Age of Aquarius

As I have been pretty sick for the past week, and I'm sure no one wants to hear those gory details, instead of relating the latest events of my life I am going to comment on the art of Thai massage. It seems they try to dignify it by calling them "massage parlours" but its really more like a torcher chamber with serene babbling brook and birds of the rain forest sound track. The dungeon master works very hard at her task of contorting your body into a human pretzel because she is throwing her whole body into the task. Steam rolling your back with her knees and making demonic grunting noises of exertion while she finds any and all pressure points with her bony skeletor fingers. Other methods of "massage" include: punching, karate chopping, elbow digging, pressing down on your arteries until you can't even remember what circulation feels like, and using your back as a trampoline. While I was getting beaten up today I started thinking about the fine line between pleasure and pain in S&M. I don't think they are too far off here. In Thai massage it really seems like an Orange and ylang ylang scented grey zone rather than a well defined boundary. Afterward though they always give you really good tea with honey, almost like a peace offering saying; "Sorry I had to rock your shit and kick your ass today, but how about a nice cup of tea?" The thing about S&M though is you always go back for more.

I have also had a few facials since my arrival. These are great because you feel like they are sucking your face off with a miniature vacuum. Then they bring on this polishing brush, and since my eyes are always heavily cucumbered I can only imagine what this contraption looks like. I picture the same instrument used at the dentist to polish your teeth, with the super speedy 360* rotating hollow rubber core, but bigger. Like a nozzle the size of a quarter. It isn't all together unpleasant, just the Zamboni ice cleaner sound does freak you out a little bit.

Liz flew out to Bangkok this morning to meet up with Jackie and Yumi, her roommates from UW who came as a last minute surprise. Im leaving in a few hours for the island of Ko Chang in the Gulf of Thailand. I have 6 days left until Charlie comes and plan on spending that time beaching it up, scuba diving, treking out to waterfalls, and drinking whiskey by the bucket full. That is something special about South East Asia, they take the miniature pales that kids use to build sand castles with at the beach, fill them with ice, whiskey, the soda of your choice, and stick in 10 or more straws for maximum booze inhalation. It's glorious!

XOXO