We’ll kick things off today with some good news–my buddy Kevin Kim is still alive, barely. He gives a harrowing account from the hospital of what happened to put him there. He is a lucky man, indeed! The road ahead for him sounds like it will be a painful battle, but for a guy who has walked Korea end-to-end numerous times, I know he has the strength and willpower to overcome this broken heart and come out stronger on the other side. Keep fighting, my friend!
My Tuesday began with a trip to the immigration office to extend my tourist visa for another sixty days. This shouldn’t be a problem because I’m in compliance with all the rules associated with a tourist stay. Still, I’ve recently been seeing vlogs and reading posts indicating that stricter reviews of applications and additional scrutiny of the reasons for long-term stays in the Philippines have been occurring. This includes an interview with an immigration officer as part of the approval (or denial) process. Accordingly, I was a tad more nervous than usual as I prepared for my visit to the Bureau of Immigration office in Olongapo City.
I was the first person to sign in and hand over my passport and paperwork. The only agent I saw behind the counter was busy preparing forms and getting ready to do her job. She got around to me after about fifteen minutes. She did the usual typing into the computer, then called me to the counter to collect my 2800 peso extension fee. I sat back down and waited, then five minutes later, she called my name again. I stood at the counter, and then she handed me my passport and an approved extension through October 17. No questions asked!
I wore a relieved face as I completed my grocery shopping at Royal.
I was in a generous mood, so I baked a batch of brownies to share with some bargirls, although I wasn’t sure where. Like me, Swan enjoys the outdoor bars more than the girly bars, so I figured we’d start at Sloppy Joe’s. Our waitress there used to work on the Kokomo floating bar, and she told me on a previous visit that she missed my brownies. She seemed pleased when I gifted her a freshly baked batch to share with her co-workers. Mission accomplished.
Next stop was It Doesn’t Matter for some more outdoor ambiance as I drank my beers and Swan sipped her wine. I brought along some lollypops so the girls there would have something to suck on. We ordered some food, which proved to be a fiasco. Ashley, the manager, apologized and advised us that the kitchen was managed separately from the bar. She gave us a round of free drinks anyway. We didn’t let the kitchen snafu spoil our good time.
One of the things I enjoy about the outdoor venues is taking in the views. Last night, I saw a couple of European expats out on the street.
We our time was done at IDM, we headed for home where some sweetness awaited:
And so ended another day of living.
Facebook memories carried me back to a day spent with the kids in the early 80s when we lived in Poteau, Oklahoma.
Politics, anyone?
Today’s YouTube is from a vlogger I’m not subscribed to, but his catchy heading sucked me in. He claims to love Angeles City. I despise it for the most part. Watch the video and decide for yourself if you want. Perusing the comments, I see most of the viewers agree with me that AC is a shithole. All that it has to offer are those whore bars, but that was never my thing.
Ready for some humor?
Alright, a nice hike today I’ll share about tomorrow. Beer o’clock is on the immediate horizon, so we’ll see how our evening in town turns out. Hasta la vista for now.
Re: the video – the apartment the vlogger has is quite cheap but definitely seems to be a case of “you get what you pay for”. Not my style, that is for sure. LOL. But, if it works for him, good for him.
Thanks for the support and congrats on Immigration. Seeing those classic cars must’ve been a pleasant surprise.
We’ll see what the next day brings!
I’m glad you have your bros there for support. You’ll get through this.
Yep, the old cars brought back some nice memories. Spent a lot of teenage nights cruising in my friend’s VW bug.
Brian, yes indeed, everyone has their own likes and preferences. AC is one man’s heaven and another man’s hell. As long as that vlogger is happy, good for him.
Very glad to hear Kevin is doing okay, John. I know a few older bucks who’ve gotten stents and they’re doing just fine. He should probably avoid American food/products because and switch to food and products from other countries as they tamper with the shit less. And at least he is in hospital, a place of refuge and silence, something I would kill for right now.
This week started okay with the ex. She was very loving and attentive, almost to the point of obsequiousness.
I should have taken it as a forewarning when she started talking about how we have problems; how every major blow up we’ve had is because we can’t communicate. My knee-jerk impulse is to point out this is manifestly not a “both sides” issue and, in fact, every major blow up we’ve had is because she mixed vodka with cough mixture and once again turned into a drunken jackass. But I let it slide…for now. I don’t want to get into a fight with her right away and I can gently work on correcting her gaslighting later.
We actually had a fun day together. We got pleasantly drunk, watched some TV, ordered some pizza and had even had what they call “sex.” Everything seemed fine. I was willing to hope against hope that maybe, just for once, it wasn’t just hot air she was blowing. Maybe she had changed, maybe she really was working on her issues.
