Thanks for all your comments, they are well recieved, positive or negitive they all inspire me. I have never pushed my beliefs on anybody, and never said what is right or wrong in this world. there are a few things i know to be positively true, and one of those things is that i know i dont know anything. people who push their beliefs on other people, positive that their ways are the only way, need to step back and look at the whole picture, look beyond religion and look beyond the single sided world they know. it is true that there hasent been a single culture or civilization that didnt have some form of religion, some form of the supernatural, even people who call themselves atheist. think about it, with all of the beliefs out there who is to say which one is reality, which one is truth. Almost everyone takes on the beliefs that the majority hold in that society, for americans its mostly christianity, our government was even built upon it. for people of other cultures they have the say training as they grow up to believe certain ideas or certain supernatural beings. this is true, so who is right? everyone of course - so if you really believe god created animals for people to enjoy them, thats great, but would you treat anything god created as factory farms treat them? on those farms god didnt create them, laboratories and chemicals did, but that does not change their nature, but it does change ours. our idea of animals has changed so much over the past 50 years or so that people loose the love for the gifts we have, they just want more, and quicker too. If you had your own farm, fed your animals and then decided to eat them - ok. you undersand the nature of eating, but to go to the store and pick up a plactic waped piece of steak - what is that? an animal, food, or just materialism? just another thing to buy and consume, without thought to the before and after and of what it does to your own body and mind. it creates greed, it destroys compassion, it makes you loose touch with what the real world is really about... i dont know but i make it my duty to get past the bubble that we live in, i dont want to accept anything as the way it is, because i do know that there has got to be more, beyond the wal-marts and shopping malls, beyond the fast food chains and the nightly news.

ok lovely comment on the previous posting. feel free to stop by and take what you please, if i've reduced my spirituality to "things" i might be upset. by the way something - if your hungry i can make you a free vegan meal that would not involve harming other beings to feel better about yourself.

ok...by the way...whats inside the house, and how the rooms are layed out, is for me to know and for you to find out.

The Ward
well, it wont be long until we get everything done and move in. Probally in a few weeks or so. The house is in Jackson Ward, in richmond of course, and right near the famous Bojangles monument, ha. But let me give my thoughts on this for the moment and a bit of background brought to you by my education in urban studies class. There are postives and negatives living in jackson ward. It is a historic black neighborhood, where it was home to many freed blacks after the civil war, and quickly became a economic center for them. It housed many of the first black owned businesses, like banks and law firms, but lets not forget the clubs and resturants, and thus was known as the "black wall-street". Also we must note that many rising talents in the music industry regularly played at the famous Hippadome club in jackson ward, furthering the popularity of the neighborhood, some even called it the harlem of the south due to its cultural center for blacks. This all slowly crumbled due to blacks moving north to get away from the jim crow laws and after the world wars due to the govt' policies on breaking up cultural centers, as it was seen as dangerous, almsot unamerican, to have a area dense with one group of people...(this was B.S). Today it is one of the few historic black neighborhoods in the nation, and has seen better days. But since 2003 Richmond has been promoting the revitalization of its historic neiborhoods and providing insentives for rebuilding. So this also has an unseen effect, partially due to VCU's presence also. Many afluent people are buying out the historic homes and renovating them, then renting them out to students or selling them for more than people who would normally live there can pay, thus taking away from the traditional neighborhood. The population that has usually resided there were middle to lower class black families...yes families. But now that you throw in students in the mix, who are renting and have more money to spend, this changes the impression of the neighborhood, and many families move out and are sometimes even forced out. The renovation is a good and beautiful thing, but when property values increase, lowerclass homeowners are forced to sell because they can not live in that area anymore, mainly from increased taxes and economic pressure. So Richmond's program recoginizes this also and provide tax credits to renavators when the homeowner will actually be living in the house, no renting. Im sure there are many other factors at work here, but as I walk by and see our middle aged black neighbors I can only guess at what they think of who I am and why I'm living there. Am I ashamed becasue i know some of the detrimental factors that i may be contributing to...no, because i know i will do my best to help the people that need it most, and of course once i get a talking with the neighbors I think they won't have a problem with a guy with dreads.
jackson ward

The new house!!...and meaghan's bike I painted. 

yes isnt it wonderful when you wake up and its clody and chilly outside with a bit of a mist and sprinklke, then at about 5 of the clock the sun comes out and opens your eyes! its like it is morning all over again, and i just took a shower to have that crisp clean feeling, a baptism to no end.

100% or not? What do you think... I spotted this after i drank the 100% juice blend....at least is 100% of something.  

One O'clock 

For anyone who is interested, click the "photoNoshop" on my links bar, this guy/girl has really awesome photos...

I've got rain 

Kylie and the infamous blue popsicle 

I'll walk the long way home,
if it means I'll stay in the sun.
What is it like to go out every sunday,
and pretend like you know the sun.
There's nothing else but the search on the inside,
dont pretend that there's a more important one.
We should all take the long way home,
if it means we'll stay in the sun
-it's a light that doesn't exaggerate,
-it's an experience taught by no one
-its the reminder outside our mind
To feel the sun, with all that it touches,
Lets us feel the concept of one.
Beware: it's the search that searches for itself
while the truth remains to be touched,
just sitting out in the open,
in the light, on the long way home.

haven't posted in a long while now
check out the movie I "heart" huckabees and also "what the bleep to we know"
more to come

Hey everybodi....I need help for a poetry contest, Let me know which one of the following you like best by leaving a comment at the end of this post. Pleassssse let me know what you think, thank you.

Mercury

every one knows the feeling told
a dot, contained, an arrow flat
lines and beyond lines
beautiful is forgotten, words are forgotten
circle to circle, center red is struck
blink, but stare
sprouted feathers explode
with ground falling, air and more air
tis what we owe -
pleasure of first shot in season blossoming
come yee - carrier and archer, let me feel
so that I know, what is real
a burning heart, with winged angel
it proclaims:
"for a time your eyes may be unblind,
this I give the power of chance
vision of true and a mind, unwritten
some take with pain, some leave bear
only the wise, shut thou eyes,
to reveal what is truly there"

Sitting Tiger, Pouncing Bloom

A bed of premature buds sit waiting.
Sprouting elegantly aside the paved ways.
Raised up and growing firm.
A passage which we all will learn.
Let it unfold like the jewel from a lotus,
Rooted in the mud yet ever above it.
A hand offering Excalibur to combat spontaneous woes,
A blooming lifesaver in hopeless waters,
Some bankrupt souls see gold to collect.
Yet others will trail seeds of greed.
As every step I take is followed by some other,
I must complain,
Let the petals please.
Its impression is beyond organic.
Retain it so as not to obtain it.
Just one petal’s presence,
Is evidence of an underlying law.
Its purpose will touch,
If you leave it uncut.
A bloom,
In the state from which it flowered,
Is a tiger catching fish with its tail
Unexpected, yet pleasantly effective.

A Generic Magazine Shop

Life needs to be turned on and my face is the switch plate
Is it revolutionary to be me without getting a handshake
All I see is you passing fears at the dinner table
Please pass the salt as air has had a better taste
Now, to wonder why we changed the style of freedom
I can't keep up with rules that run faster with pumped up shoes
I don’t want to see my self in a magazine
with someone who looks just like me
I was uneducated, cold bold faces attacked me like the day I was born
Now I know because of easily accessed words
Words that are repeated without my brain interfering
Really, it's not true, my secret path has been paved over
I’m collecting the toll for a four lane highway
I'll allow you all to come in but my face wont budge
I’ve stopped the electricity to my smile
because my brain couldn’t pay the bill
Tissue was writing checks that blood couldn't cash
Oxygen pays the bills around here, and it was sent for a checkup
Spent all its cash on back alley plastic surgeons
who told it what to be
The token brain was in the waiting room reading up
on the latest type of cleavage
All while his thoughts were plotting a riot
hoping for knowledge to go on vacation
Man has been blemished from the end of four feet -
to four feet taller on two feet
Though it has always been said a beautiful berry is bad to eat
Why do we let our eyes be the landlord,
how do they know when they can't see inside
It’s time to be turned inside out, like a bad episode of star trek
Pinning my heart to my forehead
would be less bloody than emotion starting a civil war
I just have to realize there is more to loose on the inside
So why does green sooth us so,
so much so that fingers take on mind of their own

