It’s the quest for legality that never ends.

Today it landed me in the Daegu Red Cross hospital for the final
round of things that are supposed to mark me as a legal resident in this fine
country that plays my home. Today I needed to get a drug test, an hiv test, and
apparently a full physical. The drug test was mostly just looking for marijuana,
and the HIV test is apparent. This is all part of the new visa regulations that
have been passed for foreigners not married to Koreans. Trust me, every day I
wonder more and more about marrying a Korean.

So with the new regulations I have to go do the Red Cross
hospital. It all started out harmless enough, I walked in armed with letters in
Korean to help facilitate the process. What I did not expect was to be handed a
sheaf of papers that was more than half an inch thick, all in Korean for me to
fill out. Right.

I speak a fair amount of Korean I admit. I even read Korean
pretty well. But there is a difference between reading a menu and figure out
hospital Korean terminology on the fly. The person in charge of processing the
waygooks took me over to a large counter that I had failed to notice when I
walked in. There stood a nice young man who looked entirely lost and a Korean
gentleman. The nurse talked quickly to the Korean while I looked the nice young
man up and down. I wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on.

“You been here long?”

“About a week so far.”

“Here for the health check?”

“And they sent you here all by yourself?”

“No, I’m with him.”

I finally realize that the Korean gent who has been hovering
in the background might actually mean something.

“Hi, hi, I’m John. Right. Okay, I help you.”

I said “Thanks, that’s great.” I thought, fuck!

Fuck. Sometimes it is actually much better to be on your own
in Korean with a limited ability in language and a desire to get things done. It’s
easier to accomplish because you don’t have to be reasonable all the time. It
has it’s drawbacks as well as you don’t always understand everything that is
going on. But I usually manage to muddle things out in a way that works to
everyone’s benefit.

My new found Korean friend and translator starts taking me
through the basics as I chat up the new teacher who has only recently arrived
and from Michigan no less. We talk about the city as I filter in the background
John John telling me to write me name and my phone number.

He flips over to the next page, a short page, but full of
questions in Korean. John John starts translating for me…

“Do you ever feel…uh…you need to buy..now. No think, you
just…you walking and you see and you buy/”

“Uh?” I’m wondering what this has to do with my physical
health, but okay.

“Um, no, I don’t think so.”

“You ever sleep and then feel sleep again?”

“Nope, not usually tired without good reason.”

“You ever have, uh, problem with ddong?” In Korean “ddong”
pretty much translates to poop, slightly more polite than shit, but you get the
idea.

“Um?”

“No, it’s fast, like KTX?” KTX is the Korean high speed
train.

“Um. It’s not usually a problem.”

“You’re head feel crazy?”

I try not to laugh at this one. The surreal moments in my
life, all the things I do on a day to day basis. Does my head feel crazy?

“Nope. Right as something not crazy.”

“Right, okay. Uh, you pain, you know.”

“Pain I know?”

“Pain you know?” He starts point to his stomach. The nice
noobie offers “liver?”

“Yeah, yeah,” says John John. “How’s your liver?” I think don’t want to know.

“Perfect health.”

“Yeah, okay. Uh…”

The questions continue with such dandies as “you get sad no
good” and “you sometimes eat when hungry” and also “you wakeup everyday?”

At this point both I and Mr. Michigan are rapt to find out what will come
next on this bizarre question and answer form but suddenly John John’s at a
loss for words.

“Yes?” I offer helpful.

“Uh.”

“Okay?”

“Uh, you sex?” He blushes a bit, ear to ear, Mr. Michigan looks away
choking down a laugh and turning just a slight shade of red. I turn a full on
stare at John John which is quite rude in Korea. I’m very good at talking to
people without making eye contact, a gift I’ve acquired from six years in Korea. However
that last one caught my attention enough to really bore into poor John.

“Do you..sex…you know…like sex..”

“Is she a virgin?” offers Mr. Michagan being helpful. I
start choking on that one.

