The night before my dawn flight to LAX, I woke up, at night, and went on one final snack mish.

I’d trained my tummy to rail caffeine and a tin of mixed nuts each night at midnight; it was almost midnight, and my tummy was like Yo where tf are my snacks yo.

Settle bud, I got you, I told my tummy while laying down a base layer of paper towels in the soles of my Birkenstocks.

Got the latest Joe Rogan pod going, ffwd-ing through 7 minutes of ads, and hit it.

It was with this dude Steve Rinella, outdoor hunter dude I hadn’t heard of.

I was feeling adventurous today—I had a place to go finally! had something new on the horizon! lil sis was rescuing me!—so mustered up the courage to hit the Wawa, even though it was a longer walk and was due east of my spot, meaning in the direction of ex bae’s I generally avoided walking towards.

We weren’t totally broken up when I moved into my current spot, a half mile away.

Well we were, she was already seeing Z, but wasn’t moved in with her yet.

Was still describing her as a ‘funny experiment.’

As ‘sorta romantic,’ but more a ‘close friend’—obvs in a different category than u.

And a thing we’d always talked about, late in the year we lived together, was how the move would be to live in the same neighborhood, in walking distance from each other, so we could cultivate our own spaces, our own grinds, while being able to visit each other whenever.

So when roomie bro’s spot opened up, half a mile NW of ex bae’s, I jumped on it.

Only, the minute I did, Z moved in.

Now I couldn’t walk in her direction without feeling sus af.

Without feeling like Chris Brown.

And there wasn’t shit straight north in walking distance, just more hood houses and no relevant businesses.

I was trapped!

Boxed in.

Could only walk in two of four possible directions.

About once a fortnight for a while there, I’d snap and be like what is this bullshit. We live so close together. Why not just mish it over, say what’s up.

Like in the olden days.

Holler at your neighbor right quick.

Tf was with all this texting before knocking.

This some hogwash yo.

We woke!

Shit, why don’t Z and I become homies.

Like: I love you; you love her; by that one math concept, I should also love her.

She and I should love each other.

This would always happen mornings.

After the gnarly all-nighter, after later and later consecutive all-nighters, that went so late I tried to stay up the next day.

To ‘reset.’