Feeding the Three

For fear of tomorrow
With no recollection of the yester steps
We spend time as we breath,
Conscious of it or not
And that is this cause, which we try to scratch
It is in that spot in the middle of our back
Bear bark just seems to lack
Who is this ‘I’ that is not satisfied?
Lurching from a womb every minute
A beggar, a father, scientist, or simplest
Created from a craving that was educated through ignorance
One more day of knowledge
One more day the three get fatter
Why walk out in the sun and say it is hot
Why walk out in the rain and say it is wet
It is what it is, does it matter to you
Do you direct the cosmos?
Why weigh the world,
When the world is weighted with you
Is this not biased?
Seeing things through your eyes
Your mind disects yourself into things
Because of this challenge we will suffer much
We will separate our love and our hate
Without ever knowing either one
Our lives are filled up to the brim
So life can never get in
We write books and keep them on shelves
For permanent memory and aesthetic sake
But what need do we have of them?
If only they could be recycled,
Our resources – us- are running low
Running faster so as not to be caught
The free beings are ever endangered
We suck them up and compound them
Use their bodies as ink, and prink what we think they would say
But never are these words able to emulate the freedom
Who dances to make the moon smile?
Who climbs mountains to greet the tips?
There are too many purposes, pretending to be people
I have yet to meet a man able to free the three

Singing for the Seeds

Singing on forgetting
Forests are relenting
Bambi knows, if you’re not cute you go
The creatures lost their love for living
While dying for giving
Men don’t need
More
More for weeks beyond and before
And when a mind has made up
That god bestowed
Some power for men to imagine power
And be gods of their own every dinner hour
To think we know our needs
Our taste is acquired
Over
More over instinct is fired
The pestilence has hold
Blindness unfolds for every hit
Addiction applied
No ones admitting
I’m alive despite your giant shadow
A head too big to think for its own
Fueled by a green origami hamster
Speaking your thinking
The voice of millionaires
Just happens to be heard
For your best interest
Amazing or just a glazing?
In a garden is where I confide
Footprint next to paw print
It’s not a law but against the way
By living through loving
Is a warm bed at night
At the end
Respect as if
The self in thyself
Myself is yourself is connected milk
Under the sun, wonders expand
Dirt turns to sand and replenishes
A dropped berry
To chance but grow a hundred berries
Dough rises to reflect
For, there’s no mystery
Why the seeds grow

Barbed Sky 

Its so fake. My clothes, my things, my apartment. Why do I feel this? Something that I call reality, is really only just what I call it, and would be the same whether I call it anything or just nothing. How can I see the world without unconsciously deceiving myself? Everything has its own purpose, who am I to say what that purpose is. Why do I care, why do I ask “why do I care”? labeling things doesn’t let me know them, because to know is to not question. I sat in a bench today, in the sun, immobile. Hurried minds ran faster than their feet. I was the iron bench - and when people looked at me, they didn’t see me as me, only as a part of the scenery. Like the bricks stare at fools, the lamps light the ground at night, and time is an unknown dimension, even mocked when mentioned. If I could have condensed it for a moment, it would still be me on the bench, absorbed into that stationary reality. Ten minutes to sit, to sit. Ten minutes to see myself missing myself and then to bring me back. All corduroyed up and basting. But how I wanted to grab hold of the zombies and put new glasses on them, to raise them again from the dead

Who comes first? 

just to let everyone know...all the photos are taken by your very own...whenever things appear to look like a picture I tend to take them...just a glimpse at how I view the world

Thanks be to Tea 

I came back but I left something behind.
How trivial it all seems,
The other side of the world I have seen
Humans live differently
With respect to it all
Im not the same
But my life is
and that needs to change

Sea Shelter 

It’s Fair (not really)...

Throw out a net and close your eyes while you mine,
You aim for the fish but don’t care what you find,
A thousand years of harmony never to be seen
Guzzled by man guzzling gasoline
Now that you’ve humpbacked all the whales from the sea
There’s much more room for your secret pollutants (that you like to call submarines)
And it’s as if we didn’t know
We all contribute to this suffering
Through the things we buy without even thinking
As if we really thought – it’s fair
Animals have enough skin to share
Now back to the land, a greater disturbance to natural man
When companies own DNA and farmers are sued when they sow
We are forced to label things as organic, otherwise we wouldn’t know
And some place real far children sweat hard to produce our candy bars
The natives are starving for self subsistence and wells go dry (due to corporate ignorance)
And it’s as if we didn’t know
We all contribute to this suffering
Through the things we buy without even thinking
As if we really thought - it’s fair
My pair shoes appeared out of thin air
The coming of technology is just another poison in our bread
Check the ingredients can you understand what it says
No need to sigh, yellow #5 will only kill a few of the little guys
We need to stop thinking that if it’s available to buy - then it is legit,
But the government is only concerned if you immediately die (because of it)
And it’s as if we didn’t know
We all contribute to this suffering
Through the things we buy without even thinking
As if we really thought - it’s fair
These cookies were hand baked by grandma wearing polka dotted underwear
Do we see the labored hands and bent over spine
How’d you like to work all the time and be repaid less than a dime
Thank the prisoners that took care to finely sew your brazier
While companies with adopted customer families use America to capitalize
On factories of exploited countries enslaving other families (in dilapidated economies)
And it’s if we didn’t know
We all contribute to this suffering
Through the things we buy without even thinking
As if we really thought - it’s fair

Floating Sticky Rice, Thailand 

Valentine’s Day
Well today is Valentine’s Day. I don’t seem to understand it, but hey, some people like it. The only complaint I have is this holiday’s ability to destroy one form of beauty in order to fulfill traditional obligations and, maybe, create a smile on the other end. What I’m talking about is flowers, roses in particular. What is it about our society’s fascination to take advantage of beauty, especially natural beauty? We cut, and in effect kill, flowers in order to give them to the ones we care about. I don’t know if anyone thinks about this, but I really don’t understand it and prefer not to participate in it. Now I know girls like flowers every now and then, so buy a live plant, not grown just to be cut and passed around on just this one day. Then what? Are they forgotten and used like every other beauty in this world, just for one days smile? This exploitation gets imbedded into everything we do, especially Americans. I think this day should not be based on what gift to buy to show ones love, but to think what is the most selfless act I can do to show it’s not always about ‘me’. On this day we can focus our attention to the ones closest to us, the ones who have been there for us when we haven’t even noticed. That support we always expect but never recognized or the one person who is there no matter where you are. Valentines day should be the day of opening up to these people in your life, the ones you may have never noticed how much you actually depend on. We shouldn’t think of what to buy them (the quick and easy way of getting out of doing something meaningful), but think about how much they have contributed to where you are today and make them know how you feel. Whether it is just a simple hug, when you would otherwise shake hands, or a note you spent time to write. Think about selfless, not about you but them. Not about buying into the commercial and traditional ‘business’ of holidays, but of feeling in touch with your fellow human beings. The soul longs for this communication, and this day should be the day to let your heart speak, and not your head or ego.

Stump and Converse 

Not Exactly That

Seems that my thoughts are described by the doodles in my notebook,
The subconscious has a way of communicating after all.
Make my head shake
The robots are fleeting, finally self motivation
This world is so personalized – that it is so impersonal
I can’t tell my face from the next
A preempted generation
Like begging for a name – that isn’t just the same
Fingerprints tell the unambiguous truth – that
I’m not just another one of you
Diversity catching my eye
Another windblown leaf avoiding the sky
It’s hard to find – that state of never mind
People with their headphones on
Keep the bubble turned up and keep the city turned down – while they miss me
Just another tree
It’s just to decorate with colored souls and human clones – that it’s another war
To regret about while someone else lies on the ground
Where does the campaign begin, to make – this – that.

Branches 

Is not at all

Heard. Heard. Never gain but find.
My head is spinning and I follow it
I go round and round chasing my own tail
I’ve seen blizzards before, but none of them saw me
I am just a shadow hiding behind the light
Waking rainbows miss me
Turtles pass me
Clickers click me
Lonely substitute for Velveta, curdling in the corner with one eye wanting to be open
I regret passing up the dictionary for definitions, for its pages must be stacked with creations, pondering on and growing inorganically, scaling brains till all evens out with the asymptote of mediocrity. This is regret, for the outlier can skew the norm, and they all rebel with collective contemporary hooks, equipped with the shiny bait, with bobber and all so as not to break a sweat while shadows search for a means of substance.
Sitting upright along the chassis of humanity
Emerging
Converging
Energy swelling, never yonder
The carrot is no carrot at all

Richmond was warm today...but i failed to absorb it.

Tunnel and Ice 

YEAH> I got the picture thing to do its thing, or something. but it works now, so let me know what you think of these pics. These two I took in Thailand and added a "cartoon" effect to them....pretty crazy eh? I thought so. You can click on a pic to enlarge it, and dont forget to leave your comments...for administrative purposes.

Floating market outside Bangkok, Thailand 

Tricycle taxi in Chaingmai Thailand 

Got a new look going on, hope ya'll enjoy the fancy dancies.

Why does our city's concrete try to cover it's roots?

P.s found a way to post pictures....so will be doing that: a sa p.

