Fish Massage

No, not part of the ping pong show you dirty dirty girl...
All over the big cities in Thailand are shops that have these fish tanks out front. They're full of little yellow fish. For about 3 dollars you can put your feet in for 15 mins and the little water breathers will swarm your feet like crazy little pirannas. The deal is that the eat dead skin.

Well on day 2 of my trip to Kho phi phi I neglected to sunscreen my feet. They burned horribly, to the point they blistered. Yesterday, when I decided to come to Cambodia, I had to book a train. Once you book with an agency someone delivers the ticket. So, with a half hour to kill, and feet that were peeling like a single mom with a Coke problem, I said what the hell.
I tell the lady at the travel agency/scooter rental/fish brothel that I want to try. So she washes my feet, gives me some flippies, I paddle on over to the aquarium of horrors and dunk in my shoe trees.
Well my friends, I was attacked. My feet were enveloped in a school, nay! a swarm of fish. At first it was not really pleasant. It was a very strange almost electric sensation. But then it felt good, real good. It was like having hundreds of little fingers massaging your tootsies.
People walking by gave me strange looks. Apparently moaning in ecstasy while getting, quite literally, eaten by fish is taboo. I just said " fuck you! You can't judge me! If fish foot love is wrong I don't want to be right!"
Actually I politely said "yeah it's weird at first but it feels kinda nice, you should try it" but I had ire in my heart, don't doubt it!!

After 20 mins the girl came back with my ticket and I had to give up my life of sub aquatic piedal decadence. For now.

The day I realized I was george Castanza

I think I was 32 and I found myself living in my parents basement. It was good arrangement, I could live for free with my folks to save up enough money to buy my own place, in exchange I walked and cleaned up after the dogs,  cut the grass in the summer, shoveled the walk in the winter.

Wait a minute...winter? This was supposed to be a six month thing, not a situation that lasts more than one season. That's when I took a good long hard in the mirror. You're going bald Luke...you're overweight, you drive a POS 99 cavalier. You wear glasses. You hate your job,  you're going out with a girl you're just not that into (even though she's really cool and you have alot in common and she's fun to be around up for anything, and you're no prize yourself mister, what the hell's wrong with you dude?!), and, wait for it...you live with your parents.

I saw George Costanza in the mirror. I could hear his old gym teacher screaming "Can'tstandya, Can'tstandya!" I could see the neurotic tickings  in his bulbous cranium. This is bad.

So I found a new job. Broke up with the girlfriend., started working out again (Cause I was single now and I had to get in top condition to attract some high quality arm candy, right?). I was going to get back on course.

Now, if this was a commercial for a weightloss/life coach program infomercial, I'd have before and after pics. But alas no...there was no dramatically life changing effects on my life; but at least I had a plan. It was a good plan. Move forward, jackass!

So here we are, 2 and a half years later. I'm 35, and I'm still George Castanza. But I'm a better George. I'm the George that's getting a job with the Yankees! Tomorrow's my last day at work. Rented out the house I managed to scrape up enough cash to buy. In 5 days I'll be landing in Thailand. 40 days after that I start working on a new career in Australia. But more about that later. But I will tell you this right now...This is the summer of GEORGE!