“No…no…but all the time not so much… but you like sex right?”
He looks back at me. I try to puzzle out how to correctly answer this one
without coming off as a nympho. I mean, come on people, it’s sex. I get cranky
when I have to go more three hours and I’m pretty sure that is not normal for
the general population but that particular answer is probably not appropriate
to the question.

“You know, you boyfriend, boom boom, sex?”

Boom Boom.

“Sex jo-ah. Kinchaniyo.” I answer him in Korean, suddenly at
a loss to explain ‘sex good’ in English.

“Yeah, okay, when?” 
Somehow this is a conversation I do not feel like having at ten in the
morning in the middle of a hospital in Korea where I am being forced to
produce blood and pee in a cup to keep my job.

“Right now?” I ask.

John John nearly chokes on his tongue and Mr. Michigan has the good
sense to start chuckling while I smile a big broad ‘girl who likes sex’ smile.

“Yeah, okay,” says John John. I watch as he circles numbers
on the form. For most of the questions I score a one, which apparently means I’m
not a sociopath obsessive compulsive liver disoriented nympho.

As long as I end up legal at the end of the day what’s the
harm of a few little white lies.

It was a game of pool.

The discussion was about pool and will. Pool as a metaphor for the universe, you apply your will and then chaos results from which you must make some sense and continue forth to apply your will again.

The pool table is small.

“I always played better on the one in the basement.”

“That’s because you learn all the tricks on that table, the pocket that is on a slant, the dip before the side pocket, where the curves are. It’s bad for playing pool.”

“But good in other ways.”

There was once a pool table that sat in a place that we had made into a coffee shop. I would sit and serve coffee to the various people who came in, we would talk, we would drink coffee into the wee hours of the morning, and we would sometimes play pool. There would be live music, there would be friends. On a busy night we might even have ping pong going as well.

Sometimes the pool table became the center of attention for other reasons. There were parties of varying colors or flavors. There was the lanky tall black haired girl who I thought of as the Spider, whose lips were lovely when full and round and whose back arched prettily against the green felt of the table.

I still think of her when I play pool.

The game continued long after the first few shots. As the game progressed so did the selection of sticks. Connoisseurs don’t play the game with what is provided. Connoisseurs amass baggage, a collection of pieces that will make for the perfect game. You may have something in your particular bag of tricks that other players find loathsome and few appreciate. It’s part of the game.

Part of applying will.

Will is the stick, the rod, the shaft, the tempered injection of substantial control. Logic, practice, experience guide the use of will, chaos is what happens later. This was a night of will. The game continues.

The strikes are well placed and leave an impression on the table. One has to admire and think about the next move. Balance each hit to move towards the inevitable conclusion. Look carefully at what is made, the patterns, the shapes, the design that happens even in the chaos. It makes me think of math teachers from my youth who tried to convince me that there is math in everything; the fluid geometry of moving things.

There is math in motion here. The fluid motion of finding the connection among a work of movable patterns and making it take shape. Looking at that table after the first crack has broken up the particles on the surface and moved everything about. Where will it go. If I hit it here will it sink? Will it swim? Will it stop too soon?

How hard can I hit it before I break my stick? How long can I hit it before I lose my will?

The game is balanced after the first two rounds. Neither of us winning or losing, I choose to press on because I hate losing. Or maybe I just wanted to see what else could happen when the game is played to a conclusion.

But like any good game of pool there is no ending, just more shifting about of the chaos.

Nights fueled with drinking and debauchery are the best kind.

I had previously arranged with Faust to go and experience all that is Vast. The group changed and changed until finally I found myself exposed and fielding a call from the bard that the ride was waiting patiently for me outside. I skipped out the door and down the stairs trying not to kill myself on the ice or the snow or the fun of the evening and ran towards the ride. Faust sat shot gun and his lovely girl friend of the fabulous bosom Audrey Hepburn was driving.

