spicy meat, with peanuts next to chopped up death peppers and then half a plate of raw cabbage, bean sprouts, and some kind of bitter strong large garlic slices. I ate the sausages, any peanuts not directly touching a death pepper, one slice of garlic and some bean sprouts.

Mamon, beach maseuse with the world's strongest fingers.

Just as I was finishing up, Mamon comes over and inquires where Pete is. I say he isn't feeling well and I'll take his slot so go for two hours today. My legs are looking their age - they have become very dried out - so I have her work on them with balm and oil for a half hour and then on the usual shoulders, arms and head. It's amazing how three days can become a usual, but here we are.

Knowing that I am not kidding now, she really pulls no punches. Thankfully she got most of the knots the last two days or I really would have been hurting. she manages to find lots of pain, especially in my mouse forearm. While she is crushing my skull I feel someone sit beside me. I don't have my glasses on but I know the voice, it is the girl with the Danish guy, who has apparently left for the airport.

It is hard to carry on a discussion while Mamon is working on you. And I surely wished I had my glasses on (although as it turned out I it did not matter.) Her opening line was "So you are alone tonight?"

Her name is Hahp. I explained that I had to get up at 4:45am and out by 6. That I was planning on going to bed early and that my penis still hurt from a few days ago - I love the forthrightness of this town. She said she was just looking for a place to spend the night and taxi fare to Bangkok in the morning.

That didn't strike me as right (why wouldn't she have just taking the taxi with the Danish guy) but I'm not going to argue, when everything is working out. We settled on 600 baht and she laid back while Mamon folded me in half to work on my back which stopped the conversation for a while.

After Mamon was done, I paid her 500 baht which included the 100 baht tip that Pete usually gave her. My beach bill was 105 baht; about half what I was expecting. I was feeling a bit dizzy from the massage and it took me a little while to gather myself and belongings up and then Hahp and I left the beach and crossed the street.

Incredibly sexy eyes, very nice breasts and a great grasp of English.

I explained that I had to buy sleeping pills and an alarm clock. She isn't from Pattaya so she wasn't able to help with locations, but she was great at cutting the point with various clerks that they couldn't help us. I tried the two closest malls for the clock, then tried every pharmacy between there and the hotel. Each one was a copy of the others. They tried to push Xanax (which I once naively thought I'd have trouble getting here) or Valium which I have never tried. Both are anti-anxiety pills. As I am trying to cut back on Xanax I felt it unwise to add Valium to the mix.

By the way, I had the empty bottle with me so that they could look at the active ingredient. No help at all. Regular over the counter sleeping pills just do not exist here. I even tried dropping the name of the only prescription sleeping pill I knew by name: Ambien, and that too struck out. I finally gave in a bought Atarax, which describes itself as "a tranquillizer with antihistamine action." What the hell, it is worth a shot.

[Hahp has been in the shower the whole time I have been typing this and is now sitting on the bed clad only in the thin towels that the hotel provides, so I am going to hurry this along and get to cuddling.]

Searching for the clock had cost me buying Hahp a 400 baht pair of shoes. It's hard to say to no to those eyes.

We finally found one at the market directly across from the hotel, which was really a last ditch attempt that I did not expect to pay off, but one mostly TV vendor had a fairly good collection of mostly toy alarm clocks. I picked the cheapest one that had a reasonably loud (but still rather soft) alarm.

At the steps of the hotel we bought yellow watermelon, pineapple and mango - each sliced, sticked and bagged on the spot. 35 baht, I am not sure if the mango or yellow watermelon was the one that was slightly more expensive. It is now in the fridge getting colder as I type this and we should be eating as soon as I stop typing.

Stopping at the front desk to drop off her ID and put in a 4:45am walk up call (the call and clock are back up for each other.) we head up to the room. I take a quick shower, think about inviting Hahp to join me but the logistics and the timing make it seem difficult. Then I type this as she showers.

Now she is nibbling on my ear which is making typing and thinking impossible, so I will just mention that I have to pack before I go to bed (damn) and that the computer is part of that packing so you will not hear from me until after the Visa Run. But I have been assured that that will go smoothly.

I will also add that the phone rang while Hahp was in the shower and the front desk said a woman was on the phone for me, and the only thing I could think of was that it was Jib and i felt a strange feeling of guilt, despite that being a) a paid situation and b) she had encouraged me to experiment in her absence. The mind is a weird place. It turned out the Visa person reminding me of the things I had to bring - copy of the passport (thanks mom, got it in the states), 2 passport photos (brought ten from the states just to be safe.) and reminding me to be out front at 6am.

Okay, I've abstained enough - time for packing, cuddling and even conversation - so rare to find a companion with such a good grasp of English - which she is now reading over my shoulder.

Good night and I should get the previous events and the Visa run write up all caught up on Sunday.

My 4:45 wake up call resulted in a the phone ringing at 4am. Better early than late, but I sure would have liked that extra 45 minutes. Hahp had taken a long time in the shower, the bulk of the time probably drying her lengthy hair. I made sure to step straight from the phone to the shower.

Afterward though I realized I had nothing to do - the backpack was already packed. The computer was in it.

My blood is 88! Outstanding - an almost non-diabetic reading.

