Recent Sheroes II

As the North Korea of ex-girlfriends (I dont have anything anyone wants, but everyone feels the need to engage and contain me for fear of a nuclear meltdown), I can appreciate someone bearing a grudge. And the more money, time and energy spent on serving up a fine dose of revenge, and the more transparent, childish and petty it is, the better, I say.




I dont look quite this sexy in my 내복, but I like to think I do.

오징어 앤 더 도시

• What? What do you keep in YOUR egg tray, Your Majesty?

• Its gonna take me a little while to type this, Reader, as there is a Gengis Khan lookalike in the room saying that his cheese and salmon sandwich could do with some jam. Would I lie to you?

• Nothing to report: At one place I “worked”, Reader, like all shitty fucking places that I have ever worked, we used to have these bullshit weekly meetings. Anyway, every month or so we’d have a ‘whole staff’ meeting and Mr. Bossman, under the pretense of authority and organization would make an agenda. But he wouldn’t really make it. He’d just use the same one from last time and the time before that and the time before that and just change the dates. If that. So. It would always have the same anachronistic agenda items on it, given that he was too lazy to make a new one and didn’t know what they hell was going on anyway. So, between open displays of vitriolic distain for one another and begrudged and tension-filled silences, the Bossman would ask for updates from various long-since disbanded and irrelevant committees. And replies of “Nothing To Report” would be grunted through the gritted teeth of the various heads of the: ‘Welcome and Orientation For New Staff Committee’, ‘The Christmas Party Preparation committee’, and so on. Anyway, today’s entry feels a bit like that, a perfunctory going through the motions of, with not much to say.

• Songs on high rotation inside my brainbox: When I am not replaying the events of an excruciatingly painful tale of remorse and regret on the projector screen of my mind, I usually have a song playing in my head. Sometimes it lasts a week, sometimes a year. Oftentimes it is a perfectly engineered soundtrack to a mundane task. When I’m coming home drunk, genuinely fearing that I’m about to piss my trousers and having to go through a really punishingly unfair obstacle assault course of door key pads, stairs, keys, shoelaces and belt buckles, it’s the theme from Super Mario Bros. When I’m coming back from Korean class and going down a steep hill just a little too quickly so that my body becomes an out-of-control marionette, and my knees bounce up from the street to touch my elbows and my head bobs about on my freakishly long neck, its ‘The Hotstepper’ by Ini Kamoze. Without fail, when I wake up it’s a little ditty I wrote myself called: ‘Intravenous Coffee’, which is set to the tune of Paul Schaffer’s ‘Letters, We Get Stacks and Stacks of Letters, Letters’ - the theme tune for the ‘CBS Mailbag’ segment on the David Letterman Show. I’ve simply changed the lyrics to say: “Coffee, I need Coffee, I need in-tra-ve-nous coffee. Co-FEEEEEE!!” I have substituted the lyrics of Handel’s ‘Hallelujah’ to say ‘ 돼지국밥” (but only when I want to eat 돼지국밥). And. Sometimes when I see kimchi I start singing “Who’s gonna make the gravy?” by Paul Kelly, inventively, using kimchi as a stand-in for gravy.

• Happy Va-jay-jay Day! Wednesday may have been Peppero Day Reader, but Thursday was Vajayjay Day. I celebrated by taking a trip to the 산부인과 ,followed by a visit to the laser hair removal centre, for round two of Operation: Bikini Line Shock and Awe. Avid readers of SATC will be pleased to know that everything is shipshape down there!

• The Hot Tranny Mess Meltdown Outside Hot Tranny Towers: In good news for Russian exporters of second-rate vodka, but bad news for anyone on my speed dial, and the entire occupancy of Hot Tranny Towers, I have rekindled my love affair with cheap booze. You know what Reader, when it comes to exzses, I work on the Null Hypothesis. There is no new love interest and until otherwise proven. And I undertake zero investigation to indicate anything to the contrary. But Dude, I know we’re friends and everything but didn’t you wanna mention that your stupid slutty bimbo girlfriend will be hanging out with us? I didn’t storm out reader, I just up and left because I didn’t wanna hang around. There’s a difference. And I hope everyone who witnessed me could see it. Anyway, when I got home there was a minor meltdown outside HTT and I can guarantee that everyone who lives there got an earful, because I can hear everything within a 10m radius of the building (including the regular conversations my dry-cleaner has with the police (?!). I know he’s forgotten to give me a pair of pants and not taken in some other pants an inch when I’ve requested it, now I am wondering what kind of other miscreant dealings he’s involved in). Anyhoo! I’m glad I didn’t have the mental wherewithal, nor the hand eye coordination to text, because this is what I wanted to write: “Even though I am not Christian, I am going to pray for your business to go bankrupt.” Ha! I thought that sounded so cutting at the time! Well. I lose again Reader. I look weak and highly-strung and irrational and hysterical (Largely because I am). While the other party gets to console the hysterical bitch who can’t handle the fact that he has gotten on with his life. Bravo My Life!

