Status Updates From Boulder

I realize it’s hard to observe without thinking, to take things at face value, to let the eyes drink it all in and let it all out, to shut down the mind. I give it a shot, I succeed. The secret is to discredit yourself first—before, long before, you discredit the miracles imposed by life, that beggarly saint.

The drive home is one of those rides where silence hangs around the car the way bloodlust does around soldiers, proud, zealous, in the seconds before combat. It consumes our bodies, gums them up and empties them of all kindness.

Repetitive thoughts come out of nowhere like rough weather, gathering strength as they cross the ocean, and bursting into my head with such force I'm left feeling like they have it out for me, like they've been trying to track me down so they can whip me to pieces and make me theirs, dead or alive.

That's where I met Samsa and where, for a few moments, I became conscious of the magma seething beneath the miracle of our oceans and continents.

strap on mention in the first chapter hello??