the words have been moved to a more micro + photo format on IG for the time being.
follow me there until i go longform again.
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
the rotten pound of flesh
the most important part of getting past something is to expose it to daylight so it can be seen, acknowledged, and eventually live in the past. several abandonded drafts have come and gone, of outrage and resentment. making people see my pain doesn't actually address my pain. the pound of flesh i'm determined to have has already rotted between my teeth.
i have been binging couples content to try and dissect what i didn't have the chance to operate on. countless paint swatches held up to the mirror in hopes of finding a telling match. "I don't like to give attention to him" flatly said, from an overextended follower of the Fake It 'Til You Make It MLM stayed with me. problem statement, red flag, and takeaway rolled together so succinctly.
socially it feels like i'm the sucker punchline at the end of a three year conversation had with everyone else but me. the tragedy lies in that words were what brought us together, from thousands of miles apart. these same words are what shattered us, over and over again. the omission of words, the harshest judgement.
the struggle that's left is mourning the loss of my identity within a society. it's as if the Seattle trees i have watered for decades have borne fruit from my time, care, and attention. that fruit has been cherry-picked and stolen, its nourishment taken. the narrative being told to mutual friends isn't the reality, because the reality is woven and wounded and wishes to be forgotten about, but the reality is that people choose sides and a whole lot of people stopped talking to me.
this year has been spent replanting myself among those that see me. not a single person from my widest (most shallow?) social circle has asked me if i'm okay, and that's not okay. rows and rows of human-sized cardboard cutouts blown over by the torrential awkward silence. on the back of each is scrawled paragraphs of exclusionary legalese. it's incredibly disconnecting when you pride yourself on being there when others need an ear or a hand and you aren't given that in kind.
the end of summer has left me restless, a welcome change from seasons of numb. my primal instict is to put a down payment on another nest, to pull my things out of storage and surround myself with proof of my existence. but i know that my way forward is being open to opportunity and i just need the patience to get there. past me has gifted present me with the adventure i need when i depart Canada in 21 days.
i write about this because i want it to remain in the archives. i am back to living for myself and want this space to reflect the privilege and sanctity of the now. Montreal is not the solution to any of my problems but it has given me a forced perspective shift that allows me insights i wouldn't have by simply replaying old habits.
besides, the baked goods are to die for.
i have been binging couples content to try and dissect what i didn't have the chance to operate on. countless paint swatches held up to the mirror in hopes of finding a telling match. "I don't like to give attention to him" flatly said, from an overextended follower of the Fake It 'Til You Make It MLM stayed with me. problem statement, red flag, and takeaway rolled together so succinctly.
socially it feels like i'm the sucker punchline at the end of a three year conversation had with everyone else but me. the tragedy lies in that words were what brought us together, from thousands of miles apart. these same words are what shattered us, over and over again. the omission of words, the harshest judgement.
the struggle that's left is mourning the loss of my identity within a society. it's as if the Seattle trees i have watered for decades have borne fruit from my time, care, and attention. that fruit has been cherry-picked and stolen, its nourishment taken. the narrative being told to mutual friends isn't the reality, because the reality is woven and wounded and wishes to be forgotten about, but the reality is that people choose sides and a whole lot of people stopped talking to me.
this year has been spent replanting myself among those that see me. not a single person from my widest (most shallow?) social circle has asked me if i'm okay, and that's not okay. rows and rows of human-sized cardboard cutouts blown over by the torrential awkward silence. on the back of each is scrawled paragraphs of exclusionary legalese. it's incredibly disconnecting when you pride yourself on being there when others need an ear or a hand and you aren't given that in kind.
the end of summer has left me restless, a welcome change from seasons of numb. my primal instict is to put a down payment on another nest, to pull my things out of storage and surround myself with proof of my existence. but i know that my way forward is being open to opportunity and i just need the patience to get there. past me has gifted present me with the adventure i need when i depart Canada in 21 days.
i write about this because i want it to remain in the archives. i am back to living for myself and want this space to reflect the privilege and sanctity of the now. Montreal is not the solution to any of my problems but it has given me a forced perspective shift that allows me insights i wouldn't have by simply replaying old habits.
besides, the baked goods are to die for.
Monday, June 27, 2022
emotional purgatory
nearly two months ago i arrived, an incoherent midnight mess to Canadian immigration.
"why are you coming to Canada?"
"do you know anyone in Montreal?"
"what are you going to be doing for so long?"
"you don't know anyone in Montreal?"
"are you going to be working here?"
"how much money do you have?"
"why were you in New York City?"
endless existential exposition served by sus security.
i flubbed, i faltered, i flummoxed.
i botched, i bungled, i bumbled.
mutual torture for everyone standing between me and my apartment.
i don't know man i just need to be here right now.
i arrived to my airbnb and entered the door code.
i was instructed to wait for the green light before trying the handle, otherwise i'll fuck everything up.
no light came on, but the approval beep was audible.
i tried the door. it didn't open. ugh i fucked everything up.
i try the code again. no green light. the beep of acceptance. nothing.
i try it again.
and again.
and again.
and check the street number.
and again.
and again.
and again.
and suddenly i hear a mechanical noise, the door lock with alzheimer's realizing it's still on the clock.
thus kicked off big summer nemesis 2022: a door
this place had specific purpose - somewhere very central with a balcony to start my summer uncertainty. if COVID was to flare back up again or pivot or great introducing monkey pox then i could at least feel within the mix and not wholly isolate myself during a time i should probably definitely be around other people.
it's the what i need, warts and all. a reminder that air conditioning should be a thing you have. a reminder how important ergonomics are in being a functional human. there is a certain sensory purging in the occasional sweat-soaked sunday without a real table to sit at or a real chair to sit on. arty studio living!
the mini fridge and the countertop burner and the toaster oven. if i had an ounce of urge to be on-camera i would totally make a cooking show around airbnb kitchens. a one-skillet meal is nice and all ASSUMING YOU HAVE A SKILLET. but i make do and i take care of myself. beyond sausages on the regular. spinach wherever i can stuff it. big ups to the fresh baked ciabatta in every grocery store - canada's cheddar will make you long for the days of tilamook but the french sure know how to boulangerie.
back to basics feat. a double-headed shower and a view so prominent i'm a minor celebrity every time i step outside. my next place will have all of the luxuries i have taken for granted - for now it's a life of prone processing.
it's a lot a lot to process.
i've been asked if i'm having fun yet.
it's not that i lack levity, i'm just incapable of dreaming right now.
(which admittedly isn't very fun.)
i've been asked if i'm bored with all of this open-ended time.
the silence i hear every day is not inherently lonely.
(though i do miss human touch.)
it's currently the sound of the absence of being overwhelmed.
delightful, really.
one day it'll be the sound of opportunity.
of intent.
of time meant to spend.
but things are very simple, now.
do your dishes.
get out and about now and then.
don't get covid.
don't need a hospital.
one more month in the Saint Laurent spotlight.
two months in a less cool / more livable Mile End studio.
big ticketed events start in july.
i will get covid.
i won't need a hospital.
this is a process.
but seriously fuck that door lock it never works.
"why are you coming to Canada?"
"do you know anyone in Montreal?"
"what are you going to be doing for so long?"
"you don't know anyone in Montreal?"
"are you going to be working here?"
"how much money do you have?"
"why were you in New York City?"
endless existential exposition served by sus security.
i flubbed, i faltered, i flummoxed.
i botched, i bungled, i bumbled.
mutual torture for everyone standing between me and my apartment.
i don't know man i just need to be here right now.
i arrived to my airbnb and entered the door code.
i was instructed to wait for the green light before trying the handle, otherwise i'll fuck everything up.
no light came on, but the approval beep was audible.
i tried the door. it didn't open. ugh i fucked everything up.
i try the code again. no green light. the beep of acceptance. nothing.
i try it again.
and again.
and again.
and check the street number.
and again.
and again.
and again.
and suddenly i hear a mechanical noise, the door lock with alzheimer's realizing it's still on the clock.
thus kicked off big summer nemesis 2022: a door
this place had specific purpose - somewhere very central with a balcony to start my summer uncertainty. if COVID was to flare back up again or pivot or great introducing monkey pox then i could at least feel within the mix and not wholly isolate myself during a time i should probably definitely be around other people.
it's the what i need, warts and all. a reminder that air conditioning should be a thing you have. a reminder how important ergonomics are in being a functional human. there is a certain sensory purging in the occasional sweat-soaked sunday without a real table to sit at or a real chair to sit on. arty studio living!
the mini fridge and the countertop burner and the toaster oven. if i had an ounce of urge to be on-camera i would totally make a cooking show around airbnb kitchens. a one-skillet meal is nice and all ASSUMING YOU HAVE A SKILLET. but i make do and i take care of myself. beyond sausages on the regular. spinach wherever i can stuff it. big ups to the fresh baked ciabatta in every grocery store - canada's cheddar will make you long for the days of tilamook but the french sure know how to boulangerie.
back to basics feat. a double-headed shower and a view so prominent i'm a minor celebrity every time i step outside. my next place will have all of the luxuries i have taken for granted - for now it's a life of prone processing.
it's a lot a lot to process.
i've been asked if i'm having fun yet.
it's not that i lack levity, i'm just incapable of dreaming right now.
(which admittedly isn't very fun.)
i've been asked if i'm bored with all of this open-ended time.
the silence i hear every day is not inherently lonely.
(though i do miss human touch.)
it's currently the sound of the absence of being overwhelmed.
delightful, really.
one day it'll be the sound of opportunity.
of intent.
of time meant to spend.
but things are very simple, now.
do your dishes.
get out and about now and then.
don't get covid.
don't need a hospital.
one more month in the Saint Laurent spotlight.
two months in a less cool / more livable Mile End studio.
big ticketed events start in july.
i will get covid.
i won't need a hospital.
this is a process.
but seriously fuck that door lock it never works.
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
sweating the details
feeling like a space shuttle entering orbit. i am returning to earth for two weeks, after that everything on my person is everything i will own for the next ???.
during the dock i have exactly 4′ 6″ wide X 7′ 6″ deep x 7′ tall in which to fit everything i eventually want to be reunited with.
most of my possessions fit in 28.9" x 17.4" x 15.1" rubbermaid 20 gallon containers. sadly half of this is speculative investments of coveted collectables - not rating high on the practical or useful scales when furnishing a place. zero furniture outside of my desk chair and an inflatable built-in-cot mattress.
months of tetris
using free room decorating websites
scaled to fit
with every possible configuration
a 3 x 4 matrix of rubbermaids
stacked 3 - 4 high
cardboard boxes on top
that should do it
the narrow window of this timing is the most stressful thing in my life right now
- the portabox may not be picked up the day it gets loaded
- they could show up earlier than it's been packed
- what if there's a driver shortage and it gets delayed to past when i'm here
- everything i own could end up sitting on a high-prowl street for multiple nights
leading me to
- should i back a car up to the doors?
- should i sleep in the car?
- should i sit on the porch with a baseball bat and a scowl?
- what lock would lockpickinglawyer buy?
- should i goonies up a sound alert system if it gets opened?
- am i clearly overthinking it all and everything will probably work out just fine?
it worked out just fine. the Dolly app let me throw money at the problem, two young neighborhoods brought me boxes faster than i could stack them. it's surreal to revisit this photo.
i used to be huge
now i'm only this big
oh wait i'm not my stuff
the last four months of my life have been focused on [fear/anticipation] of this day. the day i can finally be done.
no more held hostage in newly hostile territory.
no more haunted house.
during the dock i have exactly 4′ 6″ wide X 7′ 6″ deep x 7′ tall in which to fit everything i eventually want to be reunited with.
most of my possessions fit in 28.9" x 17.4" x 15.1" rubbermaid 20 gallon containers. sadly half of this is speculative investments of coveted collectables - not rating high on the practical or useful scales when furnishing a place. zero furniture outside of my desk chair and an inflatable built-in-cot mattress.
months of tetris
using free room decorating websites
scaled to fit
with every possible configuration
a 3 x 4 matrix of rubbermaids
stacked 3 - 4 high
cardboard boxes on top
that should do it
the narrow window of this timing is the most stressful thing in my life right now
- the portabox may not be picked up the day it gets loaded
- they could show up earlier than it's been packed
- what if there's a driver shortage and it gets delayed to past when i'm here
- everything i own could end up sitting on a high-prowl street for multiple nights
leading me to
- should i back a car up to the doors?
- should i sleep in the car?
- should i sit on the porch with a baseball bat and a scowl?
- what lock would lockpickinglawyer buy?
- should i goonies up a sound alert system if it gets opened?
- am i clearly overthinking it all and everything will probably work out just fine?
it worked out just fine. the Dolly app let me throw money at the problem, two young neighborhoods brought me boxes faster than i could stack them. it's surreal to revisit this photo.
i used to be huge
now i'm only this big
oh wait i'm not my stuff
the last four months of my life have been focused on [fear/anticipation] of this day. the day i can finally be done.
no more held hostage in newly hostile territory.
no more haunted house.
