Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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Woman speaks truth. You profess you want some kind of depth, but you also seem to want to keep options open, including the option of flirting. What serious woman is going to look at that and think, “That’s the man for me”? So—stay at the shallow end of the pool, flirt away, and avoid the drama that comes with commitment, or plunge into commitment, knowing that that means risk, vulnerability, the baring of your soul, and exclusive loyalty. The first option is easy; the second is downright scary, but the rewards of the second option can be great. I haven’t lived that second option, but I’ve seen it with all my happily married friends. The second option takes work, dedication, and sacrifice. If the effort isn’t worth the trouble, it’s best to stay in the shallows.
The other side of the issue, which the woman didn’t talk about, is all the factors you can’t control. As you implied in replying to a comment of mine, many women bring their own special kind of crazy to the mix, and none of that is your fault. But we come back to an issue I’ve harped on before: the less-crazy women are out there, but you’re not going to find them in your usual orbits. You’re going to have to move outside of your comfort zone—away from bars and SOB dances and all that superficial, artificial crap. If you want depth, you’re going to have to actively seek depth. Whatever flotsam comes floating sexily toward you won’t be the deep stuff. (Like Mary. She’s cute, and maybe she has wit, but in the end—and I can see this from way over in Korea—her wants aren’t aligned with yours. They can’t be. Which is why this isn’t going to end well.)
So stay in the shallows if that makes you happy. Who am I to judge that? But if you’re really looking for something deeper, you need to find a woman who has depth, is unselfish, and is just as committed to you as you are to her. Depth, unselfishness, and commitment are virtues that only manifest themselves over time, which is why deep relationships take patience and focus. Focus means no more lady drinks with the other girls, no more SOB dances, none of the normal hormonal nonsense.
My gut feeling is that the best relationships come when two people feel they have the same sense of mission in life: they’re partners in crime going from adventure to adventure, and they can’t imagine adventuring without their partner. Substitute the word “values” for “sense of mission” if you want. While I’m an introvert who’s in no hurry to be in a relationship (after my own troubled attempts at them), I do sometimes yearn to be with someone who, like me, enjoys long walks, good food, and travel to new destinations—someone who also likes reading, is cynical but retains a cautious optimism, and gravitates toward the simple things in life. I’m not saying I want a clone of me, but someone with a lot of overlapping values might be nice. Since I’m not making my own efforts in that direction, the above sermon is as much for me as it is for you.
In the end, you’re going to have to choose which life it is you want—shallow or deep. If you don’t, well, that non-choice is itself a choice, or rather, it’s life making the choice for you. And when you leave it up to life to decide your fate instead of exercising your own will, the end is rarely pleasant.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/March/2023 @ 6:24 pm
She was of Italian stock and had a German surname (Ketner = chain seller). I can dig that. I’ve got a German (Austrian, but German-language) surname, but a whole branch of my family tree is Irish (Travers). My brother Sean carries the Irish heritage in his middle name, which is Travers. So she was a red-blooded mongrel American.
Sounds like an amazing woman, but it seems that, as a couple, your timing sucked. May she rest in peace.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/March/2023 @ 8:41 pm
Love that incredible blue.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/March/2023 @ 4:30 pm
Maybe you should flat-out ask the ladies in your life if they see you as a player. Get a few drinks in them first to loosen their tongues.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/March/2023 @ 11:22 am
I guess the jealousy thing can cut both ways. If you’re committed to your lady, and she’s the jealous type, then you’re set because you’ll never do anything to hurt her, and her jealousy is one aspect of her commitment to you. If, on the other hand, you think that being in a relationship means that you can keep your “roving eye,” then yes, her jealousy is going to be a big problem for you (and if you’ve still got a roving eye, then you’re not really committed, are you?). Of course, if her jealousy is of the pathological variety, where she’s keeping you on a tight leash because of hypothetical/imagined competition, well, that’s what Dane Cook calls a “relation-shit.” Escape as quickly as you can.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/March/2023 @ 4:33 pm
Well, thanks for even considering my request, which I know is a burden. Whatever you do will be fine.
Top Cunt, being a play on Top Gun (actually TOPGUN—one word), would work better if the guy were Navy.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/March/2023 @ 5:57 am
Nice pics from all the folks.
May I make a request? Next time you lay powder, could you take a pic of every trail marker? Nerd that I am, I would find that fascinating—sort of an insider’s view of one aspect of how Hashing works. As for how tight the shots should be… I guess I’d like to see both the marker and a bit of surrounding context (part of a tree, part of a trail, part of a tractor). If this is too much trouble, forget it.
