PB #12 Can Do

Soon after my return to Chiang Mai, Empower had the grand opening of their bar, “Can Do.” Empower is a sex-workers’ rights group that advocates for decriminalization of sex work. They opened this bar as a model for how commercial sex could run if controlled by the women themselves.















The crowd was invited to do some pole-dancing. Despite the slipped disc in my back, the pole and I got on a little too well and I may be invited back for more performances.
















Apparently my camera was smoking something.
















My favorite bar, Sudsanan, closed its former location with an all night party/jam-session. I must have met every single person in the bar that night. I have one Thai song I can sing, and I made my way up to the microphone in the middle of it, waiting for the chorus to come back around. After five minutes, I figured out that the last half of the 10-minute song was an instrumental. Nevertheless, I was roundly congratulated for my strong performance, contributing to the percussion section with the pebble-filled plastic egg.















tyrell’s been visiting, and borrowed my orange bicycle to match her backpack. While she was here putting the final touches on her dissertation about the military coups of 1973 and 1976 and the related violence in northern Thailand, the current military staged a coup and ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. On the surface, Thailand seemed much the same, and tyrell's historical perspective helped me understand the gravity of the situation much better.





















For about two weeks after the coup, soldiers were on the street at major intersections on thoroughfares in and out of Chiang Mai. This is the intersection on the way to my office.















This rainbow was right outside my window, so close it seemed I could touch it. I’d never seen a rainbow up so close. What if Dorothy had gotten to Oz and realized her “over the rainbow” was just the first of many?




















I’m still doing the exercises to try to fix the slipped disc in my back. My recovery seems to have leveled off, but I’m not giving up yet. I should take a lesson from Empower: CAN DO!