Economical Leftovers

I’ve got microwaveable success in a bottle
I don’t understand the dirt because it’s harder
To read the ingredients when it’s written in the language of ignorance
When pin stripes have found their way into thrift stores
Is when you know it’s not safe to microwave anymore
When the people pay top dollar
For leftovers dropped by the companies they trust
With the family name and papa’s homely face on the box
It seems we’ve missed the Sunday paper
With the obituaries:
Papa was micro waved by his in-laws,
Now economical uncle jack has hired a lawyer and a chemist
To figure out how to keep lies in your fridge
Longer than nature even wants to stay around
It seems it’s not safe to microwave anymore
When was it ever?

OK so i promise i will be updating more as my brain starts turing with the wheels of academics...more and more seems to putter out.

currently: scratching my semi-woodsman facial growth...
thinking: it needs to go.

semi reading: Take It Personally: How to make conscious choices to change the world. by anita roddick. Quote: "Technological progress has merely provided us with more evvicietn means for going backwards - aldous huxley" "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" "during the past two decades the total amout of food in the world has increased, but so has hunger." page number 46

other semi reading: Dominion: the power of man, the suffering of animals, and the call to mercy, by matthew scully, page number 21

slowly semi reading: Einstien: the life and times, page number 169

Eightfold path:
1. Right understanding
2. Right aspiration
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfullness
8. Right concentration

something contrary is distilled in me
its not really me, but what people said i should be
there is fire on my soul spredding
all trying to burn dinner's desire
the tranquil rests in ashes
the mind dragged in mud
we sit not with our breathren
and we only utter brother in times of distress
what of the you in me?


ive settled back in richomond and commenced this semesters studies. how much of it will i really need - all these electrons i will never see and thoeries to explain unnessary relations in the eyes of man?

merry christmas and a happy new year. I made it back to the olde states of america, but not without problems. I had to pay extra for the large bags I had, which were all the presents I was giving all the people i know. the flights were fine, no problems there. When i got to my final destination, only one bag came in and i had to file a report and find out where my bags were. So my family picked me up and I was home, it was wierd. The next day they came over with my misplaced bags, which had come in on a later flight. This was sunday the 19th now. Me and Meaghan decided to go back to richmond that night because she had to work on monday, so we headed out at around 830 pm and it was snowing and slippery. We were on 95 going south when meaghan slipped a little on the road so we pulled over to the sholder and put on the flashers. Then someone in a Isuzu trooper plowed in the back of us, bazam! Meaghan was crying and i was trying to figure out if everything was ok. She ended up getting ten staples in her head and a concusion and whip lash. i had a little whiplash and thats about it. So thats fun. And then the next day I was feeling sick from some thing i had caught in thailand, and i got worse. I had high feaver and all the nasty things like the flu, but it wasnt the flu. I went to the doctors and they think i have malaria, so im waiting to hear back from my blood test to see what ive got exactly. So yeah comming back hasnt been the best experience but im slowly getting used to the swing of things again.

The Slow Death of an Attached Mind Living in Suffering
Humbly on, just on and going
I have done but we all still do
Once again a following can brew
I never signed up, yet it is destiny
For rain to fall
For men to fall
For fall to fall
Anicca shows her face
Where is the escape?
We have three jewels
We have the four noble
We have the eightfold
To conceptualize is nothing
To realize is to not name

Swallow
With this kick up and down, where do we go to explore?
No more up right doors, outright locked, who are they for?
The language that we speak
Helps no one to learn
Well what words will win, oh to heaven I’ll find
That along the way we’ll all do our time
But to fetch the water with a holy pail
Won’t but make mud for the dirt to swallow

Folly of Men
What does man know of the buffalo’s strength, or the swiftness of the wild mustang?Can he fly like it is his right amongst the geese?No, we haven’t been given that purpose, yet we are deterred from being human.We are blessed with thought, rational and intelligence, But to what avail do we make use of it?Everything bigger and faster, so the ego gets slower and fatter. Do we live for material improvement only, judging others worth by their estate?The folly of man is that he has forgotten himselfWe have geniuses that contemplate the workings of engines,But they know not how they operate or by what means their minds are fueledThey majority have not contemplated the very thing that defines usWhy, just as easily the monkey swings from branch to branch,We should be able to rationalize our suffering and conclude them,It is known that we will all perish, but the time is unknownSo why haven’t the greatest men,The men who are given power from wealth, who invent miraculous products,Why haven’t they found the way in which to avoid suffering.It is not these men who are wise, for they seek the answer on paperAll men must know that what we all search forWas given to us at birth, but slowly buried among the discarded yearsThe human ability to defy ignorance is the purpose in which we must fess up toOne day, one year, one life, means nothing in this evolutionAnd although some strive to ease the pain of others.Ultimately, we must search ourselves for the cure to life

Most people don't know they move their own feet. If you do you might end up going where you want to be...

Read: A comparative study of Buddhism and Christianity by: Fumio Masutani
“The Buddha started on his way when he observed human suffering. On recalling his miserable existence burdened with fourfold bitterness of birth, old age, sickness, and death, he remarked that the pride of his youth instantly vanished and the pleasure of his life totally collapsed. However, Buddha was not a weakling such as succumbs to grief. He could not think of turning his eyes from the bitterness of life to the ephemeral sweetness of futility. He never thought of seeking salvation in a “blind state of self-complacency in ignorance.” He faced human sorrow with unflinching eyes, and endeavored to unravel its mystery with the fortitude of his reasoning power. The conclusion he subsequently reached was very pessimistic: “All is suffering.”Nevertheless, he, instead of escaping from the sorrowful life with eyes shut, tried to pry out the secret of such sorrow with eyes wide open. A way opened itself thereupon. This was the fourfold truth of suffering, its cause, its cessation, and practice.”

Read: The Empty Mirror by: Janwillem van de Wetering
“In India a hermit was meditating on the shore of a river when he was disturbed by a young man. The young man knelt down and said: “Master, I want to become your disciple.” “Why?” asked the master. “Because I want to find God.”The master jumped up, took the young man by the scruff of the neck, dragged him to the river and pushed his head under water. After a minute the master released the young man and pulled him out of the river. The young man spat out some of the water which he got in his mouth and began to cough. After a while he became quite. “What did you want most of all while I kept you under water?” asked the master. “Air,” said the young man. “Very well,” the master said. “Go back to wherever you have come from, and come back to me when you want God as much as you wanted air just now.”

October 2, 2004
The following are Text Messages I recieved on this day:
From: Jhoke
What’s going on? I don’t understand you. What are you doing? What are you trying to tell me? Are you dating Carol? If yes then is this how you’re telling me so? Why did you have to try that hard? Just tell me you’re dating her and I’ll get the fuck out of your life. I felt hurt and humiliated. I thought you liked me from the way you approached me and the way you looked at me. Maybe I’m a fool for feeling that way. But now I feel like you’re a coward for not telling me about Carol, feel like you’re a liar for mentioning her as a friend. I knew about her all along from the start but I hanged in there cos I wasn’t sure about your relationship with her. Now from what I saw today, I think she’s more than a friend. I feel like a third wheel.

From: Jhoke
I’m so jealous because you’re so sweet together. Where should I be? Why do you want to keep me or just because it makes you feel good to have someone being crazy about you? I like you a lot. I even told my friend about you. She asked what if you want to keep both Caroll and me and I said I’ll go with it. But now I’m not so sure because 3 wheels may work but only if all the wheels have honesty with eachother. I like you a lot and I’m seeing anybody else. But I had to leave to for a friend because I can’t seeing you and her that way.

From: Jhoke
Now I don’t know what to do. I wish I can turn cold shoulder, but I don’t wanna do that and I can’t.

To Jhoke: Just woke up. I am sorry that you are hurt but how was I supposed to know, I only see you as a friend because I do not like guys that way, I’m sorry if you thought differently- can we just be friends?

From: JhokeDeal! Feeling much better now. So I’ve been a jerk the whole time. But that’s good to know really. This is very embarrassing. If you tell anyone I’ll fucking kill you!

To Jhoke: Mai ben rai.