Monday, March 14, 2022
going back to church
New York has been a welcome sight for three decades now. My bff bounced between SF and NYC for as long as I can remember, never quite committing to any of it. He's been a great home base in the big cities - an instant social group on-arrival and the glue that keeps me in touch with a wide variety of oldtimers from ATL.
Whether housesitting for a month, watching the NYC Marathon, or just dropping in between flights - it's always open arms and laughs for days. Manhattan proper, on the other hand, has gone from frothy milk cocktails served in an utra-violence time capsule to a world of Bed Bath & Beyond and M&M stores. I'm talking full ampersand.
Even though the fun events generally take us to Brooklyn, I am forever delighted by the dotted spots left where the suits clink glasses with the scum.
Our favorite nearby joint is called the Holland Bar.
Density demands bars and diners be a long line of barstools sans tables or kid seats, and this is no exception. The CASH ONLY sign on the wall works well to repel large groups of appletini simps.
Booze is the biggest decoration in the place, the dwarfed television leaves half of the stools squinting. Second biggest feature is the jukebox, an overly-modern internet DJ that demands tips before it even considers your song.
The bartender wore eyeliner sharp enough to cut you, her mere presence demanded respect.
"You pay in cash and you pay every time", she warned. We sagely nodded with bills between two fingers and received a Budweister and a shot of Seagrams.
She immediately followed it up with the too-late caveat "oh and the bathroom is broken". Through the open door I could see the sink completely mummy-wrapped in CAUTION tape.
We had a few rounds and I immediately hit the wall. My mind scrambled to take inventory: two bottles of wine at dinner, check. two beers and two shots, check. oh right all that weed between the two. Professionals know when they are in the "shouldn't have crossed the streams" amateur zone, so I warned my boozed up comrades and ordered a water.
The reaction from the bartender was a tidal wave of latina machisma.
"Oh, so your friends get another round and you can't even keep up with them."
i can't wait for this water it is going to be perfect
"She's a woman even you can't keep up with a woman?"
oh god the bathroom is out of order
"I guess it's just water for the lightweight."
is she going to make me arm wrestle
After what felt like an eternity I had exactly what I needed to stabilize, with a new insult hurled at my head every three minutes to keep me sharp. But I'm a professional, I know when I need a fucking water so I don't bounce my own vomit off of a mummified toilet.
At this point the cute couple I am with went over to the DJ and fed it many dollars as they plead for the next few tunes. At the end of the bar sat an older man with his Tex-Mex hat alongside his beer. Beside him stood a muscular man, slicked back hair, tattoos spotting his skin. They were talking between themselves - the younger one talking extra loud, hoping to lure others into his bravado.
I take the bait and begin the banter. Not two minutes into it and he asks about me. I stumble over some words, not prepared to talk real, and mumble that I've left everything to figure out how to start over again. He stops the schtick, walks right over and immediately embraces me. It took me by complete surprise and it was exactly what I needed. To be seen by a complete stranger, for only a minute. Seconds later he reclaimed his space at the end of the bar and goes right back into F THE POLICE.
I watched my friends sigh in unison as the song changed, but not to theirs. It was Ricky Martin, and the end of the bar blew the fuck up. The old man stood up, put on his hat, and asked the bartender to dance. She strutted down the length of the bar to join him, their hips moved in immediate unison as the strongman slithered in-place, cheering the couple on.
"Ricky Martin!" he exclaimed, every 30 seconds for the duration of the song.
The energy was infectious and I started chair wiggling, catching up in conversation with my WHEN ARE OUR SONGS GOING TO PLAY friends.
Suddenly I feel a pair of hands on my hips from behind me, and I just know it's Mr. Ricky Martin himself. I go from my seated robo-pops straight into the snake, giving it a little signature glitch on each way down.
I am quickly corrected. "It's smoooooooth" instructs the deep voice behind me. I comply, axing the me and going full salsa serpent. "Ahhhh!". Ricky Martin is pleased, and dances back to his beer.
The rest of the bar only averts their gaze once the song goes quiet. I have found my fortitude. Don't you just love it when the room stops spinning?
The "DJ" starts playing another song, and another, none of which are the songs my pals paid for. They aren't having it.
After a while the familar sounds of Destroyer fill the bar. This singer-songwriter is often grating to most people on first listen, but he is so very my New York soundtrack and always marks a certain settled comfort here. Our tunes keep on coming, I find my footing again, and order another pint of their finest swill.
As we wind down the night our final request comes on. I push myself away from the barstool, face the wall, and begin dancing.
Ricky Martin takes immediate notice and his commentary just fuels my fire. It's been an eternity since I've danced in a bar. Maybe two since I've danced in a bar, alone.
"Ah yeah!"
"Preach it!"
Church is in session and I'm hitting the eighth notes with my hips. The beat has taken hold of my body and it's a cathartic worship service to everything I couldn't be during the pandemic. Reclaiming myself wholly on a Monday night with my own tiny congregation.
"Oooooh!"
"Alright!"
"YESSSSS"
The song fades and with tears in my eyes I turn to face the audience. The tough bartender gives me a smile and a nod. I turn to Mr. Martin and say goodbye.
"Sometimes you just gotta dance it out."
He gets it. New York gets it. Millions of people, free to be themselves. No hipsters with furled eyebrows anywhere on the horizon. A bar full of the uncool, at the coolest spot in Manhattan.
My favorite part of going out here are the best friends you make, for only a night.
Whether housesitting for a month, watching the NYC Marathon, or just dropping in between flights - it's always open arms and laughs for days. Manhattan proper, on the other hand, has gone from frothy milk cocktails served in an utra-violence time capsule to a world of Bed Bath & Beyond and M&M stores. I'm talking full ampersand.
Even though the fun events generally take us to Brooklyn, I am forever delighted by the dotted spots left where the suits clink glasses with the scum.
Our favorite nearby joint is called the Holland Bar.
Density demands bars and diners be a long line of barstools sans tables or kid seats, and this is no exception. The CASH ONLY sign on the wall works well to repel large groups of appletini simps.
Booze is the biggest decoration in the place, the dwarfed television leaves half of the stools squinting. Second biggest feature is the jukebox, an overly-modern internet DJ that demands tips before it even considers your song.
The bartender wore eyeliner sharp enough to cut you, her mere presence demanded respect.
"You pay in cash and you pay every time", she warned. We sagely nodded with bills between two fingers and received a Budweister and a shot of Seagrams.
She immediately followed it up with the too-late caveat "oh and the bathroom is broken". Through the open door I could see the sink completely mummy-wrapped in CAUTION tape.
We had a few rounds and I immediately hit the wall. My mind scrambled to take inventory: two bottles of wine at dinner, check. two beers and two shots, check. oh right all that weed between the two. Professionals know when they are in the "shouldn't have crossed the streams" amateur zone, so I warned my boozed up comrades and ordered a water.
The reaction from the bartender was a tidal wave of latina machisma.
"Oh, so your friends get another round and you can't even keep up with them."
i can't wait for this water it is going to be perfect
"She's a woman even you can't keep up with a woman?"
oh god the bathroom is out of order
"I guess it's just water for the lightweight."
is she going to make me arm wrestle
After what felt like an eternity I had exactly what I needed to stabilize, with a new insult hurled at my head every three minutes to keep me sharp. But I'm a professional, I know when I need a fucking water so I don't bounce my own vomit off of a mummified toilet.
At this point the cute couple I am with went over to the DJ and fed it many dollars as they plead for the next few tunes. At the end of the bar sat an older man with his Tex-Mex hat alongside his beer. Beside him stood a muscular man, slicked back hair, tattoos spotting his skin. They were talking between themselves - the younger one talking extra loud, hoping to lure others into his bravado.
I take the bait and begin the banter. Not two minutes into it and he asks about me. I stumble over some words, not prepared to talk real, and mumble that I've left everything to figure out how to start over again. He stops the schtick, walks right over and immediately embraces me. It took me by complete surprise and it was exactly what I needed. To be seen by a complete stranger, for only a minute. Seconds later he reclaimed his space at the end of the bar and goes right back into F THE POLICE.
I watched my friends sigh in unison as the song changed, but not to theirs. It was Ricky Martin, and the end of the bar blew the fuck up. The old man stood up, put on his hat, and asked the bartender to dance. She strutted down the length of the bar to join him, their hips moved in immediate unison as the strongman slithered in-place, cheering the couple on.
"Ricky Martin!" he exclaimed, every 30 seconds for the duration of the song.
The energy was infectious and I started chair wiggling, catching up in conversation with my WHEN ARE OUR SONGS GOING TO PLAY friends.
Suddenly I feel a pair of hands on my hips from behind me, and I just know it's Mr. Ricky Martin himself. I go from my seated robo-pops straight into the snake, giving it a little signature glitch on each way down.
I am quickly corrected. "It's smoooooooth" instructs the deep voice behind me. I comply, axing the me and going full salsa serpent. "Ahhhh!". Ricky Martin is pleased, and dances back to his beer.
The rest of the bar only averts their gaze once the song goes quiet. I have found my fortitude. Don't you just love it when the room stops spinning?
The "DJ" starts playing another song, and another, none of which are the songs my pals paid for. They aren't having it.
After a while the familar sounds of Destroyer fill the bar. This singer-songwriter is often grating to most people on first listen, but he is so very my New York soundtrack and always marks a certain settled comfort here. Our tunes keep on coming, I find my footing again, and order another pint of their finest swill.
As we wind down the night our final request comes on. I push myself away from the barstool, face the wall, and begin dancing.
Ricky Martin takes immediate notice and his commentary just fuels my fire. It's been an eternity since I've danced in a bar. Maybe two since I've danced in a bar, alone.
"Ah yeah!"
"Preach it!"
Church is in session and I'm hitting the eighth notes with my hips. The beat has taken hold of my body and it's a cathartic worship service to everything I couldn't be during the pandemic. Reclaiming myself wholly on a Monday night with my own tiny congregation.
"Oooooh!"
"Alright!"
"YESSSSS"
The song fades and with tears in my eyes I turn to face the audience. The tough bartender gives me a smile and a nod. I turn to Mr. Martin and say goodbye.
"Sometimes you just gotta dance it out."
He gets it. New York gets it. Millions of people, free to be themselves. No hipsters with furled eyebrows anywhere on the horizon. A bar full of the uncool, at the coolest spot in Manhattan.
My favorite part of going out here are the best friends you make, for only a night.
Thursday, March 3, 2022
homeless and home again
There is nothing like coming home after being lost in the world for awhile. Travel has a way of making you crave deep roots - even if this means being replanted a thousand miles away. Home is a sacred place of sweat, of spirit, and iterative change until everything feels right. My shrine was my everything during the numb-wrenching pandemic and subsequent failed revolution, a meditative throne upon which I could absorb years of bad news.
While there was drift within the household as we navigated safety and sanity during uncertain times, we both poured ourselves into our work and our friends. Making sure the people that needed us felt seen. Giving in the myriad ways we secretly seek to be given to. The languish was real, but so was the intent to be kind to one another and not sweat the small stuff. This was a temporary setback to something I was committed to seeing through.
A roadtrip to Bend over the summer gave me hope that this paralysis was about to end. A taste of normalcy across a dozen outdoor patios. I felt reconnected.
A few months later she would return from an emotional week visiting family she hadn't seen in far too long. She came back with anger. Resentment. Hostility. The unspoken CONS column in any relationship matrix, added together and swung like a hammer.
She completely disappeared, seemingly overnight. Making plans with everyone but me. Jumping to conclusions without giving me the benefit of the trust we'd built over nearly a decade. Ditching me at a dinner party. The switch from love to loathe had been flipped in her brain, and I did not deserve any of it.
I suffered through several social gatherings just trying to get my bearings. Hollow smiles through gapped teeth. My compass spun wildly as I shrank from the pain of this transformation, seeking love, seeking light, seeking north. How do you fix something that doesn't want to be repaired?
I still don't understand why she married me. This might be the hardest part of it all. To realize the silent responses to my splayed ribcage and vulnerable, beating heart was actually the judgement I had feared all along. Rigid expectations without the courage to vocalize need. Engendered gender roles, doing nothing for the flesh marionettes playing their parts. How we cut ourselves off from the people we love the most. Death by a thousand disappointments.
It only took a 10 minute phone call with a lawyer to learn that this wasn't my house. This wasn't my life to live. All hope, all future, all trust - turned to dust.
The thought of paying Seattle rent without Seattle income was insane to me. Why would I fight tooth and nail for a tiny $2000+/month apartment and blow through my savings while grief-clicking through the extrovert's reimagined life via an Instagram story? This was the existence I knew I couldn't live.
