Today’s one of the days that feels between things. Like I want to write big ideas and wonderful things about the walk or coffee or just the going. Yet. Yeah. There are only small things. Things that turn around and vex me at times. Little things.

• arguments. No one wins at arguments and disagreements. What happens instead is one of us simply forgets and the other holds on. It makes no one a winner.
• wanting to go. I have simply wanted to go for awhile. I want to go to Vietnam. I want to feel those things again. I feel light years away so I just stop. Inside a million little pin pricks hit me.
• walking and solitude. I need both. When I’m around people too much I get this sensation of despondence and dislike. It’s a physical ailment. And a mental. I met this American in a bar a few nights ago. He told me his worldly exploits. I don’t do that. He also smoked. It was like two strikes and you’re out.
• writing. More. Less. Same. Different. Deciding to decide is tough. What do I want with this stuff. Nothing. All. Little bits of things in all directions. See how messed up I am. So I figure I must write. First will go see my daughter. Have coffee with her. Talk. The passapp will take me soon. Then I can write more.

writing more

Then this afternoon peddled along. We decided we must go away out of Cambodia and do other things. So off we go to Malaysia for a week. I like the planning part a lot. Finding hotels close to where we can then catch trains or buses. Kuala Lumpur is nice that way. Our hotel is close to the Sentral train station. Easy from airport. Easy to go to Melaka. Then easy to get back. This trip is easy because direct flight. My wife has never been. I look over photos there in KL. Places I want to go. One time spent a month there. That was the nicest. I liked then just going and stopping. So many nice things to find. To lose. And then to wander around. Another time was over Christmas. 10 days there or so. Nice times.

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Now evening seems intent on arriving. So I just sit and want some time alone. I’m not terribly social at the best of times. This house brings out the worst in me I fear.

It is nice having airlines booked. To he able to just go. Then see my wife in a place she’s never been. So I figured the blog needs to have more and different words. Not sure what that means. So will ponder that.

Some days it’s writing a few times. Feel like there’s more to say. More moments to say the things. And I leave the house where words sometimes stall out and I feel without some going I cannot change gears.

Been thinking a lot lately on our life in the current house. It always feels like a stretch to call it home. Home has this meaning over and above rooms and yards and food. Often when I was gone in Hanoi I would come back to my little room. It was home. It felt like this place to come to. To find. Not to lose. Sometimes my friend Van would message me welcoming me back. Asking if I wanted them to come over on the weekend for food. She would bring food from Hue. I would buy her son a burger. Good tradeoff. Somehow the feelings coming home meant something more than some small room. The room size never mattered. What did was the feeling of it all. The being in Hanoi again. It would always dazzle me. Make me feel sad and happy.

Now I find myself in a place i would never stay by choice. It’s lost out on some intersection of two dirt roads that lead nowhere. I told my wife there’s nothing there for me. I find nothing that makes me glad to be there. To exult and exalt it. Most of all I feel it cannot be home. It misses the basic feeling even the small room in Hanoi had. That feeling?

Belonging

Yeah. That’s the one. I don’t feel I belong in the house. The small little room in Hanoi gave me it’s all. This house has no all to give. So I often find myself between gears. Like lost when I want more and finding so little.

I once had this house in California. 5 bedrooms with an ex wife and kids and pets. It too ceased being home. I moved to yet another room there which did. The room was small but when I was in it it seemed large beyond compare. Like the room in Hanoi.

So unlike what we have now. My wife is puzzled. She wants everyone to be happy. To just enjoy the life. Well no. It’s not enough. I will live there but it never can become home. I cannot find the gears. Cannot change them.

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Perhaps our result is some disagreement on what I do. How I do it. It’s ok. I don’t live to make the landlords happy. My expectation with them is to take the money and be thankful. It’s so not worth it. But for my wife who had little for 10 years and suffered it’s what she wants. What she sees as being this place to stop and start. I get it. I live it. But I tell her it’s not mine. She seems to want what she thinks will make me happy. But we won’t change gears and find something else. That’s not a thing.

I’ve puzzled over why. She lost friends and gained some. Found her social networks. Important things to Khmer people. I don’t have social networks like her. Nor do I want them. I think down deep she fears having no one to talk to. Life is made for talking with her and her circles.

I just go on. Create my gears. Want what they offer. Mostly being away from a house I’m not interested or involved with. Maybe I’m wrong. Would not be the first time. Or the last. What I do know is I won’t change either. We both get what we want.

