Lucky
One day of climbing and two nights of camping and an eternity of driving down this endless, evening road when I rounded a turn and my headlights found a hitchhiker.
Homeless
I’m typing this in Shari’s, where I paid seven dollars for late-night wifi, warmth, and a place to charge my phone—plus bonus buffalo wings—after spending the evening in a library and showering at a gym.
A Writer’s Creed
It spoke to Plath the suicidal, Keruouc the drunk, Hemingway the shotgunned, and—Snyder, voice of Buddhist Beats, who did not die of lead or alcohol, but found peace in tin cups and axe handles.
The Gays and the Jewish Media
The car was mostly empty. A few solo riders in the front half, and a family in the back. No security or ticket-takers.
Sitting in the Aisle
You don’t talk to people on the Metro. You don’t talk to coworkers, you don’t talk to friends, and you especially don’t talk to strangers. Talking is the mark of the tourist.
The Pre-Exodus Project
I discovered the other side of recorded music. The side we didn’t talk about in Professor Nordling’s class, and the side that makes recorded music even more challenging, I think, than live music.
Hot Food Makes Me Happy
But this is efficient, I tell myself. Hot food requires a stove, and a stove requires money, and I am a sophomore trying to backpack Europe on a budget. Food seemed like the best place to cut corners.
Jesus Christ, Katy Perry
Katy Perry supports gay marriage. Katy Perry wears latex dresses. Katy Perry shoots whipped cream from her bra and sings about booze and cocks and parties.
Stealth Camping: A How-to Guide for the Frugal Traveler
Sleep isn’t all that important if it comes at that rate. A night that costs more than thirty bucks is a night that would be better spent wandering around the streets killing time until sunrise.
A Day in the District
Orderly mobs with agendas of social change and economic prosperity flowed around me, people branded with “D.C. haircuts” and business casual.
I am Lord Voldemort
The first of Adalbert Waffling’s Fundamental Laws of Magic: “Tamper with the deepest mysteries—the source of life, the essence of self—only if prepared for consequences of the most extreme and dangerous kind.”
We Had Lived
In case my brother dies before me, he and I have already planned his funeral.