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wFriday, April 30, 2004


miss kitty snoring is one of my favorite sounds in the entire world.

when i'm rich, you'll find me sitting in my house in this:

jacuzzi.com

"For the ultimate indulgence, Jacuzzi's La Scala two-person whirlpool bath, $30,766, encases a 42-inch high-definition plasma TV monitor, a DVD and CD player tucked into the side and surround-sound speakers buried beneath the porcelain, Internet access and video monitoring, both controllable from a floating remote and waterproof wireless keyboard."

yeah, i'd never get out of the tub.

-things i've learned about daytime television:

Days of Our Lives is sooooo stupid!!!

Ellen Degeneres is actually rather funny.

The Olsen Twins prefer being called Mary-Kate and Ashley, and they are 17-year-old multi-millionaires. And their new movie just looks like a complete rip-off of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (but i guess the kids these days aren't aware of that old movie).

And Starting Over is somewhat interesting to watch.


and no i haven't slept yet. i think it's time for breakfast somewhere in the world...


posted by zenbetty at 9:23 AM

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w


okay, doing better now. i guess i just had jet lag? hung out with good friends thursday night, just porch sittin' & drinkin' beers with neighbors & friends. yeah it's 6am, still can't sleep, but not in bad mood. i guess one day of not talking to the family helps. i think my roommate downloaded something here that messed up the computer...brad, can you come help me fix it? so, dorian already went to san francisco last week. so i guess our trip is rescheduled for Florida. so yeah, i'm moving to Florida instead. people say i can afford that. so...gonna go check it out. or, else dorian & i, we could vacation in costa rica for a week instead. still trying to decide (financial issues, ya know?). went by the unemployment office today like a high-class winner. they're not too helpful in there, and i last about 10 minutes before i'm ready to storm out. yeah, me & my temper. gotta work on that.

spent all night last night looking for jobs in austin & jobs in santa cruz and places to live. rather interesting. also investigating dual citizenship with my father & mother's roots as italian & german respectively. and i made some progress. very interesting. also found recipe for vegetarian papaya salad. i'm hungry right now, i think. it's 6 in the morning. maybe i'll walk over to bluebonnet. trevor & steph (among many others) are off to coachella today. should be a blast. eeyore's, which was postponed specifically for me, looks like it may rain all day this saturday too however which would be unfortunate because then i think this year wouldn't have an eeyore's birthday party...and that's never a good sign. my horoscope today mentions the street i live on, which is really kind of eerie. miss kitty is doing fine, expect she's got bumplies and it almost seems as if she's walking with a slight limp. which is never good. tonight was a lot of fun for me. i enjoy my friends' company immensely. many went down to emo's, but i just wasn't up for it. wanted to porch sit around picnic tables and conversation rather than going to see live music. maybe i am getting old. but alas, at least i'm still kickin'!

tonight, though, IS friday night. and i would like to go out. with all you kids who i'm having withdrawals from (shauna, dan, tami, jimmy). yeah, let's get our groove on tonight. the rest of you as well!! join us! happy weekend!

signing off...call me!

