Introduction

We are defined as much by what we have lost as by what we have. If not more, I for one have lost more than I have. As hard as this may be to quantify, I avere that we are also defined by what we haven't done, nearly as much as what we have. To make that a little more manageable let's restrict it to what we know we might have done, what we know we were capable of, but which, for whatever reason, we didn't.

Waffler, waddler, awfuller, oddler, dang thar be some shiznit round 'ere, innair?

Aw heck, just blew away a relic of the saga with a <shift> refresh. Oopsie. I'm a loser baby. Lost what? Three sentences? That's it? Really? Review, review, thanks google cache. So easy to lose ephemeral electrons. So sad, so what. Remember nothing you put out here is private. And remember nothing whatsoever is really yours.

Quite a bit was lost in Philly. Not least Ekatarina. So many reasons I could have stayed. Such ridiculous piles of things I left behind. Poking around at UNIX admin jobs reminds me, all my certs are gone, left in Kensington and/or the basement at Unruh. Looking at going for a Master's with U of Liverpool reminds me, the Music Degree! Whoops! Some bank got a lot of weird stuff with their repo. DX7, Kathrin's menagerie, some papers that would have come in handy.

OMFG, Ali! Foreshadowing Teda? Intersection with Autumn? Torture of Cher, sheeit I'm sorry babe, tell me you're still alive.

Oi, the vagaries of Anglais. I am lost. So often I do not know where I am. Tianjin lacks 90 degree angles. Not that that matters, I could get lost in Manhattan where they're the rule. But that loss is also magical. Losing your way you find a way. I gotcher Daoism right here. I lika da Chuang Tzu I do I do. But just simply speaking, pragmatically and as conundrum free as I can be - what you find when you are lost you cannot find again. You may find it but you won't be lost anymore. So it will be different. I walked this bizarre phone district. Now I know it's just Nanjin Road. It isn't where I was lost. I've lost it.

I write at the 'ginnin, I writes at the end. Whadaya want fer nothin... rubber stewball? I lost my open mic night at the Garden Chiang Mai. Am I missed? Doubt it (they called it folk night after all)...

'spect I lost my audience long ago. Part of this SEO stoof I'm readin' stresses 'Make it accessible.' Have I ever made anything accessible? Where's the fun in that?

Sliced and diced tongue, that's the thing. Bark, memory. Sliced tongue at Elizabeth McInstry's, lo those times ago. Took a big helping 'cuz I thought it was ham. Oopsie again. Vectors are the fun stuff, tangents and multifaceted coruscacence. Archaisms and neologisms, guess I ain't nevah gonna sell nuthin. But I do get my karma, I do. Enjoying The Lancashire Witches until the vernacular bites. Memories of Por. The whole point of Por was the vernacular. But it's at least as exhausting to read as write.

One word how many tangents? Play. e and S, now either of them might get a joke but neither of them would get the whole. I play hard. Hardly? Hardy. Har har.

Play with expectations. Play to lose. I didn't stalk no one suh, but people do want their fantasies. And my guitar player lived in the East Village. Does P really have a baby? How we wandered Manhattan. Left a message on John Cage's answering machine, didn'I? Did I walk her feet off too I wonder? Sorry e. Of course scrubbing the toilet with my toothbrush was comeuppance. But I expect I kissed you with that very mouth, so there.

disorg.org was lost looooong ago. No hard feelings, I wuddna done nothin but another vanity site. It may be bad karma for the feller what stole it, I dunno, the operative question would be if he worked for Network Solutions in those dark days, since supposedly it was registered to me; until it wasn't. No notice, just the mysterious disappearance. Hell, in those days I had my own class C (I may still, but murk murk murk). Totally unroutable in AZ but whatever, I learned alot. Life is learning to lose, apologies gcarlin.

