I want an English language movie but when we follow the signs they lead us to a strange Alice in Wonderland bowling alley with zebra-lined booths & tiny bright candy-colored balls like bubble gum

I want to get my bangs cut but I’m scared no English = feathered

I want Lily to eat something not beige

I want to get a massage in the hotel spa but when I take Hudson down with me to “Noblesse Massage” on floor 2 a sultry woman in a black velvet dress points us to a dark menthol-scented room full of old men jacked back in recliners watching sumo wrestling on TV

I want the white wine I drink on the rickety hotel balcony in a taped-together plastic chair to be more yellow like white wine and less clear like water

I want to make Mark a valentine so I say, “Hey! Why don’t you go run on the treadmill!” but realize when he’s gone I have no supplies so I hack out hearts on Hotel Elios stationery with the Swiss Army knife and color them in with Hudson’s cheap feathery Vietnamese crayons (LOVE YOU BUN! with red and yellow squiggles and smiles)

I want to eject from the taxi when Lily drops her gigantic “FOR YOU” fat red sucker with blue & purple frosting and screams nonstop with red leaky sugar slime all over her face & hands—hands she gropes me with like she’s a nursing infant or an old letch even though she’s an innocent though ruffian 3

I want our hotel to be in the interesting De Tham tourist district instead of the computer & scooter sales neighborhood full of dusty wilted inner tubes & tottering pyramids of hard drives, greasy & gutted

I want to sleep with Mark as in in-out-sleep-with but we are a family of four in a tiny hotel room and the kids are spread across the floor like big messy butter and all night we hear their ragged little snory breaths and flicker-twitches which prevent us from anything more than a good night kiss (though on the lips, long and heavy, with just a little second base)