Negativity (lies upon lies)

I didn't return to Hanoi yesterday. I didn't ride in a plane with a screaming child in the row in front of me and I didn't sit next to an old lady who three times couldn't figure out how to unbuckle her safety belt. I wasn't then taken back to my living quarters by a taxi who didn't have to stop probably six times to ask for directions. I didn't feel stupid for not knowing where I lived.

I didn't spend Saturday night in my hotel room. I didn't buy pirated DVDs from the Chiang Mai night market. I didn't watch Goal!, and I didn't find it sufficiently entertaining, even though it wasn't completely predictable.

I'm not absolutely furious with Fox for cancelling Arrested Development. I'm not thinking about defacing their garden gnomes with a Sharpie and a handaxe, and possibly some mule urine. I won't be consoled when Scrubs starts back up in January. I'm not completely in love with Zach Braff in a totally hetero-male {or at worst metro-male} appropriate way.

I'm not constantly woken up by the exorbitant amount of noise that goes on in my neighborhood. I don't think I hear an old woman creaking around the compound singing in a parrot voice, "Why'm I here, God?"

I don't mind sink-washing my clothes again. Nor do I mind cold, no water pressure, shower-curtainless showers that force me to sit in the tub like I was taking a bath and spend four minutes trying to rinse my body of soap, only to not dry off with a towel that won't dry from the humidity so it won't start smelling of mildew again tomorrow. I don't mind finding ants on my toothpaste container or finding my dress clothes wrinkled in my suitcase because I still haven't no hangers, and even if I didn't have hangers, I wouldn't have a place to hang them. I don't mind showing up on the first day of my job to a government meeting with all the other relief organizations present in awkwardly creased clothes, wearing khaki's that haven't seemed to have lost a key button, not forcing me to cinch my belt extra tight against a stomach that doesn't hold only a can of raw Superlinks because I couldn't find a food place close by and wansn't able to get the stove working. I'm not hoping that Thanksgiving will be much different.

I don't need a hug.