Mentioned somewhere or other that you will lose everything and everyone. Am I morbid yet? So this will become a very large page. Much has been lost already. I used to write with a typewriter. Where's that stuff now? Riding the blog all the way back I see it started in October of '02. What can I recover before that? O tons my friends, tons and tons. But even with the blogs' bits of self-referential, repetitive redundant soliloquy I stand corrected. So good, get it down, get down. I only lived in Thailand three years? And where are the lil e adventures? She may be reading my S ravings and think I'm raging at her. Ha ha. As if. Anyone reading? Why? Hey, I loved both but I only played with one. O, the things we lose. And how I loved L, how still I do. But these are just some of the people. How about motorcycling to Ayuttaya by accident? How about the monkeys of Lop Buri? Well, you can see some of them on the pics page. But Phnom Penh? Lost. Perhaps well. Except the noodles. And Teda. They feature in the newest pornautobiographattempt. How will I back fill? Should I? Every day's remarkable. Stay tuned, here's another free novel...

******

It's not a dream, it must be Chicago. Why am I parked at this cul de sac? Or am I parked? Where's the car? I certainly had a smoke. And there are streetlamps and a bit of grass. California? Five times I tried the CCIE, never passed. But this memory doesn't say where. I doesn't say who. I was with SB in Cali once, why? He finagled us first class when our plane was late. Only time I've flown first class. That I remember. Was I ever alone in Ohio? Yes but I think this is not that. Phoenix? The memory doesn't say much about temperature. Could be. Feels like I have a Volvo around somewhere, must be Phoenix, isn't Tucson. I think. Which Volvo? Or it could be a rental. 740 can't be living in Phoenix, wrecked prior. 960? Or rental. Or no car. Just the space. Not Chicago. Rental there but that escapade I remember. Except there were two. Is it the first one? When I got so sick? Now there's a diarrhetic story you don't want to hear. A little like my first time in Laos. Except I had to go to the job interview. They'd bought my ticket and hotel. And rental car. Could be, could be.

Have an autobiograttempt that tries to remember every place I've lived. Better than this girl idea. But the latter may sell, mais non? Sax and violins. As much as I can remember. I hope C's alright. Her NYC pilgrimage will be twice as good as mine. But I won't force you to wade back through the blog to hear about the half used round-trip ticket. No, I'll put what I can here.

Hitting that firetruck. Slipping on the ice, what'd that do for my spine? Rolling the 740. Moto crash CM. So. Much. Blood. I won't talk about the girls too much, though they contributed to the sciatica too. I don't wanna hafta teach English forever.

Though it's paradisical. I'll blog it. Here we're reviewing the tortured, torturing, tortuous past. Which, thankfully I suppose, I remember little of. Free and easy wandering anyone? I gave you the Chuang Tzu, didja grok it? No big, maybe Asian Wisdom isn't. Works for me though. Most times. Doesn't it? I forget.

Chapter I - the story of the razor

In Phnom Penh we indulged in a bit of sharing of the soap. I did, anyway. Once Maria left I moved to a room without a shower and devolved to the common one. This put me in the hall shaving most mornings. Rarely saw anyone else indulging that sin but few stuck it out for a month. Did share the sink with Le Frog one morning though, he may have been more of a fixture than I. So I watched the soap come and go. My own was infinitesimal. Cheap bastard? It's been said. Stole that soap from a Bangkok resort though, my karma's clear. I rationalize. Overpaid for the CM-BKK bus so I stole their pillow. Where's my five precepts, where? I generally do not steal what I haven't paid for. Somebody stole my razor. Well, I did share their soap.

The red handled Gilette had been with me a month. I left it's twin in AZ so re-upped in CM. I think at Kad Suan Kaew but don't remember exactly when. It must have been early, I need to shave regularly or disappear rapidly where the wild things are. But not too early, I'm a cheap bastard and would have looked for alternatives. My asian razor was blown apart by a too-solid cleansing rap. Before or after AZ? We digress. This red-handled one was certainly with me in Cambodia. Because it left me there. My ablution ritual generally consisted of soap wafer, razor and towel to the communal sinks then a shave while trying to avoid whatever drips happened to be coming through the ceiling that day. Post-shave I would take the razor and wafer into the right bathroom proper where a showerhead was available. I believe I did try the left one, without, but it was so traumatically ineffective the memory's lost.

