Friday.

Currently sitting inside the coffee shop, which I almost never do. Overstimulation Central. Bright lights, loud music, people talking. Not the vibe I’m looking for today.

Usually I prefer to sit outside and watch the street. Unfortunately, the Dump Truck came to China and brought a cloud of terrible weather with him. It’s been raining cats and dogs down here in Hong Kong since he showed up.

Coincidence? I think not.

The rainy weather always takes my energy out of me. I have spent most of the last 48 hours in bed as a direct result. Most of my time was spent sleeping and watching a Japanese TV series on Netflix called “Straight to Hell” about a famous fortune teller and her climb to the top. I love her, I hate her, I kind of want to be her, but I also don’t agree with half of the shit she does. It is what it is.

I went out on Wednesday night, much to my regret. I did not find any interesting stories, so I came home early. In my drunken mind, I decided it was a good idea to knock on my neighbor’s door and offer him a can of body spray called “Beach.” You know, because he looks like a Ken Doll and Ken’s job is Beach. Right. Logical to me, not so logical to him. It was my way of trying to thank him for all the help he’s given me over the last few months.

It did not go well. He opened the door and was so rude to me that I was genuinely shocked by his behavior. Talk about two-faced! Wow! He basically told me to fuck off and slammed the door in my face. Again, shocking. That was not the same person I’ve been speaking to on the rooftop. Crazy.

At first I took it personally, but then I remembered he’s an Actor. He has a “Process.” What I did was basically the equivalent of knocking on the door to his trailer while he’s in the middle of his “Process.” He’s probably busy “looksmaxxing” (or whatever it is the kids say these days). He has a very strict routine he has to do to get into his roles, you know? If he doesn’t follow it, he can’t do his job. It is what it is.

Still not an excuse to be a total dick to me for no reason whatsoever, though.

Anyway, I felt my attraction to him vanish pretty much immediately after that. There goes my Slow Burn! Dammit! I was really looking forward to being cornered in the stairwell and “absolutely wrecked.” Alas!

He told me who he was, and I believe him. He does not play the romantic leads in Western movies. He plays the bad guys in Chinese movies. It is what it is.

That’s okay with me! I need a good villain! He can team up with my other British Guy from Bangkok. Birds of a villainous feather flock together! I can already envision this in my head.

So that happened, and now we’ve learned why we don’t fuck our colonizers! Okay! No more British Lads, regardless where in the former Empire they were raised. Same shit, different colony. It is what it is.

Learning new things every day.

Gotta love it.

Okay, enough about my many men. I have real issues to deal with, like visas and moving and paid jobs that are not materializing even though I desperately need one. I don’t know how anyone in charge actually expects anyone to make it in this day and age. It’s especially frustrating watching a show like “Straight to Hell,” which is another version of the “Baby Boomer Climbs to The Top of the Ladder” myth. Yes, they climbed to the top, then they pulled it up behind them. Shitty.

I do love her whole attitude about wanting to start her own business so she is no longer beholden to anyone. Nice idea, right? Oh, except for the part where she gets conned out of all of her money and property by some hottie with a body, gets taken as a slave by his big old non-yakuza gangster boss, then ends up dating an actual yakuza boss to free herself from slavery.

Lol, just a little flaw in the plan right there…

Sadly, I have no talent for business, at least that I know of. If I had any sense of it, I would already have one. Instead I’m just running around SEA, collecting men like Pokémon cards in some sort of effort to become a writer.

The only explanation I have for my behavior right now is “Arrested Development.” This is exactly what I would have been doing had my parents allowed me to move to Los Angeles like I wanted to when I was 27 years old. But no. That wasn’t allowed, so I had to stay in a small town in the middle of nowhere in bumfuck South Dakota, where there were zero opportunities, and do nothing and date no one.

I seriously have no idea what my parents were thinking. Honestly, I don’t think they were. My dad was in active opioid addiction and my mother was on some combination of alcohol/allergy medication/god knows what else. All they ever did was yell and scream and fight with each other. If I asked for anything or needed anything, I got screamed at too.

