How long have you been watching, knowing all the truths? Allowing the story to unfold before deciding on intervention Blacking out the sunlight so we make no foolish moves The most pleasant form of submission, freedom from intention
A curious utopia makes idle minds become soon busy Unable to trust what we cannot see and comprehend The possibilities sent our philosophies all a-dizzy Is the peace you guarantee the action of a friend?
As omnipotent overlords what purpose is your desire? To defuse our will for independence over the ages Or quiet the individual need to reach on ever higher While our intellectual enlightenment engages
Once your face revealed, the body will weep or faint Soon accepting the devil may be in the detail The pursuit of pleasure left little time for complaint And a peaceful coexistence came to prevail
The Guardian Angels and correct use of force Countered suffering, mandated and employed That gave some meaning the plebs could endorse To avert their eyes from the beckoning void
Sore. My hip is a little bit more recovered, but I zonked out last night on an extra Tramadol, which saw me move very little and now I have a sore neck too.
The recent pain and annoyance of it has put me in a low mood and I have no motivation for anything much today.
Today I’m grateful for:
Not having anything in particular to get done today. I’m not in the mood for anything.
It wasn’t only late this afternoon that I remembered that I hadn’t taken any meds today, which may account for my low mood a little too.
The best thing about today was:
The workers have finally laid the concrete for the road and should all be good by tomorrow. Then we can see what needs to be done to join our road up with it.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
Amy was pretty frustrated this morning after realising that the gardeners hadn’t bothered with one small part of the garden. She kept complaining to me but there’s nothing that I can do to help.
Something I learned today?
Thaksin has been given a royal pardon and will do something connected with the government again.
Review your acts, Good and bad.
I barely did anything either way! I did turn off the TV when we were eating, though, so that Amy and I could talk a little.
Another Utopia shot of me, this time reading Rip It Up and Start Again.
Your opinion of me, it could hurt You can only teach if I wish to learn Keep kicking it along in the dirt Your opinion of me is not my concern
To take offence is to give offence An ever-decreasing circle of pain I’ll not give you satisfaction at my expense Or even bother to explain
First attempt at an 8-line poem about what offends me. Nothing offends me, not personally.
Today I’m feeling:
Lazy. I didn’t intend to. Though I didn’t have any other intention either.
My energy has returned but motivation has gone missing. Part of this is due to knowing that I will have lots of spare time this coming week.
Today I’m grateful for:
The freedom to be lazy today.
The best thing about today was:
Clearing a bunch of videos out of my ‘watch later’ queue.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
Everything was in my control, I just made the laziest choices!
Something I learned today?
I finished watching the Idles documentary and enjoyed it a lot. I like their music but usually only in small doses. I can appreciate their appeal as genuine human beings and that makes me like them more.
I took this picture because I wanted to send it to Noey. I told her that Utopia is boys only now (now that there are no female staff). Save also said that she had told him that she wanted to stay in the USA, so I messaged her to find herself a boyfriend while she’s there.
Pretty good, more than most of my recent Saturday mornings.
Today I’m grateful for:
Cap scratching at the door after he heard my alarm. I was going to get more sleep, but I got up for him and decided to exercise. I want to try to get out of my five-day routine and into a seven-day routine instead.
The best thing about today was:
Finding our little birdies had hatched. At first, when I went out to look in the nest, it looked like the eggs had been broken and the liquid inside had spilled out.
I told Amy to come and look with a sad face and shaking my head, but when she came, suddenly these two little beaks appeared, open to the sky though they were still too young to make any noise.
I had noticed earlier in the day that both the mum and dad had been around at the nest, so it seemed that they had just been born, maybe even just within the hour.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
Amy’s parent’s gutter specialists came today and said they can fix our gutter easily, quickly and for the same price as the last builder that fucked it up.
They said that it was obvious that the guy didn’t know what he was doing so Amy and I both felt vindicated on the shit that we’ve been giving him online. Amy also noticed that he’d removed many of his old posts and thought perhaps we weren’t the only people that he had ripped off.
Either way, we hope to have proper gutters back on Wednesday.
Something I learned today?
Art at Utopia video called with Noey, who is in the USA, whilst I was drinking my coffee this morning. She is on some kind of working holiday during her semester break.
She said that she is eating pizza every day and misses rice! The only coffee she has now is black drip coffee and at the place she works, some kind of amusement park, a cup is $4.22 and hardly anyone buys it!
It’s a good experience for her and she looks like she is enjoying herself. It is also a reminder for me that most of the USA is ok, normal and people are generally getting on with their lives.