look what i just missed: Rise in Thailand violence leaves 107 dead


posted by zenbetty at 6:15 AM

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wThursday, April 29, 2004


it's day one back and i'm already depressed. got in tuesday night and slept most of tuesday night and wednesday night combined. couldn't get out of bed wednesday. it's gray & cold & rainy here, and i wasn't expecting that. day one, talking to my sister, and she's already shot down my california dreamin' ideas. saying i'd be too old & poor to make it there. that especially did not cheer me up cuz i do not want to be in austin right now. it's 3 in the morning and i can't sleep. it's never been a good time to move to california. when i was in high school, i was gonna run away even before i graduated (i can't remember high school much but i don't think things were so good between me & my mom). i used to save up cash in this little red heart-shaped box. i know now that $2000 bucks wouldn't have gotten me far, but then, all i wanted was the beach and to learn how to surf. and to get out of round rock. working at beall's department store in round rock for my senior year, and i knew this was not where i wanted to be. and now, 15 years later, i'm still here and crying at 3am at my computer as i realize that i probably am too old to move to california and start over. i mentioned going to grad school and continuing to learn & grow, and my sister shot down that idea too. saying 35/36 was too old to re-enter the workforce and that school would just be a waste of time and money at my age. is it true? is my family always right? or is there something terribly wrong with them that they've forgotten how to dream? has she become like my father in stating that you're not supposed to like your job, you're just supposed to work? in high school, i picked this little town on the map in California, Oceanside, knew nothing about it, but that was where i was gonna go. practical mom, said i had to go to college first, then upon graduation, that is when i could go be a beach bum. but hence upon graduation, jill you need a job with benefits etc. After three years of selling plastic net, (yes that was my first *real* job out of college), i realized surer than shit that that was NOT what i wanted to do with the rest of my life. so i quit. and temp'd for a year. which was the best work year of my life. personally. not career-wise. i made no money, but worked at the state, typed email/novels/entries all day, which to this day i still consider them worth reading. and would even go lay out during lunch at a neighbor pool. well 26, i then got in trouble with johnny law, so it had to be done that i had to get a real job again to pay off some debt. then, in the past five years, with family and all, it's never been a good time to run away to california. right now, for the first time in five years, it is actually an okay time to run away from my family because they are all doing okay. it is the first time where i wouldn't feel loss or guilt if i left my family. if i don't do it now, i know i will rot away in austin texas. i know i am painting a very dismal picture, but that is how it feels right now at this very moment. perhaps this post-partum depression after travelling is even ten times more intense than post-partum depression of sxsw, but i don't see a future here. i see no growth. i see stagnant, and never-changing. and i see the world passing me by as i sit in a one-bedroom apartment in austin texas and just get older & older while going to work every day. i even want to go to grad school in austin if i have to stay here, but my sister said that was basically a stupid idea to just accumulate more debt. i don't have any debt right now, that's my point. i don't have any job, any commitments, any relationships, any illnesses in the family for the first time in several years, and it's my chance to run. it's my last chance to escape living here for the past 22 years of my life. i get my mother if she becomes ill later in life, so it's my last chance to be me before i have to take care of someone else again. sis said everyone is young & beautiful & rich in california, and i said that's just plain ridiculous. i looked up demographics in santa cruz and the median age is 33. i could move now, meet those people my age, and grow old there. walking the beach every morning and picking up seashells (and trash). sitting on my front porch in my hammock, with no money at all, i don't care. an old woman on the beach is how i see myself, how i've always seen myself, with my graying hair and the sand between my toes. and those silly white blousey loose clothing you see on commercials and movies filmed on the beach. but i've just forgotten and lost sight of everything, sitting here being somewhat responsible. practical.

day one, and i'm already so depressed i can't get out of bed because i see no future here.

maybe i just need the sun to come out tomorrow. and maybe i just need a little more sleep...


posted by zenbetty at 3:12 AM

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wMonday, April 26, 2004


things i forgot on previous post (read previous post first, if you care)

monday 12:07

more words come shooting into my head as soon as i walk away from the computer yesterday. some of the things i forgot to add were:

whenever you enter stores, restaurants, your own bungalow, you always remove your flipflops & leave at the door. this may be true of most beach towns as well as the muslim religion in general, but for me, this is an interesting custom. dogs are in all the restaurants, sprawled out on the cold tile floor as you step over them to sit down to eat. cats jump on your lap as you're enjoying your lunch. the workers are all barefoot inside as well. the cement of this town/island (Patong/Phuket) adds 20-30 degrees, but everything is listed in celsius so i have no idea what it is. kg, meters, bahts...yeah, i have basically no idea about the details of what i'm doing anywhere, how far away places are, how much things weigh (laundry is only 30-40 baht per kg...it think, which is less than a dollar, but i don't know the kg conversion) so i'm basically walking around clueless, not clueless in a bad way but more of a 'no problem' thai kind of way. i'm already sort of speaking differently, not an accent or anything, but more basic broken english. "no sell in czech?" = "they don't sell that in czech?" i'm either sitting around a table listening to thai conversations i don't understand, then it quickly changes to czech conversations i don't understand (but neither do the thai people, so we shrug and laugh and that basically says it all). oh i learned another thai word. mao = drunk (but i think i've written this already) sounds like 'may mao' = not drunk. jill thai is me mao = me drunk, as i tap myself on the chest to indicate 'me'. using basically sign language, as communicating with kids, animate what you're doing, walking (fingers walking on the table), eating (hand to mouth motion), sleep (closed hands next to head, eyes close). you get the picture. so if i return with these habits still, tell me that i don't need to because you understand english. but i tell you what, you can understand a LOT without the same language. you can see fights & lovers' quarrels on others' faces, you can almost follow an entire joke through the punchline without understanding a single spoken word just following facial expressions and hand gestures alone. it really is quite amazing how alike we all are as a human race. and yet the small things...that is all that separates us from one another. the world is really quite small. so julian, i can see how you picked up mannerisms & accents & lifestyle by being somewhere six months. six months is a long time! jitka now eats with a spoon and shovels the food onto the spoon with the fork. it's rude to still eat as i do with the fork, and i should eat with the spoon as in thai. so i finally tried it last night. no problem. it's rude for me to still do many things that i do, but i'm sure it would take me six months to finally learn many things correctly, right as it's time for me to leave. i don't see how jitka goes from thailand to czech republick. what a cultural difference to witness. oh it's so funny, i'm so naive. i see a european, and think 'there's a european.' whereas jitka comments to gabi, 'oh they just look so russian.' so i started asking with everyone, where are they from? they're swedish, german, dutch, hungarian. i need to learn so much in the world.

