Turkey? Yeah....Some Day

Noon Thursday, November 26, 1998

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Happy Thanksgiving you Americans. Well, my desire to write has ended. As has the majority of the excitement. I'm in vacationland -- Kho Samet, Thailand. Hang in there with me though. Sitting on top of another boat. There's people fishing with plastic water bottles and I'm listening to salsa music. There's a woman with huge breasts sunbathing nude next to me. Maybe I should give some travel-like details. There is a little island here where you pick your bungalow, sit at the beach, eat BBQ seafood and such and watch movies outside. I rented a motorcycle and rode it, went on a boat, fished, snorkeled, sunbathed, yadda yadda...

Let's see, just to recap: while I was in Bangkok I met a Thai girl but things weren't as clean as I made them seem. She got all "I love you forever" on me immediately. I'm only writing about this usually rather private matter because now that I look back on it, I don't think it was all that sincere. She said she'd wait for me to come back and never love anyone else. I should have left immediately when, after only a few hours together, she said she was going to figure out if I was a "good person" and if so, was going to "love me". Which, in Thai, means sex and at least a long-term relationship. She was 22 and I tried but couldn't explain to her that I didn't love her. She said, "You think bad things about me." I said "No", and she said, "Then why not love me?"

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I'm not telling you this so you can laugh at her. I don't think it was that funny. These were honest-to-goodness culture clash problems. I thought she was pretty cool at first, she works for Polygram, (we met when she sent her business card over to Noah's and my table). With her as a guide I saw my first Bangkok disco action where I think I ticked off some oh-so demure Thai clubbers. (In the more upscale places, I guess body contact is frowned upon). I thought she might have some taste and I'd get to see some neat stuff.

She was so beautiful. I loved looking at her. We hung out. After the second day of shopping and so on, I go to her apt, a cube in a high rise, ugly, nondescript, lame -- she was into all things cheap and pop about Asia. Sorry. She throws in the Ricky Martin tape for me -- this guy who sings sappy pop songs in Spanish. Ugh.

"In 'General Hospital' he portrayed Miguel Morez, an orderly-turned-bartender who indulges his passion as a weekend singer. "He's passionate towards everything - music, school, friends - and he hates injustice", says Martin, whose detailed character rises above the stereotypical Puerto Rican of television past. "

I looked at her pictures: every single one was some person standing rigidly in front of some tourist attraction (usually her). Ok, what should I expect? Still, the drone life is not for me. I bought her some expensive clothes. It took me about 3 hours to leave her -- or more. She was crying and trying to make me guilty. It worked a little. The last time this happened to me, in college I gave a Japanese girl my old Spanish book and she thought it was such a touching gesture that she proceeded to stalk me and tell people we were married.


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