Could you have said it better yourself? In this English-as-ideogram restaurant sign in Bangkok, you've got the whole post-cancer proposition nicely stated. If I eat, I am and, by the way, if we eat together, we are. I think of Hugh Gilmore's column, The Enemies of Reading and wonder about the enemies of eating*.
There are no fat people here in Thailand except for the anglo-saxons at my hotel. I feel less wraith-like when I walk down the street. I see the skinny legs and bony shoulders as adaptations, not ruinations. But still, my neck pokes out of my collar like the straw out of a drink and my legs look barely strong enough to keep the ground from rising up and crushing me. It's not as bad as it sounds, I mostly handle the feeling by not looking.
"Practice swallowing" the speech therapist said. In English Mandarin-Mandish? Englarin?-she'd say "Swallow Swallow.", although I'm not sure if we use periods in English Mandarin or if perhaps we need a comma.
"Gulp Be Long" I say.
*you can read Gilmore at enemiesofreading.blogspot.com
I'm reading Hugh's blog- thanks for directing me to it. It took me a minute to *get* the title!
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