Saturday, February 19, 2022
5:20 a.m. Room 1102, Phannu House
Mae Sot, Thailand
I don’t think anything I write this morning will be positive or upbeat. I’m just in a sour mood and a bit beaten down physically and mentally. There is no particular reason for that except I guess that I’ve spent too many days and too many hours in a row just working on YouTube videos. I’m starting to go a bit stir crazy from the effort. I don’t actually need to do any of this. I could just stop and do no video editing for the next month. It would have no effect on anything except make a few people around the world wonder what happened to me and why I’m not posting videos anymore. But I plan to continue to chew through the videos from my trip to the north. I want to get those done.
A large part of the problem is one that I’ve always had. I seem to have trouble doing more than one thing at a time. If I’m doing something, whatever it is, I have a drive to finish it completely before doing anything else. Considering my mood and how worn out I am, I should do something else today. I should do something else for the next two or three days or even for a full week. But I can’t. I want to finish all these videos now. And then I can move on to do something else. It’s always been a bad habit, and I’m aware that nothing good comes of it, but I’ve never been able to operate differently.
And in keeping with that idea, I don’t really have anything else to write about either. I spent all of yesterday working on videos. I did go outside to get something to eat, but even that was a failure. Actually, this food failure was a good indication of how bad my mood has become. I had been fasting the day before, of course, and I was really looking forward to a good lunch. My plan was to simply pop across the street to this new restaurant I’d discovered and have the same bowl of noodles I’d had the other day. I was probably going to order two bowls.
But right out of the gate, I could feel that I was irritable. This was the result of my monotonous video-editing life as well as all the technology problems. It was also the result of the weather. It is getting hotter and hotter, and the conditions in my room are getting worse with the constant cigarette smoke and the air conditioner that hardly works. It has also started to rain heavily, and this just reminds me of the endless rain of last year that depressed me so much. I’ve also let my physical world fall apart to an extent because I’ve been so focused on video editing. It’s messy in this room, and that bothers me. And then I hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. That is a recipe for irritability.
The restaurant is directly across the road, which is convenient, but the road I have to cross is Mae Sot’s busiest one. And directly to my right, Mae Sot’s two one-way downtown streets meet at a sharp curve. It’s a blind curve, and cars and motorcycles come around the corner at fairly high speeds, and it is difficult to judge when you can safely cross the road. These cars seem to come out of nowhere. Yesterday, I got stuck there for what felt like the longest time. Every time I tried to take a step, a car would suddenly whip around the corner, and I’d have to scuttle back. I was in such a bad mood that I got angry at this, and I started mentally cursing everyone and everything around me.
And when I finally made it across the road, I was met at the restaurant with waving arms telling me that they had no food. Or they were closed. Or something. I can never understand what people are telling me. But it was clear that I was getting no food there that day. There were five people sitting at tables eating bowls of noodles. Five people in one place is practically a parade in Mae Sot these days. Yet, when I tried to order, the man behind the counter just waved his arms and hands “No” at me. And then the waitress did the same.
This happens all the time in Thailand. I can never tell when businesses will be open or closed. They just do whatever they feel like. I am often disappointed when I go out to run an errand or get something to eat or drink. Businesses just close at random hours and on random days. And with restaurants, they often have just a certain amount of food for the day. And when they run out, they run out. It was only twelve-thirty, so you’d think they’d be well stocked for the Mae Sot equivalent of the lunch rush. But I guess those five people had wiped out their available stock of food.
I was in such a bad mood that I was on the edge of getting angry with them. What kind of restaurant runs out of food? At lunch time? I had been so excited about this bowl of noodles, and I felt angry when they started waving their arms in front of my face. I always hate that. It happens routinely in Thailand. I often try to go into coffee shops or restaurants or shops, and then someone will come rushing up and waving their arms in a “No” gesture. And I often get annoyed. Being a logical fellow, I want to point out that if they didn’t want a customer coming into their shop, they should lock the door. And I never understand why coffee shops simply close at random times.
Despite my bad mood, my common sense prevailed, and I did not start overturning tables at the restaurant and yelling at people. I simply turned around and left. Luckily, my original noodle shop was open, and after walking up the street there, I got some lunch. But I was gnashing my teeth the whole time. I wanted to lash out at someone. I really wanted a reason to get angry. Luckily, I didn’t really encounter one. The funny thing is that a place like Thailand offers countless reasons to get angry if you want one. Just walking down a normal street can be a frustrating and difficult experience. There are no sidewalks. Everyone just parks anywhere they want and the way forward is always blocked. Pedestrians just don’t exist in Mae Sot other than me, so no effort has been put into providing a place to walk. I had to constantly wait for the traffic to clear so that I could dash out into the road to get around everything that was blocking my path. The sides of the streets are also lined with active or abandoned shops and food stalls and carts. And these all have awnings and coverings, and they are all aimed right at my head. I have to duck all the time to avoid all kinds of barriers and poles and wires and other objects. Simply walking down the street is an obstacle course for your feet, too. You are constantly having to climb up and over things and carefully step around protruding items from the ground. It’s very easy to have all of that feed into your anger if you are in a bad mood. And then there are the dogs. And when you are standing at the side of the road and waiting for a break in traffic, a car or truck will turn right into you because they want to park where you are standing. And there is no concern for my safety. They just head straight for you without even looking or signalling, and you have to jump to the side. It’s just how things are. It’s a miracle I didn’t Hulk out on my way to the noodle shop.