Hahp was in the shower. I tried to watch TV: low and behold one of my watch points had transpired, and over a year early. Gas has sustained about $100 per barrel - it's over $110. Gold has passed $1000 per ounce - just and might not sustain for the long term. And the dollar was at an all time low against the Euro and while not quite an all time low against the yen, it is at it's lowest since 1982. Does this mean I think the collapse is accelerated against my prediction of 2012? I wish I could be as sure as I used to be on the big picture analysis, but I can't hold it all in my head like I used to. However while the fear is definitely there enough to spook the foreigners (who admittedly have a large stake in the action and therefore direction of the economy) Americans still seem to have that maintained, it can't happen here, something will be done, illusion (although not over here - Americans here all seem more pessimistic than I am (imagine that for a moment) but that may come from having more of worldview and also getting their financial news from BBC America which has no motive to sugar coat the financial news. So Americans seem to be looking for a safer haven for their money, than taking their money and running. I think therefore there will be a bit of a rebound before things get really bad. Now I have to add in that we no longer have Alan Greenspan. The fed has baffled me by dropping the prime rate a full point this month. Not only is adding bad liquidity after bad liquidity just completely the wrong move, but when that falls - and if you follow the math it simply has to make things worse - then they are forced to use the reserve AND lower interest more. I expect these actions in the coming month.

Those actions at least a mix of bad and good liquidity might hold up big investment firms and hold the downward spiral, but does nothing to reverse the spiral or (ha ha) fix the actual problem. So now we will have lowered the reserve (my guess about 250 billion dollars) and we will be sitting around 2 percent prime lending rate. Now I ask you a question - which party is going to win the 2008 US Presidential election? Doesn't matter how actually wins - who does it appear will win in mass mind? Right, Democrats. And what ALWAYS happens when it appears in September or October when a Democrat will win the Presidency? At least a 4 (an average of just over 7) percentage point correction in the DOW and an average of a 2.2% correction in the NYSE. Figure in the fear already rampant in the market and that the fed has virtually no strings left to pull, because it used them all this month - is this the trigger point? There is a small chance but I doubt it. But one thing that is clear that other than a few short term corrections the dollar is going to continue to slip toward its true value (our dollar is backed by nothing and our total debt out weights the Gross Domestic Product, therefore the true value of the dollar lies only in that Oil and Cocaine are traded at the manufacturer level exclusively in dollars, so you have to buy dollars to buy Oil or Coke.) So assuming no collective fear stampede, I still contend that the trigger point will be when OPEC gets tired of losing money on the dollar and finds it more advantageous to back oil on the Euro than the dollar. This also has the double whammy that we will most likely cease being friends with them and they will start taking China's more substantial bids for oil and stop underselling it to US.

So if the Erisa/Medicare forced retirement pullout from the stock market beginning en mass in 2012 isn't the trigger point, it will only be because the Euro based Oil switch beat it to the punch.

Anyway, I occupied my time playing with this on paper and in my mind - really wishing the computer was hooked up. I drank the canned iced coffee I had in the fridge for this morning and snacked on the rest of the bleu cheese - Hahp looked at me like I was crazy.

I paid Hahp and we both went downstairs at 5:45.

I sat at the food area out front which was empty as it doesn't open until 7am. The bus arrived at a few minutes ahead of schedule, and there was some confusing because it was unmarked and my 'out front' was quite where they pictured 'out front' to be. But eventually we became aware that I was me, and I got in the van. I was the first pickup. I chose not the best chair but the chair least likely to have someone sit next to me.

The van had a male driver and a female assistant. I don't think either offered their names. She took my passport, the passport photos and the photocopy of my passport.

Slowly we made our way through an amazing assortment of little back roads and areas of Pattaya and Jomtien I had never seen, picking up passengers as we went. My plan to have an empty seat was thwarted for we picked up nine passengers (counting me) and the minibus was full.

And off to Cambodia we went - divided highway half the way, two lane the rest. Some very scary 'is really going to pass them here?' type moments, but mostly uneventful. We stopped for water and food: iced coffee and almonds for me.

Once underway again they played a movie on the DVD player - a bootleg of Jumper (while I applauded the use of bootlegs in a commercial venture (I love this country) I have seen jumper and it wasn't a movie to be watched twice. I kept almost falling asleep and them being awoken by the sensation of falling.

At the border our passports, along with filled out forms were returned to us and we were led to the emigration area. It was very smooth, they removed the old embarkation form stapled to my passport. Stamped it and off we went. Lead across a semi-rickety wood bridge (I brought the camera but it never occurred to me to pull it out.) across the river that marks the Cambodian river.

There we were lead through a duty free area, and into a casino in the corner of which was a breakfast buffet area and we were encouraged to eat. There was not very much I was interested in, but I managed to cobble together a fairly close facsimile of a BLT sandwich.

All but one of us were English speaking in our group and we talked economics (oddly I did not instigate this) and once again almost all were more pessimistic about America's economic future than I am.

We disbanded to look at the duty free, I made notice of the craps table as we walked through the casino, but I make it a firm rule never to gamble when I NEED to win. It's a sure way to lose. Also, while I like to have a reason to have to leave, I like to have a little bit of play in that time; here I would have to leave exactly when they said to. Lastly, the thought of doing the extra math of converting to dollars, while doing the math of the game and trying to understand the - possibly 3 - extra languages made my head ache.

The duty free had no interest for me - I don't smoke or drink. So I sat out front the casino waiting for someone to come and get me which the driver eventually did. One of the passengers - the second to be picked up this morning - asked if I would carry a carton of cigarettes across for him as they only let you have one. As I have no problem thwarting artificial and arbitrary rules I agreed.

Back across the flimsy bridge. The same building handled going from Cambodia to Thailand as have handled our egress. The line was slower on this side. I expected him to ask for 200 baht as they had warned me of this as I did not have a plane ticket to exit Thailand before my Visa runs out, but he never asked. Another stamp, and embarkation form stapled back onto the passport and now I am in Thailand. I'm good until April 13th - which to my way of thinking shorts me a day - but I can see their side too.