And those gears do not change.

Well since it’s Monday I figure, I gotta start something. So I start some coffee. Start writing. Start thinking about going to Vietnam IF I go. It’s always quiet mornings in the house. My wife will come and go in the mornings but most of the time she will sit with the owners or putter her little garden she loves. Her start used to be earlier in the morning. For some reason, they would go walking at 4am. I never really liked that start. That just seems too early to start anything.

I like the morning start with the coffee I make and writing. Always feels like the things go together but today I double down and start a blog post about whatever it is that this turns into. Right now, it’s a start. So is the music. So is the coffee. Writing in Typora on the Mac is a joy I feel. It just gives me back what I want in writing and it makes no real demands. I paid for it long ago so I get the every so often update. The words get transferred magically via syncthing to my android gizmo. When I get ready to start the walk, it all just is there for me. Today I will start the walk to a nicer coffee shop. Perhaps my favorite here. I like their comfort things and I can sit there in comfy chairs and even get cookies if I want. Another nice start I got myself into. Tomorrow I meet my daughter for coffee at Temple Coffee and Bakery downtown. She loves it there. We spend an hour or so talking. Sometimes her baby comes along. Usually not though. It’s a nice time to spend since my wife and I don’t do much of those things any longer. I like the social things like coffee out with her. We also want to do this dinner at a BBQ place I have wanted to try since forever. Maybe later this week we all will go.

So that’s a start, right? I’ll let this percolate around and see what I really want to say after I take a nice little walk later. See you then.

coffee out and time to write too

People pay money to sync their words. Likeontjly subscriptions. To me my words are good but not past a free, secure and open source solution. One that involves no cloud. It does need periodic maintenance. It’s software. Never perfect. An old friend that worked on the Linux kernel told me once they were never done. So software goes on. Becomes else. Kinda like writing. Like my walking. A nice segue to a pleasent email change with T. Thanks T for bringing email to my inbox. So nice hearing. I mention this here because I also sent him the RSS feed for my blog and my fediverse info. I have no contact page it seems.

So now the sitting at spring coffee gives me another start. A nice iced Americano and cookies.

spring

And time to start other things. Or not. I read the news sometimes. Sometimes read a little reddit or my mastodon feed. Or all of them. I slow down on the start to coffee. Let it last I mutter. So I want my cookies to last too.

Most of all I get money today. I never worried about it before. It seemed our government was dedicated to protecting the one thing from them I need. These days I have no beliefs or expectations things will be ok. Maybe things will. Or not.

Don’t get me started.

Some days seem just meant to go downtown. To sit in the cheap beer place. Feel the 30-some temps. Do not abstain. Eat and drink. Then go home. Going home is not some prized destination. It’s like the place I go when I’m done at this place. Meanwhile I can sit at viva! and write. Drink a little. Find some meaning or lack.

viva

I rarely do this with my wife. I don’t know why. We used to go out. Have some food and beer. Like something basic changed in her. Some seminal switch thrown. Instead she sits with the landlords on an evening. And talks.

I do puzzle over the changes. The why and why not. Perhaps I overthink it while sitting with a cold beer on a warm day. Why don’t we do the things. The little things. The little coffee visits. The morning Khmer soup then coffee.

Somewhere we changed. We both did. She took some other path. I get tired and bored of the house and it’s limits. It doesn’t cost a lot. It’s just there’s no time any more. Maybe time is more expensive than money. Maybe we spend time like the seconds ticking by and she wants something else with them. I ignore the cost. Time and money. Money will always suck. It just offers nothing beyond what we need to live. It’s stress. And arguments. Retribution and people. My mom once told me,

Don’t let money come between friends.

And it’s true. Our path is lined with people who claimed friendship. Then money here. Soon those people changed. Some abruptly. Others inexorably and slowly. I blame money. It acts to sever and strain people. Soon the money becomes the thing. Other things dim. Then, I think, we have lost that person.

Like her friend A. A Cambodian who would swear friendship. Would come every day to help. Would take money. Money for help. For her son for English lessons. Then the money of course acted. Found out her son was not enrolled in English. The money went for beer. Lies. For a year. This and other things spelled the end of that. When money comes between people soon their true motives are known.

Then there’s beer. And I have a few. I will go home. And it will next be Sunday. Another day. Week. Month. Whatever the fuck it all means.

Another beer? Sure. It’s the least of the overthinking now.

