[marches in with a megaphone chanting The Guillotine by The Coup in general protest of literally everything going on back home]
Hey you!
We got your war!
We’re at the gates!
We’re at your door!
Hey you!
We got your war!
We’re at the gates!
We’re at your door!
We got the guillotine!
We got the guillotine!
You better run!
We got the guillotine!
We got the guillotine!
You better run!
—————
Wednesday. Sitting in the park having a coffee and a cigarette. Classic French breakfast right here.
Love my apartment, love my neighborhood, but definitely feeling a little isolated right now. That’s okay. I’m used to it. Better than daily run-ins with some wannabe Nazi gym bro who feels the need to remind me that “men re superior to women because they’re physically stronger” every time I see him. Ugh.
That reminds me, I did some research on the “haunted tower” I was staying in and discovered that yes, it is indeed haunted! The locals and expats who have been here for awhile that I’ve spoken to have all told me that the tower collapsed during construction about six people died there. Every single person I talked to said they feel a super weird vibe when they walk past it. I was just sitting there like… I knew it.
I knew it because of the weird vibes, the weird dreams, the weird “behavior” of the elevators, and the constant feeling of being “drained,” there was some negative entity in there feeding off of my energy. Turns out I was right. I should start my own Ghosthunting YouTube since this is like, the 10th haunted place I’ve stayed in.
Did I mention that Thai culture is super big on ghosts? Oh yeah. I love it. I am all about ghosts and spirits and weird energies in the world. In the U.S., if you say you suspect a place is haunted, there’s a 50/50 chance that the person you are speaking to will either think you are “crazy” or they will totally be on-board with everything you’re saying and tell you a few ghost stories of their own. Personally, I prefer the people who share their ghost stories. I guess I’m just pretty sick of people calling me “crazy” in general.
Oh that reminds me, did anyone see this cartoon of Kristi Noem going on a mass shooting spree of puppies? I didn’t watch it because that’s too much for me, but I laughed at the article describing it. Finally, someone is on to how fucked up this person really is and how fucked up the place she comes from really is. It’s too bad they’re so focused on just her insanity. I’ve been saying for well over a decade that SD politics has some great characters to skewer. They’ve got governors who rape Natives and kill people while drunk driving, attorney generals who kill people while drunk driving and blame it on a deer, governors who kill puppies and goats for no reason other than being a straight-up sociopath, government workers who murder their families, burn down their house, and kill themselves after they get caught embezzling government funds meant for Natives and Special Education, and, of course, crazy, unhinged bar owners who have screaming meltdowns in the middle of the street.
Honestly, you’re missing out on a lot of high quality satire simply because your bubble is too small to clock that any of this is going on. Alas.
What I love is when SD people complain about the stereotypes people have of them, and then they elect people like this to represent them. Look at your life, look at your choices. You just don’t want to admit that the people you elect to represent you really do represent your people and culture accurately. You can’t take any kind of accountability for it, so you try to destroy people like me who document it. Pathetic.
Every day I am sooooooo grateful I left that shithole. “There are good people.” Where? All I see are a bunch of bitter, drunk assholes who constantly talk shit about each other and stab each other in the back over the dumbest fucking made-up imaginary shit. Malicious stupidity. I am not surprised that crazy bitch is running ICE. That state produces some real, world-class scumbags.
ANYWAY.
I have so many leftover feelings I’m still processing. Ugh. I HATED living there. I hated it. I especially hate it because I tried to like it and be open-minded and explore, but the people are so terribly that they made it impossible to find anything I liked about it. I was there 15 years and all I can really say about my experience was, “It sucked, but at least I got to visit multiple Indian Reservations and learn the true history of the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island. I learned so much from going to the Rez. Best experience of my life, truly, even when it was sad and frustrating and difficult. It was worth every minute.”
Sometimes I wish I could be one of those people who wanders through life feeling nothing, but then I realize those people are fucking sociopaths. I would rather sit here and feel my feelings and process my emotions, even if it can be painful and repetitive.
Okay, okay, enough about how much I hated SD. I’m still in Rip Van Winkle mode. Every day I wake up and I have to remind myself I’m in friggin’ Thailand now. Then I remember I’m not in Hong Kong, where I was supposed to be, and the cycle of feeling bad about myself starts up again. Ugh.
Anyway, got through 3/5 episodes of the Vietnam War documentary yesterday. I can honestly say I’ve never sat down in my entire life and watched the endless video footage from that war. This is a new experience for me. And wow, what a fucking fucked up clusterfuck it all was.
I just kept sitting there thinking to myself, “This is why men are too emotional and irrational to be in charge. It’s obvious they’re losing and this shit is going nowhere, and they’re all still sitting there stubbornly trying to wrack up as high of a ‘body count’ as possible to prove something to themselves. Funny how most of these dead bodies are women, children, babies, and the elderly. Wow. Look at what a big, strong man you are. So impressed by your ability to burn down villages and gang-rape innocent women and children. Who put you in charge again?”
It also explains so much about why Baby Boomers are all crazy fucked up in the head. Something about watching Dan Rather stick a microphone in a random soldier’s face during active combat while bombs are going off around them was particularly disturbing to watch. In my head, I kept hearing Mushu from Mulan screaming, “This is a WAR, man!”
War is so pointless and stupid. I am more convinced of this now than I ever have been in my entire life. It’s just an excuse for men to destroy things instead of going to therapy and dealing with their feelings. Nobody wins. Just a waste of time, money, resources, and perfectly good men who could be at home actively contributing something meaningful to society instead of acting like a bunch of Neanderthals playing with the fire they just discovered after a bolt of lightening struck a nearby tree.
