Mr. Blue Sky

I'm not nuking my Twitter, but it's no longer active.

You can follow me at wet-casements.bsky.social , however.

Work

I'm looking for a job.  It might seem strange from the outside, but I'm applying to a mix of education related positions (I mean, I did teach English in South Korea for over a decade) and dispatching, which is what I was doing in Bellingham part-time with the Humane Society.  I see a clear link between the two with regards to communication skills and problem solving buy hey, that's how I'm wired.

It's never easy to be told you aren't good enough for any position.  But then again, it's only been a little over a week and I've got at least one interview lined up.

We shall see.

USA! USA! USA!

I'm off to drive across America tomorrow.  I'll probably put up some pics on Twitter, but not much here.

It's been a long journey from Daegu to Bellingham and now back to the DC area.  But you should already know my elderly Dad is safe and sound back in Maryland, albeit in a nursing home.  Me and my sister and clearing out the house for resale.  And I've got two new kitties joining us, although I'm sure they'll be miserable for eight to ten hours a day in the car.

Gotta fight through it, my furry little babies.

See you in five days!

Hiya

Light posting for a bit.  We're dealing with some health issues in the family.  Life is never easy.

What Up, James?

It's hard to believe I've been back in America for almost six weeks now.  Life is moving along and most importantly, despite some bumps, my Dad is doing well.  Today was a "town day" so I drove him in for some shopping.  It's still cold here though -- I really want spring to get to it.

I wasn't totally sure what would happen to this here blog once I left Korea.  Thing is, as much as I yap about Korea, I've always considered this to be a personal, early 2000's era type of thing, i.e., an online diary that very few people actually read.

And I think we'll continue with that!  I'm getting back into taking pictures, and you might notice I've been putting together a series called The Give and The Take.  I'm working on short prose pieces to give any and everybody a sense of what it's like taking care of an older relative -- mostly good things I hope, but inevitably some bad as well.  In addition, I brought a notebook-and-a-half of material from Daegu sketching out my life as a (former) English teacher.

I'm really happy for anybody to come by, honestly.  Sitting down to write a little bit and post some photos at night, even a relatively meaningless little post like this, gives me a fair amount of pleasure these days.

And I'm reading a ton, as well, so expect even more straight-up book reviews.

I should be getting a COVID shot this spring, and as long as things continue to go pretty well I'll be here in Bellingham for the rest of 2021.

A crystal ball would be nice, no?  But I'll settle for this for now.

Will I jinx 2021 by saying it's going OK so far?  For everybody I hope?

"Ten thousand afternoons ago / All my happiness just overflowed"

Purple Mountains, "All My Happiness Is Gone"

I like to think we all end up in a better place of our own choosing, eventually.

Blog activity is still light, despite the fact that I got back to South Korea last weekend.  I've worked out a few times and done two loads of laundry, so call that progress if you will.

America was a mixed bag, as always.  My dad is 90 now, and for obvious reasons it's getting more and more difficult to maintain healthy lines of communication, let alone a quality father-son relationship, with him.  I don't tend to get too personal on this here blog, but I'll be blunt -- a complicating factor is his live-in relationship with a highly toxic woman (nearly his age).

I mean, we're all assholes sometimes.  Lord knows I have my moments.  But I mean toxic in the fullest sense of the word -- poisonous, life-draining, harmful.  I'm guessing she's got some PTSD going on (she's a refugee from post World War II Germany) along with some serious narcissism and a very questionable relationship to telling the truth.

There's a lot more to say and nothing much at all, really.

Anyhow, for the second summer in a row, I cut short my visit and stayed in a hotel for my last two nights in Bellingham.  I knew I shouldn't let her get to me, but I did.  (In my defense, she threw a phone book at me.)  And here's the thing -- as long as my dad lives I'll never sleep in that house again.  (A house that me and my sister will have to deal with when the inevitable happens, and that I kind of want nothing to do with.)

