PB #25 Someone I Forgot to Be

In 1993, I made so many mix tapes that I decided I needed to impose some limits on myself. By 1996, I had funneled my mix-tape urges into a “my favorite songs of the year” mix tape, produced only once a year. In 2000 the format changed to a CD, with cover art, lyrics, and liner notes.

Someone I Forgot to Be: This image is the cover of my 2010 “greatest hits” cd, with this playlist:

1 Beauty in the World – Macy Gray

2 Young Blood – Norah Jones

3 Give Me the Meltdown – Rob Thomas

4 Taking Chances – Lea Michele

5 Como Lluvia – Nelly Furtado feat. Juan Luis Guerra

6 Good Thang – Q-Tip

7 Midnight Hour – Talib Kwele feat. Estelle

8 Keep Your Hat On Jenny

9 Fuck You – Cee Lo Green

10 Internet Connection – M.I.A.

11 Poker Face – Lea Michele and Idina Menzel

12 Pocketbook – Jennifer Hudson feat. Ludacris

13 Sinister Kid – The Black Keys

14 Little Fire – Patty Griffin feat. Emmylou Harris

15 Old Before Your Time – Ray Lamontagne

16 The Lucky One – Alison Krauss & Union Station

17 Freedom ’90 – George Michael

18 Little Road – Cheryl Wheeler

The title comes from George Michael’s “Freedom ’90,” and that lyric reminded me of who I was when I graduated from university 20 years ago. I decided to move to Houston with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) instead of looking for a job teaching Spanish in Indiana, which had been the plan for four years. The visual playlist that follows is a bit of time-travel indulgence. I wonder what the sheltered, inexperienced boy I was then would think about the year I had. That process of reflection allows me to look at ways I’ve changed and stayed the same, but also at what I want to recapture from my 1990 self, find out if there really is someone I forgot to be. I’m also reminded of the movie “Broadcast News” from that same era. Pretty-boy Tom, having gotten an ill-deserved promotion while people around him had gotten fired, asks, “what do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?” Aaron (possibly my favorite movie character of all time) replies, “Keep it to yourself.” I am more Aaron than Tom, but I am also keen to indulge my 22-year-old self and let others know what my year has been like.

The photos that follow are a kind of visual “greatest hits” from my year.
















New friends: My work documenting human rights violations has allowed me to work with others doing similar work. In January, I helped host a meeting of people from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Burma, and Ethiopia. We started, as usual, with a touchy-feely team-building exercise.
















Old friends: In February, Ms. Fred came through for a visit and Liz and Mark joined us for a night of wine and conversation. The Box wine bar began to rival Sudsanan for my affections.
















Surviving the break up: My organization went through major cuts in late 2009, mostly from our office in New York, so during my first trip back there since people were let go, I did a lot of processing of the crisis over cocktails. You know it’s serious when kumquats are involved.
















From column A to column B: I met up with Wendell for a night out. I remember that the night was significant because I had the courage to ask what had gone wrong with the romance we had, and he had the courage to finally tell me. I think it’s also significant that one year later, I can’t remember any of the reasons because they no longer matter and we’re still good friends. Later in that week, I went to a burlesque show that featured an angry performance by the cross-dressing “Rosewood,” whom Wendell knows, involving nakedness, pizza, and bodily functions. I had my umbrella at the ready. Ah, New York. My 22-year-old self would have been frightened to tears, by both Wendell and Rosewood (for very different reasons). 20 years later, opening myself to intimacy felt like a gift to that 22-year-old, and Rosewood reminded me that some limits on intimacy are there for a reason.




















Column A to B to A: I knew Dan and Cece from JVC years in Houston in the early 1990’s, and they became staples in my Thailand life since they arrived as Maryknoll lay missioners the same year I did 13 years ago. They left Thailand in 2009 and by 2010, they had a beautiful, shiny-eyed little girl and had moved to Tucson. During my visit to Houston, they made a family road trip. There was something deeply satisfying about seeing them back where we had first met among friends who were still there, with Thailand as a shared experience that did not even need to be acknowledged. Sometimes relationships suffer when they shift locations; thank goodness that in some cases, they flourish.
















The colors of Thailand I: My birthday in May entailed colorful cocktails at The Glass Onion.
















The colors of Thailand II: Tensions had been building in Thailand in 2010. The government responded to rallies by the “red shirt” protestors in March and April by declaring a State of Emergency. Protests in Bangkok continued, with “yellow shirt” rallies competing with the red shirts, and other factions also emerging. Amid increasing violence, on May 19 government troops stormed the red-shirt protest site and many protest leaders were detained. Chiang Mai was mostly quiet, but from my window I spotted smoke rising from a minor clash that took place across town. The blue shirts are, as far as I know, politically unaffiliated construction workers.
















The colors of Thailand III: Also in May, Ginger and I competed in our second triathlon, this one in Bintan, Indonesia. Ginger finished the sprint triathlon in just over two hours, looking fantastic wearing Thai construction-worker blue.




















Tri-again: I bettered my time from my first triathlon by more than an hour, coming in at just over three hours. It was quite satisfying to sprint past these two guys who came in just behind me – I had unknowingly saved some enough energy to spring the last half a kilometer.
















Inked again: I celebrated the completion of the second triathlon with new ink.

Cure for a broken heart: After some particularly intense tumult in my love life, I sought and found refuge visiting a friend in the town of Chonburi for karaoke and dancing in a club until 4am. More heartbreak followed, but it was a mild case.

Old friends, new setting: At the end of the year, my friend Jeremy visited and joined me for a road trip to Mai Ai near the Burma border to visit Anek, who worked in my building several years ago. It was pure delight to bring together two of the most genuinely friendly people I know, even for just 24 hours.




















Skirts, 20 years on: During JVC orientation in 1990, a priest suggested that the dress code for mass was casual, which meant people could wear what they want such as, for the women, a skirt … for instance. Thus began my long education about gender, patriarchy, and (among other things) clothes. When Jeremy and I got back to Chiang Mai, we went to the first annual “Celebrating Women’s Wisdom” festival, hosted by Ginger’s and Ouyporn’s International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice in Mae Rim. Thailand’s first female monk gave the opening address and several performances followed, including belly dancing by our friend Kristen. I couldn’t take my eyes off the skirt, and she kindly let me borrow it for a day.




















Beauty in the world I: Several of us spent new year’s at the beach, Koh Samed. Jeremy provided photography lessons and captured this image during the nightly traveling fire-twirling show.















Beauty in the world II: This water was not photoshopped.















Beauty in the world III: We have an annual tradition of choosing themes for the coming year rather than resolutions. My word in 2010 was “deliberate” (the adjective, not the verb), and despite objections I chose the word “boundless” for 2011, harkening back to the over-achieving straight-A student I was in my senior year in college. Five months into the year, I think perhaps I should have paid attention to those objections, and the difficulty we had launching this lantern with our themes attached might have been a sign.