I’m supposed to be working. And what am I doing? Headbanging to I Was Made For Loving You. That song is like the golden perfect child of rock and disco. Although there are plenty of clips out there with better sound, I bond with this one, which takes me back to living rooms of temps perdu. I mean, I don’t think I ever heard Kiss through decent speakers. There’s a deplorable lack of Kiss tribute bands over here. Come on, Bangkok! Your traffic’s like Sydney Road on a Saturday night times twenty, all day, every day; you also have a lot of men in makeup. What’s stopping you from going all the way?

Maybe I should just forget about writing today and go ice skating instead. Because the long-awaited big rink is open!

Last night I dreamed I was on the Enterprise and had to choose which crew member’s bedroom to sleep in. Kirk’s was too messy. McCoy’s and Scotty’s didn’t appeal either; one was too neat, I can’t remember what was wrong with the other. Spock’s was, surprisingly, nearly as messy as Kirk’s, but had a Chesterfield-like padding in red brocade on the floor, like some strange bordello, which I went for. Whatever the meaning of this dream might be, I’m not sure I want to know.

Last night I had enough energy to go to an exhibition opening, where usually I think I’d've piked. I was tired this morning, but did tai chi with less sword and recovered later in the day and got some work done. I think this healthy thing could be working. I’ve discovered that bananas, fish and salad are good foods for me. So is water. I don’t think I’ve been drinking enough for this climate. I don’t really miss crisps and fruit juice, and that half donut is still sitting in the fridge. I ate a few peanut M&Ms most if not all days this week, and I’m getting steadily through the ice cream, but I’ve eaten less chocolate and ice cream than I normally would. Rice crackers continue to satisfy cravings for crunchy salty things. I’m giving it another two weeks. I’m not going to blog about it every day; hopefully I can stick to it without making a daily report.

Now I want to work faster and better on Tea Master!

Ok, now I’m tired. No tai chi again — just finishing Pan and Gary as well as I could after waking up early in a pan(ha!)ic about never getting them ready. I got to go to the foundry today, which was pretty interesting. They weren’t pouring metal, but I saw pieces in various stages of the casting process, and a cauldron of boiling wax.

I’m not 100% happy with Pan’s lips, but this may be a case of me enlarging microscopic problems that will make no difference to how anyone else sees his face.

I fell off the sort-of wagon and bought a donut with cream and little coloured jelly balls on top, and ate half of it.

Nap time…

Spent all day and half the night fiddling with the hard wax models of Pan and Gary to get them ready for casting. And I’ve got time for a couple more hours fiddling this morning!

Pan has new ears that I like better than the old ones atm, but will only know for sure when I see them in metal. In worse case can get another wax cast, fiddle with it, melt metal, and recycle.

Didn’t have time for tai chi yesterday afternoon, or time to buy vegetables, but I mostly steered clear of junk food, apart from about 8 M&Ms and a spoonful of icecream. I had enough stamina to work about 12 hours with a half hour break, and though I’m a bit tired today, I’m not trashed. This is good.

I seem to have found that kilo I’d lost, although it’s the time of the month when I usually find a kilo, so I’m trying not to be too sad. Also to remember that this is a health kick not a skinny kick.

Busy day at the studio yesterday. Normally I’d feel pretty trashed today, but I don’t. Back still a bit twingy, but did tai chi carefully and without the sword this morning and it was ok.

I seem to have bought a dress. I normally steer clear of dresses, but this seemed to be a belted shirt until I removed the belt in order to remove the garment when I was done trying it on, and it turned into a dress. It sort of caught me off guard. The fabric’s really pretty — for anyone who may be wondering, it looks more like curtains than furniture — and thus I found myself buying what I can only describe as women’s clothing. It will go with The Second Best Shoes In The World (because The Best Shoes don’t come in a suitable colour) if I ever succumb to the temptation to get a pair.

