Day 20
Bangkok has sapped energy. Empathy followed energy to the wings. Grappling for fair tuk tuk prices no longer holds novelty. The lack of conversation and understanding placed a blanket of distrust over monetary interactions. I hated having to be suspicious of everyone hawking wares and transportations.
Randomly saw our Canadian friends, Alex and Vanessa, down at the tourist side streets today. I’m glad our meeting was serendipitous. I didn’t really want to reach out. I’m not very good at putting myself out there in such fleeting circumstances. Especially when there are good books to read. They are going to watch a Muay Thai fight. The Golden Mound, occasionally misrepresented as the Golden Mountain (definitely more of a mound), is a Buddhist temple not far from Bangkok’s tourist district. On our walk to the mound we passed a hip height, wrought iron gate blocking off an alley which lead to a canal. The alley itself wasn’t interesting, but what was in it, was. Two massive, water monitor lizards were canoodling in the alley. If I had laid down on the ground next to one of the lizards it probably would have bitten me. It would have also been about as long as I am tall. Our stares unnerved them and they split off into the alley’s bushes.
This morning we went to the National History Museum. Right next to the National Theatre, which is technically part of the National University. I had no idea previous Kings of Thailand had been so victorious in battle or that Thai people might be genetically unique to other humans. Thanks National Museum! It was nice to get a curated, nationalistic look at the anthropological and governmental history of Thailand. As we left the museum, our legs grew heavy from the museum lead we had picked up from spending too much time standing and looking. The novel element museum lead is rarely identified as such. Let me enlighten you: Museum lead gets in your eyes and makes you spacey and sleepy. It then travels through the body. Naturally pulled by gravity, the heavy metal comes to rest in the legs. This makes it exhausting to walk normally. Two treatments exist: an extended nap or vigrous exercise. We walked through door number one and into a drooling slumber. Museum lead secretes from the body in the form of nap-drool. A drool-some sleep is a powerful sleep.
In waking, I began reading Terry Pratchett’s, Strata. The first published novel pertaining to his intricate Discworld series. It was some of the best writing I have ever encountered. I finished the book in about 4 hours. The book was written in the 1970’s. I have so much catching up to do. There are a lot of books I have not read. This is the opposite of a problem.
I talked about writing with Liz. I mentioned the ever present, tiny creatures I see soaring on thermals out near my ears. Flight is possible for these creatures for their bones are made from doubtanium. Paper thin but stubbornly strong. She told me to ignore their infinite cackling. Their vulturistic tendency to feed on the mere thought of failure makes them formidable imaginings. When I sit down to write they perch neatly on a shoulder or a nearby shelf, but my fingers touch keyboard and they leave me alone. Immersion without thought kills the creatures. Or maybe they just flew off…
thecereallife 