Category: Stuff and Things

Continued from Part 1

38. 38. Fresh fruits and vegetables all year around! Oranges cheap enough for you to affordably make your own juice!
    39. The Mexico City Metro – In spite of all of its (considerable!) maintenance issues, it’s one of the largest metro networks in the world, and for 5 pesos ($0.25) US you can go pretty much anywhere you want within the city centre
    40. The Cineteca Nacional, an art and foreign cinema multiplex(!) in Mexico City, with 10(!!!) screens showing mostly non-commercial films, plus book stores, cafes, and a lot of really cool people
    41. Eating avocados everyday without feeling like a pretentious white person
    42. 20 peso ($1 US) chamber music recitals at the gorgeous Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, across from the equally lovely Alameda Central park
    43. Museums, so many museums – many of them housed in gorgeous old Spanish colonial buildings
    44. Cactus (cactuses? cacti?)
    45. Eating chili-and-lime flavoured crickets on the sidewalk in Puebla or Oaxaca – A handful a year are plenty for me, but I’m still glad to have them around!
    46. The fairly solid non-alcoholic options at most Mexican bars (for a teetotaler like me) – Clamato with spicy seasoning hits the spot if you don’t mind smelling like clams while trying to impress women, or there’s always a steady supply of sparkling water
    47. If you dance really, really badly (which I do), nobody seems to mind very much
    48. An entire karaoke bar full of drunk locals all belting out “Ahora Te Puedes Marchar” by Luis Miguel in unison
    49. Mole
    50. Widespread acceptance of international credit cards, even in midrange establishments
    51. Wonderful-sounding words and place names that start with “ch” – Churros, chimichanga, Chabacano, Chilpancingo
    52. Pollo asado
    53. Reasonably generous immigration policies
    54. Being able to see two dudes making out in random public places without anyone giving a shit (at least in Mexico City)
    55. The widespread presence of signs like this one (“In this establishment we do not discriminate against anyone for reasons of race, religion, sexual orientation, physical or socioeconomic condition, or for any other reason. But we do demand respect for this business and those who frequent it.”)

        

    56. General lack of burning hatred within the hearts of the local people
    57. The way people sing when they talk
    58. Well-lit public streets at night (at least within major cities)
    59. People’s – or at least, middle-class young people’s – nearly total lack of interest in religion
    60. I bought the most insanely durable pair of earbuds in my life for 25 pesos ($1.25 US) from a sidewalk vendor near the market in Merida. Generally, the way I mistreat my earbuds, I’ll lose sound in at least one side within two months, no matter how much I paid for them. As far as I can tell, this $1.25 special will never, ever die. And they sound pretty good, too!
    61. People’s surprisingly intense love of art and culture, and their overall intellectual curiousity
    62. Mexican men in cowboy hats look way cooler than white guys in cowboy hats
    63. All those manly-sounding men’s names – Luis, Jorge, Miguel, Manuel
    64. All those classy, sexy-ass women’s names – Daniela, Fernanda, Alejandra
    65. Fairly solid Internet speeds and reliability
    66. People adding -ito to every noun to make it more polite, like asking for azucarito (sugar) for your cafecito (coffee). To foreign ears, it doesn’t sound any more polite, just adorable.

Frank is throwing things with all hands, all two. His hands are moving so fast, moving so fast that they’re really fast. After a day constrained by socks, all socked in by his socks, he surges to life. The throwing makes him surge. It makes him surge and makes him throw things. Things are flying through the air, hitting things. Some of the things being thrown are food; others things being thrown aren’t food. Some of the things having things thrown at them are food; others aren’t food.

Frank lets out a primal scream, raw and ragged, as his hands move in a throwing motion, moving as if they are throwing things, because they are. His hands are like things, too – Things that throw things. He’s dripping sweat, sweat dripping all down his completely naked body, wearing nothing – not even socks. His feet are naked too, because they’re not wearing socks. Frank is throwing things.

Eventually, Frank has thrown all the things. All thing-throwing possibilities are exhausted. His screams gradually turn into sobs, his sobs  into whimpers. Soon, his whimpers will become sniffles, then only silence. He picks up a few things and tries to throw them again, but they’ve already been thrown – Once thrown, a thrown thing can’t really be a thing to throw again. It has always been this way.

