Something in the Air

Sat. Nov 27
I’m about to eat something I can’t believe I’m gonna eat that smells stranger and more off-putting than anything save for soured milk, rotten meat, and no-go shellfish… and speaking of no-go shellfish, that’s another reason I can’t believe I’m gonna do this. A week ago today I was still sleeping off my cathartic experience in Singapore of two days before, recorded for all time with lyric grace below. A week ago tomorrow I was in a fancy restaurant for brunch with a friend attempting to climb out of my exhaustion-stupor, but still evidently pissed as hell at something… when I took a grilled, half-shelled something into my mouth. It didn’t smell, but my tongue knew instantly… back into the shell it goes, away it goes with the waiter… and within 30 minutes my stomach tells me it’s too late and there’s far worse still to come.

24 hours later and round three of this assault approaching full bore (I hope it’s full bore ‘cause it’s hard to imagine worse) and this time I’m convinced I’m a direct descendant of Cortez, such is Montezuma’s wrath so far from his burial urn or sarcophagus… My housekeepers show up, returning from their week-long holiday, and I grunt at them. I show them the medicine I have (which has worked well before), tell them I hope to be better by evening… the next day, sweating in the A/C and getting the sympathy of blood-starved vampires in my dreams, with a meeting I HAVE to get to postponed from the day before, I beg my housekeepers to get me something that will work. One of them comes back with Immodium (why bother with the Latin? Call it what it is: “Immobilizer”) and a rehydration powder to stir into water… by the next day I’m wondering if I’ll ever take a dump again (they told me to take two and another in an hour… apparently informed wisdom differs from Old Wives Tales here, too: 1 per 24 hours is the recommended dosage, I now know).

Yesterday evening, Friday, the plumbing and my spirits finally felt fully repaired… so today here I go into this fish that smells like something I never would have allowed myself to eat before I learned that you eat what you have when you have to, and learn to love it all, because you never know where your next meal is gonna come from.

The thing is, I was having a business meeting here yesterday with a colleague while Murni was preparing it, and the “alien presence” got so bad he and I had to open the windows, Murni took out the trash… Don’t know if it’s a spice or the skin of this thing… it’s there on my plate, but gone when it’s under my nose, and all I taste is great curried fish… still, what AM I eating?