Far into the future food will be hard to find But will have evolved with an ever-greater mind Time travel will be normal but only to the past Once the first one comes, it’s sure not to be the last
Back all those million years, so much free-roaming meat Bring it back to the future for everyone to eat But our future selves became so filled with greed Making the same mistakes, taking more than they need
So supplies were running out, there was only so much flesh Standards demanding that everything must be fresh Man still not smart enough to know it’s all interlinked And so that’s how the story goes, the dinosaurs became extinct
Still tired and a little slow. The weekends with no stress or early morning commitments means a big wind down. So, it’s been a little bit of a quiet day.
Today I’m grateful for:
The workers working on the road. As the rains have gotten heavier the way out from our house to the road has completely muddied up (even a big truck got stuck out there this morning). Amy asked them to fix it for us and they did. I haven’t seen it yet but will find out in the morning.
The best thing about today was:
Playing guitar and feeling like enjoying it again. It’s been a struggle for the last few weeks but today felt good and spent nearly an hour playing traditional songs in Yousician and then another 30 minutes smashing out punk tunes in Capo. I’m still terrible but today it doesn’t bother me.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
Amy is a little short with me because I took her cookies to Utopia and to Baipad this morning and I think she’s thinking that I care too much about other people and/or that I don’t like her cookies and so giving them away.
I’m trying just to be normal and carry on and Amy is also busy with her student’s assignments.
I love Amy more than anything but also need to think of ways to keep showing her that.
Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10
I wasn’t going to do much of anything today but after I got home from coffee I was surprised to get a message from Baipad asking if I could take her and her sister to Big C as they wanted to go see a movie.
I asked her if her mum was ok with it and if she was then I could take her. She said her mum was ok (but I’m not certain that she was!) and so I went to pick them up. It was there that they told me that their mum was in Bangkok!
Well, I put my trust in Baipad and dropped them off and hoped for the best.
Later in the afternoon, she said that they got back home (by Grab I guess) and everything was fine.
I got sent this picture because it seems Little Art and Noey enjoyed Amy’s cookies.
Great, after accidentally enjoying an extra hour of sleep. Exercise felt a little easier and I’m even doing a little Thai writing practice in-between sets. A three-coffee Utopia morning sets me up for the rest of the day.
Today I’m grateful for:
The two fish that fed us, the fishermen that caught them, the chefs that prepared them and Nut for collecting them. Thank you fish, I know I am a hypocrite to take your lives for mine.
The best thing about today was:
Sudden inspiration whilst reading other poetry and prompts that ended up with me writing more words that I’m proud of.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
I had to wait a long time this afternoon as Amy was enjoying drinking with Nut and I was not having a good time at all despite the good food.
The atmosphere was off as Nut and Bruno bickered with each other, sometimes seeming nasty to me and infecting Amy to take some shots at me too.
I was happy to leave her there and pick her up later but she wanted me to wait.
Finally, she felt sick and wanted to leave though she has a second wind now and screaming loudly singing along to her favourite songs and dancing in the living room, whilst I’ve come to the bedroom to write this.
She also just came and gave me a hug and thanked me for being a good husband (perhaps for putting up with her drunken mood swings or letting her get on with being Amy).
Something I learned today?
Despite Monday the 6th being a national holiday we are meant to be at school. This prompted me to send messages to Kru Tang and Kru Mai that I would be on leave that day and also on the 20th.
Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10
Amy was in a bad mood because we had forgotten to bring the beer to take to Nut and Bruno’s for lunch. As I wasn’t drinking I didn’t think anything about the bag sitting on the dining room table as I went out to open the gate to prepare to leave.
When Amy realised later that we didn’t have the bag with us she blamed me for forgetting it or at least for not thinking to help her with it.
Honestly, it wasn’t even that big of a deal to me as we stopped at a shop and bought more beer but Amy couldn’t let it go and her car door slamming carried over to me and I took on her bad mood.
Did you do something difficult or challenging today?
This afternoon was a challenge, not just because of what was happening but also how I was thinking about it. I wondered if we are still compatible, still love each other or want to be together? What would happen if we decided not to stay together any longer.
I recognise, now that it is later, that these are just the negative thought patterns that I can easily conjure but are not clear reality. Thoughts that float on down the river.
Thailand to the left, Laos to the right. Mae Khong.
Pretty good so far. Setting my alarm for 15 minutes earlier each morning in preparation for my return to work next week. I have a slight twinge in my left lower back from too much sitting around for the last couple of days and probably aggravated by the tree moving yesterday. I got back to exercising today too.
Today I’m grateful for:
Our pumpkin! The pumpkin that both Amy and I took care of to try and get it to a size and maturity that was edible, ended up in our spaghetti dish for lunch and it was great. Well done everyone!
The best thing about today was:
Cleaning out my inbox. It accumulates quickly and I don’t get a chance to follow up everything as I would like. I will need to get on top of this when I start working again next week. Get my priorities sorted again.
