Monday morning. Sitting here in my favourite little cafe, watching the street traffic pass me by as I enjoy my favourite coffee in Bangkok. This truly is a perfect morning. It helps that everyone here is on the same vibe. All of us are just chillin’, watching the street, enjoying a nice, quiet, peaceful morning.

Just the start I need to my week. I need to get back into serious business mode, whatever that even is. I tell myself I can be this person because I believe in the phrase “fake it till you make it.” I did the same thing with being a “digital nomad.” Now I’m here in Bangkok. Life can and will surprise you if you let it.

British Guy never re-appeared. I have now been forced to label him a “distraction” and come up with an elaborate story to explain his absence. We’re going with sinkhole on this one. Yep, that’s right, one day he was just walking along and then pow! The earth just caved right in from underneath him and swallowed him whole. There was no warning. It was simply just an unexpected tragedy. The real tragedy being the part where I did not get laid.

Alas. Can’t win them all, or in my case, ever.

I decided to make myself feel better by taking a trip to the American Bar to see what kind of people go out on Sundays. It was pretty dead. Just three American dudes who kept making snide comments about “dumb girls” when they thought I wasn’t listening. Really I just didn’t want to get roped into “7-Shot Sunday,” or whatever game they were playing with the Fireball, so I pretended to ignore them the entire time. One of them started calling me “Starfish,” because I had a starfish clip in my hair. He would keep muttering, “Hey Starfish, you wanna shot? Of course you don’t. You’re soooo lame.”

Am I lame, or am I just old and tired and stewing over some idiot who fell into a sinkhole and disappeared off the face of the earth, probably so he could hang out with some girl who will inevitably require payment from him? Hmm, gee, I wonder.

I also had no interest in speaking to them because their talk of “dumb girls” was immediately followed by generic chatter that gave me the immediate impression that they are, in fact, actually the dumb ones. I did not have the patience to engage with lower beings than myself.

Finally I got tired of the weird passive-aggression of being addressed as “Starfish” by a total stranger, so I turned to him in the middle of his conversation about digital nomad investment schemes and said, “Don’t do the one in South Dakota. It’s a terrible place full of terrible people. Don’t park your money there, don’t buy any property, don’t make any investments of any kind. I spent way too much time living there, so now I feel the need to warn you about what kind of place it is. It all looks very nice and shiny on the surface, but underneath is a darkness you cannot even fathom is real. Don’t do it. It’s a shithole. It’s just not worth it.”

He looked very shocked and said, “Oh, so you were listening.”

I just rolled my eyes and said, “Always.”

Then he followed up by asking me if I “ever miss doing cocaine.” I was like, “Ew, no. I tried it one time and it was not for me. It just makes people more annoying even faster.” He seemed very offended by this, but that’s not my problem. If there’s one group of people in this world who have zero self-awareness, it’s people who do cocaine. They are so annoying. They don’t even know how annoying they actually are.

So clearly I was already not into this conversation, but he just kept taking it to increasing levels of ridiculous that I wasn’t entertained by at all. Mostly, it was him saying dumb things and me correcting them, which is honestly just becoming really fucking boring for me this point.

He then offered to buy me a drink, but I didn’t want another one, so naturally he went into defense mode and was playing the “I was just trying to be NICE” game with me. Right, I get that, but I’ve already had two big Changs, and I don’t want any more, so you can be as “nice” as you want, but the answer is still no.

I wasn’t really interested in being called a “dumb bitch who doesn’t want to have fun” by some moron who thinks South Dakota is in the Southern US because it has the word “South” in its name, so I just got up and left. He seemed very put off by my behavior, but I really didn’t care. As I said, I was busy stewing over the man who fell off the face of the earth.

Regardless, there you have it. My point proves itself once again. This is exactly what I’m talking about. Male attention is the most infinite resource on the planet. As soon as one drops off the face of the earth, another one instantly appears to take his place. It is the law of the universe. We’re calling it “Betsey’s Law” from now on, lol.

Okay, so, back to being professional, whatever that even means. What am I doing? I have no idea, but it’s a good thing there are currently no men around to distract me. Let’s see. Right now my plan is to live here in Bangkok for the next 55 days and use this time to find a new job and/or write something substantial. As I have learned, stability counts for something. So right now I am stable, and therefore I need to use it to my advantage. First comes the stability, then comes the motivation. So the theory goes.

So the theory goes…

Now I am just sitting here waiting for inspiration to strike. Any minute now…

Well, the good news is that it seems I got more out of the yoga course than I thought I did. I basically used it to dump off a bunch of difficult, complicated emotional shit related to my family and my grief over my dad’s death and all the negative experiences I had in South Dakota and Hong Kong. I definitely feel more calm and peaceful than I did the last time I sat here in this exact spot, which was about two months ago at this point. I don’t feel so scattered anymore. There’s more of sense of acceptance in place. It’s very much a feeling of, “It is what it is.”

It is what it is. All of this ridiculous crap we go through in life. It is what it is. All we can really do is sit here and enjoy our coffee and watch the world pass us by.

They say all the Western expats over here in SEA are running away from something. Some try to tell themselves they’re running towards something new, but it is the same. Same, same. We are all here just running away.

At least I am upfront with the fact that I ran away. I ran the fuck away. I waited my whole life to run away and I finally did it. I ran as far away from my whole crazy family and that fucking miserable shithole South Dakota as I could. I don’t regret it at all. I have no home to return to anymore.

Now I am not running away anymore. I faced down the monsters from my past and made peace with them. The question at present here today is, “Now what?”

Now what? Now what?

We don’t know. As far as I am concerned, I am content to sit in this cafe and watch the world pass me by.

Okay, well, no inspiration yet. Just chill cafe vibes only. Watching the street traffic pass by. It is what it is. I guess this is what the universe has in mind for me right now…

Just going to chill here and join the Thai collective in staring off into space with a peaceful smile on my face. Catch you later!