THE ANSWER IS 12

 

243.  A Depressing Milestone...

(More mental methadone!)

11/20/2022 – Day 1,000 out of China

82/221 – Nepal

Greetings COVID Quarantine Quittes,

Welcome Back to the Show...

 

            Today marks the 1,000^th day since I last saw Munzu, our cats, my Shenyang friends, and China. So much has happened in those days, much of it negative. Hundreds more shall pass before I make my return to my wife, if that is what she still desires. It stabs me in the chest to compose these sentences, but I have always been forthcoming in these therapeutic sessions. I don’t know if she even wishes for me to return.

She started going silent on me during the 2021 summer. After more than a year where we rarely went a day without a trading a text, sending a voice message or calling each other, she began to drop off, communication-wise. First days, then whole weeks would pass without a single word from her. An entire month or two of silence began to not feel so abnormal. Finally, this summer she chose to completely shut me out for four months. It took her mother learning that she had cancer to break her silence. Two more messages would follow for a total of five words, and another month has passed without a word from her.

Frustration is mounting as I don’t know why the woman I married refuses to communicate with me. I love her and don’t know what to do. I understand that our forced separation has been unduly cruel to her, but there must be something more at play here.

Alcohol and the abuse of semi-illegally obtained mental health substances don’t appear to be a permanent solution.

I hope that you and yours are having a Happy Thanksgiving. Mine did go a lot better than I could have imagined, considering I’ve now spent a week in a hotel in Kathmandu awaiting my visa.

今天是我最后一次见到 Munzu、我们的猫、我的沉阳朋友和中国的第 1000 天。那些日子里发生了很多事情，其中​​很多都是负面的。在我回到我妻子身边之前，还有数百次，如果那是她仍然想要的。写下这些句子让我很受打击，但在这些治疗过程中我总是很坦率。我不知道她是否希望我回来。

2021 年夏天，她开始对我保持沉默。一年多之后，我们几乎没有一天不发短信、发语音消息或互相打电话，但在沟通方面，她开始放弃了。最初几天，然后是整整几周，她都没有说一句话。整整一两个月的沉默，开始感觉不那么不正常了。最后，今年夏天她选择将我完全拒之门外四个月。直到她的母亲得知她得了癌症，才打破了她的沉默。又是两条信息，一共五个字，又是一个月过去了，没有她的消息。

挫败感越来越大，因为我不知道为什么我娶的那个女人拒绝和我交流。我爱她，不知道该怎么办。我知道我们的被迫分离对她来说过于残忍，但这里一定有更多的原因在起作用。

酒精和滥用半非法获得的精神健康物质似乎并不是永久的解决办法。

我希望你和你的家人感恩节快乐。考虑到我现在已经在加德满都的一家酒店待了一个星期等待签证，我的情况确实比我想象的要好得多。

오늘은 내가 문주와 우리 고양이들, 나의 선양 친구들과 중국을 마지막으로 본 지 1,000일째 되는 날이다. 그 당시에 너무 많은 일이 있었고 그 중 많은 부분이 부정적이었습니다. 아내가 여전히 원하는 것이라면 내가 아내에게 돌아가기 전에 수백 년이 더 지나야 할 것입니다. 이 문장을 작성하는 것이 가슴을 찌르지만, 나는 항상 이러한 치료 세션에서 앞으로 나아갔습니다. 그녀가 내가 돌아오기를 바라는지조차 모르겠습니다.

그녀는 2021년 여름부터 나에게 침묵하기 시작했다. 문자를 주고받거나, 음성 메시지를 보내거나, 서로 전화를 걸지 않고는 거의 하루를 보내지 않았던 1년이 지난 후, 그녀는 커뮤니케이션 측면에서 떨어지기 시작했습니다. 처음 며칠, 그 다음에는 몇 주가 그녀에게서 한 마디도 없이 지나갔습니다. 한두 달 동안의 침묵이 그리 비정상적으로 느껴지지 않았습니다. 마침내 이번 여름에 그녀는 4개월 동안 나를 완전히 차단하기로 결정했습니다. 그녀의 어머니가 그녀의 침묵을 깨기 위해 암에 걸렸다는 사실을 알게 되었습니다. 총 다섯 단어에 대해 두 개의 메시지가 더 이어지고 그녀의 말없이 또 한 달이 지났습니다.

