I get so down on myself, and then I have a strange-good night in the Berkeley Hills, and I feel like the old wild version of myself again. I can’t ever let that part of me die. It’s just too much fun. And I think: everything good that ever happened to me happened in California. I always think that on nights like this.

And now with endorphins pumping through me like gasoline, I walk many miles downhill through thermal pockets and beneath dark palm trees towards the San Francisco Bay to get a few hours of sleep before the sun rises.