Then there was Baltimore with my sister and nephew, and that was great as always.  We did stuff.  I did cannonballs onto said nephew in the swimming pool.  I walked a tiny but scarily energetic black dog around her neighborhood every morning for an hour or so.  We ate crabs and drank beer.  We watched the Orioles lose a ballgame 23-2 and stayed for the whole damn thing.  I watched my nephew ride and take care of great big horses.  My sister is dating a really nice guy and it might to lead to something more.

It was all good.

But this might be the time, when my contract ends in February, to head home.  It's way too much of a burden on my sister to deal with my Dad with only one visit from me every year.  If something terrible happens she'd be the "first responder," so to speak, and that's not fair to her and her quality of life and mind.  She's also devoted to a really great kid.

So what's my excuse?

We'll see.

Life is hard and complicated.  Our bodies and brains will break down no matter how hard we wish they wouldn't.

I mean, I should be grateful for my dad to be 90, when my mom left due to cancer at 50, right?

These Trousers Are Rolled As Fuck

I did nothing for New Year's and it was glorious.

I mean, I did small things like laundry and a work-out and reading and watching a movie.

Getting older means being post-fun.  Post-fun is the best kind of fun.

So Long, tumblr

My tumblr was wiped out over the weekend.  Either it was hacked (not very many followers, so doubtful) in which case I apologize if anyone got spam or porn, or tumblr was just being tumblr.

And since tumblr is now banned on my office computer due to South Korea wanting to censor it (there are obvious work-arounds, but still) I probably won't be going back.

Which is kind of a shame.  A lot of ex-pats in South Korea these days use tumblr instead of more conventional blogs, but at the same time anything that reduces the amount of time I spend online is probably a good thing.

Still waiting to hear from tumblr support.  Given their rep though, I'm guessing I never will.

Summer Updates

I've done the unthinkable and joined Facebook (here).  My sister and some other people who I really care about use it, and while I won't be on it too often I figured I'd give it a go.

I tweet here.

I tumblr for ya over here (mildly NSFW at times).

Shameless Self-Promotion

This humble little Not-Really-A-Korea Blog, but Kind-Of-A-Korea Blog, has been getting an uptick in traffic as of late.

For a little background about me, I used to blog over here (Wetcasements I, so to speak).  I jumped over here to Blogger about a year ago.

I tweet over here, and I tumbl over here (very occasionally NSFW).

I teach English at a small-ish college in Daegu, South Korea.  I've been at this school for seven years, and I've lived in Korea for eight.  For 95% of the time I truly love living here, and for the other 5% I will certainly make angry, whiny posts about the cruel injustices of ex-pat life.

Thanks for stopping by!

Shameless Self Promotion

It's December already.  It's almost 2017 already.  And who the hell knows if any of us will make it to 2018 under the watchful gaze of President Trumpolini?

Anyhow, this modest blog has been seeing a modest amount of traffic so I thought I'd remind folks that I tweet over here and I tumbl over here.

My tumblr is a bit NSFW at times.

My old blog is over here.

And "Wet Casements" is a poem by John Ashbery.

Try and stay warm!

Housekeeping

Well, I'm an idiot but you probably already knew that.  Simply using CTRL-SHIFT-V will paste a quotation as plain text.  So hopefully this blog will look a little less fugly from now on.

Meanwhile, the first incarnation of Wet Casements remains over here.  If you made the jump with me over here to Blogger, thank you very much!

I tweet over here.

I tumbl over here (warning: I'm known to habitually re-blog Guy Fieri LOL .gifs.)

I only have a two-day work week coming up thanks to Korean Thanksgiving, and I'm headed to Busan for a few days on Wednesday to enjoy the beach.

Meanwhile, in a fit of productivity, I binge-watched Stranger Things this weekend.  I'll say a few things about it in the next few days.  For now, I loved it.  But it definitely started stronger than it finished.  And the music was incredible.

My First Complaint Post!

My god, Blogger is awful at importing text and not allowing you to change it to what you already have in use, font and font-size-wise.

Anyone know any tricks for this that don't involve going into the HTML?  I can't believe it's even an issue.