• Now, no Bonojit Hussein am I, and we already know that my reading of a bus timetable invokes feverish and frenzied outcry from the locals, but until now I have liked to think I can walk to and from Korean class (which I enjoy, but am really thinking about retiring from, because I never speak Korean to anyone anymore. Except my masseuse. Who is Chinese) without getting heckled by my brothers and sisters in arms, my fellow pedestrians. Anyway. There were these three cats lookin’ to rumble. I guessed they were Korean-American, maybe they were Chinese-American? Hell, maybe they were Japanese-Canadian adoptees. Anyway, they were speaking English really loudly and obnoxiously and zig-zagging all over the street (the road, not the footpath). I made the mistake of……….. wait for it………….walking past them, and was rewarded in racist and sexist slurs. What’s the matter guys? Not used to blending in and not being stared at? Boo Fucking Hoo!

• I don’t wanna start a Lee Do Kyoung storm of controversy here on SATC, dear Reader, but I would like to relay to you this little tale of courtship. I received a letter from a very nice gentlemen who said that he was an American who could speak Korean. I have trouble believing that Americans who can speak Korean would have any interest in Jolly White Giants from the Land Down Under and I told him so. Auf Koreanish. To my surprise, he replied in Korean and we had a bit of a witty tete-a-tete. Nice. I liked him. Then he mentioned something about only being 5’5” and therefore not reaching (Ha Ha!) my height requirements. (I’m 5’8” Reader, and for reasons of logistics (SEX!), am seeking a mate this height or above).So, I said, “That’s a pity, ‘cause I like to wear heels” in the spirit of our relaxed and easygoing repartee. To which he replied: “Thanks for being honest. Now let me be honest with you. I would not want to be with someone who thinks height is so important.” You may have had the last word, My Little Teapot, but I am safe in the knowledge that if we were standing in the deep end of the pool, you’d be treading water for dear life and I’d be smoking a cigar.

• An Indecent 프로포즈: I may not be able to make 1,000,000 won for 12 hours work Mr. L. But I can earn pretty fucking close to it. And by doing something not nearly as illegal as that.

• A Complete Non-sequitur for your viewing pleasure: I’m not ashamed to admit Reader, that ‘House of Flying Daggers’ is one of my favourite movies of all time. And it makes me cry almost every time I watch it. And I know my Chinese friends think it is some horrible commercial pile of crap fabricated for the Western palate, but I don’t care. When I told the Chinamen which movies I liked they just laughed. It must have been like a drunk Chinese person coming up to me at a bar, punching his heart, and going “Dude, Braveheart, Dude, that movie like totally changed my life, dude”. Now, if they’d said that about Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, we’d all be on the same page, am I right?

The (Mr.)[e]X Files:

• Everybody takes a picture of themselves in the mirror when they’re having a ‘Big Shoulders Day’ right? Everyone makes a montage of magazine clippings, laminates it, and gives it to their hairdresser for inspiration, richtig?