I realized after another night of not quite good sleep its Saturday. Sometimes my wife is never sure of the day. She will ask if its Tuesday. When in fact it is Sunday or some other day that ends in Y. Same with the date. She knows the months of the year but not the dates within them too well. I gave this some thought a few times. Came away with a few reasons this could be.

1. its just not important to Cambodian people. They work every day of the week no matter what. But my wife does not work. So instead she just wanders through the days with no real life and work thing. When I used to work it was just about 7 days a week too. I lost track of the days after driving to the office many Saturdays because I had meetings with other unfortunate souls on weekends. My wife does not do any of that. She just sails through life. And I guess now I do too.

2. It does not matter what day it is. Perhaps for the years I have done nothing, what separated the times of doing nothing has become so little. Now it seems its a day and a night and the days are spent wandering around for coffee, doing nice walks, watching my wife cook dinner for me. Sometimes going away with her. Other times me going away without her for beer or coffee downtown.

3. We don’t have a calendar in the house. Not a current one. We had one for 2024 I think that we got for free.

4. Time is not real. It has never has been real. We want it because it explains something we cannot. Easier to divide the days into arbitrary ticking things than really explain that time has no meaning.

I guess with that, I can start thinking on coffee. The delightful coffee out part of this blog post. Something I am sure you are waiting on. So here comes a H2 with a catchy line.

Coffee out and a walk

So Saturday means also at least today walking to the wonderful Ur Cafe. I’ve mentioned it before but it’s just one of the Cambodian coffee shops I adore. It means sitting. Not bothering with wifi. I get 50gb a month of 4g. For $6. No real point in finding wifi. We don’t have 5g. I guess someday we will. Does it matter writing this? Reading something on a webpage. Not so much. The Cambodian 4g service is rock solid in most places. Here I always get all the bars. In rural areas it goes. And it’s ok. This country ain’t done with itself. Some things are really well done. Online banking and payments are so easy. With a Cambodian bank account and a phone I don’t need money. Like for my coffee. ABA pay.

The walking part is always divided up. There’s the nice morning walk to get to coffee. Then I get the stop. The writing. Some overthinking. So how do I know when I’m done with overthinking? I guess I don’t. It’s never over.

I’ve been playing also with Lemmy. I enjoy it’s disruptive nature and how it casts shade at reddit. I have a reddit account and I do enjoy some of the subs. Lemmy offers this fediverse aware and more frontier feel. Like a thing not done yet. Yeah. Like Cambodia. Maybe it’s why I always opted for places not done. Vietnam always felt that way. Mexico did. I coined this term for living in the places when I discovered at some point they were this Edge of life. This place where I can live and forget time. Forget days that end in Y.

And write here about it all. Feels good. My coffee awaits.

I love watching YouTube videos on different physical journals. How people build them, use them. Write in them. I often think I could do that. Could carry the Travelers passport size notebook. Add a few inserts. Step away from all the digital journals. Then I look at my writing. I would have to print. But I would gain from it. At least these things,

• More personal recording of my thoughts, ideas, rants, raves.

• Some decoration with little stickers and saving small memorabilia.

• Carrying the notebook where I go. This brands it as mine. It gets scuffed, marked. It becomes mine.

Then I realize. I cannot do it. My writing. The scrawl which passes for it. Linking from thing to thing. While I think the writing would be more personal and intimate I would ultimately fail at using the notebook over the ease of the phone and laptop. What I do need I figured out is what my solution does now. An ease of use transferrable from phone.

From journal to blog

i really love the idea of having the writing in one place accessible and easily used for the blog. An idea written here and going there is not some exercise. The blog is a static thing. Easy to simply populate with markdown files. My journal is that. It always feels like this continuation of ideas. From a thing I explore in one piece of writing is available easily to another. Like today later. Will go downtown for the first time in over a week. I’ll just push this off and let my words find their way to a favored coffee shop downtown.

coffee and talk downtown

Much like the journal I do that just travels my ways. Here is my escape downtown this morning. From tuktuk to coffee with an acquaintance. Mostly words and feelings and the going. It’s worth stopping at Temple coffee. So I do.

temple

And from here I just go on. The morning away is sufficiently different from the house. This is Siem Reap after all. The house seems to be far from it.

Perhaps one day will look at real journals. Imagine the feel of it. The sense of intimacy. I can’t imagine writing in them. This just seems so nice. With phone or laptop.

See you on down the road. Time to write somewhere. And drink that wonderful hot latte and enjoy the some place different.

