I’m sitting in a coffeeshop in West Hollywood, surrounded by earnestly hip LA transplants staring zombie-like into their phones, the direct sunlight having a deleterious effect on freshly inked, snow white forearms. After being brusquely informed there’s no wifi between 9am and 2pm and asked if I “plan on loitering,” I’m focusing on gratitude, specifically that I’m about to fly 16 hrs to a place where marsupials run amok and don’t have an image of a bearded sailor on my body for perpetuity. It is, on balance, a net gain.

While a guy dressed like Count Dracula in Yeezys orders a hemp milk cortado, bemoans its tepidness, then disappears in a cloud of Juul vapor, I’m filled with unironic love for this city, and also appreciation that I didn’t hang a right on I-5 out of Seattle and decided to continue along I-90, unsure of where I’d land but knowing it’d be somewhere good.

Missing Nashville a bit today, but excited for Tim-Tams, family, and convincing tour manager extraordinaire Ryan “Bear” Drozd that everything he sees is poisonous.