• Dashboard Confessional: I don’t know how or why. But. Occasionally. I have these days where manchildzses*, Korean and Infidel alike, go out of their way to lock me into some boring-ass dialog with them. Once. Friends of mine had some sort of pet lizard that used to disgrace itself in front of company by gallivanting around its enclosure, screaming and hissing, and pressing its (naked) body to the glass. They informed me that many a game of ‘Dungeons ‘n’ Dragons’ had been ruined by these childish reptilian antics. After countless futile attempts at pacification, they eventually sought the counsel of a vet/ lizard-whisperer. Mr. Scaly was diagnosed with sexual frustration and said friends were advised to give it something green to ‘play with.’ From that point on, whenever the lizard started acting up, they threw a green baseball cap into its tank, it had its wicked way with it, and the D&D marathon continued uninterrupted. As I mentioned in my previous entry, Reader, I have a pink hippie/peasant top which contains similar hypnotic powers to the ones that green cap held over that lizard; it drives Koreans crazy when I wear it. It was what I was wearing when Mr. Ssangyoung, from my post directly below this one, had his moment of temporary (I always assume the best of people) insanity; and, elsewhere I went that day, I saw the pupils of many an Ajumma dilate as they became transfixed on it and only able to utter the syllables: 예..쁘..다… I wasn't wearing it this morning, so I don’t know what it was today, other than perhaps not washing my hair for five days made me emit a transfixing musk that rendered crusty old Ajosshis defenseless against my charms. So. Anyway. I was getting the Korean inquisition in a cab this morning when my driver stopped at a red light. I gave him a quizzical look, being that this kind of behavior is entirely out of sorts for Seoul Cabbies. My confusion was explained, however, when he then asked if he could have a fingernail clipping take my picture. Now, despite what a swag of self-aggrandizing blogs would hint at, I am in fact no exhibitionist or show off. But. When something is so egregiously weird and ridiculous, I often go along with it (providing I won’t get AIDS) just so I will have (yet) another weird and wonderful story to tell about living (under a) on the R.O.K. Anyway, I thought, what’s he gonna do? Drive to the nearest taxi rank/휴게소, hold up his phone, and say “I f---ed this girl.” That, and my new policy of anyone who chats with me for 10 minutes in Korean and doesn’t mention 미수다 deserves a medal prize. So, I give him the peace sign, say kimchi and my stupid, fat countenance is captured for posterity on his Samsung Anyhole. I did feel a slight pang of paranoid regret at that moment, even though he said “잘 보관하겠습니다” (Or something to that effect, Korean speakers?). Because I translate that to mean: I’m going to sell your chubby mug to those companies that make the cards with the bikini clad women on them, and Ajummas peninsula-wide will be sticking a mugshot of you photoshopped onto a Japanese woman’s body under every windscreen and phone box anywhere men are looking for some hot half-chipmunk/half-Saran-plain-and-tall action.

• Because this is a Korea Blog: If these things were Olympic sports, Korea would get a gold medal in them: Eating and drinking [Howlee Jeebus, Man, lunch with my coworkers on Friday was like something from the last days of Rome], working. If these things were an extreme sport, Koreans would be sponsored by Pepsi Max and/or Mountain Dew: Wearing make-up [Have you ever seen a 포장마자 아줌마 leaning over a wok of boiling oil who wasn’t made up like one of those fairground clowns you throw tennis balls into the mouths of?] sleeping anywhere, not sleeping.

• Try-outs: As you know, I have been auditioning for the part of ‘my new sex-partner/ errand boy’. (I AM JOKING!) I did actually meet someone nice. For blawging purposes, I shall refer to him as ‘이나무꾼/ Captain Caveman’. He’s kinda big and gentle and has a really deep voice. Actually, he reminds me of the Sugar Puffs’ Honey Monster. I don’t know why, Reader, but I seem to have a penchant for Neanderthals. Anyhoo, as I said, he’s nice and everything, I just don’t really feel any chemistry. You know, no accidental-metal-in-the-microwave type stuff. In any case, it’s early days yet, but I decided, I probably would sleep with him, and ever since then I have been thinking about what his dick may or may not be like. [No, Reader Sirs, it’s not THE most important thing, it’s actually not even something I usually think about it. The ability to crack a decent funny scores big points with me, but since this guy has been slow and sparse with the jokes, I’ve been forced to pursue alternative judging criteria.] I have come up with my own fusion system for developing my hypothesis, based on Eastern tradition (nose-size) and Western science (hand-size). Some may think it crass and unladylike to ponder the size of someone’s genitals and then write about it on the interwebzses, but if tryin’ ta guess someone’s dicksize and blogging about it is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
[This is all largely academic now, as I have decided not to pursue things with 이나무꾼. It’s just that I had taken so long to write this and didn’t wanna go back and rewrite part of it in some weird perfect tense. Turns out that self-medicating my ADHD with cans of Tsingtao is actually quite low in the efficacy stakes. Who knew?!]