결혼한 여자가 왜 연락을 거부하는지 모르겠어서 답답함이 커져요. 나는 그녀를 사랑하고 무엇을 해야할지 모릅니다. 우리의 강제 이별이 그녀에게 지나치게 잔인했다는 것을 이해하지만 여기에는 더 많은 것이 작용하고 있음이 분명합니다.

알코올과 준불법적으로 취득한 정신 건강 물질의 남용은 영구적인 해결책이 아닌 것으로 보입니다.

나는 당신과 당신이 행복한 추석을 보내고 있기를 바랍니다. 비자를 기다리며 카트만두에 있는 호텔에서 일주일을 보냈다는 점을 고려하면 상상했던 것보다 훨씬 나아졌습니다.

peace,

samiam NEARING

aka: Reverend samiam, Nut ‘n Bone, professa kimchi killa, Richard Lichman, Captain Beer, Dunkin' Doze Nuts, Testicles, and Tiny Dick!

*Legal crapola:  Unless otherwise noted, all material in this and every issue of TAI12 are the property of George Samuel Nearing and his multiple personalities.  Nothing contained herein may be reproduced in any way, shape, form, or fashion without requesting and receiving permission in writing.  © 2002-2022 Plug-One Productions. 

 

Entering Nepal

THE ANSWER IS 12

 TAI12 #242 Kathmandu, Kathmanshouldn’t…

 Welcome to the Show...

 

11/12/2022

These pictures are from my first day in Nepal. My two fellow Fellows and I landed in Kathmandu and were delivered to our hotel. We rested and drank on the Nomad Hotel's patio for a couple of hours.

I grabbed a taxi to hit my third Hash in nearly three years. The Himalayan H3 held its 2317th R*n on the outskirts of town. I'd mistakenly arrived an hour early do to my janky phone not updating its clock correctly. I wandered around searching for Hashers. An hour later, the Hash Cash sped by me on his scooter asking whether I was a Hasher. I followed him in to the on site.

The pack got underway. I exercised caution, being in a new town, and set out with the walkers. More than 20 hours of travel and several hours of drinking meant that I wasn't in much shape to follow the pack when the trail abruptly turned up a near-vertical narrow mountain path. They continued on while I drank my way back to the start point.

The pack returned for a fun circle shortened by the mosquitoes emerging with the setting of the sun. Dengue fever being on the minds of most Hashers, we quickly concluded, setting everyone free to pursue their own on-afters. He-Bitch, the RA, mocked me for wearing my SHHH Grand Master hat and my Shenyang H3 GM vest, announcing that I had come to take over their Hash. 

The rest of the night involved exploring some bars around our hotel with another of the two Fellows, but we ended up having a magnificent time at the cockroach-filled bar, The Happy Monk.

What would follow over the coming week would prove very stressful. My touchdown in Dhangadhi, the town where I am to be stationed for ten months, drove me a bit insane. More on all of that later.

  peace,

samiam NEARING

aka: Reverend samiam, Nut ‘n Bone, professa kimchi killa, Richard Lichman, Captain Beer, Dunkin' Doze Nuts, Testicles, and Tiny Dick!

 *Legal crapola:  Unless otherwise noted, all material in this and every issue of TAI12 are the property of George Samuel Nearing and his multiple personalities.  Nothing contained herein may be reproduced in any way, shape, form, or fashion without requesting and receiving permission in writing.  © 2002-2022 Plug-One Productions.  

 THE ANSWER IS 12

#241  Long Time, No See..

 

Welcome Back to the Show...

10/30/2022

I returned to my home of the past month and for the future nine lunar cycles to find five different species of spiders in the toilet/shower half of my bathroom in this far western corner of Nepal. I can conceive of no more appropriate way to reintroduce myself to the fold of random online postings and to those who elect to spend their time on the toilet reading them.

After years of neglect, the time has come to resurrect The Answer Is 12. Much has taken place since I last posted an official non-book-related missive: I lost my father, met the love of my life, got married, left Korea for China, bought a condo, found myself trapped in WLOTUS due to everyone’s favorite pandemic, lost my father-in-law, lost my grandmother-in-law, taught virtually in China from Oklahoma for two semesters, discovered the miseries of substitute teaching, became a mystery/secret shopper, and took a ELF posting in bowels of Western Nepal for ten months. That more or less catches us up. I guess this is as good a time as any to dive into how I came to find myself boarding the first of three flights whisking me off to Kathmandu on September 1, 2022.

