Acceptance came last of all. When people are grieving, acceptance always comes last. This time was no exception. It started with denial. Why had it happen to me? I am a good person. I don’t kick cats, I don’t mock people unless they really deserve it. So, why had this happen to me? Why not someone who is a bad person? Why me? Then I moved on Anger. Anger felt a bit silly since I was not sure exactly who to be angry at. Should I be angry at Bill Gates for  building a Microsoft word that magically saves everything ? Should I be mad at the World Wide Internet for being defective when I tried uploading the blog? Maybe I should be angry at Al Gore for building the internet. Because as my logic would reason, if he hadn’t built the internet using 40 cubits of yarn and 25 unblemished and slightly confused  male ewes I never would have been writing the blog to begin with and  my night would have been restful. Yes I decided it was the fault of the 25 slightly confused but otherwise unblemished male ewes.

  After the denial and the confusion came the bargaining. This was interesting as part because apparently when one goes into the bargaining phase it means one and goes and buys pizza. What was confusing was that there was actually no bargaining at all. I told the pizza store lady what I wanted , she told me the price and I paid it. Other people did the same. There was certainly no bargaining here and I am starting to wonder if “Bargaining” is really the correct term. I think it is one of those things they talked about in class when I was busy making doodle masterpieces on my notepad. Had they really wanted me to know that “Bargaining” equals “Going out and eating pizza”  they should have put in a pro wrestling show, or the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue. Then and only then would I have paid attention.

   Next came depression. This was easy to spot because my blog was quite possibly the best, if not only, blog about getting stuck in the mud in a dirt road next to future site of some mega casino. It was going to bring me fame and fortune. The Tonight Show would book me as a guest for show, and the David Letterman show as well. I would have received offers to write for Maxim magazine (which I would politely decline because I want to be considered a serious person of the letters, they would however get my phone number just in case one of their models wanted someone to teach them philosophy, or go on a hot date or , you know, whatever.)

 Finally came acceptance. I accepted the fact that there was some vast left wing conspiracy against me. And that this conspiracy , and not my carelessness, had caused this problem. I also accepted some other things that night. For example eating pizza with a sore throat hurts likes heck and nearly (note I only said “nearly”) not worth the effort it takes to do it. I accepted that all my 1’s and 0’s that I had meticulously put together to for the worlds greatest blog ™ were lost forever. You may mock this if you wish but when you write “and” in computer speak it is written 111001000101  , mix it up as I once did  and write 10100101 and you have not written the word “and” anymore you have, instead  written an insult from colonial times that involves two gerbils, a large tree engulfed in flames and a cord of virgin maple wood. Trust me you don’t want the FAA to see you write that word in the bathroom stall. Just trust me and don’t make me explain, because as part of the probation I can’t.

         All kidding aside (Okay it was a serious article except for the bit about ever accepting an offer to speak on the Tonight Show. I have my standards, they have theirs, and theirs are far higher than mine) I was a bit gutted when my latest blog disappeared. You see it is not easy writing a travel blog because, well , you can’t make things up. Well in theory you can but it would be dishonest and people would find out eventually. That is one problem.

  Another problem is these areas are not nearly as excting as you might think. For example next week I will be paying my taxes in Thailand. Yes exotic, I know. But please try not to be jealous, jealousy is the ugliest of all emotions. You can’t go down koh sarn road (a road in Bangkok popular with backpackers) and drink snake blood or enter a room where expats are playing Russian Roulette  against nefarious looking locals to please a crowd that is betting who will die first. In Cambodia the streets are not strewn with body parts of unwary foreigners who strayed from the sidewalk to go and look at a flower only to step on a landmine.

   I am not saying that it is a boring place. I think really the lack of over stimulus that we think as “exotic” is far more common in the world then the concrete jungles we live in. There is very little desire, outside the newly rich , to live anywhere but their home country. South east asia is a place of tradition and culture and if anything it shows how little of either we have in the west.

  A lot of what westerners see as “traditional” simply is not. The hill people in the north of Thailand don’t usually wear gold braclets around their necks and those who do, do so because the tourists want to see it. The tourists are willing to pay good money to see it , so they oblige. They become sideshow attractions for our amusement.

    Perhaps that is why I was disappointed when the blog I had written had disappeared. It was a funny blog about something that probably occurs every time it is rainy season. It was funny, and pure and taught me something about human nature. That and I spoke to some Cambodian buffalo in Moo-Khmer and they seemed to agree with me.