Philadelphia, or some feeling like it.

I’ve got this huge stack of books in my room I’ve never read. I bought them before I realized that books have valuable words in them. I don't wake up laughing about alligator dreams, but it’s nice here. The past, present, and future lovers talk about places they would rather be. We mull the distant memories in the same pot as our cider and whiskey. Time drags its heels all around this place, leaving footprints all over our faces. "Tell me all your problems, Time, I will crush them in my mind-vice." And It’s comical how we resist your boot print.

There’s a surprising lack of coffee here, but we’ve all got the things to write (or brood) about. We’ve all got our too-big-world-plans, and most have the discontent to match. But who’s got the monster truck balls to go big or go home?

Sure, Asheville has cars, and streets, and sometimes the parking garages smell like piss. And yeah, that’s gross, but everything will smell like piss if you have nowhere else to piss. And I’ll take the piss and dead fish smells over a home without those feelings of nausea and nostalgia. Piss in the morning is as fond a smell as any, for me at least. What’s missing down south is the whelming feeling of being able to know you can walk to wherever you want, knowing you might not see a single familiar face. That sounds much more distant and cold when I write it down, but I think it is nice to be just a face, or just a fly, wandering to your friends shitty bug-infested apartment, or work, or nowhere.

I’ve never really left another place for a notable amount of time and come back to feel such incessant fondness. Maybe there’s something in the water (wooder) there. Or the cheesesteaks. There must be something in the cheesesteaks. No matter how hard I try, my mind completely surrenders to the crippling nostalgic feeling of Philadelphia in the summer. Or winter. Or any time, really, because this place is about as good as it gets. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Riley.

“You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever going to come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't.”