So I left.
I have crashed landed in New York City for a two month stay. I have flown more in two weeks than I have in two years, thrust from years of intentional isolation to the crushing crowds of Manhattan. It's unsettling, it's unnerving, but going from zero to sixty so quickly has me back in the bloodflow and there is true comfort in that. I am staying with an oldest of friends, a shoulder I desparately need right now. New York has inspired me to write again, and I will be putting ink to the minutae soon.
This rebirth has its upsides, eventually.
Questions I seek to answer:
- Where are my people? Without having a $923,000 mortgage? (Every city eventually has a Brooklyn.)
- Do I deserve healthcare as a citizen? Is there a country that I can feel a part of but also cares about its people? (Am I too old to learn Greek?)
- How do you travel and stay connected? (This might be the hardest to figure out.)
- Do I want to settle down where I would want my vacation home to be, relocating to the dayjob and having a forever home in paradise? (Remote work, is it a trap?)
- What do I want to build with my time? (Forever ideas, finite heath meter.)
Most importantly, through all of this, I remain optimistic. This is the most important sign, that everything will turn out fine.
While there was drift within the household as we navigated safety and sanity during uncertain times, we both poured ourselves into our work and our friends. Making sure the people that needed us felt seen. Giving in the myriad ways we secretly seek to be given to. The languish was real, but so was the intent to be kind to one another and not sweat the small stuff. This was a temporary setback to something I was committed to seeing through.
A roadtrip to Bend over the summer gave me hope that this paralysis was about to end. A taste of normalcy across a dozen outdoor patios. I felt reconnected.
A few months later she would return from an emotional week visiting family she hadn't seen in far too long. She came back with anger. Resentment. Hostility. The unspoken CONS column in any relationship matrix, added together and swung like a hammer.
She completely disappeared, seemingly overnight. Making plans with everyone but me. Jumping to conclusions without giving me the benefit of the trust we'd built over nearly a decade. Ditching me at a dinner party. The switch from love to loathe had been flipped in her brain, and I did not deserve any of it.
I suffered through several social gatherings just trying to get my bearings. Hollow smiles through gapped teeth. My compass spun wildly as I shrank from the pain of this transformation, seeking love, seeking light, seeking north. How do you fix something that doesn't want to be repaired?
I still don't understand why she married me. This might be the hardest part of it all. To realize the silent responses to my splayed ribcage and vulnerable, beating heart was actually the judgement I had feared all along. Rigid expectations without the courage to vocalize need. Engendered gender roles, doing nothing for the flesh marionettes playing their parts. How we cut ourselves off from the people we love the most. Death by a thousand disappointments.
It only took a 10 minute phone call with a lawyer to learn that this wasn't my house. This wasn't my life to live. All hope, all future, all trust - turned to dust.
The thought of paying Seattle rent without Seattle income was insane to me. Why would I fight tooth and nail for a tiny $2000+/month apartment and blow through my savings while grief-clicking through the extrovert's reimagined life via an Instagram story? This was the existence I knew I couldn't live.
So I left.
I have crashed landed in New York City for a two month stay. I have flown more in two weeks than I have in two years, thrust from years of intentional isolation to the crushing crowds of Manhattan. It's unsettling, it's unnerving, but going from zero to sixty so quickly has me back in the bloodflow and there is true comfort in that. I am staying with an oldest of friends, a shoulder I desparately need right now. New York has inspired me to write again, and I will be putting ink to the minutae soon.
This rebirth has its upsides, eventually.
Questions I seek to answer:
- Where are my people? Without having a $923,000 mortgage? (Every city eventually has a Brooklyn.)
- Do I deserve healthcare as a citizen? Is there a country that I can feel a part of but also cares about its people? (Am I too old to learn Greek?)
- How do you travel and stay connected? (This might be the hardest to figure out.)
- Do I want to settle down where I would want my vacation home to be, relocating to the dayjob and having a forever home in paradise? (Remote work, is it a trap?)
- What do I want to build with my time? (Forever ideas, finite heath meter.)
Most importantly, through all of this, I remain optimistic. This is the most important sign, that everything will turn out fine.
Monday, October 9, 2017
doing rome wrong
Taking a bike tour in a new city has been one of my most eye-opening experiences on my last few trips. It started off so easy, pedaling through Montreal in wonderful weather - all we had to do was to not be slower than the two chain-smoking French among the pack. Even though there were hills and traffic the experience felt effortless, a testament to the route plan and the drivers alike.
Things haven't quite been the same since. Last year I ate sand in rural Vietnam. This year I thought a leisurely ride through Rome would hit a few of the sites and give our bodies some much-needed movement. It was every bit as difficult, in completely opposite ways.
We arrived early to the bike shop at the Colosseum, and were surprised to be the only people on the afternoon tour. No young or old or emphysemic in sight to bring up the rear, it was us and the tour guide. She slid effortlessly between signs and buildings and flocks of man-birds, somehow managing to keep her feet on the pedals while lowering her speed to .000001 miles per hour. I, on the other hand, acted like I've never ridden a bicycle before - every 50 feet a mallard with legs would suddenly change direction, extended selfie stick whipping within inches of my skull.
Reviews of this company were stellar, secret paths and back alleys avoiding the major clusterfucks. Thankfully this was mostly true, our journey often dipped away from the hordes of people following various colors of panties-on-a-stick - but the narrower the street the higher the chance we'd nearly kill an old oblivious guy checking Facebook. The bike bell built for clearing a path became a liability, drunks would mimic the sound while paying it no mind - more than one lady Brit pulling their loved one aside scolding "the bell means move!". No less than 15% of the time I was pushing these wheels along with my feet, Flintstones style.
The freedom on this ride was ironically when merging back into chaotic streets - paved roads and an assortment of vehicles acknowledging us-as-kin, wrists relieved from the punishment of pebbled paths. We pedaled hard and fast past Altare della Patria, sad once again when we reached another mob scene photo opportunity and the accompanying "It's too crowded, I will wait with the bikes here".
I wish we would have instead done this in Bologna, the only city that made sense by bike. As we neared the end of our 3 hour journey we exhaustedly asked the guide "do you normally ride your bicycle in Rome?". She smiled, blurted a sharp "oh no!", and we all laughed aloud. Oh Rome, you so crazy.
Things haven't quite been the same since. Last year I ate sand in rural Vietnam. This year I thought a leisurely ride through Rome would hit a few of the sites and give our bodies some much-needed movement. It was every bit as difficult, in completely opposite ways.
We arrived early to the bike shop at the Colosseum, and were surprised to be the only people on the afternoon tour. No young or old or emphysemic in sight to bring up the rear, it was us and the tour guide. She slid effortlessly between signs and buildings and flocks of man-birds, somehow managing to keep her feet on the pedals while lowering her speed to .000001 miles per hour. I, on the other hand, acted like I've never ridden a bicycle before - every 50 feet a mallard with legs would suddenly change direction, extended selfie stick whipping within inches of my skull.
Reviews of this company were stellar, secret paths and back alleys avoiding the major clusterfucks. Thankfully this was mostly true, our journey often dipped away from the hordes of people following various colors of panties-on-a-stick - but the narrower the street the higher the chance we'd nearly kill an old oblivious guy checking Facebook. The bike bell built for clearing a path became a liability, drunks would mimic the sound while paying it no mind - more than one lady Brit pulling their loved one aside scolding "the bell means move!". No less than 15% of the time I was pushing these wheels along with my feet, Flintstones style.
The freedom on this ride was ironically when merging back into chaotic streets - paved roads and an assortment of vehicles acknowledging us-as-kin, wrists relieved from the punishment of pebbled paths. We pedaled hard and fast past Altare della Patria, sad once again when we reached another mob scene photo opportunity and the accompanying "It's too crowded, I will wait with the bikes here".
I wish we would have instead done this in Bologna, the only city that made sense by bike. As we neared the end of our 3 hour journey we exhaustedly asked the guide "do you normally ride your bicycle in Rome?". She smiled, blurted a sharp "oh no!", and we all laughed aloud. Oh Rome, you so crazy.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
antica roma
Our final meal in Bologna was the fanciest - Ristorante L'Arcimboldo was traditional Bolognese food done with flair mere blocks from the train station, their Lasagne Verde spectacular and the final (successful) tick of my own Bologna gastrochecklist.
Cotoletta alla Bolognese ✔
Tortellini in Brodo ✔
Gelato
Tagliatelle al Ragù ✔
Lasagna Verde ✔
Astute readers will note the lack of a tick next to Gelato, and sadly I was too stuffed to cone strut after lunch. Food memories are always the strongest for me when on vacation - they evoke waterfalls of incredibly specific perspectives - of exact mood and headspace - the closest I've ever come to freezing time.
Gelato and Rome take me right back to 2010, when I played an active listening shoulder to someone else's aborted wedding and his heavy-hearted decision to still go on the prepaid stillborn honeymoon. During the scorching month of August we decided to bail on the endlessly long line at the Vatican and ended up pulling our take-a-ticket at Gelateria dei Gracchi. The staff were alternating annoyed and curt, in rapid-fire emotionally Italian intervals. I ended up with a double-helping of watermelon gelato with thick cream spread atop. The moment I put that sweet juicy grainy to my lips every part of my sweat-soaked, sunburned body felt at ease. It was the gelato dragon I would forever chase, my demands on this trip to revisit the Gracci left me watermelon-less, their still-delightful caramel-pear remaining a distant second-place memory.
Still, gelato and Italy will forever walk hand-in-hand - another important excess as part of living excessively.
Cotoletta alla Bolognese ✔
Tortellini in Brodo ✔
Gelato
Tagliatelle al Ragù ✔
Lasagna Verde ✔
Astute readers will note the lack of a tick next to Gelato, and sadly I was too stuffed to cone strut after lunch. Food memories are always the strongest for me when on vacation - they evoke waterfalls of incredibly specific perspectives - of exact mood and headspace - the closest I've ever come to freezing time.
Gelato and Rome take me right back to 2010, when I played an active listening shoulder to someone else's aborted wedding and his heavy-hearted decision to still go on the prepaid stillborn honeymoon. During the scorching month of August we decided to bail on the endlessly long line at the Vatican and ended up pulling our take-a-ticket at Gelateria dei Gracchi. The staff were alternating annoyed and curt, in rapid-fire emotionally Italian intervals. I ended up with a double-helping of watermelon gelato with thick cream spread atop. The moment I put that sweet juicy grainy to my lips every part of my sweat-soaked, sunburned body felt at ease. It was the gelato dragon I would forever chase, my demands on this trip to revisit the Gracci left me watermelon-less, their still-delightful caramel-pear remaining a distant second-place memory.
Still, gelato and Italy will forever walk hand-in-hand - another important excess as part of living excessively.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
this bologna has a first name, it's y-o-u-n-g
There's an inverse European relationship with the urgency that you need to pay your bill and the speed at which you get said bill. A glass of Prosecco seemed civilized at the time, a quick bubbly before boarding the train to Bologna. Once we were served we were deceased, the mob scene at the food counter ensured patience would be met by the invisible hand, fingers spread. Precious minutes ticked down as anxiety grew, 5 minutes until our train leaves, head-nod acknowledgement that we would get our bill next, 4 minutes until our train leaves, 3 minutes until our train leaves, IL CONTO PER FAVORE, 2 minutes until our train leaves, perhaps our only full-booked chance at getting out of Venice today, keeping the middle fingers holstered, finally we paid and bolted to the very last car on track 8.
Once again, silence. Couples under travel pressure have three ways to handle it - laugh it off (never happens), turn against one another (far too common), or put headphones in and dive deep into respectful distance - knowing that time away from that stressbomb fading into the horizon will bring us back to us.
Some people travel with an exhausting list of must-sees, pressured by friends (OH YOU JUST HAVE TO SEE THIS OR YOU NEVER REALLY WENT), pressured by fomo, pressured by the likelihood that you will never re-visit a city in your life. I actively shun this sort of tourism - eventually the rapid-fire museums will bleed and blur, mimicry of friends and family and Anthony Bourdain are great ways to find your vibes up until the point of fully following someone else's moment, sacred moments that I want to claim and stretch as long as possible, of too much wine and ample people watching and giving ourselves permission to move through time like you would back home.
I wanted something not-guidebook between Venice and Rome, and even though Florence is the typical third I needed ample oxygen while spending 3 weeks above 20,000 feet. Bologna seemed perfect for breathing, and we were delighted to be let out of our taxi in the city square surrounded by street art and punk hair and young Italian energy. Our flat was dead center and top floor, the private balcony a perfect place to sip wine in the evenings, the terror stairs leading up to the loft bed were wooden shelves at a 15˚ incline and a Hitchcockian nightmare for sleepwalkers, frequent WCers, and boozers alike. We opted instead to spend our nights on the sofa bed, paying far too much money for the all-too-familiar metal bar in your back slumber.
