Secondhand Bullets

Arizona, I will have you know, is very concerned about my public health. I'm not referring to its flurry of recent decisions regarding my and every other woman's uterus -- that would be our private health, got that, legislature? -- but rather the health and safety of its people as they participate in society in public buildings. As I spend time in Arizona these last few weeks, I walk into various buildings, and whatever the building may be I can always find that trusty sticker on the glass or sign posted by the door reminding me of Arizona Revised Statute number whatever-it-is that forbids smoking in the building. That's right: noble Arizona, protecting the public's health by eradicating smoking  from all these buildings.

But in the Arizona legislature way of running the world, you leave those cigarettes in the car (you didn't actually think anyone writing these laws was walking anywhere, did you?) but feel free to bring your gun inside.

Arizona, home of the rogue state legislature, is all hopped up on allowing guns into public buildings. The usual jabber about freedom etc. is accompanied by a million-dollar-or-more cost to the public buildings that don't want the guns brought in (necessitating a gun locker/security at the entrance, which can be expensive, eh?) 

See, isn't that a great situation? Arizona really cares about public health. It values my safety! I won't ever have to worry about that stray secondhand smoke, which proper ventilation could whisk away. Have I mentioned that there is nary a building in this state without central air? Have I mentioned that we have weather that would not prevent anyone from going outside for their smoke breaks for at least 364 days of the year?  Nope, no one will be smoking inside, but they might shoot.  If only those secondhand bullets could be dissipated into the air before hitting my lungs!

MovieWatcher is dead, long live...Stubs?

There were a few significant deaths whilst we were living in Andong, Korea last year (2011), such as Harry Morgan, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sherwood Schwartz.  But the death that hit me the hardest was the death of AMC Theatres' MovieWatcher rewards program.

I have been a loyal MovieWatcher from the beginning. The beginning. Longer than any of you reading this except for my friend with whom I went to that initial run of movies in 30 days to become eligible for the card. That's right, back in MY day signing up for MovieWatcher Rewards, you had to see a certain number of films in a certain time period. Because we were hard core AMC moviegoers, of COURSE we did it. And I have been turning people on to AMC MovieWatcher ever since. Even though at first I would use my moviegoing friend/significant other to get double points for myself, I also shared with them the fact that they, too, could earn points and get free stuff including free popcorn on Wednesdays. A significant percentage of the movies I have seen in the past twenty years have been on Wednesdays. The AMC MovieWatcher program was a thing of beauty.

And then, it ended. Just like that, shortly after we arrived in Korea, AMC emailed us to tell us they were taking away our beloved MovieWatcher program to replace it with Stubs. All the elegance of the MovieWatcher experience replaced by short little Stubs, a new program that does away with the free Wednesday popcorn!!!!! and gives $10 rewards for every $100 spent at the theaters (um...ok, but...no free Wednesday popcorn?) and get this get this get this COSTS MONEY.  Twelve dollars per year, to be exact.

Needless to say, I was not happy about this, but I was also in Korea, where there are no AMCs, so the full impact of this death did not really hit me until March 2012, when I returned to the United States only to go back through all the saved-but-not-yet-dealt-with Hotmail messages from 2011 and realize:

1. They apparently gave some of their "most valued customers" (me, obviously, but I'm sooo curious what the cut-off was?) a first year of membership free: March 21, 2011 - March 21, 2012. And I got back to the U.S. on March 8, 2012. So I could get a whopping 13 free days?  I sighed, heavily. And...
2. They also apparently offered last fall/holiday season a chance to get your second year of Stubs for half price, a mere $6 instead of $12, but that offer has expired...again, before I was even back in the U.S.A.

Surely, I thought, something could be done about this. Surely since I am the most loyal of loyal MovieWatchers -- I mean, really, I ALWAYS go to AMC unless the movie is too indie/quirky/hardcore to be there, and in recent years there have been fewer and fewer of those..oh, also there was my unfortunate incarceration* in Grand Rapids down the street from the $4.99 Celebration Cinema, but even then we went to the AMC sometimes...anyway the point is, I am loyal! Surely they could reward me! They have in their system all my loyal AMC-going activity. They must love me as I love them.

So I emailed AMC and pointed out that I went back to AMC the first week I was back in the U.S. and here I was, now, Stubsing, and even though the death of MovieWatcher made me so, so sad, wouldn't they love to extend my first free year to another year, now that I am actually here? I could even show them my boarding passes and prove I was in Korea?

No. "Unable to extend it," they said.