This is how I ended up living in downtown Verm, writing about Bloody Mary’s Bar, being put through a mass hazing and harassment campaign by some psycho bar owner and his little cult of followers dedicated to protecting rapists, abusers, predators, and pedos from evil feminist bitches like me. Good job, guys! You really SHOWED me I was wrong!

What a joke, lol.

Anyway, I am here now, as I continue to remind myself. I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to be functional and normal instead of just embracing the freedom and running around the world like I could be.

Just kidding, I can’t do that. Nope. I have a paperwork issue of urgent need. My mother heard this and was THRILLED that she finally had another chance to sabotage me! This is what she does. I have like 25 years of documentation of her doing shit like this. If it involves me needing paperwork of some sort in order to secure my freedom, she will find a way to sabotage it. Why is she like this? I don’t know. But I do know I can’t fix it or change it, so hopefully after this round, I will finally be free of her bullshit and able to act fully on my own.

This is the only thing motivating me right now: I need a job so I can finally be independent from her. I am 37 years old. I should not be fighting with this woman over my friggin’ birth certificate. I shouldn’t have to worry about her stealing my mail or doing my taxes without permission. I shouldn’t have to call her asking if I can get a new phone. None of this is normal. Why does she think it’s normal?

Furthermore, why are so many people siding with and enabling this woman’s abusive behavior? It’s insane the way she manipulates people. You are not the victim of your evil, selfish daughter, Karen. You’re an abuser. You’ve been abusing me my whole life. That’s literally why I moved to the other side of the planet. I wanted to get the fuck away from you.

She plays this game where she’ll be screaming at me, “You’re an ADULT! You have CHOICES!” But then she directly interferes with my paperwork and sabotages me and actively prevents me from being an actual adult. Then she gets everyone to pile onto me about “not acting like an adult.” Literally, all you had to do was give me a pile of paperwork 15 years ago and none of this would have ever happened. But no, you didn’t want to do that. You wanted to put on a show and play a game and ruin my life so you could get attention.

Ugh. No wonder I can’t think straight sometimes. How can I find stability when I’m still being controlled by people who do not have my best interests at heart? I’m so exhausted right now. I don’t know how to get out.

I’m angry at myself that the job I took in Hong Kong didn’t work out. I am here a year later looking at my plan from last year and I’m just mad. I didn’t accomplish what I set out to accomplish, which was becoming fully financially independent from my abusive family. Why? Because I jumped from one abusive situation into another, which was the atmosphere of this company I worked for. I was just chum for the sharks, as they say here in Hong Kong. I was so desperate to escape my old situation that I dived right into a shark tank without looking. Luckily, I made it out alive, but still…

I’m still in the same position I was before, only now I’m running out of time and money. I still haven’t made any progress on the job thing. I just can’t stand the idea of being used and exploited like that again. I’m so over it.

All I know is that I never want to be beholden to anyone else ever again. I wanted to be free of my family forever. I don’t want anymore ties to them. I wanted to be in control of my own destiny for once in my life.

Unfortunately, it feels like the only thing I know how to do is put my words to paper. I can’t offer the world anything else beyond that. I thought there was something to this teaching English and/or Yoga thing, but there isn’t. It’s just more exploitation in return for table scraps. I’m over it.

I’m so lost right now. I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I just want money, a room of my own, and the freedom to write forever. How do I acquire that? I don’t know. By manifestation and the law of attraction and magic, I guess?

If I were smart and had no morals, I would just start my own yoga cult. That’s where all the money is! Unfortunately for me, I don’t think like that. I don’t look at vulnerable people struggling with mental illness and think, “How can I exploit them for ca$$$h money, baby?” I will never be like that. I’m proud not to be like that.

Well, that’s how I end up getting conned into giving out free sex work services by handsome Russian men, isn’t it? I am too innocent and too pure of heart. I’m swimming in shark-infested waters right now and I don’t even know what kind of sea creature I am. How can I thrive if I don’t know who I am? Am I shark? An octopus? A starfish? A dolphin? A turtle? A seal? I don’t know.

Maybe I should go see a fortune teller…

Yes, that’s it. I’ll go and see a fortune teller. Surely that will fix everything!

Off to go home and finish that TV show now.