The ride home was slower and harder. We saw two movies this time. First "Shoot 'em Up" which was the movie I assumed was Transporter 2 when I watched it on the plane. Stupid stupid movie. After a stop in which I gratefully went to the bathroom and less gratefully had an iced coffee and hot dog, I joked that at least they couldn't dig up a worse movie. Of course I Xandered myself there as they put in Poseidon, which while not in my bottom 10 movies of all time would be in the bottom 20 if I kept such a list. Not even good for diverting attention, I ignored it. What are the odds, given how few films I've watch this last couple years that they would pick 3 I have seen, and none worth watching again?

I read the Newsweek I had gotten from Pete. I developed a stitch in my right side and my left shoulder began to ache during this period that seemed to stretch on forever.

Being first on, I was last off the bus. But by 4pm I was back at the hotel. Stopping just long enough to hook up the computer and let my mother know I was okay. I took a shower during which the phone - I wonder if it was my wake up call again? I can't imagine who would be calling. Dried and dressed in simpler drier clothes, and figuring my destination was very close went with the flip flops and headed over to Jean's Massage to have my shoulder worked on. Kane was just starting in on a customer so I let another work on me, but she didn't have the strength of fingers or the abandonment to fully commit to them. My arm felt better but not fixed.

Back out from of the hotel there is no fruit cart in sight. I opt for a burger and fries. Excellent fries, poor sad burger.

In the room, I start working on email and realize that everything is sort of swimming and that I am rocking side to side. I think I am falling asleep. So I take my final pills and go to bed. Then, of course have trouble falling asleep.

I wake up several times but refuse to get up and fall back to sleep. It is almost 7am when I finally head to the bathroom. Perhaps 9 hours of solid sleep, I should feel wide awake. And while I'm not bad, I'm not as good as I have been lately.

I take my blood sugar levels: 154. A day of eating crap Americanesque food and almost no walking has taken it's toll quickly.

I'm late for breakfast as I type this. I have only two simple missions today: get a shave, and do the finances. Jib is slated to return to tonight. Her presence has been missed.

Hopefully after that I will catch up on fleshing out the some if not all of the four skeleton days above.

Breakfast includes Pete and new friend whose name I have forgotten and his lady friend who had a great smile and seemed like a bundle of fun. The four of them were largely a group unto themselves, and I was just waiting until 10 so I could go pick up the laundry from the place that has been closed all week. Jim comes in and joins my table. We talk about my visa run, and I am sure several other topics because soon I realize it is 10:30.

My laundry place is open! And they remember me - Thais have an amazing gift for faces. I pick up my laundry walk back to the hotel, bundle up all the laundry in the room and return straight back and drop that off.

That task done. I walk in flip flops down to the barber shop and get a shave. While it isn't that far (and it was bit farther than I remembered) the flip flops made it seem like work. It's nice not to have to wear socks, but I need something that wants to stay on my feet.

Someone is already having their hair cut and a shave but it don't have to wait too long. The man is much faster and gives a closer shave than the two times I had it done in a shop geared mostly toward women.

Clean shaven, I return to the Hotel stopping to buy pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe (for Jib) and some thing I haven't seen before. It turns out to be something like a bitter pear in taste and texture. It comes with pink sugar, that should be my clue that I am going to be less than thrilled with it.

I spend the afternoon catching up on this website. Stopping only for lunch and doing my finances, which doesn't look that bad for this week - but I can not complete the chart as one of my credit card files can not be accessed. Damn computers ;)

More didn't happened than happened the last few days. One of the things that didn't happen is I didn't take any notes, so you will have to bear with me as I try to pluck the highlights and lowlights out of the last few days.

The biggest thing that didn't happen, was that Jeab (this is the 'correct' spelling of Jib. There is no absolute correct spelling as it is correctly spelled in the Thai alphabet. But this is how she spells it - well forced to - so that is to be considered correct.) did not return on Sunday. As noted previously the email I had for her no longer functioned.

I hoped she would show up on Monday, and when that didn't happen I figured that that would that as I was changing hotels on Tuesday morning.

On Monday Pete helped me look around for a new place to stay. With the exception of the first hotel - which I did not really like - each move has been to a cheaper and better place. But with each there were trade offs. R-Con had freakishly large rooms and frustrating but in-room Internet, but no movie channels (which bothered Jeab more than it did me, but toward the end it would have been nice to have movies for the midday stretch) and no pool. This place LK Mansion has rooms about half the size, but with the best bathroom/shower area to date, as well as the most comfortable bed with (dare I dream it) an actual sheet and blanket! 40 channels including 3 movie channels, And a pool (the hotel is four separate buildings, two on each side of a small alley and the pool is on the roof of one of the other buildings) which I haven't actually seen yet. But no Internet, barely enough free room in the mini-bar for my medicine. Rather than an in room safe they have safety deposit boxes off the lobby - which is a push as far as I am concerned.

The lack of internet is the biggest problem. I can get schlep the laptop down to Caffe Pitini's but that means either taking a tuk tuk (no big deal but I'd miss that morning walk) or lug the laptop a mile. Oh for those fallowing along at home, I am now at the corner of Soi Boakchao (you will see this spelled about thirty different ways as it is unpronounceable to westerners - but is what I refer to as 2 1/2 road) and Central Pattaya Road.

This morning I used the computers Villa Panalee (like I have done for the financials the last few weekends) but they finally caught me and informed me it was just for guests. But it is free for diners at Caffe Pitini's, but you have to have your own machine. I also still have two weeks left on Mama Wifi card, so I could probably sit in the lobby of R-Con and power up for a couple more weeks.

And worse comes to worse there is a Internet Cafe at that head of this block for 30 baht an hour. But all of that probably makes Skype an impossibility, and I won't be online as much, but I'll still check my email everyday and I can write to my site as much as I want, I'll just be uploading it for you guys to read for sporadically.