You Can Call Me Martha
I tried to look it up and got lots of references to Martha Stewart and the phrase “Just call me Martha.” So I have no clue what the phrase really means.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/March/2023 @ 8:15 pm
laying the powder
Is that slang for something?
re: pork sisig
I had a chuckle when I saw the box of food with an American component in there: the peas/carrots/corn combo. Nice. The little ways in which countries influence each other.
Have fun laying the powder.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/March/2023 @ 12:37 am
She had it in her mind that she was going to spend the night with me. What could I do?
Say no.
I know I woke up with a sweet young thing next to me, and it was very nice for a change to have a warm body sharing my bed.
I don’t think sponsors normally sleep with the people they sponsor, do they?
I do think you’re trapped in the same samsaric cycle you’ve been whirling around on a million times before. This isn’t going to end well. On your behalf, I’m already bracing for impact.
If you’re determined to continue in this vein, you are of course free to do so, but I hope you enjoy the childish drama of a girl who’s not even 20. She might not be dramatic right now, but as this relationship or whatever-it-is deepens, the drama will appear as she starts to think of you, more and more, as hers. And as I alluded before, I’m pretty sure she’s worldly enough to be using you as much as you’re using her. A lot of men delude themselves into thinking they’re engaged in something simple and good and pure when it’s nothing of the sort. Anyway, buena suerte.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 13/March/2023 @ 6:09 am
And the cycle repeats itself!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/March/2023 @ 7:39 pm
I see your younger self was really fond of iambic terameter.
TETRAmeter. Nuts.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/March/2023 @ 10:33 pm
I see your younger self was really fond of iambic terameter. It’s a catchy rhythm.
iamb = two syllables, second one stressed (duh-DUM)
tetra = 4Iambic tetrameter = a set of four iambs
duh-DUM, duh-DUM, duh-DUM, duh-DUMe.g.,
she GRABBED my DICK and MADE me SQUEAL
her BRUtal STRENGTH was JUST unREAL
so THEN, she BROUGHT her TEETH to BEAR
and BLOOD was RUNning EVeryWHEREYou do leave that rhythm and meter behind quite a lot, but you come back to it, too. I see a lot of iambic tetrameter followed by iambic trimeter:
a SOL-dier OF a-MER i-CA (tetrameter)
lay (DYING) in VI et NAM (trimeter)An interesting tour through your youthful poetry. I’m not at the “Make it stop!” stage yet, which is a good sign. Your younger self had a lot to say.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/March/2023 @ 10:31 pm
I say han-goo-el
I have to wonder where that’s coming from. It’s a two-syllable word, and since the first syllable ends with “n,” and the second syllable begins with a hard “g” sound, you end up with an “ng” sound in the middle, so while the word is spelled “hahn-geul,” the pronunciation is more like “hahng-geul.” The “eu” is roughly like the “oo” in “book,” though more muted. To pronounce that second syllable, just try to go straight from the “g” sound to the “l” sound, with barely any vowel in between. Say the word “glass,” then concentrate on just the “gl” sound, and that’s closer to how “geul” sounds.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/March/2023 @ 7:06 pm
but who will read the Hanguel?
Close! Hangeul. We don’t want to be saying “hang-gwell.”
That Da’Kudos sign looks like a faded, black-and-white photocopy. They couldn’t afford color? Then again, in a land of colorful signs, a colorless sign stands out.
chicken sh[a]warmas
I watch this Canadian guy on YouTube who works at a restaurant called Shelby’s which, despite the white-bread name, sells Middle Eastern food—mainly shawarmas and salads (and “Don’t forget the Pepsi!” the guy says). Here’s the channel. His shtick is that he’s loud, speaks with a strong accent (I’m guessing it’s fake), and he never gives you what you order because he’s always going to try to give you something better.
Seems simple to me, but it was confusing to her
This is when it’s good to know how to draw.
but I’m sure some guys would get off on those boobs.
At least, you can see they’re natural.
Che is definitely more my type.
We likes the trashy ones! Yes, Precious!
In your 2009 post, you wrote:
I guess most folks think of me as a neocon these days, and hell, they might be right.
and
I certainly always believed that the oppressed in the world had a God-given right to drink from the cup of liberty. And if you stand up for human rights, be it women or gays or just freedom from tyranny, how can you turn your head to what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or North Korea and Iran? So, if that makes me a neocon, I will wear the mantle proudly and without apology.
