Novocain

Standing outside the entrance to Insa-dong, that bastion of foreign newbiness, a woman was shouting about the human-rights violations against the the Tibetan people by China. Me, I just wanted to sit down and smoke a square. My cigarette addiction has waned of late, but we're still talking between 10 and 20 per diem. That lust sated, I fixated next on a libation to both quench my thirst and perk my senses -- for both would later be massacred -- and settled on iced green tea. This was in Samcheong-dong, which, for the uninitiated, is turning into a fucking joke (it was my first time there, mind you, but I could see the telltale signs, like 6000 won for iced green tea, and lots of unshaven white people with poor posture).

For dinner we took the subway to my home away from home, Hongdae, and ate

(burnt baby flesh)

samgyeopsal and drank from bottles green and full of promise. Then, for good measure, a trip to the Mecca -- aka Bundang -- for pool, more green bottles full of promise (this time German beer), karaoke*, and the requisite late-night/early-morning snack to fill bellies full of booze and stave off the headache harbinger that manifests itself at such an opportune hour. Like those Vote or Die T-shirts, shit didn't work. Still, Legs woke me up in time for the 3rd quarter of Mavs/Hornets game 1, which was awesome in so many ways. But after the elation of Chris Paul -- my new boyfriend, because apparently D-Wade is dating Star Jones -- bitch-slapping the Mavs into perpetual panic mode had worn off, this little tyke was rearing to head home, drink some cranberry juice (for my period), and read the dust jacket covers of books on/in (can I get a ruling?) my bookshelf before saying a prayer and closing the evening watching Byron Allen on Comics Unleashed and imagining that the servicemen* who protect this country aren't amused by such idiocy.

But I still can't get that lady caterwauling for Tibetan freedom out of my head. Mostly because she was pretty cute, but also because I wish I could stop having to listen to people whine on the most beautiful day of the year. Make me feel guilty on a crummy day, okay?

Folks should get down in the sunshine.





* I got the gong for singing "Fake Plastic Trees," which is like a Jerry Lewis telethon getting preempted by a Skittles ad.

** Call Steinbeck sentimental -- or a Commie -- but he was also the original Lennie Bruce. Peep game:

"...When I was a kid my 'ol man give me a haltered heifer an' says take her down an' git her serviced. An' the fella says, I done it, an' ever' time since then when I hear a business man talkin' about service I wonder who's gettin' screwed."