But the memory of the towel, no it isn't lost. Like Adam's Hitchhiker, that towel was an all for me. Blanket, exercise equipment, even towel. Blankets aren't terribly important in July in Cambodia. But I've always wanted some cover when I sleep. The towel was that. I've tried many exercises for the sciatica. Dave of folk night gave me a good one. Raise your leg with a towel. Easy? I pronounce you sciatica free. It was not easy for me. It remains not easy but my current living arrangements have lent me a table of just the right height. And looking into other exercises has me questioning the efficacy, and possibly the safety, of using upper body strength to manipulate my legs. Dave's sciatica cleared up in a couple of weeks. I'm managing my pain pretty well, NSAIDs are really optional (but appreciated) now, but I don't know if it will ever really heal. The solution, I suppose, probably is to have a surgeon hack that bit of disk out. But there're other things to do with that money. And diskectomies are far from 100% effective. So if and when I lose my table the towel will probably return. Though honestly I had to use my bathrobe in China, I didn't steal their towel.

One day I forgot the razor on my way out. But that's the loss half of the story. What was gained? Every loss is a gain, vaccuums fill, needs are met or found not to actually be needs.

Daily I walked the dirt road neighborhood between my digs on Beuan Kak Lake and the convenience stores I'd found on one of my exploratory hikes. I'd call it a slum but it wasn't really. Some garbage in the street and unpredictable pavements or lack thereof but nicer overall than South Philly. I walked it because I enjoyed the lack of farang and because I needed water. Past tense? Walking that neighborhood is, yes, for now. And going to the stores. The little one lacked much. I don't recall if I ever found anything I needed there, I tried, spread my shrinking yankee dollars around. But the big one, they had everything. Except a decent comb. Bread, peanut butter and jelly, let me stop buying breakfast, a notable savings, coffee likewise, the aforementioned water... and a black handled Gillette. You may know black is my favorite color. What was gained?

Chapter II - Lost: Horse

Sometime ago I composed/improvised a piece title 'Lost: Head'. It is both a tribute to the old 'what goes hahahaha *thump*' joke and an acknowledgement that I have lost my mind. I don't lose my head, actually. It's attached. But I love to lose my mind. It isn't. Perhaps I've been meditating too long. Perhaps it's the substances I abused. Certainly I keep a mind more than open enough for my brains to fall out. My travels have been horrendously enjoyable. Every day is gorgeous and I can't wait to die. I've petted baby elephants, endured monkeys crawling and jumping on my person, most lately struggle with reconciling the trade of mosquito for cockroach. I accumulate a karmic debt either way. Kill, kill, kill! But the cockroach doesn't leave the same sort of annoying remembrance on the body. OTOH mosquitos don't stink. Frogs in the bathroom from New Hampshire to San Kampang, lizards jumping off my head, petting cobras and socializing with wolf spiders the size of my hand, perhaps I've done it all. But I've lost my horse.

My horse moved into my smoking lounge. He was a shy, retiring sort of fellow and I don't think he really wanted to join me. Somebody tied him there. But we got used to each other. I think. I certainly got used to him. More pics over at one of the 'phone' links, maybe I'll pull 'em in here. But now I'm rambling on my horse. And in so doing perhaps I'll dredge up a little bit of what it was to be the San Kampang farang squatter. Sneaking out of the kindergarten to smoke. Or evil of evils, not sneaking out on Sundays. Everything collapses, everything is born anew. I try not to let extinction bother me, that's natural too. But my horse and I, we shared some times.

When my marriage collapsed to the point I had to get out from under it or risk injury I moved into the kindergarten. After I was fired I became a bit of a nuisance. I remained so, as my library remained there. Now lost. In addition to a rather valuable watch collection. What loss has meant to my fortunate self so far is start over. But I will not have a horse again. Not that one at any rate.

