Wednesday. Sitting at the coffee stand. Watching the world pass me by. Not feeling quite as lost as I used to feel when I was here before in Thailand. Hong Kong has truly been a stabilizing force in my life. I would like more of that energy, please.

I haven’t been going out very much due to lack of energy, but I finally ventured out last night. The American Bar has become much less exciting than it used to be. All of my favourite characters are gone. I have moved on. It just doesn’t quite hold that spark of interest for me that I had prior. I appreciate the fact that it was there for awhile to help me work through my Bloody Mary’s karma. It definitely achieved that particular end goal.

Instead, I was sitting alone with my Chang, stewing over my Hong Kong real estate situation. As you can see, I am clearly in Bangkok because I have a place to reside here that I like and is quite comfortable for me. However, I do not have the same in Hong Kong (yet). I am quite tired of always feeling so unstable. Real estate is rapidly becoming my latest obsession. Forget all of these stupid men! I need a house!

Nothing very interesting took place there last night at all. I thought back to Friday night when I suddenly had to leave. I am sure that someone dropped kratom in my drink. I’m sure of it. It has a very strong, very specific effect on me that alcohol does not have. Mainly the hallucinogenic effects.

I can only assume whoever did it did it because they thought it would be a funny joke. Maybe they were trying to get me to leave on purpose. Maybe they were trying to teach me a lesson. I don’t know what their end goal was, but for me… I just went back to my apartment and hallucinated that I was trapped inside of a giant vat of honey. It wasn’t the worst night I’ve ever had. It definitely could have much worse.

Kratom isn’t really that hard on me, in spite of the fact that it makes me vomit every single time. Otherwise I imagine stupid bloody English wankers as lost Roman soldiers and see the Loch Ness Monster swimming around in my drink. Generally, pretty harmless. Well, not sure the whole escapade with the British Guy was harmless. He was a pretty big jerk.

With the magic mushrooms, I have to set up the room so it’s a safe space, follow the peer-reviewed experiment directions exactly, and make sure I keep the trauma map of my brain handy to safely guide me through the nightmarish process of confronting the dark parts of my past.

Funny to think that is exactly what I was doing a year ago today. Not I am here, in Asia, which is absolutely fucking wild to me. And I’m just casually getting drugged at a bar and laughing about it like it’s funny. Well, it is Thailand, and I have been hanging around several men of questionable character, so yeah, whatever. It is what it is.

I also have to wonder if my spa treatment that day directly contributed to the honeycomb effect. I did a 2-hour treatment including a steam bath, body scrub, aromatherapy massage, hot stone, and intensive head/shoulder/back massage. So I was already in a semi-sedated state. The alcohol, weed, and kratom together just pushed me into a fully melted state.

Now I know how all of these guys get stuck in Thailand for so long. I’ve figured out the secret. They out here trapping scorpions with honey and frying them on a stick. I totally get it now. I see what they did there.

The good news is that our dear friend “Uncle Carl,” as we will call him, aka Mr. Antony’s Friend, has left me alone since that night. Last week when I came back, he was all up in my grill. This week he has significantly backed the hell off, which is great. Like, yeah, I heard your complaint, responded accordingly, then took your little “joke” with my head held up high and didn’t let you intimidate me with your wanksta shit. Bitch, you can’t fuck with me. I’m an American. I have American friends and allies. You don’t get to mess with me anymore.

Yeah, you can tell yer man (as they say in Ireland, apparently) that he can complain directly to my face if he’s really unhappy. We’ll see if his complaint is valid. I don’t think it is. After all, I was 100% honest with him up-front about who and what I am, and he chose to lie directly to my face. Why would I want to do anything nice for him?

So what if he was a good kisser? So what if he probably looks really good in a cozy sweater on a rainy day? So what if he made me feel the same as eating a bowl of hot beef stew?

In hindsight, his personality was not great! He was definitely a jerk to me all night. He was all up in my beeswax, treating me with so much suspicion and asking me endless questions. He didn’t laugh at any of my jokes. He kept scoffing at me and walking away. I had absolutely no inkling that he was just going to come outside and march around the corner and just take me into his arms like… wow.

Anyway, yeah, he’s a jerk. Anyway, we have a whole island full of hot Irish beefcakes to search for someone more worthy of our poetry. Not some low-down, lying, cheating, dirty dog. He’s a lying liar who tells lies and he deserves whatever karma he gets from acting in such a rakish manner. The end.

Glad we put that story to bed. Here I thought the new season of Bridgerton would be more exciting, but honestly the first episode put me to sleep. I need to just book a one-way ticket to Ireland and live my best Hallmark Channel Original Movie life. Lads for days. Grand. Just grand. I’ll be churning out the endless holiday schmaltz for decades.

Okay, I need to stop thinking about all of this and focus on my quest for actual real things… like a career change and a significantly investment in real estate.

Finding love? Impossible. Landing on Boardwalk-Park Place and building glamorous 5-star Art Deco-style hotels on top? Much more realistic. That’s always been my winning strategy at the game of Monopoly we call life. Now, if only I had a little Scottish terrier to accompany me on my journey…

Off we go. Much to do today…