I was proved wrong yesterday. What started out as a fairly innocuous discussion quickly became heated before turning into a full-blown argument. I tried to steer the conversation into whatever else we could talk about, to defuse the situation, but I noticed no matter what we were discussing, she immediately took the hard opposite of whatever point I held. This wasn’t something diametrically opposed, like political parties or abortion or Kamala Harris’ real race, we were talking about things like history and theology (the latter I went to university for, the former I am very interested in) and whatever I said, she would jump to the opposite side. Even when I feigned agreeing with her, she would then start supporting the point I’d ostensibly abandoned.
Power struggle. Those were the words my best friend used to describe my interactions with her when I would tell him about her and how my day went. It’s like a contest of wills on the smallest of things, isn’t it? He’d previously dated a narcissist too, and was happy to chime in many of the things my ex said and did were just like his ex (and mine from years ago). He’s absolutely right. Even when the ex is sober it’s like pulling teeth just to get her to agree to the most trivial of things. “Fine,” I used to mock in her voice, “I agree to this but not because you said it, but because I did”.
As I said, our heated discussion quickly devolved into a shouting argument. She deployed the projection and odious lines she’d used before. “O mighty and wise cocksucking Thompson, who is never wrong about anything, what pearls of wisdom do you have for us today?!” she smirked. I don’t bother engaging with her dumbass rhetoric but tell her I’m wise to the fact that she’s deliberately chosen two topics I know infinitely more about than her, and framed things so unless I just agree with everything she says that somehow makes me arrogant.
She holds up her hands in a placating gesture. “See? You see? This is what I’m talking about: sometimes we need to just take five minutes out to chill because we’re not good communicators. We need to work on our issues together.” She tells me if we’re going to have full trust she wants access to my phone and Reddit account. Apparently I have “Reddit bitches” because someone on Reddit was kind enough to send me kitty litter for Morgoth the Third earlier this year when I was too wasted on extract to get out of bed. This person could be sending me nudes, I could be telling them I love them and they’re “my angel”, but no, a kind Internet stranger sending kitty litter is proof positive I’m on a tour of the States, banging my choicest hobags from Reddit.
It’s more ridiculousness than I can bear and I can’t help but laugh. “This isn’t a ‘both sides’ thing, you rancid whore. It never has been and I’ve told you repeatedly since you’ve been in jail to stop trying to blame me for issues that are solely yours.” The cat’s out of the bag and I go further – I tell her she acts like an absolute lunatic when she drinks and she has narcissistic personality disorder.
She flinches as if slapped and takes a glug of her mixer (yes, using the mouthwash I paid for). “Well if that’s what you believe I don’t see any point in us being together. I am going to go shopping and when I get back I will take my things and leave.” This is the point where I’m supposed to beg and plead for her not to go. Red rag to a bull. Uriah Thompson begs from no one. “Why wait until you get back from shopping?” I ask. “You want to go, take your things and go now.” “No, I’ll go when I’m ready, and not a moment sooner.” For a microsecond I consider letting her have her way, but I know the folly of that; she’d continually show up every day demanding to be let in because she forgot a shoe, or a beloved sock, or whatever. Any excuse to keep coming back.
My blood is up and I go back into the house to get her luggage. “You want to leave? Ok, leave now then, here’s your stuff.” I throw it onto the porch. She sneers she has stuff in the dresser and closet and she isn’t going until she can sort it out. “No need” I laugh, “I’ll do it for you!” I go inside and start taking armfuls of her clothes out of the dresser and throwing them on top of her luggage.
“Let go of my stuff!” she squawks. I keep picking up her clothes and taking them outside. She tries to grab them out of my hands but I’m taller and faster than her. “Ok, you want to touch my stuff, I’ll touch yours!” I hear scraping and cables being moved. My blood runs cold when I realize she’s fucking with my laptop. I turn around and sure enough she’s disconnecting my laptop and has it clutched in her arms.
“Bring my stuff back in and you can have it back.” The red mist descends. I’m not going to bother with negotiation. My last laptop, she fucking hurled it across a hotel room we were staying at, like a goddamn frisbee, and she tried to steal it last year as a compliance mechanism. I’m not taking the chance with this laptop. I drop her things and grab at my laptop. She’s too drunk to register what I’m doing and doesn’t have the chance to snatch it away. We end up grappling over it and I pour all my non-existent upper body strength into wresting it out of her arms, which I accomplish, as she collapses to the floor. I hide it under the mattress and carry on throwing her clothes outside.
“Stop! I’ll call the police! Rape! Rape! Assault!” She shouts. “Go ahead” I tell her, “Call them, I’ll have them remove you from here for trespassing.” “I don’t have any warrants anymore, I’m not afraid of the police!” she responds. “You’re not on the lease, remember? In the eyes of the law you’re just a guest who overstayed their welcome.” “I paid for the rent, I can prove it!” “You transferred money to my account, a gift between friends. Did you pay the landlord directly?” Something seems to sink in there. “I have receipts for all the furniture in the house, so it’s mine!” “Ok, so take it with you when you go. Whatever.” I laugh. She points to a fresh bruise on her arm that she must have acquired when I grabbed my laptop from her, “What do you think they’ll make of this then?” She smirks. “I don’t know where you got that, perhaps in jail…where you were recently released from.” As I’ve always said, the repercussions for getting locked up for public drunkenness extend far beyond the weekend.