Except that I did. O you can't go home again. But you can squat in a kindergarten when they've stolen your watches. Steve put me up in Randy's while I executed a visa run to Thailand. So I killed his fish. Randy's, not Steve's. And not intentionally. In fact I was rather heartbroken. Not as heartbroken as from not seeing P, but that's just life. I saw my horse on my return to SK. He had a girlfriend. Or am I just wallowing in self-pity while I oscillate the time-stream? I think there were three, actually. But one was my old companion, I'm fairly certain. Regardless, the next chapter is now temporally bracketed by this.

Chapter III: The Master Link

I wanted to ride my bicycle to Viet Nam, perhaps thence to China. I bought a mountain bike. I trained for months, admittedly somewhat interrupted when I went to visit my folks. But I borrowed Dad's bike while I was there, didn't entirely go to hell. The sciatica likes bicycling. More than motorcycling. The mind prefers motorcycling, much easier to go farther. The story of Nan may appear here someday. And Ayuttaya. But let's continue with this one for now.

Highway 1173 has a back way to Chiang Rai. Chicken found it once, with On's guidance. I could have done the same if it didn't involve a 50% grade. I may exaggerate. By a small amount. I got to the point that I could make it to that hill. And that involved some >10%s I'm sure, possibly in the 20s. Mountain bikes are cool, go for 0th, you can weave up a wall. But I cuddna take this one. I had to find another way.

I knew the other way of course. The front way. The Chiang Mai-Chiang Rai highway. I've done it at least half a dozen times on moto, even BC (Before Chicken). But it meant a lot more kilometers. San Kumpang and Chiang Rai both lie east of Chiang Mai, though the one south and the other north. This way would mean a large backtrack. Inconsequential if the goal was China but problematic if I wasn't ready, had more to discover. So I discovered another shortcut. The Bo Sarng Highway connects the other two. A mere 10K out of the way. I'd taken it before to see Wat Doi Saket but hadn't put that together. Doi Saket is one of the mountains in the way from CM to CR. Hadn't put it together because the interchange is not straightforward.

Head a wee bit west. And there she is, the highway. Head on home, we'll try this tomorrow, teaching demo Monday.

Have I mentioned the cigarettes I lost? No? What's this treatise called? Take them as given. Bought and lost actually. Do you remember the samosas? O the blog isn't lost my friends, I'm making this for you beacuse you might get lost over there. The samosas have nothing in common with the cigarettes I bought on Bo Sarng highway. Except they're lost.

I had to buy another pack. Was it the weekend? Must have been, interview Monday. Was I smoking in the house? I fear I probably was, it was the weekend. But there were a few nice views to be had going out. The wat, the empty lot, the semi-abandoned factory, the creek. No objection to hoing out except the inconvenience. Lazy bastard. And the next night I would try to ride my lazy ass over Doi Saket.

I might have made it a fifth of the way. It's really rather hard to say. I've done the distance many, many a time but this time I had no odo. Since I've paid attention to the landmarks, the house/market I'm going to tell you about and house of the red mother but that's all CM side, pretty straight forward. Where does Chiang Rai begin?

Well no matter how you slice it I did not get a fourth of the way. That mountain is steep, my zeroeth gear was barely adequate and the master link... o it had other plans.

I had intended to see where I was at midnight, perhaps start looking for a guest house or resort, I intended to ride all night but a couple of hours of rest was necessary. My chain started binding a littole before 12. I now know to take that sensation very seriously. But at the time I was ignorant. Deraileur problem? Sprocket? Pedal? I didn't know. Occasionally checked when I had decent light but my weaving strategy made the problem intermittent. So I thought I could live with it. I passed a market/bar sort of thing you find in the Thai mountains and the party was still going on. Who knows what they thought of the weaving farang. They'd have a chance to think more on it.

