05 October 2025

i drove 700 miles from austin to albuquerque in one sitting . . . then promptly died upon getting here!

03 October 2025

I spent a few days in New Orleans with Leila at her new house . . . I had not been back since September 2023, and before that since December 2015. Last time I was here, it was a sort of struggle to have a good time on account of things that are not worth mentioning, and which were outside Leila’s control. But this time it was just the three of us (including her cat Susu), and so we had a very good time indeed.

As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. So don’t get me wrong . . . I love going to new places and seeing what it’s all about. But there is a comfort to visiting a place you know well, as there is no special hurry to cram in as much adventure and sightseeing in a small amount of time. New Orleans is a city I know. And so saying, it was nice to just Hang Out and watch movies and smoke in the backyard and have a bonfire and eat at the same breakfast place every morning. The point was simply to be with Leila and Susu . . . anything else was a little bonus. I was sad to leave New Orleans yesterday . . . I’m hip about time but I just had to go. I got places to be and a hard deadline to be in the Bay Area by October 10th. However: I will return again soon, if for no other reason than to soothe Susu’s broken little heart:

Now I am in Austin where I lived many years ago now. I haven’t seen much of Austin since I left in 2013 . . . only a handful of times, and the last time being September 2023 when I left for New Orleans. Or had I come from New Orleans? It filled me with sorrow to see it then as so much of it had been literally razed to the ground and replaced with total bullshit. I feel the same way now as I did two years ago: that I recognize the city just enough to feel sentimental, and to remember my life here, which may as well have been 100 years and ten Ryans ago, only to feel the dark wave come crashing down on it all when I realize that’s all long gone in the forever sense. It leaves a bad dream feeling in my mind . . . a ghostly sort of déjà vu I only ever experience in nightmares.

I only came to Texas for one reason, and it’s a good reason: to see my old friend Colette, whom I had not seen since 2018, and 2013 before that. In that sense it was completely worth it. Colette is such a good person, and was always such a good friend to me. A long time ago I did her wrong, and she was merciful enough to forgive me. Being with her again feels exactly the same as it did when I knew her all those years ago when I would visit Texas, and when I eventually moved here . . . we even briefly lived together. Colette is the lone holdout in Austin, as everyone else I ever knew here has been gone for years. Just like in New Orleans, I don’t particularly need to see Austin. It is enough to be here to spend time with Colette. All we’ve done is talk and go on walks and earlier we saw that new PTA movie . . . I’ve had a real good time!

Tomorrow morning Colette is driving me to the rental place downtown to pick up what I hope will be a small inconspicuous fuel-efficient Japanese sedan made in the last two years. I want something that gets 45–50 miles per gallon on the highway and has a USB-C input. Is that really asking so much? Once I have procured The Car, I will drive 700 miles through the wasteland between here and Albuquerque to get to my friend Mikaylah’s house, which I am told is cute and pink and close to the airport. Perfect.

I end many of my late-night posts here saying “I really ought to sleep”—and so too shall I end this one THUSLY, as it is true. I have a long-ass day ahead of me but I am excited about it. Listen: I love rolling around. Next to people it’s the most fun I have here upon this cursed planet. I’ll write more from The Road . . . perhaps I will take a break in Lubbock before I white-knuckle it straight across the border into New Mexico. I got a few postcards to mail so I reckon I’ll take a piss there and find a postbox. Hey baby, why not . . .

29 September 2025

the moon over mississippi, which i could not wait to get out of

now ten hours after i set out from tennessee this afternoon, i am in new orleans

i will write more tomorrow . . . i’m so tired i could cry

28 September 2025

☆ STARSAILOR ☆
WORLD TOUR 2025

It is nearly one in the morning and I am writing to you live from the command center of my fortified satellite compound in an undisclosed location around the Tri-Cities area of East Tennessee. The secrecy surrounding my whereabouts is necessary to protect my staff and me from my harshest critics and most blood-thirsty enemies . . . such is the importance of my life’s work that they would destroy its author were I caught unawares. Dollars damn me, and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. . . .

Really I ought to be in the high castle spire getting as much sleep as I can manage on account of I have to wake my ass up at nine and pick up a rental car from the next town over. As you can see from the image at the top, which I spent an embarrassing amount of time on, I have a lot of places to go between now and December, don’t you know. Too many, really! and too quickly. I have planned this long dark trip poorly, as is my custom. But that’s also what’s so fun about this whole foolish endeavor, this wheel of fire I am bound upon once again, and by my own hand no less! For God’s sake!

Though yes, for those who came in late:

Wow! That’s a lot of cities. And I have to blow through the first four to beeline to the Bay Area by October 10th. That is the hard cutoff . . . McCune and our spirit guide and I leave for Montana in a backfiring hesher van that very morning. If the authorities don’t take us into custody at the Idaho-Montana border, our plan is to meander around the place and see what it’s all about. It’s one of the few states I’ve never been to, and they tell me it’s full of hot springs. I love those things. I am all about going to a place where there are hot springs aplenty. I packed my bathing suit and everything.

