A triumph of identity is in the ash trees. In front of the Agriculture Building on Rollins Ave. is a row of six green ashes, young and bulbous. You can’t see it now, but there was a time two weeks ago when you could stand outside the construction on Johnston and see the last breaths … Continue reading →

I use peppermint toothpaste, because it makes my mouth feel different. I take steaming showers in the morning, because the hot water stipples my skin and reduces me to an ooh-ing, Lotus-eating hedonist. That’s different. I blast water into my skull and flush out my sinuses each morning and light incense, because I couldn’t smell … Continue reading →

I’m breaking bricks on the Spanish tile roof, surrounded by bees. I hear the crunch and slide of loose bricks. Garrett left a couple of days ago. Now it’s just me on the rooftop, surrounded by bees and high air. That is eight stories up. Miles away and humping over the eastern skyline are Spanish … Continue reading →

“Having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.” -F scott Fitzgerald. BS. I didn’t like The Great Gatsby that much. “life is not a paragraph” -e.e. cummings. I took a walk on the Camino de Santiago yesterday, the famous pilgrimage trail … Continue reading →

10:00 p.m. — Don’t nobody hitchhike this late. It’s so dark. Shayna and I walk to the other edge of Irun, where we find a road sign pointed for Pamplona and a roundabout with a few streetlights. Perfect, except who would be nuts enough/have enough nuts to pick up hitchhikers in the dark of night. Definitely not … Continue reading →

It feels like we’ve made it. The pulse of urgency that works in the back of my head has slowed to a halt. It doesn’t feel like we still have 100 km between us and Pamplona. It’s 9:30 p.m. and dark on a hillside in Irun. Someone’s garden. Down the hill, past the pillow grass in … Continue reading →

When I’m waking up I can’t tell if my life is shit or great. Is that right? I don’t know that that should be the case. There’s about two minutes of falling through fog until you’re clear and yourself again, and you rub that crap from the nook of your eye and blink, and remember. … Continue reading →

My shiny midnight blue running pants are sleek and 100% polyester, with two supercool white racing stripes on the sides. I can’t afford compression shorts, or anything but boxers. I can’t help but the pants accentuate the sharper edges of my upper-pants body. It’s winter in Paris, which is understandably frigid, and the biting temperature and … Continue reading →