• Mr. [e]X’s contributions to the English language. I hate myself for this, Reader, but I’m pretty sure one of the reasons I am not interested in 이나무꾼/ Captain Caveman/ Honey Monster is because he is not Mr. [e]X. Which is utterly ridiculous, because I met Mr. [e]X this summer, and even though a great time was had by all, even he wasn’t Mr. [e]X anymore. [I am holding on to a dishonest rose-coloured memory of a time that never really existed and it’s crippling me. I wish! I wish! I wish! I could meet someone nice! I’m 31. I used to want four children. I’m tired of feeling lonely at airports. And, objectively I know, it is not just him, it was just a period in my life where I was incredibly happy and satisfied and he got these glimpses of me at rare uncynical moments – where he was able to reach in and touch the Achilles heel of my soul. And as happy as I am now, dear Reader, and I truly am, I don’t think I will ever be that vulnerable or optimistic again. So is this my lot? Second or third best, or no one at all? Enough self-indulgence.] So, as though to solidify his standing and not being who he was, the first message I get when I touch down in ICN was from Mr. [e]X, and it was this:

“Hwarangi! You back? Lemme know so we can hit!”

Hit? What the hell does he mean? I mulled it over for about six days. I hope, I mean I really hope, that he meant: ‘Hit the clubs’, and didn’t know that hit is a transitive verb. Because as awful as that it is, the only other possibilities I could come up with were: ‘Let’s Hang’, or the devastating: ‘Let’s Chill.’ Ironically, I had been placed in quarantine for seven days over fears I could be harboring the deadly swine flu virus. In reality, I was facing the very real prospect of dying of shame from ever having sex with someone who goes around saying things like: ‘Let’s Chill.’ Or perhaps he always spoke like that and I was just less sensitive, or even enamored by his phraseologies. Remember, this is the man that gifted the English language my favourite metaphor for stress relief: “Just like a baby in the vagina”.

Ex.1) Swimming: “Isn’t it relaxing? Its just like being a baby floating in the vagina.”

Ex.2) Readying himself for sleep: “Tonight I will sleep like a baby who just came out of the vagina.” [Closes eyes. Expels a deep sigh.] (Said to himself with sense of satisfaction) “Just came out of the vagina. Just came out of the vagina.”

• More Tales from the Coven: Hold on to your hat, Reader, but my real name is not Hwarangi. My given name, a gift from my parents, is a soft, beautiful and meaningful moniker which I love and am proud to bear. In a bastardised Korean butchering of the pronunciation, apparently my name has a litany of unflattering and ridicule-worthy definitions. None of which any of my mature and professional coworkers are afraid to remind me of on a daily basis. At lunch: “You are very pretty, but your name has terrible meaning in Korean. Do you know %$#@! &^%$ %$#@?” You’re right about one thing, Mrs. 마녀, whose given name is so sacrosanct we may not even mention it. I AM PRETTY. Especially when I sit or stand next to you. You hideous fucking hag.

• My She-Bang: You have every right to know reader, that I am getting the hair on my Maria Magdalena removed by way of laser surgery. Not all of it. Nor most of it. Actually not even much of it, because I am far from hirsute to begin with. But as much as I enjoy trips to the salon and having my freshly waxed bikini line blown on and rubbed better (You may think I jest, but you would be wrong), this will save time and money in the long run. I don’t know how many treatments I will require, because, irony of ironies, reader, while the “curtains” require $200.00 worth of highlights every six weeks, the “rug” is naturally blonde, and therefore less receptive to laser treatment. For this reason, they don’t know how long the procedure will take in its entirety, but hope I can get away with just two or three more visits. Because treatment requires that I lay spread-eagled and half-naked on an OBGYN-cum-dentist’s chair, my nether-regions slathered with numbing cream, with only a sheet of plastic cling wrap to shelter my modesty from the gaggle of nurses on high rotation in and out of the surgery door and back out to the waiting room again. I have to lay there for 40 minutes with nothing but a Vogue magazine to keep me company. And you know how much I fucking loathe Vogue.

*Making up my own languagezses; getting all 1984 on your asszses.

The Dilli-요

• 오래간만입니다.

• My hero and idol, Russell Brand, describes his life as ‘a series of embarrassing incidents, strung together by me telling people about those embarrassing incidents’. If I may be so bold reader, I would describe my own life similarly, by saying that my life is a series of gaffes, strung together by me expending precious time and energy trying to make amends for aforementioned blunders.