Me and Jason talked it over and he is officially crazy. This is me and Jason’s view of the story.
Joke had asked if I wanted to go eat somewhere and I agreed. But I didn’t tell him I was going to bring along Jason and Carol, which since I thought we were just friends then this would be no problem. So we decided to meet somewhere and when we met up he seemed fine with it and he and carol had met before so they talked as me and Jason walked behind them until we got to the restaurant. First off, to inform you me and Carol are just friends and even Jason agreed we were acting just as friends do. But it was obvious that Joke was delirous in his own passions and assumed things that made his feelings worse, I mean I hardly paid attention to Carol that whole night, I sat next to Joke at dinner and Jason sat next to Carol. We were just a group of friends hanging out with no woes whatsoever, or so I thought. There really was no indication that Joke liked me before and I am mad that he would just assume that I knew, I mean how can you assume something like that. We had met when I arrived in Thailand because he worked in the international office and I saw him a lot. He’s a cool Thai guy, and funny and showed me and Jason around our first weeks here. So I kept stopping in to say hi and see if he wanted to get lunch and just normal friendly relationships. He is 25 and had graduated with a computer engineering degree, and speaks perfect English. So we had known each other for a while and although I had heard some vague rumor that he was gay, I really paid no attention to it because people throw gay around so much you don’t know what to make of it. I mean I have met some gay guys in the past and they all are nice but you know that they are gay. Joke on the other hand, as far as I could tell, was far from gay because he randomly made heterosexual references, as most guys do. So I didn’t even slightly suspect it, although I don’t assess the sexual preference of every one I meet. They are what they are, I never would have thought that I had a gay friend they could be attracted me. So that was where my problem started, I suppose. So we are now enjoying the dinner, with all the normal conversation. We finish and try to decide where to go next, it had started raining so walking anywhere was out of the question. I suggested we go to Central, a big shopping mall, and play some video games just to pass the time. They all were ok with that so we took a taxi over there. We got to the games floor and played a few games, got split up and were on our own for a bit. When I found Carol and Jason they said that Joke had left to go see a friend. This seemed a bit odd that he would just leave and not say anything to me, but I didn’t make much of it and shrugged it off. We walked around some more and then decided to go back home because we really had nothing to do. And that was it, that was the extent of the evening. Now how do those messages relate to this, well that’s exactly it. He seems to be living in denial about something and I guess he felt betrayed that I didn’t talk to him more or spend more time with him. He was more than likely jealous that I didn’t come on to him any way. I really don’t know but it was obvious that he had some mental lapse and just wanted to tell me how he felt. So I don’t blame him at all but his messages attacked me personally and there was anger in his tone. This mad me mad a bit, because he never made any reference to liking me and never came on to me as far as I could tell, so he just assumed I knew and if I knew then why was I acting the way I was. That’s what happens when you assume I guess, you make an ASS out of U and ME. After I read the messages I was shocked and flustered, I didn’t know what to think, if he was playing some sick joke or not. But I showed Jason and he said that Moo, one of our friends and Joke’s close friend, told him that Joke was gay and that he liked me. Whoha! Hold on a second, Jason knew and he never hinted to me about it, man did I feel out of the loop. But it really has nothing to do with Jason so he is safe on this one. Now that I look back and try to figure this out, I can see that he did have his ways of showing that he liked me. I mean he always wanted to get lunch or dinner with me, he just wanted to come over to hang out and “see” me, and that one time he took my shoes home instead of his own. So yeah if I look at it as he is gay then yeah it might seem that he liked me, but I just thought he was a friend that wanted to hang out and we got along well. Now I have to face the awkwardness of talking to him like none of this happened. It’s hard but I think we can just be friends, dang what is it with me….

October 9, 2004
I can’t help but feel that sometimes when I go outside into the city of Bangkok that I am not actually outside at all. It is a strange feeling; it is not the normal feeling of open air and trees, the feeling of being outside. There is so much concrete and buildings and overpasses that you feel continually boxed in, not to the point of claustrophobia, but as if I was in a large container. It is like the feeling of walking into a huge cave, where you know you are walled in by rocks, but feel the emptiness of the space as something vast. It is this feeling but in reverse. You are actually outside, no doubt, but the outdoors are nowhere to be seen. You walk down the sidewalk, with roads to the side of you and on top of you, with rare glimpses of the sky. But this still feels as though you are not quite outside. You are in some weird transmission from a smaller building, where the walls are closer to you, to a larger space that can’t really be classified as the outdoors as there are walls still surrounding you. Bangkok has this feeling eighty percent of the time and I sometimes have to travel out of the city to feel like I’m outside. As much as I love nature, I can put up with this feeling, simply because it’s new and interesting. There does come a point where frustration and all the loud noises peak and I must get out of this giant shopping mall, Bangkok.

