starbaby = strawberry
ouch! ouch! = i want a pororo bandaid for no reason
i love you teacher = i don't want to go to time out
sweet potato = playdough
one more time *corn* = i want more *corn*, please
i teapoot = i'm a little tea pot
big mess NO! = look at the mess ----- made and put him/her into timeout for my enjoyment!
foodechion! = follow directions!
oh my goonies! = oh my goodness!
i christmassee my house = it is christmas time at my house
me dinosaur two book = i would like two dinosaur books, please
everything else can generally be understood in the context of power rangers and/or dinosaurs.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Things I Said At Work Today
"Please stop eating my pants."
"We do not lick other people's hair."
"Does the hot dog go in the cash register?"
"Don't lick other people's tongues!"
"We do not cut Ms. Kim's hair!"
"Dinosaurs are not allowed in the bathroom."
"We do not lick other people's hair."
"Does the hot dog go in the cash register?"
"Don't lick other people's tongues!"
"We do not cut Ms. Kim's hair!"
"Dinosaurs are not allowed in the bathroom."
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Painful Foray Back to Poetry on a Rainy Day
It’s always damp but never storms
Trees in such abundant forms
Greens in shades I would have sworn
Were never born.
From such great heights I cast eyes down
At this ever-breathing town
The Earth, I think, is not so round
This edge I’ve found.
Parasols march in shades of pink
With endless minutes paid to think
Flowers twined to interlink
On ocean’s brink.
Characters that I cannot read
Alone, at last, and finally freed
Illiterate, afraid to lead
A newborn creed.
Words that float like dandelions
A belt that could not be Orion’s
With calendars by ancient Mayans
Charging ions.
And so the flat world still revolves
‘Round puzzles better left unsolved
I listen hard to hear the call
And miss it all.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Planet of the Wha?
The movie meals here come with cokes, popcorn, nachos and...
Peanut butter roasted squid.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
What Not To Microwave
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Taxicab Confessions
Me: Can you take us to Gudeok Market?
Cabbie: Yes!
:::takes us to an elementary school:::
Me: Can you take us to Gudeok Market? (We also show him this in Korean on Brent's phone. He takes out a magnifying glass and studies it closely - which should have been my first clue to vacate the cab immediately.)
Cabbie: Yes!
:::takes us to an apartment complex 30 miles from home:::
Next time, I'm just going to get in and tell the driver to take me to the moon and see what happens. On the way, I'll talk endlessly about myself, since he won't understand a word I'm saying, and tell him all of my deepest and darkest secrets. THEN it might actually be worth 10,000 won.
Cabbie: Yes!
:::takes us to an elementary school:::
Me: Can you take us to Gudeok Market? (We also show him this in Korean on Brent's phone. He takes out a magnifying glass and studies it closely - which should have been my first clue to vacate the cab immediately.)
Cabbie: Yes!
:::takes us to an apartment complex 30 miles from home:::
Next time, I'm just going to get in and tell the driver to take me to the moon and see what happens. On the way, I'll talk endlessly about myself, since he won't understand a word I'm saying, and tell him all of my deepest and darkest secrets. THEN it might actually be worth 10,000 won.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Korean Lullabies Give me Gas - or - My Night as a Hobo
It's 1:00am and I'm sitting on a concrete wall outside an empty train station in Seoul listening to a drunk Korean man sing opera. Let me tell you how I got here.
At 7:15 I had a quarter bowl of Yum! Almond Flakes! Good for You! with what I'm pretty sure was pigeon milk. Shortly thereafter we walked the half mile to the subway station. 1 hr on the subway, 30 minutes gesticulating frantically at Korean people trying to find Busan Train Station, which, as it turns out, was directly across the street from us. 2.5 hours on the bullet train to Seoul, 1 hr on a commuter train to Incheon Airport, 5 hours of walking - to cargo, animal quarantine, customs warehouse, customs office, back to cargo. The quarantine inspectors apparently saw three dogs where there were only two (really good inspection, guys), which then took an hour to rectify. Finally - the dogs and I are reunited - and it does feel so good.
1 hr on the commuter train back to Seoul station and - dramatic music - all of the trains to Busan are sold out until 5:30 AM - 8 hours to waste with the dogs at a train station where we can't even order McDonalds because there are no NUMBERS and we don't speak Korean.
And so I sat, feeding the dogs bottled water and potato chips (the only food I had), watching drunks stumble down the station stairs. The passersby were terrified of Beasley in all his 15 pounds of bearded glory, probably because he outweighs most Koreans by 4 pounds. They mistook him for a great grizzly bear hungry for the flesh of Korean children.
20 hours of travel, dehydration and lack of food make Brent and I both very gassy. We are now the strange, tooting Americans walking fearsome beasts to and fro in front of Seoul Station. At midnight the lights go out and the station closes. Brent and I begin to ration water. We play hangman and MASH until we can't see straight. The baritone Korean gentleman begins to sing his inebriated lullaby. We fart madly.
I try to sleep on the concrete, which feels remarkably similar to our Korean mattress at home. Nothing goes to sleep but my arm. I wave it around like a limp noodle, further confusing and terrifying the natives.