Sometimes around the house there is drama. Khmer drama. Voices raise in intensity but since it’s all in Khmer I can only tell people are not happy but not why. I don’t get involved with all that. Particularly with things in the neighborhood. It comes down to neighbor B and owner do not get along and they live next door to each other. Talking rarely happens but some of the neighbor B population like the owner’s wife. So there is this subset of talking when the boys won’t. My wife manages to bridge the gap and talk to both. I choose to not talk to any of them. My approach since I don’t care for them is to be there but distant. Instead, I just don’t sit out front hardly at all since there I can hear the whipsaw of feelings.

Instead I choose coffee first thing that I make. I sit in the room most of the time when I’m here. Eating is out front. Socializing in this hood does not happen for me. There is no one here I care to do that with. My wife told me there was some barang living around here and I saw him once. Have not seen him again. It’s easier to just do what I do. People have gotten used to my unfriendly and antisocial antics. I’m not an unfriendly sort of person. I just choose who it is I will spend time with. If a person fails the test, I just beg off and do not want them around me. Khmer people are very social from networks to relationships. Social family includes a wider swathe of brothers and sisters. Then there are the blood relations. Each one carries some kind of mutual social and communal interaction. I don’t pretend to understand all the rules and etiquette of it all. I’m not expected to either. Then we get to the social networks. Maybe it’s widely known that Cambodian and Vietnamese people love their socials. Here its Facebook and TikTok. Hours spent daily from morning to sleep time. I don’t do either so I never see the current crop of videos, wall posts, friends that piss off other friends and sometimes get blocked, family that posts whatever. The concept of the “Facebook friend” lives well here.

Instead I just choose coffee out. Sometimes with my daughter who tells me stuff about this family or that person. I just get by and perhaps excel at only having coffee out. I can tell you Khmer people are no different at coffee shops. It’s Facebook follies there too although a lot of talking is done. Phone screens are shared at different points. Younger people play games or do more chatting or both. I do know a few khmer people at the coffee shops. They always respect privacy and will stop by and ask how I am.

I guess this lets me segue way to coffee out. So I will write on that next. Lucky you.

coffee out is going away

Redsoil coffee always seems nice. Small place. Coffee a reasonable price. Friendly barista. And no one else here.

redsoil

I can sit here. Watch the sky desperately wanting to rain. Far from the usual house things. Coffee out is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. Every day I find this peace. Today when I left, my wife’s niece and her kids showed up. I like them. I also like to leave.

Writing here means space too. Moments to think on whatever. I rarely think on the US. Been gone almost 3 years this time. Now I could not see returning. Life there seems stunted and unreal. Everytime I have gone I find things I dislike. Things which drive me away longer. I love my kids but they seem this step away. I don’t mind that. Everything always moves. Changes. Takes a step.

Not me now. I choose coffee and this moment.

Today with mom visiting was one of the days when family visits. And one stays awhile. The granddaughter loves to visit but she wears out the adults. My wife particularly. I get visited by the baby a lot.

At first she did not like me. Now she runs and hugs me. Holds my hand. Kisses me. It’s taken awhile. Well I’m not sure how long awhile is. It must be longer than some time later. It’s special no matter what but my wife breathes a sigh of relief when they go. My daughter is the special one to me. She has always been the one person I can talk to about anything. So we go for coffee every month or so. Talking always is good. It’s like a no holds barred wordfest. Things come and go. She tells me about her brother often. He’s the hard working and independent one. Lives rather far away. Only visits few times a year but always asks if I have coffee money. If not he will send to his sister and then I get it.

People do not visit here so often because most do not like the house. My daughter has argued with my wife about how and where we live in the past. She doesn’t hold back so often my wife and her argue.

It’s different though when they visit like today. They come. They go. Life is good. When they just show up and stay it gets frustrating here. The house is simply not big enough for 12 people. Especially when half are kids.

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Finally evening seems to come. House is quiet. My daughter wants to meet for coffee next week. I miss that part of things with my wife. The social things like coffee out. Talking. Sitting. It seems somehow we have bypassed all that. Sad really.

Finally came to realized this blog is the thing for me. My daily thing. I find myself wanting to just write here. Find some words and moments. Feel how sometimes cathartic it feels to let go. I’ve felt for awhile it’s the writing. Whether a journal or a thought. It’s the doing. I never want to say,

Oh… Done with that.

