The weather was mild and nice in Resurrection Bay. 30 degrees and sunny marking the official start of spring in the Kenai Peninsula. Summer in Alaska is romantically beautiful but spring is really the best time to be here. There is an eerie silence in Seward and on the highway. The only people you see are truckers, commuters, skiers, snowmachiners. People who live here, and who like the rugged wilderness. The mountains are draped with sheets of fine white snow. I’m diving into my first year as a manager for the Glacier Lodge. I’m feeling mostly useless right now. I have big shoes to fill. Some days I just open the email and look through drives I’ve already seen, wishing there was more I knew to do. But like most things, when the time comes and the work is in front of me. I think I will figure it out. Loading up the boat is familiar and makes me feel helpful. The captain, Jamie and his wife Amy are the type of people I feel honored to know. Just casual badasses. There are so many up here. People who have worked all types of jobs, and work them hard.They are so humble about their insane sailing adventures or harding ice field snowmachine outings. As the engine starts and the two dogs find seats for the boat ride, I’m remembering how much I love the water. 

We taxi quickly out of the harbor and start hauling out of the bay. The seas are choppy, with some rollers today. It will be a fairly bumpy ride until we pass Cape Aialik. I am in the company of friends. We are all headed out to see how much snow has accumulated this winter at the Glacier Lodge. We do this to see what kind of work we’ll have to do in April which is when we move in for real. This helps us gauge how much snow will need to be moved, if bears have eaten vehicles or furniture and most importantly if we can do any staining on all of the wooden structures. I’m feeling a little anxious about the sea state, sometimes on the boat I get a little sea sick. But one of the dogs has chosen my lap and we get through the rough waves together. The other dog is still getting her sea legs and threw up all over Amy. As soon as we round the Cape the seas become glass, and we are back in Aialik Bay. 

Aialik Bay is the prettiest place in the world. Pristine waters, incredibly characteristic towering mountains, all carved by ancient glaciers whose remnants we can still see. I get annoyed when naturalists and transcendentalists try to capture the beauty of a place in words. To me it all sounds the same. But every time I’m in the bay, I feel like my eyes can’t look hard enough. I feel like my brain should be photocopying every bit of this place, and overwriting all my memories with each cliff and cove. This place feels important and there is magic in the air. To get to see it at a time when its only residents are the squirrels and the seals and the birds is special. 

Immediately we noticed something. There is not much snow and also, the beach is much steeper. So we land the craft against the shore and unload our gear and sleds. Standing on the point makes me feel strange. It is familiar and comforting. But this is a place with such a distinct port of entry in my mind, it is a 2-4 hour boat ride here. The same boat ride. As the crow flies, it is only 80 miles from me.I forget that in all my days pouring beer at the Sitzmark and commuting to and from Anchorage, The Point is still here, collecting snow. It has no winter job or travel plans. It has been here since the end of the last ice age.

I strap a sled onto my bag and clip into my skis. I follow my friends down the road I’ve walked hundreds of times. This time, snow mixes with the black sand. We slid past the snow stakes we drove into the ground seven months ago, used to mark the road. Normally when I am here, I see wildlife. Occasionally coyotes, otters, bears and often eagles. But here, on the canvas of snow, they only leave their tracks behind. It’s like coming home to a relative in your house after work. Things are slightly ajar, a bag and coat are hanging on a chair. There are signs that someone is here, but not someone you can see. There is a trail of prints with wing-swept snow framing mirrored three pronged tracks every few feet. An eagle was hopping along the snow, the flapping of its wings left perfect sun-ray shaped indents along its path. We continue to skin and reach the annual snow measuring spot. A company wide email is sent out to some local folks and leadership to guess the snow total for each season. Everyone who was on the boat guessed way higher, given that in the rest of Alaska the snow has held all season. It was a brutally cold winter and the geography of this place leads to an abnormal amount of precipitation when the warmer cycles come through. Amy is the winner with a guess of 22 inches. The actual reading is 17 inches. I am a loser with a guess of 42. 

We reach camp, and all the buildings are still there. We unlock a few key places and head to the front of the lodge to see the boardwalks and the lagoon. Pedersen Lagoon is there. It is calm and quiet, and there are seals and otters just off the shore. I take a bite into a sandwich while thinking about all the sandwiches I’ve eaten here. How many new faces will get to eat sandwiches here and wonder if they’ll be as sentimental as I am. I wonder if my friends could possibly be feeling the same way. After enjoying the exercise of damage assessment and lagoon appreciation we have some actual work to do. A piece of roof has been blown off by a storm, heaters need to be turned on to spend the night, batteries must be tested, snow blowers must be started and if we can clear out a little bit of snow we can hope that it will melt out by April 23rd. Leaving little more work to do and a deck free for staining. 

We are hoisting a ladder up against some staff housing. Our goal is to clear snow and reattach the piece of roofing to prevent waterlogging and leaking in the housing. As I climb a 10 foot ladder in ski boots while holding a snow shovel in one hand it reminds me how much I love this kind of thing. Inversely, how much I hate beer pouring at the Sitzmark. After some chopping and pushing, the roof section is ready to be reattached. My next mission is to chop more snow and try to blow off the decks to allow the snow to melt out quicker when the rain dumps begin. One step closer to deck staining. I warm up quickly, hacking away and chopping snow to prepare for it to be blown by the blower. Hardpack bonded snow doesn’t get gobbled up as well, so the bonded layers need to be chopped and mixed a bit to make for a more cohesive blowing experience. Every winter of my childhood in Florida I looked at the forecast with a burning hope that it would snow. I had a few memories of snow, but now I have to move tons of it and sometimes be waist deep in it. I get to learn how it moves and to practice not being killed by it. To many people, it is just part of living here and is as passive as the lack of snow. But the novelty never wears off to me. The snowblower is not starting, so my snow has been chopped for no reason. I like to think of it as a Mr. Miyagi type exercise that will one day prove me victorious in some sort of tournament. There is Zen in everything. 

With the snowblower broken we are able to relax for the rest of the day, or explore. I gather a posse to skin around on some of the trails we frequent in the summer. It was a little boney. The open areas normally full of hungry bears in the perfect bear concealing sized grass is currently a wet blanket of snow. So we push around the Ghost trees and admire the scenery here. There is a garden of ice bergs washed up along the north shore. Brought in from the glaciers as the tide swings each day. The temperatures aren’t warm enough to melt them away by the end of the day this time of year. The ice is waist high and would prove an incredible place for hide and seek, or a paintball match, or capture the flag. As we returned to camp, I was still feeling a bit antsy. So I continued pushing around to our other trails alone. I headed south along the shoreline of the lagoon, staying on all the snow I could. Winter allows access to some normally impassable muddy bogs that are amazing when they are full of snow. I reach the southern end of the small Peninsula. Looking out south, there are the high walls of the fjord, running gradually into an open ocean. The nearest landmass south of here are the Aleutian Islands, if you are lucky. Your next best bet is Hawaii. I love this spot. In the car on the drive to Seward, Jeff (my boss) and I spoke of someone we knew. They have a grounding mat. We talked about how we believe that grounding is bullshit. But still, here. Standing at the face of The Gulf of Alaska, I have never found a place that made me feel more grounded. My dear friend David wrote in his blog about how being near Aialik glacier tempted him to describe the landscape as extra terrestrial. But in truth, this is the most terrestrial place he has seen. Highways seem to drop away from my memory, and shopping plazas and Air fryers. For whatever reason whenever I stand here, it is enough. Grounding is bullshit, but in this very spot it is not. 