  Getting on the wrong bus * Getting on the right bus but getting off at the wrong stop * Having to get a taxi and discovering I don’t have any cash on me * Pouring tea on my laptop and having to get a new keyboard * Getting a new keyboard that doesn’t plug into a USB port * Bitching out an usher only to have to beg to be let into the theatre to look for my wallet afterwards * Leaving a semester’s worth of notes on the subway the week of finals * Getting locked inside a shopping centre * Leaving my mobile in someone’s car *

  Sure, it sounds romantic and rock ‘n’ roll when written here, but I can assure you it’s exhausting just being me. I have to keep a notebook, on which I have written ‘Momento’, whose pages are bursting with the records of life’s mundane errands, like ‘get dry-cleaning’ or 'buy band-aids'. Whenever I have a quiet moment to myself, like if I arrive to class early, or manage not to get harassed on the subway, I flick through Momento and scribble-out my chores accompli. Consequently, I carry around a dog-eared blue notebook whose pages are full of black scribble. There’s no real anecdote here reader, except to say just that now that I have a job which involves actual work, and not sitting in a cubicle watching YouTube all day, the time, energy and inclination to blog has diminished, somewhat. I can’t be expected to hold down a full-time job and do anything else. Unless I get a PA.
  

• Stupid Meddling Bitch Alert: Granted I am white, but I went into the Korean Post Office to post something inside Korea. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fly with the desk staff. I took a number and was waiting my turn, so please don’t try and shoo me over to the international counter.

• Stupid Imposing Bitch Alert: Of course the nail tech will translate the letter containing your despotic demands to your dry-cleaner. I mean that’s what you’re paying her for right? And the natives here are so kind and friendly. And if she pauses to think you’d better yell “Han-goo Mowel, Han-goo Mowel” at her one more time. That way she’ll understand good and proper. And why didn’t the other girl massage your feet for long enough? And don’t worry about looking like neo-colonialist cunt, because nothing cuts the post-menopausal-tantrum-tension like “Kassunida, Gwenchano”.

• Missed Connections: To the owner of the Ssanyoung Chairman, number plate 49로7085, I know I had no right to be looking at that bus timetable so provocatively, with all my skin covered up like that, and my S-line obscured by that unflattering peasant top [Howlee Jeebus, man, It’s not like I was bending over in a mini-skirt and a bikini top picking 10원s off the ground]. But I had to get to Gangnam Kyobo somehow [Also, do you need a secret handshake to get into that place? What is it? Gangnam’s best-worst-kept secret or something? I scoured the lobby for so long I felt I was looking for the bookcase to move to get into little Anne Franke’s house. In the end I had to go down the fire escape. Where I did find a Narnia-like hidden world of books and stationery, I just wonder how everyone else got in there?]. But I will tell you this. If it takes the rest of my life, then so be it. But I vow to hunt you down, punch my fist through your windscreen and yell something stupid in your face. Actually, I am going to yell something intelligent, like: “DIDYOUKNOWTHATTHEEARTHSSEASONSAREACTUALLYDICTATEDBYTHETILT OFTHEEARTHONITSAXISNOTITSDISTANCESFROMTHESUN? Well, do you? Punk?”

• Ro-MANIA!: What do you picture when I say ‘Eastern Europe’ reader? I know I am a horrible bigot, but I immediately get a very lopsided vision of horses and carts, Bulgarian mental institutions; brawny female shot-putters; drab, broken-down communist buildings and generally stifled economies based on turnip farming. So. It was with some pleasure that I listened to my Polish friend recount his recent trip to Romania, where, in the capital city Bucharest, he could not leave the hotel for fear of being mauled by packs of wild dogs. That’s right, the Hounds of Hell are patrolling the modern-day streets of Dracula’s Motherland. I know it’s wrong (particularly as he was actually bitten) but I love that story. I find myself laughing out loud when I think about it.

• Hubble Bubble: Lucky me, reader. I get to eat lunch with three witches. We partake in really rewarding cultural exchange and discussion over steaming bowls of eye of newt and toe of frog [no literary license taken in describing the lunch menu]. A snippet for your reading pleasure:

Hecate: When I was in Canada there was a birthday party in my hostess’s family. They invited me. When we got to the restaurant there was a hamburger on a plate. Is it a common thing? To put a hamburger on a plate? We never do like that in Korea! That is a kind of junk food.
W2: That is like a junk food. Like a ramyeon!
W3: But ramyeon has a special meaning for us. It means a long life.
Unison: Oh, yes. Very meaningful.
Hecate: (20 minute scathing diatribe on how much she hates Canada, basically because her homestay didn’t wait on her hand and foot)….. And I will never go to Canada. I really hate Canada. I was planning to send my first daughter to go to Canada for study English, but when I got back I decided no.
Me: Oh, well, maybe you could send her somewhere else to study English, like the US.
Hecate: No, I hate the US,. Actually. Because they are too physical. Their mental is not developed. The culture is too, too shallow. Actually I never been there. I like Europe culture. I think this vacation I will go to the US.

