Rewritten Sometimes, the year ends exactly where it needs to: not in grand finales or clean epilogues, but in the quiet return of something that once felt impossible.
Road Noise For two years, I wandered the U.S. with no clue what I was doing. I took work calls from a hot spring, made friends with hippies named Moon and one dog who saw right through me. I also ate beans in six different states while crying—but that's advanced content we'll cover in Chapter 9.
The Last Goodbye We talked about the future—the life we weren’t going to have. And although we clung to the fantasy, the dread lingered in the background like a loaded gun on the table. There was no saving this bright thing.
The Day I Asked Google If Gay Dragons Could Get Pregnant It started off innocently enough searching for answers to questions like, what’s too steamy? How many thrusts is too many thrusts? Is a metaphorical shower scene safe if nobody gets explicitly rinsed? Does anyone know??
They Called Him a Savior He doesn’t chase fame the way others do. He doesn’t conform but he doesn’t give you the full version of himself just because you demand it—and that drives some people wild.
Galaxy and Other Bad Influences His office smelled like cigarettes and leather—surprisingly masculine, possibly intentional. He looked around 42, maybe 45. Tall, graying, with a lean build and a way-too-fitted sweater that hugged his chest and emphasized his arms. He dressed in shades of gray, like a fog bank with opinions.
Chapter 5 - A Series of Approximations I have never believed in the possibility of exactness. There are no straight lines in nature therefore only by a series of approximations do we perceive truth. — Stan Hall, 1976 Friday, February 4, 1994 A thunderstorm came on suddenly after their arrival but disappeared within the hour, leaving a sky
Bugs on Tape It began innocently enough. The inch-long millipedes that crisscrossed the bathroom floor were oddly entertaining at first. I’d brush my teeth and watch them march in neat rows to, well, I don’t know where they were going.
OMG - The Cleaner Ants of Costa Rica! I made fresh coffee and perched on the deck rail. Below, a toucan flung bananas into its beak with frat-boy finesse. Capuchin monkeys chattered and wrestled in the trees. The rainforest rolled out before me like a living, breathing quilt. And the ants? Vanished.
Chapter 8 - Just a Small Bite Sunday, April 24, 1994 Only a few years had passed since the mature discipline of statistics had started up a passionate affair with the very young and sexy computer science. It was going to prove to be a dangerous union—a black swan with world-reaching consequences. The conference was one
Fast, Fluffy, and Furious I’m usually pretty organized. The kind of person with alphabetized spice racks and a backup phone charger in every bag. But every once in a while, life throws me a curveball—like a last-minute call from a PR client asking me to meet them outside the Del Mar Thoroughbred
Bugs, Scorpions & the Existential Spider: A Love Letter to Costa Rica I woke up around 3 AM with a tickle on my leg. Something was crawling under the sheet. I threw off the sheet and there it was: a thumbnail-sized black spider, just chillin’ on my thigh like it paid rent.
How Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and Louis Tomlinson Speak the Same Language What binds Cohen, Buckley, and Tomlinson is not genre or fame. It’s something quieter and more sacred. They stood apart, each in their own time, each in their own way. And in doing so, they created work that doesn’t just last, it lives.
We Could’ve Been Something Marianne’s name faded, the ink still brave: “Endless love, see you down the road.” The words glowed like a candle that refuses midnight.