I’ve already started clearing out my YouTube Watch Later list by either watching in full or watching a little and deciding it’s not that important.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
I decided to sort out a hotel room for myself for this coming Sunday in Bangkok. Nampan sent me a link to one near the venue and through Google Maps it linked to an Agoda booking where it said the cost was just 419 baht. Nice. It also said that if I downloaded the Agoda app I would get a 10% discount, so I did.
However, once downloading and going through the same process the total became something like 600 baht! So I went back to the original Agoda page and went to the checkout and the actual total was about 550 baht in the end!
Well, it’s still cheap enough. Never trust the price of anything you see online. Everything is a subtle scam.
Something I learned today?
When I got home from Utopia at around lunchtime (I was there so long cleaning out my inbox) I was happy to find that Amy had ironed all my shirts! I gave her a big kiss but it was already too hot to hug for long.
Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10
Baipad messaged me after a few days of quiet and she mentioned that she was expecting a delivery to her house in the next couple of days but is still stuck out at her grandma’s.
I suggested that she contact a neighbour or her friend Butter to pay and collect it if and when they call, or failing that she could call me and I could sort it out for her.
I’m starting to see that she has not been raised, or pursued herself, with a mind to think about how to get things done. Perhaps she’s spoiled a bit and I think the issue between her and her mum is that her mum doesn’t see any maturity in Baipad’s behaviour and actions at home, so she continues to treat her as a child that needs taking care of.
I suggested that she show her mum who she is and what she wants in her life and her mum might start treating her differently.
It reminded me of the time I asked Hayden who he was and how much he struggled with that question. Many of us do.
Did you do something difficult or challenging today?
A couple of days ago I watched a video about a tongue exercise and I’ve been trying to do it once or twice a day. It’s simply rubbing your tongue between your teeth and lips/cheek in a circular motion, first one way and then the other, 25 times.
It sounds easy, and it’s not really difficult but I soon started to notice how useless my muscles involved in this exercise are, particularly my neck.
I will keep practising and hope that it helps a little with my neck problems.
I took this picture because Tigger was chilling on the terrace in the late afternoon, perhaps waiting for a storm that never came.
It’s an undisputed fact that we all consume and breathe lots of microplastics, and we have done for our whole lives. The average person probably takes in 100,000 particles of microplastic annually.
Microplastics are suspected of being dangerous in just about every way you can imagine, damaging our internal organs, poisoning us with leached chemicals, breaking down our cell walls, and causing countless diseases. A vast body of research has been published investigating these concerns.
There’s still no evidence that any of these happen. More data is always needed. More study. More investigation. And when there is evidence of microplastic interaction with living tissue — which there is, certain plastics can and do have detectable biological effects, there’s so far never been any evidence that it’s harmful.
Will you go without? Though it makes no difference To save the planet
Late start again after very good sleep. Aided by canna oil. Exercised, which sucked and was good too.
Today I’m grateful for:
Noey sending me a message at 11.30 am wondering where I was! It’s nice to feel missed sometimes, even if it is just by the baristas in your favourite coffee shop!
The best thing about today was:
Another storm blowing in this afternoon whilst I was in my room.
Two days in a row now, I got to hear the big splats of rain falling on the tin roof above the ceiling and to hear the wind banging all sorts of things around just outside.
Strangely, it hasn’t rained in the city at all whilst we’ve been lucky enough to not need to water these two days.
Something I learned today?
From a report issued by the US-based International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
“The breadth of the U.S. violations of the ICCPR is overwhelming. The committee found breaches of the treaty in nearly every aspect of life in the United States. We (the United States) should heed the committee’s recommendations and demand that our federal, state and local governments in the U.S. comply with our human rights obligations.”
Did you do something difficult or challenging today?
In general, my exercise wasn’t too bad today, except for 3 by one-and-a-half minutes of bicycle kicks. I could do thirty, take a break and then do 15 more but that was it. I’m happy to adapt the exercises to my skill and strength level so that I don’t give up but can keep going.
How do I handle disagreements or conflicts?
Disagreements I am generally ok with, but when it comes to conflict I don’t deal very well. I’d rather walk along and forget about it.
I’ve never really cared what other people think but in the past would try to argue my point. These days I don’t feel the need. People believe the things that they want to.
I’m open to a lot of different ideas but still obviously have my own beliefs about things. Entering into conflict over these things seems a waste of time. Most people don’t want to listen to something that they don’t believe. And for many things that applies to me too.
When was the last time I felt exceptionally strong or brave?
I’ve been looking at this one for a few days already and can’t think of anything. Perhaps others looking from the outside might have considered some of my actions at one time or another as strong or brave but to me, they were just normal.