Ewwww, I replied. First of all, don't say "unable" when you mean "unwilling."  Secondly, how about that half price offer, then? Come on...I'm SO devoted to you. I mean, I want to be. But it takes two to make a relationship work.

They forwarded my message somewhere, and said I'd hear back in 5 - 7 business days.

Meanwhile, during those 5-7 business days, I go to another AMC movie (see! it's what I do!) and they offer me a chance to renew my now expiring but in a few days' grace period in the theater and get a free large popcorn, offer valid until the end of March. But I hold off, because I'm waiting to hear back on that email. And then I never hear back. So then I miss out on even the free popcorn offer.

AMC, you are killing me!

I dislike this new Stubs. I miss my MovieWatcher Rewards and my points and my card and my free Wednesday popcorns (which I always upgraded from small to medium anyway, duh, they always got a dollar off of me that way), and finally I emailed them and was like "And you didn't even answer me in 5-7 days?!" and ugh!! Just ugh, AMC!

So that is my woeful tale of the loss of MovieWatcher and my painful reentry into the U.S. and this brave new world of Stubs. Finally, today, someone took pity on me and said they'll send me a free popcorn coupon for my trouble...mostly because they didn't actually answer when they promised to in 5-7 days, I think.  And I just have to adjust to this new, lonely world in which AMC, Harkins, Landmark, what does it matter?  I mean...I still want to believe that There Is a Difference.  Because Silence Is Golden. And all that.

But I will always in my heart of hearts be a MovieWatcher.

Broccoli Insurance

The incessant coverage of the Supreme Court oral arguments about the affordable healthcare law have been fascinating, even without the broccoli fetish.  But it has been really annoying when interviewers and reporters talk about the "fact" that the uninsured are going to use these services and not pay for them (therefore insurance companies/the law/lots of people want everyone to pay in to the system, which I think is a fine idea, by the way).  They always just gloss over that part about how "the uninsured are going to go to the emergency room and receive care."  Well, yes, anyone who is in an emergency will have their condition stabilized; the paramedics at the car accident aren't going to watch you bleed to death or refuse to pry you from the car until you show your health insurance card. But the talking heads keep talking as if that's the end of the story. Have you people ever been to an emergency room, or doctor's office for that matter?  You still get billed for the services. It's not like the uninsured just waltz in with their broken leg or ruptured spleen or whatever and get in the Uninsured-So-I'm-Not-Paying line.  What planet do these people live on that they don't think uninsured get billed for services rendered?   Besides, insured people get billed, too. The most recent health insurance I had in the U.S. was so laughably far from covering things at 100% that of course I got billed after the fact.

The inaccurate, incomplete way people have been talking about getting free healthcare when you are uninsured is a fantasy! I know - because I'm uninsured right now, having returned from my job in Korea (fabulous cheap health care!) and not yet able to cough up the $500/month the companies want to insure a single freelancer.  I would love to have some free health care just by showing up at a hospital! I wish!

Toto, I don't think we're in Korea anymore

Wednesday was a banner day, and one that made me think about the fact that I am back in the U.S.  I would say that overall, our re-entry this month has been seamless. Perhaps it's because we've been bouncing around so many different places in Asia over the last few months that coming to Arizona to chill out for a spell has been easy-peasy in comparison.  At any rate, I haven't given it that much mind-boggling "Wow-so-weird-to-be-back" thought this time around, but on Wednesday it hit me differently.  Brian and I headed to downtown Phoenix for two events: first, the MSU Spartans pep rally in anticipation of the next day's Sweet Sixteen game of the NCAA basketball tournament, played in downtown Phoenix, and second, the Amy Ray (plus other musicians) show at the Crescent Ballroom, a FABULOUS new (ish?) little venue on 2nd Avenue and Van Buren. A great time was had by all, but after the show I remarked to Brian that in the preceding couple of hours I had enjoyed:

1.  A bean and cheese burrito
2.  Microbrews
3.  Live music featuring multiple acoustic guitars

Obviously, I was not in Korea anymore.

I Was Country...and sometimes I still am

I consider it my duty when I spend time in Phoenix to catch up a little on my country music.  (I also consider it my duty when galavanting about the world to tell people from other places who are all "I-listen-to-every-kind-of-music-except-country" that they don't know what they're missing, but that's another story.) This is not solely about geography of course; it's also about transportation lifestyle. I have spent the last decade living in Boston, New York, Chicago, Daegu, etc., in crowded urban walking/subway/bus cities without a car, so I have necessarily done less car radio listening than I do when in Arizona, and car radio listening is something I very much enjoy. I am a seeker, a scanner, a button pusher...I like finding some tunes! (Or some talk. I'm flexible, but I definitely enjoy cruising through the dial.)

