The WorstThing About Running Barefoot...

...is having snappy comebacks for all the comments I get from my so-called "friends" who see me out running sans footwear.  I mean, around where we live where it's such a closed community, you can seriously only use a given reply a few times before it gets lame and stale.  A sample of some of my retorts:

• "What do you mean I'm not wearing shoes?" (look down at my feet)  "Woah, you're totally right, I'm not wearing shoes!  I should probably run home and get some..."
• "Shoes are just an artificial construct, engineered by The Man to keep a Brother down."
• "I'm trying to run down the guy that stole my shoes.  Let me know if you see him." (Tried this one for the first time tonight)
• เกิดมาไม่มี ตายแต่เอาไม่ได้ (keut ma mai mee, tai tae ao mai dai - "I was born without shoes, and I can't take them with me when I die").  This I think has been quite clever, at least for those who speak Thai or Lao.

Of course it would be great if those same so-called "friends" could come up with something a bit more creative than, "Hey, you forgot your shoes!"

By the way, the second worst thing about running barefoot is stepping on snails.  Trust me folks, it's pretty gross.

When You Pay 60 Baht* for a Haircut, You Get...

...a 60-baht haircut.

Left side--looks great, very clean.
Right side--also looks fantastic, nice and tidy. 
The PROBLEM?  The two sides don't match.

Next time, I'm going back to the shop that charges me 80 baht.  You get what you pay for, after all.

*For those of you keeping score at home, 60 baht at today's exchange rate is two American dollars.

Apparently It Doesn't Pay (Well) to Be Polite



Courtesy Bangkok Post, 4 March 2011

  As you can see, I had a bit of a rough patch in late October (pre-Halloween doldrums) followed by a pre-Thanksgiving bump, and then dipped again in December (sandbagging prior to Christmas), but I've been going pretty strong since.  And I'm still beating Dubai and totally killing it compared with WTI (whatever that is).

On second thought, this chart should probably be labelled "hair length."

Smoking in Thailand

Thailand has some of the most disturbing anti-smoking pictures, ever.  And by law they are required to put them on the cigarette packages.  Not being a smoker myself, I really have no problem with this.

I do, however, have an issue when pictures like this

are right next to the cash register at the cafeteria here at the embassy.  I mean nothing says, "Mmm, can't wait to dig into my yummy pad thai!" quite like the sight of what's left of someone's nicotine-coated gums and teeth.  And trust me, that's one of the least gruesome of the cigarette packages out there.  Pass the som tam, please.

I do have to admit however, that one morning last week in my I'm-up-and-moving-around-but-that-doesn't-mean-I'm-awake (ลุกแต่ไม่ตื่น) state I thought that one of the Thai cigarette brands was "Khong Thep" (ของเทพ), which would translate to "Heavenly."  I found that deliciously ironic, right up until, in a moment of greater mental clarity (this morning), I double checked and realized the brand name was actually "Krong Thip" (กรงทิพย์)  Boy, would that have been embarrassing to blog about!

What Is This Blog About?

I wrote that title in complete and utter sincerity.  I know I'm not the first, nor will I be the last, person whose frequency of posting is initially tremendous (dare I say "prolific?"  No, even I'm not that pretentious), only to have it severely taper as time goes on.  Thailand initially gave me so much fodder as we got to know our way around and accustomed to the differences here.  Now that we're a few months away from leaving Thailand, everything that was once so fresh/new/bizarre/amazing is now commonplace.  I mean seriously, we don't even blink anymore about paying for airline tickets at 7-Eleven or when we see a man standing off the side of the road urinating.

So I was wondering what I could blog about.  More than once I've blogged about running, but I haven't been running lately.  I could blog about the plantar warts and bruised heel that have kept me from running the last two weeks, but who wants to hear about that.  By the way, when you pull the core of a wart out, it bleeds.  A lot.  Hurts, too.

I thought about blogging about work, but the work I do is generally so bland and boring that nobody in their right mind would want to hear about it.  When Mali has trouble falling asleep, she asks me about what I did at work, and that usually does the trick.

Long story short (too late!), I am trying to make a commitment to write more.  Some entries will be good, some I'm sure will qualify as certified steaming piles of literary doo-doo.  But blog more, I will--nay, I must!