Blog: 2021, A Year In Review

So here we are again at the end of another year. I know 2021 was a tough year for a lot of us but at least we had glimmers of hope within the raging storm of the pandemic. I want to take a moment to highlight some of my personal glimmers of hope over the past year in the hope of welcoming in more light in the coming years, not just for myself but also for you, dear reader.

2021 started for me, as it did for many of us, within the fatigue of the pandemic. It also started with the torrent climate of the US political landscape. That’s not why we’re here though, we’re not here to talk about the dark, the muddled, the divisive. We’re here to talk about the hope, the joy, the novel, & the progress.

The first hope of early 2021 I can remember was the distribution of the vaccine. We’d come out of a long COVID riddled winter & were offered the chance, as a society, to change the course of this disease we’d all grown soooooo fond of. The most vulnerable among us were offered that vaccine first, then the on & on it went to it was available to the masses. I personally got both of my vaccinations in March!

Being a newly minted member of the neurodivergent family, something we’ll get more into later, I tend to develop hyper fixations, little things that I find exciting until the dopamine wears out & I move onto the next thing. In early 2021 my first hyper fixation became my home. I looked around & found my house severely lacked things that I felt made it unique to those that lived here. I felt like anyone could have walked into my house & found it hard to pinpoint the exact kind of person that resides within these walls. I decided to introduce a little of what I called “quirk.” I invested in better decor; new lamps, rugs that had subtle Star Wars prints on them, art that hinted at the things I love, etc. Slowly but surely my house began to feel more me.

My next fixation came in the form of self improvement, not a bad fixation to have. I looked inward & found that despite having spent basically the year prior forced into further introspection & was mostly just covering up the things that had been eating me from the inside for so long. I started meditation, I started reading books on psychology, quantum & energetic sciences, even dipping into self help from time to time. I uncovered parts of myself that I had neglected, feelings I’d held onto that no longer served me, & true peace. I fell in love with the natural world around me & with the ghost that lives in the shell that is me.

In the midst of this time of self actualization I found scuba diving. My parents, knowing my deep love for the ocean & all things aquatic, decided it was time I got scuba certified. I know wonder why it took me til almost 30 to get that certification as I immediately fell in love with it.

Around the time of my 29th birthday, my inner work, & scuba certification I also fell in love with plants in a way I never had before. My mother had always been the green thumb of the family & I always leaned more towards the fauna of the world but I guess with the appreciation for all things nature so arrived the appreciation for all things botanical. I started collecting house plants.

I guess that’s a bit of an understatement seeing how, in my living room along, I have over 50 different house plants now. Yes, 50.

Longing to get my travel legs back & wanting to use my scuba certification Evan & I booked a trip to Maui. I’m sure many of you have read about the Maui trip as those three blogs are still the most viewed on my page to this day, almost seven months later, but to put it lightly, the trip was everything. Maui felt like coming home. I mean that in the energetic sense as I cannot lay any claim to Hawaii being 0% pacific islander myself. Maui charged & invigorated my soul, it made me excited for life in a way that I hadn’t been in a long time. Our trip was jam packed, our own doing, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. If you care to read more on that of course here are the Maui blogs; Part One, Two, & Three.

After Maui we spent the summer in & out of Kansas. We went on a family vacation to Table Rock Lake for a long weekend, I chipped my tooth tubing, & got to spend time with parts of my family I don’t often get to see. Upon returning home from family vacation Evan & I were stricken with COVID, having been fully vaccinated though the effects were minimal. I was achy with a cough for about a week & lost my sense of taste & smell for a total of three days.

About the same time I got COVID I found a crack in the sump of my 125 gallon saltwater fish tank. I had been wanting to upgrade the size of my tank for a long while & seeing how I needed to completely drain the top tank to get the bottom sump tank even out, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. This reinvigorated my love for aquarium keeping, a hobby I’ve had since I was 16. I upgraded to a 185 with a 15-20 gallon sump in the base & my tank continues to flourish & be a great source of joy & relaxation for me.

