Another snaggle-toothed Tuesday in Busan.

Everything is just so damn annoying here. Probably just me. Could change my name to Morrie and be a Tuesday person, but I’d lose major imaginary street cred.

I was having a minor breakdown last week about being back and decided that I wasn’t drinking enough/hungover enough at work to induce the proper zombie-like state required for mouth shitting out hagwon curriculum. It actually worked pretty well, but I’m getting long in the tooth to be hanging out in bars all the time. Not my cup of Creedence. Much more apt at pubs.

Pubs, to me, differentiate themselves from bars in being tenaciously anti-social. This isn’t strictly true, if you sit AT the bar, you’re inviting all sorts to come and converse. Sort of like chat roulette, but with less “I’m Turks!” No, I prefer the abused varnish, scuffed up chairs and semi-social collectives gathered around to worship the foundation of civilization, ale. Bars have lager, which could be misconstrued for twice used, sans flush, toilet water. I love ale. There’s no ale here. Well maybe in Seoul, but I can’t deal with that much subway/shithop culture.

There are two eternal questions here; What to do and what to eat? Both are pretty ambiguous, in that neither has a real desirable solution. Desirable would be something I wanted to do. Here it’s just killing time. Lot like prison.

I’ve spurned technology in my apartment. Tv’s in the closet, no ‘puter to speak of and I’d buy a cell phone if I had anyone to trade stupid texts with, but to be honest, I don’t. My friends left awhile ago or recently and now I’m trying to sort out what to do without a drinking buddy or few, besides drink alone. Not that exciting thou, usually leads to napping or eggs n toast then napping. Going to give the artsy fartsy a shot ie sketch an hour a day, make some disturbing collages, etc. I inherited all my most recently departed amigo’s tools and I should probably get on fleshing out the chairs I’ve been meaning to build, but that would require a certain amount of dealing with Koreans to buy lumber and I just don’t have it in me anymore. There’s a lot of people like that here, essentially we have no involvement with Koreans other than frequenting their businesses and unwillingly serving as stare-fodder. Actually, I could just steal wood from construction sites (stuff their going to trash anyways) or out of the piles of garbage (mostly particleboard… yuck) or peruse the mountains for fallen branches. Have to wait and see on that one. Inspiration’s hard to come buy here.

Too much internalization.

I’m just gonna get on it, as they say. The only things I’ve ever really enjoyed are creation related. And I gather that when you’re stuck somewhere that culturally makes you want to step in front of buses, the only real option is to make your own culture. I have a little space deemed for occupancy, but there’s no difference between a flat and a studio. Studios just tend to smell more like glue.

And eureka! It has been turned on its head. The hard part is being self disciplined about it. Artists are inherently selfish people I find. Better than musicians thou, insecurity is not becoming. If I ever make it back to grad school I’m going to carry around $100 to pay for every fucking acoustic guitar I smash in public.