Party like its 1999, except substitute silly Y2K paranoia with frighteningly real terrorist threat

One of the things I like about being the (by far, by very very far) youngest in my family and among most of my friends is that I get to experience the terrible inevitabilities that life tortures us with before actually having to face that dark shadow in the mirror myself. The up side is that I never had to worry about getting smokes, booze or a ride home while growing up.

One of those nail guns to the back of the head milestones is turning 30. Yeah, yeah, it's just a number. Feel free to go shout some self-affirmations at your reflection in the broken toaster sitting at the foot of your bed to make you believe that. I'll wait....do la-tee do...la dee-do la...try to make me go to rehab...no no no...once I went black there's no going back...no no no...

Done? Ok. So, anyway, turning 30 scares the living hell out of me. My friend and I once made a pact that we would off ourselves before that day ever came. Yes, we were only 16 at the time. Sure yes, we were about to consume our third tab of acid for the evening. And yes, we used someone else's blood to sign the contract. The point is that even at that tender age we recognized that 30 was not cool. I felt very confident in this pact as the guy is a year and a half older than me and has 'accidentally' overdosed and 'accidentally' fallen off bridges and 'accidentally' thrown himself into fires' in the past. I thought 17 months difference and several real life after-school special worthy hospital visits were ample heads up. But, no. I guess I'm glad he didn't. I mean, I love the guy, best friend, the brother I never had and all that, but it would have made planning my retirement easier. Now I guess I have to make an appointment with someone at my home bank. I suppose a financial consultation with a trained professional is more desirable than attending my best friend's funeral.

Wow, this got morbid real quick. Why? Oh yeah, turning 30.

The point is that this last year I've been dreading the big 3-0 that I have coming to me next year. The same year that sees my parents both turn 60. I'm not afraid of being old, I'm afraid of being old and nothing to show for it. And my solution to that is to sit here and type out my problems to strangers who aren't even reading. Gee, I have no idea how I got this place.

So tonight brings us a dawn of a new year, a new decade even. After the millennial shift of 10 years ago with corresponding awesome Prince song it's hard to get too excited about a new decade. Call me when it's a new supermillennium or whatever 10,000 years is called. I decided to stay home tonight and bring in the new year like my father. Angry, bitter and out cold by 11pm. I planned on going out of town, but the weight of the humidifyer, proper mattress and various pre-sleep medications proved too heavy so I had to u-turn it home.

Like turning 30, New Year's is just a number. But just like turning 30, it's a reason to break out of your habits and do something new, to reinvent yourself. Tomorrow I will be sober, optimistic and healthy. Unitil 2pm when I have a man-date in Itaewon to watch hockey. But for those fleeting few hours in the late morning when I finally roll out of bed, those will be brilliant.

Happy oh-ten everyone!

The day I overcame my mental disability

Wait a sec. I go into work in the morning. The custodian opens the door for me. The principal or vice principal comes in at noon. They check off my attendance around 2pm. Except they haven't come in this week at all.

I'm like the 13 year old who realizes god actaully isn't watching the horrible things I do in the shower.

I must go in to work....no one there to check....press snooze....go into silence....locked doors.....have meaningless powerpoint window open....watch hockey game for three hours....no running water...no sound whatsoever...scream into the void that is the hallway like it is outerspace...just clicking in here...want to scream....no one to hear you scream....

Holy Banana! The Fonz shot JR! I mean, I can show up whenever I want! No one will notice. And if they did, I was just out getting lunch. Moses, I'm slow.

My name is orangeman and I'm an addict

I just realized that 5 years ago today I quit smoking (non-time zone adjusted). My whole family smokes. To this day my mom swears that she didn't know the dangers of smoking while pregnant despite the PSAs I've showed her pre-1980. Youtube, winning bets for assholes since 2006.

