I love it when I’m in the store and a kid is trying to sell their parent on the idea of buying them some tchotchke. “Ah, wow, it’s moisturizing! Interesting, wouldn’t you say?”

If the world really were my oyster, coffee would be all foam. Thick, fluffy, not-too-dry foam.

The way inmates smile in pictures taken for the purpose of finding a penpal always makes me sad.

I usually take a while to overcome the cringe I feel about my past selves, but why wait when I can laugh joyfully right now at Anja and myself less than a month ago, passing the Swedish city of Göteborg and thinking the printing press was invented there?

I saw a guy on Monday that I went on a date with once. It was one of those whimsical dates. We had fish by the sea. It felt like coming home a little bit. I think the world was trying to introduce me to something for which I wasn’t ready yet. Looking back, that date, more than the others, prepared me for Anja. Looking back through butterfly effect glasses, it might as well have been him.