Actually, the reason I pretty much gave up on country music about a decade ago is that it turned into a giant pile of songs about "God told me to be a Republican and go fight a war in Iraq" and it was a truly atrocious few years. But, that has eased a bit, and I love visiting Phoenix and borrowing my mother's car and cruising around the Valley catching up on what I've missed while out there in the world living my non-Arizona life.

Of course, sometimes I am so far out of the loop that I entirely miss songs until several years after they come out, which is apparently the case with today's discovery, "American Saturday Night," which is apparently by Brad Paisley and apparently from 2009 or 2010. (Where have I been? Eeek!)  Anyway, in the upbeat song he sings about all these "foreign" things that are part of the U.S.A., a typical American Saturday night, including everything from a German car and Canadian bacon to French kissing and toga parties. It's mildly clever, in that cheeky country song way, and when it gets to the end with the obligatory last verse twist that Makes a Point (man, I love country music) he sings rather kindly about the immigrants who long ago came to our shores and could never have pictured this, and so forth.

What struck me about it was how it was light-hearted and positive and didn't have to veer off in some "Buy American or the terrorists win" direction. I certainly hope we have turned a corner and can get back to country music just being goofy fun and/or honky-tonk tear-in-my-beer depressing, as it should be.

However, I am a little worried: I heard a different song a few days ago in which a different man sings about driving in the car with his son, who is eating a Happy Meal and "knows he can't play with his toy 'til the nuggets are gone." I was pretty much horrified: this is how we relate to Middle America now, I suppose, by singing about feeding McDonald's to our children. In the car. Yikes! And, that song's later verse Makes a Point about the Lord, sure enough, as the son learns to pray by watching his dad and blah blah blah. Although the whole thing was pretty awful, and had reeeeeally cringe-inducing lyrics, I take it as a good sign that it's not a song about a boy who wants to be like dad by heading off to some violence and death in a country where there's a lot of oil.

I think we're making progress!

"North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe..."

Yesterday we saw My Week With Marilyn.  I thought it was a fine film, with very good acting, and overall I enjoyed it. However, it got me thinking about something I have never understood: Marilyn Monroe.

I don't mean someone I have never understood, because I'm not really referring to the person. I mean the whole Marilyn Monroe thing. I have never been able to relate to the fascination with this woman, and it has always mystified me. I feel like when it comes to the Marilyn-Monroe-magic-spell, there's everyone in the world and then there's me.

It might start with the hair, quite frankly. I mean, here's this woman who is supposed to be the ultimate sex symbol, the most beautiful, alluring, recklessly charming, perfect encapsulation of all that is sexy, and I just can't get past the hair. It's a hideous shade of fake blonde that I'm not entirely sure would look nice on anybody, and secondly, it's short. I don't care for short hair and I generally don't find that it makes a woman sexier, or more beautiful, let alone the sexiest or the most beautiful. In fact, I can't think of anyone with short hair that I would consider to be ultimately sexy. Long hair just looks better. (And prettier, for sure.) So I suppose the idea of Marilyn Monroe being a supremely beautiful woman was always lost on me, for this and other reasons.

So then, OK, so she acts in movies and is charming, but by all accounts is a total pain in the ass, racked with insecurities and a fragility act. And she manipulates people and acts this whole persona so that no one ever really knows the whole person and then - surprise, surprise - she takes all these pills, and dies early and tragically. I mean, really? She's a walking cliche, so it's interesting that she is considered so very special. I mean, just objectively speaking.

Anyway, the movie My Week With Marilyn contemplates a few of these issues, not that it ever stands up and screams "Get over yourself" and/or "Get over her" to everyone around herself. But it is very interesting and I totally and completely see why Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh were nominated for Oscars. Branagh was great as Laurence Olivier. The interaction of the cast of great actors in this film was wonderful and fun to watch.

Brian and I desperately need to catch up on all the 2011 movies we missed while living in Andong, and so I declared a goal of watching 40 movies in March. We have watched three so far since March 1st: Hugo, My Week With Marilyn, and The Descendants.  (We launched our catch-up project when we watched The Artist, but that was on February 29. Should I count it?)  It may seem like I'm off to a slow start, but we will be back in Phoenix for a while, and I am going to be a theater-goin', Netflixin' fiend. I will totally get to see 40 movies this month. Just you watch!