The rest of the night healed all the damage that another brutally dark, cold and disappointing winter has caused to my psyche. There is a loneliness in the extraterrestrial world that we’ve built that is not present here. Our phones had no grip on us that day. The only thing that mattered was the hot lasagna, boxed wine and company. I like to imagine that my afterlife would be filled with days and nights like this. Wherein the massive granitic boulders of anxiety are eroded away by the aqueous and compassionate scrutiny of my friends mixed with the cheap wine we shared. We trade stories of first cars, and crack wise about paving over the fields here with asphalt. We traded stories of past employees and friends that we missed, or don’t miss. It was a standard campfire affair. I fell in love with people in my teens. Marching drum corps is a vacuum. It is insular and physical and it takes you from being an individual and makes you into a collective body. I had a tough homelife, and found that the hard days, physicality and all-consuming nature of it were a good distraction. But spending time with people who loved things just as much as I did taught me to really love people. Would the Glacier Lodge be special without the people? Yes, absolutely. But on nights like this, I would be just as grateful for the same company anywhere else in the world. It was late, so we all retreated to our spaces to sleep.

In the morning, we took care of some other small projects. We verbally blueprinted some renovations, then packed up to leave. It’s strange to be there for a day. Normally I come in on the boat only to not really leave for four months. I am grateful for the chance to see this place again and to know that it is still there, not so far away. This adventure log is less of an adventure than the prior. There wasn’t very much unknown to be explored. But there will be. I have taken a plunge to change my relationship with this special place. I will have less afternoons on the beach, less mornings drenched in cold rain, with boots full to the brim of brackish water. I have traded them for busy evenings in the lodge, and bigger decisions. Everyone tells me that they know I will do great. I believe it is the same disease I have that makes them believe that, that also makes me feel overwhelmed by it. But it is my love for people that helps keep my head on straight. 

There’s a bartender joke that goes like this. A man paces anxiously in the waiting room as his wife goes into labor. The doctors scramble and a nurse runs to bring him to the delivery room. But labor seems short, the boy is small and delivered quickly. The doctor informs the couple, the boy was born without any arms or legs or even a torso for that matter. Still, the couple raises the boy as they would any other. Loving him just the same. On his 21st birthday, the father carries his son to the bar. The son is excited and asks for a strong pint of beer. His father orders the same and the bartender brings the two of them two icy pints of beer. They clink glasses together and the father chugs the beer and holds the other for his son to do the same. But then, something strange happens. The boy begins to feel strange and then suddenly, a torso erupts from under his head. The two are in shock, and quickly order another of the same. Together they clink and throw the glasses back and then, two arms sprout from the torso. The entire bar erupts into chaos. People are cheering, clapping. The two order another tall pint, feeling the effects of the first two. The boy with his two arms, grasps the glass and throws the pint into the air to finish the beer. Two legs appear dangling from the bar stool. The bar is in chaos. The bartender steps away for a moment to tell the manager. The boy with his new body is dancing around the room, shaking hands. He runs outside to show the world, but drunkenly he stumbles into the street and is hit by a truck. The bartender returns with his manager to find the crowd gathered outside. The boy should have quit while he was a head. 

Something is rotting inside of me lately. It has been two and a half years since I posted my incessant rambling “Is it even my choice anymore?” just as A.I. generated imagery was beginning to pop up on the internet in its most digestible and bite-sized form. Marking the start of my feelings that Zuckerberg and Alphabet and Jobs had finally beaten us. I am thinking of this blogpost as a spiritual successor to that post. Now, dear readers. We live in a world of horrific A.I. pornography, data centers that drink our water and eat our jobs and politicians that are so old they think orphans work inside the server terminals in those data centers. Our parents and uncles live in an entirely different reality than us based on the news they read. Our worlds only meet at the most painful Thanksgiving dinners, year after year. The progress of the past decade has been monumental, and continues forward at a rate only private equity could achieve. I am feeling that with these new advancements impinging on our lives, our personal sovereignty is being threatened. This is alarmist vocabulary. Injecting the word sovereignty is often an easy way to scare any conservative. But I think we should all be making more mindful decisions around big tech. 

I have been surgically attached to my phone for close to eleven years now. Fortunately, the time I lived without having one still outweighs the time I have spent with one. It initially was a way for me to keep up with friends, take more thoughtful photos, date, feel important and also look at memes and things that allowed me to feel culturally relevant. I would argue that for a long time, the utility it offered to my life was a net positive and in its most basic form I still think a cell phone is a good thing. But now I am chopped and unc. I watched a video while eating a meal (one of life’s many pleasures.) about the relationship between the algorithm and ‘Skinner Boxes.’ An Operant Conditioning Chamber, or Skinner Box is a chamber in which an animal is placed inside and given positive or negative stimuli based on the results of light or buzz or switch. In its most contemporary form, pigeons are placed inside the box and experience one of three forms of conditioning. The pigeon is given a switch and if the switch is triggered, nothing happens. The next subject is given a box in which when the switch is triggered, food is dispensed. These pigeons gain weight, but ultimately stop using the button after being satisfied. But the third group of pigeons is given a switch that only sometimes releases food. These pigeons adapt a behavior of doing nothing but constantly hitting the switch in hope of the next morsel. The algorithms that power tiktok and reels and Youtube shorts and all of the brainrotting media we ingest are programmed this way. In order to farm our engagement, they time our dopamine hits using metrics derived from our biology and engagement that we never see. Just like gambling. This disturbed me. The video that I watched proposed a solution, to inconvenience your use and also be mindful of your scrolling. Train your brain, everytime you pick up your phone to ask “What am I looking for?” This has proven to be the only thing that has ever worked to reduce my screen time. I deleted the instagram app, I can only scroll in the browser. It is a pain. Being mindful of my scrolling, asking myself questions has led to me being aware of how compulsory this behavior is. Instead of chasing morsels on reels, I divert my attention to something I’d rather be doing. I calculated my former average of 5 hours of screen time a day, into a more measurable way. 76 days a year of staring at my phone. Would anyone in their right mind choose to have spent two and a half of the last 11 years hitting a switch in hope of some bird seed? 

But why is this important? It is my leisure time, I shouldn’t be afraid of how I spend it. I began to experience days where I set intentions I would never fulfill. In Alaska, our winter days are very short. If you have a lazy sunday and get out the door at 1pm, the sun will be behind the mountain and the sky grows darker within the hour. I was feeling depressed by all that I wasn’t doing, despite the cold and despite the sun. I haven’t been writing. Because I was chasing something I would never get. I had sat on the couch to relax, and watched the sun set before I could get out the door. If you are a person who really enjoys your phone, I get it. I do too. But I want you to consider how the odds are stacked against you right now. Your phone understands and predicts your behavior, it communicates with people-you-know’s-devices. It knows everything. It recommends products based on what you think or say or what people around you are saying or thinking. The color choices on the phone are chosen to light up your monkey brain. The algorithms are designed to keep you engaged. They’re even now pushing more inflammatory content to get people to argue more. Even the Whitehouse is engagement farming. You would be hard pressed to find any other time in history where all the money was put into shit that absolutely nobody wants. We should quit while we’re still a-head. 