Frank gazes at the mess of thrown things strewn across the floor – some of them food, some of them not food and therefore not food. It is hopeless, it is futile, it is a colossal and extravagant waste. But as long as he has arms that can throw things, he will continue to throw things – some at other things, some at nothing; at no things, no things whatsoever. He will continue until his arms can throw no more, and once they cannot throw, he will throw his arms away, as well. But that is a long way away, in some unseen future. For now, Frank has thrown much, and in the future he will throw much more.

Tomorrow, Frank will put his socks back on.

Frank’s socks smelled like Frank. It was a tough, orangeish smell, like the smell of crying orange. As he unrolled his socks in the morning, Frank thought about pain – the pain of mortgage payments, the pain of dental treatments, the pain of the endless cycle of death and rebirth and endless craving and dissatisfaction, but most of all, the pain of socks. He thought about how his body had begun to break down and decompose – gracefully, at first, then rapidly and all at once – almost as soon as it had reached the closest it would ever come to perfection. His socks were socks.

As he drove to the office, he felt the cold clam hands on his eyes. He had started a new job a week ago, and his socks clung anxiously to his toes, but not to the space between them. That’s the problem with the space between things – It’s not occupied by anything.

He arrived five minutes before the start of his shift, groggily pouring out some already-stale coffee. The caffeine didn’t even really affect him anymore – It was just habit, the feeling that this infusion of burnt seeds could inspire him to work, to excel, to contribute. But compared to an egg, he was just half an egg. Compared to half an egg, he was just a quarter of an egg. When it came to workers at the place – when it came to work – Frank was never going to be the best at work. After a week, he knew this already, but he clung to his false optimism, optimism that he’d one day find his place in the place, like a sock wrapped snugly around a thing, a thing with no toes and no space between them.

He laboured throughout the day, doing his stuff. But his mind wasn’t in it – He thought about the socks on his feet, one sock for each foot, two socks and two feet in total. He tried to count each one in turn, but he never got past two, because there were only two of each. If he stretched – in the same way that a sock stretches to cover a thing that is bigger than the sock – he could get to four, but that really felt like a cheat. Deep down inside, he knew the most it could be was two, and then another two, and that made him feel small – so small, like a small sock.

Finally, the work day came to its weary close. Frank didn’t even know how much stuff he had done – Because really, how can you tell the difference between stuff and something that isn’t even stuff at all? The only real certainty was the certainty of two socks that clung to two feet, a certainty that clung to him like two socks cling to two feet. As he drove home – still in socks, still lost in socks, always socks – it began to rain. And the sound of the rain, at least, managed to drown out the sound of his sobs.

When he got home, he took off his socks.

People often tell me, “Bloggerbels [not my real name], your life is so full of adventure and intrigue! Why don’t you write a book about it?” I defiantly answer their rhetorical question by telling them that I’m way too lazy to sustain a literary structure for more than 4,000 words of self-indulgent verbal diarrhea.

And yet, the nagging thought persists – What if, instead of spending my life searching for the coconuttiest coconut rice on Earth, I actually found the time to sit down and compose a grand compendium of my many regrets? Well, I doubt that will ever happen, but you know what is feasible? Writing an outline for a book that will never be written! Here now, with possible revisions in the future, are my notes for an imagined memoir:

• • Chapter 1 : Can’t Remember Shit – Childhood and pre-adolescence. You know how, in almost every memoir or biography, the part about the subject’s childhood is boring as shit? Yeah, that’s gonna be the case here, too. Can only remember really bad or really stupid things, like being terrified of my alcoholic uncle, or pushing a kid onto the sidewalk so hard that he had to get stitches, or peeing on the floor of my cousins’ bathroom for some reason. Can’t write anything even remotely interesting about my parents, because they’ll probably read it, so memoir will appear to tell the story of little orphan boy overcoming adversity. (Although, seriously, my parents are pretty awesome.)
  • Chapter 2: Memoir Becomes More Interesting As Life Becomes More Terrible – Elementary school. Being smarter than everyone else is stupid. Fightin’! Fightin’ teachers, fightin’ friends – it’s a problem no one understands. Early experiences with the Canadian mental health system. Massive weight gain as a side-effect of psychiatric medication. Being fat. Hopeless schoolboy crushes. Being fat some more! Fat fat fat! (Fat.)

