Bag It!

Would somebody please tell the annoying security checkers at the MRT entrances that I’m not a New Year’s Eve bomber! Although nobody in Bangkok knows, or claims to know, who planted the bombs that killed three and wounded 38 on December 31st, I can say definitively that it wasn’t me, an aging style-conscious western woman with no science skills.

On January 27th, the 19 Thai suspects picked up shortly after the attacks were cleared for lack of evidence. And after a couple more months of pseudo-serious checks at hotels and ad hoc public spaces, the bomb brouhaha pretty much died down. Like so many important issues—cracks in the new airport runways, Thaksin Shinawatra’s multitudinous malfeasances, the current coup makers’ gross ineptitudes—the bombings got relegated to wherever intractable Thai problems go to die…or be ignored.

So why are the folks at the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand still “inspecting” their passengers’ handbags and backpacks? Assuming I even wanted to carry a bomb on the subway, how could I ever squeeze one into my thin A4-sized reticule? As it is there’s barely enough space for a wallet, PDA, scarf, makeup, cardholder, notebook, pen and the latest New Yorker.

And what if, hypothetically of course, I’d actually secreted some miniature explosive (if such a device exists) within the bowels of my black bag. Not a single so-called “guard” has ever peered inside for more than a millisecond before pronouncing me Bombless in Bangkok and sending me on my way down the escalator. The smiling and saluting component of their job description takes up way more time than security checking aspects.

Oh well, now that TRT has been disbanded I’m confident the answers to all life’s mysteries will be forthcoming.

Bitten and not by the botox bog

I woke up at 4 a.m. to a horrible stinging sensation in my upper lip. Peering groggily in the bathroom mirror I watched the left half swelling up faster than I could say "Oh shit, please don't let me end up with a face like Melanie Griffiths." I stared for as long as it took for the left half of my upper lip to become so engorged it seemed to be dragging my face to the right. Ice cubes did nothing. Neither did vigorous squeezing. Out of options I watched powerlessly until the stinging subsided and went back to bed.

By morning my lip resembed a bad outcome of a Nip & Tuck procedure. Fortunately it's a national holiday today in Thailand so I don't have to go out into the world today. The swelling is gradually subsiding so I'll probably be "normal" by tomorrow.

I'd be lying to say I'd never nurtured thoughts about a wee injection of collagen or botox or whatever to perk up the no longer sharp edge of my lip line. Or the eyebrows and eyelids that are moving inexorably downward and turning my face above the nose into a fair copy of my mother's. The increasing flacidness of the below-nose portion isn't particularly felicitous either, especially first thing in the morning.

With that teensy bite, the botox bug brought me back to the reality of accepting reality. My body isn't 20 any more. Or 30. Or 40. Once again this fascinating and frustrating country has served up another practical lesson in the in the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

P.S. However not for a second am I gonna give up the idea that sleeping on a small curved wooden fold-up pillow will somooth out those neck sags!