Bologna couldn't have been better - outstanding food of both the humane and inhumane varieties (pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta), watching the rush hour fashion show while we sit at our judges' table with an Aperol Spritz in hand, the random record store with the squatters' rights propaganda in the window, all of it embraced by a wall twenty feet tall and sprinkled with towers four stories high. When I picture my parallel life in Italy, it's all-too-easy to see the sun rising above Bologna, a young new wave robot bee puking on the side of the oldest college in Europe after a pizza-pasta-discoteca-birra bender.
Once again, silence. Couples under travel pressure have three ways to handle it - laugh it off (never happens), turn against one another (far too common), or put headphones in and dive deep into respectful distance - knowing that time away from that stressbomb fading into the horizon will bring us back to us.
Some people travel with an exhausting list of must-sees, pressured by friends (OH YOU JUST HAVE TO SEE THIS OR YOU NEVER REALLY WENT), pressured by fomo, pressured by the likelihood that you will never re-visit a city in your life. I actively shun this sort of tourism - eventually the rapid-fire museums will bleed and blur, mimicry of friends and family and Anthony Bourdain are great ways to find your vibes up until the point of fully following someone else's moment, sacred moments that I want to claim and stretch as long as possible, of too much wine and ample people watching and giving ourselves permission to move through time like you would back home.
I wanted something not-guidebook between Venice and Rome, and even though Florence is the typical third I needed ample oxygen while spending 3 weeks above 20,000 feet. Bologna seemed perfect for breathing, and we were delighted to be let out of our taxi in the city square surrounded by street art and punk hair and young Italian energy. Our flat was dead center and top floor, the private balcony a perfect place to sip wine in the evenings, the terror stairs leading up to the loft bed were wooden shelves at a 15˚ incline and a Hitchcockian nightmare for sleepwalkers, frequent WCers, and boozers alike. We opted instead to spend our nights on the sofa bed, paying far too much money for the all-too-familiar metal bar in your back slumber.
Bologna couldn't have been better - outstanding food of both the humane and inhumane varieties (pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta), watching the rush hour fashion show while we sit at our judges' table with an Aperol Spritz in hand, the random record store with the squatters' rights propaganda in the window, all of it embraced by a wall twenty feet tall and sprinkled with towers four stories high. When I picture my parallel life in Italy, it's all-too-easy to see the sun rising above Bologna, a young new wave robot bee puking on the side of the oldest college in Europe after a pizza-pasta-discoteca-birra bender.
Friday, September 29, 2017
la affamata vita
This was originally my secret space where I sought to turn longing into belonging - both the light and dark sides of a sole traveler seeking connections in other languages.
Where Will I Work still resonates even today, rooted deep in love and home, an allegory to how our subjective realities fit into a ever-shifting subjective mirror world. Where can I feel home away from home? Do I travel to watch people not-me as one would visit a zoo? Or do I try on cities like I try on clothing, of parallel selves and the myriad lives I could have lived?
I'm writing from someone else's life in Rome - the airbnb that isn't built for tourists, full of personality and energy and thoughtfulness without 1000 thread count sheets and without a balcony view of the Colosseum. Our neighborhood is blissfully empty of people like me - the hordes of the slow-moving free-spending map-obsessed. I don't seek out to be anti-American when I cross the border, but being seated next to the worst kind of me makes me thankful to be on this voyage with my spiritual kin in exploration.
We landed hard in Venice, the 9 hour flight with the 4 hour layover and barely half an hour of sleep - our voices turning quiet, then silent as we gave in to muscle memory to get us to a bed (any bed). Research always helps in this sort of blurred travel, where your checklist of this-thens give much needed specificity in processing vast amounts of new data. Our Venice flat was old beams and faint wallpaper, a loft of yore with a wonderful rooftop terrace. I took pride in my maze solving skills through the tricky alleyways, relishing in the gastronomic rewards at the end of every run. My first bite was mozzarella en carrozza, a stupid and/or luxurious deep fried sandwich washed down with wine on tap amidst the lunch rush of the Venetian locals.
Eventually, though, Venice began to evoke Vegas - packed tight in narrow streets filled with shit souvenirs and day-drinking mirror images. Appreciation for the canals-as-labyrinth-as-architecture never faded, but it's hard to feel free and romantic amidst cruise ships dumping their shipping containers of cargo shorts (with the legs still in them) hour after hour after hour. Three days was plenty here, the end punctuated by a delightful lunch at the vegetarian-friendly La Zucca. The oddball reprieve from meat with meat on it was welcome, the vegetable plate reminded me of southern cooking (of greens and green beans). Chatting with a fellow anti-American at our shared table had me thankful I have working internet maps ("it took me an hour to find the place") and her snide pride around saving a shelter dog in response to missing our doodle was promptly followed by her third course of meat with meat on it ("i just have to have meat!"). The dissonance in the things we tell ourselves arbitrarily separating saving from slaughter has resonated with me since.
Objectification of the dinner plate is so very real when it doesn't lick your face after a long day at work.
Where Will I Work still resonates even today, rooted deep in love and home, an allegory to how our subjective realities fit into a ever-shifting subjective mirror world. Where can I feel home away from home? Do I travel to watch people not-me as one would visit a zoo? Or do I try on cities like I try on clothing, of parallel selves and the myriad lives I could have lived?
I'm writing from someone else's life in Rome - the airbnb that isn't built for tourists, full of personality and energy and thoughtfulness without 1000 thread count sheets and without a balcony view of the Colosseum. Our neighborhood is blissfully empty of people like me - the hordes of the slow-moving free-spending map-obsessed. I don't seek out to be anti-American when I cross the border, but being seated next to the worst kind of me makes me thankful to be on this voyage with my spiritual kin in exploration.
We landed hard in Venice, the 9 hour flight with the 4 hour layover and barely half an hour of sleep - our voices turning quiet, then silent as we gave in to muscle memory to get us to a bed (any bed). Research always helps in this sort of blurred travel, where your checklist of this-thens give much needed specificity in processing vast amounts of new data. Our Venice flat was old beams and faint wallpaper, a loft of yore with a wonderful rooftop terrace. I took pride in my maze solving skills through the tricky alleyways, relishing in the gastronomic rewards at the end of every run. My first bite was mozzarella en carrozza, a stupid and/or luxurious deep fried sandwich washed down with wine on tap amidst the lunch rush of the Venetian locals.
Eventually, though, Venice began to evoke Vegas - packed tight in narrow streets filled with shit souvenirs and day-drinking mirror images. Appreciation for the canals-as-labyrinth-as-architecture never faded, but it's hard to feel free and romantic amidst cruise ships dumping their shipping containers of cargo shorts (with the legs still in them) hour after hour after hour. Three days was plenty here, the end punctuated by a delightful lunch at the vegetarian-friendly La Zucca. The oddball reprieve from meat with meat on it was welcome, the vegetable plate reminded me of southern cooking (of greens and green beans). Chatting with a fellow anti-American at our shared table had me thankful I have working internet maps ("it took me an hour to find the place") and her snide pride around saving a shelter dog in response to missing our doodle was promptly followed by her third course of meat with meat on it ("i just have to have meat!"). The dissonance in the things we tell ourselves arbitrarily separating saving from slaughter has resonated with me since.
Objectification of the dinner plate is so very real when it doesn't lick your face after a long day at work.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
cu cuu cu chi.
Wide awake at 2am my body knew it wasn’t going to fare well for the all-day tourist trip, the only formal one we’ve booked. Sitting in the darkness for 5 hours my mind wandered across a wide range of thoughts, missing my love and my home back home, increasing anxiety around the grind awaiting me at the office, trapped in a sleepless purgatory to my captor of chainsaws.
I walked the width of two stairs from our hotel lobby to the van, gracefully landing, my phone flying, thankful I didn’t twist my ankle for the hustle ahead. We picked up more eager early-risers and were grouped and separated and shuttled onto our speedboat up the Saigon river. Our guide was fantastic, using humor as education to paint more stark realities upon our collective blank canvases.
“See the helipad on top of the hospital? It’s just for show, only the military has helicopters.”
“Notice the beautiful restaurant on the water. It was very popular among locals but they raised prices to lure in tourists and because of this the government shut them down.”
“So many houses are being built here, but wealthy Chinese bought them all up, raising the prices of houses, until we can’t afford them.”
“This is where an uprising happened because the Chinese put an oil rig in the middle of Vietnamese waters without permission. An angry mob set out to burn the Chinese factory to the ground. There were two factories here, one Chinese and the other Japanese. The locals didn’t know which factory was which, so the Japanese put up a big sign that said -> CHINESE FACTORY THIS WAY ->”
Sipping on onboard cha sua da and noshing on rambutan we came to the real work to be done - water hyacinth. The entire river covered in the clusters of green leaves, underneath live thick roots used for making rope and handbags. One boat would go first, cutting a line through using brute force and a small propeller - reversing the engine once through in order to free the boat from the tough tendrils. We did this dozens of times, go-stop-reverse-go-stop-reverse. Landing at Cu Chi we were again grouped up and led to separate destinations - some going straight to the war tunnels themselves, others on a countryside drive, the five masochists among us opting for an 18 mile bicycle ride in 100 degree heat.
Thankfully they asked for our measurements before we arrived , ensuring we’d at least have a chance for success. Our guide was incredibly friendly and suspiciously fit, decked out in top-notch riding gear. The electrolyte powder dumped in our water bottles and handlebar bags for our stuff and shocks on the bikes were nice touches. The Scottish family and us rode quickly on paved streets to very little traffic. The first few miles were hot but fair, to increasingly sparse scenery. We stopped at a rice paper factory, hard laborers pulling bamboo stretchers out of the sun and peeling the familiar foundation of the Vietnamese spring roll like you would a fruit roll-up. I felt a bit like a gawker - the workers looked incredibly weathered from the relentless sun and get paid $150 a month for 10 hour days, 7 days a week. Maybe my air-conditioned, soft-fingered job back home isn’t so bad…
We continued onward, turning off of paved streets onto our first rough dirt path of the day, through an endless symmetrical canopy of rubber trees - leaning into one another to form an inverted V for us to ride between. Half of my attention was always on the road, large stones and dried dung and large branches a constant threat. My wrists were taking the brunt of the vibrations, and I starting wondering how people endure off-road biking as fun.
Our next turn was down a muddy path through acres and acres of bitter melon farms under the unyielding sun. A scooter coming the other way stopped our guide and gave fair warning, to a shrug and an onward! We came to a watery intersection where farmers had giant hoses everywhere, spewing water in all directions. We had no choice but to pick up our bikes and walk the distance, happy to return to “just muddy” on the other side of it all. The Scottish mom among us was in last place, a giant tractor looming just feet behind her. I regret not snapping a photo of the menacing hilarity.
Soon the mud turned into sand, the worst terrain I’ve ever encountered on a bicycle. The nuance between solid and shifting was inches apart, and we tried our best to follow exactly where our guide rode, having to stop abruptly once our tired turned from under us. It was an exhausting few miles back to pavement, stopping once more to inspect a $100 bill on the side of the road. This was funeral money, fake currency printed for the dead to spend in another life. I inspected a 1,000,000 dong bill and was tempted to slip it in my pocket. “This does not belong to me” the guide said as he released the Benjamin into the wind. We felt guilty at the notion of keeping what wasn't ours and watched as our paper took shape, fluttering slowly back to the grass.
Our halfway point wasn’t even close, and most of us were already bright red from exertion. We approached civilization again, amused by the HELLOs and HIs peppering the sounds of birds and barking dogs. It’s a very strange concept to the Vietnamese, that foreigners would pay money to ride a bicycle through the countryside. Well-off parents typically buy their children a scooter once they reach 18, a promotion of sorts from their short, pedal-powered lifetimes. Being the Western weirdos was something I’m generally accustomed to, and I took the English greetings as intended - good-natured novelty that spices up the boredom of the day.
Eventually I stopped paying attention to the scenery, focused solely on making it to the rest stop - our 10 days of gluttony not doing us any favors. Shops and houses continued to appear, my favorite gate toppers being Doge-esque German shepherds. I now want two Doge statues atop my own fence. Much opening! I thanked gods I didn’t believe in when we slowed down to a hammock-filled restaurant, plates of dragon fruit and mango and watermelon peeled and sliced for our arrival. It was luxurious, sampling coffee crackers and peanut wafers and swallowing whole those juices-as-fruit.
