Sushi & Sex

Another list! It’s like a disease - once you make the first one - or is it an easy way out that gets thoughts from the few remaining brain cells I have left, into some physical form?
I am no sage or great intellectual but in my time on this planet I have come to realise that there are some basic tenets of conduct or what I shall call universal truths, that describe and should shape our existence for the short time we have here and I believe the world would be a better place if everyone followed them.
I will impart them now:

1. Love unconditionally.
2. Always insist on and live by the truth.
3. A parent should never ever have to bury their child.
4. Nothing is ever, ever, ever as good as sex.
5. The only farts you will enjoy are your own.
6. Size doesn’t matter.
7. Empathise.
8. Find out who you are as soon as possible in your life so you don’t waste time.
9. Everything you own, have, buy, possess will one day belong to someone else.
10. Worry is a useless, wasteful emotion.
11. The past has gone and doesn’t deserve a second thought.
12. Live for the day.
13. Treat other people how you should be treated.
14. Sushi, mangoes, wine and chocolate are four things almost as good as sex or a fabulous accompaniment to sex. Eaten separately I mean!
15. Always swim and sleep naked.
16. Accept change in all its forms. Your body, your face and externally - as it’s the only thing you can ever be sure of.
17. You will die and no longer exist. (See Suicide).
18. Giving is just as important as receiving.
19. Reject insincerity, dishonesty, carelessness and selfishness in others.
20. Nothing is ever, ever, ever as good as sex. (Didn’t I already put that one in?)

Suicide

Since the morning I discovered my lover of fifteen plus years swinging from the rafters in our garage by his neck as dead as is possible, my life has changed forever. I no longer am obsessed with the future. I am no longer a planner or plotter. I live day by day as much as is possible. My life is here and now. What’s for dinner and will my finicky six year old son eat the food tonight is as far as I get into the future, in a serious way, these days. I find it hard to think about what will happen in three months time and what plans I need to make. Some of my colleagues are incredulous when I state quite triumphantly that I have no idea what I am doing on my next break. They have already made travel arrangements sometimes twelve months in advance. The state of asking: where is the next meal coming from? – almost describes where my life is at, at the moment. It’s a nice existence actually. It is based on the fact that you only get one life and you should just exist in the moment. I am here right now and the present is all that matters – or maybe a few hours into the future or at the very most a few days. I know that one day I won’t exist and that what is now body will become broken down into a more simple form. Maybe similar to that from which I originally came. I have no grandiose ideas that I will arise phoenix like into the stratosphere and exist in sublime peace and harmony with a benevolent saviour or sojourn southwards into eternal damnation. I will rot and dissolve and all the cells that now make me will disperse. The only thing left of me, and only for a short while will be the memory of me within those people who actually knew me or if I leave something behind for more than a handful of people to remember. When the people who knew me die even any reference to me will be gone. That is unless I achieve some sort of fame or notoriety. Dying doesn’t bother me. I am not ready to go yet though. I am here now. I am now and I need to make the most of my time here because when it all adds up in the scheme of six and a half billion people - I am but a speck of crap on the wall and what I do doesn’t really matter a fuck. So I will continue living for the day and satisfying my desires and experiencing life to the full as much as my present circumstances will allow.

Sex In Singapore

One night only in Singapore, to do a new visa so I can keep working in Indonesia. My first free trip - paid for by the company that employs me. I was to have gone once before and even got to the airport ready to leave and it was cancelled at the last minute. The trip was a bit of a mad frantic rush. Left on Sunday evening and arrived Singapore about 10.30 in the evening. Checked in at a hotel about 11 pm and discreetly mentioned to my colleagues that I was too tired and didn’t feeling like going out. Three other teachers were doing the visa run too. They wanted to walk along Orchard Road to look at the Christmas lights. Next morning, I find out the lights were out anyway. Mad rush to phone the Indian guy I’d met on line a few days earlier and see if he was still interested in coming to meet me. He decided it was too late to come out when I called. Shame, as he looked hot when I saw him on his web cam and we chatted. He obviously wasn’t the type of person that does things spontaneously either. Unlike me - I wouldn’t even think twice about going out that late for a sexual rendezvous.
So I was very naughty and went online and invited a complete stranger to my room. Not something you’d do in New York maybe but I have done it before in this part of the world and it’s been ok. I am usually able to tell the sweet guys from the nasty anyway by how the conversation starts. There are several obvious questions that instantly tell you what sort of person you are dealing with. The sex pigs always start off with something straight to the point like: top or bottom? Then the next question will usually have something to do with the size of your penis or whether it has a foreskin or not. And their profiles usually only have pictures of specific parts of their anatomy and no face picture. When a guy says: Hi, how are you? And he has a full-face picture smiling at the world, you know you are dealing with a reasonable human being.
We chatted a bit on line, swapped pictures and he didn’t seem like a psychopath. He arrived and looked very shy. Quite a passionate time was had is all I am going to say. I had a night in Bali too on the way home, but it deserves its own post.

Farts

I started teaching in 1985. That means I have been doing the same job for 21 years. In that time I have had the chance to make many observations about kids. Suddenly it hit me today that there are two things as a teacher that drive me to the point where I could change from the caring, supportive self esteem developing, nurturing, pedagogically knowledgeable and consistent teacher, to an axe wielding psychopath. Farts. Just think about it for a moment. I have been confined to smelly classrooms on average for 5 hours per day for 200 plus days a year for 21 years. How many farts is that? Bloody lots. My current class of 12 students contains a phantom farter. To make matters worse it’s not actually a phantom farter because when it happens and this person’s pungent gassy bum attacks our olfactory nerves, several students say her name. Yes HER! So as a teacher that’s pet hate number one – having to endure farts. In all honesty, all you want to say is, ”Get out you dirty fucking pig if you want to do that.” But you can’t. Today at my school an obscenely disgusting smell pervaded the classroom and instantly several students covered their faces with their shirts and uttered the usual offenders name. She wasn’t even in the classroom. I stated in my teacher/diplomat manner, that in future could that person please be considerate and leave the room before the gassy event. I meanwhile was choking with the intensity of the smell. Later on I discovered that the septic tanks in the school were being emptied and cleaned! No person could smell that bad. I will have to face my class tomorrow and tell them that it wasn’t what we thought – that someone had carelessly farted. The other thing that drives me nuts in a classroom is kids refusing to say do as they are asked. I feel like picking them up by the scruff of the neck sometimes and shaking them and saying, "God, just do it! Your life will be easier.” But they come up with all these little games and ploys. They don’t actually always say, NO. Some do. Funny thing is. I enjoy the kids who have the balls to challenge me. I don’t want to be their friend. I have a job to do. I am going to do it whether they like it or not. But I have tremendous respect for, and like the kids who challenge you. They will be the ones who become interesting people. Maybe they’ll end up in trouble or on the streets but they will never be boring.