How often do you find bras that fit, and are comfy (as far as bras go) and quite pretty, 5 minutes walk from your house, for about $15?

Just thought I’d balance the last post’s complaining with a few sounds of jubilation.

I go now to buy many bras for hoarding against future scarcity.

I’ve said before that this is a quiet street. And by Bangkok standards, it is. You won’t go deaf living here, there’s no demolition site or nightclub within earshot, no through traffic, and people mostly observe the legal hours for use of power tools. There are hours, sometimes hours at a stretch, when it actually is quiet.

That said, between the people who get up early and the people who go to bed late, and their kids and dogs and aircons and water pumps, I can find myself assaulted by noise pretty well all day long, too. And it’s my problem, not theirs. I get that. You can’t expect anyone to keep the noise down because a writer is trying to think or because someone who works from home just wants to take a nap or enjoy a little silence for no special reason. Although, honestly, I think you can expect people, out of common courtesy, not to talk at the top of their voices at 6 a.m. or leave their car parked under your window playing doof-doof music.

Well, I can expect it, but I won’t get it. I will get noise. Not because this is Bangkok but because this is Planet Earth and human beings are noisy. I’m sensitive to noise. I get the impression that I’m in a minority. I like many of the sounds of nature, though, so perhaps I should be living in a cave in Mongolia or something — but that wouldn’t be without its drawbacks.

Anyway, I feel like I’m often fighting noise. Earplugs, rain recordings, wandering the streets looking for a quiet corner of an alley somewhere — sometimes I really do get desperate and feel quite upset by not being able to get away from noise. I found a graveyard, a nice big one, which can be fairly quiet; however, the owners of the graveyard have turned it into a recreation facility with a jogging track, sports equipment etc — and karaoke machines. It’s awesome, actually. But thanks to the karaoke, the quiet stretches tend not to be very long.

There’s a mosque with a Muslim graveyard nearby, and it doesn’t have karaoke — but it also doesn’t look so open to the public, or at least not to the infidel.

I get tired because noises wake me up at night. And then, during the day, when some dog is barking, like it is now, and earplugs don’t keep it out and I just can’t think, I get frustrated and hot under the collar. It’s not that I don’t get any quiet, I just need more than I’m getting.

I need to do something. I can’t make the noise stop, so I need to find ways to deal with it. I’m considering hypnotherapy. I also want to try sleeping pills, something to help me sleep more deeply but without waking up groggy in the mornings. I’d be grateful for any recommendations.

About 77,800. Finished? Yes and no. I’ve got cracks to spakfill, but they’re all small stuff — words and sentences and paragraphs I’m iffy about for one reason or another, but nothing so bad that I couldn’t leave it as it is or choose one of the options I’m dithering between.

I’ll be spakfilling for the next two weeks. Anything left uncertain after that gets a lick of paint and a note to get an editor’s opinion. I’m also unsure about which pieces to include or not — but again, editor.

I’ve been getting stressed from noise lately — mostly thanks to a neighbour’s very sick air conditioner, but there are also water pumps, barking dogs, yelling kids, etc. I’ve found that playing the sound of rain helps. It blocks out a lot of the insidious mechanical noise, which is the noise I’m especially keen not to hear, and at least puts up a fight against the dogs and kids. I like this site, rainymood. It plays a rain recording with some gentle thunder and muted birdsong.

My ankle’s better, so I went to the new ice rink in town. Positives first: it was fun. I was happily surprised at how quickly I got my skating legs back. Or half back. Back enough, anyway. The rental skates were quite comfy, too. Negatives: It was too warm. The ice melted fast. (If they’d keep the rink as cold as the movie theatres, it’d be great!) Also wasn’t thrilled by the lack of warnings to people who were skating too fast. And no direction change, unless I left before one. Personally I reckon you want to switch every hour. Anyway, it was jolly good fun, even with the hooning kids and getting soaked falling in a huge puddle, and I may go back, if possibly in some kind of waterproof armoured suit — but first I’ll check out the more distant rink, now almost reached by the new skytrain extension. In photos it looks bigger, which would be nice, and people look warmly dressed, so it might be colder and less melty.

(N.B. Given that many people in and around Bangkok are still up to their necks in literally shitty floodwater, all complaints above are in the vein that the grass in paradise could be a brighter green.)

Since I’ve been on this health kick I’ve been eating more meat. I know, meat isn’t usually associated with health kicks, but I figured I wasn’t getting enough protein. I’ve been chowing down on not just plenty of fish but chicken and even ham, which I haven’t eaten in ages. I’ve lost a little weight and kept it off, and I feel rather better than before. I’ve been eating fewer carbs and almost no cheese, on account of its fat content.