Trump, in remaking the paradigm, made neocons the enemy because, as you say, they think the world ought to “drink from the cup of liberty.” What became clear under Trump, if not before him, was that many non-Western countries don’t want American-style liberty. The neocon project, especially under people like George W. Bush and John McCain, was about starting wars as a way to “spread democracy.” I hope that most of us, post-Bush, see how wrong and arrogant it is to do other cultures’ thinking for them. Dubya, in particular, misinterpreted a generic desire for liberty as a desire for specifically American-style liberty, and we see how well that went in places like Iraq, where we knocked over the sand castle of Saddam’s government, established what was supposed to be a more American-style government, and watched that slowly backslide. I can’t say that Iraq today is all happy and prosperous.
The MAGA project rejects the neocon’s warlike desire to spread democracy on the assumption that that’s what everyone wants. If we swept into Iran, destroyed the current government, and installed a US-style democracy, Iranians would simply use that democracy to vote in more theocrats. This is a point I’ve heard in certain sectors of the right quite frequently: countries can’t just have democracy imposed on them—democracy has to grow up organically. There has to be a history of it for it to work. Meanwhile, it’s dictatorships and warlords for the masses until a home-grown Thomas Jefferson shows up and starts changing things from the inside. I think part of Trump’s reluctance to start new wars was linked to his anti-neocon stance (and also, of course, to his businessman’s reflex to solve problems through deal-making).
So, where do you stand these days? Would you still call yourself a democracy-spreading neocon, or are you more of a “leave everyone alone” type, maybe gravitating a bit toward MAGA or libertarianism?
At this point, I think America has enough problems of its own that it should spend way more time cleaning house (which may mean taking a flamethrower to Congress while it’s in session, forcing the Supreme Court to grow some hairy balls and a spine, and throwing out the chimpanzee currently in the Oval Office) than worrying about how free other countries are.
We should also be less hypocritical in how we conduct business with other countries. Our addiction to China’s cheap labor has to go: China is a fucking genocidal country almost on the order of North Korea, not to mention a global polluter and an epic thief of Western technology. It’s currently gobbling up parts of Africa and all of Sri Lanka, after having raped and murdered Tibet. It’s also slavering over Taiwan. Why align with China at all? Pivot to India, I say. India may be corrupt, but it’s nowhere near as far gone (morally) as China is. Elon Musk, who’s putting on the airs of a free-speech advocate in the States, has major Tesla facilities in China, both in Shanghai and Xinjiang, the latter being where all the Uyghur concentration camps are. It’s hard to take Musk seriously as an advocate for free speech when he’s still buddy-buddy with a repressive regime. This is the sort of hypocrisy I’m talking about.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of countries whose values align with ours, and with whom we could be doing productive business. Remember when people used to talk about the Anglosphere, and they included Eastern Europe? There’s so much untapped potential in that region, and we’re all dropping the ball on this.
Anyway, I could rant on and on, but I’m just curious as to whether your political needle has moved from “neocon” or not. Neocon was the way to go for a lot of Republicans/conservatives a couple decades ago, but then along came Trump, who is basically a 90s-era Democrat, and he flipped over the chessboard. As Trump was happening, the left realigned itself to become a psychotic moral scold. 60s lefties used to be antigovernment and pro-free speech, but today, they’re totally the opposite, probably because those 60s radicals have all become old farts staring down the twin barrels of retirement. Meanwhile, it’s conservatives who are defending the potty-mouthed people while giving the government the finger. What universe is this?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/March/2023 @ 8:22 pm
Beautiful shots of the sea, the sun, and the quesadilla. Food for the eyes and the guts. Life is good.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/March/2023 @ 6:04 pm
Sit-n-Bowl
New bar/restaurant?
Pancit looks like a noodle dish found everywhere in Asia.
It was generous of that lady to let you through her property and to say yes to future passersby.
I hope the Hashers enjoy your trail.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/March/2023 @ 4:54 pm
Ap-gu-jeong
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/March/2023 @ 11:55 am
If I get my toe done, I want the whole thing cut off, including the outwardly bulging part next to the “ball” of the foot. A narrower foot would be more comfortable in a shoe.
Apujeong
Oh, noes! Missing a consonant.
Nerissa was good to message you about the brownies. I hope she got the red envelope.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/March/2023 @ 5:28 pm
This provides a good segway
That right there is the power of marketing. The personal transport’s brand name is “Segway,” but that brand name is a pun based on the original word: segue (a smooth transition). Sometimes, it’s easier to remember the brand name than the proper term.
Great-looking hike, and I’m glad to see Scott up and about. He made it through the walk okay, I gather.
