It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Last week I got a paycheck for the first time in over a year. It felt good, but extremely small for what I thought was a three-week period. I was worried for a bit that I was living to work, instead of working to live. Turns out the paycheck was only for two weeks. Silly me, I'm going grocery shopping.

I like to stay optimistic, even though I have a habit of accepting the bad news before checking its sources. That's the problem with being an easy-going person, but being one means that there are no problems... ahhhh.

Doesn't that just make you sick? Not that I care about cheap gas all that much, but to make the most money of any US corporation this quarter and then use it to actually fight efforts to prevent global warming... I mean, what the fuck?

Will you help me expose their dirty deeds by signing this petition?

http://political.moveon.org/exxon

"I have learned that I really cannot be destroyed."

So my first day, they offered me a double shift. Who was I to say no? :) After 12 hours of bussing tables and a 45-minute lunch break for some of the best food I've had in months, I was ready to collapse. Tired but happy-- I work with great people in a well-run company and bring people delicious food and get to water down their steaming heads after they order a dish with a "FireEater" rating. Wish me luck!

Got the night off so that I can give sugar to all the wild things that will undoubtedly come banging down the door tonight, and I'm off to buy big bags of the stuff right now. Happy Halloween, and go easy on the milk duds, they're terrible.

The property management company is holding up the house because they're waiting for my criminal record to come through Nevada County. Would you let someone rent your house if they had broken curfew on Halloween night when they were 17? Sounds like a troublemaker to me...let's get a restraining order. Hah! Nah, I don't think there'll be a problem, once these small-town bureaucrats get over themselves...but we all know that's just a dream.

On another note, check out some awesome pictures of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) taken by Icelandic photographer Siggi - click here.

In a way, this is very true, but in knowing this truth, everyday life can be set in a picture frame without ever taking a step. Train your eyes to see the wonderfully intrinsic qualities around you every day, and you will never have to travel to faraway places to watch in fascination the kind of people you ignore at home. I recommend both.

People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle.
-Paul Auster

Did that part of me even come to the airport that day? Maybe he's still sitting at the Sompeht night market in Chiang Mai, eating Krapao Moo or Pad Prik Prao. He could be dancing under the strobes and tinted flood lights of Bubbles, Lava, or the Par Club; if he's there, he's jumping and spinning to the heavy bass beats that shake the very foundations of those discos. He might be cruising through town late in the afternoon on his 125-cc motorbike, grinning at life while the massive monsoon clouds grumble overhead. I long for the drenching rains, the flavored food, the warm people, and the phosphorescent ocean algae-- shining in near competition with the stars above. I wonder if he ever thinks of me? I say he stayed behind... Does he think I left him? Who is the deserter here? Not me.

Did somebody say dessert? How 'bout some Khao Nio Mamuang from my favorite stall on the corner by the eastern moat in Chiang Mai? Ohh yeah... I can't even begin to explain how tasty this is. There's something about sticky rice and mango marinated in coconut cream that makes my taste buds dance a tango as I slowly chew each bite. The rice is cooked just right, the mango picked perfectly ripe, and the coconut cream is applied for a smoothly delicate flavor. The smell is heavenly; the texture and consistency is that of nothing you've ever experienced; and the taste stays with you for weeks--mainly because you won't be able to stop eating it. Best dessert in the world and made in Thailand, of course. It's the perfect top-off to a full meal of stir-fried vegetables, basil, chilies, and chicken over rice, so full of spice and flavor you have to plan each bite to include a bit of each one.

Back at home, I try to explain to others how Thai people eat with a spoon and a fork-- shoveling and building the perfect mix with the latter into the former. I try to convey the feeling of eating there, truly taking your time with every bite and adding more flavor sometimes after every taste, but in the end no words can sit you down at a night market in Thailand and serve you some of the better-than-home-cooked meals you watch being prepared for you with love and care. Back home, the food I used to think was spicy tastes bland. The weather I used to think was hot feels so cold; the rain I used to think was heavy feels like just a mist. It's all what our bodies are used to, I guess, and I can get used to anything.

