Happy New Years to Your Face

I'm staying in tonight to eat cheesecake and catch up on Season 5 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. If the mood strikes, I may also start Deadwood; I just finished Sons of Anarchy Season 2, so I'm due for another drama. As far as I'm concerned, this is a pretty excellent way to bring in 2010.

Happy New Year to all. Let there be none of this:

I will likely write some reflective drivel tomorrow, as I do; it keeps my sleep regular.

It Must be That Time of Year

I've reached that point in my stunted emotional development where I start to think that coming back would be a good idea. It really wouldn't be. At least, not without trying something else first. I know that. Still. It would be nice if what is best would coordinate with what is easy for once.

Nata Tat and The Ajusave

Aside from my weekend trip to Jeju Island, which I will post about later this week, nothing of note has happened to me lately. Something of note did happen to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, so I'm going to tell her story, in the way that I tell all stories - by making them all about me.

About a year and a half ago, I was nearly involved in a violent incident on the subway. I like to think that I was this close to just Ending some drunken scum who harassing me, but in reality I was likely closer to either getting my ass kicked or arrested. Thankfully, there was a magical Super Ajumma to save me from both myself, and that tragic waste of carbon and oxygen that was the Soju Man. Since that day, ajummas have pretty much been my favorite people (that is, until I moved to Seomyeon and started hating absolutely everybody).

While I've read quite a few horrific stories of this sort (and worse) on the Internet, until a couple of weeks ago my subway encounter was the worst of this nature that I'd heard first hand. Then, a friend of mine decided to put my weak look-what-almost-happened version of events to shame. I'm going to call her Nata Tat, because she totally digs that.

Nata Tat was riding the subway to Hadan (which may as well be on another planet) from Seomyeon (which shouldn't be on any planet). This usually takes her something like 45 minutes, calls for a book, and is an uneventful ride. Unless Drunk finds you.

Around 1pm, a charmingly drunk fellow stumbled into Nata Tat's subway car, cause that's just how some folks like to start their day. Personally, whenever drunk garbage stumbles into my space, I'm immediately on edge, with clenched fists and a readiness to break. Consider this the result of two years of regular harassment at the hands of random drunk men. Or an unhealthy reaction stemming from my broken psyche. Whatever it is, Nata Tat and I don't do crazy in the same way. She probably would have barely noticed him and continued with whatever thought it was she was having at the time, had Drunk not decided that she had a target on her cheek.

When the charming drunk fellow stumbled over to Nata Tat to scream in her face and follow it up with a full arm white trash style smack across the cheek, her reaction was what I would expect from most - shock. The man was set to continue berating her, when out of nowhere jumped in Super Ajumma, ready to save the day. With her gigantic purse, Super Ajumma whacked the man into submission, following it up with a verbal assault that had him in tears. Before Nata Tat could even piece together what the crap had just happened, she was being ushered into the special seating by the Super Ajumma, who's purpose in life is, seemingly, to make ours just a little bit safer.

Sadly, Nata Tat did not have a black eye to back up her story. Her word was enough, of course, if for no other reason than absolutely none of her tale was even remotely unbelievable. Of course there was a repugnantly drunk man on the subway at 1pm. Of course he decided to target the only foreigner on the train. And of course there was a wonderful, strong woman willing to stand up for what is right and smack the shit out of his pitiful existence. This is where we are.

The Ajusave. It's a thing. Cherish it.