So I'm on break now. It's kind of hard to register, after having to do stuff continually for the past four months or so. But hey, time to kick back. So this as much an entry out of wanting to do one as it is out of relishing the fact that I have the time to on a Saturday afternoon.

I figured I'd take this opportunity to talk a little bit about something that's becoming more and more common here: the occassional Larry David predicament. For those uninitiated into the ways of Curb Your Enthusiasm, it is a funny show (a comedy if you will) starring Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, and one of the more absurd people to walk the planet and I love him. I won't bother explaining how my experiences mirror his -- if you know the show you'll get it and if you don't you won't. Deal.

So Larry David predicament one: The past four weeks have been kind of boring, with not much to do on the weekends or at night after work. On top of that, I've had a lot of disposable money lying around, owing to the favorable exchange rate and cheap price of food. Compound that with my temporary shirking of any sort of consumer ethic (kind of ironic, no?), and you've got a situation that just begs for recreational shopping. Well, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted some new jeans. But I didn't want just any jeans, I wanted straight and narrow lowrise jeans. Unfortunately, even in Thailand that's still not the norm for men's jeans, and even if it was my skinny little fram would still not suit them well. So naturally I decided to look into women's jeans. And so I went to the department store (which is just like any JC Penny, Marshall Fields, etc. in the States), and was looking at the Wranglers section. The first time I went, I had a very helpful sales woman who, after I asked if they had any men's jeans that were straight and skinny, directed me to the women's section. She gave me some, I tried them on, and I liked them. But I didn't want to buy them just yet, so I told her I'd come back later after thinking about it. A few days later, I did go back. Except this time there was a different guy working. I pretended to show interest in the men's jeans, just to break the ice, before making my way to the women's section. The guy followed me over, telling me in Thai that they were women's jeans. I said (in Thai), that I understood and that I liked them more anyway. He must have thought I was completely stupid (as do most Thai people), because he kept repeating it, and then said it in English. I was annoyed and told him to not worry about it, and so he just walked away, quite miffed. And so I took a pair, tried them on, found them too short, and returned to find another pair. When I came out, the I said they were too short and he replied curtly "Because they're for women". So so so rude. And so I left, completely bothered. The nerve of this snottly little twenty-eight year old Thai man with bad acne and braces telling me I can't buy the jeans I want. I decided I would just come back later when he's not there. So I went back a week later or so, and scouted out the situation from afar. I could practically hear the frumpy tuba theme from Curb bump-bump-bumping the background. And sure enough, there he was, smuggly lording over the Wranglers section, ready to reinforce prohibitive gender roles on the drop of a dime. And so just like that I left. And then I came back later yet. And he was still there. And so I left. And that's where I'm at today. I clearly can't return and try some more on and try to buy them from that man. It's not so much that he won't let me, but he's just an enemy now, and I'm vowing, with Larry David as my witness, to uphold this spontaneous grudge against this low-level retail worker abusing his power. It's a matter of principle, dammit.

There's another similar predicament, but I'm running out of time on this computer, so I'll have to save that for another day, of which there will be plenty, as I ain't got nothing to do.