deaths. in phi phi while we were there, one person drowned. two people died of heat stroke in phuket on friday. these deaths are mostly the europeans. on the new year here (april 12/13, before i got here) something like 560 died by car/motorbike accident alone. (i don't know what that means, really, deaths that day in all of thailand? but it was what they were talking about in samui.) they have a different attitude about death here. perhaps it's the muslim influence. i don't know. i heard yesterday that there was some muslim-christian violent conflict on the border. that saddens me, deeply. especially 'cause it's supposedly in the name of religion. our elephant driver was christian yesterday, converted by a missionary from california. that was something new i had not encountered until yesterday.

plans change around here often. no true concept of time. no true concept of time. except hot day...and after the sun sets. unless you're working that day, then you know when you open & when you close. but even then, that's not always set in stone. some shops just close if there's no customers or if it's too hot, some shopkeepers are sleeping as you walk in & you don't want to disturb them, and others are watching their television shows & they don't want to be bothered with you instead. some make you feel as if you're invading their territory. and some are very, very friendly.
so basically we're on jill-time around here, which is okay by me. leaving for the beach at noon, really meant 2:30 (and then in reality, we didn't leave till 4pm)

last night again, we sat with momma/poppa from holland, and kop the tattoo artist whom they met five years ago when he tattooed for the first time then. and they return every year. they miss their grandkids this year, so three months was too long for them this year. i asked who the three kids on her arm were, although i already knew. yes momma from holland has her grandchildren tattooed on her left arm. a man from france was sitting there with us as well, with who i assume was his thai girlfriend. we're all leaving in the next couple of days. the off-season has already started. jitka took a picture of the french man's tattoo then poppa from holland pulled up his shirt to show his back & wanted jitka to picture that too. then french man pulled down his pants to show an entire thai village that was tattooed on his thigh, all by kop who i believe has a japanese wife. kwan the taxicab driver, jitka, gabi, & me. i think we did take a picture of our table, somewhat a crown & anchor feel, sitting around a table on a hot texas (thai) night, and just drinking beers and not talking about much. the front porch away from home. kop had a shirt of Cradle of Filth (the back said jesus is a cunt) eek, as we discussed black death rock vs black music vs speed metal as i delivered in my best impersonation of the music that my friend mike listens to, and that's universal. thai death/speed/whatever the f - mwwwhooaaaahhhggrrrr - yes, i can't understand the lyrics, whatever the language is. but yet, people still like the music. anyway, that was one successful conversation. kop & the french guy (never got his name, he looked a bit like harvey keitel & had a shaved head with a sort of rattail/tiny mullet existing in the back which his thai girlfriend braided) they went camping, kop no speak english, french guy no speak thai. yet camping side by side, fishing trip i believe, with a few others, is successful without words.

oh the bathrooms around here are all one room: shower, sink, & toilet. the shower water basically runs down the (somewhat) slanted floor into the corner drain. and i like it. it makes sense. except you have to remember to remove the toilet paper from the room temporarily. one funny thing to me is watching myself shampoo my hair in the sink mirror. i don't know why, it's not the funny, but i guess i never really get to watch myself washing my hair ever. the little things in life keep me amused. especially like some of the advertisements here. some billboards. and i turned on the television last night and watched some commercials, and you can guess how they're going to end although you have no idea what the words being said are. little scenarios/dramas are acted out the same in whatever country you're in.

another funny thing about the thai massage lady was her trying to ask if my bruises hurt and if it was okay for her to press on those areas. had i said no, i wouldn't have gotten much of a massage, well because you see, i have bruises everywhere. yeah i have a tendencey to fall down a lot. bruises on my arm from the bags that are too heavy and pinching on my arm yesterday, bruises on my my knee from the sloppy rock climbing on the wall drunk in the bar in railay beach, bruises on my back & elbows from falling flat backwards off the side of the longtail boat onto the bottom planks of the boat, bruises on my other knee from falling on the same boat ride later (yeah the boat driver did not know how to react to clumsy me). so yeah, facial expressions can convey a lot. and stephanie, you're taking me rockclimbing next moday when i return.

o. swimming with the fish. the beautiful fish. i could never eat another fish again. nor do i want to. snorkeling, i kept swiveling myself around & around, taking in a panoramic view of it all around me, all around me. i could not believe. at one point, i wanted dearly to touch one of the fish, to just touch it like a pet. but then almost simultaneously i realized that i did not have to touch it physically to make this experience true. but that the truest essence of this experience was that they were actually just letting me swim alongside of them, almost welcoming me into their world. i envisioned huge fish nets sweeping in and destroying this natural beauty, and i was glad that i was still able to swim with the fish.

hey, i arrive tuesday 7:33pm if anyone wants to pick me up, that would be awesome. if anyone wants to whisk me away to somewhere at 8pm if i'm still standing too. cheers all, my vacation is almost over. i hope all is well and yes, i did buy some gifts after all and had to buy an entire new bag to bruise my other arm. love you. oh, i need to buy a motorcycle, if anyone can help me with that purchase would be awesome.

p.s. i'm a time traveler on tuesday. going back in time is an interesting concept. i leave tokyo at 6pm tuesday, and after a 10-12 hour flight, i arrive in dallas at 3:30pm in the afternoon. i'm pretty amazing, eh? superman II...watch out!


posted by zenbetty at 12:39 AM

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wSunday, April 25, 2004


this is gonna be fast & furious, so take precaution to poor wording etc...

