Why do I always end up remembering this blog at airports?
Have snuck into an Executive Lounge in Bangkok Airport to use the free computers and leather couches. A room of Thai Silk Purple and buffalo-hide brown in the monotonous grey mega-structure.
Spent the last 6 days in Malaysia fighting a corrupt and archaic system rooted in mock-honor and post-colonial legal clutter to extricate a family member from a prison camp where he had been accidentally detained. A teenager sleeping on a termite-riddled floor shared by 300 tired and beaten Indonesians, Pakistanis, Indians and Thai. All because the wrong papers got filed in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Malaysia. Truly Asia. In every sense.
Now here I am, trying to not get noticed in the VIP lounge, taking a break from reading the new Bill Gibson.
I just realized: I’m a Pakistani journalist/stand-up comic, sitting a few miles outside Bangkok, on my way home after spending a week looking up at the Petronas Towers. My hand carry is full of new graphic novels and I’m listening to a Podcast conversation between comedians in L.A.
I think it’s time start working on that Sci-fi book I’ve been thinking of for the last year or two. Because despite all the weird cool stuff in my life, I’m still flying back to a Pakistan where a suicide bomb killed 22 police men yesterday. The present is to exhausting for me to handle anymore. Time to move on to the future.
