the brainworms that are carving holes in my gray matter are feasting good today. Refinery29 money diaries is a goldmine of fodder at the risk of sounding like an avocado toast boomer
"bluebs" enjoyer takes a trip to colorado to smoke weed, struggles with the burden of responsibility from the succesfull family business. Dads secretary booked it all using his points ("these beautiful hippy girls with flower crowns set the bong up for each new person in line"): https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/denver-colorado-weekend-trip-itinerary-vacation-cost
"living on" $25 an hour "plus allowance", adult daycare jobby plus a cult gym, trip to the hamptons in ny with the girlies where they get so drunk and seasick from their friends boat they puke the food the personal chef made whilst doing some bizarre shit with venmo that feels like an IRS investiagtion: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/money-diary-new-york-city-marketing-intern-income
Digital nomad marketing person visits Bali "angrily ordering a detox juice" and sending back the fried rice to get thrown away cuz it had fish sauce which isnt vegan (surely thats worse cause then the animal died for no reason but what do i know). had to wait 25 minutes for treats. did Sukarno die for this? https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/digital-nomad-traveling-salary-money-diary
Im like 5 drinks in on a wednesday judge me all u want but the bali one is an extra personal level of seethe. Just a Friendly reminder of how many were slaughtered that were even just ACCUSED of being leftists,feminists or even just the wrong religion/ethnicity MEANWHILE 50 years later: im gonna put this under spoilers bc im about to turn into the joker
spoiler
"AWAY from the awful swarms of summer tourists (aka, the 18-year-olds drinking heavily and getting their first 2 a.m. tattoos AND the people in their late 20s trying to "eat pray love" in Bali)"
YOU ARE THE PERSON IN THEIR LATE 20S TRYING TO EAT PRAY LOVE IN BALI!!!!!!!
"Our flight is delayed 45 minutes, which gives us time to grab something to eat and stereotype all the different Western travelers on our flight to Bali"
YOU ARE THE WESTERN TRAVELER IN BALI!!!!!!!!!!
"I really do not enjoy hanging out with lifestyle bloggers (food bloggers are much more fun to eat with)"
TREATS TREATS TREATS TREATS TREATS!!! YUMMERS!!
"We arrive at another dingy little guesthouse" "We wake up and realize our dingy guesthouse is actually a beautiful Buddhist/Hindu garden sanctuary!"
YOUR SO CLOSE TO TURNING ME INTO A THIRD WORLDIST
"While it has views of the ocean bay, it also has views of a local garbage dump. Thanks, booking.com!"
I WONDER WHAT COUNTRYS SHIP ALL THEIR GARBAGE OVERSEAS!!!
"For some bizarre reason, one restaurant has real corn tortillas and serves the closest thing to a Mexican taco that I've seen in 13 months of travel. Tempe, avo, mango tacos with a sunset beach view?! Yes, please!"
this feels like a microaggression
"Dinner wasn't enough. We find another beach bar serving something called "Apple Cinnamon." We wait impatiently for 25 minutes and then gorge on caramelized bananas and apple slices simmered in sugar syrup"
MORE TREATS MORE TREATS NOW MORE TREATS NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!
"Once we return to our charming little beachside garbage-y villa"
bus driver from cod tranzit voice FUUUUUUUCK YOU
"Since I paid for our previous trip to Singapore, he owes me a small chunk of change (we keep track of our shared expenses via the Splitwise app, which minimizes nagging), so he is paying the bigger bills to slowly pay me back."
OBSESSED WITH MONEY also lol @ the nagging spouse comment
"As we lie in bed, I do something I haven't done in a LONG time! It's a guilty pleasure, of course. I window shop on Anthropologie's website, dreaming of placing an order of the clothing I can't yet afford."
the only guilt this person has felt in their life + shit they can clearly afford
"I work on social media calendars and reply to DMs on some of the client Insta accounts I run." fake job
"Within literally five minutes, we have a quintessential Bali experience: We crash our scooter." not really quintessential but sure dummy
"we're both rolling on pot-holey asphalt. It sucks SO MUCH. The stars align (sorta), and two Dutch nurse travelers happened to pass us. They come to our rescue, feed us cookies, and test our limbs."
YUMMY TREATS FROM THE MOST HOLY OF PEOPLES THE DUTCH
"After a few hours of being stuck in a medical clinic, we are SO HUNGRY! We have no way to get to our cute vegan-friendly lunch spot and are forced to hop on the back of two locals' scooters for a lift. It's pricier than it should be, but it doesn't feel like we have much of a choice. I hang on for dear life and then slip the drivers some cash."
FORCED to hop on the local's scooters. FORCED!!! and so expensive!!!
"The cashier gives us a free reusable tote bag for some bizarre reason, and we go on our merry way."
