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 …

Quarantine is so fucking predictable for me. Caught in a house with books and music I’m slipping deeper and deeper into mental introspection… And so why fight it? Maybe that’s all getting older is. Not fighting so much. Because I still feel mostly the same things I did when I was younger. I just move through them a little different.   Defense mechanisms get a bad wrap because they often mature into maladaptive adult behaviors. Things that kept you safe from pain eventually hold you back. If there’s any doubt if this is something I’ve struggled with, I wrote an entire novel (Gen Y) about the topic. So, yeah, no …

South America always drew a specific crowd when I was young. If Europe was partying in city-sized museums, then South America was magic realism. And I was not that person. Now, in this half-complete decade of my life, I’ve had the opportunity to explore more of South America. It’s beyond cliché to feel existentialism yield to the mystic. And yet I have to accept that my own resonate has changed. Buenos Aires is different than my other southern excursions. People like to say that it’s the “Paris of the South”. That it’s “European”. And yeah, I guess I can see it. But if it’s reminiscent of Europe, it’s familiarity swims …

For a place that is so incredibly beautiful, there is something about Southern California that I find relentlessly lonely. More than New York. More than any city of Europe. I find Southern California to be a terribly isolating and ungrounded experience. Which isn’t always a bad thing. There are times when it does a world of good to be alone. I just need to expect the sensation. Rather than stumbling through it for three days, wondering why I feel so off. The irony is that on the whole I find the people in LA to be very friendly (with a few extreme exceptions). On this trip one of our servers …