in which i expostulate on the sweetness of life

so it's no news that blogs get knocked all the time for the fairytale lives people broadcast to the internets. but guess what? that happens to be one of my favorite things about blogging and probably one of the main reasons i still do it. that and i like people to look at me and tell me i'm neat. but seriously, what is the point of blogging if you're not going to try to make people jealous of your life?

the reason i like this twisted aspect of the blogosphere is that sometimes i get a little crusty at the world; when this happens, i absolutely cannot write a post, because then it comes out really fake or really scary. so if i notice i've been silent for a while or posting a lot of garbage that is neither entertaining nor interesting in any way, it's a good indicator that i need to put on my big girl pants and perform a little attitude shift or summat. i learned a long time ago that your attitude really is a choice (thanks, mum); making that choice, however, has proven very difficult for me at various points in life, because it's not my natural tendency to choose satisfaction when i actually just want to melt into a couch and become one with the potato chip residue as i mope about the bleak outlook that is, obviously, my really hard life.

that's why they call me a human bean.

so i realized lately that i've been a little crusty at the world--nick cut his hand off (stories are better when you exaggerate) and i got put on bed rest, as you know; what you DON'T know is that if nick doesn't get a job offer liiiiiike today, we get kicked out of the country and have to go back to the states (or somewhere, preferably other than thai prison) in the next couple weeks. too bad about that whacking-off-of-the-hand business, huh; it kind of cut into the job hunting process. and too bad about that accidental extra 4 months in the states that deleted our previous non-immigrant visas and work permits, which would've made the need for said job hunting obsolete.

thanks a lot for getting married, tom and courtney. you pretty much ruined our lives.

okay, or maybe not. in fact, maybe our trip home, aside from being the best trip evah, was exactly what needed to happen for us in this moment of our mortality. and maybe we're being set up for the rest of it because of all this craziness. while i didn't feel this way even just a week ago, i feel it pretty strongly now. so, actually, thanks for getting married. it's made our year a lot more eventful than what we planned, which is probably why you went ahead with it in the first place, i know.

either way, instead of worrying about things i can't change and feeling sad for myself, it's now really easy to appreciate this beautiful little room where i get to spend all my time during this little minute of my life:


an excellent indicator of how asian a person is at the moment is how disgusted vs. delighted he or she is by the color scheme(s) depicted above. the curtains are a pale lime green and not gold, by the way. tonal fidelity is not this camera's forte. for the record, i am currently very asian. and, obviously, very righteous, as you can tell by the thickness of my scriptures that i was obviously just devouring with obvious vigor and vim before snapping this photo.

i love this room where i get to grow my karate kid baby. i love the curtains and the windows and the bed frame. i love the noisiness of the birds and the bees and the chickens and the cows and the hat ladies next door. and i love the finally-cooling-down breeze and crisp morning light and beautiful green coconut/banana/you-name-it trees outside my windows and kitchen. i love this place.

so many things about living here are hard--physically, emotionally, and legally. so many things are wonderful in the same categories. except maybe the "legally" one, because that doesn't make sense. if we are privileged to stay, i will rejoice. if we are privileged to be evicted, i will rejoice--because i'm finally learning that no experience is worthless, and no matter where we are or what we're asked to do or even to endure, we can rejoice.

so here's a toast to life being lovely, even when it sucks a little at first glance. it can always get worse, and it inevitably will sometimes, but it can always get better, too, starting with how we decide to react to it all. so may we rejoice, right?



*stay tuned for the big reveal on whether nick and elyssa fly to hong kong for new visas or to LAX for... something else! i know, the suspense is killing us all!*