That is what she said verbatim, reader. I PROMISE. I did not edit it and there was no pause or interjection from the rest of us. Actually, I probably shouldn’t make fun of ol’ Hecate, because beside from being a crotchety ol’ battleaxe, I do genuinely think she is mad or menopausal or both.

• When in Rome: You know, I was disgusted the time somebody vomited in the corridor at work, until somebody vomited in the hallways of my apartment (outside). That was trumped when someone spat on the elevator floor. Today, somebody did a poo on the floor. Either that or they did it in their knickers and it rolled down their trouser leg (They obviously have a diet lower in kimchi and dwenjangjiggye than I). I don’t want do dwell on the execution too much, just suffice to say, there was a poo on the floor. [I will say that I no longer work with adults and now work with adolescents, but this shouldn’t come as much of an exoneration, because everyone is older than 4. At least 10 years older than 4.] Even after 10 years it is very hard for me not to put my toilet paper in the toilet bowl. Once it’s in there hovering above the water its goes against every fiber of my being to pull it out and put it in a wastepaper basket. Sometime when I see workmen doing maintainence work on sewage pipes in the street I get pangs of anxiety thinking that the whole road has been ripped up to unplug a backlog of yours truly’s used TP somewhere in the Seoul Metropolitan Plumbing System. I feel less guilty about my own contributions to waste management today.

• The Liberace Files: There will be no further mention of Liberace until somebody agrees to take somebody else to Gangwon-do.

The Katzez:

What did you do over your summer vacation, dear reader? As you are no doubt aware, yours truly was in a self-imposed exile on the Redneck Archipelago. Spent most of time chillin' with a bunch of guys I like to call 'the Katzez'. And while they do appear angelic, reader, I must tell you that not one of them was a spared a punishment from me for miscreant behaviour during my stay.

We call her Wee Whitey, or Wee Wee. Most of the time she'll stay out of your hair, and on the carpet outside the bathroom, but wash and iron a load of clothes to sell on E-Bay and she'll be all up in your business.
The Crime: Getting on the bed; attempting to get on the bed
The Time: Time out on the ironing board. (Not such a harsh punishment because she actually loves that ironing board, but it took her sights of the bed for a while).

Have you seen a more perfect feline specimen than this? Chances are you have. Scooty cut half his tongue off licking out the reminisces of some tuna from a can. It means he has a perennial string of drool hanging from his chin; can only drink by immersing his entire face in the water bowl; and cant clean himself to high cat-like standards of hygiene.
The Crime: Punching Wee Wee in the face and chasing her under the table and behind the fridge.
The Time: Being placed on the back step. (Until Mummy crumbled and let him back in. How can you resist a face like this?)

Kitty.
For someone who is morbidly obese and ostracised by the other cats, Kitty doesnt go out of her way to make friends and influence people. If I sit next to Kitty and stroke her, she will stand up, huff, and turn around so that her back is to me.
The Crime: Trying to sever one of my arteries with her wolf-like incisors and shredding the back of my hands with her talons. After being allowed on the bed!
The Time: Being placed outside the bedroom door.

It is said that Leonardo da Vinci was able to draw a perfect circle with his free hand. Scooty can do that with his little body on a cool winters' eve.

I really miss those guys.

Notes From Exile Island

• Just a quick note, reader, as blogging from someone else's computer is like doing a poo in someone else's toilet: Possible in an emergency, but you cant do your best work.

• I am stranded in Caucasia. For my exact location type "Hwarangi Family Home for Aged Cats" into your GPS SatNav.

• God, I'm bored.

