The Unknown Cynic

June 21, 2017 Chiang Mai, Thailand I said goodbye to my brother yesterday. Not in the morbidly permanent fashion that it sounds like, exactly. Nobody has died yet. But it was possibly the last time.  My youngest brother contacted me for the first time in over two years on a messaging app. I woke up to the missive asking if I was alive, how I was doing, did I need anything. After telling me that he would be going to Japan for several months after summer ended, he mentioned that he had just attended the annual convention held by the church in which we both grew up and that I left over three years ago. He then stated that "we are getting very close", meaning that the end is near. Maybe it is. Looking around at the state of the world, who knows? But for over 40 years of my life, every little upheaval in world politics, turmoil of other religious institutions, or literal earthquake have indicated that the end was near.  My parents thought that the end would come befor

June 10, 2017 Chiang Mai, Thailand I have so many things that I want to write about right now. So, I’m going to just throw some scattershot thoughts out there for a bit. If you have ever wondered what became of all of the old Singer sewing machine frames and treadles, rest-assured. They are not occupying landfill space. They are all in southeast Asia, repurposed as table legs. Many of the treadles still work, so it’s kind of fun to rock them with your feet as you sit down eating your food or enjoying an iced coffee. Speaking of food, I went to the market in my little village this morning. There is a large, open-air space that is covered with a tin roof on one edge of town. Each morning, vendors can be found selling fresh vegetables, herbs, and meat. The meat is about as fresh as you could hope for, the animals most likely having been slaughtered the night before. Next to the different cuts of meat that are still being butchered, there rests the head of the unfortunate

May 29, 2017 Chiang Mai, Thailand I'm in a love-hate relationship. Not with an individual, but with a group. Actually nine groups. Nine groups of 32 - 35 little individuals that are in my charge for one hour each twice a week. I'm supposed to be teaching them how to speak, read, and write English, but at least half of those hours are spent being a cop, judge, and prison warden. It's exhausting. My job as a teacher at the local government school started on May 16. That was the day that approximately 1500 students, ranging from Kindergarten to 6th grade, began walking onto the school grounds through the front gate at 7:15am. Each day, they queue up single file into small groups of perhaps 10 or 12 before the Thai teacher who has gate duty stops the line. They are then directed to wai* in the direction of the teacher as they greet her (usually a her) with the standard "sawaddee ka/krub", then turn around and repeat the formal gesture in the direction of

May 27, 2017 Chiang Mai, Thailand As I mentioned previously, I have an addictive personality. Unfortunately, I'm not as addicted to writing as I am to other things that are less rewarding. It's taken me a long time to force myself to sit down and tell more of this story. Looking back, I sincerely regret the times that I sat in front of my desktop computer in the home office making conversations with people who weren't actually in front of me while my kids asked me to come outside and play with them. That is time that I can never ever get back. That's a very heavy realization. But those conversations were becoming my life, what I existed for. The prevailing view of online dialogue has long been one of suspicion. The image of a sweaty, fat, bald guy wearing a grubby white wife-beater pretending to be a cute 15-year-old high school sophomore to gain the trust of other cute 15-year-old girls has always been the poster for "don't talk to strangers on

May 27, 2017 Chiang Mai, Thailand Rain hurts. Butterflies hurt. Pretty much any normally harmless small object hurts when it hits your face at 50kph. The motorcycle helmet that I have been using does not have a face visor. Most times, that is preferable to me, as I enjoy feeling the wind cooling my face (and the rest of me) as I ride along on the far left side of the roadway. Sometimes, if I'm not going on the big highway, and there are unlikely to be police checkpoints out, I don't even wear a helmet. Foolish? Yes, of course. My mother would tell you that even sitting on a motorcycle itself is foolish. But that's how most people in southeast Asia get from place to place. And sometimes it's the entire family on one motorbike. Smallest child in front, standing on the footpads, father or mother operating the bike, and the next child and/or spouse sitting behind. And most of the time, none is wearing a helmet. It's a way of life here. Of course, I don't

May 14, 2017 Chiang Mai, Thailand (Some of this post was already written to my Facebook page.  I had to cut some parts for length, and for information that I didn't want to post to the general public. I've thought long and hard about whether to post this type of content about myself. I hope it's the right decision.  I'll try to write more about my Laos trip later. And finish my social media story) Finally on my way back home. And by "home", I mean Chiang Mai, Thailand. It's funny how I now think of it that way. It's not the new apartment into where I moved my belongings on May 1, right before I started this 11-day trip to Laos. I haven't even slept there yet. But I can't wait to get back and throw myself across the bed and just bask in the beauty of contentment of not living out of a backpack. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy living out of my backpack when I'm t raveling. It's a good backpack. A great one. The