Heaven and Hell

We spent last week basking in the sunlight next to the beach. A much needed extraction from * broadly gestures to everything around me *. Vacations are bittersweet to me. It's a much needed break, but I then remember that I have a brain that wants to create and it only has that drive when it doesn't spend 8 hours a day on phones. 

We went back to Garza Blanca in Cancun. It was one of those situations where we didn't want to have to make many decisions. We knew Garza Blanca and we knew we would have to do absolutely nothing all week if we wanted it.

And that's exactly what we did. We ate until full, we drank all day, we moved from the pool to the beach chair to the pool. We dodged a three hour timeshare presentation. A celebration that Dionysus would've been proud of. All in all, great time.  

Everything Will Be Expensive and Permanent

I'm not an economist. In fact, I hate money. I hate that it exists. Almost every terrible man-made thing in the world can be traced to someone wanting more money and or power. 

I feel like I'm going crazy. I feel like I'm Peter Beale from Network. 

Twenty-five Years to Eternity

I lost a lot of friends when I was young. 

Michael, my soccer teammate and playground friend was lost to cancer in 5th grade. 

Danny, my best friend in Kindergarten and first grade committed suicide at the end of 8th grade. 

And then there was Jake. My cousin, my brother, my best friend of many years. He's been gone 25 years today. I wear him proudly on my arm permanently, with his pinky up and catch phrase, "Why Be Normal?"

I saw the reminder on my calendar and thought, "My math has to be wrong. There's no way it's been more than 15 years. Hell, sometimes it feels like 15 minutes." But the math doesn't lie, I've somehow lived more than half my life without a core person in my development.