October 21 – 26
Phuket, an island really down south, is the setting for the largest vegetarian festival in Thailand. It lasts 9 days and started on 13 of October. This, I have to say, is my favorite time. Throughout Thailand as a whole, many places hang up banners and have special dishes just for this time of year, where most Buddhist strictly observe the precepts and eat a vegetarian diet for the 9 days. In Bangkok there are many stalls and street vendors selling special vegetarian foods, and I was excited to try as much as I could while it lasted. The banners are yellow with red writing, this symbolizes that they sell veg food, so this was aim, wherever there were banners I could order anything and not have to worry about what was in it. So Phuket is the place where they have the most interesting spectacles in all of Thailand. I had read that they have parades with men testing and ‘purifying’ themselves by walking over hot coals and piercing their faces with large bamboo poles. Naturally, I couldn’t hold myself back from going to see this festival with my own eyes.Another thing I must tell, Meaghan decided to come and visit me and I said it would be alright, I mean I wanted her too as she wanted to see me too. So it was decided that she would come and spend a few weeks with me during the time of my birthday. So I planned this trip to Phuket as I would have to miss a few days of classes, but it was also during a week where we had a 3 day weekend due to King Rama V’s death anniversary which lies on the same day as my birthday, Oct 23. Meaghan arrived the 16th, the same day that I got back from a art and architecture class trip to several Khmer temples, one being slightly in Cambodia. So I got back at around 9pm and then had to get to the airport at around 11:30 to pick up Meaghan. Ok so she’s here now.We left to go to Phuket at around 7pm on Thursday the 21st, in a ‘VIP’ bus which was pretty nice and we were able to tolerate the long trip of 14 some odd hours. Once we arrived in the area the bus stopped at Surat Thani, a province 4 hours away from the island itself. We got transferred to a ‘minibus’, which was just an uncomfortable van that fit about 10 people plus the driver. So this bus headed towards Phuket and we arrived in the central town of Phuket at about noon on Friday. This place was the ‘travel agency’ that would take us in the van to wherever we were going, which I didn’t know…I wanted to stay in Phuket town for a day to see the festivals, but the lady said that that would be expensive and most of the hotels are already booked. So she suggested Patong beach, which is where most of the tourists go, and they have cheap places to stay. She suggested renting a moped to ride into town at night to see the festival. It seemed our options were limited so we just went with the flow and paid the extra 100B to get to Patong beach, and we would see what happens from there. We got dropped off at a place on the map the lady said had cheap accommodations, we walked down the nearest alley and to the end to a place called “Touch Villa”. We asked about a room, and it was 300B a night, so that’s pretty cheap; we decided to unload our stuff there and get the room. After dropping our stuff off we walked around the area, which was highly developed for tourists. There were tons of bars on every street, along with the standard ‘Thai’ shop for souvenirs. We got to the beach in about 4mins and were bombarded with people trying to sell us things such as renting a jet ski, parasailing, and even renting a lounge chair on the beach. Walking down the beach, it was nice to see sand and water and palm/coconut trees, but there were too many boats and jet skis in the water for it to be relaxing. We walked for a bit then headed back and I stopped at a place to rent a scooter. It took me a while to get the cheapest price, and my Thai came in handy, especially when they realized I was from Thammasat, so they gave me a ‘manual’ bike for 150B for 24hrs. The manual is clutchless, you just have to shift with your foot, and it was a 125cc, if I can remember correctly. I was a bit nervous driving around on real roads with the Thai, but I got the hang of it, just go wherever you can go and try not to get hurt. We only had one helmet, for it is only required for the driver to wear one, so I drove causelessly, at first. We settled back to the Touch Villa, and took a rest for a bit, and by this time it was getting late so we headed toward Phuket town where the festival would be going on and we could get some good vegetarian food. We got on the motorcycle and I triple checked the map I had on how to get to the town, the road signs were hard to read and very ambiguous in the direction they were pointing. I drove around and up and down the mountains and around the sharp curves and finally made it to the general area of the town. I didn’t know exactly where to go, but we saw a lot of people wearing white (as is the custom for the vegetarian festival), so we followed them to a Chinese temple, where there was stalls lined down the street selling all sorts of vegetarian goodies. I parked the bike and we walked around and center was the temple with kids shooting off fire crackers and many people making offerings. This area had a good feel about it, fused with vegetarian energy and merrymaking, it sharply instilled in me a surreal feeling of finally being outside Bangkok for one, and also the amazing realization of where I am…Thailand. We walked and took several pictures, grabbed some snacks from various vendors and then decided to check out other parts of the town. We got on and followed some more white clothed cyclists to the southern tip of the town, which backs up to a the ocean, alongside the harbor and bay area. There was another Chinese temple, this one was more out in the open, and only 200 yards from the beach. There were many people here also, and there was a gathering around the front of the temple, so me and meg went to check it out. We managed to get into viewing distance, as many locals were smiling at us and allowing for us to get closer and see the ‘Thai’ ways and traditions. There was a large pole in the center, made from a coconut tree, which people were stacking on top of. There was a small to large arrangement of them, from a small kid of only 2 or 3 years old to a large and bulky man supporting all the weight at the bottom. They had climbed to the top of the pole and were sitting on top of each others shoulders, 5 in all, and we watched the whole process in the silent tension of the whole crowd. After the feat was accomplished they slowly reversed the process and all got down safe and without incident. Next there was the youngest kid, and a 20 year old, climbing to the top and preparing for another trick. We watched and the kid was raised to the top and the guy spun around and did a few aerobatics, then dropped the kid off the pole! With a gasp of us onlookers we then saw he had tied a rope to his ankle and the boy was stopped a foot or two before hitting the people below, it was a crowd teaser and everyone sighed in relief, the kid was pulled back up and then he waved to the applauding crowd, ha, it certainly made me jump a bit. After this, the crowd disbanded and walked toward the beach where there were men in a long Chinese dragon, and they paraded along with fire spitting out of the paper dragons mouth and danced with the background drumbeat. All these festivities were definitely exciting but didn’t compare to the parade that came later. After it seemed like there was no more events we went back to the bike and headed down the main road back to town. There were many people parked and sitting along side the road, so we figured that the parade would be going down this road. We found a good spot and parked along the other 500 motorbikes to get a good view. It was about 9is then, and we sat around for awhile without anything really going on. Everyone had fireworks, they were selling them all along side the road, and even little kids were lighting them off and throwing them at each other. It was a kind of waiting for the parade and everyone was having fun trying to scare their friends and random people by covertly dropping a lit firecracker by the feet of the victim and walking away with a grin awaiting the “Pop! Pop-pop!” and accompanying screams. This happened a few times to me and Meaghan, as we thought would because there were only a few foreigners to be seen, so we did stick out a bit. It was good fun and all and we were amused watching everyone trying to get each other. Though it did hurt, there were like the wildcats, or little TNT fireworks, and they were loud too. These went on for about an hour and a half until the parade started coming down the street. Now we didn’t really have a clue what was going to happen, I had read that they perform feats of pain to ‘purify’ themselves and had seen pictures of people with rods through their faces so I was half expecting something gruesome. When the first group of people came by, about 12, they were marching half naked while everyone in the crowds of people threw fireworks at them! They walked normally while the explosions took place all over their bodies and we could barely see the people behind the fiery mass around them. This was the loudest part, our ears were constantly ringing and, I being close to the street so to get good pictures, felt some of the explosions and some wandering firecrackers that were thrown poorly. These groups of people came in groups ever 5 minutes or so and there were little stations where they were burning incense and had tea and other things for the people to stop and eat at to get refreshed, but this didn’t stop people from still throwing firecrackers at them. This went on for about an hour and finally towards the end a mass of people came down the street and everyone knelt down and stopped the madness for a bit, following them was a truck with bright lights and music playing. After they had passed I took a look at the streets and they were covered with red paper and debris from the explosions. There were still a few people trickling by and the excitement dwindled with a few ‘Pop-Pop’s here and there. We were pretty tired by then and it was about 11:30 so we hopped on the bike and cruised out of there avoiding people still throwing their remaining fireworks in the road. The smoke of the festivities still lingered and it created a warm glow that easily looked how I felt inside. We scooted out of town into the darkness of the outskirts and back through the hills to another glow of our brightly lit beach. Once we arrived back to our hut, the whole day of traveling and bus riding finally caught up with us and we were beat. By then it was past 12 and Meaghan wished me a happy birthday and we fell asleep in the hut on the island of Phuket, Thailand.The following days we did a lot. The rented bike got good use, and we also got some good sunburn. Saturday we took the bike around the southern tip of the island to the zoo, at first, but the price was 500B to see some cruelly trained animals do tricks and this wasn’t what we had hoped. So we continued down the road in the glairing sun with the salty air breathing for us, we went to Phromthep Cape, where there was a “view point” with an amazing view. We were on an outcropping elevated above some hundred meters, and we could see the rocky coast and some further islands. There were lots of little shops catering to tourists and Meaghan found some selling pearls, and they were extremely cheap since we were getting them closer to the source, she bought a shiny round strand for 400B, about $10 but would probably easily sell for over a hundred American dollars. From there we continued up the coast and decided we needed to jump into the ocean to cool off so we followed signs to Kata Noi Beach. We go to the beach area which was mainly undeveloped and we enjoyed some peace in the crystal clear waters, where you could be up to your neck and still see the hairs on your toes, if you have hair on your toes; you could see Meaghan’s foot tattoo clearly. On the beach were a couple of tourists and one lay walking around topless, me and meg couldn’t help but look and laugh a bit at the spectacle. After we cooled off we drove back north up the coast to our beach and I had to return the bike by 4pm. So after we dropped off the bike we went back to our place and rested a bit then went to get some food and my “birthday dinner”, I had Pat Thai of course and we got some….you guessed it, fried bananas with ‘honey flavored syrup’. Meg paid for us and it was a birthday I wont forget, simply because I got to share my Thailand experience with Meaghan on my 21st birthday, I really don’t feel any older, if anything I feel younger. Well after we ate we just walked around and enjoyed the sights and avoiding the people trying to sell us fake designer bags and sunglasses. We went to bed to see what the next day would bring. It was Sunday morning and we had agreed to move up north to a quieter beach and see more of the island. We checked out and paid 600B total for 2 nights. We walked out and down the street with a faint idea that we wanted to go to Bang Thao Beach. We walked and then just kept walking out of the town and down the road leading towards that beach, I knew it was far but had no idea how long it would take to get there. We walked up hills and around the coast and kept walking with little rests here and there. After about an hour and a half Meaghan had to really use the bathroom, we were really on an unpopulated road and I didn’t know what to suggest except to just go in the trees behind a rock or something, so we walked a bit more but she decided to be one with nature and just go. So after she came back out of the forest we walked for about 30 seconds and saw a small restaurant across the street with a bathroom behind it, ha, so we laughed at this but all was good, it worked out anyway. So we continued walking some more and after 2 hours of walking I checked the map and we were almost halfway there. This got a little tiring for the both of us, as I was carrying both of our backpacks. So eventually a nice local pulled over and asked where we were going and I said the area, and it turned out that’s where they lived and took us to the cheapest bungalow on the beach. We thanked him and it turned out he was a private taxi driver anyway and he gave us his card but didn’t charge us anything. We went to the front desk and got the rate of 400B a night, for it was the end of the low season. We were feeling the walk and just collapsed on the bed for a while, then took to the beach. I also wanted to rent a motorbike in this area but all the places were expensive. We walked down the small road a bit, where there was really nothing, a few shops and 2 restaurants in the whole area. We waked by a sign that said bike for rent and I asked a guy about it, he said to come back in an hour but the rate was 250B for a day, which was 100B more than yesterday. We decided to walk further but about 3 minutes later the