why did i do this...?

...ok, so there is quite a bit of the "why on earth did i do this to myself" creeping in - and it's only wednesday! i'm kinda secretly hoping that something will go wrong and i'll get fired or have to quit...

but the reasons for doing it are all still there, so i guess i can do it a bit longer...and doesn't everybody feel kinda stressed in the first week or so when they don't know what's going on?

was really, really, really hard not to be able to have a nap today...around 3 pm was the crunch time - got so sleeeeeeeepppppyyyyy!

ho hum - do it again tomorrow...

first day at kindie...

remember your first day at kindergarden? you were kinda excited, but kinda scared at the same time...

well, today was nothing like that. i just - went back to work. it felt - not good, not bad - it was just, i guess, the right place to be.

of course, it was only my first day. i enjoyed the sociability of it. ignored the politics mostly, while making some i hope astute politik movements towards some of the people who it looked will be good to have onside.

on the way home in the subway - i felt - good. like i had finally engaged bangkok... i felt like i belonged, rather than that i was swimming undetected beneath the currents...

my commute, b.t.w. is good - left front door at 8:16. 2 minute wait for elevator. 1 minute elevator ride. 1 minute walk to bike taxi. 3 minute bike taxi ride to station (10Baht). 5 minute wait for subway - airconditioned platform. 8 minute subway ride - not crowded, airconditioned carriage(14Baht). 10 minute walk to work. not unpleasant at all.

i feel like a grown up again!

will i ever go back to my leisurely life? i hope so. if i can alternate between periods of intense laziness and regular work, i will be happy...

ON HOLIDAY


swamp's gone to the beach to meditate on upcoming lifestyle change...

fan art

hey kids! the swamp just got sent his first piece of fan art...

keep sending in your impressions of "life in the swamp" kids, and each week, i'll pick the best pic sent into me and put it up on the shadyswamp blog!

as an idea, how about a pic of the swamp being driven before the whips of capitalism as he returns to the workplace? let your mind go crazy kids!

here is the work of art sent in by "the shoe" from tokyo, age 5


the shoe's impression of life in the swamp

bye bye to the i.m.l

yup. the international man of leisure will be no more at the end of this month.

a big shout out to all of you who supported me in my drive to become the laziest man on earth... it's been a fabulous two years of sitting around doing pretty much nothing, but the time has come for that man to put on the necktie again and go out and pretend to work like everyone else does...

why? you ask...

because it is time...

it's not a case of not being able to appreciate the light when there is no dark...the light is good...very good. but if i spend my whole life being the lazy one, then there won't be enough laziness in the world for you all...

two more weeks of nothing left - better see how much i can not get accomplished in that time.



the artist formerly known as the "international man of leisure"...

goin' pink

after more than a year of living in the 'kok, lying in my hammock, observing the world from my eyrie, and just generally avoiding the world around me, the past few weeks have seen the swamp emerge from hiding to have a closer look at the pink wonder that is soi cowboy - the local hooker strip.

but i still don't go to the hookers - ok - my masthead is still intact.

but it turns out that the soi cowboy is a pretty friendly place.

ok - so if you walk down the street at night without a female escort, they can get kinda grabby - but it's all friendly and done with a smile.

a friend and i went into one place for a beer - they really do have glass ceilings with girls dancing "no-pants" upstairs - the female friends i've told thought it was kinda gross - but it is, of course, really, really, really, really cool. brazilian waxes seemed to be most common...(not that i looked, of course) ;)

so, after breaking through the fear/giggling anticipation that first time, when another friend came and wanted to play pool, we went, of course, to soi cowboy.

pool is B20 per game - and you get a woman to rack up the balls for you after each game - that is a custom i could really get into. you can also fondle the girls if you want - we saw one guy having a massive squeeze of his potential night-partners boobs - he was really giving them the old momi-momi. she didn't seem that pleased about it - maybe there is no momi-momi allowed until a deal has been struck. so she got up and whipped his ass at pool. it was a beautiful moment.

so - the verdict is - soi cowboy is a very enticing place, and in another world, i'd probably live there. but then, i'd probably end up very sexually satisfied but intrinsically lonely like most long termers in thailand tend to be - and i'd probably die of aids too...


soi cowboy

long live the pink...