. . . I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafés and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking up and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring.

i remember finishing ‘a farewell to arms’ in new orleans one summer a long time ago, and i always remember this passage. i remember it because i know exactly what this feels like, and how it describes a good deal of my adult life, and how i miss that place and that feeling now