Yeah, my mom smokes more than she spits up the tar she smokes, which is saying something. She's also narcoleptic and has limited short term memory. Basically, the local firemen had more of a hand in my early life than my dad ever did. Speaking of my dad, he smoked Export A green, also known as "Why don't you just inhale battery acid, you freak". I have to admit that the guy barely smoked next to Chimney the Black Lunged Mother. You know how Koreans open up the windows when blasting heat or the AC for some alien reason us mere mortals can't comprehend? Well, my lovely parents believed opening the windows while smoking somehow made it worse. I suppose it did, if your ultimate goal was to consume as much nicotine as possible. Even in the car, opening the window would only blow it more in our kids' faces in the back. Sweethearts, don't you understand? Now shut up, I like this song.

My sisters are significantly older than me, well it's signifiant for the only boy in the family. They both got into enough trouble to keep my prepubescent self entertained enough. I learned enough from them to cry, fight and plead no contest to various things in my future. They both started smoking around the same time in their mid-teens, much to my tattle-telling 10 year old delight. Actually, to be honest, I never once told on either of them for anything in my attempt to finally be cool. That quest is still on today, with their eyes rolling at my Great Wall walk and mastering of 4 languages. But I digress (and wipe away the tears).

Finally, sometime around the age of 14 I took up the habit regularly. I have an unimpeachable memory-despite my best drug fueled attempts- but I honestly don't remember the moment when I decided to take up smoking. Sure, I remember my first puff when I was 5 (one of mom's sleep attacks with it falling in the spine of the book she was struggling to read to me). There had been several more since then, but when you live in a household like mine where putting ointment on the accidental ciggy burns you suffered that day before bed was like most kids say prayers, you just live with it so much it's hard to draw a line.

Actually, I'm lying. I remember being in the field in front of the newly built Catholic school up the street. I know there was snow on the ground, but where I'm from that could be anywhere from June to May. Two girls, we'll call them Chhhhh.....Sally and Marrrrrr.....Suzy. And my best friend Ferrrrr......Fergie Fergra Ferguson. Seriously. His parents were hippies. Anyway, we were doing what 14 year olds do, playing hopscotch and setting fire to small dwellings, and then the girls pulled out the pack of smokes. I guess I may have done various things that evening to show my manliness. Killing the squirrel for dinner probably went a step too far, but that's beyond the scope of this fable. I know I puffed away like the Marlboro Man that I had actually never seen. These were pre-internet days.

By the end of the year I was a puffing junkie. It wasn't even hard. Some of my friends had to hide or spray cologne going home. I just had to stop asking my mom for a light all the time. This is not to say that my dad would not have kicked my ass if he found out. Christ, covering your sneeze with the wrong type of tissue was cause for a movie of the week beating in our house. No, I hid it from him. Easy enough. Whenever he walked through the door I just set it in the ashtray and my mom would 'fall asleep'. Oh, she's done it again! I'll just put that out for her, sir. Hahahahahahaha....puff puff motheroflife puff.

After many enjoyable smoking years, I had an epuff-any (seriously, I love puns). In December 2004 I was living in my friends' house and I was off from work on Christmas break watching a movie in the middle of the night in the livingroom. I had a smoke in the garage, ran downstairs to grab my laundry then ran up two floors to my room. I nearly had a heart attack. For real. The crap coming out of my throat was made of fairy tales pre-kiss. I collapsed in bed feeling my heart beating faster than that time I stole....oh, that doesn't fit into this story.

That was 4 years and 2 days ago. I decided never to smoke again. The next day I got drunk with my landlord/friend and had a smoke (sue me, mother teresa). Then no more. Most people think it's a New Year's resolution. Not at all, just worked out that way due to the time off I had to recognize the yellow on my teeth.

That was the first time I tried quitting and it happened to last. I know people who don't get addicted to anything. I am not one of those people. Not at all. I am A-Dic-Ted. I hear a song I like, I listen to it 100 times in a row. Have I told you about my love affair with Jae-yook dok bap? I am an ADD toddler in a casino. Even today, 5 years later, I would break your grandmother's neck just to get a puff. But I'm past that.