But please, lecture me more about how women are inferior to disgusting creatures like this because we are “physically weaker” and “too delicate to think and make decisions.” Right, because someone like me who thinks and feels and studies and engages with the world even when I’m wrong is inferior to some beefcake who thinks they’re strong because they can shoot innocent babies sleeping in their cribs.
And what happens when these guys come back from war? They’re all fucked up in the head, they can’t get treatment for their PTSD, they get drunk and do drugs and get into fights and beat their waves and childre, and then they end up sleeping on the streets until they die of exposure. Because that is definitely the kind of Freedom they were sent over to “protect and defend.”
Stupid. Men are stupid. I’m so over these dumb think pieces about how they’re “struggling.” So what? Literally, so fucking what? Get a fucking therapist and learn how to deal with your emotions properly instead of blowing shit up and enslaving people you perceive as “weaker.” Maybe stop threatening to take away women’s right to vote just because you can’t get laid? Like, sorry your personality totally sucks and no one wants to fuck an ugly troglodyte who is stuck in the past. That sounds like a YOU problem, not a society problem. Time to learn the difference!
Ridiculous.
I’m really glad I’m watching this documentary at this juncture in time because it’s giving me a lot of perspective on my country and our place in the world. It’s good to constantly be examining history from new perspectives. Is it upsetting to watch? Oh yeah, it’s unbelievably horrific. It’s even worse to watch it and see how all the events lined up to lead us where we are right now. Incredibly disturbing watch. Highly recommend to all Americans, obviously. Know your history, even when it’s horrific and shameful and downright embarrassing.
We haven’t even gotten to Cambodia yet. Ugh. Terrible, terrible situation there. I remember studying that one in university. There is a strange narrative there now blaming Thailand for the “cultural destruction” of Cambodia, which is well-documented as being the result of the Khmer Rouge’s mass killing campaign. That’s what happens when you literally kill everybody in your country. There’s no culture or history anymore. All that’s left is the memory of piles of dead bodies dumped off in a rice paddy. It is what it is.
Weirdly enough, I think about going to Cambodia quite frequently; specifically to visit the genocide memorial and the Killing Fields. It feels like it’s important for me as an individual specifically to go there. Something is definitely drawing me there. I would like to go to pay my respects to the victims and pray for a brighter, peaceful future for the whole world.
I do want to visit Vietnam now as well. I have to be honest with you, for all the trips I’ve planned in my life, I never planned a backpacking trip around SEA. In my mind I thought, “Oh I’ll get over there someday” but then Hong Kong popped up and bam, now I’m here and it’s very unexpected. Now I’m starting to feel bad for bumming around Thailand when there’s so much more to see in SEA, lol.
Everyone is talking about Da Nang right now. It’s the new digital nomad hotspot. They must be running a tourism marketing campaign because I have been hearing about it non-stop for weeks now. Everyone is obsessed with Da Nang. Even my friend who works in humanitarian aid in Zimbabwe is planning a trip to Da Nang. Everyone wants to go to Da Nang. Now I want to go to Da Nang too.
I saw the pictures and I was like… wow, yes, this is beautiful! Show me your beauty, Vietnam. I want to see the beauty after watching this horrible war documentary. Show me how beautiful you really are. Okay, okay, I’ll go to Da Nang. Peer pressure achieved!
Don’t hate me for this, but I have to say it. Is it Da Nang, or is it Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang, girl, that beach is BEAUTIFUL!
Lol, sorry I couldn’t help myself. So dumb, I know. Sometimes I like to play with words for fun. I totally respect Vietnamese people and culture, you guys! And also… I’m sorry for the Vietnam War. None of these old men are going to apologize, so I’ll do it for them. Hashtag, diplomacy.
Okay, I need to leave my house today. I have shit to do before the Housekeeper comes tomorrow. Honestly, I think will just pay her extra to do my laundry for me because I’m too lazy to walk down the street and do it myself. Just like I’m too lazy to clean my own apartment. That’s why I’ve hired a professional to assist me with these tasks so I can focus on watching terrible war documentaries and writing motivational essays for the Peace Corps and updating my dumb blog that like, only 10 people hate-read out of spite so they can laugh at me when I fail.
I’ve never paid anyone to do my laundry for me. Usually I’m pretty controlling about doing my own laundry. Handing it off to a stranger to do for me feels super weird, but it’s also kind of symbolic in a way. It’s like… the clothes I wear are cheap and often come from discount sale racks and secondhand stores and random piles in the wholesale market, but they’re an important part of my identity and that’s why I go to great lengths to treat them a certain way. Now I am releasing this part of my identity and entrusting you, a person I am paying for your professional expertise, to launder them for me. I am giving up control. It’s okay.
As per usual, I am overthinking everything. I just feel like if I’m going to have a Housekeeper, I need to be treating them with the upmost respect and care. They’re a human being with thoughts, feelings, and a life outside of their job. They should be treated with dignity and respect, not as a slave who exists solely to do my bidding. I’m very concerned about this, you see, because I worked in the service industry for too long and now I make the extra effort not to treat anyone like they are lesser than me just because of their job.
Off now. My iPad battery is dying. Time to go finish the ugly war documentary that further proves my point that men ain’t shit. Ta ta!
————
UPDATE: I just finished episode 4 and I’m so disgusted I need to leave my apartment right now. Like I knew all of this before, yeah? I literally have a degree in History. But I took this class 15 years ago and now I’m watching today and Nixon looks like child’s play in comparison to the criminals we have in office. Ugh. Fuck this. I’m going to the American Bar for a grilled cheese and a round of karaoke with some old war vets who need to be drunk by noon for very obvious reasons.
I hate everything. Ugh. Time to go before I get even hangrier.