It's goodbye again

Well, here I am, leaving Korea. Again. Linda Without Borders is going to once more wend her way across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. and an unknown future. And while it is so different from the last time, it somehow  manages to be very much the same in some ways. Life is sneaky like that.

One way it was very much the same and also oh so very different was last night when I once again had my final commune trip. My favorite bar in the world is still the lovely Commune's lonely hearts club in Junangno, Daegu, and one of my greatest thrills in 2011 was returning to that place, my old haunt of haunts, the locale of so much of what I experienced when I lived in Daegu 2005-06. I never thought I would go back there (or to Daegu at all) and being able to revisit it multiple times while we lived in Andong brought me pure joy. I know that a lot of people don't understand; they think, "What? It's just a bar, and a smoky one at that. How great could it be?" But that's OK; they can stay upstairs on the harsh neon streets and I will experience the truest souls I've yet found on the planet in the beautiful basement darkness below.

Only - I won't. Not for a while, anyway. Because now Brian and I are headed out of the country, so last night was our final night in Daegu, and our last stop had to be our last Commune trip for at least a little while, if not a long while. It was so interesting to be there though, because this time I know that you can never say never. This weekend I sat where I sat almost six years ago, and I conversed with the two special people I conversed with six years ago, and took shots with them like we did six years ago...and I was filled with a quite beautiful melancholy. I know it will be a long time before I can go back there, but I was still marveling at the fact that over the past year I was able to go back there at all. When I left in 2006 there were tears and there was anger and there were so many things I didn't understand about what I was leaving behind. I like to think I have a deeper understanding now, but I suspect there are still many things I need to figure out, too many to count.

I kind of miss my solitary journeys and the moments I used to spend in deep, pensive solitude. I thought about that this weekend, and I think that part of the Commune magic, for me, is that it lets me glimpse and remember that part of myself.

There's more, of course, but not all of it can be blogged at this time in this space.

Phuket is not a vulgar city! Day 61 of our Southeast Asia Odyssey

OK, let's be clear about one thing. You pronounce Phuket like this:  pooh-KETT.  It's funny (to me) that it hadn't even occurred to me that people unfamiliar with it initially read it as f**k it. Ha ha and all, but the first time someone posted a wisecrack about pronouncing it that way, it took me a while to figure out what they were saying. I guess I've just thought of it as (winnie-the-)pooh-KETT or the somewhat mispronounced foo-KETT for as long as I've known of its existence.

Anyway, here's what I think about Phuket, which everyone is now saying correctly in their heads as they read this, right? I think Phuket is awesome. I rather enjoy living in Phuket town, and I am sad that our CELTA course and therefore our time here are coming to an end.

Brian and I chose Phuket as the place to get our CELTA teaching qualification because we had our eyes on Thailand for cheap living and beach proximity during the four-week course. It has worked out great. Because there are two of us splitting the rent, we were able to snag a pretty nice accommodation (no SE Asia backpacker flophouse for us) with a lovely pool and a cute room with a balcony. I highly recommend Baan Suwantawe's monthly room rental to anyone coming to Phuket town.

Also, there is absolutely no shortage of restaurants in this little city. Within walking distance we have oodles of noodles, roti, dim sum, curries, fried chicken, rice, pad thai, tom yum (sp?) and Phuket specialties and pork and appetizers and soups and that's not even mentioning the coffee shops and plentiful Western food, this being a travelers' destination and all. We eat out cheaply and deliciously for all our meals (even though we do have a refrigerator and microwave in the Baan Suwantawe room) and we spend like $2-5 per meal. It's so great to be in southeast Asia.

Unfortunately, despite how great it is to be in Southeast Asia, we are in fact almost done with our time in Phuket. We will not stay in this city teaching right at the moment, although I could possible end up back here in the future. We are looking at a few job opportunities and think a different country is on the horizon. (Well, obviously, there are many countries on the horizon, if you want to look at it literally, but you know what I mean.)

Meanwhile, we have one more weekend to enjoy the beaches of Phuket. We spend Monday-Friday in Phuket town, and on Saturdays and Sundays we head to the water. We have enjoyed the beaches of Patong, Karon, Kata, Nai Harn, and glimpses of Rawai, plus a boat trip to Ao Phang Nga and "James Bond Island."  We have looked up at the Big Buddha on the mountaintop and looked out at the sunset from Phromthep Cape. All in all, I give Phuket two thumbs up, and there is nothing whatsoever f**k-it about the place! Well, except for the occasional cockroach that stampedes across the sidewalk at night, coming awfully close to my flip-flop bared feet. But at least there are a few lizards scurrying around to make up for it.