Why, you holdin'?

Korea is like a time machine, only you grow old

Back in 2004 I met a guy who had worked in Korea and listened attentively to his stories over a few pints. The guy seemed to be kind of a weirdo, which might have been due to him being dressed as a stripper clown with a limp. It was halloween, but still. Nonetheless, his exploits across the Pacific tickled me enough to look into the prospect of jumping on a plane and making my way over to the land of...whatever was in Korea.

Almost a full year later I was picking berries with a friend and her family at a cottage in Northern Ontario and realized that I needed out. Immediately. When did I turn into a weekend berry picker? I was turning into some sad 25 year old male version of Anne of Green Gables, or what I imagined Anne of Green Gables to be having never read the books (yes, there's some Canadians like me out there). I handed my friend the basket and answered her confused look with a simple, "No." I turned and sat in her car waiting for the ride home later that evening having only half a case of Labatt's Blue as company.

When I finally arrived home 5 hours and 16 beers later, I immediately called a company in Korea that I had been in email contact with and told them I was ready to start as soon as they could fly me over. Of course it wasn't that simple as I had to answer some key questions before they would agree. I mean, they don't just hire anyone over here!

Q1: How old are you again?
Q2: Don't you just hate Americans?
Q3: How much can you drink?
(A: Today?)

The following day I went into work and gave my 2 weeks notice, which one week later turned into "Yeaaaaaahhhh....so, I'm just not going to come in anymore. Cool?". Having vacated my apartment that I was actually just squatting in till the landlord noticed the lease had expired months earlier, a lease I personally had nothing to do with, I fled to Delaware.

Yes, Delaware. Don't judge it 'till you've been! I've been, so I feel confident in saying it's a shithole. In fairness, I only saw a very small piece of the state. A piece that included a giant football stadium, several beautiful freeways, so many liquor stores they actually built new ones into other already existing liquor stores and the AmTrack station. My former university roommate was living down there and attending the University of Penssylvania while his girlfriend was going to The University of Delaware. I can only guess what she had to promise to perform to win that fight. I took the train in to Philly every morning while humming the Fresh Prince theme. Not because I wanted to, but they actually won't let you cross the state line if you don't recite the words. And that's not even the strangest thing about Pennsylvania. Philly is good, especially if you like American history, indie bars and running while shitting your pants out of fear for your life through the streets after 10pm. I had been before and also had another friend living there from my Amsterdam days and we all got together for some good times.

Then I took the Chinatown bus up to New York City. This was my third trip to the Big Apple Store. The first was just a day trip with my ex-roomie when I visited Philly a couple of years before. The second time I went with my sister from Toronto for a long weekend. It doesn't matter who I go with or for how long, right when I get off the bus/train/plane/mule I always make a bee line straight to the Museum of Natural History. And not just for the regular old awesome stuff, either. The planetarium is where I always end up and I'll see every last show they have to offer. Thrice! If Montreal is the abusive sexy bitch in my life, the Natural History Museum in is the seductive nerdy type who slips me some acid and procedes to blow my...mind.

Another place I always end up in New York is the UN. Unfortunately, every single time I've gone to the city that Bush character has been bumbling his way through three syllable words in there so I haven't been allowed less than 100 feet away from the building. Something about my Lebanese heritage, single male travelling alone and the fire of satan pouring out of my eyes. I'll definitely be able to get in if Obama is there, being a fellow A-rab and all. Hey-YO!

From New York I took the bus up to my old stomping grounds of Montreal. Recognizing the 10 hour bus ride wasn't long and tedious enough, a couple decided to claim refugee status at the Canadian border. Due to some obscure international treaty that the three staffpersons made up on the spot, our bus couldn't leave until the issue was resolved. Apparently I was the only one who thought maybe, just maybe, a refugee claim from two adults who were in the US illegally might, just might, take a wee bit longer than their stated "hour or so". Not that I was left unentertained. It might be a chicken vs egg conundrum, but I'm not sure if jackasses are naturally attracted to camcorders, or if camcorders make decent folk jackasses. I'll leave it to the philosophers. All I know is that watching the security personnel march towards the completely oblivious guy recording everything in sight at an international border crossing was highly amusing.