So instead I just listen to the voice. It tells me about people, places and things. When I don’t listen often it’s to my peril. So instead I pay attention. All three it’s been right on. And wrong on. But I think it’s just human too. So it learns. About some people though it turned out right. Thankful for that.

Now family is gone. Lights off. Tell me your story.

The days always seem to linger along. Now we have family visiting. Its a mix of good and bad. My wife and her mom always seem to argue in Khmer and my wife’s niece with her kids is staying here too. The house always seems crowded and more. Makes me impatient to go walking and away.

The days always seem to start too early. Never been able to figure out why Cambodian people wake up so early. It feels like staying in bed until 7am is some treat. I like starting to write in the mornings with music going and being alone. Often, like today, I stop and what I’m writing on syncs from Mac to android and I can pick it up.

coffee now

I enjoy the morning coffee away from the ever talking around the house. It goes on for whatever time and when I decide to leave I. An hear them still going. Soon though their voices fade into the background cacophony of living in a Cambodian neighborhood. I think the talking is a given. It sounds thus,

Blah blah and blah. And blah and blah.

On and on. Perhaps my wife is the leading protagonist of this. She loves to talk. What I realized is that the talking is like the continuation of social media. It links people that just talked on Facebook to real life. Or almost real life. Sometimes think its a continuum. From social media apps to chatting when someone reads some post to seeking out the person in real life. Blah and blah.

It is interesting to wonder what would happen if Cambodia blocked Facebook or TikTok. There would be cries and wailing and gnashing of teeth I fear.

and on with days

I just go on my way. I write. Walk. Read some. Find a place to sit both in quiet yet surrounded by Khmer people talking. Forever in my days. It used to be one of the most frequently asked questions my wife would ask me was,

Are you happy?

It has always seemed its a difficult question to answer but so easy to ask. When I go after my days I don’t feel like there is this senseless happiness thing. I don’t want that. I tell her I just show how I feel. I feel caught between most times. In honesty the question takes me down. It’s not a question to sit around and answer. It’s like she asks me what I’m thinking.

No. I don’t know that one either. It’s better to just go.

Lately been thinking on the routines. The day to day just going. My life is kinda like this. Wake up in the morning. Have coffee. Wait impatiently to go for walk and coffee out. The coffee out usually becomes longer. Today I found a new place which is one of the Fame Cafes scattered around town. I could sit there longer. Read and write. Watch the Khmer people coming and going. It’s a nice spot and mostly tailored for the younger crowd. All of the waiters and waitresses speak English and the service was just excellent. I ended up staying a few hours.

Walking for me is this necessity and I enjoy just going. I have felt it’s this practice for me. I never want to achieve anything with it. No count of steps. No miles. No routes. It’s just the going.

When I got back to the house mom was going to be arriving from Preah Vihear province. I get lots of hugs and she touches my face a lot. Tells me in Khmer she loves me. She will stay with us for a week or so.

mom

This was some time late last year when we all went to Angkor Wat together.

I really enjoy mom visiting. She will never ask to but will always want to if we ask. Kind of unfortunate I guess that my wife and her mom do not get along all that well. Mom is gentle and never demands but I think she knows my wife is challenged with her here.

going there

I also thought a great deal on the house. When I’m away from it I always feel this sense of relief. Truth is my wife and I cannot talk honestly about my less than positive feelings here. So I end up talking with my daughter in law who then tries to decide to talk to her mom. Turns out they don’t talk too well either.

Life is a strange stew here. I cannot be a Khmer nor do I want to be. At the same time cannot he a barang. Don’t want that either. Result I guess is not really too many friends. I stopped being concerned about it some time ago. There’s no point in worrying over something ain’t gonna change. So I just get on with what my days are like. Far easier to do the things I like than worry about things which I really don’t give a F about.

So from here to there is also our off and on again trip to Malaysia. Finally I told my wife we are going. I cannot just sit in this house week after week even if she can. So rather than open that discussion I just tell her we are going because we must get away. Somehow she seems both happy and not. It’s sad sometimes but I think she prefers being at the house here with these social networks here over doing other things. I work on it without arguing. It’s important for us to go ¹.

So we will go to KL and Melaka in April because I will buy the tickets soon. Won’t decline the trip then. It does make me wonder about her. And I have no answers.

So I just go walk from here to there on it all.

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1. social networks here are everything I believe. They build the lives of people. Not just Facebook or TikTok but how people get by with personal interactions.↩︎