I have a lot of ideas and they never go anywhere. But I have a couple that I like. I like third spaces. The idea was championed by Ray Oldenburg and shouted by neo-liberals on college campuses for a hundred years after that. A place where social status is leveled by a communal need for something; places like bars, churches, libraries; gathering places. Churches have baggage, libraries are proven mostly obsolete by our phones and bars often require drinking and also a drive (behavior not recommended by the FDA.) I live in Girdwood, at the base of the Alyeska Ski Resort. An obvious third place! However ski resorts are focusing on extraction, profiting the most off of every guest they can (as most businesses do.) Leading to the prices we see now $9-10 beer, $16 Chicken Tenders. Exuding an air that locals and employees are a nuisance. The problem here is Girdwood is a town of ghost houses. Mostly empty homes rented on AirBnB. On the weekends it is packed with families from Anchorage and abroad, and during the week it is quiet. There is a dedicated base of homeowners and resort employees marooned in the Cook Inlet, during dark and brutal winters without anywhere to go during the week. The locals bars do a good job of hosting Open Mic nights, Trivia, Town League Ski Racing nights. But with a focus on extraction, the crowds have dwindled. Locals can’t afford the goods! Girdwood is a unique example being a ski town, but I think this is a relatable issue for most secular Americans. If you don’t drink, aren’t in a league of some kind and just moved to a new city then it’s very lonely. There should be a place in Girdwood (and other towns) where I can sit and meet others in a setting that isn’t too demanding of my safety, money or beliefs of the afterlife. I’m not a business owner, but I can imagine a clubhouse of sorts. That just offers space to sit in comfy chairs and drink coffee and play boardgames, space for sports in the summer and room to host events for a nominal fee. Like a country club but black people and women can be there too. Invest those membership fees back into the clubhouse and the minimal staff it would take to run the place and bam. We are in third place. 

Third places actually used to be much more common in the U.S.. Suburban-zation has led to the decline of spaces like this. Think back to college. The infrastructure around you existed at scale designed for you, not a car. Stores, restaurants, classes, the gym and library are a short walk away from where you live. This led to many instances of co-incidence or interacting with people and occurrences you wouldn’t choose to negotiate with on your own; running into a friend walking to class, those crazy protesters who get off on getting yelled at by a bunch of horny 20 year olds, LARPers. You met your friends in the library to study, and even though you sometimes didn’t talk much, you were still social. The promise of suburban paradise has created a false prophecy. Gated communities are built to keep bad people out, but we use the gates to lock ourselves in a space devoid of negotiation. Where-in the only people worthy of interacting with us day to day are people we chose to negotiate with. This is largely why I hated working from home so much, and why many adults struggle so much to make friends. In college it was easy, because the University is designed to make it so. Suburbanization is a tough gambit because I do believe some people prefer it, and should be afforded that luxury. Some people also belong in the sticks. But modern zoning makes it nearly impossible to build complexes in the U.S. that are mixed use spaces. Leaving the standing mixed use suburbs as some of the most desirable and expensive neighborhoods in the country.

Let’s face it. We’re fucked. This is just a daydream for non-doers like me. My generation is largely apathetic to politics, but has been told it’s the local elections that matter. We are actually starting to see the repercussions of radical urbanism in this mid-term blue wave. No thanks to Trump also going all Erin Jager on everyone and everything and literally declaring war on Iran. Still, Apple and Instagram and TikTok will keep laughing from their non-corporate taxed wizard towers, casting new spells to drain our life force to power their dwarven machines. But there are feasible ways to implement a third thing into your life now. Pickleball maybe. Dungeons and Dragons is free. Say yes more, use your phone less when you are with people, even ones you don’t like. Be more playful, come up with stupid games and be weird. Give your whole self to your friends, see what happens when you’re unfiltered. Vote with your wallet and also your eyes. Being intentional about every single thing you do is your only hope, because it’s only going to get harder until we’re all dead.

Trip goal: Climb up Abra Cove and camp at the alpine lake behind Coleman bay (and Abra)
Trip outcome: Camped Abra Saddle, climbed to the Coleman Cirque and returned in one piece.
Elevation Gain: ~2200ft, 2ish miles.

 Day 1: 

I am writing this after climbing up all of Abra with Jack. Nick Von Schlegell and Nick Witherbee joined us for a section of the climb, but left early as to be able to return home and sleep in their own beds before work tomorrow. Jack is a true adventurer and will be starting his work day tomorrow with a Think! bar and a 2,000 foot sketchy down-climb and then 45 minute paddle back to the lodge to start his shift.

   The climb began around 6pm with a “little scramble” up a fairly sheer waterfall that I wasn’t 100% confident I could get down with my very heavy bag on. I had packed my backpack like shit (not sure why) and it was very difficult to climb in. I was feeling slow and tired but my stoke was high and carried my legs upwards. 

  After we finished the waterfall section the beta (climby shit) got a bit easier. We continued directly through 1000 feet of alder trees and salmon berry brush. My 4 inch short shorts protected my legs very nicely from the waist deep thorn bushes we were whacking our way through. (on the descent we realized the entire bushwhack was unnecessary.

  We sat at the top of a granite cliff and rested briefly, looking out over Aialik Glacier and the northern side of the bay. This is where we parted ways with Nick² and began the second half of the adventure. The rest of the climb looked pretty much completely insurmountable because of how far away the top was. But we pressed on. We reached the first saddle before the upper ridge and decided this would be camp, as to give us clearance to make an expedited decent the next day. After dropping our packs on the ridge and setting up a tent, we ran to the top of the ridgeline. 

  The ridge looked impossibly far away. But we made great time and found ourselves surrounded by gorgeous waterfalls and incredibly slippery snow. We chose to stick to the rock as the granite was sticky and proved to be mostly sturdy. The ridge was in our sights. The thing that had seemed so far away was actually in-front of us. I told Jack, “Im going to sprint to the top.” And began to run as fast as I could up the grassy meadowy hill, I stopped breathlessly after 10 steps and waited for Jack to catch up. As we reached the top of the ridgeline, I felt a sense of tremendous pride in my ability to plan and accomplish something like this. I prepared myself to peer over the summit and onto the other side of Abra Cove. My calves were tired, my legs were aching and I knew the pay off was near. We crested the ridge and saw it; 100 more feet of scrambling to get to the actual summit that was hidden behind where we were standing. It was a brilliant moment, standing there and admiring a wall of rock. There was a very trust worthy and stable goat path that led us up to where we wanted to be and now, finally, we could see over the Abra ridge line. It was honestly pretty cool and I realized this wasn’t a wash. That was a good moment. 

 Jack spotted the lake in the distance for the first time. It was very cool to see it from an angle that looked approachable (whereas the other time I have seen it, there was a crumbling cliff between us and it.) We admired a huge family of mountain goats clambering away from the ridge line and down towards the lake. There had to have been around 20 of them. The young goats yelped and cried for their mom and ran to meet with everyone else. We stood and watched the goats for a few minutes and then headed towards the lake. 

 The decent to the lake was very fine and manageable. The goats make nice trails for themselves. We got about 2/3 of the way to a nice viewpoint and figured the snow was not worth the pain of navigating and traversing it and decided to head back to camp. The view of the alpine lake still frozen over in late July was special though. It’s hard to celebrate accomplishments like that when you still have so much to do and so far to go and when your beer is in the bag you left behind. 

  We traversed slightly differently on the way back. I used my nearly bare butt cheeks as a sled to ride myself to our campsite, we arrived around 10pm. Cracking open a beer and cheer-sing over ramen and “tuna mac” we sat on the spongy meadow overlooking The Pederson Lagoon from up high. A flying fishes eye-view of the place we call home for the summers. The most remarkable place I know was now puny and smaller than me. I contemplated crushing such an insignificant thing with my now enormous fingers. I hesitated after imagining the mess it would leave. Too much to do, and in bear country it could be catastrophic. 

