• 86. Trying to Sleep at Twenty-Five

    Last night, I evaporated from sleep at what I thought to be half six. I’m a good sleeper, generally, and an even better meaning-maker so, naturally, I had been tapped by one of the Green Point Ghosts I picked up on my Sunday kayaking outing. I pondered the friendly spirit. We had a conversation and She sprung to memory, for…

  • 85. Trying to Tell Shit Stories with Integrity at Twenty-Five

    Arguably, the best ever compliment is, “it looks like you’ve never not had it.” because either it means I look like myself or I have fooled someone into believing that I am who I say I am or appear to be and the piercer in Byron Bay said it about my septum ring (his work, so, yeah) as soon as…

  • 84. Trying to Uber with You at Twenty-Five

    Do you remember that night in Tallahassee we summoned an uber to just outside the expensive fancy restaurant where my family paid for our dinners? I think it was maybe my birthday. Maybe it was just Friday. I don’t know who called the uber, actually, but if it was me, I’m glad to have gotten us to wherever we were…

  • 83. Trying to Have a Good Time at Twenty-Five

    What if now is a good time to switch back to Apple Music? Pay says that Spotify is getting a little too Artificial Intelligence-y and it takes a woman like her to say a thing like that to get me to think a little bit deeper about all the hand-crafted playlists I traded for algorithm-generated tracks when I made the…

  • 82. Trying to Keep My Wits about Me at Twenty-Five

    In the earliest hours of the morning, this morning, I tossed and turned on Carrie’s gray couch. Up and left, I spotted the southern cross, that great big hemispheric reminder of mine. I turned on my back to the window, tasted the dryness of my mouth, and managed to fall back into a light sleep. Lazily, I swung my feet…

  • 81. Trying to Let it Land at Twenty-Five

    today is a day whose minutes are passing lightly, bouncily. I record a voice memo and it somehow measures 3 minutes and 14 seconds and I could have gone on forever more and maybe it’s because the person on the other side makes me feel like she listens or maybe it’s the caffeine, the sunshine, the tobacco, the waves, the…

  • 80. The Triangle of Purpose (I Stole This)

    My first (and I hope, only) visit to Pittsburgh, PA, USA; my park-path crossed that of two white men, one with a clipboard, the other with an at-home-creator tripod in-hand. They were decidedly harmless enough. My best friend and I consented to their interview and understood their creative mission: anchor the education of America’s youth in each child’s unique purpose.…

  • 79. Trying to Move to Africa, Softly at Twenty-Five

    This morning — if you delineate morning time by technicalities like midnight to mid-day and not as the period that comes only after 8 hours of deep and restful sleep — some feeling wrested me from a light veil of sleep, my head under a Floridian-kind-of-heavy jacket, one too light for the winds of March’s Macaronesian Islands but certainly too…

  • 78. Trying to Learn Taxes at Twenty-Five

    It is not original to moan about the heady frivolity of tertiary education but *disclaimer* I’m about to expose the privilege in my ignorance to tax filing and go on and on about the possibly entirely intentional injustice of their assumption that I magically know what to do with a W-9. It’s also not original to point out that there’s…

  • 77. Trying to Schedule an Ultrasound at Twenty-Five (it’s impossible)

    Today I rose at what felt like the dead of night. A wicked alarm at the foot of my bed came all-too-early: 6 AM to ensure enough time to make room in my bladder for a prescribed 32 ounces of water one hour prior to my ultrasound appointment. I scheduled the appointment for 8 AM on the first Monday of…