Okay, back to memory fragment. Before I go to breakfast yesterday, I pack up my room. We tend to shoot the shit for hours at the Caffe so I wanted everything ready in case I lost track of time (which indeed I did). In packing up the room, I found the hat I thought I lost, $120 in US cash (later that day converted to bt3700 even - 30.9 conversion rate - should have converted everything at once - now it is better to wait until I am back in the States (Hawaii) rather than convert it) that apparently I hid and still don't remember hiding, and Jeab's phone number.

I vaguely remember her giving it to me, but I didn't have a phone and she was with me most of the time, so my mind didn't put much attention on it. At breakfast I have Pete call the number. It is a call back service and I can't really figure out what they are saying in their recorded message.

Flash forward a couple of hours to the beach, Pete has brought me his old cell phone that he just kept around as a backup for his phone numbers. He keeps the SIM chip, which has the numbers on it and gives me the phone. Then helps me through buying my own SIM chip (199 baht) at 7-11.

It only has 50 minutes on it, but who am I going to call in Thailand? Fifty minutes should be plenty to see if I can make use of the thing. I will also have to get a charger. Easy enough in the hundreds of cell phone shops, but I'll cheap it out and find one in the markets.

Back at the room (I'm so thankful I bought a fan, this room does not cool down quickly, but it gets cold once it does.) I toyed with the phone getting use to the controls. I deleted all of Pete's numbers except his own. Scrubbed out the messages, reset the counters, that sort of thing. Then I entered Jeab's number into the contact list and pressed dial. In the absolute silence of the hotel room, I was able to hear what the service was saying (press 2 for English and Press 1 to leave your number) and followed those instructions. Within 30 minutes she called me back.

According to her she was just leaving temple today and would be back tomorrow. It was impossible to convey directions even as simple as down the street, between my hearing and lack of Thai or her limited English. But we finally worked out that we would meet at R-Con at 4pm today. It is noon as I type this.

I've been to Mamon twice in the last 3 days and yesterday she was so rough that I have that 'take a day to recover' feeling I use to get from Beth back at 'Time Out Day Spa' in Deltona. After the first day at the beach Pete took me to the food court at the Royal Garden Mall (which is the mall with the McDonald with the prayer hands and the Au Bon Pain in it. I just never knew the name before) although I didn't know which building we were in until we left.

They give you card when you enter worth up to 1000 baht. You wander around various vendors of food from around the world and each time you order something they run the card through and give you a slip. When it is ready they somehow figure out where you are sitting and bring it to you.

They had fresh rolls in the Vietnamese area, and while it with a sweet and spicy hot sauce instead of a peanut sauce it was still quite good. A banana and pineapple blender drink and I don't remember the main dish but I remember it was Thai and liked it.

Yesterday I took Jim because he wanted Italian food and they had had a big Italian section right up front as you entered. I had some Thai Dumplings, that looked in the picture like they would be raw, but were in fact steamed but delicious. Then I ordered some things from the Italian place. Something that looked like half a calzone (only the leftover sauce from the dumpling made it edible. And something that looked like a quiche but had no flavor. Jim said his wasn't much better. So Italian place out but many more corners to explore. It is a little more expensive (still cheaper than a meal at Arby's or Perkins back home) but I like the location, because after a long day of massage get hot under the beach umbrellas (tough life isn't it?) you cross the street into the air-conditioned splendor of the mall and cool down over a late lunch.

It is a bit further away now that I am in the new hotel, so when the heat is on (like it seems to be everyday this week) I walk down to Beach Road and then take a tuk tuk to right area. So I'm walking less and my appetite has finally recovered from the heat shock or jet lag or whatever it was that gripped me that first month and the weight loss has plateaued. Not that I was trying to lose weight or care other than the lower blood sugar seems to make me feel better.

Where I have the computer set up in this new room, there is a mirror directly in front of me. The screen of the laptop leaves only my neck and head visible and I'm actually surprised at how good I look. The sun (or the light of the room) has returned my hair to blonde - lots of white in the beard though. Clean shave and a lot of the weight loss is in my face. I'll have to get some pictures before it turns to hell ;)

Jim leaves in 2 days, Pete leaves in 9 but may return soon. Tom is returning in a few weeks (but we barely met and he seems much more into the loud scene that I try my best to avoid.)

This month (ending on the next visa run on April 13th (geez, last time the Ides of March - this time the 13th - good thing I'm not superstitious.)) is about conserving funds. Rent is 15,000 baht ($500) everything inclusive. Jeab is just a little bit more. And then food and massage probably in the same ball park.

The last month in Thailand (during which my birthday falls) I should have a better feel for where my finances are at. A lot of my possessions will have been sold. I will be making a little of money from Lloyd. I'll know what the DVDs are doing in sales and whether the dollar stabilizes until around the elections as I suspect it will, or fear takes hold and the dollar continues its not so slow crash, as it well could. When I got here a month ago, I got 32.5 baht to the dollar - one month later it is 30.9 - and my friends here are in shock because it was around 42 last year. I'll also know more on how my health feels - whether I'm shooting for July or later in the year.

Assuming half of that breaks in my favor, I think I will be more expansive and free with the cash. At least a week each side of my birthday. Nice hotel, maybe a trip or two (still haven't done the elephants or dolphins.) Good food. And pampering - that sort of thing. No pointing in having a last Harrah and spending the whole time pinching bahts (gee, more of my Dad surfaces all the time.)

Oh that reminds me, while I still need a few more days to make sure this is going to work (made slightly harder by not having Internet in the room) I should be able to move money from the States to my Thailand account via PayPal. So if you don't have a PayPal account, and may want to send me money for my birthday. www.PayPal.com and set it up early, the set up can take several days as they have to confirm the banking info and such. Once set up it is a snap to use. I've been using PayPal for years, nice way to pay for things on the web if you are skittish about using your credit card online. And the nice thing about this, even if I get it late after I leave Thailand it is still safe on the Internet and I'll be access it later.