• • Chapter 3: The Clichéd Horrors of Early Adolescence – Getting acquainted with my new best friend, depression! Crisis of faith; desperately calling out to God for help in an empty church and deciding the lack of a response proved his non-existence. Also, why are these little bristly black things suddenly sprouting out of my balls? Also, more schoolboy crushes, now as part of a delirious hormonal fever dream.
  • Chapter 4: High School Lows – Going to school online because exposure to human beings is incredibly painful. Parents splitting. Getting diagnosed with autism, and being grateful that I now get to be disabled and not just creepy. More object lessons in the Canadian mental health system. Taking anti-depressants and deciding if I want to keep taking anti-depressants – the answer is mostly yes! The staff at a long-since-defunct music store are my primary source of human contact during the day. Buy hundreds of budget-priced compact discs to distract myself from the fact that life is totally, totally terrible. And also, fuck acne. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK ACNE.
  • Chapter 5: Memoir Becomes Boring As Life Becomes More Tolerable – Continuing my studies in online university because exposure to human beings still remains somewhat painful. Doing copious amounts of volunteer work because it’s like a real job but with absolutely no stakes – just the way I liked things then, and just the way I like them now. Picking up women in random places, going on dates with them, and remaining a virgin who’d never been kissed for years afterward because I was still terrified of sex. Waiting for actual life to start.

Coming up in Part 2: Things happen that are actually worth writing about!

When I was 11 years old, television changed my life.

My father was attending a conference in beautiful Jasper National Park, and he decided to let me tag along. I, being 11 years old and stupid, had no interest in the majesty of the rocky mountains or the stunning beauty of crystal blue lakes; instead, I played my ugly bricklike 1st-generation Game Boy and reveled in the joy of having my very own hotel TV while my father attended conference sessions.

In the course of flipping channels, I stumbled upon the RapCity show on MuchMusic, Canada’s watered-down answer to MTV. I had been vaguely familiar with rap prior to that, at least – I vividly remember having hours of fun with my friend’s cassette of MC Hammer’s “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em”, shoving it into his face while shouting “Please Hammer… don’t hurt ’em!” But until that moment, rap was a novelty, and not something that had really commanded my attention. But that all changed that day with the video for… well, for a novelty rap song. (Hey, I was still 11 years old, so I wasn’t quite ready to get sucked in by deep lyricism.) The song was I Left My Wallet in El Segundo by A Tribe Called Quest.

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36-37 every day in the Yucatan Peninsula. Almost wrote penicillin; heat-related type. Good time for free writing exercise. Maybe jog those neurons and get them to fire in some interesting combinations.

Digital fartz. Can’t stop listening to BWV 118, Bach motet, best version seems to be Suzuki. Not on YouTube? Only Spotify. Grabsnabble. https://open.spotify.com/track/1srvdyzq57OOX3LP9PzXUW?si=TVTi-1ssS3yEfi-GSFpqJA life-changing fuck yeah corporate plug!

Snifflesnaff. Down to one of my last bags of Indonesian coffee. Every bag is pre-ground and a ticking time bomb. Each new French Press tastes just a little more off than the previous one. Drink it fast or it will eventually no longer be worth drinking at all. This could probably pass as a metaphor for something, but it’s too hot for me to know what.

It’s 6:44 PM and the temperature has cooled to a crisp 33 degrees. Surprised I can’t handle the tropical heat like I used to. Aging? Or just perception? Probably listening to 18th century funeral music isn’t helping me to stay cool.

Nozzlespluff. Poomadoompadongles. Perhaps I shouldn’t make coffee in a plastic French press. If the C-word (not the sexist one) should strike me down, will I blame pouring near-boiling liquids into a plastic receptacle? Shatterproof, though.

SHANTALOOLA! Free writing serves as an attempt to escape the mundanity of everyday life. My basic animal needs are too easy to meet, and it’s too easy to leave the remainder of my time an unstructured, sprawling mess. Fucking Whatsapp. SPLANT THAT ZANGLE!