(sunday 13:39)

left phi phi island saturday and came to phuket for the last two days. jitka has to wrap up some work here in her office. them i'm off to bangkok on monday night and fly out of bangkok tuesday morning back home. :-(

anyway, phuket is hot dirty city. i nearly passed out yesterday carrying all my bags (all the crap i bought) but slowly survived. we had a day. i'll tell you more later (*much* later) but for now, i'll just say, we had a day. after that, we ate papaya salad (which is something i'm supposed to find the recipe for and make back home). we went and had manicures and pedicures (i didn't have a pedicure because i got my first injury of the trip, a huge nasty blister on the 4th toe of my left foot from walking around the entire day thursday). no big deal, but you can ask brad what a wus i am about blisters. well yesterday it finally split on me after carrying my bags on the boat from phi phi to phuket, nearly passing out from heat exhaustion while overloading myself. after manicures (i had the cutest little flamboyant gay thai guy doing my nails. go figure, jill doesn't know how to relax. and tami & shauna can attest to that per our martinis & manicures outing. although he & i don't speak a single word of the same language, slapping my hand with the emery board is universal language for "quit pulling your hand away and just relax already! ha!) well then we go get my mandatory thai massage. and yes, yanking of my leg several time with that glare in your eyes means "relax already!" but she too was finally laughing with me by the end of the massage, given up on the fact that we're gonna be truly 100% effective today. but seriously, what an experience. at the end, she basically twisted the bottom half of my body all the way right then spun the upper half of my body all the way left, making my spine crack all the way down like a sharp strike of lightning. (as i burst out laughing afterwards, as in what the fuck?! ha) and then of course vice versa to even out the twisting of the spine. needless to say i'm a bit sore today, but it worked some angles and i never knew i was so flexible, hubba hubba. (oh the gay manicurist got our number as we left to call us to go to discotheque last night. the older thai lady masseuse, well i don't think she smiled at me on the way out.)

after massage, walk down the road and it starts pouring, so we stop into this hole in the wall (haha literally named 'the hole in the wall' so we had to) and drink a couple of singha, smoking cigarettes, and watching the rain in the streets (jitka & i met up with Gabi again on saturday here). okay, all, it got cold. i'm serious. i was so upset that i was cold in thailand, it's supposed to be hot and hot&wet. but never cold. jitka & i went back to the room to put on jeans & tennis shoes & grab a jacket. at this point, it's already 23:00. we walk to the corner, and there are just chairs & tables & and a lady selling beer out of her cooler cart. i meet Momma & Poppa from Holland (all/most elderly couples are called Momma/Poppa, and your friends are mostly all called brothers, at least for guys. well i love Momma Poppa from Holland. gray hair, faded tattoos, and still hanging out on the corner of Thailand for the past three months, missing their grandkids and ready to go back home to see them. also meet Kwan, taxi driver here in Patong where we are and is friends with jitka. meet a few other locals and a few Americans who move here to i guess 'get away' and i can envision myself much older, much grayer, much too-much-tanned-later, sitting on a street corner in thailand with strangers and locals and not really having anywhere to be except for exactly where i am at that moment. no one is really in a hurry in thailand. the answer to most every request asked is 'no problem.' it's nice to expericence a different lifestlye as such. i don't want to be that tourist-type, the type that took over the hippies bar in phi phi island at 2am (because the bar is open all night, yes literally all night, yes i was in love) and acted like it was spring break and they had never been in public before. but that was a different island and a different frame of mind. europeans, they travel so much. i am so jealous. that too is a different frame of mind. thailand people, however, have barely left home and traveled to an island that is not their own. many in samui had never been to phi phi and vice versa.