As much as I wanted to nap in those hammocks our guide was quick to get us back on the road, a matter of fact 6-or-7 miles answer to my meek variation on “are we there yet?”. We hit our stride once again, assisted by smooth roads and even more roadside greetings. I was struck soundly by a scooter in the distance, a pink-and-red-wrapped driver coming towards us, her fingers outstretched in a V. I will never forget that moment, the peace sign given to me, an American, as I rode over the subterranean tunnelway where Vietnamese survived in inhumane conditions against terrible odds, invaded for illegitimate reasons by my fathers and my grandfathers. I hope she knows how powerful that symbol was for me, and I found myself giving the same symbol of love and forgiveness to everyone I came across. It makes me tear up just thinking about it, of how our older generations harbor so much bitterness and racism for the Vietnamese people, and they not only look up to us (see: it’s all about money) but it's a real reminder that absolutely no good can come from resentment and revenge.
My legs tensed up as we again turned onto rocky terrain, my fingertips barely holding onto the handlebar in hopes of giving my hands relief. Again the dirt turned into sand, covered in a sprinkling of treacherous leaves. I shadowed the path confidently, keeping our leader’s pace, my front wheel slowly veering a mere inch to the right. This began my slow fall, my wheel whipping 90 degrees, knowing that it would be better to relax my muscles for impact instead of trying to force the impossible and break a bone in the process. I landed hard and stared up at the sun, motionless, mentally checking my systems to ensure they were all operational. My left leg throbbed, my wrist ached, but I was determined to finish this ride. Our guide wanted me to take a rest after noticing my knee was bleeding, but I wasn’t having the pity of the group and insisted we keep moving. Single-minded I powered through the rest of it, an intentional blur, ignoring time completely and focusing solely on one foot in front of the other. Large buildings eventually came into view, blocked only by another short sprint over motherfucking sand. I dismounted my bike and walked across the final hurdle, elated at our arrival to the Cu Chi tunnels.
The Cu Chi tunnels are one of the biggest tourist attractions outside of Saigon - an all-too realistic war museum, of captured helicopters and crawls through tunnels three feet high, a few have been widened for the tourists. People living for months, years underground subsisting on boiled Tapicoa root - suffocating from the lack of air, using ingenious ways to disguise kitchen smoke, footprints, bamboo breathing tubes. It was sobering, it was sad, and as we crawled and stared and absorbed the group could barely speak. After exiting through the gift shop we came to the gun range, where tourists can shoot a wide variety of automatic weapons across the same landscape where millions of Vietnamese, tens of thousands of Americans died. I recalled the peace sign I was flashed a mere hour ago and my stomach started turning at the thought of firing weapons here as a novel way to pass the time. It took conscious effort to climb the single stair up the van home, our bodies overheated and aching, an important parallel to how it was, but one-ten-millionth of what the people who lived through the American War went through.
I walked the width of two stairs from our hotel lobby to the van, gracefully landing, my phone flying, thankful I didn’t twist my ankle for the hustle ahead. We picked up more eager early-risers and were grouped and separated and shuttled onto our speedboat up the Saigon river. Our guide was fantastic, using humor as education to paint more stark realities upon our collective blank canvases.
“See the helipad on top of the hospital? It’s just for show, only the military has helicopters.”
“Notice the beautiful restaurant on the water. It was very popular among locals but they raised prices to lure in tourists and because of this the government shut them down.”
“So many houses are being built here, but wealthy Chinese bought them all up, raising the prices of houses, until we can’t afford them.”
“This is where an uprising happened because the Chinese put an oil rig in the middle of Vietnamese waters without permission. An angry mob set out to burn the Chinese factory to the ground. There were two factories here, one Chinese and the other Japanese. The locals didn’t know which factory was which, so the Japanese put up a big sign that said -> CHINESE FACTORY THIS WAY ->”
Sipping on onboard cha sua da and noshing on rambutan we came to the real work to be done - water hyacinth. The entire river covered in the clusters of green leaves, underneath live thick roots used for making rope and handbags. One boat would go first, cutting a line through using brute force and a small propeller - reversing the engine once through in order to free the boat from the tough tendrils. We did this dozens of times, go-stop-reverse-go-stop-reverse. Landing at Cu Chi we were again grouped up and led to separate destinations - some going straight to the war tunnels themselves, others on a countryside drive, the five masochists among us opting for an 18 mile bicycle ride in 100 degree heat.
Thankfully they asked for our measurements before we arrived , ensuring we’d at least have a chance for success. Our guide was incredibly friendly and suspiciously fit, decked out in top-notch riding gear. The electrolyte powder dumped in our water bottles and handlebar bags for our stuff and shocks on the bikes were nice touches. The Scottish family and us rode quickly on paved streets to very little traffic. The first few miles were hot but fair, to increasingly sparse scenery. We stopped at a rice paper factory, hard laborers pulling bamboo stretchers out of the sun and peeling the familiar foundation of the Vietnamese spring roll like you would a fruit roll-up. I felt a bit like a gawker - the workers looked incredibly weathered from the relentless sun and get paid $150 a month for 10 hour days, 7 days a week. Maybe my air-conditioned, soft-fingered job back home isn’t so bad…
We continued onward, turning off of paved streets onto our first rough dirt path of the day, through an endless symmetrical canopy of rubber trees - leaning into one another to form an inverted V for us to ride between. Half of my attention was always on the road, large stones and dried dung and large branches a constant threat. My wrists were taking the brunt of the vibrations, and I starting wondering how people endure off-road biking as fun.
Our next turn was down a muddy path through acres and acres of bitter melon farms under the unyielding sun. A scooter coming the other way stopped our guide and gave fair warning, to a shrug and an onward! We came to a watery intersection where farmers had giant hoses everywhere, spewing water in all directions. We had no choice but to pick up our bikes and walk the distance, happy to return to “just muddy” on the other side of it all. The Scottish mom among us was in last place, a giant tractor looming just feet behind her. I regret not snapping a photo of the menacing hilarity.
Soon the mud turned into sand, the worst terrain I’ve ever encountered on a bicycle. The nuance between solid and shifting was inches apart, and we tried our best to follow exactly where our guide rode, having to stop abruptly once our tired turned from under us. It was an exhausting few miles back to pavement, stopping once more to inspect a $100 bill on the side of the road. This was funeral money, fake currency printed for the dead to spend in another life. I inspected a 1,000,000 dong bill and was tempted to slip it in my pocket. “This does not belong to me” the guide said as he released the Benjamin into the wind. We felt guilty at the notion of keeping what wasn't ours and watched as our paper took shape, fluttering slowly back to the grass.
Our halfway point wasn’t even close, and most of us were already bright red from exertion. We approached civilization again, amused by the HELLOs and HIs peppering the sounds of birds and barking dogs. It’s a very strange concept to the Vietnamese, that foreigners would pay money to ride a bicycle through the countryside. Well-off parents typically buy their children a scooter once they reach 18, a promotion of sorts from their short, pedal-powered lifetimes. Being the Western weirdos was something I’m generally accustomed to, and I took the English greetings as intended - good-natured novelty that spices up the boredom of the day.
Eventually I stopped paying attention to the scenery, focused solely on making it to the rest stop - our 10 days of gluttony not doing us any favors. Shops and houses continued to appear, my favorite gate toppers being Doge-esque German shepherds. I now want two Doge statues atop my own fence. Much opening! I thanked gods I didn’t believe in when we slowed down to a hammock-filled restaurant, plates of dragon fruit and mango and watermelon peeled and sliced for our arrival. It was luxurious, sampling coffee crackers and peanut wafers and swallowing whole those juices-as-fruit.
As much as I wanted to nap in those hammocks our guide was quick to get us back on the road, a matter of fact 6-or-7 miles answer to my meek variation on “are we there yet?”. We hit our stride once again, assisted by smooth roads and even more roadside greetings. I was struck soundly by a scooter in the distance, a pink-and-red-wrapped driver coming towards us, her fingers outstretched in a V. I will never forget that moment, the peace sign given to me, an American, as I rode over the subterranean tunnelway where Vietnamese survived in inhumane conditions against terrible odds, invaded for illegitimate reasons by my fathers and my grandfathers. I hope she knows how powerful that symbol was for me, and I found myself giving the same symbol of love and forgiveness to everyone I came across. It makes me tear up just thinking about it, of how our older generations harbor so much bitterness and racism for the Vietnamese people, and they not only look up to us (see: it’s all about money) but it's a real reminder that absolutely no good can come from resentment and revenge.
My legs tensed up as we again turned onto rocky terrain, my fingertips barely holding onto the handlebar in hopes of giving my hands relief. Again the dirt turned into sand, covered in a sprinkling of treacherous leaves. I shadowed the path confidently, keeping our leader’s pace, my front wheel slowly veering a mere inch to the right. This began my slow fall, my wheel whipping 90 degrees, knowing that it would be better to relax my muscles for impact instead of trying to force the impossible and break a bone in the process. I landed hard and stared up at the sun, motionless, mentally checking my systems to ensure they were all operational. My left leg throbbed, my wrist ached, but I was determined to finish this ride. Our guide wanted me to take a rest after noticing my knee was bleeding, but I wasn’t having the pity of the group and insisted we keep moving. Single-minded I powered through the rest of it, an intentional blur, ignoring time completely and focusing solely on one foot in front of the other. Large buildings eventually came into view, blocked only by another short sprint over motherfucking sand. I dismounted my bike and walked across the final hurdle, elated at our arrival to the Cu Chi tunnels.
The Cu Chi tunnels are one of the biggest tourist attractions outside of Saigon - an all-too realistic war museum, of captured helicopters and crawls through tunnels three feet high, a few have been widened for the tourists. People living for months, years underground subsisting on boiled Tapicoa root - suffocating from the lack of air, using ingenious ways to disguise kitchen smoke, footprints, bamboo breathing tubes. It was sobering, it was sad, and as we crawled and stared and absorbed the group could barely speak. After exiting through the gift shop we came to the gun range, where tourists can shoot a wide variety of automatic weapons across the same landscape where millions of Vietnamese, tens of thousands of Americans died. I recalled the peace sign I was flashed a mere hour ago and my stomach started turning at the thought of firing weapons here as a novel way to pass the time. It took conscious effort to climb the single stair up the van home, our bodies overheated and aching, an important parallel to how it was, but one-ten-millionth of what the people who lived through the American War went through.
Monday, April 25, 2016
it's all about money.
Birds chirped in accompaniment to the delicate intonation of an alleyway song, marking our mornings as much as the light seeping through our curtains. I was ecstatic to see a different world at my doorstep, shuttered doors now covering the dens of ine[quity/briated], storefronts and restaurants now open in their place. Our first meal in Vietnam was to be breakfast as locals do, a hot bowl of Pho to match temps nearing 100, both of us eagerly tossing in extra heat and full cloves of garlic. It somehow makes sense to eat spicy food in hot climates, in all climates really. There is a Zen-esque balance achieved when your insides match your outsides, beads of sweat ensuring you don't overheat entirely. We watched the sea of scooters as if it was cinema, old women carrying kitchens on their backs, mesmerized by the frenetic nonchalance of it all.
Our muscle memory wasn't eager to pound lengthy streets in such heat, and I recalled that icon on that iPhone - surely there's no Uber in Saigon. Spoiler alert: there's totally Uber in Saigon, there's even UberMoto in Saigon where you hail a scooter from your phone. If your first thought when reading that was "well we have Uber here too big whoop" then I'd wager a good bit of Dong you've never been to SE Asia. It's a complete game changer for anyone with a data plan, also readily available and incredibly cheap. My previous month based out of Bangkok gave me taxi PTSD - not only did you have to avoid ripoffs and insist the driver run the meter (many didn't want to) but trying to negotiate the destination translation is a grueling endeavor that can leave you stranded on the wrong side of the city. Not to mention those drivers that can't (read: won't) give you any change for any amount of bill. I now wait 3-5 minutes for an often air-conditioned car and automatically get billed the $1.50 (!!!) fare to visit my next bowl of noodles, the address I enter on my phone before the car even arrives. Worried about getting ripped off buying a SIM card? You should be! Hit up the historic Saigon Central Post Office and find an official Mobifone store around the corner - $9 gets you a SIM and 1 GB of data for 30 days. AMAZING!!!!!
We were intrigued by a craft brewing place nearby, and headed up the narrow stairway to the small bar pulling pints. The coconut porter was good, the passion fruit wheat outstanding. A young man on his phone next to me eventually made small talk, a sociology PhD student who started sharing his work and a bit about the religious history of Saigon. I had no idea Catholicism has been here for 400 years - communism doesn't lend itself well to gods outside of the state itself, and we got deep into a wonderfully enlightening conversation about the realities of Saigon today. My heart sank deep when he described the many poor Vietnamese families scrounging and saving to send their children to those uncouth British idiots of the night prior, who get paid a whopping $25/hr to teach English in one of the cheapest big cities in the world. Every time he mentioned the D word (-emocracy) he did so ten decibels lower, bad at masking his obvious joy of talking taboo subjects with foreigners. I left the bar beaming, grateful to have a taste of perspective.