As a couple of you have asked, the mailing address here is:

Note: My mother sent a letter and it cost her 90 cents. I'll let you know when it arrives.

I move out April 18th and have no idea how long it takes for mail to get here or how reliable delivery is.

So to sum up that rambling my days have fallen into half a routine. Morning at Pitini's, reasonable to big breakfast and shoot the shit for a couple of hours. If there is no breeze or the the sun is set on laser beam, drop back to the room with a bag of watermelon, pineapple and a mystery fruit. If breezy or overcast, go to the beach and lie around and get a massage followed by late lunch. After the sun goes down varies according to how I am with or not with and how I am feeling.

Oh right, back to the room. My mind wonders what this place used to be before it was a serviced apartment. Now in the left picture the door you see clearly on the right side is the same door as the door on the left side of the right photo. That lamp on the right side of the right photo is right up against the wall. And I'm up against the far wall trying to get the room to fit into the lens. So you've got a sense of the dimensions of the room.

Now, notice the bathroom in the right picture. That is not the entrance. The entrance is a heavy door off the entry way area. You can't see it because the shot is straight on to the wall. What you are looking at is window that is plate of glass running the whole length of the bathroom wall. That's part of the bed in the foreground. There is a heavy (and I do mean heavy it took me about twenty minutes to struggle it open for this picture) horizontal wooden set of blinds. The blinds concept is creepy enough, and without I probably wouldn't have thought much about the other, but the bathroom door is really sturdy and the room comes with two keys. I had to ask what the second was for. It is for the bathroom - a deadbolt, can only be locked and unlocked by key from either side.

Shoving my mind as far into the gutter was it will go, I only come up with vague Japanesesque ideas of what this setup was (hopefully 'was', not is) for. Very strange and somewhat disturbingly odd, but otherwise the bathroom is huge, that is a corner curtain around the shower area (opened for the picture) so you don't have remove the toilet paper to take a shower or any odd stuff like that.

Moving over to the other side of the room I have a balcony just a tiny bit wider than I am. My view is of building number 2 which is literally close enough to jump to the balcony across from me - if I were athletic and not terrified of heights. But it does look like a simple enough jump.

This is a lousy picture but there is glass I can't figure out how to disengage the flash on the camera, although while trying I did figure out how to delete pictures, so I don't have to worry about the camera filling up, so I might take more pictures - although the main trouble there has been remembering to take the camera and remembering to take pictures.

The balcony is small but I had the perfectly balcony at R-Con and never used it. If I'm going to be that close to air conditioning, I'm going to be in it not out on a balcony. [Note: what I originally thought was an alley between me and the apartment across the view, turns out to be the lobby with a glass roof. It is a strange construction giving the illusion of the outdoors to the indoor rooms. An annoying side effect of this is that the considerable heat of the open air lobby rises and get's stuck right at the mouth of the top floor elevator. So when the elevator doors open it is more like a convection over.]

Rounding out the tour there is a lot of nice couches and fans down in the open air lobby, and somewhere a restaurant and pool.

I left the wonderful dryness of the hotel yesterday into the 3 o'clock midday sun. I wanted to drop off laundry, find a charger for the cell phone and buy some Xanax, before swinging by R-Con at 4 and hopefully meeting up with Jeab.

I dropped the laundry off on the road before R-Con - the lady that doesn't use receipts not the one that closed for four days.

Across the street at the market it became clear to me that the search for a cheap charger was something that would be easier with Jeab asking and haggling, so I quickly gave that up.

Despite the other side of town pushing Xanax like crazy when I looking for sleeping pills this end of town seemed to be all out. Four pharmacies and four strike outs. And it was much too hot to walk further down the road.

So a half hour early I ducked into the non air-conditioned but deliciously breezy lobby of R-Con and sat in one of the comfy pillow chairs in the back of the room and stared out into the busy street and sort of meditated. By four Jeab had not arrived, so cell phone in hand I called expecting to get the call back service but got her directly which confused me momentarily. She said she has just arrived home and would be over in 15 minutes. I ordred an Iced Coffee and about 15 minute later she arrived.

We walked the four or so block to the new hotels. There she explained more about temple and how it isn't really up to her when she leaves but more up to the monks. Assuming I understood all that correctly.

Beyond the four buildings that make up LK Mansion there are several other buildings in the neighborhood that bear the LK brand, one of which across the busy 2 1/2 Road is a restaurant. So I wanted to try that for dinner. She was very hungry - you eat only when monks eat (which is little and not very often) at temple - so we ate early or so it felt, but must have been at least 6 given the timeline.

The menu offered a Caesar salad with anchovy egg yolk sauce. As it would be cold, and I was still hot from being out midday this sounded very good. I did not realize until this moment that it did not come the croutons touted in the description - that is how good it was. It was like each clump of lettuce was dipped in this sauce which was itself Caesar salad incarnate. I loved it.

Later we went to a market only a few blocks down I had not noticed before and bought Jaeb some shorts and a light dress from a vendor friend of hers.

She was tired, as they make you get up at 4 at temple, so she is on a schedule much closer to mine, but as you can see I am back to my habit of typing in the morning - only now she is watching TV instead of sleeping.

Now I'm going to pack this computer up to take to the Caffe so I can upload the last few days and check my email - and breakfast and conversation of course.

Friday Jeab and I went up the roof top pool for the first time. It was very bright and the sun seemed to reflect off everything no matter where I looked. I was not able to stand it very long and soon retreated to the room. But it was already too late. What started as a pounding behind my right eye, grew in intensity the rest of the day.

By Saturday morning it was a migraine and I also found myself unable to speak. As usual the spasms had their way with me as well. But I hadn't experienced anything this severe since the protocol ended. I was unable to go out yesterday. I sent Jeab away when the pain became uncontrollable with instructions to return on the 24th.

