Writer and Editor in Chicago, IL.

We didn’t know when we’d be back in the DC area together again, if ever, so we wanted to go to an art gallery like he and I used to when I was just a kid. We’d occasionally go to a gallery called the Torpedo Factory, an old World War 2 munitions facility that made, I don't know, swords or something and was perched on the edge of the Potomac river.

It only costs $1.65 to mail a letter internationally. Stamps are kind of like the coins on your eyelids you pay to Charon to take you to the afterlife. London doesn’t seem like the afterlife. She just graduated so I really need to mail her something. The water is beginning to pool around the drain in my shower again. I’ll need to buy another drain-snake. I can’t take standing in the filth as the water rises around my ankles.

Recently, it has felt like the world has been ending. Each world event to hit the news ticks away
a little more at the Earth’s hit-points bar. Each human rights violation from another mega
corporation, each nonsensical bigoted spitting of some conservative cuck on Twitter, each CEO
to make some outlandish disconnected-from-reality comment, each rich landlord posting in
forums discussing how to raise rent and further take advantage of their tenants, has, I think,
prepared me for the end.

In the uptown neighborhood of Chicago sits a small coffee shop on Wilson Avenue. In this
coffee shop, one buys coffee and breakfast tacos. In this coffee shop stands a man in front of
the counter. This man is me. I have ordered a large light roast with light cream and sugar, as
well as two breakfast tacos, one potato egg and cheese and once bacon egg and cheese. The
barista enthusiastically poured me my coffee and handed it to me with a large smile. He wished
me a good day and immediately turned to his coworker to recount Larry David recounting how
he quit SNL.

I remember, as a kid, the sensation under my arms when my dad would lift me up. It always felt
uncomfortable, his hands gripping at my sides, digging into my ribs. But it was always
accompanied by the weightlessness of flight. He was so strong. Today I put my hands under his
arms to help him get up off the couch.