okay, after corner beer drinking, we go down bang la road, which is the main road essence d'eau sixth street. (oh, yesterday we road in a car from the pier to patong. it was the first time i'd been in a car or on a motorbike anything but a boat in six days. what a life, walking everywhere along the beach and taking taxi boats (longboats) to the other islands. sheesh, i need a job, eh?) okay so now let's say how does one say without being rude & posting it to the internet. let's call them go-go bars and such, well basically women women thai women (for sale?) i don't know (for rent?) for the two weeks the man is here? i don't know, it put a bad taste in my mouth, a sad taste. i can't explain it, well i can, but that would involve longer conversations involving prostitution and strip clubs that i can't convey in a 40-min computer session. anyway, the food vendors on the streets are everwhere in thailand, and the food is actually sanitary. (i haven't had much of it though because it's basically meat on a stick - pineapple on a stick was fun though). well we walk past all this clubs & such as jitka is taking me to the Rasta Bar, and there of course i find salvation at the end of the chaos. pictures of marley everywhere, playing on the stereo. jitka knows the bartenders there (one of the girls working there dates one of her czech guy friends who just left) and friendly & chilled and almost oblivious to the opposing lifestyle that is a block away from them. more singha. then the bars actually close at 2am, which surprises me. but it's actually an attempt to clean up phuket a bit, as this action would go all night (which it probably does anyway) if it didn't shut down at 2am. well...party's not over yet. jitka hops on bartenders motorbike and i hop on behind (yes, we did the 3-person ride. i have seen four and more, but what surprises me most is like the family of five with three kids hanging off the sides i don't know how. and no, it's not very safe for anyone on the streets. well we motorbike to the bartenders' house in the mountain. it's paradise there with hammocks and ponds and tables/chairs, bullfrogs chiming in the background, drinking singha and muching on watermelon seeds till like 4 in the morning. i don't know, there is life outside of austin texas, and i need to find it. many of these bartenders have dreads and are semblance of marley himself. motorbike home and fall quickly asleep. many thai people too however, are not true to wives and girlfriends, well that's another story. and no, kids, it's not mine. being a good girl on the trip, unfortunately. ;-) it's not out-of-town-jill...it's too-out-of-town-jill, as i just smile and nod and drink singha in the background and try to take it all in.

oh krabi is spelled with a 'k' [earlier post]

and...Happy Birthday, Eeyore! i hope everyone drank as much beer in pease park as possible for me!


[friday entry, that was in my head, but i never made it to a computer:]

today i swam with the fishes!!


(is fishes incorrect? is fish plural, too? i'm losing my vocabulary, speaking choppy thai-english with everyone, and sitting with two girls from czech who speak in their language half the time when they want to have quick conversations and gossip about all the people they know here, living here six months each the past two years. okay, back to me)

O MY GOD. it was amazing. and i'm not just saying that. first of all, i've never snorkeled before. one, well because basically i'm just lazy. and two, well that's it, i'm lazy. so...first time snorkeling out in phi phi island on friday afternoon. treading water there as putting the mask and snorkel on, trying to figure it out, stuck my head in the water, and i basically jumped out of the water screaming and laughing, scaring jitka half to death. i had no idea. they were everywhere. all around me. if i had just been swimming there, i wouldn't have even known. seriously though it was absolutely incredible. i just kept saying NO SHIT?! to jitka, as she's laughing at me cuz she's used to this by now. well this is one of the best snorkeling spots in the world, and the fish are used to people so they expected us to have food and approached us. i saw the blue&yellow fish, the black&yellow fish, rainbow-colored fish, tiger-colored fish, yeah i'll get more technical names when i get home & research what i saw & did (after the fact instead of before, a la jill-style) but i swear (to make a horrible comparison which i'm even embarassed to utter aloud, but it was like finding nemo! haha! i know, i know, i need to watch more discovery channel, but still. i think we just stayed there as i gawked for over an hour. (p.s. the body has an amazing ability to float) jitka paid me a compliment that i was good as a first-time snorkeler. most people freak out because we were in a real deep area and most prefer shallow, but oh my goodness, i was in shock. seriously. i sound like i'm 12 but i had never seen that before. i wanted immediately to take my little nephews snorkeling because i don't want them to miss out on things and not get a passport until they're 32 like me. and i have the right to be the crazy aunt in thailand taking them snorkeling (yeah, after i win the lottery. and ohmygoodness, i got them these two little silk kimonos so they can walk around all hugh-hefner-style in da house). okay, so snorkeling basically blew my mind there (i think i was spoiled for other spots this being my first time here in phi phi) and then we were off to maya bay (we were on a longtail boat 3-hr ride to the islands off phi phi, as jitka's stradling the front looking like a statue leading the boat to our destination. and no kids, i'm not taking any pictures, so do your best to visualize it all and i'll try my best to remember.) well...maya bay is where the movie The Beach was filmed, and as cheesy as i am for wanting to go there because of it, it is even more beautiful in person than i could have imagined. we stay there for about an hour on the sand & in the clear water, then as we head back, we drift by monkey beach and stop for a bit, seeing about a dozen tiny monkeys just living on this little bay next to all this civilization).

okay, that was my friday. ate, went shopping for a bit after all, then just slept friday night instead of doing anything night-timey.