  After cleaning up dinner and loading up the bear canister I scouted for a suitable spot to rest it, far from camp and with all of our smellable belonging. The perfect spot shone itself to me like a burning bush, some mere 50 feet up the ridge line from our camp. I walked over and debated between two spots; one open and mossy, exposed. The other protected by the security of an alder tree. I placed the bear-can under the nearest branch, confidently. But the bear-can began to roll. I could do nothing but shout, “No! Please NO!” It continued to roll and tumble down a cliff . It was 11:30 at night. I ran to get my headlamp and Jack and I sent down the cliffs to try to retrieve it. Afterall, Jack’s Think! bar was in there (his entire breakfast) and he needs that make the descent tomorrow.

We found the bear-can about 150 feet down, rested on the flattest spot of the final ledge before a sheer drop to the bottom of the cirque. We felt grateful that this small ledge was here and that the bear can stopped rolling and did not explode. 

  After returning, I wrote this log in my tent. Too tired to blow up my mattress pad and too exhausted to sleep, awaiting whatever the fuck tomorrow was gonna look like. 

Day 2: 

After an abysmal night of sleep, thinking of every terrible scenario that could happen on this down climb and also karate chopping mosquitoes that were loaded with my blood, we awoke at 6:30am.  

  The night was beautiful, and Aialik bay was serene and calm. I watched the sun drop down and satellites pass over my head. It is finally getting dark for a few hours this time of year. There was a meteor shower, and the lack of artificial light meant that every piece of space rock disintegrating in the ozone layer was visible to my stupid eyes. A healing silence of this kind is an opportunity afforded to only those who seek it and found only in places like this.

 In the morning I poured some ice cold water into my “mountain house granola, blueberries and milk” and stirred. Sitting on a ledge I put my butt in the wet moss. Not caring if the bog would soak though my pants. After a few minutes of stirring I took a bite and savored the taste of the rancid dehydrated milk. I had owned this premade meal for probably three years now and decided to finally use it. Maybe thats just how these mountain house breakfasts taste but I couldn’t finish it. I ate some trail-mix instead. 

  Jack and I packed our bags really tightly. We started down the chutes and flatirons trusting only the rubber of our boots to carry us. Much like standing on a subway platform and imagining yourself being sliced in half under a train, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to tumble hundreds of feet down the granite like a bear canister. That is a good motivator to not fall. All things considered, the down climb was not that bad for the first 2/3rds. The bottom chunk was exposed, and bare and steep, but after some path finding and repeating the phrase “I don’t love it but it looks doable,” every 10 feet. We had now made it to the start of the route. I had not felt this relieved in awhile. We shuffled our gear into our boats after moving them 200 yards to the low tide line. We paddled out for home around 8:45am. 

In summary, definitely climb Abra. It will make you feel capable and inspired. It will make you feel terrified and humbled. It will challenge you to do moves you’ve never tried, with backpacks that are too large and on rock that might hold. Climb Abra if you are one of the people in the world that has whatever incurable sickness we had. The kind that makes you walk into brush, and shout at sleeping bears. It is one thing to go for a hike, its another thing to make a hike. Have fun out there.

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I’m ashamed to admit how much time I’ve spent doom-scrolling. I’m ashamed to admit that picking up my phone is not a decision I make anymore. I have reached a point of anger lately, when I’m scrolling through stories. I just realize I don’t fucking care about any of it but I spend so much time looking at it. In a fit of brief rage, I have deleted Instagram again, and Reddit which are both of my biggest time sinks. I like Instagram, I actually love Instagram and I felt I was able to have a good relationship with it. But Reels and the algorithm do such a good job of gripping my attention that I don’t even realize I’m using it until I’m facedown in a puddle of drool three hours later. (Or at least that’s how it feels.) I feel like there is a war waged for my attention. I’ve spent so much time trying to cultivate it into something functional but I lose every time. My attention is like Osama, and Reels is like Seal Team Six.

What is attention? The technical definition is the concentration of awareness on some phenomena to the exclusion of other stimuli. Whether attention is subjective or objective is still hotly debated. But loosely, it seems that our attention operates multiple trains of thought at once. I prefer a secondary definition of attention as the allocation of limited cognitive processing resources. Attention is the result of an attentional bottleneck in terms of the amount of data that our brains can process per second. To me, this means attention is sort of like a flashlight in a dark room and can be pointed around at will to illuminate hidden objects (like dogs eating grapes) or sensations, (like the sound of a dog eating a grape) but the light has a limit to what it can illuminate (like dogs eating grapes.) However, the lens can change shape and size, but the photons it produces are limited.

Understanding the phenomenon of attention is I think the first step in understanding how valuable it is. When you remove all of your physical stimuli, all you are left with is the ability to point your flashlight around the dark interior of your mind. I know this because one time I took a lot of mushrooms and forgot who I was and how to breathe. So I’m an expert I promise. Our attention is not very good, naturally. It is more like a floodlight than a flashlight, and I believe this is due to our biology; someone who was more broadly attentive was more likely to not be a grape that is eaten by a dog. However, it’s not great for the demands of everyday life to just be broadly attentive: work demands focus, writing demands focus, drawing sonic rule 34 demands focus (especially when trying to get the details of the throbbing, etc.) I believe the solution to lack of focus, is nicotine. Eat my dick Buddha, and get a juul. Everyone should smoke cigarettes, all the time. A baby holding a cigarette would be badass. Although nicotine’s benefit towards attention unfortunately quickly becomes a law of diminishing returns. As you use it more, your tolerance builds very quickly until you just use it to become your stupid in-attentive self again. Eventually, without it, you are just dumber and uncool like the rest of us. So what can be done?

I used Sam Harris’ Waking Up app for a full year. I practiced “Mindfulness” regularly for the duration of that use and was earnestly impressed by the insight it provided. Admittedly, I downloaded the app purely out of existential curiosity. In my morning caffeine euphoria, I would anxiously rattle over the fears of life and death and general existentialism. Somehow, I thought that meditation would bring me closer to the answer. It did and I have achieved Nirvana. (Eat my dick, Buddha.) But it also taught me a lot about attention and how little control I truly exhibit over it daily. The introductory lessons begin as explanations of the practice of mindfulness and meditation; you are to begin by focusing minutely on your breathing and as other thoughts and stimuli interject, you are to observe them and return to the breath. It sounds tremendously easy and very boring and that is because it is. It is so fucking boring. I would much rather play Halo, I promise nobody would have thought of this boring shit if Halo existed in ancient India. Imagine fewer monks and more Faze clans. However, I found out pretty immediately that because I thought it was boring and didn’t like it very much that probably meant that I had very little control over my attention and impulse. So I doubled down. Over time I noticed I was able to handle much longer sessions, and was able to find mindfulness in observing stimuli outside of just the breath. My favorite of which being the visual field: Observing the full range of my sight as a flattened 2D painting that my brain conjures up just based on what it thinks the light that bounces into my eyes means. I also like the emotion-related practices, where we conjure images that invoke feeling and try to observe them as acutely as we can, and the way those feelings cause a change in our chemical physiology.

Did meditating really do anything for me? It’s hard to quantify how it has helped me and in what ways. But it did provide me some answers that I was looking for, indirectly. I now know that man is descended from sexy space dolphins and one day they will return to guide us into the stars. I am their chosen Messiah and will hurdle through the Milky Way laden with jewels on the back of their most desirable and sexy dolphin. But also that mindfulness is like a muscle that I tune-up every once in a while. I don’t have to do a whole lot of maintenance to reap its benefits. I think there’s a more intimate understanding of how my attention functions locked somewhere inside the folds of my peanut brain (likely tucked behind the entire script of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.) I think it allows me to handle pressure and emotion from a more objective and rational place than I did before. Especially in regards to my knee-jerk reactions and patience for others. I think also it has taught me that boring is sometimes good. I should seek to be bored because that’s usually when I do my best work.

