That's one of the great things about hanging in Chiang Mai, the cast of characters who you bump up against at every turn. I just had dinner with John, an 85 year old, white-bearded American guy, based out of Chico, CA, or rather 20 miles out of Chico, winters in Chiang Mai, walks five miles a day, takes care of himself because, as he says, "if I can't get around, I can't keep coming back here. I need to be able to put my backpack on and go". I had met him briefly a week or so ago at my favorite street restaurant, and when I showed up there this evening, he was eating alone and I asked if I could join him. We spent a nice dinner together talking about life and choices and happiness. When he asked me a second time where I lived (I had told him Eugene a few minutes before), I said, 'short term memory not working too well?' in a friendly bantering way. He said, 'My short term memory was great when I was lying a lot, now I don't need it as much' or words to that effect.
And that launched us into a nice conversation about all kinds of stuff, values, choices etc. He ended up being very complimentary toward me, saying that I'm on the right path, he could tell just from my energy. It felt really nice to get that kind of acceptance from a stranger, but then again, who's to say who is a stranger. This felt like one of those spirit type connections. We're on a similar run actually, walking every day, eating well, swimming daily, he's in a place with a pool as well... but mostly just having a positive attitude, enjoying the gifts, staying open.
From there I went to my favorite bookstore 'The Lost Bookshop' which is run by George, a witty, sarcastic Irishman who has a million stories and likes the give and take. He's probably in his sixties, has good music on in his shop, and knows the business inside out. Great books all over the place, well organized and you could spend a lot of time there. I buy them, read them and then return them for half of the cover price. But the attraction is George. It's like hanging out in a pub, minus the alcohol. There's a level of intelligence and wit that is hard to top. Lots of smiles when we talk and banter. He's got a bit of a maudlin sense, as would befit an Irish wit. He's also recommended lots of books which I've enjoyed reading. Quite the resource.
Hung out with my friend Toby a few days ago, and he took me on a bike tour of some of the great temples of Chiang Mai, he knows a lot about a lot, and it was fantastic. Toby is an American living here with his girlfriend Nuna (Thai). He teaches English for money and they are just making do, but pretty calm about it all. Toby studied linguistics at the U of Washington and speaks about 16 languages. He'll spend some free time studying flash cards in Mandarin, keeping sharp. But what totally turns him on is these international virtual reality computer games that he plays weekly with his friends from around the world. And when I saw him in action on his computer, it was like, Wow dude, you are a wizard. He helped me upload some of the photos from our bike tour and his girlfriend's computer was going too slow so he plugged in this and switched to that and reformatted this and downloaded that at lightning speed. 'Yeah, I'm a computer geek', he explained. No dude, you're a wizard. (and a pal)