it is now sunday 14:00 and i gotta get. we were gonna go to the james bond island (yeah, 007 movie was filmed around here, i don't know which one, but i want to say Octupussy. I don't want to say Octopussy because i think that's which movie was filmed, i just want to say Octopussy...but then, don't we all?) okay, um yeah, oh, but were ran out of time. we're gonna go to some beaches & viewpoints a motorbike drive away and i will probably ride an elephant (which was the main reason i wanted to go to james bond island) so i think we'll accomplish as much as meant to today, then back to Rasta Bar tonight. then my journey is almost to an end. miss you all, seriously i do. well some of you i don't miss. haha! just kidding! i haven't lost my sense of humor at least, right? oh yeah, i don't think my sarcasm translates well in bad thai english, so i'm sure i'm not leaving much of an impression. there are so many things i want to write & remember (mister haus on loo moh dee beach. the sunset on railay beach. the thai food i never got. oh!!! i almost forgot, jitka had to move her flight up to the 27th anyway, so it all worked out great. so she's got a 2-week tour guide job in new york, philadelphia, and D.C. so i probably am definitely gonna go up there that may 7th weekend. brent, watch out, we'll be burning through your town! elizabeth/richard henry are there too and so i promised i'd visit if i ever made it up there. i have family in philadelphia so maybe i can go say hello to my dad's brother, which would be nice. and i have some crazy three old maid great-aunts there too that remind me of myself, who live together and just travel and soak in as much life as possible when they were younger. okay, then, i really have to find a job. no then it's off to flipside for memorial day weekend. then i go babysit my nephews while my sister has to work for a week. and then it's off on a roadtrip with dorian in june thru the southwest and california, so i can check out santa cruz and so she can visit a boy in san fran. (san fran is too cold for me, or i'd really consider it too) THEN really i MUST find a job in june...unless somebody has some better offer to do? hey, will somebody call the unemployment office of me on monday? haha. just kidding, but it would be funny for me to get also paid while being on this trip. i have a fresh passport that needs some new stamps. amsterdam anyone?



posted by zenbetty at 1:44 AM

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wThursday, April 22, 2004


Yesterday typed a buttload and the connection deleted it Twice, so writing in Word today.

We landed on crabi island Monday morning. Stayed there on railay beach mon & tue nights. Came to phi phi island on Wednesday, and I think I’m gonna stay one more night here tomorrow night, then wrap up the last two days in Phuket. Then gotta fly back to Bangkok and then back to Austin on the 27th. I was unable to extend the flight, so major disappointment on my part, but just had to say what the heck and get the most out my last five days here.

Railay beach ~ I had a blast both nights there. On the longtail boatride over (we had to go into crabi town to take care of some things, and I unfortunately was unable to switch my flight), met this great couple Sarah & Simon from Melbourne Australia and currently living in London. Jitka & I rockclimbed on this wall in the bar (drunk) and luckily I didn’t fall and bust my head. Of course, I’m taking no pictures, so if ever this sarah girl emails me, I’ll let you see some photos. Jitka’s friend Gabi (another Czech tourguide here) met us in Railay beach and has hooked up with ever since. Well…she turned in early Tuesday night, then jitka. Then even young Simon had to go back to his room. So me & stranger sarah are bonding over buckets of redbull & some thai whiskey all night. Needless to say, I was sort of hurting Wednesday morning on the hour & a half boat ride from railay over here to phi phi island. And boy is it beautiful here.

Today, unfortunately, I spent shopping for a majority of the day. My mom gave me some money with a specific list of what to buy (which I can’t find most of it) for my sister & nephews & herself. It’s too hot to shop. It’s too hot to do anything except lie in the water sleeping. Even the shopkeepers are sleeping in their stores until I rudely go in and wake them up with my desire to spend money. Last night, oh forgive me, I had spaghetti. Oddly enough, Italian/European food is everywhere here, and I have found very little thai vegetarian options. Most is loaded with pork or chicken or else good ol’ fish.

I’m coming back, next summer. Anyone wanna join? I need a job. And jitka & I have been talking a lot about that, as she has to go back to Czech now, and we are all faced with the question, “so…what now?” I don’t know actually. I was tempted to buy an around-the-world ticket when I found out I couldn’t change my departure date. Maybe, maybe. I have to go check on Miss Kitty, then figure it out. There’s so much I want to do now. Now that you get that silly taste of travel, you can’t just forget it. Alas, when I do return and everything is back to the norm, I will forget these feelings and the uneasiness I have with the thought of staying in Austin for the rest of my life. Well enough of that talk.

I think I’m supposed to meet jitka at the jungle bar at 4pm. At least I think that’s what our plan was. Actually, I thought it was 3, then thought I might be wrong, so came to this air conditioned room again. Oh, flying into samui (this is what I wrote two days ago that got erased…or was it just yesterday??) I had a 6-hour layover in Bangkok. But once I made it there and made it through customs & immigration, I was set! I sat down at this internet café in their airport (int’l airport open 24hrs, so I figured I’d just sit there from midnight until 5am when the domestic airport opened) and some crazy Californian started buying me Singhas. Smoking Marlboro lights with crazy thai writing all over, and listening to his strange stories of living in Thailand & china off and on for the past 10 years or so. Another older gentleman (jack from Holland) was also sitting in the airport wondering what to do from this timespan of last plane in before airport starting buzzing again in five hours. Well…got drunk in the Bangkok international airport, and that was the best experience of my journey here. I hadn’t had a drink on the entire day of plane rides because I was afraid I’d screw something up and get stuck in Tokyo or something stupid & jill-like.

