Like my Indo-European ancestors, I travel a lot, forty-eight countries and counting,

slightly less than one a year, but I figure to rectify that soon. But who’s counting? No, I haven’t been to the Arctic Circle yet, but I’ve come close. I’ve watched the sun surf the Atlantic Ocean at Reykjavik in June, refusing to go down until the clock hits 2300 hours, like Michael Jordan finally laying the ball in after a twenty foot long jump and immeasurable hang time. Short of a season in Uranus (pronounced YOUR-anus), that’s the closest I’ll ever get to seeing the Sun wobble gently in the middle of the sky, going nowhere ultimately, at least not relative to my own position. These days I triangulate myself mostly between the US, Latin America, and Thailand. If I didn’t triangulate myself, then how would I know where I truly am? Right now Thailand wins on points, decimal points. The same house in the US would cost me at least ten times as much as what I pay in Thailand. Also, that’s where my wife is, so follow the pull of gravity. This is old-fashioned gravity, not the Einsteinian geometrical function. No, Tang’s there literally pulling. Tang’s my wife. She’s more than a breakfast drink. Thai women are beautiful, but they’re out of their minds; out of their minds and into their bodies. People ask me what Thailand’s like and I say it’s like Mexico, except that the food is good and the women are beautiful. Those are gross over-simplifications, of course, but that doesn’t stop me from saying it. If it did, I wouldn’t be writing this tractatus right now. Mexico beats Thailand hands down in arts, culture, and literature, though. Thailand is not an intellectual culture. Asia is a woman; Europe is a man. Thailand is the breeding ground, a Buddhist magnetic field of passive attraction, flowers waving gently in the wind. The middle path lies right between the legs.

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