A long time ago, there lived an elk. I can’t remember the rest of the story but it was a good one. Why is the human body programmed to self-destruct? Intesting snafapaloo you’ve got there, buddybondraggle!!!

Gotta finish that coffee, milk that lattice of snickering possum-eaters, sazalalazafapanzapanatantazangalandaglandalandaloon. As your grandpa used to always say! Maybe.

Part 1

Right before I moved away from the Philippines, I made one of the most remarkable purchases of my life. I felt like it was time for a new phone, and upon visiting my neighbourhood mall I was bewildered by the number of kiosks selling a range of completely unrecognizable, totally no-name Android phones at dirt cheap prices. In the end, I settled on a model from Firefly Mobile, which boasted remarkable specs for a remarkably low price of approximately $100 US. The phone ended up serving me well, its 3GB of RAM allowing me to clutter up the memory space with idle apps, and the Sony camera lens took some pretty good pictures – Even if most of the pictures in my blog don’t exactly bear this claim out.

I began raving to my friends about my magical cheapie phone, though my ardour was somewhat dampened by the fact that I left the Philippines two weeks after buying this seemingly Philippine-only brand. I only encountered one other person who ever owned a Firefly phone, and I accepted that Firefly was doomed to be one more thing among many that only I, the great bearer of that terrible burden of solitary enlightenment, can truly love and appreciate.

A year later, I returned to the Philippines to catch up with old friends and, most importantly, to see the dogs that I had given up for adoption. I stayed in an Airbnb, a tiny studio unit in a condo complex attached to a mall. The mall had its own forlorn little Firefly kiosk, which I would pass by each day. The kiosk would either be staffed by an extremely bored-looking woman with no customers, or would be empty.

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When I finally left the Philippines, never to live there again, I felt lost. No matter how much I had traveled before that, often for months at a time after moving out of my latest Manila condo, I always knew that I had a country to come back to in the end – a place to settle down for another year and live something like a sane life. (And no, my birth country of Canada doesn’t count, because my feelings toward that place are so weighed down with painful memories and bad associations that I feel hesitant applying a warm and fuzzy word like “home” to it.) When I left the Philippines, I felt relieved to be free – free to travel and move around, without having to worry about my furniture, appliances and dogs. But I also knew I didn’t have the energy to embark on a whirlwind around-the-world backpacking adventure. So I paced my travel plans, let myself stop to soak up the local atmosphere in different countries, and that’s how I began living little lifetimes – Those periods when I stayed in one place for a month or less, but where the experience was so intense, and my feeling of immersion was so deep, that I felt like a different person living a different life. These little lifetimes had their own dramatic arcs, beginning with initial enthusiasm, following into frustration, and ending in peaceful acceptance of the limitations of my new, temporary life. And each of these lives would feel disconnected from everything that came before and after.

My first little lifetime was in Taipei, where I spent a month in a craggy old apartment in a colourful, historic neighbourhood, literally across the alley from a night market. I met a pretty Taiwanese woman on the subway, and we had an intense, aching, laughter-filled, strangely chaste month-long romance with a built-in expiry date. But my overall experience of Taipei remains so raw that I am not yet ready to write about it. My second little lifetime was in Kuala Lumpur. Read More

When I try to add someone on Facebook, their ignorance often transforms what should be a simple act into an agonizing ordeal. Even people who seem fairly tech-savvy don’t seem to be aware that there is a better way to be found on Facebook than by searching for their name, which is usually shared by hordes of people. (The fact that these people usually look nothing like them sort of feels like a betrayal, but that’s another story.) “Just search for Jane Smith,” the individual will helpfully suggest. “I’m the one with the face.”

Admittedly, I am sure there are times when these individuals – say, the ones who were female and weren’t necessarily keen to have any ongoing contact with me – didn’t want to make the process of adding them any easier than it had to be. But there are other people who have shown genuine enthusiasm about forming friendships while also displaying an amazing ignorance of the basic workings of the world’s largest social media platform.

In case you want to be my friend and don’t consider me creepy and annoying (or, if you happen to like making friends with creepy and annoying people), let me help you out: Your Facebook account has a unique ID that makes it possible for you to be found instantly, just by being entered into a Facebook search box. So in a rare public service, let me show you where you can find it:

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