Hello out there! Welcome to the weekend and welcome to another confused installment of Kitchen Sink. If you’re reading this, I miss you! And I hope you’re doing well as winter creeps into full swing. As I finally sit down to write, I look like this:
And I’m sitting in a cafe that smells like cigarettes (in a nice way) and looks like this:
While I never promised an exact day each week that this newsletter would come out (read the fine print fools), I feel like I’m late on the draw this week. I’ve been procrastinating because I’ve been very nappy and frazzled and I imagine presently my brain has the texture of tapioca. But then I remembered that nobody even ASKED for this blog, let alone lengthy perfection. Silly Ryley.
So I thought that as the year comes to a close I would throw myself a bone and just do a couple short life updates. I feel like I just shoved Kitchen Sink in everyone’s faces without really elaborating on the present status of my life. This is half because I don’t want this to be a here’s-what-I-did-today blog and half because I forgot. And also partly because we are all friends here (even you, Maeve’s roommate and boyfriend! Don’t think I don’t see you!) and I didn’t want to be redundant. But nevertheless, here’s what’s up as of now:
The Vietnam of it all
It has been almost two months since I dragged my limp body over the ocean, through a variety of terrifying visa checkpoints, and into Hanoi. I genuinely still have nightmares sometimes that my paperwork didn’t work out and I am still trapped at home in the confusing limbo that tore me to shreds this past summer. But then I wake up and I’m not! I’m finally onto whatever bit this is and I just feel quite glad that at least it’s something new. I’m not doing much besides drinking juice and sitting on the roof, but it is quite nice to feel like I’m doing something instead of wondering what I should do, if that makes sense?
I planned to come here/ presently live with my long lost friend Ellie. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, she looks like this:
Our apartment has two bedrooms, one dirty balcony, and seven loosely scattered lamps to avoid turning on the overhead fluorescents. The first floor of the building is a veterinary clinic, meaning that I live in a constance cycle of greeting and saying farewell to very cute dogs. My favorite one though, a stuffed animal-adjacent creature named Boo, returns every week to have his fur shampooed. My heart grows three sizes whenever I see him.
Outside is West Lake and down the street are some confusing cafes which are themed “coconuts”. There is coconut coffee, coconut water, and coconut ice cream, all consumed while sitting in chairs that are organized movie theatre style in the direction of the sunset. In the opposite direction of the lake is a vegetarian lunch buffet where I eat at least three times a week because the food is cheap and I find it fun and risky that it is unlabeled. I love it there except during the busiest hour (12:00 to 1:00) when it is filled with people I half know - well enough to awkwardly say hi but not well enough to sit with them. Don’t worry though, I have some friends that I full know too. They look like this:
I teach 15 eleventh grade English classes each week at a school that is located 25 minutes away. But right now it is located zero minutes away because school is virtual and I just teach it from my bed. Sometimes I love it because it’s fun to ask them questions like: “Can you give me an example of a community you are a part of?” and to get responses like: “Pizza” or “My boyfriend is my community”. Other times I don’t love it because the curriculum includes some aggressive lessons such as “how to become independent”. The answer is don’t!! Depending on people is nice! But my job isn’t to say that, it’s to drill them on vocabulary.
In my free time (which is creepily abundant), I like to go on very pitiful jogs, sit around and drink coffee that is mostly condensed milk (yummm), and play headbands with Ellie. It’s crazy how much nothing you can accomplish with so many hours in the day. Crazy but also super awesome.
Next week we will celebrate Christmas with a Secret Santa, a variety of festive games, and a dinner that I refuse to help cook after the Thanksgiving fiasco. I think we should order KFC for Christmas dinner but that idea didn’t go over too hot. On boxing day, we are going on a mini beach vacation to Phu Quoc island which is famous for two things:
Production of high quality fish sauce (you can tour the factories!)
Major beach shenanigans during the holidays
I am getting the impression that everyone and their cousin goes to this island to….drink? And lay on the beach? I’m pretty confused but maybe I will tell you how that goes come the new year.
In summary, living here is just nice! I thought it would feel like some kind of nonstop-all-you-can-party-panic-travel-girl-year. But really it just feels like my normal existence now, which is actually way way better. Sometimes I eat pho but sometimes I eat a bagel, last night I watched the second Harry Potter movie and tonight I’m going to my weird soccer practice. After soccer we will go to the Bia Hoi, which is my number one favorite thing about Vietnam. The Bia Hoi is a magical place where you sit on plastic chairs and drink 25 cent beers that taste very bad because they were just made that day. Some days I feel like I’m having the best day of my life and other times I feel kinda sleepy and lazy. Both are fine, both are good!
And etc.
I have never been one for homesickness in the past, but both my parents have birthdays this week and it is making me miss them quite a lot! After becoming besties during the pandemic, it feels creepy to be far away from them for so long, especially as they age another year! Lorde once said: “Spend as much time as you can with the people who raised you”, and as always she was right.
When I was a greedy young brat I always thought it sounded terrible to be at the age where you didn’t get gifts on Christmas, but now I’m finding it nice. I’m also finding it nice that I find it nice.
As I was writing this, I found myself cringing and wanting to backspace constantly for fear of being perceived as some kind of travel blogger girl. And then I started to think about that trope in general and how interesting it is. Specifically, that so many people, myself very much included, both live a “wanderlusty” lifestyle and simultaneously try to distance ourselves from that characterization as much as possible. I feel like it goes along with a general trend that sincerity is something to be embarrassed about. But then again, traveling can be actively and materially harmful.
Idk I just think that might be something I want to noodle with writing about, especially because so many articles I found when I googled “why do we hate the travel blogger” yielded articles that seemed to come from a very self-serving or “not like other travel blogs” mentality.
So, if you have ANY thoughts on this topic please please please please please please send them my way! Even trying to think it through on my own gave me a headache. I will also accept half thoughts and single words. And voice memos.
You guessed it, some bullet points:
If I had one wish it would be that EDM music was never invented.
If I had two wishes they would be that EDM music was never invented and that wool didn’t feel so terrible against your skin.
My question for you:
What do you think is the most embarrassing thing about yourself?
I think you’re all SO embarrassing, because existing is humiliating. But I also think you’re so smart and sexy too!
XOXO
Ryley