• I caught sight of this little self-made slice of mechanical engineering excellence whilst perusing the general carnage of cannibalized house-parts and once-were-tools in Cmrde. Dad's "Workshop" (Back veranda). The close-up reveals the true majesty of this design and execution feat, but I do like this long view as it gives you, dear reader, a peephole into the rest of the workshop, and indeed, Cmrde. Dad's brainbox. I asked Cmrde. Dongsaeng 2IC what it was. The conversation went a little something like this:
  

Me: What's that thing on the veranda? [Temporarily forgetting that I grew up with the Castanzas and that such oddities were not noteworthy.]
2IC: What?
Me: Umm, that serrated sickle thing taped to the pool pole.
2IC: [nonchalantly, without turning away from the TV] Dad's high places' saw?
Me: Oh, yes, that's it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, SATC proudly presents: Dad's High Places' Saw:

The saw attached to the pool net I understand. But, I see no practical use for the hook. Then again, who am I to question the High Places' Saw?

• In other 'Window Into My Childhood' reporting, allow me to introduce: The Hwarangi Family Washing Machine Aids:
  

Of course, every family keeps a range of wooden implements beside the washing machine, which ones do you have?

We're a wooden-spoon and drumstick family ourselves. Washing powder cannot be trusted to dissolve of its own volition. A few quick stirs with a wooden spoon are required at the beginning of every cycle.

The Ajosshi Redemption

· The Ajosshi Redemption: Although I saw no mention of it in the news, it looks as though the members of the Brotherhood of the High Belt must have held a caucus and decided to go back to gushing and fawning over me, because Ajosshi-Hwarangi Relations were reinstated to “normal” this week. Compliments on my Korean have skyrocketed, exclamations of “Best”, “Number One” and “Berry Good” rose 50% over this time last year, and thumbs-up were at an all time high. One taxi 기사 even mistook me for being a member of the mighty Han. Granted I was in a Peter Sellers-worthy disguise of a hat and sunglasses, but the old man said it was my exemplary pronunciation of 전자렌드 that made him do a double-take. What can I say? Girlfriend’s got an ear for the Konglish. Not that I expect, nor even welcome this kind of partisan treatment, but it might help you realize just how much of a knife in the ribs last week’s subway incident was.

· I may have the body of a concrete elephant, but I have the heart and stomach of a weak and feeble woman: Actually, I have the body of an elderly work-mule on her way to glue factory (a broad and manly frame from which soft flesh hangs of the bones like steamed lamb of the shank after years and years of weight loss. Weight gain. Weight loss. Weight gain.) Anyway. If you’ve ever wanted a window in the topsy-turvy life of an impetuous, contrarian dick, you’ve come to the right brawg. Buckle your seatbelts; this isn’t going to be at all interesting. My old mobile phone was under the name of Mr. [e]X. This week I kept getting messages saying that the phone was being changed from LG to KTF. On the edge of your seat, reader? Also, I hadn’t gotten my bill last month. So. I was worried that he had done something and my hassle-free phone situation would shortly be coming to an end. My paranoid and hotheaded brain was entertaining two possibilities. Either the phone contract would be ended summarily or I would have to contact him. The mere thought of the latter being enough to send lightning bolts of panic down my spine. Our parting was not sweet sorrow. It was gut wrenching, heartbroken resentment (on the part of your esteemed narrator). And we haven’t spoken for years. So, I kind of started panicking and thinking that I had to go out and buy a new phone. But. I was so wound up that instead of thinking about what to do (I was trying to tell myself: “Calm down, H. Just go and have some semi-homoerotic fun in the sauna. Calm down, H. Just go and have some semi-homoerotic fun in the sauna. Calm down, H. Just go and have some semi-homoerotic fun in the sauna. Calm down, H. Just go and have some semi-homoerotic fun in the sauna.”) But to thy own self I wasn’t true. So, I got a new phone. No biggie. Also, I was hoping to rid myself of a bunch of wrong numbers, psycho telemarketers and one-time acquaintances. But then I thought, well I can’t just not pay the bill for the old phone. I’m not like that. I’m going to have to contact him. And if he doesn’t/ wont reply, then at least I would have tried. And my conscious will be clear when I lob it into the Han River. So, I text message Mr. [e]X, and he replies, sweetness and light, asking whatever can he do to help. Now, if you have had the spare time and the warped inclination to have read more than a few entries here or on ALTAWATSAC, you may have been given the impression that I am a cold, hard, cynical bitch. And that’s because I am. I’m also very tough. I’ve challenged many a man who said I couldn’t write my own name in the snow. No bastard ever took me up on it, but I do genuinely think I could do it (at least in Hangul). But, when I got that message, I’m mortified to say that I welled up with tears right there next to the accessories stand in the KT office. I had to go outside and compose myself. Seriously, reading that back makes me want to vomit. Anyway, long story short, we are on speaking terms and there was no fucking need for me to rush out and get a new phone. And I’m getting more spam and wrong numbers than I ever did with the last number. Christ.

