There’s a beautiful walking path near my apartment in Germany. On this path is a small garden with a bench and shade. It’s a memorial. In the place are small gravestones. My daughter and I use it as a backdrop for making a home movie about time travel, dinosaurs and zombies. It’s only as we’re filming that I begin to read the simple graves. 10 men. Everyone died in 1945. And I realize what it is. The youngest are 17 and 18. The oldest are in their early forties. She must be able to sense my interest, because she asked me how they died. I explained they died in a …

I’ve never stopped liking alcohol. Alcohol just stopped liking me. Nowhere is this more obvious then after a birthday. A day to both consume and compare yourself to a previous version. At 36, it only takes a handful of drinks to have me pacing around in the middle of the night with a racing heart and pounding headache. These days I try to outsmart my body by falling asleep with a stomach full of Advil and Ativan. I always assumed it was a conscious choice. People got older and they became more mature, and with that maturity came responsibilities, and so naturally they felt compelled to cut down on their …

I woke up terrified of things I don’t understand. It’s a Saturday. I was supposed to sleep in. But instead my thoughts are turning over and over, getting caught in the same corrupt loop. A well-worn half-baked control mechanism, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it. Today, the loop goes like this: Time is relative. Our past, present and future existing simultaneously. Blackholes absorb light, stretching time to a standstill. Our galaxy has a billion-sun density black hole at it’s center that we swirl around. This black hole will grow until it inevitably reaches out and we pass it’s event horizon. Therefore, if past, present and future exist in …

They hand me a small disposable Purell Wipe as I board the plane. It’s a nice touch.  The entire boarding process is so remarkably smooth that the only changes I register are the anonymity of masks and the palatable decrease in cortisol being released on a plane where overhead isn’t a precious commodity and the flight attendants aren’t engaged in a Sisyphusian task of boarding an over-sold flight and getting it out with just enough time to allow another crew to scrape by the skin of their teeth. I know it’s not economical. I know it’s not practical. I know it can’t be maintained. But there is a calm that …