Friend Hunt

Sadly, Nuan Pranee Guest House has been changing in the last week. Three of my friends have left. Martin and Aurora the Canadian couple have returned to the icy glacial lakes of Annapolis Nova Scotia and Parker, the cool and enigmatic California shaman is following his impulsive curiosity to Australia.

Parker played an interesting role here at the guesthouse. He had a lot of battles with the landlords. He refused to have them tile around the sink in his bathroom, as they did for every one else, which created a bizarre tension between the two parties. He was also proud of the fact that he had stolen so many towels behind the owners’ backs. Or so he thought, since the owners were fully aware and even asked me one day why Parker was always stealing towels.

We talked for about an hour before he left. He told me basically that his plan is to live in such a way that he can exist without letting anxious, guilty, or just inconvenient thoughts get in his way. To live without having to constantly worry about goals and achievements. In other words: to do nothing. To happily exist, travel, wander where his interest is keen and simply enjoy life without being bothered by the burden of ambition. He supports himself with property that he owns and rents out in Austin Texas, using the money to push himself along like a lonesome cosmic prairie weed.

The change left me pretty depressed for a few days as I realized that friends without demons (or at least with benign lazy demons) were hard to find. Every time one of the good ones leaves you know its going to be another long recruiting process for the next play pal:

"So you’re from?"

"England" (-1)

"You know anybody in Thailand?"

"Yeah I have a few Thai friends" (+1)

"How do you know them?"

"From having sex with them, mostly" (-3)

"OK here’s a scenario, it’s 10:00 in the morning..."

"Why the fuck am I up at 10 in the morning?" (-3)

"You just woke up"

"Not bloody likely" (-3)

"Well pretend you did. What’s the first thing you do?"

"Have a beer?" (-3)

So, I stick to the routines that work: swimming, coffee, writing, and now: playing dominoes with Billy and the Thai ladies down the alley. The game sounds like this: "Why you try to cheat old man?" – "Hey, no talking Thai at the table!" – "you too old to think so much old man" – "not too old to count how much money you owe me." It’s like a cross-cultural version of "Crossfire"and just as monotonous and pointless.

Luckily I have also found a new bar. It is owned by an American (+3) and called the Pirate’s Cove (+1000) it is also very close to where I live. It just opened and celebrated the event with an entire roast pig which was spitted and cooked on the sidewalk in front of the bar. My kind of place.

Recently I actually had a chance to hang out with my all-American peers. About forty people my age got together at the rooftop pool of the Hillside Condo, where one of the folks lived. It was a collection of English teachers, Peace Corps members, a Japanese map maker, international highschool students and international slackers partying like it was homecoming at Iowa State. I always had a suspicion that there was a large community of people like me living in Chiang Mai, making their own way, but the party showed the trend to be peopled en masse. There wasn’t a lot of talk about career this, and internship / fellowship that because I guess it was clear that to be invited to this party you must have sidestepped that route already.

But after figuring out with somebody that we had actually met five years ago in Princeton, the web strings came to tension. It became obvious that not only am I associating with this certain class of people right now, I’ve known them all my life, and they will be there throughout. It sort of feels like your being followed. Not in a bad menacing way; it’s more like you have a train of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe when you’ve just walked out of the men’s room: Makes you look back for a moment and realize where you’re coming from.

Or maybe I think too much like old man.