guy we had just talked to came zooming up in a shiny new white Honda with the contract and all, so I just agreed and we hopped on and took off leaving the guy to walk back. I had to find a place to get gas as he gave us the bike with it on Empty. So after I filled up for 80B we toured the unpopulated areas, with many water buffalo and rice patties and local shacks and towns. I got lost a bit, and it was hard to find our way back to our secluded beach but I eventually found it. We parked the bike and went for a dip in the ocean and rested on the beach. We got cleaned up and took the bike again to find a place to eat because all the ones close by were extremely expensive, for tourists, but it was hard to find vegetarian anywhere so we decided on a western style place in a town up the road, Meaghan had spaghetti and I had fried rice with vegetables. By this time it was night and the air was much cooler, it felt good to ride the bike and follow the curves of the road by the small light on the front of our bike. I know now that I have to get a motorcycle when I get back, I love that feeling and before I even rode I knew I’d love it, it’s the feeling that the driver and the “outside” are one, or that you are not separated or “shielded” from reality - and it was even amplified with Meaghan holding on to me and trusting me with her life, ha! I don’t think she had ever rode on one before and she was scared for the first day or so, but I think she ended up enjoying it just as much as I did. After getting back from riding around, it was dark, and we just enjoyed being where we were, I found that it was so relaxing that I wanted to sleep, and so we did. The next day we followed my big cartoon tourist map to a national park on the island, where there was a waterfall and gibbon rehabilitation center. It took a good 20 minutes to get there, but it was all country scenery and the sun created another perfect day. We got to the park, had to pay 200B each, and drove along a small curvy road that was lined with deep green trees which dropped shade on us (greatly lowing the outside temperature), and the tropical forest was slowly becoming evident. We parked the bike in the lot, and walked up to the Gibbon Rehabilitation center. A guy and a girl, obviously not thai, greeted us in English. They were volunteering in that program from wherever they were from, England or Australia, and explained what the project was all about. The gibbons are protected animals for they were slowly becoming extinct due to people wanting them as pets or show animals. They would often kill whole families just to get the babies, which were then easier to train and adapt to being around humans, but also being in a cage. Many people would take them around for tourists to get their pictures taken with them, and this is one of the many problems that plagues the program today…anyway a gibbon is a primate, you know a monkey, in case you were wondering. We got the basic tour and got to see some of them energetically swinging back and fourth and running about in their cages up along the hillside, where they would progress and be introduced into a “gibbon family” and eventually be released back in the wild. Me and Meg got matching t-shirts and then followed the hiking trail up the mountain to see the main waterfall. It was really humid, as you can imagine in a tropical forest, but it was a good kind of sweat, or at least I thought so. The jungle ignites something in me, and I couldn’t help but stop and stare at the long green bamboo along the trail. With the long vines and meandering tree stumps I contemplated swinging from branch to branch while beating on my chest, I wanted to find some bananas most of all, and prove that I could survive in these here woods. But we continued on dodging fallen trees and overhanging spiky things. Alas we reached the cool mist of the falling waterfall!, well it wasn’t so impressive but certainly a site to see. It fell into a clear pool, where rocks pushed its flow back down the mountain. There were people sitting about, and some swimming in the area. The trail continued up the mountain, but I was unsure weather it was a trail at all because no one else really seemed to be going further. Then we saw two people grab a hold and just go up my suspected trail, so we followed them, hoping that if it the trail would suddenly fall off a cliff, they would go screaming down and we would therefore be warned. But, this never happened and it just relentlessly went onward and we were just consumed in forest. It got to the point were we would have to just turn around because further wondering would just increase the time to get back and it had already be over an hour. It looked the same in front of us as it did behind, deep green with sparkles of sun filtering through the high bamboo leaves and elder trees. I had half expected to see some “wildlife”, you know monkeys or maybe even a tiger as I had read the park does contain a good population of them, but the most we saw was a backing lizard that was soon frightened away. We trekked back down the mountain and this is where I got to try some branch swinging, as they helped me get down the more steeper parts. We eventually got back to where we had parked the motorbike, and decided to eat at the little open air restaurant, also right at the bottom. After this I headed out and back to the country road, but still heading north, but the road curved around and I had planned to stop at a Wat of some recognition, as it was colorfully noted on my map. It was Wat Phra Thong which according to my guide book: “Wat Phra Thong is built around an unusual gold-leaf Buddha image, half buried in the ground. Legend says that whoever tries to remove it will die.” So we entered into the monastery, which had the same calm atmosphere as most did, but with a tropical sent of course. The sun was still beaming and we were ever the more sunburned. We walked to the Wihan (main building where the Buddha image was situated) and took observance of the few practitioners there. We walked in and looked around, and I took special note of Meaghan’s reactions as I think it was the first temple she had been in. I think she felt uncomfortable a bit, but was secure in knowing that I was relaxed as it really is not a problem for anyone to just walk in. The temples are for the people, and though people get down on their knees in some areas and it is sacred, it has a welcoming feel and you are supposed to feel safe. It did take me awhile, after I first got here, to realize this and after talking with Thais, they don’t mind foreigners, or rather tourists, at all coming in as long as they are respectful and not boisterous or distracting. After leaving the Wihan, we walked around the other buildings and bought popsicles from a lady, she was quite the savior as she offered some weapon to attack the encroaching heat. We sat in the shade and ate them, but we had to do it quickly because they melted easily in the tropical air. After feeling cleansed and replenished, we hoped on the white Honda and headed back to Bang Thao Beach. The road that goes in front of our bungalow continues past to open fields and water buffalo, knowing that I had two more hours until I had to return the bike, I kept going past the entrance down the road. I didn’t really know where we were going, but I just wanted to keep riding, and we got turned around with the farmland and rising land in the background. We had been riding for a bit and I was looking for a way to go back when there was a random bout of rain, just falling out of the clear blue sky. This lasted for 5 minutes or so, then back to the regular heat, except you could feel the water evaporating from the black road underneath us. Then as we were coming around a corner, the bike slowly started going in a direction that I didn’t want it to go, mainly out from under us. It just tipped and slid out from under us on the newly slick road. We were left sliding on pavement as the bike went slightly further across the other lane, luckily I had been only going about 30 miles an hour and we were able to stand up, but not without being slightly confused as to what had just happened. We checked ourselves, and noted the left sides of our bodies where we had made contact: no profuse bleeding, able to move without significant pain, all extremities still attached…check, check , check. I headed for the bike while Meaghan picked up our scattered items that had been in the front basket of the bike. It took me awhile to get it in neutral and wheel it out of the way, all the while people were yelling at us to hurry up and get out of the road, ahh the frustrations of tourists. I looked around, although still flustered, I noticed a family just staring at us, and then checked the bike for any damage. Nope all parts still there, hop on Meaghan – zoom, and we were down the road again with the wind stinging our recently acquired souvenirs. Meaghan got the brunt of it, or maybe I was just wearing more clothes than her, but she had arm, elbow, knee, and multiple toe damage, while I just had scrapes on my elbow and arm, and some road rash on my back/shoulder, she toughed it out though and I was proud of her. Although the responsibility had finally hit me and I couldn’t help but feel awful and guilty for it, even though I hadn’t been totally reckless I still felt it could have been avoided, but, they say experience is the best teacher. We managed to find the way back to our hut and we attended to our wounds. I went out and tried to clean up the bike a bit, and I knew he would notice the scratches because it was a brand new bike. The front fender had a noticeable, but not hideous, scratch the revealed the black plastic under the white paint. The left handle bar had scratched along the pavement, so metal was worn off a bit there, and the mirror had tiny scratches on the back plastic. Other than that it was fine, and I thought there would have been more damage. Then I finally decided to take it back, wondering what the leaser would say or even notice. He was waiting when me and Meaghan pulled up, just down the street from where we were staying. We stepped off and then he took few looks at the bike. He said “did you have and accident”, “nid noi” I said, which means just a little. He had a frown on his face, and one of his friends came and joined us. He began assessing the damage and how much it would cost him to get fixed, but really the bike was fine the way it was and there was no harm done, honestly. But he still insisted, he said in addition to the 250B rental, he wanted 500B more. We went on for a few minutes, with me persuading him that I didn’t have all that money any how. I explained how the accident happened, and no other people were involved. All the while more locals began gathering, an older man, which I perceived to be a relative of the leaser who by the way was a young guy probably 24 or so. They had discussions in Thai that I was able to get pieces from and interject a “may dai” (I can’t) or “sam sip dai mai?”…offering him 300 total. The old man persuaded talked to him more, and it seemed to be a deep discussion because they had also noticed the injuries which we had incurred, and I think the elder thought that these were enough payment for the scratches on the bike, but anyhow, I made a final offer of 400 and he reluctantly took it, the total sum of $10, which included the rental fee. So I was down a few hundred but it didn’t cause too much of a problem, and although I did fee bad I thought that he would still be able to make money renting the bike with or without the scratches. The old man made us too shake hands in the end, and the dispute was finished. I walked away grinning at the whole situation and I think Meaghan just didn’t follow the whole argument but was glad it was over. We walked back to our bungalow and took our towels to the beach to lay down and absorb the day. We wanted to go in the water but our open wounds would only allow 5 minutes or so until the pain surpassed the enjoyment of the warm water. We rested on the beach some and then took a walk looking for shells and such. We found 3 “wild” hermit crabs, “wild” because I had never seen them on any beach before, not even back home. Meaghan picked some good shells and even found a really cool one, a spiral with spikes but a few minutes later with it in her hand it started moving around, ha, it turned out to be another hermit crab and she had just not noticed. On the way back I found a plastic bottle and was able to get some sand and find another hermit crab and take him back to our room. He’s a small guy, with a grey and dark red swirly shell. We got our stuff together and agreed that we would leave tomorrow, and head back to Bangkok.The next day, Tuesday Oct 25, we ate breakfast at our resort and then checked out of the front desk. The lady was kind enough to ask where we were going and how we would get there. I told her we were headed to Phuket town to the main bus station. She hollered to the back a got us a ride to the main road where we could take the local “bus” to Phuket town, about 20 minutes away. I say “bus” because it was just a large truck with the back having 2 benches on either side and also a permanent wooden canopy. It cost us 40B to get to the station where it took a while, but I got us tickets for second class back to Bangkok for 389B each. It was about 12:30 or so and the bus didn’t leave until 4:20, so we had a lot of time for a lot of nothing. We walked around outside then after that got too hot, we went to a café up stairs and sat for an hour or so. Then we checked our bags with the lady, so we could go get some real food before we got on the bus. We walked down the street, then found a decent cheap place and filled up for the long bus ride home. We managed to get back just on time and hopped on the bus at 4:20, where we were quickly placed in the last row, and I noticed we were the only foreigners. The bus was filled up to capacity, and we even picked up random people who had to fill the bed in the back and one old man had to sit on a stool in the middle of the aisle. On the way back we stop at several “rest stops” where we can go to the bathroom and also buy small snacks and drinks. At one of the stops, at about 1 in the morning, I went to the 7-11 to get stuff, it didn’t take long, but as I was coming out the bus was already pulling out so I ran and knocked on the door just in time, and they let me in and I took my seat in the back where Meaghan had wide eyes wondering if I would be lost forever or not. This was the only happening worth mentioning on the way back, besides the intermittent sleep and bumps it was a fairly normal ride. We got back to Bangkok at around 6:30am Weds. morning. We took another city bus for 5 minutes back to my apartment, woke up Jason while coming in but then we went to sleep. It was hard to readjust due to the morning hours and Bangkok atmosphere. I still have that hermit crab, I wonder if he can make it back to America?, well that is another saga to be continued.

