A Day in the Life of Hammers, Ants, and Fatness

Today I woke up early because of hammers. There are men in the rooms around my room, and they are hitting things. Every now and then, they take out drills, buzz saws, and really get to work. I sit at my table wearing ear plugs for a while, drinking instant coffee, looking out my window. Down below me, what passes for a public bath, a big concrete square filled with rain water which people from the shanty shack like to stand around in wearing just their underwear. They take buckets and pour the water over their heads and backs and shoulders. Usually, a little naked brown kid jumps around and giggles as his/her mother tries/fails to bath them. I like watching them, the naked and mostly naked people, though it makes me out to be a creeper.

When the hammering doesn't stop and I can't take it anymore, I decide to get some groceries. I go to the wrong train stop, get off, and fail to find a store which isn't there. I try again, this time at the right stop, but the store is mostly empty. The city's flooding at the moment, in fact the whole country is, so I guess the delivery trucks aren't bringing us any food. That, or else everyone but me stocked up. Typical. I go for water, but that too, the water, has all been taken. I wonder for a moment what I'm going to do. I buy some rice and a pot. I will boil water. I will then eat rice. Great. I take my rice and metal pot and get back on the train.

Back at home, hungry, I grab a bag of cashews left over from the week before and I dump them in my mouth. Even though they’re stale because I left the bag open, they still taste pretty good. I chew and chew them. Suddenly they hurt. They hurt again. What the hell? I spit them out into my hand where little half chewed ants squirm around amongst the soggy chewed up cashew bits. I look in the bag. Yep, totally ants in there, little monsters. I take my finger and start to hollow out my mouth. I spit their bodies in the sink, turn the water on and wash them down the drain.

Ear plugs in, headphones over ear plugs, the hammering becomes somewhat manageable. Also, I am naked, which is the best. I sit back down and try to finish the essay I’ve been working on, the one in which I try to turn my first three weeks in Thailand into something clear enough to read. I want it to make sense of things for me, like tell me word for word what the hell it is I’m doing here and how do I stop thinking about a girl I'm pretty sure is over me. I’m supposed to be here writing poetry, but, for whatever reason, it comes out wrong, in sentences, most of which are proper, or at least I think they are. Also, I’ve started reading novels. What the hell? In the essay, I get to a part where I’m trying to remember meeting my old girlfriend for the first time, but I don’t remember it correctly. I don't remember it at all. I remember a different moment, so I lie and use that one. Is this ok? Why don’t I remember right? I’m pretty sure she’ll kill me when she reads it, if she reads it. In all likelihood, by then it won’t matter much to either of us, which is the way it goes sometimes, though I wish there were some other ways it went sometimes.

Now I’m in the gym, staring at my muscles in the mirror the way my friend Jacy taught me back at Gold’s in Wisconsin when we used to go there. “Physical fitness/physical fun?” he’d text me in the mornings, but it isn’t as much fun without him. In fact, it isn't fun at all. Mostly, I just get tired and give up. Now, instead of lifting weights up over my head, I’m sitting by myself in an empty room, slumped over on a padded bench and staring at my sneakers. I’m getting fatter by the minute, I can feel it. I stand up, pull my shirt up around my chest, and push my belly out. Yep, totally getting fatter. I pull my shirt back down. Tomorrow, I tell myself, tomorrow I’ll do better.