Social media and attention go together like meth and more meth. The Zuck has done a great job at capturing my attention pretty much my whole childhood. I spent a lot of time on Facebook in my teens. There were button-collecting games that allowed me to display all my strange and often esoteric memes (not much has changed) to my friends via digital corkboard. My Happy Aquarium allowed me to care for the digital fish tank of my dreams. Farmville let me send invites to everyone I know, endlessly until they caved and realized the game was so fucking boring (sort of like mindfulness.) Then I discovered posting strange videos of myself to illicit reactions from my classmates and it sculpted me into the emotionally needy scarecrow I am today. I didn’t use Instagram until around 2017 as I never had the desire to keep up with a lot of different apps. I felt that Snapchat was a perfectly fine platform to share my happenings on. I especially liked that Snapchat was fleeting, I liked that my silly and carefully crafted stories would self-destruct and I would only hear if someone thought they were funny if I saw them the next day. Instagram was fine, but then it added stories and everyone I know has it. I was able to post little stories of things I found funny, beautiful, or thoughtful. Occasionally embarrassing poetry or something on brand with my sense of humor. I lived in harmony with Instagram for a long time until the arrival of reels.

I had already sworn off TikTok after shortly bearing witness to how great it was at monopolizing my attention. It had learned what I found funny and showed me nothing but that. I was never bored on TikTok and I began to miss being bored. So I decided Tiktok and I just cannot coexist. I was able to avoid reels for a little while. But Instagram sensed this and began to integrate them more heavily into their UI. I fell into the trap and as soon as you let the algorithm take hold it works quickly. I began to tick off minutes to hours to at its worst, full mornings into afternoons of scrolling nothing meaningful. Oftentimes it was just an exercise of capturing my imagination, my brain would dance with visions of what I wanted to create, how I wanted to live, or how I wanted to look.

It is hard to say I won’t keep social media in my life in some capacity, as I think I do a great job of keeping up with others in my life much more intimately because of it. I am very chatty. If I am drunk I will comment on everyone’s story. I also truly love making videos of stuff that I think is funny and showing those to people I love. I don’t like making these things in “The Age of Content,” however. I think the commodification and rebranding of art as “content” whether it be silly or informative or nothing at all is an injustice. Because content is synonymous with filling a space. It is tissue paper and it is easter eggs and it is the gift inside the basket. It excuses and rewards the constant posting of derivative and repetitive trendy bullshit because at least it keeps attention. It rarely rewards things made with heart and that are carefully crafted because “content” is all weighted the same. It fills the space. I cannot continue to allow my hours and days to dwindle away behind a screen. I truly wish I could have both, an Instagram account and the discipline to not use it. But I am a weak reptile and will lose the battle time and time again. I speak directly to you Zuck when I say that your creations are good at what they do, but sometimes you shouldn’t do things just because you can. (Like people who post handstands on Instagram. Admittedly I am that person.)

I think that in 10 years, social media will be like cigarettes. People will ask you not to use it in front of their kids. But babies will look really badass drooling over an iPhone. I understand it is on the consumer to navigate the world as desired but I think that far too many people have fallen in deeper than they’ve noticed. They are unable to crawl out of the hole. The only way to get out of the hole we are in now is to abandon it and hope for something better (or the French Reign of Terror-style guillotine beheadings. I am okay with either.) I fear there will come a day, (alongside the rise and growth of language models and sophisticated algorithms) when the medium of video becomes a form of visual heroine. A time when the numbers have become so good at tricking us that it’s no longer a choice to negotiate with them. Our eyes are currently the most valuable resource on the planet and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Until the space dolphins arrive to cut them out, and I as their leader will scatter them as stars throughout the cosmos.

I went to Alaska. It is a place I have always wanted to go. US history paints Alaska as a frontier that’s full to the brim with the “American experience.” Bald eagles soar above ten foot men in fishing waders reeling in salmon by the dozen. The truth is, Alaska IS a visage of true America, just not in the way that we typically picture it.

I was planning on going this year. I spent $600 on this “all you can fly” frontier pass that allows you to book flights on frontier for the price of their taxes only, which is the price that flights on frontier should actually be (should you ever want to ride in a cardboard box with wings then choose Frontier.) Flights must also be booked a single day in advance (with blackout dates and exceptions blah blah blah. Immediately, I planned to go to the furthest place I could for cheap. It was a loose plan but then I met a really lovely someone who happened to be moving there in a few months and I tricked them into thinking I’m really interesting so they would invite me. So the plan really fell into place then.

I flew into Anchorage late at night and we slept in a plywood shack. It fortunately had everything we needed but none of the annoying over the top Airbnb amenities like windows or locks. The next day we drove down the Seward Highway (named after former Secretary of State appointed by Lincoln whom negotiated the purchase of Alaska during his presidency. This was a smart move by Will Seward (Willy Sewy) as there was not a single other pressing matter during Lincoln’s presidency. Purchasing an incredibly vast, dangerous and seemingly fruitless tract of land that was almost entirely separate from the US was a smart investment. Especially because now, it’s very fun to kayak there.) it was very foggy but I was still stunned by the scenery. The Seward Highway runs alongside the outer rims of two of Alaska’s metric-fuck ton of protected parks. You can throw a rock and hit protected land, and you will be promptly arrested for it.

The second day was spent catching up over dinner. The views from Seward are pretty breathtaking and the people are very friendly and chatty. The weather was cold and very rainy, as expected. I experienced the “lack of sunset” that occurs this time of year and really felt uneasy about it. Sleeping with the sun up is strange but manageable. I covered my eyes with a shirt like I was getting ready to be waterboarded. Relaxing.

The next day we got to do some actual hiking. I saw a fucking glacier. It felt like seeing a dinosaur or a celebrity, or Tom Selleck. It was just kind of there, a very very old wall of ice. Throughout the approach there were these markers indicating the furthest reach of the glacier by year. It made me feel sort of uneasy having this very clear example of global temperature rise directly in front of me. Someone should really start working on that climate thing, seems important. The weather was bad but the hike was fun and I got to sled down on the way back. Sledding is really fun. My whole childhood in Florida was filled with anti-snow and anti-sled propaganda, or maybe that was anti-Cuban propaganda? It’s easy to get the two confused. Dinner was also great. Everything I ate was delicious and made by 20 somethings working seasonally to fuel their passion for being in fringe places and doing wild things.

A particular moment stood out to me; The Seward highway is a single two lane highway that supports lots of tourism through Chugach and Coopers Landing. But! The summer is the only viable time to run road construction in Alaska, because it’s not Football season. You can be stopped and waiting to go alongside the next pilot car for up to 30 minutes: it can double your 2 hour trip time. We missed the window and were the first car in line for the next group. A young rugged looking girl around our age dressed in hi-vis construction gear and a hard hat smiled and jaunted up to the window to ask us what’s up? That was it. Just “what’s up?” So then we robbed her. After that we talked for 15 minutes maybe about the weather and work until she got a call on the radio asking if she wanted a sandwich. Life is slower there. People don’t mind waiting and taking time. It felt to me like Alaska is so vast and wide that your stresses, worries, fears just don’t take up as much space. But somehow, the small talk is bigger there. People aren’t really strangers, probably because there’s only like four of them in total.

