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.

Well, here we are. Today I ate most of a meat pie, and the rest was as I’ve been doing all week. Tinned beans (haricot and cannellini) were a new item, as was grilled radicchio. Still noticing that when I’m hungry, nothing satisfies like raw salmon. I did just take a walk in the morning, and in the evening tai chi without sword, as my arms felt like they could use the break.

I really need to vent about my neighbour’s borked water pump that makes horrible noises that go through our house (have I mentioned that Mack’s “Pillow Soft” silicone earplugs are my best friends in Thailand?) — it was me what told them it was borked two weeks ago, and I know they really know it’s borked because I’ve seen the man of the house up there looking at it with a look of woe, because it’s going to cost, maybe, $200 to fix or replace? This is a middle-class neighbourhood; anyone here can afford home repairs (and I know this because they renovate constantly). It’s leaking water on their roof-space and I hope the water encourages ghosts to settle in their house.

It’s also possible that the noise might piss off the god of the street, and s/he might appear in cosmic manifestation, like in Monkey, and rip that damn pump out and throw it across the suburbs and into the river. A girl can dream a little.

Anyway — we’ll give the neighbours one more week to do something, then we’ll have to ask the landlady whether she might have a word to them.

Or I could just perforate my own eardrums and learn sign language.

I was a bit sore in the morning, so skipped tai chi and just did it in the evening. In the morning I did a few desultory crunches and leg lifts and ate the rest of the tuna raw for breakfast with wasabi and soy. Nomnomnom. Dinner was frozen crab cooked with garlic, zucchini, capers and a bit of chilli jam on pasta, with a dipping/drizzle sauce made of rice vinegar and whatever that sauce is that comes with frozen gyoza — that stuff that’s like soy sauce, but not.

It’s now day 7. Shoulders/arms/back feel like they got a workout last night, so I might just go for a walk this morning. As a reward for Healthy Week I bought a little jar of truffles and champignons chopped up in olive oil. I’ve never had truffles, except once in soup in which I couldn’t taste them at all. They’re kind of pungent and rich and a little weird, but nice — I just need to work out what to do with them other than eat them with a spoon straight from the jar. I think this morning I’ll chuck some on the leftover cod that’s still hanging around in the fridge.

Cheese is another thing I haven’t been eating. I didn’t intentionally cut it out, I just haven’t wanted any, maybe because I’m getting enough protein from food I like better. And I’ve been drinking a lot of water. ETA: I also haven’t been eating white rice, which is a staple food here. The rice that comes with all the takeaway curries is white — at least, I’ve never seen any other kind on offer.

Apart from sore shoulders, I’m feeling quite all right, and have done more work the last couple of days. However, since I’m also finally over this cold, that might be the reason.

I seem to have lost weight, the scales think about a kilo, and I think it shows (I’m such a shortarse that a kilo up or down makes a visible difference).

I still haven’t touched those M&Ms, though I’m getting through the two pieces of pie and the ice cream, and I had to buy another packet of rice crackers.

I’ve also realised I’m almost certainly not getting enough calcium. I don’t drink dairy milk at home and seldom eat yoghurt, and don’t eat enough of the other calcium-containing foods to meet the RDA — nor, I think, could I. I thought salmon had calcium, but it looks like you have to buy canned salmon and eat the bones. I’m not big on either canned salmon — waste of good fish, precious, or possibly not very good fish — or fish bones. There are sardines, but how many sardines can a person eat? Might be supplement time.

I’m going to do this for another week, and I’m afraid I’ll blog about it, since I think the blogging has been helpful. Maybe not as helpful as jogging would have been, but at least blogging doesn’t fuck your knees up.

I felt perky this morning so was tempted to skip Tai Chi and use the energy for writing, but that would have defeated the purpose of Healthy Week, so I did all my TC — and at night too, and though I was feeling less perky by then, it didn’t tire me out.