WOW someone being nice. BIZARRE!!! (which is this persons favorite word)
"When we arrive, it is swarmed with glowing yogis chatting and studying for their teacher certification. The restaurant is not nearly as cool as its Google listing photos imply, and the waiter is the most apathetic waiter I've ever met. (...) The restaurant turns out to be cash-only as well, but alas, we have no cash. I find a hidden $20 USD bill I have in my wallet, and we try to convert it to the local currency, the rupiah. The waiter struggles with the math and tries to charge us double in USD, because he doesn't have change. I run around the restaurant like a crazy woman, desperate to find change for him. A laughing couple supports my cause, and we leave without being scammed"
THOSE BROWN PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS TRYING TO SCAM YOU!!! AND THEY ALWAYS STRUGGLE WITH MATH!!1!!! I THOUGHT ASIANS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AT MATH!!11!! GOOD THING WE HAD THE OTHER WESTERNERS TO BACK US UP!!! /s
" Our scooter friends can't pick us up, so we revert to taking a local island "taxi." "
TAXI IN QUOTES CUZ THEY AREN'T REAL TAXIS IF IT ISN'T A NEW YORKER IN A CAP DRIVING THEM /s
"Tormented by nightmares and an achy body, I wake up feeling sore, groggy, and awful. "
Good.
"I DM a cool Ukrainian artist Instagrammer to collab with an earbud company I work for. I ignore the six copy-pasted collaboration requests I have in their inbox...I then reply to all our comments on a recent post. I decide to lie in bed and go through all my receipts and scan them into Evernote, because it feels like a responsible, adulty thing to do."
A LITTLE ADULTING WHEN YOU'RE SO POPULAR GOES A LONG WAY
"Seconds before I sit down to see the nurse, a bruised and battered American teenager stumbles into the room. It's clear he's just had a scooter incident while driving shirtless. I quickly make room for the poor guy and return to the waiting room, chuckling to my partner that the doctors in Bali must make a lot of money treating us dumb tourists who crash on their scooters."
YOU ARE THE DUMB AMERICAN TOURIST YOU ARE THE DUMB AMERICAN TOURIST
" We get a lift on the scooters to a nearby blue lagoon — damn, it's SO beautiful! Thankfully, there's a lovely hotel on the rim of the cliffs with a beanbag-covered balcony."
THANKFULLY theres a hotel so we dont have to sit on the beach like PEASANTS
"I whip out my laptop to work on a performance analysis of my own personal Instagram feed and start writing a new strategy for next month. My battery dies before I finish, so I read a bizarre yet intriguing chapter of my book (You and I Eat the Same: On the Countless Ways Food and Cooking Connect Us to One Another) about Mennonites making cheese in Northern Mexico."
i made an inhuman groan noise at this
"My partner insists on walking 30 minutes to a restaurant on the other side of the island."
OH NO WALKING 30 MINUTES
"Together we hobble and limp past sad, empty beach clubs (it's high season in Bali, which makes them even more sad). An hour later, we make it to this cute rooftop restaurant."
SAD! SAD! SAD! sounds like a donald trump tweet
"Somehow we both order different versions of a dry, salty pesto pasta dish."
WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED YOU WENT TO INDONESIA AND THE ITALIAN FOOD WASNT PERFECT BECAUSE INDONESIA IS TOTALLY A PLACE KNOWN FOR ITALIAN PRO CHEFS SHIPPED RIGHT OVER FROM NAPLES /s
"We spend much of dinner laughing and taking ridiculous photos of our "gourmet" dishes, pretending we're in food-blogger mode."
RIDICULOUS! RIDICULOUS! IN FOOD-BLOGGER MODE! RIDICULOUS! GOURMET IN SCARE QUOTES!
"try to pay for dinner but realize I'm out of cash — oh no, how have I become so forgetful?! I find a few small bills floating around my purse after the owner tells us the only ATM is on another island, ha! We happily agree that we'll come back in the morning to pay the rest of the bill, because it's a tiny island and I'm sure it's easy for him to hunt us down if we truly dined-and-dashed."
not to be insane but something about westerner priviledge
"We chuckle at how quaint this little Balinese island feels."
QUAINT LITTLE ISLAND!!!!
"I pop a double dose of Ashwagandha capsules for stress reduction, chug water, and watch irrelevant Insta stories to distract myself. I can barely stomach free breakfast, because my whole body is riddled with anxiety about work, flights, ailments, emails, and having to leave the comforts of our tiny little Balinese island to rush to a crappy airport hotel."
WHY DO THEY HAVE TO MAKE IT SOUND SO ANNOYING PLZ TELL ME THERE IS A GHOST WRITER THAT PARAPHRASES THESE
"(my enormous voyage back to the land of bagels, drip coffee, and good Wi-Fi...oh, and my family)"
the, bart, the
"We are exhausted and thankful that the hotel seems okay and has a restaurant. It's the day before our massive journey to New York, and all I want to do is eat, repack, watch Queer Eye, and sleep. Turns out the hotel restaurant is ginormous and 100% empty. We settle on potato wedges, a watermelon smoothie, and two creamy turmeric pasta dishes (mine is with veggies, and his is with chicken)"
THE BART THE
"I stupidly check my email before bed and see a message from one of my clients. My cortisol level spikes, and I know that I've just ruined my chances of getting a good night's rest. Turns out she wants revisions for a social media schedule and has only given me 24 hours' notice. Looks like I'll have to stress at the airports and maybe even pay for in-flight Wi-Fi to get it done. Sometimes I really hate my job..."