Alaska is gorgeous. People come from all around the world to see it’s vast virgin spaces. The wildlife is abundant. The fishing is easy. The city of Anchorage is a doorway to the frontier. However, it’s a doorway with mirrors. Mirrors reflecting some the best and ugliest parts of the American dream. On one side of the door is the picturesque locale and slow small town life. The other is a not so pretty state that buries its poverty, drug abuse and natives under the rug in favor of its tourism. Despite this, the working people are hospitable and helpful. They’re tough and blue collar, soaking up every ounce of sunshine each summer before heading back to mainland or abroad. The toughest of them shovel themselves through some of the worlds bitterest and most inhospitable winters. Alaska is a place of extremes. The people who survive there are just like it’s indigenous people, plants and animals: tough and scrappy and strange and anomalous. But theres only like four of them so who cares. I really fell in love with it. I will certainly be back. I think the glacier I saw would really benefit from having a Walmart or a Macy’s nearby. It’s absurd to me that nobody has thought of this.

I was able to leave the country for the first time. It was a very long trip and definitely one of the best I’ve ever been on. A short retelling of my adventures.

I arrived at the airport with my friend Jarrett. We sat and had lunch and I bought a book. Our first flight was eight hours from Orlando to Manchester. I heard a toddler speak with a British accent and it was pretty hilarious. Some strange dance competition must have been happening in Orlando as there were many children adorned with metals boarding alongside us. Maybe they received the metals from a competition of “whose parents looked the most British.” I could tell most of them said “fink” instead of “think” just by the shape of their fleshy jowls. The flight was mostly empty and so it was very nice. I paid Jarrett a visit and we played airplane trivia for a few hours as well as an airplane game that claimed to increase your IQ with each successive play. Jarrett reached an incredible IQ of 260, he has since taken over as the “idea guy” for a cheese company.

Upon arriving in Manchester we were greeted with quite literally the worst airport imaginable. The architecture is brutal yet inconsistent. The layout is haphazard and terrifying. We walked around through seemingly endless maintenance hallways that stretched into a hellish sub basement wasteland you would likely never return from. (If you weren’t as experienced as I.)

This maze finally led us to our terminal. In which our plane would not be assigned a gate until it had arrived at any gate. I had been awake for approximately 20 hours at this point. I marveled at the novel experience of a British convenience store with labels such as; black current soda as well as a nutrition label listing saturated fat as; “fat (of which saturates.)” That was the most entertainingly and bureaucratically British thing I had ever seen.

Our next flight (to Dublin) was on a propeller plane preheated to the temperature you can prepare a small personal pizza at. Admittedly I paid for a window seat as I am a motion sick person, but someone asked that I sit in the aisle so they could be next someone they know and I caved. I suffered nauseously in polite silence, a reflection of what I had learned about the British culture from my time in Manchester. (You’ll start to notice, I’m a bit of a worldly person.)

I am a person with red hair and in Ireland I admittedly felt like I belonged. Not a drop of melanin in sight. Genetic mutations as far as the eye can see. Certainly everyone in this airport knew that they could not trust their friends to apply the appropriate amount of sunscreen to their backs. We knew what it was like to get burned. I drank a Guinness (it was 8:30am) I had been awake for approximately 24 hours at this point. It was the best Guinness I’d ever had. Over here I didn’t really get it. Over there I see why they like it. It’s sweeter, creamier; like Malibu but for gingers. We sat for awhile, then boarded our final flight to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is a very very old place that has coincidentally forced city planners to put people first within its infrastructure. The homes are densely and tightly packed, the canals are murky yet beautiful. Tourists scurry through Amsterdam Central’s head shops and knick knack markets. The character of the city feels earned. To celebrate our arrival, (after dropping off our bags) Jarrett and I settled on the most characteristic cuisine Amsterdam has to offer, McDonalds. I’m kidding that would be a gross waste of our time and money. Do you really think we flew across the Atlantic only to not enjoy the local cuisine? We had Burger King.

Everett arrived and we continued exploring. It’s an easy place to get lost especially when you do little to no research. I had been awake for approximately 32 hours at this point. However the excitement in the city and it’s crisp cool air carried me from site to site. Everett and Jarrett made sure to take pleasure in one of Amsterdam’s finest exports; Sinning. They played poker at the casino while I watched Manchester v Milan at a pub across the street.

The air was lively and a Dutch couple next to me taught me some words and wished me well. Manchester lost. We all took shots. I could feel the cocktail of alcohol and sleep deprivation churning inside my body. I left. I stumbled to a train car and realized my vision was tunneling. Fortunately a short ride and a short walk led me to the hostel in which I slept a brief 6-7 hour slumber to recover form 36 hours of travel. This is because my body hates me and I am not deserving of rest for that reason.

Malik arrived in the morning. He was probably very tired. But that was his problem. This blog is about me. We stopped off at a lovely cafe called Yusu and met the most attractive man in The Netherlands. His recommendations were great and our time together was special. I’m sure he thinks of me as often as I think of him (nightly.)

We stumbled into an on-site farm to table chefs coursing menu called De Kas. It is usually fully booked but we got lucky. The food was excellent but my friends don’t like vegetables so they struggled through the five course vegetarian menu. I blinded a glass of wine correctly with just my nose and that was pretty cool.

The rest of the day was really just spent walking around. At night the lights of all the compact but functional Dutch homes paint the canal with a mosaic of shimmering orange tiles. The houseboats line the canal walls, ornate with round windows and home gardens. The city is clean. We rode bikes, we ate some of the freshest sushi I’ve ever had. I managed to get my friends to try Salmiak, an acridly salty licorice that I have developed a strange love for. Everyone hated it. I used to bring it to school to hand out to my friends. In order to prove them how delicious it was I would eat one. So I now have a taste for it.

We arrived at the airport to board for Zürich the next morning. I told Everett that when I travel alone, I will typically just board with group 1 or 2 no matter my boarding group. I always sit in the window and nobody ever checks. I figure this is harmless as boarding by groups is a waste of time. Something clicked inside Everett and a fire of hatred began to burn deep within the 7th circle of his gut. Demons and imps spilled forth from the recesses of the Hades localized in his body. As this was a line I SHOULD NOT have crossed. Everett’s passion for waiting in long and arduous airport boarding lines sung from his lips. Everett loves monotony, boredom and wasting time. Inconsiderate, selfish, self serving. This is all that I became to him in that moment. His aim was to preserve the beauty of waiting in line and I was just another casualty along the way.

I boarded group one. I had paid for a carry on but the flight crew insisted they gate check the bag, I figured it was fine. I tagged it and placed it where they instructed. I double checked with them that the placement would be perfect. They ignored me. I triple checked and they said, “Do not worry. We will load your bag.” (They did not load my bag.)

The flight was smooth and the plane was a testament of beautiful Swiss engineering. We met David at baggage claim and waited for our bags to arrive from our flight. I stared helplessly at the carousel. “No, not that one. This one? No. Maybe it’s on the next one.” My bag did not arrive. I spoke with a Swiss representative and filled out the missing luggage claim. His features were German and so was his appearance. The way he looked was German and so was he. The German looking man was of no help. Hopefully my bag would arrive soon.

Swiss trains are some of the best. They are incredibly clean, quiet and comfortable. The ride to Zürich was smooth and pleasant. We enjoyed Swiss-German food in an armory older than the idea of Gravity. Shoutout to that Isaac Newton guy for inventing that, otherwise food wouldn’t have stayed on my plate (maybe my bag would have flown itself.)

