To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

To show you where my head is at lately:

Twice this week, I've had NIGHTMARES, actually waking up shaken and in a sweat, about being back in Russia at my old job.

One of them was along the lines of having missed the plane to the Middle East and having to go back and beg for my job since I was broke, and being hired again in some capacity that I had to sit and watch classes and pretend I was a student, rather than teach them.

The other was that I went back to my apartment in Russia, which I somehow owned in the dream, and three typical Russian provincial thug-doofuses were there, in track pants, shirtless, drinking vodka and smoking, and I was trying to think of how I could possibly get rid of them and knowing it would be likely impossible.

I woke up shaken in the night and turned on the Internet and looked at all the money I now have in my bank account, and fixed some camomille tea and said, in a strangled voice, "It was only a dream . . . it was only a dream."

On Crapping In Public

I've always had a pretty active digestive system -- perhaps the secret to my survival in Russia was that I crapped out toxins before they could really be absorbed into my body.

During the Friday evening drinking session, which would inevitably move to a nightclub at around 12.30 or so, a crap was an inevitable part of the evening -- after all the cheap beer and pizza -- and not entirely without an element of enjoyable challenge.

(The House of Pain nightclub had toilets that at least had doors on them, and often even toilet paper, although they were strewn with vomit and piss and blood and shit and god-knows-what strains of antibiotic-resistant diseases. Managing a good crap without getting anything on you was a kind of extreme-sports challenge.)

Anyway, I was just sitting here at the Satrbucks knock-off cafe trying to download some movies when the Turkish cofee and brownie I'd eaten went right through me.

In the toilet, I had some time to consider the Arab method of cleaning the ass -- this involves water and not toilet paper. There's a hose next to the toilet with which you can flush out your anal regions.



All very well and good -- if you got shit on your hands, you wouldn't just scrape it off with toilet paper and go on your way. You'd use water. And soap, probably. (But I'm not THAT fussy about my ass being clean.)

But then of course you'd use paper to dry off afterwards. And nowhere is there toilet paper or even paper towels in evidence here at this rather upscale shopping mall. So an Arab toilet forces you to go straight from a shitty anus to a wet anus, with nothing to dry it with.

I guess those long thobes and burkas might allow them to drip-dry -- my brushed cotton Docker khakis allow me no such option.

(As far as the squatting aspect, I don't mind that -- the quadriceps are an important core muscle groups, and that means I can do 2 less squats during my prison-cell workout. Anyway most public toilets offer you a choice, there's usually one Western-style throne around.)

Christmas in the Desert

I celebrated Christmas in pretty good style -- one of my colleagues cooked a turkey with all the trimmings, along with pie and mince and so forth, and fifteen or so of us got together. There was even some homemade wine. Some of the guests brought their wives -- mostly Asian women they picked up on former teaching assignments.

No one got drunk and vomitted, there were no fistfights, and nobody had sex in the toilet.

People did get into heated discussions about politics and conspiracy theories, though.

And also, we had to be careful because the religious police were flying around in Hunter-Killer VTOL ships searching for Christmas parties with infra-red scanners and alcohol-sniffing dogs.



No, just kidding.

But some of the guys who have been here a while said that in the past buying Christmas decorations was about the same procedure as buying bootleg alcohol or Playboy magazines -- you had to go into the back room.

Now apparently Christmas decorations are actually sold openly in one of the big glitzy malls full of Starbucks and such. They don't have Christmas trees in public places and annoying Christmas songs like they do in Dubai . . . not yet, anyway. . .

Fa-la-la-la-la, Allahu Akbar

13

E-mail that I wrote in response to an email from a friend in Russia asking me how my holiday in America was:

Got really stoned one night with a married friend of mine and then had to try to pretend like we weren't when his wife and kid came home unexpectedly. The more things change the more they stay the same. "Our eyes are red because we were swimming, Mom."

Horny Is As Horny Does

Like alcohol, I miss sex considerably less than I thought I would. It could be my advancing years -- while I'm in pretty good shape for a 40-year-old, I'm still a 40-year-old -- but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I'm surrounded by Arab teenagers and 60-year-old guys. There's not much to remind me that womankind even exists, here -- except on my computer screen.

(As mentioned I have some webcam girls to have fun with, in addition to pornography.)

Truthfully, I had sort of stopped feeling horny the last couple of years in Russia even when I was surounded by good-looking provocatively-dressed young women in my classes. I looked at hot young babes and saw the green triangular head and serrated claws of the preying mantis. I was actually becoming afraid that my lengthy experiences with Russian women had somehow innoculated me against them, and perhaps all of womankind.

This was another important reason in my decision to move.

A lot of long-timers there experienced this, I think; even the guys at the notorious whore-banging Moscow expat mag The Exile reported erectile dysfunction before they packed up and moved to Panama.


The last picture of Russian cleavage ever to be shown on English Teacher X??? Stay tuned!

Grooming Hints and Tips

Arrived back in Saudi Arabia just in time for a crackdown on long hair. The administration has told us to forbid students to enter class if they have hair below the ears.

On the plus side, nobody minds if the teachers come to class unshaven (beards are an indicator you're not gay) or with your shirt untucked (more in accordance with Muslim modesty by covering the buttocks.)

I wear a tie to class anyway though, just to show I'm a badass.