I pressed on. On and on. The binding was becoming more frequent, almost every chain cycle and more persistent, often locking the pedals no matter how I wove or back-pedaled. But I idiotically pressed on. Back-pedalling every cycle, weaving to the point I almost had a flat grade, but it kept locking. Finally I learned what it meant when the outer half of the link shot off and the chain parted. I parked and had a smoke. Looked all over for the parts. Put the remains of the chain in a plastic bag, try to keep the grease under control. I actually found what I now know to be te missing piece. It was completely mangled and I kept looking, thinking it must be a retainer ring and the real 'glasses' were elsewhere. If I really was giving you a free novel I'd go back and make this cohere, explain the genesis of the plastic bag and my later education in mountain bike master link anatomy but I am not. I'm certainly going to give you more than enough story but editting is either for editors or writers who get something other than self-satisfaction from their work, naw?

My chain was gone. I had very few options. I was a little less than a kilometer above the marketbarhouse. I coasted back down. I discussed my options in broken Thai. Not much broken English available. One of the drinkers was a policeman from San Kumpang. He could express that in English but my Thai is almost good enough to get by. It's good enough that I recognize a lot of vocabulary and I know the idiomatic propensity for misappropriation so I quickly understood that the mangled piece of my master link was indeed being referred to as glasses which makes perfect sense if you know the shape of the thing.

And so the cop insisted I eat. Said we'd go San Kumpang in the morning. I went to sleep with the drunks on the porch. Not the standalone one, the attached one. I may have had a position of prestige. I dunno but the mosquitos sure knew me. Not much sleep but copious blood donated.

In the morning the cop had disappeared. Or was a late riser. I continued my quest for the part. Bought a couple of envelopes of that supersweetslop they call coffee. First brewed cold, takes patience. No sign of the part (you know I had it already, yes?) Next brew I ask if I might bum a little hot water. Sho' nuf, mai penrai.

Chapter IV: Issan Food

One might think with all I have lost due to my dreams in Thailand I might lay claim to more than this. But this is the crux of the biscuit, apologies Mr. Z, nobody cares what I had for lunch? Well then you have not had Issan Food methinks.

Aromatic. Complex. Hot, hot hot. Medicinal. I never found much to be excited about in Lao food. The Issan are a tribe in the Northeast of Thailand or the west of Laos, depending on your point of view. As far as I can discern. I'm prolly pretty close to correct, I even speak a little Issan. Lao food is unexciting because the tribe has taken all the good ideas. We might blame the French too, if we're the blaming kind. French was once one of my favorite cuisines. I'll still grant it sublimity but I can't say they're masters of spice any longer. French sauces are fantastic. They don't much compare to Kaeng Massaman. Or Kaeng whatever the heck it is at the Issan resaturant at the corner of 1317 and 121.

Chapter V: Volvos

Sold one, lost two, drive one. 'ad more Volvos in me life then most men, aye. Not even counting my folks'. Which prolly explain something of my attachment to them. Of course, surviving rolling one at ~80mph explains some of it too.

Chapter VI: Unruh

Anybody else around here lost a house? Anyone? Maybe it's not something to brag about. But I do choose to see it as a sign of my non-attachment to things. Some might see it as a symptom of pathology. Elsewhere have I compared and contrasted the two phenomenae.

Chapter VII: The calfskin trench

Snooty New York is the snootiest of the snooty. That's where I bought the trench. Bought a nice one for C about the same time.

Chapter VIII: The mysterious giant cube

I didn't get terribly lost tonight. I was so lost when I found the mysterious giant cube that I'm not even positive I can tell you what country it was in. Fairly certain it was Thailand, but as I was looking for a back route to Laos at the time it's remotely possible I'd found it. On the other hand, at that latitude I should have encountered the MeKong before changing countries so I should hold the Thai theory with more confidence. I found some locals later who told me I was indeed a dirt road away from Laos. But I am disinclined to hold theories with great confidence. Especially where the giant cube is concerned. It was so unlikely it's hard not to think it a dream. So I hope time and money will permit a re-exploration of the area. I didn't approach it closely enough to garner a clue as to its use, material or provenance. But I did see it from the foothills and then again from the valley floor, assuring myself that it was indeed quite large (nearly 100 meters a vertex) and cubic.