I think it hits her then she’s in a no-win scenario and she starts to tearfully apologize. I sigh and gently put her clothes down and sit down on the porch with her. She’s blubbing now about how she didn’t mean it and she was just being defensive. She expresses shock I would just throw her out like that and says even in her two divorces and with nasty exes, they would always let her into the house to get her stuff. “If the situation was reversed I would never do that to you!”
Never do that to you. That phrase has been rattling around in my skull all week now and is a stark reminder of when she abruptly took off years ago, leaving me on the brink of homelessness. She never asked how I got by, financially, between her departure and me getting a job (which I got fired from for drinking cough mixture in the bathroom when I was meant to be restocking the shelves). By the skin of my teeth. I tell her as much and she scoffs. “I have no sympathy for you. You could have gone out and gotten a job. You were on the verge of homelessness? You made me actually homeless!”
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this and it once again makes me angry. I tell her I expected things to follow the same pattern they had so many times last year: that she would go detox at the VA and come crawling back a few days later and we’d pretend nothing happened. But she let her supposedly ‘rapey’ ex – who she shouldn’t have been communicating with anyway – sweet talk her into going and staying with him.
I’m acutely aware going over old wounds isn’t going to solve anything, because I know she won’t accept the fact I didn’t kick her out, like she believes, or the colossally stupid, drunken, mistakes she made, up to and including buying that stolen car, so I just let the matter drop. We drank until we passed out and surprisingly no one wet or shat the bed.
I was woken up at 5 this morning by music coming from the porch. The space next to me in bed was empty, so I knew it was the ex listening to music. There are headphones on the porch table she used the night before, so the fact that she was listening to music out loud set alarm bells ringing. She almost always only listens to music aloud when she’s drunk and overly emotional.
I consider trying to go back to sleep but eventually roll out of bed and head out for a cigarette. There’s a near-empty bottle of tequila on the desk. It was full when we went to bed. Fuck.
Sure enough she’s already trashed. Her eyes are glazed over and she’s listening to Irish-American folk songs or something.
I sit across from her and drink my ice water as I light up a smoke. “Why are you up so early?” She asks, “I didn’t wake you, did I?” I tell her there’s no bedroom window because she broke it when she threw my favorite ashtray at it and she’s playing music at full blast so, yes, she did. I ask her to turn it down in case she wakes up the neighbor.
I get confirmation she’s blasted when she starts shouting at me. Not angrily; when she’s well and truly drunk she has no volume control. She’s ranting about Labor Day of all things and how “kids these days” have no idea what it means, but her (supposedly) Irish ancestors suffered for people to have a day off. Yep, she’s trashed. She has an agitated drone to her voice and I know she’s angry and we’re on a countdown before she finds something to blame me for.
It’s not long in coming when she says people like me (meaning just me) are ignorant of the struggle of her ancestors (meaning just her) and I’m a pussy and not a “real man” because I used to abide by my employer’s regulations on lunch and break length and wasn’t willing to spend 45 minutes on the phone with her when I was at work.
I repeatedly ask her to lower her voice and calm down, but I know I’m not getting through to her so just silently head inside…where she follows me in to continue talking to me herself about how much of a pussy negroid simp I am because I never argued with my bosses about lunch or break length. “You are such a follower you know that?” She chuckles. “How did we ever end up together? I would never kowtow like you do, even when I was in the military!” I can’t help but laugh, “Uhh, isn’t an essential part of any military career conformity and following orders?” “What a stupid fucking thing to say” she sneers, as she walks past me with a fresh drink. “Maybe for idiots in the army, but not me!” Whatever. The only to do now is to catch up in drunkenness and prepare myself for any forthcoming fistfights. It’s all very tense at the moment but my fists of fury, while subdued right now, are ready to spring into action at any moment.
The next six drinks are for Kevin Kim! Cheers!
Nice to hear from you again, Thompson. Yes, we are all thrilled to have Kevin still among the living. He lives in Korea, so I doubt American food products are his problem. He’s also a foodie and knows how to cook healthy meals.
Your latest update seems to be an escalation in your relationship issues. You could write a book (this comment makes almost a whole chapter!). I’ve been married four times, so I’m in no position to give advice. Looking at your story from distance makes me wonder both how and why you tolerate it, though. I will say that I hope you avoid resorting to physical violence–that won’t end well for either of you.
Drinking is so much more pleasant when your companion is loving the opportunity to share the joy on the road to drunkenness. Try and stay calm and ignore the distractions. Good luck! I’ll be looking forward to the next chapter in your story!
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas