So late April and I went going great guns. I scoured job forums and posted an ad for private English tutoring. I sent out my CV to a couple NGOs I’d researched who did legit work on issues I wa...
Yeah, you read that right. It started a month ago, when I got back from Malaysia. You might have noticed that posts took a detour to Bummersville. It was my first time out of Cambodia since I got her...
Sit at a Western cafe. Your favorite cafe. Order a fish filet salad, pour the caper dressing from a little porcelain pitcher, watch the waiter fill your water glass from a thick green bottle. Read th...
“Ugh, it’s rubbish.” C took a sip of her miso soup. She looked down with a particular anguished embarrassment I’ve come to recognize. I know it because I share it. The questio...
Buffalo, cultural hotbedUnexpected thing #1356 travel has afforded me: a kid I met on a dirt road in bumfuck Italy a year and a half ago has become one of my closest friends, and one of the people I ...
And apparently this is only news to me. Actually it’s not. I knew coming out here that, as a Westerner, Cambodia is simultaneously an incredibly easy and incredibly difficult place to live. Tha...
The handle turned and the door opened a peek. A pair of bewildered black eyes looked in on us. We stared up at them in silence. Then, just as quickly, the door slammed shut. It was followed by a howl...
So. On my way to Cambodia I went to Cairo. (No, it’s not actually “on the way.”) I went with a lot of expectations and very little planning—pretty much a sure-fire way to ensu...
The damp Ramones t-shirt stuck to my skin with a mix of sun block, sweat and salt water that felt about as adhesive as wet cement. The noon sun beat down as I squinted, digging my oar into the crysta...
This is what this song with forever be: the Malaysian countryside, flat and scrappy through the window of a bus. Me crying. Sometimes songs get wedged in you; sometimes you know it when it’s ha...
Let’s just say that my mind is blown. Back in November, when I landed in Phnom Penh, there was a sale on Air Asia. I looked into my crystal ball and determined that come April—Cambodia...
About a year ago I blogged about the utterly unironic English language t-shirts in Cambodia—nonsensical phrases, constant-clutterfuck non-words, uncouth slang beside hearts and smiley faces. We...
I am one. Not all the time. Not most of the time or even some of the time. But on ever so rare occasions (at least I like to think), I have been known to snap. I’d like to water it down, cushio...
1. I am embarrassed by my backpack. It’s big and heavy. There are buckles and pouches and straps; they bunch my clothing and create sweat stains. I can’t make sudden turns without risking collision w...
So… this is big news: “We are interested in including your story ‘Bones Surfacing in the Dirt,’ in our forthcoming book, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 8, to be publis...
“Gender disparity” I wrote the phrase in blue felt pen on the dingy white wipe board. “What does this mean?” I asked, underlining the phrase for emphasis. Because it felt teac...
Tonight I miss America at night. Tonight I miss tambourines and harmonicas. I miss the low whistle of a train through the dark. I miss fog-soggy sidewalks and boys with stubbly beards smoking cigaret...
So, so much for that New Year’s Resolution. To be fair, I was on my friend’s motorbike, so I was still acting in accordance with the half-assed guidelines I’d set for myself. But th...
So one of the great things about being an expat in Phnom Penh is all the extra time I have. It’s kind of unreal. Despite the fact I now have two jobs, a volunteer gig, a possible contract posit...
This is my bathroom. As you can see, it’s nothing special (aside from how clean it is). It’s actually nicer than my last bathroom back in the States, with its black mold and peeling linol...
Teenagers walk down the median, streetlamp light laughing. Boy pauses reaches to a branch. He pulls it down picks one, two mangoes off the tree. Hands one to each of the girls. They keep walking and ...
Wax refugees from Khao LanSo. Finally, finally, nearly a year after I originally landed on this continent, the second piece for my Glimpse project was published. You can check it out here. The piece ...
shitty flickr photo, not going all undercover yet...The pub is dark and grimy and does not smell like meat. I look up the bar and down the bar. I turn to a red-faced old dude clutching a glass of bee...
New Year’s resolutions: I never make them. In the States, they just annoy me. Invariably, in the first few weeks of January, the gym will be crowded with people stuffed into fresh Spandex, clut...
Here's my terrace, for lack of a more relevant picture So… you may have been able to tell by the infrequent and half-assed nature of my recent posts that I don’t know exactly what I&...
I had a piece go up on Nerve the other day. First check-off on my 2012 Publication Hit List. Read it here. Thank you.
The morning is cold. Well, not cold, but cool—breezy and clouded, which for here is Arctic. It’s 8am and I’m getting in a tuk-tuk a friend had arranged. He’s waiting outside o...
Workin hardYesterday I was sitting on the electric white cushions at Blue Pumpkin, eating a sundae and streaming full episodes of the Colbert Report (hey, gotta stay informed). While it was buffering...
So, I’d been finding these on my terrace every morning: Turds. Little fucking turds, a sprinkling of them. Festive, really, and one of the many reasons that sweeping one’s apartment is an...
So, remember that photo in the last post of the baby in a doo rag? Well, thanks to technology, a keen sense of irony and a friend willing to tote a shopping bag of presents back to the States of me, ...
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