November 12, 2004
I saw a strange thing this day, it is graphic, but worth mentioning. Apparently a male dog was trying to mate with a female, and they had somehow ended up backwards. Now…hear me out on this one. They were in the middle of the sidewalk and several other people were staring at the conundrum, so don’t take me as a pervert or anything of the like. Ok, so the female was lying on her back, with all fours up in the air. For directional purposes lets say her head was facing south, ok got it? Female, on back, all fours in the air, facing south. The male was standing, quite awkwardly, facing NORTH, over the lower half of the female, with his…um…organ inside her organ…struggling to get it out. So basically he was trying to escape by hopping, but he was stuck inside while the female just lay there bouncing about. Now to make it even stranger, another male (dog, just to clarify) was sticking his snout in that area in conflict, and the two males were growling at each other showing their threatening teeth. So, yeah, it just doesn’t happen in the human world anymore, dogs too are being caught “in the act” while having an affair. Just a beautiful mental picture of the Bangkok I see everyday.

Hey, i recently met the owner and operater of this site: http://www.happycow.org . He was in one of my favorite vegetarian resturants here in bangkok and we got to talking and he goes around the world looking for vegetarian resturants...check out the site. it has lots of good info!...P.S. i will be updating with some better entries that are saved on my laptop soon...

I was just asked by Jason (my roommate) about this “Save The Humans organization” that he saw me looking at on the internet. “What are they about, what is their objective?” he said, and it really quite numbed me because I don’t know what it is about at all. I just said that I really don’t know what their purpose is, just trying to improve human life and helping people see the world in a different light I suppose. I did not feel that it was in me to tell him that it is my website or that it had to anything to do with me at all, because I don’t see it as something that I do. I think that these words help me just as much as anyone else who reads them. Would I be wrong to say ‘yeah it’s my website and I write a lot, you should check it out sometime’? This just feels weird for me and I never have really promoted myself in such a manner before and wasn’t about to, this is me for anyone who knows me. I would rather remain nameless and unrecognized than to be put up on stage for people to praise or to criticize. So I have never been asked this directly before, where I had to contemplate a purpose or the meaning of Save The Humans. What I simply try to do help others, offer a word or some piece of mind that there is something that we all share. We all have this knowledge but some of us are not ready to see it, while others are momentarily distracted. I, too, am on this search and just relay stories and insights that have come to me and need to be passed along and written down for my own improvement. I even feel comfortable saying that there really is no purpose at all, it is what it is, and if I tried I would never make any sense at all and wouldn’t be human. It just is.


I have this head full of ideas and beautiful things and I want to write them down but when it comes time to sit in front of the screen and flow all these thoughts and images through my fingers into the key board then on to the screen, I look at what I have written and think well that’s not it at all, not even close. And I can’t try hard enough because none of it can come close to what’s flying through my head second by second and I just feel there is no point in trying because the words can never be what is actually there, no matter how hard I try they can’t add up to satisfy me. And by the time I coherently put a sentence together that I am alright with, so much more has come and gone and slipped through my filtering net that it seems that no one can ever know the extent of a galloping mind. No one can relate how their butterfly flies. No one can fully share the feeling of the inspiring wind sweeping through the wheat fields of the mind. No one can explain the miracles that sprout instantaneously within their own blood brain barrier. These vessels can never fully escape without somehow being dismantled and broken down, so we don’t know what piece went where and can never properly relate their original construction. This is the mountain that deters me every time, but yet I strive to conquer it.

Walking Meditation in a Buddhist Mind
We must keep in mind that the first step to walking must not be influenced by purpose. If indeed we have a destination let the destination come to you rather than going to it and missing the ten thousand things in between. The virtue that must be focused upon, and is in fact the essence of walking, is mindfulness. Why do we do the things we do, if we really do them at all. We do not beat our hearts or grow our hair, it is just a function of our being. However, one of the main concepts of Buddhism is the realization of non-self (anatta). For those not familiar with these concepts, it can be broken down to simple grasping, grasping at the world and at ourselves as beings. For we must realize that this grasping is indeed the cause of all our suffering and disharmony (dukkha). Walking anywhere at anytime can be a type of meditation. It is the practice of mindfulness, insight, and non-self. With every step we can cultivate a tranquil mind, be one with the world around us, be “awakened” to reality, and not feel any suffering or attachment. And how do we do this you might ask. Well I can but only relate my own experiences from walking and knowledge of the dharma as I have learned in my short but insightful studies. So here we go, out on a walk and what is it that we are actually thinking, are we just buying time until we get there? Isn’t this just a waste of life, still living in ignorance and dwelling introvertly amongst our own problems, problems which really don’t exist at all. To be mindful is to know reality, to hear and see what is actually going on without your interpretation. Once we interpret something, some action, in terms of ‘I’ then it is not actually that ‘thing’ anymore. So this walking is entangled with the observing of all natural phenomena, through the faces of passing people or the breeze that kisses you. Once we are able to notice these things around us, the happenings as it were, we can start on the path of being mindful. I like to place my consciousness in my feet and toes, instead of the blackness behind my eyes and between my ears. For are my feet not as aware as my eyes? This is another way of looking at things, and there is really no direct way of doing it, it is simply feeling just as conscious in the every movement of my feet as every thought in my head. Now we are getting somewhere, and it is amazing how much we can learn through this new perspective. If you are able to walk without noticing yourself than you are simply free, in all sense of the word, moksha (liberation) from samsara (cycle of life and suffering, birth-suffering-death-rebirth). Although I do not want to oversimplify it. I wish to talk about walking merely as a tool to liberation, one of many. With walking we can meditate, be in the moment of every step and yet still have a direction in mind. I have felt many times that I have walked quickly, to where I needed to go, and then noticed that when I got there I feel cheated out of the amount of time it took me to arrive. Those fifteen minutes or so can be put to use, or as I like to feel we can actually live continuously instead of intermittently achieving goals and then setting new ones for the future. It is just like listening to music. We don’t start a song with the goal to finish it, we listen to it and enjoy every moment of it. While walking to somewhere we are acting out of mainly ego, as in we need to go somewhere to get this and do this. Our ego must be understood as something really quite non existent, and only a false sense of the world. So our goal is to forget that we ever knew it in the first place. This is one of the main reasons for meditation, it is contemplation of the things we think we know, but really don’t know at all. We can treat sitting meditation the same as walking or any other action we do. What I mean to say is that it is just like any other action we do, if we do them in right action, for the right reasons (no ‘I’ involved) then they are perfect in themselves. So walking is particularly beautiful when looked at in this sense, for when we set out somewhere we can never know what will happen or what we will see or who we may meet along the way. It is the discovery of the unknown and an adventure in itself. Traveling this way is a pure human action, and a defining a characteristic that I believe is loosing its tradition. We are slowing becoming much like the machines we create and are being controlled through automated processes, while loosing the human quality of life. If we can walk with human purity, loving the dust under our feet and emitting the radiance of non-self, then we can slowly understand that this moment is it, we have all that we need, and to grasp for more means to suffer more.

Unfinished
The world is blind and I am its seeing eye dog.
If I am as ignorant as I think, is that ignorance after all?
I say I want to escape into reality, but reality can never be escaped
It does have the answers and I have the questions, isn’t that fitting?
But can I be so bold as to listen for the answers,
When I know we can’t be taught that way
How can I invite change, but ask it to wait at the door,
Yet it does, watching me put on my shoes like I need to go somewhere
But after all we all live in the marshmallows of our own brain
Sitting on overstuffed skin
Watching through our eyes a movie of the world
Where do we go after the credits roll through?

Teachings of the Buddha compiled by Paul Carus.
“And the Bodhisatta went to the priests officiating in the temples. But the gentle mind of the Sakyamuni (Bodhisatta) was offended at the unnecessary cruelty performed on the altars of the gods. He said:
Ignorance only can make these men prepare festivals and hold vast meetings for sacrifices. Far better to revere the truth than to try to appease the gods by shedding blood.
What love can a man possess who believes that the destruction of life will atone for evil deeds? Can a new wrong expiate old wrongs! And can the slaughter of an innocent victim blot out the evil deeds of mankind? This is practicing religion by the neglect of moral conduct.
Purify your hearts and cease to kill; that is true religion.
Rituals have no efficacy; prayers are vain repetitions; and incantations have no saving power. But to abandon covetousness and lust, to become free from evil passions, and to give up all hatred and ill will, that is the right sacrifice and the true worship.”