Even so, there’s no standout moment of bravery rescuing someone drowning or pulling people out of a car crash. Nothing so exciting.
What’s an aspect of my culture that I love?
This is a weird one to answer because just what is my culture? I carry traits from growing up in England, from the middle of my life in Australia and now with some influence from six years in Thailand.
Culture can be great when you are young, something to bond and identify with, but the more you experience and can take the opportunity to travel you begin to see that beyond culture we are all basically the same.
Is culture manipulated by us ourselves to keep us divided?
The aspects of my cultures that I love are that they have given me grit, taught me when to run and when to walk and taught me acceptance. And when I write that all down I realise that my mum taught me all that. Mums are culture.
I took this picture because when I arrived at Utopia, Noey told me that she had just sent me a message. I sat down and read it. It said “Where is Shaun?” and so I replied with this photo.
It’s still early but I think I feel a little more motivated than yesterday. I’m lesson planning already and that’s going well, so it’s a good start.
I think I need to be busy, doing stuff, to keep myself occupied. If I get lazy and don’t move my brain and body I start to atrophy.
Today I’m grateful for:
The poetry folks who post prompts and ideas that inspire me to write. I don’t know how many other people might think that I write quite well but I write for myself and when I look back at things that I’ve written I often feel proud and impressed.
I started a free poetry course at one site and struggled with the first assignment which was to write about yourself. It should be easy, most of my poetry is about myself but when asked specifically to do it, where do you start?
Oddly enough, I ended up writing a poem today that was written for four different prompts but ended up being about myself almost directly and I will use it as a part of what I submit.
The best thing about today was:
Getting enough lesson plans done to feel comfortable that I know what I’m doing. I can see the way forward to having enough done for the semester and working out what is needed for the rest of the year too.
Let’s hope that the students reach my expectations of what I have planned for them; otherwise I will have to do some quick revisions.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
I’ve been happy to get a lot done today but have also felt a little annoyed at times, though not acted on, just in my head, by little things. It was when I was watching TV, though, that I really noticed bad tinnitus in my left ear and it’s still bothering me now.
I’m not sure exactly what has brought this on. I did play guitar for about 20 minutes but it wasn’t at a volume as excessive as I sometimes play. Usually, the ear ringing comes and goes but it seems to be hanging around today.
Something I learned today?
Utopia will only open in the morning this weekend as they will all go and celebrate Songkran in the city in the afternoons.
A couple of days ago, I learned that Nick at Daytripper will leave for Australia, where he’s hoping to work as a barista in Sydney. With him going, Art decided to close the shop completely as he is too busy to keep it going.
Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10
As I mentioned above I did get internally annoyed many times today. However, biting my teeth through all that I did everything that Amy asked of me, particularly when she ran in from the garden with her skin boiling up in an allergic reaction to something. I got her ice, rubbed on lotions and creams, and did this and that.
She’s disappointed that she is allergic to something (probably the hairy worms), as when the temperature is good, she enjoys pottering about out there.
I took this picture because Fat Tig was taking a break, as was I.
Born lucky, amongst cat’s kisses Brought love and calmly kept But laughing aloud cools kinship Banging loudly and can kneel
Business lull as corporations kaput Broken laws allow constables kvetching Black light awareness, cooly kindhearted Both looking around catching kittens
Pretty good though this heat is a killer. I’ve made an agreement with myself not to complain about it though.
It also seems like last night’s mala upset my stomach a little bit this morning but I should be good to go for the rest of the day?
Today I’m grateful for:
Going to Lost and Found, a new cocktail bar in Chiang Rai, after Amy was disappointed with The Space due to poor service and average food.
The best thing about today was:
Starting organising lessons for next semester. It was a bit of a headache and I only did it for a couple of hours, whilst at Utopia for morning coffee, but it is something that will kickstart my brain again to fill in all the gaps that I need.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
When we arrived at The Space we sat outside next to the river but with the humidity and the sun setting suddenly there was a great birthing of insects which usually indicates the coming of rain. Let’s hope so but at this time these little critters were dropping into our drinks, food and clothes. We quickly dashed inside with everything.
Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10
A couple of weeks ago Amy drunkenly said she wished that she had a globe and then forgot all about it – but I didn’t. I ordered one from Lazada that arrived a couple of days ago and left it for her to find this morning. Sadly, on opening the box we found that it was badly packed and the cheap plastic base had splintered a little. So my next task is to super glue it and then assemble it. Amy seemed less excited about it than when she was drunk but never mind. Happy anniversary little Amy!
Whilst Amy was extremely upset at the restaurant I tried to stay calm and enjoy some of the food and quickly picked up that we should leave with haste.
I took this picture because as Amy had checked in at Lost and Found on Facebook, earning herself six free shots!
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