Eventually I made it to Montreal where I won a giant porcelain penguin in a contest at an 80s bar where my good friend slept with the owner to rig the results after finding a bag of coke in the bathroom. But I've rambled on enough already.

The point is that I threw away what little life I had in Canada in order to come to Korea for a year. At the end of that year I went back home, ran out of money embarrassingly quickly and decided that I didn't experience enough of Korea. I hopped on a plane and started another job. I didn't have a great time and told myself and everyone within earshot that this was definitely my last year. After a month in Australia and another week in Hawaii I found myself again out of cash (funny how things work out that way). I quickly had an interview with SMOE over the phone while locked in a bathroom at the Hilton in Toronto with a bottle of Crown Royal and was again making the familiar 15 hour trip to our beloved home away from home. Once I returned in March 2008, I remember looking into a mirror and reminded myself that I was only here for a bit just to get back on my feet. I was going to quit after 6 months. Suckers!

Which brings me to today. A new contract arrives. Another year in Korea. I told them I only wanted 6 more months (I'm going back to school!!!!!...I keep telling myself), but they gave me a year long one. Lord knows you can't trust them to get everything right. I scratched out their dates and put my own. After skimming through it, I pricked my finger and signed my name on the dotted line. On every page. In triplicate.

Maybe it's the blood loss, but I'm feeling a bit whoozy.

Merry Christmas (non-sarcastic version)!

You may ask why are you on the interweb on the Eve of the biggest party in the Western world? Well, I'm taking a break here to say that I'm an asshole. But I'm not such a big asshole that I can't admit that this evening gets to me. I would wipe away the tear now if I was born with tear ducts, or even the human capability to feel emotion. Instead, I rely on 75% rum to make me sensient. And man am I feeling sensient. That's a word, right?

So merry day to everyone, even you joyless Jews. I mean that in the most offensive way possible.

That was a close one!

I decided to sneak out at 2pm today. Just as I was gathering all my things to go my VP came to my room to check on me. Because I'm 15 years old and under house arrest, I suppose. Although I guess since I was actually going to sneak out they're right to suspect me. Still, though, screw off. Anyway, now off to...go to the store to get water. Yes, water. Store. It all makes sense, doesn't it? Yes.

Just call me Bob (Cratchit)

When my co-teacher took the time to inform me of my working hours this winter 'break' (haha...cry) between calling travel agents and buying new bathing suits, I pointed to the 24th and exclaimed "Even on Christmas Eve?!"

It isn't just a coincidence that one of the best pieces of English literature is about a crabby old man who attempts to ruin Christmas for his worker and his family. My lord, the story has been told millions of times using stage, screen, clay, cartoon and even muppets. The name of the surly old man is thrown out to describe anyone displaying the slightest misanthropy. Tiny Tim. Tiny mothermaryinheaven Tim!

But no ghosts have visited my evil employer, not even the entire forest of spirits that died to provide her with various winter coats. It's not even like she doesn't know about Christmas. She claims to attend church every week, although the more I get to know her the more I suspect it may be the Church of Satan.

I don't even think you have to be religious to understand, though. I'm a heartless heathen and even my dead soul moves around a bit at this time of year. I know it's more of a Western holiday, I'm just saying that I don't try to get in the way of the Korean Chuseok tradition of sitting in traffic for 7 hours or the Korean Sollal tradition of sitting in traffic for 8 hours. Besides, if you're going to call yourself a Christian you should probably think about taking the day off to sing happy birthday to the guy your whole life philosophy and moral code is based on.

But who am I to judge? Like I said, I'm the non-believer going to hell.

Enter already being there joke here.