“Though many births I sought in vain
The builder of this house of pain.
Now, builder, thee I plainly see!
This is the last abode for me.
Thy gable’s yoke and rafters broke,
My heart has peace. All lust will cease.”

“How blest in happy solitude
Are they who hear of truth the call!
How blest to be both kind and good,
To practice self-restraint to all!
How blest from passions to be free,
All sensuous joys to let pass by!
Yet highest bliss enjoyeth they
Who quit the pride of I am I.”

The Sermon on Abuse
The blessed one observed the ways of society and noticed how much misery came from malignity and foolish offences done only to gratify vanity and self-seeking pride.
And the Buddha said: “If someone foolishly does me wrong, I will return to that person the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from such a person, the more good shall go from me; the fragrance of goodness always comes to me, and the harmful air of evil goes to that person.”
A foolish man learning that the Buddha observed the principle of great love which commends the return of good for evil, came and abused him. The Buddha was silent, pitying his folly.
When the man had finished his abuse, the Buddha asked him, saying: “If a man declined to accept a present made to hi, to whom would it belong?” And he answered: “In that case it would belong to the man who offered it.”
The Buddha said, “You have railed at me, but I decline to accept your abuse, and request you keep it yourself. Wit it not be a source of misery to you? As the echo belongs to the sound, and the shadow to the substance, so misery will overtake the evildoer without fail.”
The abuser made no reply, and the Buddha continued: “An evil person who reproaches a virtuous one is like one who looks up and spits at heaven; the spittle soils not the heaven, but comes back and defiles the person.
“The slanderer is like one who flings dust at another when the wind is contrary; the dust does but return on the one who threw it. The virtuous cannot be hurt and the misery that the other would inflict comes back on the slanderer.”
The abuser went away ashamed, but he came again and took refute in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
-------------
Much of Buddhism is universal, if you read these passages in the context of your own religion – Christianity to Islam- and take them to heart, then they can only do good and help you to your own spiritual goals. As I read much of the Buddhist scriptures and teachings it reminds me much of Jesus’ words and the parables in the bible. Yet it is the example that matters and how we take it in and relate it to our own life. There is wisdom in it all if you choose to look...

So I have been finding this day by day and I don't know how I hadn't seen it before. Thailand has been awesome and I am evermore excited, hopped up and ready to go whever the land calls for me. Its hard to sleep at night, not hard, just that I don't want to miss a single moment. I read a lot and cant get enough, I feel that I cant get enough. I have been slowly writing in the "thailand journel" but have also started a sketch book of day to day sights and feelings, pocket size, and last weekend when I was at Ko Sichang, there was a crowd of tuk-tuk drivers watching me drawl one of the tuk-tuks, laughing and all excited like school children when they have a a guest speaker that turns out to be a power ranger or some cosmic hero. ha, I was so embarassed but i pressed on and got a good ink sketch to be proud of. the people are acutally people here, not reserved and truly natural, you can know them through their laugh in an instant. so this is Thailand.

Speak you of YOU?

Where doth it all come from
If you can laugh at life, do you know it
If you cry at night, can you feel it
This is it all
All it is, is this
An intimate portrayal, a baby sucking its thumb
And a wild bull running in the pasture
The synchronicity of flowers blooming with souls
And fairy tales of tall days coming to save
We wonder why the world doesn’t greet us in the morning
And why we are never invited to its merrymaking
When was the last time you called upon life at tea time,
Or to remember its birthday
Not asking for a teacher, but reminiscing with an old friend
If I think myself separate from space I walk
Then what will support me, and where should I travel
So I am, we are, just a leaf on a tree
With a stem we choose not to see
Our roots ask nothing but recognition
To be free is to recognize necessity

Gone

Flapping in a foreign land
Wings are working
But I think I’ve lost my head
What a day it is
When everyday I wonder why
If I wake up and feel normal
Something must have happened
For I am not alive
If I don’t see a new sun
If I’m not amazed
The situation had torn
What I once thought of my own map

A Disposition Seeking Deaf Ears

What a mess to make of the shining one
You say you want to reach the stars
But what do you know beyond that?
-
When we start off in a direction
Is it densely calculated?
Crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s
-
Is there a theory to explain chaos
Or chaos describes itself
In infinity mimicking its fathers
-
Now it begins to rain, this is true
Do you proclaim that it is falling?
We speculate about repeating history
-
Details describe yet can not speak for themselves
And then we know- and then the next thought replaces
For years the ocean will slowly consume the shores
Until nothing remains but what was always there
-
The essence of science, diagramming a soul
Who wants to hear it from a foreigner?
Someone only knowing while insignificantly yawning
The truth comes with the cat’s meow
Sounds out of bounds and nothing to hold in your hands
-
Yet we have it even if we don’t hear it
And all the molecules in the world
Can never ask the wind to carry them home

When It Comes In Sight

When it comes in sight
It is golden and bright, but easy to miss
I found it pollinating on top of a lotus

What’s it like to not be like
To not be in order to be true
I do not guess for the mind would question itself

To be in this place is to be nowhere
Like the center of the universe
Don’t blink in samsara again

So you feel this, right now
Don’t believe it but don’t turn back
Let go of the desire to let go

Is there a purpose to that foot step?
Try again but don’t try this time
Keep in mind what you mean to do

Quotes from Buddahasa Bhikkhu in a book that I'm reading:

“The expression ‘insight into the true nature of things; refers to seeing transience, unsatisfactoriness, and non-selfhood, seeing that nothing is worth getting, nothing is worth being, seeing that no object whatsoever should be grasped at and clung to as being a self or as belonging to a self, as being good or bad, attractive or repulsive. Liking or disliking anything, even if it is only an idea or a memory, is clinging. To say that nothing is worth getting or being is the same as to say that nothing is worth clinging to. ‘Getting’ refers to setting one’s heart on property, position, wealth, or any pleasing object. ‘Being’ refers to the awareness of one’s status as husband, wife, rich man, poor man, winner, loser, or human being, or even the awareness of being oneself. If we really look deeply at it, even being oneself is no fun, is wearisome, because it is a source of suffering. If one can completely give up clinging to the idea of being oneself, then being oneself will no longer be suffering. This is what is to see the worthlessness of being anything, and is the gist of the statement that being anything, no matter what, is bound to be suffering in a way appropriate to that particular state of being. Any state of being, if it is to continue as such, has to be made to last, to endure. At the very least, it must endure in one’s mind in the form of a belief in that particular state of being. When there exists ‘oneself,’ there are bound to exist things which are other than that self and belong to it. Thus one has one’s children, one’s wife, one’s this, that and the other. Then one has one’s duty as a husband or wife, master or servant, and so on. All this points to the truth of the statement hat there is no state of being such that to maintain it will not involve struggle. The trouble and struggle necessary to maintain one’s state of being are simply the result of blind infatuation with things, of clinging to things. “
“If, however, we are not yet in a position to withdraw completely from having and being, we must be mindful and wide awake, so that when we do get or become something, we do so without emotional upset. WE must not be like those people who, turning a blind eye and deaf ear, go ahead brainlessly and inexpertly getting or becoming with the result that they fall right into the pit of their own stupidity and attachment, and end up having to commit suicide.”
“As soon as any individual has come to perceive the emptiness of all things, there arises in him the realization that is not worth getting or being any of those things. This feeling of not desiring to get or to be has the power to protect one from falling slave to the defilements or to any kind of emotional involvement. Once an individual has attained this condition, he is thenceforth incapable of any unwholesome state of mind. He does not become carried away by or involved in anything. He does not become in anyway attracted or seduced by anything. His mind knows permanent liberty and independence, and is free from suffering”.
-Buddhadasa Bhikkhu-

i just realized that maybe i am being a little selfish, or maybe i feel like no one actually cares about what i write...so i could make up some lavish stories of mermaids and magicians from cambodia...but would that make me any more interesting? i am searching for the part of me that wanted to write and share my experiences but i think that it might have stayed on one of the islands, swinging carelessly in a hammock tied between two coconut trees. i shall return

i have since stopped writting a "journel"...its too much to recall, or maybe im lazy, but i feel like I have better things to do. i am trying to enjoy my time here, but there is so much that is so much. but i realized i feel better after my thai boxing class, and i even stayed after an extra 2 hours kicking and punching the bags, the teacher also stays after and helped me out one on one...so after sweating vigoursly for 4 hours i was able to sleep more comfortablely. anyway, you should try it. i am going to kancanaburi for a few days, there is a national park there and also some ancient ruins, so talk to you all soon.

The battle for illusion
brings back days past
they wear armor made from memories
and yet I can't attack