Today, I am sore but my body is once again under my control and only the memory of yesterday's pain lingers.

I hate not having Internet in the room. It makes me feel cut off from the world.

Mom says she mailed me a letter and that it costs 90 cents to mail it from anywhere in the US. I'll let you know when it arrives.

I wrote the above at the Caffe, struggling with the laptop's built in keyboard. I was there for hours.

Now back at the hotel, with external keyboard and mouse, fan and air-conditioner, I remember some of things I completely forgot about.

I ended up staying in the rest of the day. At first hiding from the sun, then just too depressed and not hungry enough to be forced out. It took me a while to figure out why this latest attack got to me so much. I had not had a bad attack in some time, and I think I had on a deep level bought into the idea that this trip somehow had magical powers that was going to heal me.

I didn't really believe that consciously, but my deeper mind had staked some small hope on this idea. And with each passing day of feeling stronger and to some degree brighter, I half believed a little more. And the last few days dashed that hope. And today I mourned my mortality again.

I put Greenday on the iPod as I went to sleep. The trick to good sleeping music is consistency of sound levels. Greenday turned out to be a bad choice and I was awaken several times during the night. While I fell asleep again quickly it did serve to lock some of my dreams vaguely in my memory.

I have dreams with both Annie and Emer in it. Not erotic dreams sadly, and the details are lost now. But they are both comfort symbols to me - so assume this was my brain trying to return some equilibrium.

I return to the last barber and this time get both a shave and haircut. I don't get quite as radical a shortening as usual, but have about half my hair removed. Maybe that well keep me cooler.

I hear the not so subtle tapping of rain begin while my haircut is in progress. Afterward we sit and watch it pour buckets of rain. After a half hour or so the rain stops and the river in the streets clears and I head off toward the beach. As soon as I am out of running distance the heavens open up again and I duck under one of the closed open air beer bars. It has a tin roof which makes the rain sound that much more torrential. I am already completely damp but not yet drippingly so, so I wait.

I notice that across the narrow soi is an Internet Cafe. A good place to wait out a storm. Most of the stores here have pull down garage doors for when they are closed - except the beer bars which are only closed for a few hours a day and have little in them worth stealing. While the garage door is up, I see no lights. Then again a lot of stores turn their lights off when they have no customers. I wait for a let up in the rain and make a dash to get under the overhang. The door is locked.

Ignoring that the water is soaking my only pair of shoes I continue down under the continuous overhang to Second Road. Once there, there is no clear plan in my mind making left or right a better option. I do have the idea of Internet Cafe now firmly placed as a good idea. I pass them everywhere, I wonder where one is near here?

I go right as the beer bar offers some protection in that direction for a bit. Three blocks, some times protected, some times waiting for the rain to appear less dense. Three blocks remarkably Internet cafe free. I can no longer consider myself damp, I am wet, but still not yet dripping. This is important as water and computers don't mix well.

I finally reach a corner with a sign pointing back up a soi saying 'Internet Cafe - 24 hours'. Little sporadic protection from the rain and no clear idea of exactly where the store is on the lane, I still make a break for it. It turns out to be only four or five stores up and easy to find. There is also a waterfall between me and the door. Bad planning for a computer store.

There are two other customers also looking like drown rats, and puddles of water all over the place. They really don't seem to have the same attitude about dryness the way we do. So I sat down and pulled up a keyboard. Now my laptop has spell checkers and grammar checkers and favorite mistake checkers and all sorts of programs that help nudge these ramblings from total chaos the merely difficult to follow. Some of these programs also integrate with my email postings. But here on someone else's computer I have no such assistance. It makes the typing very slow going, so I was looking forward to the fact that since I was trapped by the rain I wouldn't feel as under the clock, paying by the minute (a tiny fee but somehow it adds pressure to not dawdle over emails) and take more time with my email answers. So of course I only have one email.

I call up StumbleUpon and am surprised I remember my password (its loaded automatically on the laptop so I haven't had to remember it in ages.) Without a toolbar and addons, I am very limited in what I can do in StumbleUpon, but I can connect with the community, so I do that for a while. The rain continues. The soi outside is now about two feet deep.

I call up Ravenblack (an online game) which thankfully has my standard 'I don't care if anyone steals this' password. While I am playing that the rain stops. 60 baht, so I was there right around an hour.

It is now capital 'H' humid and the air conditioning of Royal Garden sounds mighty good. I walk to Beach Road but there is no way I'm walking through this soup when I can take a Baht Bus (yet another name for a tuk tuk) the rest of the way.

After going to the rest room I use the same scale I used last time: 123.3 kg. I figure pretty wet must at least balance out the camera (which I don't have on me this time), so that is at least 2.4 more kilograms lost.

I call Pete on his cell phone. The static is tremendous (I'm picturing thunder between us and the towers) but I finally get that the humidity has changed his beach plans but he is just up the road. I can't get the rest of the details, but I pluckily start up the road anyway. As I am walking I remember we went to a massage place around here, although I thought it was the other way from Royal Garden. But I press on. When I see a 7-11 I remember that he tried say something about one. I also duck in quickly for water (nom) and air conditioning.

Back on the street I pass a place that looks like the shop I remember. I walk in looking for Pete, and have a hell of a time getting back out - try can be very persistent salespeople. But I struggle my way back to the street and one more block I find an identical shop except for the fact that Pete is sitting in it.

An hour of foot massage followed by an hour of Thai massage (following in Pete's wake) later, and just as importantly 2 hours of air conditioning while the sun burns off the post rain humidity, I am feeling much drier and more limber.

We decide that it is now a very nice climate for some walking and since we are close to Walking Street and I haven't seen it yet, we go there. Now, Walking Street is - if Pattaya was to have such a thing - the red light district. In this case it is the more densely packed center of activity. But that is at night - when I am never going near this chaotic pulsating noise maker. During the day, there are restaurants a few shops and even some of the bars are open, just more sedate.

