Well, the title to this post will surely bring some disappointed visitors doing a Google search. Trust me, the title is not a desparate attempt to generate hits on my near-dead blog. I have a funny story to tell about that word.
But first, about last night. It was pool league again. Three more losses. I really suck. That has nothing to do with sodomy BTW. I just can’t put a decent pool game together. The team captain gave me a pep talk, encouraged me not to give up, to relax and have a good time and all that. Well, I do enjoy playing pool. I just don’t like it in a competitive kind of way. If I didn’t suck, I would. But feeling like I am letting the team down while embarassing myself gets old real quick. I would have resigned but most weeks we have the minimum number of players and that makes quitting not really an option. So my self imposed nickname is “better than a forfeit”. Well, the team won the match despite my failings last night, so I guess that’s the important thing.
Part of the problem is that I don’t even practice any more. That’s because I have basically quit the bar scene. In my former life I rarely went out drinking, and I just don’t need to acquire any more bad habits at this late stage of my life. So these days I mostly stay at the house and play CIV III, watch TV, and fall asleep on the couch. Now you know why I haven’t been posting, when you ain’t doing anything of interest, there isn’t much of interest to write about. I’ve been trying to reacquire some passion for politics, but so far its just not happening.
I do have this story to tell from last night. We have a Korean woman on our team. She teaches English to middle school age kids. And she is working hard at improving her own English language skills. She actaully does quite well, but like most of the Koreans I’ve met, they disparage their own English speaking abilities. If I could only speak Korean half as well as the Koreans with “poor English” I would have a much easier life here. “June” (I don’t know her Korean name, if I asked I’ve forgotten it) is always working on her vocabulary and brings a notebook with words she is learning to the pool league every week. Between games she will ask us the pronunciation and meaning of the words on her list, which she then dutifully writes down in Hangul. Last nights words included “guise”, “excavation”, “fraternity”, “carte blanche” and several others I can’t recall at the moment. Me and a couple of the guys sitting at the table would use the word in a sentence, try and provide alterantive definitions, and explain when and how the word might be used. After awhile I got up to throw some darts, and June came up and said I have another word on my list and the guys at the table “couldn’t help her with it”. I said, ok, what’s the word? “Sodomy” (imagine it being said with a Korean accent). I just looked at her. The guy I was playing darts with cracked up and said “go ahead, John. Tell her”.
Her innocence was charming as she waited expectantly for my answer. And my reaction was funny. I am by no means a prude and I don’t think I have any sexual hang-ups, but geez, telling this sweet young woman about sodomy was not as easy as you might imagine. So I fumbled and stumbled, and she wasn’t quite getting it. So, I just described the act. She laughed and said, “oh, something homosexuals do”. I smiled and said yes, but not just homosexuals. And no, I did not give her the slang term for the act. She can find a boyfriend to do that. Anyway, when I mentioned the Biblical origins of the word, she was familiar with the story and we thankfully moved on to other words.
That was the highlight of my evening. Which says a lot more about my life than I might otherwise admit.
