I’ve written about The Little Prince on this blog before. I wrote about how Tim’s crooked path led me to discover the book (as many other things I’ve discovered), and how it helped grieve the loss of him. The words in that little children’s book gave a different meaning to death, and I needed them at the time. I keep them with me, but that’s not all I took from the book. There’s a passage in The Little Prince with the prince…
This is one of those time periods where life is hard and lonely and I don’t want to do anything but watch Netflix in bed with my dogs. That doesn’t make for insightful writing, so let’s talk about something near and dear to my heart — Samurai Cat. Hikone is a town that we stopped at for a night between Hakone and Kyoto, and it’s a little bit off the beaten path. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because this…
Even though I’ve lived in Austin for seven years, I’ve never been to a Texas beach. It seemed like native Texans were the most hard on them. “Don’t bother!” “Watch out for flesh eating bacteria.” “You’re not missing anything.” “It depends on how recently the tractor has drug for seaweed.” Still, I like to explore around where I live so I decided to round up some friends to rent a house for a weekend in the sun. And honestly? It…
My number one “must do” for Tokyo was visit the Park Hyatt’s New York Bar. It probably seems like an unreasonable request. Sure, I’m a little bougie but it’s not like I made demands to go drink overpriced cocktails at expensive international hotel chains while traveling. But the Tokyo Park Hyatt is different, because that’s where Lost in Translation was filmed. While I did research in staying at the hotel, at $500-$900 USD that was not going to be an option for…
Tokyo has the reputation of being weird. I think everyone has heard rumors vending machines that spit out school girl’s used panties or all other kinds of fabricated urban legends about strange things in Japan. I have to admit that I fell victim a little bit too to that opinion before I left. After reading about some of the interesting Japanese opinions regarding love & sex in Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance, I have to admit that I came to Tokyo wondering what…
Tokyo is a city unlike any other I’ve been to. Logically, my brain wants to compare it to New York because that’s the other massive metropolitan that I’ve visited, but it doesn’t seem like a fair comparison. New York feels vibrant and alive because it’s filthy, full of interesting characters and has a brisk candor in the air around those tall buildings. When I visit New York, I feel like I’m watching someone have surgery — their guts are busted open…
After what is probably the longest travel day of my life, I’m in Texas and settling back into my normal routine. Getting from Tokyo to Austin was an interesting journey that involved: a two hour commute to the Narita airport waiting around until 6:30pm Japan time on Tuesday evening to board for our flight Flying 12(?) hours until we landed in Dallas at 4:30pm Texas Time… aka 2 hours earlier than we left a four hour layover in Dallas where…
This is a month where I both read a lot and also gave up on finishing some books – one I’ll review here today and one I’ll skip. Anyway the books this month bring something for everyone I think. We have a memoir, a high drama fiction and a nonfiction nature study. Let’s begin! “There are many ways to drown, only the most obvious wave their arms as they’re going under.” – Nick Flynn Another Bullshit Night in Suck City…