At one spot there were installing a set of escalators. This was interesting because they were doing it in on piece. The escalator was attached to the front of a large truck and they were trying to maneuver it into this building they had removed most of the front of. This was made even more interesting as Walking Street is not very wide - it is closed to traffic at night. Hence the name. Oddly, I would see a similar vehicle on the news a few days later complete with escalator impaled on a bus. I never would have know what that vehicle was if I had seen one this day first.

After we reached the end of the Walking Street - it isn't very long - we doubled back. By now we were both getting rather hot and were looking for an air conditioned place for lunch. We came across an Irish Pub. Pete said he had been here when it was a different name - but still an Irish Pub.

They had the main doors propped open but the air-conditioner was still running (I find this a lot here. That seems strange given they seen so energy conscious in most other areas.) I am not sure whether it took away for my high core temperature to cool down of whether they later turned up the AC for us, but I seemed to be sweating for a long time and then was fine.

I ordered a BLT and fries. It turned out to be huge when it arrived and in the end I surprised myself by showing common sense over past habits by taking half of it to go rather than trying to choke it down. Pete paid for lunch, a pre-Birthday gift. Pete is a very good guy; he made my stay much better in a very short time.

As much as possible we took tuk tuks back to our hotels. Once in I was done for the day. Just watching TV. I had the rest of the sub for dinner.

Jeab never showed up.

Coming back from Pitini's Jeab saddles up to me as I am passing the market. She has gone back to work. She says she is coming over this evening.

I go through my habits, finding the comfort that lies in such. I drop off and pick up laundry. I go to one of the closer Internet cafes and check my email. I had sent Tracy an on Easter, mostly I was feeling down that day. Today I got a 5 word response: Happy Easter, Miss you too.

I obsess about the meaning of the brevity and the lack of emails from her lately for a while. Several possibilities and analyzing such things isn't really my forte anymore. Easier just to let it play out and see where it goes.

I have lots of email today and notice I am having a lot of trouble focusing on the screen. seems to be a visual rather than a concentration problem.

Pete is heading home tomorrow, but I am unable to connect up with him. He probably wasn't feeling well.

An article in our bi-monthly (hmm, is it bi-monthly or bi-weekly? Bicentennial means 200 years, but bi-annual means twice a year, so I guess it could be either. But in this case I mean every two weeks.) paper was about the restaurant at All Seasons Hotel. This reminds me that there were still some items on the menu I wanted to check out. And looking at my mental map makes me realize how close to there I am - walking distance in fact.

Turns out to the closer than I thought as I manage to recognize the far end of what I still think of as Laundry Row as I am walking past it. All Seasons is just down the other end. It has been a month or so since I stayed at the All Seasons and as I walk down Laundry Row and I surprised at how different it looks to my now more experienced eye. I can pick out all types of shops in what once just a blur of chaos. While it about half laundries, there are little restaurants, convenience stores, a shoe repair place, a bar, tons of signs for rooms for rent (in the back and or upstairs) and so on.

They have the buffet running today. I ask for a menu today. I am seated along the wall, staring out at an Asian family. The father is staring at me. I stare at him. This continues until my waitress - remember Momarat? She remembers me. The Thai ability to remember names, faces and details amazes me afresh each time I notice it - comes over. I haven't looked at the menu, busy as I was with the staring contest, but I know what I want: Cuppiccino of Lobster Soup. I just have to know.

It turns out to be exactly what it sounds like, only mellower. Chunks of lobster meat in some kind of coffee flavored cream soup. Actually not bad, but I would not order it again.

A wake up to find that my vision is still fuzzy. Alternating closing eyes, it is only my right eye that is effected. It is like someone has smeared Vaseline on my right eyeglass lens. I don't like it when symptoms persist overnight but the longer I am from the protocol the less my brain makes any attempts at repairs. Hopefully it will go away in a day or two. I had planned to ignore everything that went wrong with my body - why get it fixed? But my eyes, I need my eyes, so this worries me some.

Still no word from Jeab. I could just call her, but she had seemed so different after her return from temple, so disinterested in being here, and then so not here, that I figured it best just to let it lie. And sleeping without someone next to me was quickly getting old. This is odd as I slept alone for most of the last three years. Perhaps it is a side effect of being so far away from everyone.

Anyway the search for someone new was on. Thus far I had had success at the regular massage shops and the beach, but ever since Pete mentioned that he had never run into these experiences at either type establishment, such opportunities seemed to have dried up - like the bumblebee that is told he can't fly. So it looked like the normal route was probably the surest route to go to ensure results today.

I didn't think I could handle the place that I went to last time I experimented with the beer bars as I seem more sensitive to sound this week. Soi Boachow (2 1/2 street) has a couple of less ruckus beer bars, one of which is very close to Khram Marine. I made a plan to walk up and walk in. I walked up and walked by. I sat down in Khram's, sipped an Iced Coffee and talked to George (his real name is 'Eed.' I don't know why I call him George but I do, and it gives me comfort to do so. So there.) while mentally preparing myself to go back to the bar.

The less than subtle fans blowing on me and George's mysteriously calming influence made it hard to leave. But eventually George had another customer to attend to and thirst was beginning to become an issue again, so I steeled myself and off I went.

"Hello." "Welcome." shouted at ear rendering decibels despite my being only a few feet away and obviously already headed that way. I grabbed the stool furthest from the music - which put me closest to the noise of the street and the cat calls of 'Hello. Welcome." and order a Heineken. Heineken is your one choice in drinkable beer. There are three other local and Chinese beers, and they taste like bitter water.