I’m still doing my bit to help deplete the world’s fish stocks. Today it was cod, baked in the toaster oven with some mushrooms and stuff. It was ok, though not exactly gourmet cooking. We also bought some tuna belly, which was a special treat because tuna numbers are so low that I’ve taken tuna off my regular menu. (Reportedly they’re rising again, but still way down from what they should be.) Stu seared it on the outside with wasabi and soy sauce, and left it warmly raw in the middle, and it was incredibly nice.

This morning some macaroni cheese, pecan pie and cherry pie, the latter two with generous serves of cream, appeared in the fridge. Talk about sabotage. Did I resist? Does the Pope poop in the Potala? But I only had a little bit of the desserts and not a great deal, she says vaguely, of the macaroni cheese.

***

It is now Day Six and I feel okay. Not hungry — I’ve hardly gone hungry at all. I’ve spent a lot more on food this week than I normally would, because of all the fish. I could use a cheaper fish, like pangasius — the catfish they market as ‘dory’ or even ‘Pacific dory’ — which is everywhere, but it’s salmon and tuna that really do it for me in terms of taste/texture and feeling nourished afterwards.

So, yeah, not feeling flaked out, but not bursting with energy either. I’ve decided to keep this going for another week and see what happens. I’ll have to find something else to do apart from Tai Chi, though, as doing the same exercise morning and night is getting a bit dull. That new ice rink has finally opened  — yay! — but at 250 baht/90 mins it isn’t something to do every day. Plus I need to be able to exercise at home. I can’t be bothered going out to exercise on a regular basis — I’m really that lazy. Yes, I used to go out to Tai Chi classes in the park every morning — and that used a lot of the day’s energy, and writing suffered. Maybe I could have a rocking horse… I always wanted one…

Halfway through healthy week! I piked on evening Tai Chi since it was a busy day. My lunch was served with a side order of potato crisps and I left them alone. Yesterday morning I felt pretty tired, but today I feel ok, though some muscles in my back are grizzling, either from left-handed swording or from standing up and working on sculpture yesterday.

One other thing I’ve cut out is fruit juice. Although I guess it’s nutritious, it’s also sugary. In London I had juice that was completely natural, not made from concentrate, and it was much less sweet, and more refreshing; but I haven’t seen it here. I could get a juicer, but I’d hate cleaning it — fruit/veggie pulp gives me the heeby jeebies; I can’t even drink orange juice with bits in it — so no.

I got hard wax models of Pan and the small horse back. I’m glad I ordered the wax models, as the foundry managed to tear the horse’s mouth and flatten Pan’s ears back (and squash the little cartilage mouldings that I spend fucking hours on into the bargain), and those mistakes would have been cast in bronze if I hadn’t checked. There’s also some damage around the base of a horn. I will probably have to pull the ears off and replace them, though I’ll try softening the wax with heat first and see if I can coax it to bend. I might be able to use the ears from the original wax-clay model, but I have the silicone mould now, so I’ll try injecting plaster into the ears and giving the hard wax model plaster ears that can’t be bent or squashed. I will also ask my teacher about making the mould myself. It costs money to have the foundry do it, and if they screw up and you have to reshape the piece, they have to make another mould, at further cost, etc., though I guess you can try getting them to correct their mistakes at no charge — if you can get them to admit they made a mistake. It might be less hassle to DIY.

I managed to stick to the plan today. I wasn’t interested in chocolate, but I’m burning through those rice crackers. Raw salmon bought and devoured off polystyrene without decorum. I had to push myself through the second sword sequence in the evening; it was steamy and I was sweating. Must try a fan up there.

I also went to the doctor about my head, as I’m still getting headaches and feeling dizzy, and I didn’t know whether it was the cold or the involuntary headbanging. He thinks I’m fine, just pulled my neck a bit, which has cause the scalp muscles to tighten up and make things hurt. And I guess the cold doesn’t help. Anyway, apparently I’m not bleeding in my brain or anything.

After the Tai Chi this morning and going out a short distance from home to buy plants I was pretty trashed and didn’t get going on any kind of work until after lunch. That’s one thing I find frustrating about life here: even a small physical effort can tire me out and make it hard to use my noggin. The limits on what I can do in a day are rather small. I really hope that if I can gradually improve my fitness I’ll have more energy and endurance.