Switzerland is incredibly beautiful. There’s a strange Disneyland feeling to all of its natural beauty though. It does not feel wild. We took a train ride to the “largest waterfall in Europe.” Clearly by technicality. The water was beautiful and the water was also $7. We ate at a Biergarten. I got a flannel from Salvation Army because I had no clothes still. The food was expensive. I was able to find a train route to the top of a mountain that overlooked the city. The first of two times I tricked my friends into hiking. We watched the sunset from a tower on the top of Zürich. It was peaceful. I couldn’t help but think about how I was half a world away from home. Before this, I almost did not believe Europe actually existed. A man paraglided while dressed in a polyester sarcophagus at eye level with us.

The next day Ilsa arrived! Malik is time blind so we missed a few trains but it’s okay because my bag arrived. After fetching my bag we rode a long train to Interlochen. We visited an actual waterfall, ate dandelions and fondu (only I ate the dandelions, they were everywhere and free.) Fondu is not as exciting as saying the word fondu is, it is mostly cheese. I put my feet in the cold ass Swiss water. The water is clear and blue and beautiful. Something about how blue it is filled me with a strange paranoia that I would be hoisted down to the Swiss-Lovecraftian (like regular Lovecraft but less racist and more politically neutral) depths by a writhing tentacle. But I was fine. I narrowly escaped with my life.

We arrived in Zermatt late, hiking what felt like the entirety of half dome to reach our hostel. We realized it was too late to check in and so we prepared to sleep in the lobby. However, someone noticed our room keys taped to the front door at the last second. So we slept in actual beds.

Zermatt was very Swiss and surrounded by the beautiful alps. I ran with David and the route we planned for felt very formidable. The elevation change and the hills were killing me. I began to think, “I cannot do this.” When we arrived on flat ground the run was much more bearable and enjoyable. We chatted and grooved, the weather was cold and perfect for running.

For breakfast I had Swiss McDonald’s (because everything else was very expensive) and ordered 5 shrimp (yes pentuple shrimp) from a McDonalds in a land locked country. It was impressive and I did not get sick.

We got ski lift passes and rode the lift up to a brief hike. The walk to the suspension bridge I planned for was iced over and so we played in the snow and turned around. I was able to deceive everyone into hiking the long way back into town instead of taking the lift. There were sections of trail that passed through small farms of sheep and goats. Everyone was bleeting back at the sheep and for some reason I found it really annoying. We passed a man who walked patiently and slowly toward Ilsa from a distance, and at the last moment turned to reveal he was brandishing a freshly polished axe. But Ilsa survived and so did we.

I decided to partake in the delicacies of Swiss German culture for dinner: Jaeger. We walked to the top of a hill and talked about our lives while overlooking the town. The things I worry about feel so insurmountable when I’m at home and alone. But grated against the sandpaper of my friends. My anxiety become so much more palatable. I can chew the sinew and work through it knowing that at the very least I am not alone.

The next day we rode a train to Italy. As soon as we crossed the border even the weather was Italian. The architecture became immediately Italian, the signs, the children began to talk with their hands. Pasta leaked from the overhead luggage racks. An Italian man charged us $90 in euros for buying the incorrect ticket on a train to Milan. But he was nice about it.

Our first meal in Milan was the best pizza I have ever had. I had always heard that Italy saves the best for themselves and imports the lower quality goods. It is the truth. The food there is a reflection of the country; simple, but of the best quality. The only caveat is that it may try to mug you.

Milan was a gorgeous and modern metropolis littered with glimmers of old world Italy. Incredible food lined it’s alleyways packed with graffiti and pedestrians. Each meal was accented by a great but cheap bottle from nearby Piemonte. However, we stopped for Gelato late at night. While walking to the nearest train station, two eight-foot children gripped at our things and tried to accost us. In a swift moment of heroism, Everett killed both of them. I didn’t even drop my gelato.

I had managed to arrange us to meet a man off of Italian Craigslist two hours away from the city. He crammed us into a small van and told us to hide from police as he drove us remotely into the wilderness. Certainly nothing would go wrong. His English was not perfect but he was a gentle and kind man. He was outfit in mountaineering gear. Creases of adventure and wisdom etched themselves into the canyons of his face. A single silver earring dangled from one of his ears and reflected off his polished head. He was like an Italian Mr. Clean but much hornier. He led us up a mountain and then alongside the chains that arched like velvet ropes off the limestone. The climbing was easy but I was just happy to share it with my friends. The summit offered a beautiful view of lake como and for a moment I marveled at it and though to myself, “Wow, I don’t have any cash to pay this guy.” So we pushed him and ran.

Dinner that evening was certainly the best we had. I had a delicious fiochhi stuffed with goat cheese and something else. The bread was hand made, the wine was a lovely barolo and the service staff was composed of two of the most beautiful people on the planet. (I am a Manchester 11/10 but an Italian 6/10.)

The next day we took a long train to Florence and I wrote most of the way. After dropping our bags I was able to walk with my friend Connor for a bit (he conveniently was in Florence but on a separate vacation.) I didn’t have much time as we had lunch reservations at a place I really wanted to try and I really didn’t want to miss that.

The server was incredibly rude and I still think about that, but my wine selection was spot on because I’m the best and he is not. The food was excellent. We visited a church and museum and then I got a cappuccino because I was very tired. Coffee usually gives me a pretty intense wave of panic, but this did not happen. Maybe European coffee is fake so they can drink it 24/7. I saw a mirror wall and took a picture of it because I sort of want one. I swear nobody in Europe actually has a job.

We walked more. The city is also very pretty, for being Italian. I saw David’s (statue’s) tight ass and thought to myself, “I will make my ass look like that.” We stopped in the hostel for a brief rest before going OUT that night. Our hostel shared a wall with a recital hall and we heard a very pitchy dress rehearsal ensue before a very pitchy performance. So I did not sleep as I was to busy looking up how much it would cost to drone strike the recital hall.

At dinner I had an incredible blackberry pie in a historic Italian plaza under the Italian stars, in an Italian chair on my (soon to be) Italian ass. David (person) lit a cigarette casually like Johnny Cash and blew a cloud off to toward the street, it was really cool.

We moved on and listened to bad jazz at a jazz club titled “jazz club” and this is where I began to notice Florence is clearly a facade that Italy has put up to corall their American exchange students. Everyone was American. We went to Club Space and the music was American. There was quite literally a geriatric man in a MAGA hat dancing next to us. It felt like home. I leaned against a wall taking brief respite from the dizzying maneuvers of the geriatric conservative man, only to realize the wall was a door and set off the emergency exit. The bouncer pushed me out.

I stood outside and waited as the set was ending soon anyway. I befriended a man who kept trying to sell me drugs. He may deny our friendship as I did not buy any drugs but I believe we are friends to this day.

In the morning I hurriedly ordered pizza with Everett and walked to the train station; a common Italian pastime called ‘Pizza Walk.’ Due to landslides and not having much of a work week, many trains were delayed. We waited at the train station for a few hours. Ilsa did surgery on a grape (my ingrown hair on my arm) it was a success.

Venice was kind of shitty. The food was not as impressive. The canals are beautiful and blue and the architecture is unique. But being a small island it has been blighted with a teeming westernization that engulfs each corner and leaves little character in its wake. Jarrett dropped his gelato and we watched a Catalinian man demand to see our feet in the lobby of our hostel. The occasional quiet alleyway was lovely in isolation, but every shop and corner really just looked the same. Every restaurant was the same. Everything was plainclothes and cargo shorts. It was clear to me that nobody really lived here.

Istanbul was certainly the most foreign place I’ve ever been. The signs were predominantly in Arabic and Turkish and the people were less friendly. We checked into a very nice hotel and took a large cab to the Hagia Sophia. This is a place that truly blew my mind. It’s a place where European history can really be understood from.

