nugget

Benders have three aspects; the heroic, the comic and the pathetic.

Most benders last, at best a long weekend. I have a friend who's now been running through one for about three weeks. It started in Harbin and has stertched down to at least Shandong province. He has cycled through the three aspects multiple times, sometimes multiple times in the same day. He has become a magnet for trouble, violent russians and strangers. He has grown stories about himself: not actual things he remembers, but bits that others have told him that he did. His memory has gone out of his head and into the collected stories of his friends, then back into his head again.

I am impressed and frightened for him. He has had a lot of fun and his life has slipped out of his hands. He has been run ragged by drugs and hangers on. He has the look of someone who needs to sit quietly for a few days. He looks like a man haunted by too much noise and too many emotions.

I hope he has a soft landing.