Chicago is lovely at night as we speed through the city, the traffic, the lights, the insanity of moving from one place to another, working our way towards the inevitable goal, music in the city. Music to divine by. Parking was found not easily but close, Audrey after some shaking back and forth with the car managed to fit into the spot with only a minor bump of a rear bumper. Being that this is Chicago it demanded that a person run across the street to let us know that the car behind us had been touch during our parking debacle. We knew this, but they ranted anyway.

“It’s okay, you should just know.”

“I know I already got out and checked, there is no damage and everything is fine.”

“Right, but you should just know.”

Faust and I sat white knuckled and stayed out of it letting Audrey handle it. Between the two of us I think it would have turned into a fight, but she’s cool under pressure and eventually smoothes it over to everyone’s satisfaction.

“Let’s go get pizza,” she says and we skip across the street.

Chicago pizza. We walked into the parlor that was full of load music and punks, and queers, and students, and pizza eaters. The pizza jockey behind the counter slings pizza dough into the air spinning a perfect circle that lands neatly over his upraised arm. It smells like heaven and flour and sauce and real cheese. It smells good and feels warm and I cursed myself for stupidly filling up on pita bread and spinach dip before leaving. Silly vegetarian.

The timing was right and as we left the parlor Chicago winter was starting to wake up from a slumber. “What the hell am I doing with all this warmth,” it said to the dark streets and the citizens sick of snow, “let it be cold.” And there was a gust of wind that froze the nipples off of all of us as we two stepped down the street towards the Double Door.

Our tickets were waiting inside wear soon we found ourselves poised to take in the band. We had spots close to the stage, drinks in hand, and the will to be there. Two groups were up before the Vast expansion of our musical horizons that we expected to see later. The first group was full of white suburban punk anger, shouting out their rage as they tore apart a trashcan with teeth and forhead, braining that poor aluminum something fierce. The screamed and people tapped their feet and jumped around.

We met the rest of the party while the punks screamed on page. We had Vanilla and J and soon to be followed by the Somaon who would be presumably be wearing more than the sarong he had wrapped himself in last time I had seen him. Vanilla was a wonderfully nice guy and J was even better. From head to two she exuded that kind of mysterious punky naughtiness that I aspire too. Maybe it was that or maybe it was the red fishnet stockings over her black garters and the fact that her skirts seemed to keep inviting my hand to find it’s way underneath.

Faust is the instigator, “you should show J your bracelets.”

I smile. And agree thinking later, but a few minutes later I’ve got myself locked around J and we are all tied up and ready to go. Her hand is warm pressed in mine and I like the feel of her wrist locked so close to mine. We play like girls will play and smile and are amused. I keep her all tied up for a bit until we twist the bracelet around so badly that I have to set her free or risk becoming forever intertwined. I suspect there are worse fates but we are here for the music.

The second band up is some grunge pop set that plays pretty music without really inspiring. We talk and laugh and enjoy ourselves and stake a claim to our spot even more firmly waiting for the main show.

Which was coming.

Which started with the half naked long haired Irishman who played violin joined very shortly by the only person we want to see, Jon Crosby, taking the stage, with his guitar and his back up and his voice. The voice walks in separate, it’s own special aura, taking it’s place in front of that microphone and preparing to wow the crowd. We are in awe before he opens his lips. He sings to us and we respond, we understand, we are musical creatures feeding on the only thing that will truly satisfy us tonight.

He sings to us….

Precious one, you have abandoned me
Oooh, so let me in
Because I'm out…

And we let him in. And we swoon. We jump, and we dance, and we laugh and we cry and we are united in our love and our deep desire swirling and changing like the lights on the stage. Fluid movement and everything lost and nothing and redeemed by the voice that leads us through the darkness. The debauchery was between our ears and mingled with the alcohol flowing between our lips and the vibrations of the instruments strumming through the air and between our legs.

The best kind of nights.