Oh all the thai I have learned so far, is kop kun ka which means thank you. (I think) I have found out that I’m one of those rude/snobby Americans who thinks they don’t have to learn foreign languages and think everyone else can just speak English if they want to communicate with you. It’s not that I’m snobby, it’s that I’m afraid I’m gonna botch it up and say something like “you’re mother’s a whore” which I think would be worse than just smiling and nodding at everyone. Oh last night we caught the tail end of a thai boxing match, I swear they couldn’t have been over fifteen years old. Jitka said she saw part of one once where they looked 12. and that was disturbing. It’s crazy, the dogs & cats roam free here. Sit on beaches drinking, eating, sleeping. Everyone sleeps most anywhere when the heat tires you out enough that you basically just pass out for awhile. Fire shows are at most bars every night. Jitka’s gotten quite good, I must say, and actually picked up lit ones for the first time last night and did very well (she uses the practice strings a lot, but never lit before). Gabi speaks four languages rather fluently, I think Czech, English, Spanish & Italian. And now she’s slowly adding thai to that list. I gotta get off my ass and learn something. And keep growing and not be stagnant even if I don’t go anywhere. I wanna take a scuba diving class. Would take one here but I don’t have time. So maybe back in Austin. Maybe….maybe…

Okay, gotta bolt, time for singha & soup. And sleep & shower. More shopping. Then we go to the Hippie Bar tonight. The couple from Melbourne might meet us there, unless they decided to stay another night in railay beach.

Forgive misspellings, poor grammar, etc. I’ll touch up later, I doubt.


posted by zenbetty at 4:11 AM

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wTuesday, April 20, 2004


spent three days in samui island. flying into the little palm tree paradise of an airport triggered childhood memories of hawaii. jitka meeting me at 7am as i hop on the back of her motor scooter with my backpack, riding on the leftside of the road (although no cars or motorbikes paid much attention to lanes) as she whisked me away to this little bungalow walking distance to the beach. yes, it's hot. but yes, you just stay in the water all afternoon. there are little huts of bars lining the sand so you just cruise up an order a singha (thai beer) whenever the moment strikes (and if you know me, that moment strikes often). must type quick as internet connection is slow here and costing me 1 baht a minute (well, 40 bahts is only about one dollar, but hey~ i'm gettin' cheap). right now currently in krabi. spending a couple of nights in railay island (where you jump off the longboat with backpacks & all directly into the sand). attire, next to none. flipflops the norm (so i actually did good, didn't need to pack much more than i did. kids, i don't know about buying you all presents. know that i'm thinking of you and see many things i'd like to buy for you all, but the idea of adding another duffel bag to these boat rides sounds like a hassle. anyway, railay island, i think this is where brad stayed, and yes it is rockclimbing haven for all you kids (i see trevor & steph scaling the walls here). me, well, you know me, i'm sitting on the beach in the sun (mostly the shade) and kickin back. last night, went to gecko bar. reggae band (oh, all you hear here is reggae, techno, or bad 70s love ballads, ie. oh mandy, you came and you gave without taking, and i threw it all away oh mandyyy) was playing so that was nice to see live music for a night. been eating hmmm... (yeah, i've been eating some american breakfast, sorry) cocunut curry soup, fried noodles, mushroom & tofu w/rice. been nice. jitka, oh jitka, she is doing wonderful (and tan! i am SUCH a whitey here!) so good to see her. she misses all and i've caught her up on most of our whereabouts. we're in town for a bit, gonna change my flight to leave on the 4th, were gonna change to the 6th, but jitka must leave, so i'm gonna go on 4th as well. love the beach. i miss it. going to south padre this summer if anyone wants to go and i'm probably gonna move to california. cary, i hear a couple of new zealand/australian accents around here and miss you & your kiwis. daydreaming of next trip to NZ already. where does the money come from, i ask? who has won the lottery back home for me already. the darkness video is playing on the tv overhead. i guess it's mtv. i think we're off to phuket tomorrow. that's jitka's home base where most her bags are. then phi phi island. then elsewhere. will try to keep you posted, but alas, i'd rather be on the beach than behind this computer screen. luckily i type fast and i get to smoke a cigarette and drink a beer as i do this quickly, so i'm multi-tasking. so, santa cruz, was asking and was told that was the austin of california. anyone dis/agree? if so, i'm moving. come visit. sunny weather awaits. it's hot, but i don't care. you just swim, then shower, then shade, then sweat.


