2.16.98

Today I just wanted to rest. There were hundreds of email messages to wade through and staring at them made me feel dizzy. I showered and felt a lot better. My hair is finally clean after three days shampooless. The guy at the hotel said they didn’t provide shampoo to guests because it harms the environment. They don’t even sell it at the stores, he said. So I pointed out that other guests who were smarter than me brought their own shampoo that polluted the environment. And that the complimentary hand lotion would surely pollute if washed off the body. He shrugged. Dude, just tell me you don’t got it, but don’t lie to me because it makes you look stupid. (But it’s not his fault, he’s just the worker doing what the big corporation tells him.) I'm having a little trouble whipping back into life. The weekend was a big chunk of all-consuming reality. For the first time in a long time, I was away and really felt gone. Nice to spend Valentine's weekend with Dave enjoying ourselves. We gave each other expensive imported chocolate and it sustained us when the hotel food did not. So today was the big day for me to check out my antique Chinese cabinet. I labored to get ready: ironing, wrangling unruly hair, etc. Caught the bus and rode for a long time and my left knee with the big bruise hurt while bent. It is still swollen and it’s more just an "unnatural" feeling than pain because the skin is taut and doesn’t like to crease behind the knee right now. It’s like trying to fold a pillow in half. At the antique place I saw that the big chest Catherine bought and many other pieces I saw at the warehouse on Thursday were there. Mine was not. I told the guy who I am and that I came to see my piece of furniture. It’s not there. Sorry, he says, we can have it Wednesday. What the fuck? Dude, I just came all this way! I told you I’d be here Monday, you said you’d have my cabinet here two days ago, where the hell do you get off? Of course he’s all saying he’s sorry but man, I was just pissed. I’m still pissed. They had the space to bring all this other furniture to Seoul from the warehouse, but not mine. I wanted to bite that guy’s head off, but I’m gutless at that and anyway, I will have to do business with them in the future. You know, they could’ve fucking called and said they didn’t have it. But they never call me. Every single time I’ve asked them to call me the people at this store never call me back. Of course, this time I was an idiot and I should’ve called before I left to confirm that it was there. Stupid me to trust that things would go according to plan. But, man, don’t you think that in the back of my mind I’m not thinking that these people aren’t giving me decent treatment because they think I’m low class. I’m young, I don’t wear or flaunt brand names, I don’t have a car, I always have a backpack attached because I’m walking everywhere, I don’t drop $3000 a pop at their store. I really think they judge me. It’s like when I bought my Alpine CD player at Car Toys in Seattle. The same day some big Sonics guy just spent $20,000 on a sound system for his car. The guy helping me was totally lame and treating me like crap while he was bragging to his coworkers what kind of system he’d just sold to the Sonics guy. (I wanna say it was Shawn Kemp’s system, but I can’t remember now.) This kind of shit happens all over. But in the States I can handle it better. I have more avenues for countering that kind of discrimination. But here.. man, anything goes and the slickest, greediest one wins. It really fucks with my sense of (need for) equality. I don’t know. I guess I’ll go back Wednesday. All this anger. Where the hell is it coming from? So that the trip wasn’t a total waste, I walked from there to the black market store to pick up a few items. I took a short cut down a back alley, the entrance of which is characterized by a gigantic neon vulva. I can’t decide whether to feel disgusted or applaud its immensity. The vulva serves as a electro-light doorway to a nightclub. It is not abstract in the least; in fact, someone took great pains to make it very realistic. It is complete with little hairs pointing outward from the outer labia and then painted on the door itself is weird wavy hymen kind of thing at the introitus. I feel disgusted when I walk by, thinking of the men who enter and what those men represent. The alleyway was fairly empty in the middle of the day. The pavement was wet from water overflowing the tubs used to scrub vegetables served at the grimy restaurants flanking the street. The water, tubs, and the people squatting and scrubbing all looked grungy. There were a few African guys looking at some food at one end of the street. One of them yelled and they all took off to catch a bus that didn’t stop for them. I saw an aging US soldier walking hand in hand with an aging woman who was successfully conveying the image of prostitute. Food sat out in the open covered in plastic wrap, none of which looked the slightest bit appealing. Piled around one power pole was a stack of trash, swept there I’m sure by one or several of the restaurant owners. None of it was confined to a bag so that various kinds of kimchee, noodles, empty containers, and even a dead rat hugged the pole like a Christmas tree blanket. In another country this shortcut would be totally dangerous. Perhaps it is in this one, but I’m just oblivious.

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