26th June 2010
Flying away from everything I know, my pen comes to life and I feel almost instantly as if my thoughts carry more weight than at home... enough to note them down, anyway.
Bjork says:
I'm a fountain of blood
in the shape of a girl.
A man at the airport said "hello madam" as I walked by him, and I felt a little like royalty. Easily pleased, sometimes.
I must learn to play an instrument.
Midnight. Second leg - Brisbane to Bangkok
Doctor Who says:
The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!
Time Lord victorious... I quite enjoy nerdly pursuits. (but even the Doctor knew when he'd gone too far.)
Watched the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (amazing, if somewhat confusing on that little screen), was given a vegan meal (less amazing), slept much.
Bangkok airport has a Mister Donut.
We have a 9 hour stop over, and start breaking the ice over games of Uno. Eat lots of food and have a ridiculously good, cheap massage.
While the Thai lady rubbed my shoulders and chattered away behind me I thought:
sometimes i am in love with everyone.
(and sometimes nothing, and sometimes everything. With body heat and the way my clothes smell after Gram washes them and listening to music while the world rushes by my window.)
Israeli guy at the airport who checked our passports: "Emsalem... that name is very... Israeli."
Us: "Really? We always thought it sounded Arabic."
Guy: "Yes, really... you will be getting a lot of mail."
Bangkok to Israel
I need a shower and I'm not sure what day or time it is anymore. I think the first Israeli we saw was one of the male stewards, milling around at the airport. Both Yael and Tara's jaws were on the ground, and I sort of had to double take and freeze for a moment. There is something extra appealing about a dude doing a sort of feminine job when (as Tara put it) "you know they've held a huge fuck off gun before." Maintains major masculinity as sort of wrong as that is...
Some dude just walked up the airplane aisle in a t-shirt with a road sign on it of a stick figure bride and groom, with the words 'wrong turn' underneath. I am so fucking sick of this cliched, supposedly humorous idea that marriage ruins life. Doubly so because they're never women's shirts, bumper stickers, ugly jokes... so juvenile and sexist. We are not the enemy!
Kelly, one of the twins on the program, is as anxious about flying as I am, so she slipped me a Valium for the flight. It was rather fitting that as the plane was taking off, part of the electrical stuff in the ceiling (and indeed part of the ceiling) fell down just where the two of us were sitting. Better still that neither of us really cared, in our Valium haze.
28th June
A night shrouded in travel and sleep. We then spent the morning at a barren little place doing teambuilding exercises with ropes. I am trying not to be a cynic and quite enjoying the group. Mostly I am a bit in love with our rifle toting female security guard.
Probably the most interesting conversation I've had today was with Adam, a religious dude who was hesitant about me sitting next to him because he's not allowed to touch women. We got into the beginnings of a discussion about whether or not this idea is a good one. Adam's basic explanation of the reasons for doing it come down to 'morality'. That a man is a sexual being, and were he to touch a woman or be alone in a room with her, his morality would be led astray. For a married man, the rule is also because the connection between a husband and wife is so sacred, that she should be the only one who can touch him. On the one hand that can be considered somewhat of a romantic notion, but it's just so highly sexist. It seems to me it objectifies women into beings that can only arouse sexuality through physicality. What about a woman's brain, conversation? Should those things be off limits too? Not to mention that this kind of rule doesn't credit a man with any level of restraint at all. What's appealing about being with a man who can't touch any other woman because even a brush of the hand gives him sexual thoughts? Isn't choice the only worthy restraint? So many problems with this...
We just came off a brutal two hour hike up and down a mountain. I do not understand hiking, nor the people who find pleasure in it.
Visited our first supermarket - fantastically foreign and a ridiculous selection of junk food. I think this is the point where Yael decided to move to Israel. We were very overwhelmed and I somehow came away with nothing but Cinammon Toast Crunch.
Evening
Sitting on the tour bus as it passes through green and forever landscapes. The sun is low in the sky, Mogwai playing to me, I feel somewhat cliched but I can't help crying for Adam. The world is so much bigger than we allow ourselves to consider when we're inside our daily mess. I wonder how much a plane ticket would have changed his mind. I hope to leave the world better than I came into it (a crying blob), and it fucking wrecks me that his last moments may have been moments of torment. I hope they were of relief.
....much more to come. I wanted to add pictures but the internet connection is so slow and it's beyond bed time. Tomorrow.
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