Pick up the gun to provide justification
Rewrite the narratives of provocation
Pick up the gun needed as your defence
For the war to start at your expense

Pick up the gun for hellfire to be rained
The Eagle’s game is easily explained
Pick up the gun, even take a swing
Either way will change something

Pick up the gun, it’s a dragon poke
What’s the plan if failed to provoke?
Put down the gun, desist and cease
Accept the differences for lasting peace

inspired by the titular Bill Hicks routine as a comment on current affairs in geopolitics

Today I’m feeling:

Happy, relaxed and contented.

Today I’m grateful for:

Uncle at the bike repair shop for fixing my flat tyre again. I seem to be here every six months for a new inner tube. He usually pulls some piece of metal out of it. Today I can see the tube has shredded and the tyre is fucked too!

The best thing about today was:

Hanging out with Bruno at Utopia and then Daytripper. His English is getting worse these days as he doesn’t speak much with anyone else apart from me. We talked about a lot of different things and it was good to catch up.

Although I don’t really have any steam to blow off it’s good just to get random thoughts shared with other people. I don’t need to be in people’s business every day and catching up once or twice a month is enough for me.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

On the way to Daytripper, I could feel a problem with my back tyre particularly as I went around corners and as we left a little later I could feel it getting worse so I headed off to the petrol station to fill it with air. As it was filling I heard a pop and it wouldn’t fill anymore.

I rode at 5mph back to the uncle near my place who laughed a little when he saw the tyre. He immediately indicated it wasn’t just the tube but the tyre was fucked too, probably from me just riding it there. Ok ok, it’s gotta be fixed.

He got to work and showed the inner tube which had completely split. We laughed.

A few minutes and 600 baht later I was on my way again. It’s been an expensive start to the month. Some things have just got to be done though.

My shirts are waiting one more day to be ironed though!

Something I learned today?

I saw a video suggesting the EU has dropped sanctions against Russia, against the wishes of the USA. I haven’t looked further yet to verify but it comes as a bit of a shock if true.

Really, is this something that was worth learning?

I think I’ve learned something more worthwhile today, something more directly involved with my life. These things are small specks of information and knowledge that accumulate over time into something with a more concrete form.

Chatting with various people picks up random information that may be useless or inconsequential at this moment in time but may build into a deeper understanding of things locally or culturally. Just asking people about other coffee shops to check puts information into knowledge banks. Information that may never be used or one day when riding around I recognise a spot and can say, hmm someone recommended that.

Some useless things may become useful.

World news whilst stimulating may just remain useless.

How do I feel right now?

A little tense in my legs, not sure I will sleep well tonight. I may be tense because I wanted to get my shirts ironed today but I ended up playing guitar instead, knowing I have another free day tomorrow to get at least some of them ironed; although there’s nothing stopping me from doing them all except laziness!

I feel good after talking with Bruno and seeing other people around at Utopia and Daytripper and stimulated enough not to take a nap.

I have a plan for tomorrow. I think I’ll ignore my alarm, grab coffee, come home and iron and then head to Daytripper to do some blogging and lesson planning. I’m hoping perhaps by writing this here I will stick to it!