KLB - No Alarms and No Surprises



Going on a week now without a single hassle at work. That must be some kind of record. The kids are great. Then again, I never have problems with them. My D-class students sound like native speakers now that they can speak in present and past tense. I have a lot of fun with them.

Came home and relaxed a bit, then went to the health club and did a lengthy tricep work out and a load of situps. Back home, Julie had dinner on the table. She's on a health kick herself, so we had boiled regular and sweet potatoes, broccoli, olives and kimchi. I ate mine with a glass of vegetable juice then followed everything down with a strawberry protein shake. Mmm...feeling pretty damn good at the moment though I can feel a faint grumble in my stomach, like the subtle roar of distant thunder.

Julie's stretched out on the floor reading Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (Korean version). I read it in college and remember thinking at the time I wanted to quit school, quit my job at the furniture store and build a hut in the woods myself - spend my days fishing and living off the land. In fact all that kind of inspirational literature, American Romanticism, had a great effect on me. That's half of why I'm so idealistic and unwilling to conform to the common, present day American way of life. Half of why I ended up in Korea. I could never work for a company or a corporation. Never.

Now Walden is inspiring Julie. She's on this kick where she wants us to live a simple life in the middle of nowhere, someplace like in the movie, The Way Home. She keeps asking me if I know how to farm. No, but if we bring our cell phones, assuredly some kind of delivery guy can find our hut - hopefully pick up some beer on his way.

Seriously, she's gotten me interested again, so I've been going through a few of the sections online at this terrific site: (click here). Especially living in a city, with its immutable noise, illimitable concrete, perpetual air pollution, and the never-ending scramble, you sometimes wonder what all this modernity had gotten gotten us - why we made our lives this way, why most of us blindly accept the calculated destruction of our scenery and our air. Wouldn't it be nice to quit your job and give up your complicated existence and go live that simple life in the country, in a small hut in the quiet woods, like that old woman in The Way Home - who, by the way, really lived in that hut and chose to stay there after the movie despite her new found fame and fortune.

All this reminds me of one of my one favorite song lyrics:


A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.

You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.

I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,

with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,

Silent silence.

This is my final fit,
my final bellyache,

with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.

Such a pretty house
and such a pretty garden.

No alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.

Anyway, something to think about. Walden will do that to you. If you're bored and unispired, check out that website.

Wait a minute, what's Julie doing now? She's put Walden down and is cracking up at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Despite her love for a "simple life" she still loves TV. I'm going to snuggle beside her and read A Civil Action...an excellent read.