Nathan and Me

Brought my laptop with case out to Starbucks this morning on the motorbike. On the way, on Yeh Aya, I saw an accident. Girl was sitting in the street holding her shoulder, looked to be in a fair amount of pain. Of course, dozens of bikers had stopped in order to move her bike out of the streeet. But I thought to myself, wow, what if I got in an accident with this laptop on my back. No more laptop, right? Perhaps taking the car would be wiser, though in that case, there would be no parking spot. Hmm. It's a quandary. I guess the solutiion is to avoid getting in a wreck.

Back in old Portland town, there was a period of time when I went to Starbucks with my laptop nearly every day. I suppose this was between 2004 and 2006. I would write poetry and short stories. The stories were mostly about a character named Nathan. Nathan was a drunk whose life had fallen apart and all he had left, really, was the bottle, one-night stands and his faithful dog, Frank. Only one of these stories was ever published. A long story called First Things First. Of course, I didn't try very hard to get any of them published. For one thing, my first wife, who had always been a trustworthy reader, said that they they rotten and depressing and that Nate's alcohol abuse was tedious. I guess they served more as a personal catharsis. an honest discussion with myself. By the time I had stopped writing those stories, I had stopped drinking altogether. Nathan was dead. But I still have a soft spot for him, as one does with all drunk, dead people. As one does for all lost souls. Poor Nate. Rest in Peace.

China Rich Girlfriend

The Crazy Rich Asians are up to their hijinks again in Kevin Kwan's sequel to that novel, China Rich Girlfriend - a story of untold riches and the curious burdens associated with the same. We have all heard that great wealth comes with its own penalties and pains, and Kwan lays these out with a fluency and perspecacity that I have rarely seen on the subject. In some sense, the rich person becomes a prisoner of his own riches and all the things entailed in their possession as it pertains to relasionship, position, expectations, family, love, class, tradition, and a stiff, suffocating form of propriety that is seemingly as inescapable as the wheel in a hamster's cage. What you do does not so much determine how much money you have as how much money you have determines what you do and who you are and must be.

Kwan delves into wealth here with a sort of affection for detail and specificity that may seem to border on the tedious to some readers - especially to male readers, I think. For me, however, this lends an inexpendable sense of real experience to the narrative, a sort of inside knowledge, from which one may learn and better evaluate the conceits and motivations of the characters.

It is a world of almost surreal excess which is ultimately so artificial that it sucks common meaning from the essential things that more common men know and understand - love, kindness, the immeasurable value of life itself.

Filled with irony, humor, sarcasm, intrigue, China Rich Girlfriend struck me as the perfect follow up novel for Crazy Rich Asians. It is a good, long, intelligent peek into a world that most of us will never know.

Love

Love in its purest form is the single-minded devotion to the happiness of someone else, anyone else, everyone else.

Happy Easter.

Weirdness

Weirdness. Just after my wife left for Europe this afternoon, I was reading something on the computer screen when suddenly I noticed that the letters had run off somewhere and even the trusty icons were wavering. I noted next clusters of geometrically shaped bright lights at the peripheries of both eyes. A rather strange thing to be looking with your eyes at the bright lights in your eyes. I vaguely remember having the same thing happen in the past, perhaps two years ago, associated at that time with whatever weirdness was going on with MS at that time - headache, ear ringing? - I don't rightly remember. Anyway, I closed my eyes and laid down for a time, and now my vision, such as it is at baseline (which is certainly nothing to shout about), has mostly returned. Praise God and methylprednisolone. Funny thing is that what worried me most of all was that my wife, who is already upset about my health problems, was going to be even more upset if I ended up f'n blind!

Monsoon

It seems that we're having a monsoon year here in Southeast Asia. That's what my wife tells me, anyway; and this would tend to explain the long life of the rainy season this year. 

When we first moved to Bali, in February 2010, we found the entire year to be quite dry and almost always sunny. Knowing nothing about what is "normal" for the weather here, I took this to be a usual pattern. During the ensuing years, this conceit was dampened somewhat. 

Nonetheless, this year it started raining in September, and it's still raining now, in April. Of course, by "rain", I don't mean to suggest that it is anything like what we have in my home town, Portland, Oregon. During the wet season here, the rain is generally shortlived and furious, then turns back into a mixture of sun and clouds. Somedays, even during monsoon, it doesn't rain at all. Some days it rains only at night. Sometimes, it rains off and on throughout the day (as happened today). 

In any case, it is never cold. People who were born and raised here think it is cold, but it is not. I have never once seen it colder than 25 degrees centigrade, which translates to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. More often it is 30-33, or 85-95 Fahrenheit. Add in the humidity factor, and you get a number in the range of 800 or so. 

But I'm not complaining. I'm still just drying out from 55 years in Portland. 

Galungan

Having passed beyond Nyepi (Silent Day), we are now approaching Galungan in Bali. This is a celebration of the victory of good over evil and extends for about a week to Kuningan. During Galungan, deceased relatives visit their ancestral homes, and families make them welcome with offerings, such as those depending from the long bamboo poles set up along the streets (photo). On Kuningan, the spirits again depart. Typically, there will be a number of ceremonies devoted to the observance of each day during this period--which, to those of us who do not celebrate Galungan/Kuningan, translates to a likelihood of finding the local warung or grocery store or other business closed (although, on the other hand, certain tourist restaurants have special Galungan dinners featuring staff in ceremonial costume). Just before Galungan, one can see many of these long bamboo poles being transferred by motorbike to whatever street upon which they will be erected, which means, essentially, that the driver is steering with one hand while holding a lance in the other. It is a bit like bringing the Christmas Tree home, although one generally does not see this task performed on a motorbike. 

The Accidental Thief

There are a lot of Honda Vario motorbikes in Bali. A lot of them are white. I myself have a white Honda Vario. Therefore, it is not too surprising that I, upon returning to the parking lot from Starbucks this morning, tried to force my key into the wrong white Honda Vario. 

During this time, a young man was standing by the motorbike next to this particular Honda Vario, arranging things inside the saddle while continually glancing with some interest in my direction. Working at the ignition slot, I soon notice something unusual about the bike. It is clean. And this was my first clue that it was not, in fact, my bike.

Oh! Hey, this is not my bike! I checked the licence plate. Definitely not my bike. 

Ya, the young man said. Dat my fren bike.

Lol.  

So, are you gonna just stand there and watch me steal your friend's bike? That's the first thing I'm wondering. Are you going to wait till I actually mount the thing and try to drive away before sounding the alarm? 

In any case, I found my own bike a couple bikes away. The dirty one. 

Ah, here we go. That one is clean, I say. Mine is dirty. 

Ya, Pak. Yours needs da bath. 

Well, it does. But on the other hand, this may be something to remember it by in the future. Mine needs the bath. The others are clean.