But my conscience has a problem with all this meat-munching. Much as my body likes the life omnivorous, my mind doesn’t, for all the usual ethical vegetarian reasons. Most of my concern is about farming and slaughter practices*, rather than eating animals per se, though the latter is part of it.

*Thailand has huge chicken factory farms, whence, I assume, come the skinless chicken breasts I prefer for my own consumption. In theory I could buy a chook at a market and kill it, pluck it and gut it myself. The fact that I’d rather eat tofu than do this suggests to me that I shouldn’t be eating any damn chicken.

I’ve had a think, and I’ve decided to try laying off the meat again, and reducing the fish, but finding other protein sources that aren’t full of fat. I fucking hate tofu and wheat gluten-based fake meat, but don’t mind beans, and textured vegetable protein can be quite good. I can’t get the latter at my local supermarket (for a Buddhist country, Thailand is rather disinterested in vegetarian eating, except for a 10-day vegetarian festival once a year, currently going on, but it’s more than vegetarian, it’s some kind of holy bland food, and I can’t say I like it) but it’s probably available at the big supermarkets in the downtown malls. I love edamame, which you can buy here and there, so I need to find a supplier.

I’ve got one slice of ham and two chicken breasts left in the fridge. I bought a tin of vetegarian chilli “non-carne” for when they’re gone. I tried it yesterday. It was ok. And I bought M&Ms again, for moral support. I’ve given up on the ice cream. Even the expensive brands aren’t that nice. The flavours are often somehow sickly. I like peppermint choc-chip, but I haven’t seen any tubs of it; in fact, in general it doesn’t seem to be such a common flavour here as it is is back home.

Made up the word shortfall, but didn’t go to the studio — did some errands instead. Serious ham sandwich craving in the evening — I was full on hungry, and hungry very specifically for a ham sandwich! Lucky the supermarket is just around the corner. I bought some partridge eggs while I was there. Deep fried partridge eggs on skewers with chilli sauce are a popular street food here. I think I’ll just try boiling them and making tiny little fried eggs.

This sprained ankle has put a slight dent in my plans to get fitter, although it isn’t a bad sprain, so it shouldn’t be too long before I can at least do tai chi again. Meanwhile, I’ve been doing crunches and persevering with the ‘more real food, less crap’ plan. One consequence of the latter is that I’m at last learning to cook. I can now make a couple of quite edible fish-in-wok dishes, and yesterday I made devilled eggs according to the instructions on this site. The egg-boiling method proved to be excellent. Though I didn’t have any of the filling ingredients, I was able to rustle up substitutes (cheese/herb pasta sauce for mayo, wasabi for mustard, chilli sauce). I threw some capers on top and they were pretty nice.

I also looked up the calories in a banana. They’re lower than I thought. Good value. No reason to stop at just one banana a day, so yesterday I had two, and I think the second one helped stave off cravings for less healthy food.

Well, I got through another week without potato crisps, fruit juice or cheese. The ice cream ran out and I didn’t have an urge to buy more, although I’ve restocked on M&Ms. I had bad sinuses for a couple of days and thought I was getting a cold, but didn’t. I only did tai chi once a day this week, as twice a day was too boring. I’ve almost finished working out the left-hand version of the 24-step sword sequence.

I haven’t lost any more weight — in fact, I think I’ve put it back on, but it’s hard to tell, as my weight goes up and down during the month — but anyway, I’m still interested in shedding some wobbly bits! I was going to start jogging just a very little next week — ten minutes on two mornings, with a plan to build up very slowly over many weeks — but continuing the accident prone theme that’s been running through my life lately, I’ve sprained my ankle — not really doing anything, just walking on Bangkok pavements. It was going to happen sooner or later. So I’ll be doing a lot of sitting still for a few days. On the other hand, I can’t easily get to the kitchen, so this might work out. Fortunately I had a bandage — I bought it when I thought I was going to use it on a sculpture. Fun times!

After the Spock’s bedroom dream with the red padded floor, I had another dream featuring red padding. This time there was a monastery or church that was a place of pilgrimage, with an extremely tall tower — I think it was several kilometres high. You had to climb up inside it, but there were no stairs, just a very steep ascent inside the tower, which was about as wide as your average concert hall, leaning at about a 20 degree angle, and lined with soft, understuffed red velvet. It was very hard to climb, and I knew I couldn’t do it. Other people were climbing, but I had to give up. I have an inkling what the Enterprise dream was about — logic might not be a perfect refuge, but it beats other options — but this one, nope.

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!

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.