March 30, 2020 — 11:09 p.m:

Throughout the last year, I realized that I am not what you would call a “man with a plan.”

I’d like to blame this on the recent developments, but I suspect it’s probably been the case all along. I’ve only realized it recently because it’s pretty easy to get by without a plan for the first 22 years of life, and infinitely less so every day after that. My college diploma — while a physical representation of enormous accomplishment — also serves as a receipt for the part of my life that required minimal…

“Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.” — Theodore Roosevelt

“Why are all of them here?” — Vicky

Enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday at my grandparents’ house is an annual week seeped in comfortable tradition. Their wooden home sits underneath the shade of oak and pine trees but atop Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and each year members of my dad’s side of the family flock to fill every room.

I say comfortable tradition…

“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.” — George Washington

For those who know me well — or for those that had the misfortune of happening upon my twitter account by accident between the years of 2016 and 2018— my longstanding quarrel with Jimmy John’s has been well documented. My disdain was communicated through lighthearted converstations with those that asked and unfunny tweets sent out…

“What’ll ya have?” The cashier asked the scripted question to seemingly no one in particular, looking right past my dad, Will and me and instead to the back of the growing line behind us.

It was the service I could always expect at The Varsity — seemingly annoyed at your very presence and unhurried no matter the circumstance. Their constant lack of emotion starkly contradicts the frivolousness of the red paper hats and the southern charm of their opening line, and yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We’d been eating there irregularly for years. I remember stopping by…

The weather was perfect, and the view of the courtyard from my seat at El Cuadro was beautiful. A large Peruvian flag draped down from atop a grey stone building on one side of the square, and a light breeze funnelled through the covered patio where our table was located. It was going to be the first good meal we’d had after about a week of being in Peru, and I was excited to try some alpaca.

Our group from First Baptist split up for lunch on that first day in Cusco, since some people were diligent in their quest…

After my freshman year of college, I spent the summer working as a court monitor for a trampoline park.

When describing my job, I always said it was similar to being a lifeguard — and in principle it was. I was always positioned off to the side of the trampolines, watching screaming children all day and warning them over and over again to stop running. Unlike a lifeguard, I have no idea how to save anyone’s life and possess no real sense of authority. If a kid wanted to call my bluff after I gave them a warning, they’d win…

“There’s proper acclaim given to confessional, self-relavatory, sometimes dark writing or performing or stand-up or whatever it is. And there’s a lot of proper acclaim given to how relavatory that is. But there are things that people ignore in observational humor or just jokes that seem small where you go, ‘That’s that whole person right there.’ And I do sometimes think, well, you know, there’s jokes that seem like an innocuous everyday observation that are as dark about human nature as any real ‘tear open your guts and show all the horrible sides of you’ comedy.” — John Mulaney

At…

The Bartender’s Advice

My cousin Jackson and I coasted into the Escalante, Utah, RV park after an eventful day in Zion National Park — a day that saw us climb two-point-something miles into the sky and inch across the edge of a cliff on the way to one of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. By the time we climbed down, drove up the state to set up our tents and then took a shower, we were ready to walk up the neon-lit street in search of food.

We stopped at a place called 4th West Pub and sat down at…