· The Ajosshi Redemption – Mobile Phone Salesman: To me, mobile-phone salesmen in Korea are what used car dealers are in Australia. A bit too slick and cocky for someone who doesn’t really have such a sexy job. Anyway. This guy was nice. I had to wait two hours to get my new number, so he really tried hard to make conversation with me. One highlight for me was when he asked how many digits were on the Australian National Identification Card. I told him we don’t have those cards in Australia. And he couldn’t understand how one would open a mobile phone account. “So you just do it by name” he pondered. “Umm, maybe drivers’ license” I said (I really don’t have a strong recollection nor working knowledge of the way mundane shit like that is done in Australia anymore). “But what about people who have the same name?” he asked. I tried to explain that the chance of someone having the same name and birth date wasn’t perhaps quite as likely as it was in Korea but I’m not sure if it registered.

· The Ajosshi Redemption – The Ajosshi Denunciation: You picked the wrong person to proselytize to, Mr. Taxi-Kisa, Sir. I’m not on the fence about religion. And I’m not going to be swayed by the prospect of “making many friends” – so stop saying it. However, telling me to go to church as I alighted your vehicle, which appears to be some new hybrid that runs on body-odor (of which you appear to have a ripe and infinite supply) did have an effect on me. I will go to church good sir. And I’m going to Jeebus that a certain self-righteous cabbie helped himself to a 200 won tip. – The Salaryman Evasion: I really need to heed the advice I wrote to others on ALTAWATSAC. I was on my way to get something to eat when I noticed someone following me. Now, this is Sinchon on a Saturday so it was Bedlam anyway. But I could feel someone about to a) steal my wallet, or b) give me a bad touch, c) offer me a copy of the Watchtower, or d) worse still, practice their English. This guy was very obviously fucking tailing me and I was very fucking obviously zigzagging my way through the crowd to ditch him. The whole time I had this song playing in my head. Anyway, just as I thought the coast was clear he caught up and began the Korean inquisition. He got to about question three when I just said: “Look, I’m really not interested in talking to you.” He said: “Where are you going?” Now, I hate lying. And I hate that someone else would be that invasive of my time and privacy that I would have to go to lengths to rid myself of them just so I could go and get seven plates of one dollar sushi. So I just told him honestly, “I’m going to eat lunch.” “Alone?” “No” I lied. “With your boyfriend?” “Yes” I lied again. Forgive me Jeebus. “Oh that sounds bad! Hahahahaha!”

a) Fuck off and mind your own fucking business.
b) That sounds bad? Eating lunch with a boyfriend sounds fucking great! I wish that were the case. Anyway that’s the pretext. The truth is I’m probably gonna have to walk straight past Bargain Sushi Basement, circle the block a few times and possibly have to hide out in an alley for a while.

I did manage to ditch him, dear reader. I’m not writing this from a Sinchon backstreet by stealing wifi from Tom N Toms or Angels In Us.

· This week’s internet dating highlights: Just the one, but I think you’ll agree quality trumps quantity every time: “I wanna make a foreigner girl friends. Cause my last girl was a black.”
Destiny.

· Actual Dating Highlight: I met someone. And he was nice. And normal. And he was my age, taller than me, heavier than me, had a good job, speaks three languages -including flawless English. We talked for three hours. Good, intellectual conversation. No treating me like a celebrity or a monkey in a cage. Although I do get the feeling he would like to give me a banana, if you know what I mean *^^* After we parted he sent me a text that said I was more beautiful in person. That’s sweet, isn’t it? Anyway, fear not. I’ll find some way to ruin it.

· From the vault: Liberace has been incommunicado this week, but while I may be an atheist, I am not a nihilist, and tradition is important to me, so I offer you this vignette from his military service:

"One time I was on the subway and I was wearing my army soldiers military uniform costume and the subway was very crowded with many people. And one woman screamed “Don’t touch my hip!” because somebody touched her hip. And everyone was looking at me because I was a military soldier and they think I did not have a woman for a long time. But I didn’t do it. And my face was red. And I got off at the next station even though it wasn’t my station. But I didn’t do it.”

Poor Liberace, all red-faced in his army soldiers military uniform costume. But, methinks thou doest protest too much.