1.30.98
Late at night. Garlic pervading my experience right now. Yes, that extreme is possible. The soojaebee place in my neighborhood puts so much garlic in the food that it actually burns going down. Ooo, tastes so good for about an hour. After that it starts to get rank. By morning I'll be gasping.

Feeling fatigued. From the garlic? Don't think so. Weird how fatigue can set in even when I didn't really do anything today. We wandered out into the daylight, squinting, to drop of six rolls of film. I found a Kodak Professional store that actually had professional film kept in the fridge. Oh, there is hope. Now if their processing is good, life will be perfect… Maybe. It takes long enough so it better be good. Next Friday the pics will be ready. Bah! Won't upload the Soraksan thing to sometime after that.

After that we didn't feel like doing anything else so we went grocery shopping and came home. I read. I finished that blasted book on evolutionary psychology. Sorry, not printing the title because I'm not sure I want to recommend it to anyone, even inadvertently. And I just hate that I have to finish books. I was really struggling to get through those last few chapters and I'm sure I missed a bunch of crucial points, but at least I finished. It would have nagged at me from the shelf for eternity if I hadn't read cover to cover. Dave has no problems with infidelity when it comes to books. He reads several at a time and won't waste a second shelving one in fleeting desire for another. Can't understand it. What good is a half-read book? Ah, well. Serially monogamous relationships with books is still a curse. Too many books, too short a lifetime.

Actually, I'm feeling kind of ill. Garlic overload? Possibly. I didn't feel ill before dinner and now I feel blah. The taste in my mouth is just overwhelming all other sensory experiences right now. (Didn't I already mention that?) Dave just brought in a bowl of Haagen-Dazs Vanilla with black market Hershey's drizzled over the top. The little white scoop blanketed in chocolate was just beauty in the unique way dark chocolate looks on creamy white vanilla. My addiction is secure. Do you know that while I was in Taiwan I actually bought a set of little bowls solely because the glaze reminded me of the way Hershey's chocolate flows around softening ice cream? Uh! Eyes to the sky - I'm incurable! That's OK, not looking to be fixed.

The ice cream is temporarily masking the garlic. Dave chastised me for having ice cream in the house because it tempts him and now he's eating dairy products. Sorry man.

Maybe my body is rejecting Korean food. Last Sunday I had that disgusting bibimbap with the hair in it that made Dave ill. Then on the Soraksan trip I had bibimbap and AGAIN there was a nasty hair in it. Ewwww! What are the chances of eating the same dish in two different places and finding a hair twice in a row? I might never be able to eat bibimbap again.

In general, food on the Soraksan trip was good. The restaurant at the hotel prepared nice stuff. They even went out of their way to prepare vegetarian dishes for Dave and me. That was real cool. When I found the hair I muttered some kind of sound in disgust that attracted the attention of a women sitting across the table. I wasn't going to say anything to the staff about the hair because I didn't want anyone to lose face. The hair probably wouldn't have bothered me if that particular incident hadn't been preceded by the food with the hair in it that actually made us sick. But, seeing the hair conjured up that most basic of conditioned responses and I felt a little ill immediately. Thus, the sound of disgust. So the woman across the table spies the hair in my food, because - yes - the hair was that big and long. She starts telling me I gotta say something but I kind of tried to brush her off. Dave was on my wavelength and didn't want to get into the whole face defamation issue either. See, they would've wanted to bring me a whole new dish which I wouldn't be able to finish. I wasn't hungry anymore anyway so no need to make a fuss. But this woman decided they needed to know and told the waitperson. GREAT. Next thing I know they're bringing out food made specially for me which I can't eat because I'm full. I feel bad because I'm leaving it and they feel bad because I'm not accepting their hospitality. What a mess, face-wise.

OK. So the ice cream is gone and the garlic taste is waxing again. Aren't you glad you don't have to wake up next to me tomorrow morning?
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