Thursday.

How do I feel today? Well, I had a strange dream featuring an eel, which according to Google is some kind of dick metaphor. Makes sense. And then I woke up with the song “Do You Believe in Magic?” stuck in my head. Yes I do, actually. Yes I do.

Then I thought to myself, “I quite like this whole being Irish thing. Why did my dad have a meltdown at me for saying I was Irish when I was in third grade and scream at me not to tell anyone, ever, that I was Irish?”

This answer is actually funny. It’s 100% because of the mafia-gangster-IRA thing. Yeah. 100%. He actually did something at some point where he was working with the FBI going after the mob in Cleveland. I’m sure you can google the details. I only found out about it because a childhood friend told me at his funeral that he cut a deal with my dad for his family’s protection. Wild.

I don’t know. I guess the mafia was a big issue when my dad was growing up in Cleveland. All the mobs. Don’t ask me which ones. I’m unclear on the details, honestly. I never knew anything about what my dad did when I was growing up because he worked for the government. People in DC don’t talk about their work because they literally can’t. At least, that’s how it used to be, back when there was still some sense of respect and decorum. Now… well… let’s just say it’s a good thing he’s not alive to see the mess it’s become. Shameful.

So he grew up around the mob and swore revenge and then worked at the DOJ and took them all down. Good for him. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Anyway, that’s not really an issue for me, as you can clearly see by my friendship with this ex-IRA gangster. Is he an ex? The ex is questionable. I don’t know. I’ve only ever seen this person at “Craic,” as the Irish say. You know, hanging out at the bar with the lads, getting drunk and playing pool.

One time, he walked up to me when I was too fucked up to handle it, and started telling me stories about building bombs when he was 16 while listening to Michael Jackson. Half of me was like… I can’t handle this, and the other half was like, come back later with a list of questions and do a proper interview and give this person the chance to finally tell his story in his own words instead of letting google results and trashy tabloids do it for him. Like a reporter.

What can I say? I listen to rap music. I am used to listening to gangsters tell their stories. It is what it is. I am naive. I don’t understand any of this. I’m sheltered. This is exciting to me. It’s like how some people find liberation by doing drugs or getting a tattoo or hopping on a motorcycle.

That doesn’t do it for me. That’s boring. That’s what everyone does. It’s normal now. I need more than that. I need to find the most ridiculous people I possibly can and hang out with them so I can collect their stories. I don’t need drugs to make me weird or interesting. I just need to sit in a farang bar in Thailand and hang out with ex-gangsters. Are they even ex-gangsters? The ex is questionable at best. Like, I don’t want to see you commit violence against another person directly in front of me, and I definitely don’t condone it, but I will listen to you tell me about it later. Like a reporter.

It’s not a romance thing. At this point, I truly feel like that would be the equivalent of banging my cousin. Big No-No. My ancestors didn’t leave Ireland so they could continue marrying their cousins. They wanted to spread that gene pool way out. Why do you think my grandma married a brown man? Exactly.

It’s more like… an adrenaline thing? Like, I could do ketamine, or I could hang out with the IRA and write a story about it later. Only one of these options is going to get me where I personally need to go. Guess what? It’s not the ketamine. Fuck that shit. Drugs are for boring people with no imagination. Not my thing.

Alcohol is enough for me. Marijuana is medicine. So are magic mushrooms, which I only used briefly to help me clear up some deep-set trauma. I replicated an experiment I read in a legitimate medical journal when I did that. It worked. I wish I could have been part of a legitimate study because I think my experience would really help other people A LOT. Good thing I’m a writer and wrote it all down as it was happening. Like a reporter.

I don’t need anything else. I really don’t.

I’m a spoiled princess in so many ways. My dad sheltered me from reality. I was raised in the suburbs, then I had to move to a small town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I wasn’t allowed to go away to university. They limited my ability to travel. They did not let me out of the house. I just had to stay at home and take care of the baby and read.

So is it any surprise to anyone that the first chance I got to get the fuck out of this prison-like tower I was being held captive in, I went totally fucking wild? No. It’s not. Of course I was running around Thailand like a Farang Gone Wild. That makes total sense.

Well, that part is over now. Now I need to be serious and find a job before I run out of money in the most expensive city in the world. Nightmare fuel. I would very much like to not be homeless. Real thing.

Sadly all I can focus on right now is the fact that my manicure has grown out and I need to get a new one. No one is going to hire a woman with a bad manicure. Presentation is everything. Don’t be sloppy.

I need to find a cheap Thai salon, fast. Good thing they are literally all over the place here. There’s like five within a three block radius of my apartment. Let’s get that done.

I’m sure you’re wondering… Betsey, do you remember writing that weird blog post last night about faeries and magic? You’re goddamn right I do. No regrets. I actually feel much better now. This solution works for me. This is the answer I needed, okay? Sorry it’s not what you want, but I have to do what I need. And what I need is to believe in magic.

I am not an atheist. I am not interested in being lectured about atheism. If you want to believe in nothing, that’s on you. You have the freedom to believe whatever you want. But you don’t get to tell other people their beliefs are stupid or hold yourself up as superior. No one is interested in listening to that depressing shit. “Nothing happens when you die, blah blah blah, you just go into a hole in the ground and that’s it. There are no ghosts, no spirits, no magic, no supernatural entities of any sort, blah blah blah.”

Yeah, I used to think like that too, but I don’t anymore. I’ve seen some really strange things in my life that I cannot explain. Ghosts, spirits, tulpas, visions, things that are definitely not a coincidence, witchcraft, shapeshifters, voodoo, reincarnation, etc etc etc! I do believe in something. I really do. I have every right to believe in that. If you can’t come with me on that, then don’t. You can chill over there and believe in nothing. Just know that I personally don’t want to hear about it. You don’t get to tell me that my dead dad and Irish grandma and Mad Dog aren’t with me every day, because they are. They are with me every day. I believe in magic because I know that it’s real.

The end!