i need to see a reality tv show where this person works at a fast food restaraunt
"I buy a mini bottle of virgin coconut oil for my vegan sister, a bag of luwak coffee (which contains feces produced when the Asian palm civet eats the coffee cherries...it's supposed to be the best coffee in the world) "
HAHA THE FUNNY PEOPLE EAT DOODOO ISNT THAT FUNNY
i hit the limit for this post but i am literally going insane i will be a petty whiny fucck about the rest of the article later
more coping seething and whining from me
spoiler
spoiler
"I'm starting to get hangry at this point. Obviously, cashews won't tide me over. We sit down at a little breakfast nook at the airport with avocado toast and beetroot hummus toast. Inflated airport prices always make me a little salty — this bread with frozen mushy avo should be wayyy cheaper and a lot more delicious"
OH NO AIRPORT FOOD IS EXPENSIVE. WHO WOULD OF GUESSED.
"We literally stopped in Singapore just to get his luggage before beginning our long journey to New York — so I sass him into paying for the taxis."
sassy sassy!!!
"I weirdly love airport food."
U JUST SAID U HATED IT
"Turns out we're in a weird terminal and are stuck eating Subway sandwiches, which makes me cringe."
KUH-RINGE!!! I WOULD NEVER EAT AT snorts scoffs SUBWAY /s
"I get a vegetarian foot-long sub with an interesting soy-veggie patty in it"
the passive aggression YOU MADE THE SANDWICH
"My partner winces in pain,"
GOOD.
"I stay behind, curled up in a big stressball trying to make last-minute edits on a social media calendar for a client who doesn't understand how brutal 30 hours of travel is."
BRUTAL 30 HOURS OF SITTING AROUND AND NAPPING AND GOING ON PHONE. NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND.
"PLUS they get served first. I nonetheless glance at the food menu to see if there's anything worthwhile — nope!"
steve dillon punisher face reaction image
"Hello, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! An adorably shy teenage wheelchair assistant waits for everyone to disembark the plane before collecting us."
ADORABLE ARENT THOSE FUNNY LITTLE PEOPLE SO ADORABLE AND MEEK SO SHY
" I can't wait for my mom to shower us with excessive amounts of food and a fancy dinner or two. I also can't wait to go blow some of that money on concert tickets and bougie brunch in Brooklyn. "
steve dillon punisher face reaction image again
"Also, damn, how have I gone 13 months without Amazon Prime? I make a mental list of stupid crap I want to buy while I'm home and slowly lull off to sleep."
whatever man
im not usually this mean spirited btw but this REALLY really really annoyed me
Comrade, this is not healthy behavior. This is clearly really upsetting you and you should avoid it.
thanks for being concerned and all but am good just had to get it all out. i promise i am not normally this :wojak-nooo: :brainworms: sounding
Lol this person's life consists of sending a few emails and eating. I mean I love to eat new foods when I'm traveling, but holy shit.
This is what this is all for. All the suffering inflicted on the third world, all the irreparable damage inflicted to the planet. It's for these people to have their treats.
Echoing the other poster, please consider stopping the mental self-harm.
We hobble to the nearby beach and thankfully find a beach club that doesn't make us buy any drinks while we lounge on their bean bags. We peek at the food and drink menu and are totally shocked — they charge 3.5x the normal prices for EVERYTHING!
You're paying to SIT ON THE BEACH, you PIECE OF SHIT! Of course it's expensive!
I feel like if I clicked on these links I would lose the last dregs of my sanity
sending back the fried rice to get thrown away cuz it had fish sauce which isnt vegan (surely thats worse cause then the animal died for no reason but what do i know)
The animal died for no reason either way, eating its corpse changes nothing
Love too forgo 1 plastic spoon to #SayNoToPlastic on my short 5-day side trip I flew on an airplane for.
Also, I think that instead of you reading these yourself, they would make good Chapo (dot Chat) Reading Series.
I don't see why we couldn't have 1 night a week where a bunch of us get into a voice chat channel on a discord server (some of us vidya game players started one a few months ago for Foxhole and various other stuff) and just hate-read stuff like these articles, taking turns reading and riffing.
I finagle with the cashier to remove meat from their nasi goreng fried-rice dish. I'm salty because I still have to pay full price. I also order my partner a spaghetti carbonara, because he can eat anything and everything. Lo and behold, they douse my rice in fish sauce; I send it back and exchange it for plain pasta with whatever veggies they have in the kitchen.
Hungry and frustrated, we walk to another coffee shop 15 minutes away. They also have zero vegetarian options, so I angrily order a "detox juice," which is a pulpy mess of cucumber, apple, lemon, and honey. I proceed to cry on the sidewalk because I'm fed up with restaurants in this part of Indonesia not being vegetarian or vegan-friendly.
If anyone ever wondered why vegans have such a bad reputation, THIS.
its petty but the “nasi goreng fried rice dish” thing bugs me cuz hmmmm i wonder what nasi goreng translates to. anyway bro you are literally in the tropics theres cheep good tasting fruit and veg everywhere but that doesnt involve enough minum wage workers subject to ur whims ig