Something he said has stuck with me: "how does it feel to be a millionaire?". We laughed about it then but he isn't far off - it's hard to spend large quantities of money here, my value-centric pleasure centers tingling wildly but often blindly. When you can drop fifty cents on a fresh Bahn Mi and eat among the locals it makes you feel powerful, which is an odd thing to feel when you're simply eating. It's easy to act frivolous but important to remember that exorbitant wealth leads down dark paths - of expectation, of taking for granted, of not being aware of the true cost of things. This was most clear during cocktails on our hotel roof bar, overhearing conversations between couples, of American and European men trying to show off to their Vietnamese "girlfriends". In my mind there's no room for romance when the scales sit so disparate - it's an act on both sides, the submission and manipulation of economic desperation pitted against the pitfalls of testosterone-driven vanity and having to convince yourself that it's any actual part of you she's after (shallow or otherwise), and not just the eventual contents of your wallet. My $3 glass full of Jameson was ten times the size of the thimble I paid $15 for back in HK. I basked beneath strands of mood lighting, eight floors above the chaos below, sipping on my watermelon juice chaser, happy to be sitting across from an old friend, perfectly content with the baggage I carry.
Our muscle memory wasn't eager to pound lengthy streets in such heat, and I recalled that icon on that iPhone - surely there's no Uber in Saigon. Spoiler alert: there's totally Uber in Saigon, there's even UberMoto in Saigon where you hail a scooter from your phone. If your first thought when reading that was "well we have Uber here too big whoop" then I'd wager a good bit of Dong you've never been to SE Asia. It's a complete game changer for anyone with a data plan, also readily available and incredibly cheap. My previous month based out of Bangkok gave me taxi PTSD - not only did you have to avoid ripoffs and insist the driver run the meter (many didn't want to) but trying to negotiate the destination translation is a grueling endeavor that can leave you stranded on the wrong side of the city. Not to mention those drivers that can't (read: won't) give you any change for any amount of bill. I now wait 3-5 minutes for an often air-conditioned car and automatically get billed the $1.50 (!!!) fare to visit my next bowl of noodles, the address I enter on my phone before the car even arrives. Worried about getting ripped off buying a SIM card? You should be! Hit up the historic Saigon Central Post Office and find an official Mobifone store around the corner - $9 gets you a SIM and 1 GB of data for 30 days. AMAZING!!!!!
We were intrigued by a craft brewing place nearby, and headed up the narrow stairway to the small bar pulling pints. The coconut porter was good, the passion fruit wheat outstanding. A young man on his phone next to me eventually made small talk, a sociology PhD student who started sharing his work and a bit about the religious history of Saigon. I had no idea Catholicism has been here for 400 years - communism doesn't lend itself well to gods outside of the state itself, and we got deep into a wonderfully enlightening conversation about the realities of Saigon today. My heart sank deep when he described the many poor Vietnamese families scrounging and saving to send their children to those uncouth British idiots of the night prior, who get paid a whopping $25/hr to teach English in one of the cheapest big cities in the world. Every time he mentioned the D word (-emocracy) he did so ten decibels lower, bad at masking his obvious joy of talking taboo subjects with foreigners. I left the bar beaming, grateful to have a taste of perspective.
Something he said has stuck with me: "how does it feel to be a millionaire?". We laughed about it then but he isn't far off - it's hard to spend large quantities of money here, my value-centric pleasure centers tingling wildly but often blindly. When you can drop fifty cents on a fresh Bahn Mi and eat among the locals it makes you feel powerful, which is an odd thing to feel when you're simply eating. It's easy to act frivolous but important to remember that exorbitant wealth leads down dark paths - of expectation, of taking for granted, of not being aware of the true cost of things. This was most clear during cocktails on our hotel roof bar, overhearing conversations between couples, of American and European men trying to show off to their Vietnamese "girlfriends". In my mind there's no room for romance when the scales sit so disparate - it's an act on both sides, the submission and manipulation of economic desperation pitted against the pitfalls of testosterone-driven vanity and having to convince yourself that it's any actual part of you she's after (shallow or otherwise), and not just the eventual contents of your wallet. My $3 glass full of Jameson was ten times the size of the thimble I paid $15 for back in HK. I basked beneath strands of mood lighting, eight floors above the chaos below, sipping on my watermelon juice chaser, happy to be sitting across from an old friend, perfectly content with the baggage I carry.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
at last, anarchy.
We arrived to Ho Chi Minh City after midnight, hoping both of us would leap through the border hoops. The rules of entry felt arbitrary, strict, but I'm a big fan of checklists and I made damn sure all of the boxes were ticked. The humidity engulfed us as the exit doors parted, steadying ourselves to an audience of amused locals waiting for loved ones. We arranged for an airport pickup but my name-as-sign was nowhere to be found. The time crept towards 2am and the mental fog was upon us - failed attempts at roam-phoning the hotel netted us a helpful liar who called the hotel for us and translated that our ride wasn't coming so we should pay him instead. I snatched his phone from his hands to be told the driver had indeed been sent out over an hour ago and we must just be bad at exiting airports. After being reassured more wheels were on the way I noticed the familiar logo of Uber on the tout's phone and we sat in defeated silence, waiting. Seconds after giving up a young man with sleep in his eyes ran toward the crowd, my name waving in his hand. We jumped in his car featuring a cheetah fur dashboard adorned with patron saints - the fact the driver seat was completely prone confirmed our driver was fast asleep while we sat stewing.
Sleepy Cheetah Enterprises darted through empty streets, giving us glimpses of what would await us in the morning. As we pulled closer to our hotel the scene went full-on Jersey Shore - drunks of all shapes and sizes and shades of white blocking our way, stumbling and wooing and filling incredibly cheesy bars, ripe chum for the bar girl bar sharks. Our driver pulled over and pointed to a dark hotel in the midst of this madness. The cheery front-desk attendant was in far better shape than we, informing us that our parents called and said they were worried. I cringed at the distance between his joke and my reality, wondering if I'd ever sleep again. The Duc Vuong hotel was much-adored by the internet and central to everything, confirmed by our well-above-suitable room and super-helpful staff. We HAD to know what our nights would bring, so we walked down our street through the muck of Backpackers Gone Wild. Immediately the shouting started, of "happy hour here" and "come drink with us", hundreds of eyes eyeing us up, my own gaze fixated on the most beautiful shapes in sight - those voluptuous food stands on wheels. I was in love with them all: bowls of raw meat in wait, soft mangoes stacked high, noodles just begging to be boiled.
COCAINE!
A little old man shadowed Mr. M for blocks, resorting to repetition once COCAINE! didn't get the results he was after.
MARIJUANA? COCAINE! COCAINE! COCAINE! COCAAAAAAAINE!
As tempting as five years in prison for possessing drain cleaner is, we managed to resist his suave sales pitch, break our large bills against some well-earned cold beers to take back to the hotel, and fell into our beds as if they were our saviors.
Hong Kong was the predictable, boring, buckled-up businessman. This, my friends, is bat country.
Sleepy Cheetah Enterprises darted through empty streets, giving us glimpses of what would await us in the morning. As we pulled closer to our hotel the scene went full-on Jersey Shore - drunks of all shapes and sizes and shades of white blocking our way, stumbling and wooing and filling incredibly cheesy bars, ripe chum for the bar girl bar sharks. Our driver pulled over and pointed to a dark hotel in the midst of this madness. The cheery front-desk attendant was in far better shape than we, informing us that our parents called and said they were worried. I cringed at the distance between his joke and my reality, wondering if I'd ever sleep again. The Duc Vuong hotel was much-adored by the internet and central to everything, confirmed by our well-above-suitable room and super-helpful staff. We HAD to know what our nights would bring, so we walked down our street through the muck of Backpackers Gone Wild. Immediately the shouting started, of "happy hour here" and "come drink with us", hundreds of eyes eyeing us up, my own gaze fixated on the most beautiful shapes in sight - those voluptuous food stands on wheels. I was in love with them all: bowls of raw meat in wait, soft mangoes stacked high, noodles just begging to be boiled.
COCAINE!
A little old man shadowed Mr. M for blocks, resorting to repetition once COCAINE! didn't get the results he was after.
MARIJUANA? COCAINE! COCAINE! COCAINE! COCAAAAAAAINE!
As tempting as five years in prison for possessing drain cleaner is, we managed to resist his suave sales pitch, break our large bills against some well-earned cold beers to take back to the hotel, and fell into our beds as if they were our saviors.
Hong Kong was the predictable, boring, buckled-up businessman. This, my friends, is bat country.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
whiplash.
It's only been two days since escaping Wan Chai, it feels more like three weeks. It takes a monumental amount of effort to move through this city, magnified tenfold by the zombie-esque plague of the iDevices. One step forward two steps back isn't very far off - dodging old people and children is the hardest part of it all, every major street simply packed with people of various speeds and attentiveness. If I would have brought my FitBit I would have earned 20% in sideways bonus steps, no doubt. The exhaustion of movement is a big reason I can't picture myself staying for more than a few months in Manhattan, or even San Francisco. It makes our outings four hours at most before our brains demand reprieve, ending our evenings early back in our 6' x 10' room.
The cost of any big city is an easy price to pay for what we've done in those two days. Rode the roller coaster of a cable car up to The Peak, the tallest vantage point a tourist can get to. We saw a whole different side of commerce with PMQ, an old six-floor apartment building turned into dozens and dozens of high-design, hand-made storefronts. And the food, my god the food here has surpassed all of the hours and hours of YouTube anticipation. Tiny velvety egg tarts with their crumbly crusts, sugar-crusted baked BBQ buns at the best dim sum I've ever eaten, cold milk tea served atop bowls of ice, experiencing childlike novelty popping off individual orbs from various flavors of egg waffles, mouth-watering Peking duck three ways (AND MY FAVORITE SOUVENIR BOWL EVER EVER EVER PLEASE DON'T BREAK), introducing Mr. M to Din Tai Fung, beef brisket soup noodles at Mak An Kee, steamed custard buns, whole chickens fried before my eyes within an open-air food market amidst raucous tables of smokers and gamblers, on and on and on and on. My advice: skip the plethora of worthless junk markets and just, eat.
Worth the effort or not, the question remains: should vacations be relaxing? Is it even possible to "get away" while mimicking the rat race back home? I contemplated these questions when planning this trip. The expense and red tape to leave Hong Kong for mainland China just didn't seem worth it - why would I spend $140 for the Visa when I'd be there a few days at most? That left the only other loose border city an easy ferry ride away: Macau.
After being wished farewell by our new friends-actually-employees at our regular nearby coffee shop we packed our bags, solved the daily destination maze, and caught our hour-long ferry across the water. As the bus pulled up the Galaxy Macau we were engulfed in the ridiculousness of this five-star hotel - walking through gilded gates as a giant diamond descended from above the lobby fountain. The vast difference between our crushed city days and this casino WITH A WAVE POOL ON THE ROOF is mind-boggling. Our HK shower was a sink-attached head sitting feet above the toilet as a single stall - great care was taken to prevent our toilet paper from getting wet. Now not only do we have a separate shower and bathtub, we have a mini-fridge stocked with grocery store sundries and two fully-charged Kindles just begging for some quiet time. The next 48 hours of relaxing are upon us, we the harbingers of indolence!
The cost of any big city is an easy price to pay for what we've done in those two days. Rode the roller coaster of a cable car up to The Peak, the tallest vantage point a tourist can get to. We saw a whole different side of commerce with PMQ, an old six-floor apartment building turned into dozens and dozens of high-design, hand-made storefronts. And the food, my god the food here has surpassed all of the hours and hours of YouTube anticipation. Tiny velvety egg tarts with their crumbly crusts, sugar-crusted baked BBQ buns at the best dim sum I've ever eaten, cold milk tea served atop bowls of ice, experiencing childlike novelty popping off individual orbs from various flavors of egg waffles, mouth-watering Peking duck three ways (AND MY FAVORITE SOUVENIR BOWL EVER EVER EVER PLEASE DON'T BREAK), introducing Mr. M to Din Tai Fung, beef brisket soup noodles at Mak An Kee, steamed custard buns, whole chickens fried before my eyes within an open-air food market amidst raucous tables of smokers and gamblers, on and on and on and on. My advice: skip the plethora of worthless junk markets and just, eat.
Worth the effort or not, the question remains: should vacations be relaxing? Is it even possible to "get away" while mimicking the rat race back home? I contemplated these questions when planning this trip. The expense and red tape to leave Hong Kong for mainland China just didn't seem worth it - why would I spend $140 for the Visa when I'd be there a few days at most? That left the only other loose border city an easy ferry ride away: Macau.
