let's answer the questions this picture conjures up in order
1) oh yeah, that's a handlebar
2) yup, that's a hooters' t-shirt
3) those aren't korean prostitutes, just some girls from work dressed up as adjumas
4) adjumas are mean old korean ladies
5) oh yes, there is a hooters in korea, 2 in fact, and they seem to be the only place to get a dill pickle in the whole country

ok, so these girls from work tell me about a 'bad taste' party they are having on saturday. i realize i can be kind of a hermit sometimes so i say sure, i'll go. that's when the idea hit me for shaving like that, plus it's starting to get hot here. and what a bad taste party it was, i even got to see a very pregnant woman drink beer all night. now i thought shaving was showing commitment to the party, but she took it to the next level...



let's call this one "just about to realize that it's 5 in the morning" yup, right after that i booked it for home. i was shocked to see the sky was already starting to lighten. ugh. fortunately my 5 korean words were just enough to get the cabbie to take me to the 7-11 right by my house.

several years ago i saw a wonderful movie called battle royale. i strongly recommend it. it's basically a japanese lord of the flies meets stephen king's the long walk (both of which i also highly recommend). set in an alternate present, the japanese government randomly selects a ninth grade class and puts them on an 10 sq km island. the children are told by their former 7th grade teacher that they have to fight til one remains by the end of the 3rd day or they all die as their collars will explode. each child is given food, water, a map, and a weapon (random from uzis and shotguns down to pot lids and a paper fan (though the kid with the paper fan quickly upgrades)). of course the kids go ape-shit on each other. despite some peacenicks and conscientious objectors, it turns into a splatter fest. all in all, a tremendous movie.

i bring this up because i recently downloaded it to watch again to see how it held up. you know: some movies get better after a few years, some movies lose their sparkle. i remember watching it the first time and being deeply involved with the teenage characters, wondering who got what they deserved or who got the short end of the stick. the second time around was just as good, but the strange thing was i felt a switch in my sympathies toward the evil teacher. good lord, if i had kids like that i'd ship them off to an island too! as i was watching it there was some serious whatyacallit- some kind of displaced rage violence fantasy going on. sad to say, the teacher didn't win...sigh for that poor misunderstood bastard. probably due to my job, this time when i watched the movie, i didn't notice the mistakes the kids made, i noticed the mistakes the teacher made.
one last thing,:



so i guess freud moonlighted as an architect in seoul...and how!

i don't even know what to write this time

so i guess it's going to be some random thoughts.
1)i have, i'm sorry to say, no idea of how good my father is at his job. i mean, he never seemed to have trouble staying where he wanted or moving to a new hospital if he wanted that too. like with matoon, we only spent a year there and he didn't seem to have a problem getting us out. so there's something to be said for that. i have never been under his medical care, and even if i had, i haven't been to enough doctors to be able to make a comparison.
i bring this up because i have grown to HATE going to the dentist this last few years. i had two bad dentists in a row in lawrence and then in mt. pleasant. poor chair side manners, long, drawn out visits, and very -very!- stingy with the novocain. with my recent tooth troubles i went to the dentist that is the father of one of the students in my school. like my father, he is a alum of the university of michigan. he knows english well enough to have a sense of humor, he has nifty gadgets to explain what he'll be doing, and bet of all: no pain. i've been in for two of five visits for a root canal, and the only pain was from that first needle. the second visit only took 10 minutes! so my thought process is that if UM produced this guy and my father- i hope my father is as far beyond other surgeons as this guy is beyond other dentists.
2)i wouldn't even be writing this if it weren't for the fact that i am in the middle of a 4 day weekend (kid's day). i'm basically using this as an outlet for my boredom. i'm going to put it in writing so i do it: today i will have to pick up my apartment; it's starting to get a little rank.
3)also, today and tomorrow, i'm kinda looking forward to going to the gym during the day to see what it's like- though i do have so reservations as if i can time the end of my work out to coincide with the start of the yoga class, which just happens to be right in front of the treadmills and is usually filled with hot moms trying to stay hot, i find enough inspiration for another 20 minutes of working out- everybody wins.
4) a haunted house made for easter instead of halloween would be fun to make.

thank god for greedy criminals

everyone brings shit to the table. they can bring a lot of other things, laughter, honesty, fun, friendship, but everyone also brings shit to the table. for friends, family, and lovers, you put up with it because, well, you love them, and their shit is a small price to pay for their company. besides, they put up with the shit you brought to the table. however, there comes a time when you are tired or angry or stressed, and you just can't take the shit being on your table anymore- that's when problems start to manifest.
i bring all this up because, apparently, my mouth is a biological example of the above theory. imagine a dentist's office. look around until you see one of those comically big models of a molar. look at the crown, like an ivory tarp suspended and pressed down in the middle to create an enamel landscape. imagine cusping the edge and rolling the side the twin tails that are the roots. but wait: while the first root is fine- a long white tendril... the other curiously ends about halfway down in a malformed stub. now, normally, this is not a problem- presumably, my body has taken the shit that this particular moral brings to the table for 17-19 years, but last night things changed.
we all know about dental pain, so i won't waste time describing it. it was enough to get me to go to the dentist today (who was kind enough to show me an xray of my quasimodo molar). the problem, he said, was that while the protective tooth covering ended, the nerve ending formed exactly the way they were supposed to- which is to say, they are exposed. this is not a problem most of the time. then he asked me if i'd been getting enough sleep or was under stress. sigh, i've been complaining to my coworkers for 2 weeks now that my sleep schedule is screwed up now that spring has sprung (nothing new there- i just sleep less and less as the days get long), and of course there is the stress of dealing with children (socially acceptable sociopaths that they are), and of course, the emotional drain of being the 'other'.
"that's it!!!" said my mouth, "i can't take this shit any more!!! just who do you think you are having an exposed root in this jawline?" so after however many years of having this tooth, i guess enough was enough- still it sucks that intellectual and emotional overloading caused a toothache so bad i could only get a few hours of sleep.
tonight: loads of advil.
stress reduction took a severe hit when i got a call from the bank saying asking to verify some charges. $650 to some computer software company and $1.50 to red cross or something. sigh again, looks like my check card info is out there somewhere. thank god they were greedy enough to put a huge debit on an account that i almost never use. the bank reversed the charges and is going to cancel the card. suck on that fraud mongers!!! plus, while i don't give to the red cross, it seems that passing along .23% of your stolen money isn't exactly an inspirational act of charity. oh well, thankfully he tried for the whole enchilada instead of trying to milk me dry.