It’s been too long since I wrote something and I keep trying and I just don’t like what I’ve written. I have the drafts to prove it.
So you get another Ten Things list.
1. I am almost four weeks into my Thailand stay and it is weirdly quiet here, except for the EARTHQUAKE WE HAD LAST WEEK (March 28). I have never been in a building during an earthquake that lasted almost a minute. It was enough time to stop dissociating and realize it was still happening, which is awful. And we are over 400 kilometers from the epicenter in Myanmar.
2. Our youngest kitty, who is seven years old and was born a stray cat but adopted not long after into the family, has been declining in health almost since I got here (this is where our cats are staying) and we are not sure if she is going to make it. We are prepared for every night to be her last one, and when we wake up and she’s still here we are surprised and grateful; there is nothing we can do for her except give her love, fusses when she can manage them, treats, and access to comfortable spaces, food, and clean water. We hope and we are also trying to be realistic. It’s upsetting but it is what it is and she is precious to us.
3. My fandoms right now consist of: Stray Kids, ATEEZ, occasional other kpop (there’s A LOT of new songs and behind the scenes and music videos and unscripted content and I can’t keep up lol), and Korean and Thai BLs (boys love if you’re not familiar with the acronym). And I had the sudden realization that since I’m *in* Thailand right now, and Thailand is not a terribly large country, the likelihood that I will be in or near locations where the Thai actors or their production companies are located is pretty big —
4. Which is why I freaked out this week after making a hair appointment and then adding directions to the calendar event, whereupon I discovered I would be literal blocks away from the GMMTV location and one of the set locations for a BL I’ve loved recently. I literally freaked out. I almost fell off my chair, in fact. I am not even kidding.
5. Anyway I am getting my hair cut finally, hopefully it turns out as queerly as I am planning. Either way it will be a huge relief to get it cut even if I don’t like it, because if I don’t like it I will get some electric clippers and shave it all off again. Anything but the curly fluff happening right now.
6. All the grocery stores and the cell service store and the pharmacies and a giant food court and probably a hundred other stores are inside the biggest mall I’ve ever visited, which is where we go for all our errands. It’s called Fashion Island and it is huge but navigable, and I keep hoping I will accidentally see a celebrity there, which isn’t completely off base, and when I spot singers and actors I am familiar with on promotional posters for cell phones and bottled water I get stupidly excited. Yes that IS Bambam. YAY FOR ME
7. I can’t underestimate the way that the experience of participating in fandoms has changed me as a person. I didn’t even know this was a thing. I never got to do this. I am so excited about new songs and new music videos and new episodes of shows and behind the scenes footage and clips of BL couples doing promos and silly publicity events — I can’t explain how giddy and satisfied I feel with this. I love it. And I’m a little upset that I didn’t get to start this back in my 20s. I feel like I didn’t even know anything about anything until I was into my 40s.
8. I see the news coming out of the states — and the responses from other countries — and it is astoundingly awful. It’s almost a parody of itself except it’s actually happening, and the stark reality that if I ever went back I would be in the biggest danger I could possibly be in is like a red blaring warning light making siren noises in the background. I don’t understand and also I do understand. This was inevitable, in the way that terrible outcomes are always the result of all the complexity of choices that came before and led up to it. It was always going to end up this way because the chain of choices led us here.
9. So I’m on Threads every day and catching up with my fandom mutuals and seeing a bit of political content, and I know that when there’s a larger influx of political posts it’s because something AWFUL has probably been happening — it can be tricky being 12-15 hours ahead of everything happening in the states; for instance it is 12:03am on Saturday here right now but that means it is 12:03pm on Friday afternoon in Eastern Time in the states. I’m either online when people are having their late-night panic attacks, or I’m on when people are waking up and trying to figure out how to react to what’s going on. Either way I feel so bad for everyone and I try to be as supportive as I can.
10. Lastly — I want to make an observation of myself; my ears have learned to hear the Thai language spoken as something that feels familiar, because I have now heard it for long enough that it sounds like a thing I love to hear. I know how my brain works and that’s the initial reason I started watching so many Thai shows (the second reason is because there are so many good queer/gay Thai series). If I’m staying here for a while, I want to love the way the language sounds, in the same way that I love the way spoken Mandarin sounds, and the way spoken or sung Korean sounds. It feels like a piece of something I would categorize as home. It makes me feel safe, like the world is big but not bigger than I can hold inside my own heart and mind.
Maybe that’s the best outcome of going places I’ve never been before. Discovering how easy it is to love the beautifulness and culture and sound of a place I’ve just begun to know.
Usually I give you an epilogue made of song lyrics, but the lyrics to the songs that move me right now are mostly in Korean, and they mean so much to me partly for the lyrics but also for the way the songs feel and sound and how they make me want to respond to them. I have been practicing dancing (not very well) and I am listening to music that gives me joy and makes me want to fully inhabit my body.
So here is a song that I love right now, a very recent release from two of my favorite Stray Kids:
TRUMAN by HAN and Felix from Stray Kids
on Spotify
watch the music video on YouTube
I hope there are things in your life that bring you joy, and I hope you can fully enjoy them for at least a couple of minutes at a time. I hope that the discipline of hope is possible for you. I hope that tiny shards of sunlight and starlight make their way into your heart where they will stay. I hope that you will be safe.
The despair in the world affects me even at a distance, because it doesn’t feel distant at all when it affects people I love. I am always here if you need a friend.
xox
Nix
featured image is a publicity photo of Stray Kids for the dominATE world tour