After being wished farewell by our new friends-actually-employees at our regular nearby coffee shop we packed our bags, solved the daily destination maze, and caught our hour-long ferry across the water. As the bus pulled up the Galaxy Macau we were engulfed in the ridiculousness of this five-star hotel - walking through gilded gates as a giant diamond descended from above the lobby fountain. The vast difference between our crushed city days and this casino WITH A WAVE POOL ON THE ROOF is mind-boggling. Our HK shower was a sink-attached head sitting feet above the toilet as a single stall - great care was taken to prevent our toilet paper from getting wet. Now not only do we have a separate shower and bathtub, we have a mini-fridge stocked with grocery store sundries and two fully-charged Kindles just begging for some quiet time. The next 48 hours of relaxing are upon us, we the harbingers of indolence!
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
continued avoidance of mirrored hallways.
After a long day of disappointing markets Mr. M and I decided to hit up another night of music, this time at the seemingly most popular of rock bars here called The Wanch. At first The Wanch sounds like The Ranch, only spoken by someone trying to make fun of Chinese people. Google Autocomplete just made me realize The Wanch is a play on Wan Chai, a terrible terrible district full of Western bars, bright neon signs, and the obligatory massage parlors.
Mr. M and I have had some great success this far eating fabulous food and drinking regularly on the cheap - 20 oz beers served cold for at most 22 HKD ($2.84). This is mostly because we've been staying in North Point, a no-nonsense area that feels very Chinese but still gives easy access to the Western (i.e. good coffee a few blocks away) and the subway / ferry (i.e. absolutely critical). Back at The Wanch we walked into the sparse room and the staff setting up equipment for the open mic night. We were taken aback at the 350 HKD ($45.13) bill presented to us for two beers and two thimbles of Jameson during their advertised happy hour. I had read how expensive the vices are in this city, and this was our first real taste of drinking Gweilo style.
After soundcheck four friends took the stage - a shy middle-aged singer opening up after being bestowed a spattering of applause by just the two of us. EVERYONE'S TOO COOL TO CLAP HUH I said a little too loud as we ordered another $50 round of drinks, but encouragement might not have been the best idea as the white drummer in his 50s took the mic and started rapping like how you'd imagine your own father would rap. Mr. M and I rolled eyes and clinked glasses while the precise enunciator laid down some of what the kids are doing these days. More people started arriving, a clearly unhip Japanese guy started stretching, and a cool guy with a bad haircut blurted out to the performers WHILE THEY WERE PLAYING "How many more songs?". It was completely disrespectful and I noticed myself growing protective of Dad Rap Shy Lady. They soon exited the stage as the now-limber dude in the Lennon glasses picked up his guitar and started into his chords. He was singing entirely in Japanese, his voice expressive enough to transcend the language barrier, and as his own confidence grew his range expanded and he started rocking. the. fuck. out. His stiff hips bent and swayed into a swagger, a clear transformation happening before our eyes, and as he belted and bellowed we all grew quiet. Three songs into it and a young slick rick started up with the "Are you done yet?"s. I realized that there were only a few actual audience members here - the young British girls talking over the bands and misusing "literally" literally every five minutes, the Indian dude standing two feet in front of the singer blocking our view capturing footage on his iPhone he'll never ever watch again, a few single middle-aged men lost in their phones and/or hitting on the bar staff, and us. The rest of the crowd were impatient musicians just being shitty to each other. Which made me not at all want to listen to the rude boys, much less clap for them.
We exited the Wanch and went in search of another bar, dodging young women in velvet curtain doorways, passing businessman after businessman fixated on various forms of conquest, finding none of our people, ending up at a vacant 2nd-floor hotel bar with a view, sipping on our $12 beers. I so wanted to be back at that first night, back when there was no one like us around.
TLDR: Wan Chai sucks.
Mr. M and I have had some great success this far eating fabulous food and drinking regularly on the cheap - 20 oz beers served cold for at most 22 HKD ($2.84). This is mostly because we've been staying in North Point, a no-nonsense area that feels very Chinese but still gives easy access to the Western (i.e. good coffee a few blocks away) and the subway / ferry (i.e. absolutely critical). Back at The Wanch we walked into the sparse room and the staff setting up equipment for the open mic night. We were taken aback at the 350 HKD ($45.13) bill presented to us for two beers and two thimbles of Jameson during their advertised happy hour. I had read how expensive the vices are in this city, and this was our first real taste of drinking Gweilo style.
After soundcheck four friends took the stage - a shy middle-aged singer opening up after being bestowed a spattering of applause by just the two of us. EVERYONE'S TOO COOL TO CLAP HUH I said a little too loud as we ordered another $50 round of drinks, but encouragement might not have been the best idea as the white drummer in his 50s took the mic and started rapping like how you'd imagine your own father would rap. Mr. M and I rolled eyes and clinked glasses while the precise enunciator laid down some of what the kids are doing these days. More people started arriving, a clearly unhip Japanese guy started stretching, and a cool guy with a bad haircut blurted out to the performers WHILE THEY WERE PLAYING "How many more songs?". It was completely disrespectful and I noticed myself growing protective of Dad Rap Shy Lady. They soon exited the stage as the now-limber dude in the Lennon glasses picked up his guitar and started into his chords. He was singing entirely in Japanese, his voice expressive enough to transcend the language barrier, and as his own confidence grew his range expanded and he started rocking. the. fuck. out. His stiff hips bent and swayed into a swagger, a clear transformation happening before our eyes, and as he belted and bellowed we all grew quiet. Three songs into it and a young slick rick started up with the "Are you done yet?"s. I realized that there were only a few actual audience members here - the young British girls talking over the bands and misusing "literally" literally every five minutes, the Indian dude standing two feet in front of the singer blocking our view capturing footage on his iPhone he'll never ever watch again, a few single middle-aged men lost in their phones and/or hitting on the bar staff, and us. The rest of the crowd were impatient musicians just being shitty to each other. Which made me not at all want to listen to the rude boys, much less clap for them.
We exited the Wanch and went in search of another bar, dodging young women in velvet curtain doorways, passing businessman after businessman fixated on various forms of conquest, finding none of our people, ending up at a vacant 2nd-floor hotel bar with a view, sipping on our $12 beers. I so wanted to be back at that first night, back when there was no one like us around.
TLDR: Wan Chai sucks.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
rules for reason / reason for rules.
I did something pretty stupid, I wore previously unworn shoes (new-to-me near-mints) on this trip because the delusional bits of my brain convinced the rest of me YOU ARE NOW INDIANA JONES AND THOSE COMFORTABLE EVERYDAYS THAT ARE FALLING APART WON'T SURVIVE THE HARD STREETS SO YOU SHOULD TAKE THE ONES THAT DON'T REALLY FIT.
The mere act of getting to my hotel last night left me with toes rubbed raw, and after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and croissant and bowl of seaweed vermicelli soup with a sausage patty floating in it Mr. M and I went on a quest to find a pair of something Converse and/or Vans-shaped. An amused, apologetic sales clerk and the subsequent frantic scouring of expat forums led me to the realization that there is most likely not a single store in Hong Kong that carries a 13 US in any style. Which in my mind is a bit bananas considering I regularly pass locals that get up to me in height. How do they buy shoes? The internet, of course. I'm in the city that is the single largest hub of exported goods in the world and tall men here use motherfucking Zappos. WAT
Wrapped in bandages and not-buttered corn relievers we slowly made our way to Causeway Bay, through a large park filled with hundreds of young women in hijab - in doorways and down stairwells and on blankets spending their Sunday morning sharing some fabulous looking Indonesian foodstuffs. It was a bit of a parallel universe Shibuya - half of it social, the other its own kind of fashion show. And the fashion - so many people here dress only for the heat and the humidity, which makes the well-dressed stand out and stand tall. It's clearly a city of affluence - police swarming around the street sleeper beneath the Gucci sign, strict fine notices everywhere for littering, the sum of these rules drape a dense darkness covering any hint of squalor.
We arrive to the lobby of a modern building, puzzled at how a large concert venue would be inside a modest-sized office tower. "Are you here for Ladybeard?" asked a hurried voice behind us, and the confused collective queued for the elevator to take us to the top floor. We fell into a small hallway packed tightly with ten or so others who had also arrived early (three in cat ears and maid outfits), and once door opened we realized this sold-out show was being held in a room smaller than most studio apartments. It all made perfect sense - my prior research into the counter-culture of HK led me to shallow waters, "rock" being a loose term that tended to mean Western style over personal substance, and bands trying to fit the mold of C-Rock seem to mostly end up a loose variation of J-Pop.
Ladybeard's collaboration video netted 14 MILLION views on YouTube. When the lights went down there were thirty people crowded around that small stage. THIRTY. It reminded me of subcultural scenes past, of the difficulty in convincing enough people to show up at all. I felt the same sense of privilege in that moment, of being somewhere special that few people bothered to know about. The show was everything I hoped it would be - that endlessly amusing transition from sugary sweet index-finger-twists-against-cheek-with-streamers-in-hand to full-on screaming metal vocals in Cantonese, Japanese, and the lone English song a cover of Justin Bieber's "Baby". We ate it up, this late-night dessert served up at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.
It's pretty incredible that a single person has spent over a decade trying to create a real underground scene in HK, swimming upstream against such strong political and social currents, a real need for which appeared after the SARS epidemic basically destroyed the live music scene back in 2004. There is so much we spoiled music fans take for granted.
The mere act of getting to my hotel last night left me with toes rubbed raw, and after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and croissant and bowl of seaweed vermicelli soup with a sausage patty floating in it Mr. M and I went on a quest to find a pair of something Converse and/or Vans-shaped. An amused, apologetic sales clerk and the subsequent frantic scouring of expat forums led me to the realization that there is most likely not a single store in Hong Kong that carries a 13 US in any style. Which in my mind is a bit bananas considering I regularly pass locals that get up to me in height. How do they buy shoes? The internet, of course. I'm in the city that is the single largest hub of exported goods in the world and tall men here use motherfucking Zappos. WAT
Wrapped in bandages and not-buttered corn relievers we slowly made our way to Causeway Bay, through a large park filled with hundreds of young women in hijab - in doorways and down stairwells and on blankets spending their Sunday morning sharing some fabulous looking Indonesian foodstuffs. It was a bit of a parallel universe Shibuya - half of it social, the other its own kind of fashion show. And the fashion - so many people here dress only for the heat and the humidity, which makes the well-dressed stand out and stand tall. It's clearly a city of affluence - police swarming around the street sleeper beneath the Gucci sign, strict fine notices everywhere for littering, the sum of these rules drape a dense darkness covering any hint of squalor.
We arrive to the lobby of a modern building, puzzled at how a large concert venue would be inside a modest-sized office tower. "Are you here for Ladybeard?" asked a hurried voice behind us, and the confused collective queued for the elevator to take us to the top floor. We fell into a small hallway packed tightly with ten or so others who had also arrived early (three in cat ears and maid outfits), and once door opened we realized this sold-out show was being held in a room smaller than most studio apartments. It all made perfect sense - my prior research into the counter-culture of HK led me to shallow waters, "rock" being a loose term that tended to mean Western style over personal substance, and bands trying to fit the mold of C-Rock seem to mostly end up a loose variation of J-Pop.
Ladybeard's collaboration video netted 14 MILLION views on YouTube. When the lights went down there were thirty people crowded around that small stage. THIRTY. It reminded me of subcultural scenes past, of the difficulty in convincing enough people to show up at all. I felt the same sense of privilege in that moment, of being somewhere special that few people bothered to know about. The show was everything I hoped it would be - that endlessly amusing transition from sugary sweet index-finger-twists-against-cheek-with-streamers-in-hand to full-on screaming metal vocals in Cantonese, Japanese, and the lone English song a cover of Justin Bieber's "Baby". We ate it up, this late-night dessert served up at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.
It's pretty incredible that a single person has spent over a decade trying to create a real underground scene in HK, swimming upstream against such strong political and social currents, a real need for which appeared after the SARS epidemic basically destroyed the live music scene back in 2004. There is so much we spoiled music fans take for granted.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
same as it ever was.
My fascination with both Vietnam and Hong Kong come with some heavy cultural baggage. There would be no Banh Mi if it wasn’t for French assholes with guns. China’s brilliant capitalist experiment also benefited greatly from the expansion of people whose skin is uncannily similar to mine. Contemplating the influences both religion and imperialism have on culture leaves me with the hollow guilt of the questionable conquests of most of our ancestors.
We didn’t violently introduce ourselves and then quietly tiptoe backwards as Jerry did Tom, we herded and isolated and annihilated an entire nation - leaving nothing left to revere or admire but lost white men flocking to sweat lodges and the poorly-named food truck “Off the Rez”. What typically happens is that the borders themselves creep and expand, the constant conflicts of Israel and Palestine, of India and Pakistan, of Russia and anyone on the border of Russia. A slow swallowing, an ebb and flow, the incoming tide of empty bullet casings. We the many nations overtook North America, absolutely.
