Poor Takut

I think Takut the dog may have the dreaded Bali dog skin disease. I note this morning telltale signs where the skin has been exposed on his face and around his left eye. 

Poor Takut.

I thought at first, upon seeing little marks on his head and snout, that these were the scars of nightly dog fights, but what I'm seeing now is more extensive and not likely to be bite or scratch marks. 

Poor Takut. 

Now, I know that people will say I ought to take  him to the doctor, but, to quote my own oft uttered phrase, It's not my dog! Lol. 

Moreover, all that I have as means of transport is my scooter. One sees many people here transporting willing dogs on a scooter, but 1) I've never attempted this before and would not feel safe (I mean really, I don't feel quite safe on my own), and 2) I doubt that Takut would be willing. He is a wild, non-domesticated dog and is not given to taking instructions or obeying any command other than "Open your mouth for this piece of chicken." And, of course, that doesn't really require a demand. He sees chicken, he opens his mouth. 

And moreover again, I have been spending money hand over fist for my own medical difficulties and in fact I'm avoiding seeing a skin doctor at present because I just don't have the money. 

So … 

Poor Takut. 

Just Me and Takut

I guess I have gotten so accostumed to living in very small places over the last eight years that the villa I live in, now pretty much unoccupied but for me, seems vast indeed. Not that I'm complaining. 

The villa is set up to accommodate at least seven people, having five small rooms and two large rooms plus the generous patio and pool area out back. More often, I assume, the large 'family' rooms are intended to house … well, families. As things now stand, only only one other person lives here, an Indonesian girl who works from dawn to dusk and is only otherwise here only at night and, sometimes, on the weekends.  

Of course, Takut the dog generally resides in the patio area--actually under the patio area when he is not residing in my room. 

Talk about solitude!

At present, the pool pump is broken, but I understand that it is to be fixed by this weekend, at which time I may return to a pastime of having a  morning swim. For that matter, I am writing this entry out on the back patio, accompanied by Takut, who is sitting nearby and staring at me. 

Of course, renting a seven dwelling villa to only one or two people is surely not a very lucrative business practice, so who knows? The owners may eventually just throw up their hands and close the place!

Gastritis

I remember having gastritis in America--an ulcer, actually--somewhere in the later 90s, but it was different than what I have now, and preferable in my opinion, though of course not pleasant. The former version was associated with an empty sort of pain, like a hole in my stomach. I remember leaning up against the car and sort of pressing my stomach into the hood to try to relieve the ache. The type that I have now comes with no pain, really, but with a sick feeling in the throat, a sort of swollen sensation that makes one want to swallow all the time, which itself makes one nauseous eventually. With the former version, coffee, for instance, didn't bother me; with this version, I can no longer drink coffee, as it instantly produces a sensation of sandiness in my through and mouth, and pretty much anything I eat makes me feel like there's something stuck in my throat, a persistent, annoying sensation, and one that is not easy to sleep with. Gak. As with so many ailments, gastritis appears to be associated with gastritis (along with many other causes).  MS seems to have a new surprise for me every day--payback, I guess, for having spent so many years with mild symptoms only. 

Freedom

An oppressive spirit has now been lifted from the villa. It is as if the air itself has been freshened, like a heavy, noxious mist has risen and vanished in the breeze. I could actually feel the freedom when I awoke this morning. There is, of course, still the cranky lady whom I have never met and who never comes out of her room, but she's not much of a problem really. Apparently, she and her husband rarely show up, and when they do, it is only for a stopover on their way to some other locale. In fact, if not for this lady's occasional complaints on the community message board, I would have no proof that she even exists. Takut the dog also feels much more at ease, as the only people remaining who are likely to chase him away are the caretakers, and since there are basically only two people now in the entire villa, the caretakers themselves rarely show up.

Bocah Nakal Lagi

The bocah nakal have returned and are causing trouble. It's not so much that they are using the wifi, but that last night they actually entered the premises sometime after I had gone to sleep and were hanging out in the back patio area. 

Previously, I had always locked the door at night, since my room is right next to the door, but then one of the tenants here got angry about that because he was still ordering food from GoJek after 8 o'clock. Eight o'clock, sadly enough, is my bedtime these days. So I stopped locking the door, thinking that perhaps he would take care of it when he was done ordering food. (Fat chance, right?)

So this morning the bocah nakal were once again in the parking garage when I went out to my bike and I told them not to play there anymore, that people in the villa were angry, and that someone would tell their parents if they entered again at night. They just sat there staring at me for a moment, so I spoke a bit more forcefully and told them quite simply "Go!" Lol. They seemed to understand that, and picked up their bicycles and pedaled away. So, we'll see. 

