Mannequine Maquillé in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

Richard does nothing but send me 10+ Instagram Reels videos a day. It drives me absolutely nuts. I mean, I adore him (I’m glad we’re not close in proximity any longer because we’ve definitely diverged in our lives) but I’m trying to teach and my phone keeps buzzing and buzzing repeatedly because he found some weird homeless person in make-up dancing to Kylie’s Padam. I don’t need to see that… I don’t think it’s funny.

I find exploiting unhoused individuals for social media power to be in extremely bad taste.

I’m trying to plan my 40th birthday party, which is going about as well as can be expected, considering how isolated I’ve been. Since it’ll be on Halloween, I called my mother to see if she would ship me my costume clothes. Since Thailand doesn’t really celebrate Halloween, it’s not that easy to find a good costume (unless I’m going to dress up in something latex, leather or as some kind of animal… furries are HUGE here).

As I was talking to her, she mentioned that Chuckie has finally booked his ticked and is going to China on Sept 1. My feelings about it are really undefined because while I immediately want to throttle myself for the knee-jerk, pearl-grasp that happens when I hear someone is going to China, I still worry about him. Mostly because he’s not the brightest crayon in the box. He’s the most empathetic person I’ve ever met in my life and truly cares about people (before he went all QAnon, that is), but he gets astonished by things that seem fairly obvious to the normal person.

He also is a terrible navigator. Still, to this day, he cannot find his way home without GPS… even if he’s going to the Grocery Store or his job. He’s just not all there…

But, on the other hand, he speaks Mandarin. He’s going to meet his girlfriend’s family, who live about three hours west of Beijing… As I said, he’s affable and I don’t doubt he’ll be able to charm and get around. But every time he’s gotten into trouble, Cameron or I have to bail him out because he’s not got the grit.

I just read Matt’s journal about how his new place has no natural lighting and he thinks it’s affecting his health because he’s not getting any Vitamin D. While I read that, I had to suppress a snort because my new place has all kinds of natural lighting, and the sound of running water from the waterfall in center… it’s truly a very nice place. But I keep the shades drawn at all times of the day (unless it’s raining) because all of that light.

My new place doesn’t have too many problems… I mean, I have to get a new shower curtain because the cartoon puppies isn’t really my thing. And I’m going to have to get some lamps because all the overhead white lights make me feel like I’m living in the Apple Store.

But whatever, at least I like the overall look of the place. It’s taken me a while because I’ve never lived somewhere so colorful. The bedroom is purple and the living room is sky blue. It’s a little much, but it’s better than all white or even the all black idea I had in mind. Sometimes we place an emphasis on the corporeal and don’t really give credit to the package that it comes in. Even mannequins have make-up....