Brent has fallen asleep and I am writing this on the cursed document that took us 6 hours to procure at the airport. I am eyeballing the remaining water and wondering if I shouldn't kill and eat either Brent or one of the dogs (probably Baxter). It is 1:15 am and there are 4 and a quarter hours left. Then 2.5 hours on the train. Then an hour on the subway. And when this odyssey reaches its conclusion.... the dogs will immediately poop on the floor and i will look at them and think, "I should have eaten you."
At 7:15 I had a quarter bowl of Yum! Almond Flakes! Good for You! with what I'm pretty sure was pigeon milk. Shortly thereafter we walked the half mile to the subway station. 1 hr on the subway, 30 minutes gesticulating frantically at Korean people trying to find Busan Train Station, which, as it turns out, was directly across the street from us. 2.5 hours on the bullet train to Seoul, 1 hr on a commuter train to Incheon Airport, 5 hours of walking - to cargo, animal quarantine, customs warehouse, customs office, back to cargo. The quarantine inspectors apparently saw three dogs where there were only two (really good inspection, guys), which then took an hour to rectify. Finally - the dogs and I are reunited - and it does feel so good.
1 hr on the commuter train back to Seoul station and - dramatic music - all of the trains to Busan are sold out until 5:30 AM - 8 hours to waste with the dogs at a train station where we can't even order McDonalds because there are no NUMBERS and we don't speak Korean.
And so I sat, feeding the dogs bottled water and potato chips (the only food I had), watching drunks stumble down the station stairs. The passersby were terrified of Beasley in all his 15 pounds of bearded glory, probably because he outweighs most Koreans by 4 pounds. They mistook him for a great grizzly bear hungry for the flesh of Korean children.
20 hours of travel, dehydration and lack of food make Brent and I both very gassy. We are now the strange, tooting Americans walking fearsome beasts to and fro in front of Seoul Station. At midnight the lights go out and the station closes. Brent and I begin to ration water. We play hangman and MASH until we can't see straight. The baritone Korean gentleman begins to sing his inebriated lullaby. We fart madly.
I try to sleep on the concrete, which feels remarkably similar to our Korean mattress at home. Nothing goes to sleep but my arm. I wave it around like a limp noodle, further confusing and terrifying the natives.
Brent has fallen asleep and I am writing this on the cursed document that took us 6 hours to procure at the airport. I am eyeballing the remaining water and wondering if I shouldn't kill and eat either Brent or one of the dogs (probably Baxter). It is 1:15 am and there are 4 and a quarter hours left. Then 2.5 hours on the train. Then an hour on the subway. And when this odyssey reaches its conclusion.... the dogs will immediately poop on the floor and i will look at them and think, "I should have eaten you."
Sunday, July 10, 2011
And so it begins...
It's been years since I've written anything anywhere for anyone or any reason. Anyway, after being prompted by some close friends and called my own most-abhorred term, a "weiner-whiner," I've decided to attempt to gather some dust and make it into something.
I am not a writer. I am a boring half-adult clinging onto adolescence and scorning sobriety whenever possible. I spend most of my time engineering and manufacturing boredom. I am, most of the time, lonely and unfulfilled and tinged with melancholy. I am, most of the time, happy and wide-eyed. I am, all of the time, not really anything.
I have three weeks before we leave for South Korea and I temporarily fill that hole in myself that feeds on a constant supply of new and shiny things. And dust is a good enough theme. Leaving things in my dust, dusting off new parts of things, sitting so still that dust gathers, and trying to make something out of all this dust I've accumulated around me. The dust of people and places and my own shortcomings and mistakes. The dust at the bottom of the ruts we fall into and curl up in. And so when I saw this Korean proverb that is serving as my blog title - "Gather dust to build a mountain," I thought, "What a great challenge."
And so I accept the challenge of building something magnificent from all of this dust. And I'll surely fail, creating more dust for someone else to find and build with, but I think the point is not the mountain, but the building. Now I come dangerously close to being too wordy and sharing life philosophies with Miley Cyrus.
Let's dust this shit off.
I am not a writer. I am a boring half-adult clinging onto adolescence and scorning sobriety whenever possible. I spend most of my time engineering and manufacturing boredom. I am, most of the time, lonely and unfulfilled and tinged with melancholy. I am, most of the time, happy and wide-eyed. I am, all of the time, not really anything.
I have three weeks before we leave for South Korea and I temporarily fill that hole in myself that feeds on a constant supply of new and shiny things. And dust is a good enough theme. Leaving things in my dust, dusting off new parts of things, sitting so still that dust gathers, and trying to make something out of all this dust I've accumulated around me. The dust of people and places and my own shortcomings and mistakes. The dust at the bottom of the ruts we fall into and curl up in. And so when I saw this Korean proverb that is serving as my blog title - "Gather dust to build a mountain," I thought, "What a great challenge."
And so I accept the challenge of building something magnificent from all of this dust. And I'll surely fail, creating more dust for someone else to find and build with, but I think the point is not the mountain, but the building. Now I come dangerously close to being too wordy and sharing life philosophies with Miley Cyrus.
Let's dust this shit off.
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