With the contract I had at a Korean school in Shenyang, China ending in February 2020, Chairman Wife and I had concluded that this would be an appropriate time for me to finally pursue an old dream of mine to become an English Language Fellow. I applied in the fall of 2019 and was interviewed over Skype in October. Passing the interview, they later placed me into a pool of applicants for projects starting in the fall of 2020.

My school held its final day of class on January 11, 2020. Chairman Wife and I were to have 46 relaxing days together before I flew off to Oklahoma to await a posting or to find a different job back in Shenyang. Chairman Wife was to visit for the summer in time for her birthday and our sixth wedding anniversary. Our other main goal was to see Roger Waters one more time before he retired.

Our friend, Mo, held an incredibly fun birthday party for herself at a dog kennel on the southwest side of town on January 19^th. Rumblings of a serious strain of the flu or something were emanating from the south, but didn’t mean much to us yet. Two days after Mo’s party, China shut down the country to prevent the spread of this mysterious new virus. Overnight, our little city of nine million people went into a lockdown, only leaving convenience stores, groceries, pharmacies, and hospitals allowed to remain open for business. Our apartment estate closed three of its four gates so that its elderly security guards could check the temperatures of the residents as they came and went. Additionally, entrance to estates was limited to their residents.

While there was a short run on supplies at our grocery stores, nothing looked dire at this point. Chairman Wife couldn’t go to her office, so we were both free to spend every waking moment together cooking, watching movies, talking, and just generally enjoying each other’s company. The lockdown lifted two days before my flight on February 26, which had been booked months ahead of time. My three closest friends in town and I went out for dinner on the 24^th, bouncing around town to a few different restaurants. This took some doing as not all of them were stocked to reopen. Chairman Wife and I had a lovely and quiet evening out together on my final night in town, not know just how “final” it was to be.

She drove me to the airport the next morning. After a long embrace with promises to meet again in Oklahoma, I boarded my plane and bid my new permanent home, China, a fond farewell.

What followed was what will eventually be known as a two-year long asterisk for the vast majority of humanity.

This looks like a decent place to stop this issue. I am wrapping this up as my Malaysian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur passes over Cambodia. A taxi driver will deliver me back to my prison/home for the next eight months in Dhangadhi, Nepal about 24 hours from now. My university’s classes resume the next day which will consume more than a bit of my time in the coming week or two. Your next The Answer Is 12 will do its best to cover what little transpired during my 2.5 years in Oklahoma will some of the most epically frustrating and depressing moments in our nation’s history took place. The hope is to get to why and how of Nepal in the issue following that one. Looking ahead, I would like to revisit some of the many tales that went unwritten over the years that I had ceased writing these missives in favor of working on Ninjalicious: The Fictional Autobiography of Richard Lichman and its as-of-yet-incomplete sequel, Ninjalicious: Crazy Corea.

 

 

 

 

 

Get your copy of Ninjalicious in time for the holidays

 ​Anyone who wants an autographed copy of Ninjalicious: The Fictional Autobiography of Richard Lichman can now receive a copy through the mail from Korea for only $20 if you get to me before the 28th of October. They make perfect stocking stuffers and table levelers. You might even discover a little surprise in your package.

​My email on Zelle: phatjsam@yahoo.com
Or you can use Venmo: ​https://www.venmo.com/u/George-Nearing 

While I am working on a new issue of The Answer Is 12, I also hope to have updates on Ninjalicious II: Crazy Corea soon on the Ninjaverse Publishing site: https://ninjaversepublishing.weebly.com/

Let's play together in Seoul on Friday, October 15, and a video

Let's get out and rip this town up tomorrow night. I would love to visit one of my favorite old neighborhoods. I suggest we start off at what used to be the good Sincheon Station, since renamed Jamsilsaenae Station, and see where the night takes us. Let's say Exit 3 (It could have been 2, but we'll go with 3) at 2000 or 8pm.
Also, for your viewing entertainment, this video gives you a quick tour of my home in Nepal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liNlqdYO4ZQ 

Long Overdue but...

Another issue of The Answer Is 12 will soon slap you upside your head, a decade overdue. Until then, let this tantalize your taste buds.