Oddball Update

Following our trip to Thailand, we’ve been back in the U.S. now for just over a week. It seems like much longer. Not that I’m surprised; the first full week of work after a wholesale change of environment like that always seems a little drawn-out. But this time…I don’t know. You could say that I rather swiftly got “settled down” once I got home, but I think I settled too far down. Now I’m trying to settle back up a few notches.

The trip home was…well, what can I say? Long trips by air just don’t suit me, and they suit Apple even less. Despite our best efforts to make the nearly two-day journey home as comfortable as possible, including renting a day room at Tokyo Narita Airport so we could catch a nap for a few hours, it was really not a pleasant experience. In fact, the closest one of these trips has ever come to “pleasant” was when we bought the Premium Economy tickets on Thai Airways last year, but that was expensive.

To be honest, I didn’t have that bad of a trip home. It was Apple who had a hell of a time. Not only does she hate flying to begin with — not out of fear, but out of boredom and discomfort — but in addition, on the trip back she had an allergic reaction to something that gave her a very uncomfortable case of hives. It was not good at all!

For me, going to Thailand was worse — Continental’s food made me mildly ill, the little girl in front of me had her seat reclined 100% of the way for the entire 14-hour flight, and I was typically uncomfortable in the seats due to my long legs. (To their credit, Thai Airways’ coach class is easily the most comfortable anywhere.)

In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, on the way to Thailand we had a very nice evening stopover in Bangkok, got to hang around with Apple’s cousins and spent the next morning at a really posh new mall, eating Japanese food at this pretty upscale restaurant. The mall even had an exotic car dealership on the fifth floor. Yeah. You could go up there and buy a Ferrari 512 TR, or a Lotus Exige, or any one of the other Maseratis, Porsches and soforth. Naturally, I snapped a couple of pics with my iPhone:

Anyway, we’re back now, and things are starting to return to normal. At the beginning of last week, I would have said that they’d already returned to normal, but then I went on to have a really shitty week. Not that anything bad happened, it was just…strange. I don’t know. I felt depressed all week, in fact more so every day, to the point where I felt like nothing mattered at all.

Thursday and Friday — even part of Saturday — were the worst. I moped around in a stupor, unable to muster any kind of reaction, positive or negative, to anything that happened around me. I didn’t feel like watching the hours and hours of TV that are waiting for me on the TiVo. I didn’t feel like posting on this site. I didn’t even feel like going out driving, or out anywhere for that matter. It felt like I was just going through the motions, because there was nothing to look forward to — at all.

Today, thankfully, is a lot better. Part of the reason is because I’m not working today — I put in a full day’s hours yesterday on a side job, but today I’m taking off. Another part is because today Apple and I went out in the GTO and picked up some fresh fish at the Fresh Market downtown. It was a nice drive, the market is really classy and the fish looks tasty. The car was a lot of fun to drive, too. And because it’s the summer season and all the doddering old people who can’t drive have gone home, it’s actually great to get out on the road again. Even though it is hot as Hades.

We also had some reassuring news from Apple’s doctor in Thailand. He was nice enough to give us his email address before we left, and she’s already asked him some questions about our upcoming fertility procedures. We were worried about our future children having genetic abnormalities due to the procedures, and were thinking we’d go to a hospital where they do this pre-genetic testing of your embryos before they implant them. The problem is that this procedure is new and extraordinarily expensive, even in Thailand, and Apple’s doctor doesn’t have the means to do it yet either.

So that was another thing that was getting me down last week, I think. It felt like it was going to be even harder and even more expensive for us to have kids, and it was bumming me out. Today, though, Apple received a reply back from her doctor, who took her through some points to think about and concluded that the expense-to-benefit ratio of the genetic testing was nowhere near worth it for us. He also said that our particular condition doesn’t make genetic abnormalities more likely, unlike some other fertility conditions, and that we shouldn’t worry about it. It was good, I think, to hear someone who’s a professional — and someone you trust — giving advice like that. It really set my mind at ease, anyway.

Incidentally, after reading the email, Apple said to me, “Are there any doctors here in the U.S. that would actually give out their email addresses and answer questions like this directly?” I don’t know, but I doubt it. They probably don’t have time, or there’d be liability or legal issues, or whatever else.

Anyway, I’m in much better spirits today, as a result of all this. Tonight we might be going out for dinner with Apple’s Thai friend and her fiance, although we have yet to hear — though if we don’t, we’ll probably just go out ourselves. It’s good to take a break for a while, even if it’s just one day a week.

To avoid going back into a funk, I’m trying to avoid watching, reading, or listening to the news. This is kind of difficult for me, since I’m a bit of a news hound, and there’s a (non-political) local talk show on the radio here that I like to listen to because it clues me into events going on here in town, rather than just on a national scale. But damn…ever since we got back from Thailand, the friggin’ news has been so depressing! I mean, it was depressing in Thailand too, when I’d read news websites from the U.S. But here, you’re just inundated with it.

You’d think the world is coming to an end, the way the media is going on. Oil prices through the roof. Unemployment spiking. The credit crisis and the foreclosure mess. Our creaky old political system going through the typical 24/7 dog and pony show, when there’s really less substance behind it than ever. It’s enough to make the world’s happiest man want to slit his wrists.

What chaps my ass the most is how the media has gone so completely apeshit about the fossil fuel / global warming / green trends. Every day, all over all the major news networks’ websites, are these ludicrous and pointless articles, like “The Top Ten Least Earth Friendly Cars,” most of which are Bentleys and Lamborghinis, which tells you how useless that article is. Or the one I read the other day about how chicks don’t want to fuck you if you drive a hot rod, now they only want your bones if you drive a hybrid. Seriously, who gives a fuck about this stuff? The media actually thinks that we’ll change our ways because random women won’t ogle us otherwise? I mean, who are these asshats kidding?

Speaking of that particular example, I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV on my Xbox (which my mom ever-so-kindly bought for me as a welcome home gift, thank you so much!), and there’s a farcical segment on the in-game talk radio station that parodies that very concept. There’s a news bite where the reporter of the day is talking about girls only digging guys with hybrid cars, like the one this reporter rented just for his segment. By the end of the report, the reporter and some random woman are humping like mad, and the girl is screaming in ecstasy, “Ooh, ooh, tell me more about composting!” As they say in Internet parlance, I lol’ed.

Anyway, the news media makes me want to garrote myself, so I’m trying not to pay attention to it at all. I always get this way a little when I come home from Thailand, where I (perhaps mercifully) cannot even understand the news being broadcast, but the anti-media backlash effect seems especially potent this year. Must be the election stuff going on.

So that’s where I’m at now — just a little more settling up to do before I really feel like I’m myself again. I’ll keep you posted.

Tagged as Life, Thailand + Categorized as Life