Chapter IX: Hai Guang Si

Fucking Hannah. Now there's a well-placed ambiguous gerund. I do love English. Less so do I love the English, especially after that experience. I still value my relationships with Rick and Roger, but I note I made no effort to see them my last time in Thailand. They're different stories though, hardly worth bringing up in reference to this particular bloody disaster. But if I suffered for being an American I will bring it up. The British are not particularly remarkable for any intellectual tradition, secularity or 'gentlemanliness' and when I hear these assumptions I chuckle, inwardly at least.

So, what grammatical function does that gerund serve? It is certainly an adjective. It is difficult for me to have lovingkindness for one who held me in such low esteem, who in fact apparently sought to harm me. So grant me an expletive. But don't assume I'm not trying to find that lovingkindness. It's a good exercise, if I managed to find some for the Bush administration and Osama bin Laden it surely isn't impossible to find it for that sad deluded creature who gave me such hopes then dashed them. After all, the hoping was entirely my fault, whereas I have done very little to directly cause Middle Eastern strife nor its fallout or profiteering. Of course you'll have to buy the book to get my coherent analysis. Or the erotic details of the gerund as a progressive verb.

Some evidence remains. It doesn't matter. I hear that like Peter she denies me. Unwind that. 10000 words easy. What matters? Nothing. She wanted to see my BDSM skills. Does this need denying? I need to tell the truth. Witnesses, Martin and ShenShen. Phone logs, forensically preserved. I took a chunk out of my life. But it's worked out. The damage was, perhaps, pragmatically speaking, less than that inflicted by Chicken. But I am not always pragmatic. I do, in fact, permit myself an occasional romance. Sadistic rapist or rapistic sadist? I refer you again to the book. And I thank her for the chapters on the primacy of truth-telling, the pornographic interlude and the demonstrated worthlessness of Abrahamism as a moral framework.

So, fun with gerunds. I am not alone in the argument that they are concurrently verb and adjective. But I am rather lonely in constructing structures where they are free to be and supporting them in both tasks. Because I don't much believe in clarity. The senses are too jumbled, emotions are too powerful, language is too slippy. I've said what needed to be said. I can hope that it was somewhat understood but I can be fairly confident that it wasn't. Nobody is very interested in anyone else except insofar as the other benefits their own life. I could qualify that too make room for the Dalai Lama and other altruistic perverts but it isn't necessary. Because one only needs to adjust the definition of 'benefit' and 'own life' to make the definition pan-humanistically accurate and coherent. In my enlightened moments I know I don't exist. If I benefited fucking Hannah then we all did. I suspect we did. That which does not make me stronger kills me and as far as I can determine this body does suffer on.

So, this so simple statement I made, so, I think, misunderstood. -I have to live with myself, you, evidently, do not. I was not so much making the surface statement that she didn't have to live with herself, that would be pretty nonsensical, even considering the ethical brain-damage she has done herself with Abrahamism. My subtle and sublime point (fluency, facility or felicity?) was that she did not have to live with myself. And so she shan't.

I lived with Jack and Hannah at Hai Guang Si. I betrayed his trust, meaningfully to him with her, meaningfully to myself by telling him all too late. But I then lived with her at Hai Guang Si. What did he make of that? How naive can one allow oneself to be, he knew how their relationship began, he knew the type of monster I am, I tried to communicate without coming right out and saying it. Hai Guang Si is, to me, the hell realm. And I'll go back if it's appropriate because there's a lot of good cheap food and transportation hubs. Pragmatic enough? It is not lost on me that my girlfriend at the time, soon to have been almost fiancee, named herself after Abraham's wife. It was also not lost on me how she suffered while I dallied. I accept responsibility. Let's see what I lose next.

Chapter X: TianJin

I lost a city. A city of comparable size to NYC. O chine, how wo ai ni. I've touched on it when I mentioned Hai Guang Si. But enough was done in a year and a half, enough was lost worth mentioning.

Chapter XI: Philistine Heart

Lacking in appreciation for lack or culture. Have I lost a lack?

Chapter XII: Shanghai

Another city; much larger than NYC.