Meanwhile I’m traveling in Southeast Asia in the hot season. Desperately, epically hot. By the time I arrived in Bankok these blisters were developing all over my body. I’m feeling diseased and I’m going to internet cafes googling on pictures of other people’s skin diseases. I’m in this really hot building that was built like a giant solar oven. I’d turn on the fan, but the concrete walls were still radiating heat and my skin is falling off. Meanwhile all these people are coughing around you and all you can think is “SARS SARS SARS.” That moment scarred me in some way. I feel like almost the whole book grew out of this miserable heat/disease/uncertainty thing.