You don’t need to keep flagellating yourself about yesterday’s post. Just hone your moral sense so that your conscience resides on the inside. You don’t want to be in a situation where your conscience is an externalized Greek chorus. Alcohol (for example) can block that chorus out. So can a woman’s warm lips around the old probe thermometer.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/March/2023 @ 5:50 pm
Dude!
(edited for reasons the commenter is aware of)
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/March/2023 @ 2:37 pm
When you don’t have a plan, everything goes as planned.
There’s a crucial line in the movie “Parasite” that says much the same thing.
Get John out walking with you guys! Seriously, start at 50 yards, then 100, then 200, etc., until he’s doing a whole kilometer, then 2, then 4… I bet that would turn his health around in many respects. Nothing like a good walk.
Enchiladas look good. Wings look thoroughly sauced, but I can imagine they taste pretty damn good as long as you eat them while they’re still crunchy.
Good luck with your teenybopper.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/March/2023 @ 9:27 pm
My new Mac has a huge monitor, so I’m not experiencing any problems reading the text. I did see the “upside-down” problem, but as you said, the rotate button made that easy to fix. You had a real issue placing your apostrophes back in the day, didn’t you? (Or rather: “did’nt you”?)
For people who think the text is too small, they can magnify their browser screen by hitting the “command +” combination.
Your teacher made one false correction: on the second page, she thought your semicolon needed to be replaced by a comma, but since you’ve gone through my series on commas, you know perfectly well that you don’t put a comma before a subordinating conjunction like “because.” She should have told you simply to delete the semicolon. Her other comma correction in that sentence is legit.
This, most likely, won’t last long…
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/March/2023 @ 1:12 pm
You took all your old papers with you to the Philippines? Interesting.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/March/2023 @ 12:13 pm
As nothings go, it’s a good life. Good enough.
(The Dark Knight Returns reference: graphic novel by Frank Miller from about 1986)
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/March/2023 @ 4:31 pm
I probably speculated about this before, but at a guess, once you’re on the floating bar, and you suddenly need to hit the men’s room, there’s either
(a) no solution or
(b) a gross solution.Pity the poor bartender(s). How do they go to the bathroom?
Pulled-pork sandwich looks almost like a hash brown. Yikes.
How’s John doing these days?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/March/2023 @ 8:29 pm
Still, driving through the unfamiliar countryside was pleasant, and I was enjoying Bataan’s rural vibe. So, it wasn’t really a wasted trip.
Who did the driving? Surely not you: I imagine you traveling around in a palanquin borne by slaves.
In French, fast food is le fast-food. But in general, I’d say the majority of French folks still prefer “slow food.”
I love snails, by the way. Nature’s meatball. Here in Korea, they sell cans of golbaengi, or big, fat sea snails (specifically, whelks). Cook them lightly in a mix of garlic, fresh parsley, and butter, then stick a few snails each inside a hollowed-out Pillsbury biscuit—the kind that gets all puffy in an oven. Bake until done, then serve. Heavenly. Koreans serve the snails with spicy jjolmyeon, i.e., chewy pasta. It’s the Korean answer to spaghetti and meatballs. Love the stuff.
Anyway, the trip looked beautiful, even the out-of-place stuff. So much to see in the PI.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/March/2023 @ 8:03 pm
I wired 4000 pesos to her and haven’t heard from her since.
Sounds like the punchline to a joke. I’m morbidly curious to see whether she follows through with payment.
Pineapple chili? Weird but interesting.
Good luck to you and your lungs as you begin a new month.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/March/2023 @ 5:34 pm
Good to know the trail was well marked, and the lungs were doing better.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/March/2023 @ 12:57 am
Lasagna for Joy
Maybe it’s the lighting, but that only barely resembles a lasagna. And what on earth are those things to the right of the lasagna slice? Garlic-bread slices?
I’m glad you’ve got meds for your various infections, and I’m even gladder that you’re getting surgery to remove what I assume are nasal polyps. I think polyp-removal qualifies as outpatient surgery, so you ought to be able to walk in and walk right out (after the anesthesia wears off). Good luck!
Be careful not to lick the wrong titty in future.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/February/2023 @ 2:41 pm
Another small town Saturday night
«« Back To Stats PageLung stuff is getting kind of scary.
I wouldn’t worry about a 0.8-pound weight gain. Skip a meal or two, and you’ll be back down to where you want to be.
Good luck getting treated for your eye goop. I get the occasional eye infection, and this last time around (sometime last year), the doc prescribed some seriously strong eye drops that proved helpful.
Nice blueberry muffins.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/February/2023 @ 6:57 pm