posted by zenbetty at 3:45 AM

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wThursday, April 15, 2004


Do you know the way to San Jose
10:36am PST

So...day one of my adventure, and what a complete mess I am. Seriously, we all knew I was a wreck, but this is ridiculous. "For international flights, please arrive two hours prior to departure time." Well, of course, Jill gets there less than 30 minutes before takeoff, boarding has already begun. If it hadn't been for Tami comin in and kickin my ass at 8am (as I was just getting out of the shower and she had been there since 6:45am, well, because she's Tami and she's good like that), I definitely would have missed my flight. I actually think I was almost trying to miss my flight, almost trying to miss this trip altogether. I didn't make reservations till last sunday, didn't even get my passport until Friday. Beats me. I'm weird like that. Treated it like a relationship - if i ruin it and screw it up, well at least it was my doing. So anyway, i have NO IDEA what i packed in those last 10 minutes at my house. I was just throwing clothes to Tami in the hallway to stuff in the big travel backpack (which i had just borrowed monday night). So i get to the airport and i'm not really worried or rushing. I don't know why, but still, it goes fairly smoothly. No line at check-in. $22.60 fees. But alas, i am too late to check this backpack on. "You'll have to take it with you," she says. Okay. Done. Going to the bag check but before i get there, the next lady says "You can only carry on two bags. You can put one of those in the other, though." So here i have my backpack purse, which most of you will be proud to know that it weighs only 2 lbs instead of the 40 lbs it weighed last night. But i look like a crazy person if you saw the disorganized chaos that was going on in that purse. Tami can attest to this as i poured all the contents onto my bedroom floor to pilfer through, seeing what little of my craziness that i actually needed in there. So back at the airport, i'm all sprawled out on the floor at 9am, my flight leaving in less than 15 minutes, and i still haven't made it through bag security check yet. Leave it to Jill. So i distribute a couple of things from my backpack purse to the shoulder book bag (which is already crammed with magazines and books and cd's - none of which i have touched yet) and then i'm cramming this basically empty purse into this already overstuffed (I really didn't need that last pair of shorts) I don't even actually know which clothes i threw in there. I do know that i only brought 2 pair of cheap flip flops and the pair of tennis shoes that i'm wearing. Underwear, bathing suit, tank tops, shorts, jeans, and yes you people i brought my sporty spice sweatsuit that you all enjoyed making fun of me in. all the toiletries i bought yesterday at target and the bug spray at REI. speaking of yesterday, i was running around from 1:30p-7p nonstop, and still made it to the darkness on time. i filed for an extension for my taxes, filed for unemployment, went by the travel clinic to see if i needed any shots (yes i wait till the last minute for everything) went to DSW, Just for Feet, and REI but found no walking shoes i liked. went to whole foods, target, and i never got around to buying the 3 packs of American Spirits that i intended to bring with me (I ended up smoking Lucky Strikes at stubb's last night - yuck - aw heck, to be honest, they didn't seem half-bad last night, but they were mega-yuck this morning. i hope they sall american spirits in san jose. i'll be there an hour and a half. hopefully i can check in this big backpack i'm currently lugging around. hopefully i will eat. cuz sitting here, i just realized that i didn't eat tuesday and haven't eaten anything since monday night (except for a glass of apple juice tuesday at noon. and tons of crown & 7 - because they didn't have seagram's at stubb's outside). speaking of last night...what a blast! i don't know if the darkness was just kickin' ass or what. but on top of that, everyone there was in a great mood. seriously. everyone. i met people from san antonio & we talked & talked and i said i used to work at ignite, so of course that's me and one degree of separation, they know dave faloon. and dan gilkison, who is actually currently living in thailand. (i think we actually called dave faloon and left a message. sorry dave) then shauna & i with them & others are dancing on the tables (although i had already been asked not to). the whole other part of our group was up front & having a blast as well. we all went to mugshots afterwards (the downtown barfly's) and i guess the drinks got too strong there or the lack of food set in or the overwhelming amount of stuff swimming in my head already, but i don't recall what we were all talking about all night long. jitka called on my cell phone as i was there and i think it sort of freaked me out that i was actually leaving the next day. everyone was always asking if i was excited about my trip and unfortunately the answer seemed a little like no, not really. it seemed like too much work and commitment than fun. the prep work at least, that which i put off in life. and that which i did not even finish. (i forgot to change the kitty litter, sorry joey & kat). and i'm real worried about miss kitty. someone go over there and love her and make sure she has fresh water. and don't go through my shit that's everywhere! but don't clean it either. i think i'd be more freaked out if someone cleaned my room and hid everything (aka put things away) so i wouldn't be able to find anything (horrible logic, yes i know).

Okay, we just landed in San Jose. i wonder if this is the town i'll eventually move to. and yes, mom, i will eat now.

oh. last night. best moment in the church van coming home: "Meatball Sandwich" clap. clap. clapclapclap. "Meatball Sandwich" clap. clap. clapclapclap.

Yeah roaming around HEB when i should have been home packing. oh well, you only live once, right? me then taking a cab home. famous last words: "i'm just gonna go take a quick nap and then finish everything in the morning." Yeah right, Jill. You're not fooling anyone...



posted by zenbetty at 3:35 AM

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wSunday, April 11, 2004


hello all

i'm off to thailand this week, so i probably won't be checking email much. if i have any updates as to my trip, i'll post here. so check here a bit, and see how life is treating me.

how is life treating you?


posted by zenbetty at 2:52 PM

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