My back’s almost better already, and things are also looking up on the sculpture front. It seems I don’t understand the process enough; my teacher said that as long as the mould is made principally of the hard wax, so that it can be handled, there should be no further drama or unpleasant surprises when it comes to casting, even if a few bits of it are soft. So I won’t need to get it cast back home or make my own mould or anything — though at some point I should learn to make moulds if I keep on with this sculpture thing. I’ve made pretty good progress on fixing Pan. One ear down, one to go, and other little things almost fixed — and he does look nice in the dark brown wax, 2hich is a good preview of the bronze. I think I’ll practice my Thai writing and put a little sign on him saying “ears soft, please be careful!” as at least part of the new, er, earwax, is nearly indistinguishable from the colour of the hard wax.

Stu cooked another tuna steak for dinner. This time we tried the shaku, which has less fat than the belly steak, but we preferred the stronger flavour of the latter, though the texture of the shaku seemed somewhat nicer raw. Anyway, it was still delicious. A woman was handing out Lindor balls in the supermarket and I said no. O.o… But I did eat a few M&Ms at home, so I wasn’t really that good. Anyway, still doing fine without potato crisps.

I forgot to mention — the other day, after 6 years here without stepping on any of the insect horrors that crawl around, I stepped on one of those big cockroaches, in the dark, with a bare foot. It wasn’t one of the really huge fuckers like the one that infamously leapt out of the toilet paper roll, but it was big enough.

It was actually fairly dry and chitinous, though some mush did come out. I guess the cockroach was lucky in a way, as it had a quick death instead of the slow death by poison that cockroaches in our house typically suffer.

Oh, and the termites appear to be dead, too, though I have no doubt that there’s a clone termite army awaiting a secret signal to awaken.

Exercise is bad for you!

I thought I pulled a muscle doing that left-handed sword stuff. It got worse during the day, and by late at night I was “ow ow ow.” It hurt to sneeze, and rolling over in bed was a bitch. I took a voltaren, which I should have taken earlier, and after a while I moved and something in the vicinity of my ribs clunked. Things immediately felt rather better, and this morning it’s so much better than yesterday that I wonder if it wasn’t just a pulled muscle. Disclocated rib? Is such a thing possible? Apparently, yes; and one of the causes is “letting yourself get weak and flabby, and then exerting yourself, especially in an asymmetrical manner.” Stu said when he was rubbing some Chairman Mao’s Mustard* on my back that there was a lump; he thought it was the muscle but maybe it was the rib? Anyway, it still hurts enough that I’m not doing any tai chi today — if it was the rib, I think some muscle somewhere suffered along with it — but it feels like it’s going to be better sooner rather than later.

*I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this stuff. It’s a heat-giving balm ointment, yellow coloured, with a picture of a Chinese guy, presumably its inventor, on the label. The girl who recommended it to me kept it in her fridge and her father or grandfather, I can’t remember which, thought it was some kind of spread and put it on his toast. He said it tasted strange. Hence her family gave it that name.

I had an awesome time yesterday evening. I went ghost hunting with Tori at an old Chinese cemetery! We didn’t see the ghost of the nun who is supposed to come out fairly regularly and sit on her grave, but it was fascinating to wander among the old tombs, a few of which are quite elaborate. The caretaker, whose name is Crocodile, and his two kids showed us around. Their family lives at the cemetery along with an enormous number of dogs, some cats, ducks, and I think they said rabbits. As it has been raining heavily the graves were surrounded by water, giving the whole scene a sort of Atlantean vibe. I’ll put some photos up in a separate post.

Did the whole lot of tai chi this morning and nearly the whole lot this evening. Encouragingly, I felt better rather than tired after the morning session. Left side is making progress little by little. Also did a bit better with writing than I have been lately. Possibly still coming out of coldsville, or it could be the weather, which is not as hot as usual, or maybe this healthy stuff is working.

The break from Tea Master lasted all of three days, but it was worthwhile, as I worked out something about the plot while not writing. It’s certainly an obsession — I’d just like to have the mental energy to work on it intelligently for longer than I’m currently able to each day.

Gorged on salmon again today. Also ate two whole peanut M&Ms. And cabbage — one of the local shops does a really nice cabbage dish that goes well with pasta, gyoza and lots of other things.