As far as tomorrow goes, my favorite intern has informed me I am driving 670 miles south from Tennessee through Alabama and Mississippi to get to the southernmost tip of Louisiana where I have about a 95% chance of finding its most beautiful city, which is New Orleans, and home to one of my best and oldest friends, being Leila Wylie. For a God-fearing middle-class American with no police record driving a neutral-colored four-door Japanese sedan at the posted speed limit, that’s about ten solid hours of driving . . . but I’m gonna do it in seven, or die trying. I’ll know I’ve made it to Crescent City when I once again cross the I-10 Twin Span Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. When you get to that bridge, you feel a sort of weightlessness . . . that mystical place you have traveled so far to get to is just on the other side. But you must also keep that loaded pistol cocked between your legs. You never know for sure what sort of twisted freaks the city has let loose from its ancient catacombs till you’re staring down a whole shambling squad of them at the first red light off the interstate. And even then, you’d better hope those bullets in the chamber are made of pure silver or else it’s “Goodnight Irene” . . .

Of all the cities I am passing through between now and October 10th, I am staying in New Orleans the longest. Apparently Leila owns a whole entire house there, and it has a swimming pool. It seems as though this bathing suit of mine is going to get a lot of mileage. And I reckon we will do a whole lot of the thing I do every time I’m in New Orleans, which is my favorite thing to do anywhere, and that is to straight up Hang Out. As far as Hanging Out goes, New Orleans has got to be in the running for first place. I’ve always liked that place. It’s 2025, and I’ve been visiting New Orleans since 2011 when I helped Leila move there. Back then I was living on borrowed time, and assumed my life was over. I drove a sixteen-foot moving truck containing all her earthly possessions (which took up about two feet of the truck) from Baltimore to New Orleans with Leila having a nervous breakdown in the passenger seat the entire time. It was great! I was last in New Orleans in September 2023. It was a brief visit and it had to be that way for reasons I ought not say here. And now I’m back again . . . again!

Other than swimming and eating red beans and rice and sitting in weird bars that in lesser cities would be condemned by bureaucrats and overzealous food and safety inspectors, Leila has promised to reintroduce me into the social world of New Orleans. A long time ago I made myself a villain there, and thus I became a sort of stranger to it . . . but now that I’ve heard the word and seen the light, they are bound to let me once again board the riverboat casinos and gamble with the best of them. I don’t think my reputation is so sterling that I could link arms with the daughter of a captain of industry or nothing like that, not anymore anyway . . . though word round the campfire is Leila received safe passage for me to attend an all-girls movie night, which is just fine with me:

After Leila and I weep at our parting on the morning of October 2nd, I will fly to Austin and stay with my friend Colette for two days. I have known Colette for a very long time but have not seen her in a very long time. I don’t know that we’ve done something as simple as sit down at a restaurant and talk to one another across the table since at least 2012. I have to say: sad though I will be to leave Leila and New Orleans, I am real excited to see Colette again. After I left Texas for California, we fell out of touch for one reason or another. I regret this. Colette is such a good person and I have missed her a lot, so I figured I ought to make time to see her this time around. And in the city where we both used to live, no less! I love it.

From then on it is a mad dash to Northern California . . . I have to drive from Austin to Albuquerque:

. . . which is about eleven hours and 715 miles behind the wheel to get to my friend Mikaylah’s house. I have driven from Austin to Los Angeles once before, which was in 2013 when I moved to California. I was with my cousin and our friend Jason, and we took turns driving. As I recall, it took us ten whole hours just to get out of Texas from Austin to El Paso . . . we’d taken a longer route just so we could see Marfa, which was worth the extra mileage. That was one of the best days of my entire life. And from there we drove through the night into New Mexico and Arizona and finally slept at a motel in Tucson (which, by the way, is a hugely underrated city). This time I am of course the lone driver and am taking a different and more northerly route . . . I’m going to pass through Roswell at night, for God’s sake! That alone is worth the back pain.

Anyway: I’ll spend a day or so with Mikaylah in Albuquerque (which I can never remember how to spell), then white-knuckle rocket straight on through Arizona and the Mojave Desert and Barstow and all that other bullshit to get to my satellite office in Los Angeles. This ain’t no short ride neither:

Listen: it’s going to be a lot, but I can do it. Thing is, I’m already dead. And you can’t kill what is already dead. Or didn’t you know?

One of my interns has just informed me that it’s nearly five in the morning (I promptly fired him), and thus the godforsaken sun shall soon come to reveal my only weakness. I can hear Some Dogs barking in the fields over yonder, and the lonesome whistle blow of a night train farther beyond. I really ought to sleep. Granted, I will make up an hour in the car on account of the timezone change, but my body won’t know that. Hey, it’s OK with me. I’ll sleep in the pool when I get in.

The rest of the trip I will talk about later. I can’t even begin to think about all the driving and bussing and flying I have to do to get back to New York City by mid-November. NYC is a sort of Polaris to me . . . maybe I’ll explain more some other time. Maybe not!

I should mention here that I have dictated the entirety of this communique to my little sister Abby, who is a cat, and who typed the whole thing up in no time:

Looking over it now, she did a fine job. I will miss her when I drive off tomorrow in the back of my armored limousine. So for now the two of us will go to sleep and dream next to one another while we still can. Doesn’t that sound nice? ☆彡