I try to get across the concept that I'd just like to sit and get use to the place for awhile. There is not enough Thai and English between us to accomplish this. So I work on nursing my drink as slowly as possible (not hard; I really don't like beer) and largely ignoring any one that tries to talk to me. There are two girls that catch my eye. Clearly they are part of the bait and switch brigade - the cute ones that drag the men in but either aren't available or who are available in later hours.

A third girl, Pucket (poo-ket(tle)), had set her sights on me. She was not really my type, except that she had a killer smile. And as the evening went on into a second beer, I realized that the two girls I wanted were never going to come near me and that Pucket had been extremely attentive, and so won on points.

So, the ritual works like this (as prostitution does not exist in Thailand - it says so right in the papers). You order a drink or twenty. Find a girl you like. You order her a drink. She moves to your side of the counter. You drink and talk. When you wish to leave two prices have to be negotiated. The first is the 'bar fine.' This is paid to the bar owner to compensation for the girl no longer being there prying lady drink out of their wallets. The second is price for the girls time to the girl herself. I'd put the prices paid but I am a lousy haggler and am sure I am grossly overpaying and do not wish to embarrass myself.

I find the Thai custom if handholding a bit uncomfortable. It is useful in that they are as much leading you away from holes and danger and cars and such as they are displacing affection, but it just feels strange.

I didn't feel any chemistry with Pucket and was glad to be alone after breakfast.

I was still having trouble seeing out of my right eye. Some fooling around with the newspaper, showed that it is only the right half of my right eye that is effected. For the first time I considered that it could be the diabetes and not the CDS.

Pete had talked about the medical establishment here being professional, efficient and affordable. Being a bit freaked out at potentially becoming blind I took a tuk tuk to the hospital. There are two major hospitals on the map, I chose the closer.

I had to wait less than an hour for an Ophthalmologist. Let's see that happen in the States. I never did find out exactly what test - it wasn't an MRI I'm pretty sure (no chug-chug-chug sound) but I didn't recognize it either. And while the doctor himself spoke better English than half my doctors back home, the technicians did not.

In the end I learned that there was no damage to the structure of my eye. The doctor wanted to do more tests to look at the optic nerve. I explained about CDS - which he had never heard of - and said it didn't matter as I wasn't going to get it fixed anyway. I liked that he excepted that without any fight - self-determination seems to go a lot further here than back home. In the end my mind was slightly relieved and my credit card was about $600 lighter. A fraction of what it would have been without insurance in the US (hell it was $375 just for the yearly checkout and there they just look in your eye.)

Lately this site is feeling more like a chore than the catharsis it has been. So I am going to take a break from it. I'll bring you up to speed.

Earlier in the week I woke up to find that the right side of my vision was like someone had smeared a thick coat of Vaseline on my eyeglasses. Assuming it was the complication of the day, I ignored it. But it persisted and on the third day I decided it might be the diabetes and I went to the doctor.

Six hundred dollars later, the structure of my eye is fine. That means it is either demyelization of optic nerve or another small stroke. My bet is the latter given all the pain in that area last week. Either way it is probably permanent and not something I am going to get fixed, so I pass on further testing.

I am in a funk all week. I pull out of it briefly here and there but I am spending more and more time in my room. Yesterday I can't make myself get out of the room and lug the laptop down to the Caffe. Once I realize that with the time difference I can do it Monday morning, I feel much better. Hunger eventually drives me out and I also check into a Internet Cafe for my email. It is while answering one of these I finally make the connection between being in a funk and reducing my Xanax dosage.

I had thought it was a result of all the medical problems, but last night I went back to full dosage, had the first good night's sleep of the week and today all is right with the world - or at least the 3/4s of it I can see :)

So anyway, I am taking a break from the writing for a couple of weeks, unless I happen to wake up in the mood for it here and there. But I will still be answering any emails most days.

Hello & Good Bye	Sa-wat dee (kha,krab)
Thank you	Khorb koon
How much?	Gee baht
Where is ......?	....... yoo tee nai
I don't want	Mai tong gaan
Sorry	Khor toat
I like it	Chob maak
Yes/No	Chai/ Mai chai
Why?	Tum mai
What?	Arai
I want to go to...	Chun ja pai .......
Toilet	Hong naam
Which way?	Pai taang nai
Left	Sai
Right	Kwaa
Straight on	Tong pai
Is it far?	Gai mai?
How to go to .......?	Pai ........ yang ngai
Never mind	Mai pen rai

How much is this?	Ra ka thao rai
That is a little expensive	Paeng pai
Can you make it cheaper?	Lot noi dai mai
How about ……. Baht?	….. baht dai mai?
Can you help me?	Chuay dai mai
Can I see that?	Khor doo dai mai
I am just looking.	Khor doo thao nun
I will come back later.	Ja ma mai
Do you have something bigger (or smaller)? ("Yai" = Big, "Lek" = Small)	Mee yai (or lek) gwar mai
Do you have another colour?	Mee see auen mai
Never mind	Mai pen rai

0	Soon	20	Yee sib
1	Nueng	30	Saam sib
2	Song	40	See sib
3	Saam	50	Har sib
4	See	60	Hok sib
5	Har	70	Jed sib
6	Hok	80	Paed sib
7	Jed	90	Gao sib
8	Paed	100	Nueng roi
9	Gao	200	Song roi
10	Sib	1,000	Nueng pan

Are you going to eat here or take away?	Gin tee nee reu glub baan
Eat here	Gin tee nee
Take away	Glub baan
Can I have more please?	Khor eak dai mai
Can I have an extra plate?	Khor Jaan plao neung bai
Clear the Table	Geb jaan
Check bill	Geb tung
Can I have a spoon (fork) please?	Khor chorn (som) noi dai mai?
Delicious	Aroi
Not Delicious	Mai Aroi
Not Spicy	Mai Ped

Useful Thai phrases