Built shortly (500 years) after the death of Christ and predating the invention of gravity that made its construction possible. The Church has withstood the great schism of the Catholic Church, the conquest of Constantinople even the time the Eagles won the superbowl. It is truly a historic marvel. We went inside a similar and adjacent mosque constructed by Suleiman the Magnificent, the guy with the coolest name in history. Islam prohibits iconography. The inside of the churches is pasted with ancient Arabic, incredible geometry. This was a contrast to the picturebook-like interiors of European Churches. Illiteracy was high during the time of their construction so the information had to be digestible. I had no idea what’s going on though because in Turkey, I am illiterate.

We moved on to a drink at a boujee rooftop bar overlooking the city. This place truly felt so foreign and beautiful. But we were tired and had a long day of travel the next day so we returned home and began our rest by going to the gym. I got a nice Turkish chest day in and enjoyed the sauna with my friends.

In the morning I removed honey directly from the honey comb to spread on my bagels. A small Turkish woman sat on the floor of the dining room making bread for us. It was the height of luxury; slavery.

My final thoughts on Europe are that it is definitely a continent. Despite what others may say you can navigate it by train, plane and even car. It is located just north of Africa, and very far away from the US. It differs from the US in its geography, and it’s racism. It is a place where prostitutes can stand in red lit doorways and I, am too afraid to talk to them. It is a place where the people work less than us, and have more time for leisure. It is a place where the infrastructure is built to a human scale and the cities feel like they have contained countless human lives over many centuries. It is a place where the families are old and people pretend to care. It’s a place where I went with my friends and spent many nights starry eyed and doing the realest thing I know; trying to make each other giggle over wine and food.

On St Patrick’s day 2020 I was texted to hold off on getting ready for work and that our evening opening may be delayed. About 45 minutes later I was told I would not be working until further notice. I happened to be in the incredibly fortunate position of still being paid during quarantine, despite not actively working. Which as an early twenty-something is a dangerous request.

The first week of quarantine was spent in a drunken oblivion. Admittedly, it was more of a “three-drinks-til-my-tummy-hurts” oblivion but that doesn’t sound as mysterious or cool. The following weeks were spent enjoying the final summer break I’d ever get with all my college aged friends. Days were permeated by Minecraft and movie nights, culminating in Among Us and anxious ruminating about what the pandemic actually is. I worried pretty much endlessly about what my life would look like after. What would it like to get older in world with slimy tequila scented hand sanitizer?

Fortunately two friends and I (David, Andrew and later a third, Shane and many others) began a short list of things we wanted to do when quarantine ended. Hiking trips, mountain climbing, new hobbies and Ĝ̶̛̮̤͙̺͇̝͍͇̦̝̱̺̯̺̏͗̀̑͐̔͘͠Ṍ̸̹̼̆͛̇͝R̵̡̨̪̺͇̮̰̹̮̟̜͖͈̀̋̃̓̈͛̇͗͌̓͋́̑͘L̸̨̛̲̹̖͍̣̺̀̇̍̏̀̔̇̉̈̕͘̕a̴̫̲͖̯̳̙̽͊̍̾̉̋̽͛̊͒͌̓̕m̶͖̹̝͍̘̼̆̌̿͘͘.

So check it out! Be sure to click the embedded links: https://pigeon.dog/

I will outline two separate scenarios in which I acquired the Red Lobster. In one scenario the means of acquisition will be strictly legitimate and fiduciary; inheritance or purchasing. The second scenario outlines a scene in which I am gifted the Red Lobster through mystical means i.e. a genie (maybe not a genie because their mischief is unpredictable and it would take too long to describe the selections for my other two wishes.) or some sort of magical contract. Likely written in dragons blood (obviously to provide some kind of mystical binder of insurance to my ownership of the Red Lobster.)

Scenarios in which the Red Lobster was acquired by mystical means (but not likely a Genie) will be marked with an asterisk and written in a separate color*

Firstly, I will ensure that all the typical furnishings of a standard Red Lobster are present. There’s a contemporary north eastern Americana style to the interior of a Red Lobster (think exposed beams and sailing paraphernalia.) I would ensure after the purchase that all of this has remained constant and consistent in order to deliver the classic Red Lobster experience to my patrons.

** Firstly, I would have to spend some time processing the existence of magic. As a young boy I was treated very unfairly (in this world) for my belief that a dragon wizard may provide me with a contractual obligation to operate one of my uncle’s favorite restaurants. (I’m assuming because this is a parallel universe and real me is typically ahead of the curb like this too, like I knew Tesla was gonna be big. I didn’t buy any stock or anything but I just like definitely knew.) I would spend some time speaking to a therapist with a fairly thinly veiled code as to not arouse suspicion to ensure that if the dragon blood contract has any sort of Wizard HPPA rules I’m not violating them.

Secondly, acquiring a staff is important. I would list open hirings and offer a very competitive schedule; in order to let my employees know that their work is very important to me. Darden offers competitive benefits for full time employees as well which is not a consistent theme in the hospitality world. It opens the door for more people to work comfortably at my store in that they may continue to survive so they can work in my store.

** Secondly, after it feels like the understanding of magic is fully integrated into my life. I would enter the Red Lobster with a flashlight and my handcrafted Senchu Era Katana replica. The man who sold me the Katana at the mall did guarantee that a dark aura was shrouded over the katana after its construction to provide it warding abilities. I would sweep the Red Lobster for any mythical assailants. There may be one or maybe two goblins, and I would like to say that my backyard training has provided me with adequate goblin slaying abilities. But in earnest I think I would be much more afraid when faced with the real thing. Alongside that, I was vegetarian for two years. The idea of slaying a foul beast is a difficult one for me to take into consideration. I believe after I have slain the first of the two goblins, I may begin to sob. This will put me at a disadvantage for the next battle as my mobility will be impaired. However, I did spend one afternoon of my backyard training dodging the rocks thrown by the neighborhood kids while I was sobbing. I think his advantage and my disadvantage would cancel out. I would certainly beat and dispose of the second goblin as well.

Assuming I have acquired a diverse and Lobster-passionate staff (the negative form of this will be called Lobstinate I.e. “You are being Lobstinste right now.”) we will begin training based on Darden’s comprehensive hospitality training programs, and ensure that the monolithic service standards of Red Lobster are delivered consistently through my location as well.

**Thirdly, I would consume (with caution) any of the live lobsters in the tank. This will certainly provide me with magical abilities, I am assuming something along the lines of water or gravity magic. As lobsters are sea creatures but also know for their skills in anti-gravity.

We would begin with a soft opening, in which we assume regular service without much advertising. We will do this to troubleshoot any inefficiencies in our dining experience. We would follow up the next with our real Grand opening, inviting and encouraging the local community to participate and join us for our first week of service.

** Fourthly, given my newfound wizard abilities I would have to undergo a six fortnight vow of silence. The craft of magic is a very difficult one and requires tremendous discipline to master. Any distractions from the outside world could lead to straying from the path of knowledge and into a path of darkness. The opening of the Red Lobster acquired by mystical means would have to be delayed by about six months.

The first month of a business is usually one of the toughest but as long as the location is correct and we are receiving consistent visitors we should be operating slightly above the green as far as profit is considered. This ideally will continue to grow as our margin of error in food cost, guest comps and our guest count all become more beneficial in the winter months.

*fifthly, as a now powerful gravity and or fire wizard I can follow scenarios 1-5 of the Red Lobster acquired by financial means.