Only, it wasn't a dream

So, after I break my foot falling out of the bathroom in the "special nore bang" on the "special step" that magically appears when you expect to put your foot on ground, I ate a live prawn and took another step toward being Irezumi Ona before we ventured to the psychadelic rock festival in the woods where paintings express eternal love and oneness with everything while Sato Yukie rocks out with his fox tailed bandmates and the next morning walk down a mountainside farmer's trail to a bus stop near flower beds, and am picked up by a friendly japanese man on the way...it's too bad my friend broke something in the back seat...and then we went to the minbak in the valley and I played H-O-R-S-E, but we stopped at H-O-R and I was winning.

We went to the train station and on the way I left my friend on the side of the road but we found each other at the train station and I didn't know where I was going and couldn't move because my legs wouldn't work and I cried and wanted to be alone, but it was too late, I wasn't alone anymore.

After a week of silence, I got on a train and then took an elevator to the 37th floor. There was an empty apartment and a tiny dog who scratched at my astro-turf green cast and begged to be held. I held her.

Soon after, I chopstick-picked up octopus tentacles with the suckers still suckering to the plate, then they suckered to my teeth and tounge, but it was nothing compared to the wriggling prawn-legs of the past, so I liked it and ate another. We went to FUZZY NAVEL and watched a lady make BLUE SKY and set them on fire. 2 cups were drained with straws while alcohol burned blue flame. We decided to sit outside and a man came to disturb our peace so my friend broke a potted plant over his head and I asked him for my bag back and then we went and hid out at the gangster's house until we were sure we wouldn't have to slip out of the city unnoticed. After dawn, we were sure we were fine except for my friend's maybe broken hand and slept for a few hours before getting back on the train to the quiet town.

I spent another week speaking slowly and then went to the city where I could speak quickly and a REGGAE PERM was performed, but not on my head. On my head were 6 eyes and feathers, and I hopped to reggae music, and misplaced an umbrella cane before singing lullabies with my voice multiplied. In the morning I was back in the place where I speak slowly but communicate.

and I called a friend.

It seems like it was dreaming, but I'm not asleep, and it wasn't a dream. It was a run-on sentence.

PROOF

Whiling the Time

Days 162-173

There is a consistent feeling of waking from one dream into another; one surreality into the next. On top of that, actual dreams are more vivid and memorable than ever. Why, just last night I held my favorite giant purple chicken, with glowing mink fur in lieu of feathers, on my lap in our old neighbor's climbing tree. We talked for hours while friends dressed as characters from Robin Hood gathered at a party hosted by my grandparents.

On my third day back to Korea, I am released from work after two hours. With my unexpected afternoon, a trip to the city seems in order.

Upon reaching the train station, I am nearly an hour early for the local train to Daegu. I buy my ticket and wait outside in the sun, watching a throng of older men take turns tossing four sticks, one side rounded, the other flat. Occasionally they argue, and pass around W1,000 bills. At one point the argument gets so heated that one man turns in a huff, takes his bike and walks away. After cajoling and jeering, he heads back to the circle to place his W1,000 bet once more.

The time to leave arrives and I become lost in thought on the way to Daegu. I vaguely recall a mental note on something about a sub-commentary to self on internal monologue. Something about experiencing life as a constant narration. Who knows? Whether I'm narrating to myself or to others, narration is happening, right? Within us all, right? What? OH. I'm in Daegu already. Time to meander.

These seem to be the days where one may say "...and she lived her life quietly and contentedly among the foreign world of which she was now a part," or some such drivel. The once healthy drive to write even a sentence for every day has diminished markedly. There are many possible reasons for this.

I have a renewed interest in NPR and pancakes. My Sunday home activity is: waking early to make pancakes and brown sugar simple syrup, and some coffee, while listening to NPR. My weekend away, well, that is something different altogether, but there seems to be a Westernized theme.

Saturday morning, I wake early to head for Daegu once again. This time with a purpose other than aimless wandering: Korean lessons with other foreigners at the YMCA. That's right. The YMCA has outreach even in Daegu, South Korea. 91 years of it, to be exact.

I struggle to pronounce 만나사 반가우ㅓ요 (mahn-ah-saw ban-ga-wuh-yo (i.e., nice to meet you)), while my classmate struggles to unwrap a triangle gimbap.



Afterward, I meet familiar Gumi-ites for a stroll around town with a stop at a virtual roller coaster and an introduction to a restaurant with genuine Western breakfast at 2pm and an un-sugared Bloody Mary.

Sunday, post-pancake, I go to Gumi, a nearby city, to deliver a keyboard and see a movie. The Watchmen,

"An adaptation of Alan Moore's landmark comic book series, Watchmen is a story set in an alternative 1985, where the world is ticking closer to the brink of nuclear war, and a plot to eliminate a band of ex-crimefighters is instigated, but why? and by whom?..."

turns out to be just under three hours long. An uncommon opportunity for Scrabble presents itself post-movie, and I spend two more hours in good company, involved in movie discussion, swapping jokes, and racking up a pretty high losing score at my favorite board game. Ween knew gnu knew no new pundits for pun times. Oh, Scrabble!

Day 174

Finally, the 백만 Won that the bank lost in transfer shows up in the right place. Whew! A sigh of relief for that one! A new week begins today.