I'm always sorry to have to be severe with children, but then again they should know common limits.

Lizard Man

I am becoming a lizard person. Or maybe I've always been one, like those lizard people who disguise themselves as humans in the alien invasion movies, and my inner-lizard is just now emerging. I am shedding my human skin for a rough, scaly appearance, slithering around my room and hissing, though with displeasure rather than renewal. Perhaps, as in the Rick Yancey novel, The Fifth Wave, I have not even been particularly aware of my alien-ness, or lizard-ness, until I was reactivated by the alien ship that had placed me here in the distant past to be a part of the invasion when the time was ripe.

The sensation of intense inner heat I have had, and which I have mentioned before, has suddenly gotten much worse, such that it seems to be causing a red, dry, painful plague on my skin from shoulders to forehead. Looks and feels like I have a sunburn, but lizards don't get sunburns, and neither do people who spend most of their time in their room because they don't feel well enough to go outside.  The pills the neurologist had given for what he takes to be a neurologic problem associated with multiple sclerosis, are no longer effective. I now continue 24 hours a day to burn inwardly as if I were about to experience internal combustion.  What a way to go! I have left a message with said neurologist, but he has not answered, no doubt thinking Oh God no, not this lunatic again. 

I feel like I've been cursed with the plagues of Job, and, like Job, I can't help but ask why, because I ain't done nothing wrong! Well, not so wrong, anyway, as to deserve seven plagues. And anyway most of my wrongdoing was accomplished years ago, when I was still young, more or  less, and had the requisite energy. I mean really, God, are you going to choose this time to punish me when I've basically been minding my P's and Q's for so  long? 

In his book Disappointment With God, which I just happen to be reading at this time, Phillip Yancey devotes many pages to the book of Job, and many more to the contemporary trials that people go through--good people who have done nothing wrong. He addresses all the age-old questions (as old as the Bible, as old as the Book of Job): Why is this happening? Did I do something wrong? Will you be distant and silent forever?  Is prayer empty and ineffectual? Why do evil people thrive while good people suffer? God, are you even there? 

I say that Yancey addresses these questions. He does not answer them, any more than the Book of Job answers them. The only palatable answer, I suppose, is to appreciate, or at least acknowledge, that the difference between our perspective and God's perspective is akin to the difference between the perspective of a microscopic creature on a lab slide and the man looking through the microscope. God lives in all dimensions of creation, and then beyond even those dimensions. God is creation itself, and more. Infinitely more. Why does God neglect to answer Job's questions? Perhaps it is because, as Yancey suggests, we could not possibly even begin to comprehend the answer. It's not a very satisfying conclusion, or even a very helpful one. But maybe it's the only one possible until we see not through a glass darkly, but face-to-face. 

*Note: The drug prescribed for this intense inner heat, as well as other weird neuropathic amusements, is Pregabalin (or Trileptal).

Cewek Kasar

So I'm sitting on my porch this afternoon, and this girl, Chris' girlfriend (Chris the neighbor in this villa), to whom I have never even spoken except to say hi, passes by and says "Is there some reason you gave out the wifi code?"

I am taken by surprise by this sudden eloquence of more than two words, and for me it is a huh, what, who? moment given my speed of comprehension, which is always slow at best. 

"Excuse me?"

She repeats the question. 

"Is there some reason you gave out the wifi code?" 

"I didn't," I say. "I mean, I don't remember doing so." 

At this point, as I attempt mentally to determine just what she's talking about, the girl huffs and walks away. 

And so, taken aback by the rudeness of this stranger, I'm turning the thing over in my mind. She must, of course, be talking about the wifi code for the villa, and I do remember, come to think of it, Chris obsessing about this in the past. I know that I gave the code to my wife, who has only visited perhaps three times in the past four months, and I know that my little buddy Viana tried to copy it once over my shoulder, but got it wrong. But I haven't seen Viana in weeks now. So she must be talking about the little boys, the bocah nakal, who play out in the parking bay. They must be using the wifi. But I don't even know these boys or where they come from and they've certainly never asked me for the code, so I have no idea where they got it (if they have it). As a matter of fact, I don't know the code myself anymore, and I'm sunk if I should ever need to input it again.

But there's something really irritating, isn't there, about a person who accuses you of something and then walks away before the matter can be discussed. And there is something very unsettling about coming upon a rude Indonesian, as these folks are, 99 percent of the time, uncommonly pleasant and gracious.