05.03.09
Hi,
I hope you're doing well, and managing through the winter.
vic
--- On Fri, 2/27/09wrote:
Subject: Re:
To: "victor glover"
Date: Friday, February 27, 200
9, 6:16 PM
I'm doing quite well, thanks. I decided not to turn on my heat this winter. Even with a pretty harsh (not SD harsh mind you) the apartment has stayed rather warm. How are you doing?
Sent from my iPhone
________________________________________
From: victor glover
To:
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 1:43:01 PM
Subject: Re:
On Feb 27, 2009, at 11:45 AM, victor glover
Hi,
Not turning on the heat this winter? Me, either. Where to you live??? I'm doing pretty well. Sent you stuff from Luang Prabang and Vientiane, a half a book's worth. Now back in south of Thailand, trying to decide whether to buy a bike for these last three months here.
Swimming often. Yoga, too. Thanks for asking. How about you?
vic
Subject: Re:
To: "victor glover"
Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009, 6:46 PM
Hi Vic,
Do you even have heat to turn on in the winter there? It has been getting cold here. We’ve had lots of snow…more scheduled for tomorrow morning (just flurries), but then Monday morning looks like 10 inches. Last winter was really mild…I should have had it off all winter last year. But I’m rather a weennie when it comes to cold, so I had it on. The apartment, however, is wonderfully insulated and I have neighbors on four sides who tend to keep the heat up…like my Dad did. The lowest the temperature has dropped inside is 66°…it’s been down to 0° outside.
Your book is coming along. Sweet, touching, and sometimes raw…good stuff. Nice surprises too. Do you think your former publisher will publish this as well? Was the picture you found in the temple really close enough to be you? Or was this a bit of day dreaming?
I have been really busy lately, so I don’t get to read every installment. Sometimes I will read two or three at a time.
Sometimes I really miss swimming. I don’t like to swim in a pool though, so I shy away from doing that. The beaches around here are shallow and cold, so I don’t go in there either. Maybe I’m just getting old. I’ve been getting back to the yoga more lately…after I realized the flexibility was going. It sucks getting old. Also 20-30 minute walks a couple of times a week. Probably doing nothing but assuaging my conscience.
Sent from my iPhone
~
Hi,
(this was the 'lost' piece, that got blipped over into the drafts folder when the machine blipped off. Yes, some of it is repetitive, but as you can see, much of the second draft content and creativity was lost to memory blip and frustration. However, this is what I meant to say, if I would have meant to say it.).
I swam one kilometer today in the Andaman Sea, just off the Isthmus of Kra.
Hi,
Ever notice how people with a life never write back during the weekends? It's when they return to work on Monday that you hear back from them. Uhhh...I'm not saying you don't have a life. Maybe it's just me with all this time on my hands.
There is no home heating here, but for the sun and the jungle. No hot water heaters, either. A shower at 2 p.m. is so hot you can't stand it. Shower four or five times a day, easy. Once in the morning, again at 11 a.m., again at 2 p.m., again before dinner, and once more at bedtime. Otherwise you feel sticky.
Come out of the shower, shake a bit, and drip dry. Put your clothes right on wet body, or stand naked in front of the fan for that air conditioned feeling.
That's what it's like here on the Isthmus of Kra. And I just LOVE saying that. I'm going to use it as much as possible, whenever fitting.
You said; 'Your book is coming along. Sweet, touching, and sometimes raw…good stuff. Nice surprises too.'
Could you elaborate on this, please? Not much, but I'd like to know if I'm connecting with the reader where I should be. What surprised you? Thanks for your interest, and furthermore, since you're the fourth smartest person I know, maybe third, I value your perspective.
Ok. Third.
Swimming, smiling, yoga sporadically, really really trying to dissolve motorbike knots. UNnnnbelievable. Tension storage, or terminus, in the shoulders. Five Thai massages, and one of them sort of had the idea. For the others, just a routine customer, a story idea.
Who are the first two? You wouldn’t know them. Well, there’s three. You’re the fourth, the fourth smartest. It's a toss-up for third, because this person does some pretty stupid stuff from time to time.
Yes, the picture in the temple was indeed me. Without a doubt. Shocking. Arresting, time bending, mind bending...like, 60 years ago I was imprinted to visit a remote, jungle-covered and abandoned temple in northern Laos to see the illustration on that column, and make sense of the four relief images.
And we wondered when we were kids why grandma and grandpa always had their heat turned all the way up to 'stuffy'. I don't like cold, either. That's why a decade ago I sought to make a winter home here. I feel blessed, although sometimes feel terribly lonely, and desirous of American friends and their company. The kids, too, of course.
Writing a book was never an objective for Keeping Heart, nor the writing I produce now. Sure, the material is there, the volume. Finding a...like Manny said, you've got to have the right promotion. I never intended publication, but rather, communication. The publisher found me, thus eliminating a major step for first time, unknown authors.
I think if I think about it, and desire it, it will fall into my lap, just like anything else.
But yeah, I'd like to see a second book, another check, and maybe a major motion picture. I seeee...a sailboat.
I'm glad you're walking. Could you relate to the 'Walking' essays from Vientiane and Luang Praba
blip
-end