People move on from the hand they were dealt in the best way they know how, and over time this horror turns and twists into culinary novelty. I’m preparing myself for French bread in Southeast Asia, for Portuguese tapas amidst the Las Vegas of China, the ritual of tea cultures halfway across the world colliding in new and unusual ways. My tantalization masks genuine ignorance, ignorance I need in order to enjoy the worlds I am entering. The older I get the more sensitive I get to the true costs of things, and I lament the softening of suffering until it remains frozen, creamy, served on a stick. But boy do I love ice cream.
This trip is an escape from my escapes, a reprieve from the numb nights that tend to follow frustrating days. If I can’t make a living manifesting my own fiction I can always step aboard a plane and force the kind of living that I would truly die without. I’ve been at the same dayjob nearly 1.5 years now, working under management I don’t respect, trying my damnedest to claw and tear at the fabric this company has wrapped itself in and feeling like a fool for even caring. I’ve taken charge when no one did and have worked hard to inspire the people that need it the most. Sadly the earned influence I’ve gained seems only seems to depress me further - giving me a phantom taste of how great things could be, if only they just fired everyone in charge.
I expected this escape to be another solo trip, full of enlightenment and loneliness. I’m thrilled that a dear friend of mine decided to meet me, which hopefully won’t derail my hopes that I can get back to regular writing. Because drinking.
I’m halfway through this 13.5 hour flight and am already anticipating the late-night Szechuan place Mr. M and I will rendezvous at. Tomorrow we will awake in our closet of a hotel room and head out to a 3pm concert featuring Ladybeard, everyone’s favorite Australian ex-wrestler that dresses like a schoolgirl and sings cookie monster metal. Hong Kong here I come.
We didn’t violently introduce ourselves and then quietly tiptoe backwards as Jerry did Tom, we herded and isolated and annihilated an entire nation - leaving nothing left to revere or admire but lost white men flocking to sweat lodges and the poorly-named food truck “Off the Rez”. What typically happens is that the borders themselves creep and expand, the constant conflicts of Israel and Palestine, of India and Pakistan, of Russia and anyone on the border of Russia. A slow swallowing, an ebb and flow, the incoming tide of empty bullet casings. We the many nations overtook North America, absolutely.
People move on from the hand they were dealt in the best way they know how, and over time this horror turns and twists into culinary novelty. I’m preparing myself for French bread in Southeast Asia, for Portuguese tapas amidst the Las Vegas of China, the ritual of tea cultures halfway across the world colliding in new and unusual ways. My tantalization masks genuine ignorance, ignorance I need in order to enjoy the worlds I am entering. The older I get the more sensitive I get to the true costs of things, and I lament the softening of suffering until it remains frozen, creamy, served on a stick. But boy do I love ice cream.
This trip is an escape from my escapes, a reprieve from the numb nights that tend to follow frustrating days. If I can’t make a living manifesting my own fiction I can always step aboard a plane and force the kind of living that I would truly die without. I’ve been at the same dayjob nearly 1.5 years now, working under management I don’t respect, trying my damnedest to claw and tear at the fabric this company has wrapped itself in and feeling like a fool for even caring. I’ve taken charge when no one did and have worked hard to inspire the people that need it the most. Sadly the earned influence I’ve gained seems only seems to depress me further - giving me a phantom taste of how great things could be, if only they just fired everyone in charge.
I expected this escape to be another solo trip, full of enlightenment and loneliness. I’m thrilled that a dear friend of mine decided to meet me, which hopefully won’t derail my hopes that I can get back to regular writing. Because drinking.
I’m halfway through this 13.5 hour flight and am already anticipating the late-night Szechuan place Mr. M and I will rendezvous at. Tomorrow we will awake in our closet of a hotel room and head out to a 3pm concert featuring Ladybeard, everyone’s favorite Australian ex-wrestler that dresses like a schoolgirl and sings cookie monster metal. Hong Kong here I come.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
re-entry, withdraw, repeat.
As a culture we romanticize the DIY, the living of live on your own terms, the standing tall with nothing to lose. I can confidently say there’s not a thing romantic in worrying about rent - even moreso when you’ve told your now-burdened girlfriend that you’ll land something anyday now… half a year later.
Those six months of job hunting were brutal, demoralizing, and every “sure thing” inevitably turned to ash in my hands. I took the first job I was offered, the best choice out of the pool numbering one. I didn’t feel proud about my “decision”, but at least I didn’t end up at a known misery (i.e. Amazon). My offer wasn’t even full-time, it was intended to try me on as you would pants. I let the resentment of that 90-day on-trial period seep into my everyday, the lone contractor in a sea of established employees, and I couldn’t see the future beyond my own upturned nose and imaginary hurt. What I should have been was grateful. Instead I let myself be disappointed in myself. (Which is never a good way to treat anyone.)
Last week I accepted a full-time job offer at the company I resigned myself to showing up at, and as I contemplated my fit in the world and at this company I realized it was the perfect island of misfit toys. The levels of dysfunction, historic failure, and fear of the alpha men in charge created an atmosphere just begging for someone to call the Emperor out on his naked bullshit. I just happen to stand six foot four and have nothing to lose.
The cast of characters at this startup are a sitcom in the making, and in my old age I’m finding that my love of entertainment value might exceed my need to align with company values. There is a penchant among the Directors of Nothing for wearing dress shirts buttoned just above Fabio level, sans undershirt. They unknowingly bring a wealth of Euro-gigolo, raising and/or sinking the “dress for success” game to a whole new level. This is in stark contrast to the Mötley Crüe of us expected to implement their questionable vision: pants riding high above our socks, bearded and opinionated, young and eager, antisocial and angry, intentionally oblivious and brilliant….. most importantly both welcoming and helpful. This company built around a specific kind of female empowerment is marked most starkly by the abundance of dirty dishes left in the sink, mostly by the men in charge, inevitably to be cleaned up by a woman that never realized “maid” was part of her job description.
My peers at this place are reason enough to stay, my amusement of the Lead By Title Not Example keeps the everyday most interesting. It’s the kind of company you have to explain to people, awkward and below-the-radar and kind of perfect for me. I feel like I’ve shown an old man with bad habits a new way to live, and much of my fun has always been to stir up righteous revolt in every established system. And I too feel like an out-of-touch old man – being told I’ve done a good job is something I haven’t heard in nearly five years. It’s amazing how much being on a collaborative team has improved my outlook on life. Nature might abhor a vacuum but it’s nothing compared to what a vacuum can do to a man. This irregular puzzle piece has found his fit, and the sense of relief brings an inexplicable salty fluid to my optic transducers.
I will always adore the startup, the underdog, the complete unknown, the ecstatic anticipation in watching that slow-rolling die, and the probably nevers in our lives.
Who wants to be the largest gear of the most proven machine, anyway?
(answer: sane people)
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
ground up from the spit out.
“We're testing you to see what you're capable of”, he says. It comes from a cubicle on the border of contempt, 5 miles outside of pity. He can’t / won’t comprehend that he has simplified the two decades of my career and struggle and effort into the final trivia question of the afternoon. I explain how I’d try and solve the puzzle he’s posed, but philosophy is often not enough for these boys-beyond-men-beyond-boys who have been weaned on tests and quizzes as measure of worth… of comparison… of success.
“You should solve this using recursion. Do you know what recursion is?” he says a little too clearly after it’s clear mere philosophy isn’t enough. I’m talking around the problem, but admitting where I’m not sure how to solve certain pieces of it. His voice has gone from cold to chilled, and I notice it wavers the more patience he loses. But saying “I don’t know” isn’t enough. He wants me to expand on my failure. He wants me to type my failure out. He’s already judge-and-juried me, but he wants to watch me crawl up the mountain so that he may properly kick me back down again. I suddenly want to be anywhere but on the phone with him.
I think about the happy hour I’m already late for. These thoughts of dark wooden tables and ice-cold Old Fashioneds are far too specific and far too not-this. My eyes scroll across what I’ve done, across stubs and fragments typed out in pseudo-code. “I’m not going to give you what you want.” I say, frankly. His silence lingers a bit, but he snaps back to duty. “Well then. I’ll submit my feedback to the team.” At that moment I realize the absurdity of this situation, that he never once asked me about my work or my ethos or my desires. While my distracted brain sorted through the stimuli, my mouth took over and muttered an obviously-defeated “Thank you for your time”.
In hindsight it was the very worst thing I could have said. Letting my voice admit defeat was somehow admitting his ruler was a fair measuring device. I played along with the game and I let him reduce me, completely. Think of the absurdity of the parallels – making a writer pen a poem in 20 minutes or less, having an HR candidate fire someone in front of you, watching the secretary file a large stack of papers before the buzzer goes off.
It isn’t really the footrace that I resist so much – it’s the assumption that I’m incapable of learning, and if I fail the Final Jeopardy question then I am entirely unsuitable. Wouldn’t you rather see my finest work? The code that I’m proud of, and fully thought through, and built with my own two hands? Why is the concept of a portfolio only relevant to visual artists? I’m not sure exactly who originally came up with this interview strategy, but it’s an ageist and unfair tradition that no one ever rails against.
Why? Because we-the-applicants need the job. We need it or else we don’t pay the rent, the bills. We’ll get in fights with our loved ones and we’ll let people down. While I’m feeling a little #firstworld about my inability to land the right job in a well-paying field - it feels that much more arbitrary that I am given a Yay or Nay having little to do with culture fit, aligned ideals, or prior prides.
If you aren’t familiar with Glassdoor and are in the tech industry, you should be. Each company profile now has a tab labeled “Interviews”, and people post the details of the interview questions they were asked. It’s grade-school cheating on an entirely new scale, it renders these alpha-tests even more irrelevant, and I’m so very tempted to post my own pains so that the next Running Man can fare far better.
But again – playing the game feels like the biggest disservice I can give myself. It’s Day 61 and I’m officially too old for this shit. I’ve got to come up with a way to bow out of these mind games with my head held high, to reject the maze and the assumptions and to stop the machine from rolling over me again (and again, again). The right kind of people would welcome bravado – I’ve used it to my advantage before, and I’ve got to find a way to stand up for myself now.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
vacation, all I ever wanted (had to get away).
Working in Manhattan didn't exactly feel like a vacation. We were bound to our computers during the weekdays, mere feet from one another, contorted by the worst ergonomics possible. Coding from a sofa feels like a breakfast-in-bed luxury for the first few days, but then turns into a certain kind of bedridden-needs-breakfast.
On the horizon for 2013 vacation proper were the final two ever UK weekends for All Tomorrow's Parties, the music festival for music fans that hate music festivals. A quick jaunt to Paris (my first time in France) was a lovely bit of escape from playing the role of rooster in our 6-person henhouse.
I'm normally of the mindset that the more work you put into organizing your trip, the more fun you can have in letting go once you are there. While "winging it" certainly has its advantages, I typically only save that for slow travel, and slow travel off-season. I quickly realized in my living among 5 other people that I was in no way a wh[at/en]ever roommate, and perhaps I've turned into a four-letter creature of comfort.
There's a certain kind of mental shift you go through in your younger years. You become charmed by unusual philosophy (fuck you Ayn), jaded by hierarchy and authority (fuck you Hubbard), and often come to the conclusion that the people in charge are as-if-not-more clueless than the ant you realize you are. Unfortunately hippie hugs and chill pills are useless in the face of why-are-there-no-clean-coffee-mugs and god-dammit-my-socks-are-wet-again.
I slowly realized that communal living is all about establishing lowest common expectations, and there's usually one person that wants the bar higher than everyone else. This marked the first time I've been that person, and it was interesting to see just how much the cheese stood alone. Benevolent dictatorships are in no way the democratization of friendship, but in both business and otherwise: they get shit done.
I've historically saved Thanksgiving for friends and Christmas for family - savoring the vast differences in the gatherings year after year. Previous Thanksgiving highlights were renting houses on the Oregon coast for the sole purpose of slow-moving gluttony and excuses for extended road trips. This year the six of us spent far too much money on a single night in a fantastic London flat. The owner was leaving as we were arriving, her partner wearing a chainmail coif in a non-ironic manner, her son of years past artfully featured in giant photo-frames scattered around the 4-floor house. The glitter-covered horror movie posters completed the wonderful surreality in an otherwise modern, uppity home. We were by far the loudest Brits in a nearby Indian restaurant, and coming back to a chilled, celebratory, duty-free bottle of Veuve Clicquot was the perfect pinnacle to this feast so very far away from home.
Flying back to New York was shortly followed by flying back to Seattle, and the silence in being back is near-deafening (but that could easily be the lack of car horns). There is a palpable gap when you remove yourself from the social flow, and re-insertion often comes with the answer to the question "will I be missed when I'm gone?". My closest circle is either thinly spread across the world or knee-deep in babies, and I'm struggling a bit trying to count time in the double dutch back home.
Though I must say the ease and thrill of leaving will never ever give you that warm sense of joy in opening your actual front door - utterly exhausted, and forever thankful.
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