It's raining again. The monsoons are here. It's almost every night now, a dumping of water so thick and heavy it fills the streets to just below your knees. Taxis have to find higher ground to open their doors for fares; tuk-tuk engines stall out completely in clouds of blue smoke as the water fills up past their axles. Just as quickly as it came, it's gone. The sun sets and the world continues, if not a bit wetter. Shop keepers uncover their goods once again; the slowly draining pipes lead the water out of the streets and into the canals; the opening skies lead the smiling people back into their night lives; and I'm off to eat some dinner at the Sompeht Night Market. Nothing like a good rain to build the appetite.

I didn't eat lunch today. It's funny, I used to be able to eat two servings at every meal when I was in Thailand, but lately I feel as if my stomach has shrunk. Did I leave part of that as well? As I said before, I must go back someday and retrieve these things I left behind, because I feel incomplete.

"Check bin khap!" I motion to the water as I finish off the always amazing Pad Prik Prao and stand up to pay. Usually I'd have had a bowl of noodle soup or some pad thai to go with it, but lately I just haven't been hungry, even with the rain. Where are my friends to help me finish everything? Maybe they'll come back to visit me here someday. I hope so, because I'm never leaving.

How can you see the world and then close your eyes? I guess the answer is-- you can't...I can't. There was usually a feeling of wanting a stable home that nagged while traveling, but when at home, there's a feeling of being trapped; of wasting precious days to see and experience more of what this fantastical globe has to offer. I guess there is a balance to find, as with everything, between home and the road; what you know and what is unknown; being happy just relaxing and getting those itches in your boots to get out and do something! I will return to Thailand one day, but when that happens, I hope to make Thailand a home for me as long as I choose to stay. My heart is happy on any side of the planet. My heart is happy at home.

Q: How is California like a Granola Bar?
A: They both contain fruits, nuts, and flakes!

*snicker*

Okay, okay, one more.

Q: What goes *clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop BANG BANG clip clop clip clop clip clop...*
A: An Amish drive-by shooting.

Ooooeeee hilarious stuff here, people... :)
That's all for now.
BTW, Eugene was awesome and I'm super stoked!

BTW, check out the trippiest clouds you ever saw.

"Anger is stupidity, fury is madness - if you don't succumb to anger, you won't succumb to stupidity and madness."

It would help to hear this before you pick up the phone to your uptight parole officer:

Compose yourself before answering this call. Avoid being irascible and causing disputes."

This one for when your boss is calling you into work on your only day off:

"It is better to sweat from hard work than cry from laziness, which encourages poverty,"

Unfortunately, these ringtones are available only in Thailand and they are spoken in Thai. Do you think there'd be a US market? Maybe with Christian teachings. How about a direct quote from Jesus:

"There is a saying, 'Love your friends and hate your enemies.' But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven."

Maybe Bush needs one of those for every time Osama calls from the mountains.

Cell phones are everywhere these days... It suprised me to see that Thailand has more mobile phones per person than the US does, by far. It makes sense when I think about it though, as a lack of infrastructure and the availability of wireless networks even in the smallest rural villages makes a cell phone the perfect tool to stay connected, whether it's with the Top 40 list or Phra Phayom Kalayano's teachings. Next is ringback tones, so that the caller gets to listen as well while you scramble to pick up your phone. Pretty cool, I'd say.

He began to fall. In spirit and in his physical world, he was falling. The chair tipped as the mountain of things he had acquired began to collapse under its own weight, compounded by the mysterious rain. The cloudly precipitation seemed to concentrate directly over his head like you see in the comics when a rain cloud follows one frowning character around and the others remain dry and happy. Well, our character here no longer could smile. He was in a panic as the world he had so much control over melted away just as his soul had the day he gave it up for his mountain of things. What would he do? Where would he sit? Down and down he fell, sliding and bouncing off this and that. He saw suitcases, treasure chests, and expensive lamps, all melting under the cleansing power of the raincloud. His fall began to slow, and as the mountain of things turned into a river of melting, he was caught up in its current. Sputtering and gasping for air, he floated along like this for a number of hours. He was about to give up when the current picked up suddenly and the river seemed to disappear somewhere downstream and a violent roar came from below. This was the end, he thought, but as the water carried him over the edge, a sign bobbing slowly in the water off to his left caught his eye. All he could think of as he plunged down the waterfall into the unknown were the words the sign simply stated:

How fortunate the man with none.