In August I began to play again, something I’d seen advised for creatives, it helps to feed that inner child we all still have. I began building legos again, a hobby I grew up loving, I tried to be more playful, to have fun in the mundane day to day experiences! I began painting my nails regularly, I got my ears pierced, why? Cuz I felt like it! I highly recommend it to all, but play responsibly & respectfully!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the two songs I tracked this year, both of which I love dearly! Music has always been a way of connection for me, a form of expression & entertainment that I have made my life’s calling & creating new music is life giving to me, I can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on in 2022!

After August came Puerto Rico, a bit of a spur of the moment trip if I’m being honest. Puerto Rico is as the name suggests a rich port. It’s rich in culture, atmosphere, heritage, & adventure. I got to dive more in Puerto Rico in addition for further flexing my “foodie” tongue. You can read about that adventure in my Puerto Rico blog! Part One. Part Two.

We finally got to go back to Los Angeles in October, I hadn’t been since March of 2020 & normally it eats up about a quarter of my year! We went to Disney, I built a frickin’ lightsaber! I got to see a lot of old friends, went to a few Halloween parties, made some new friends, wrote a lot of new music, etc. Read more here.

We almost lost one of our cats, Max while in LA. Max is a three year old short haired tabby/bengal mix, who ended up getting a urinary obstruction. Our house sitter was lovely enough to sit over night with him at the emergency vet & after a few days in the hospital Max was fine. It’s incredibly difficult to have to face surgery or euthenization from the other side of the country but it really put into perspective how much I am grateful for the day to day interactions I get to have with each of my animals.

Max is the first animal to greet you at the door, the first animal to come running when the alarm goes off in the morning, in addition to being the last thing I see most nights as he kneads & purrs us all to sleep. He is an integral part of our household & I’m so blessed that he’s made a full recovery & gets to hang around this world for a long while longer.

In November I was formally diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. It was something I thought I’d had for a long while but after three months of testing I finally got verification of that. I wrote a whole blog on that process & the impact it had as well. LINK haha.

Thanksgiving was a blur, back & forth across the country seeing family members all over the states in addition to people coming into Nashville. Truly a whirlwind where at one point we’d spent two weeks traveling & only 24 hours at home in the middle of it. Lots & lots of driving.

I was also in the process of trying out different aids for my new found condition which made the Thanksgiving holiday even harder. My mother said “it was like someone had sucked out my joy.”

For once I felt a bit of the holiday spirit but with the crazy fluctuating weather that feeling fizzled out fairly quickly. I, like so many, saw Spider-Man: No Way Home opening night, the only reason for which I bring it up is because I definitely already have a blog written about that experience that may be coming out next week!

Christmas was also a whirlwind & sitting here writing about it just a week later, feels like a century ago.

Now it’s New Year’s Eve. We sit on the precipice of 2022 & I fear much like so many of us felt around the holidays this year it doesn’t exactly feel much like something worth celebrating. We once again have COVID raging across the world, we have labor shortages, & the world seems bleak but I’d advise you to look over your year & find those shining moments, the diamonds in the rough. Look back on them with fondness, with love & realize that’s what will make up the next year for you as well; small moments of human joy that bring out our appreciation for this life we’re given.

I know it’s not always easy & I know it’s hard to be hopeful when things seem such a mess but as I’ve said before, preserve. Find daily moments of gratitude & get to know yourself a little deeper.

I love you all dearly, Happy New Year & thank you ever so much for reading these. It is my true joy to connect with people & make them feel even the slightest bit more seen than they did mere minutes before coming across my words or my songs.

God Bless You All!

I wish you nothing but a prosperous & fulfilling 2022.

-C

Blog: I'll Have A "Blue Christmas," Thank You Very Much!

If you’re like me you like the sadder things in life. I’m not talking about wallowing in grief, I simply enjoy the sadder songs, sadder movies, sadder books because they evoke a prominent feeling within me. I’m not ashamed, as a man, to admit that I rather enjoy things that make me cry, there’s something therapeutic in the release of pent up emotion throw the windows of the soul. I have always been drawn to break-up songs, to films about hardship that don’t necessarily have the happiest of endings. I find the most poignant moments of human connection & expression through art tend to be heightened in these moments.

Another side of the coin that is me is not a fan of the holidays, I’ve always found them stressful & lonely even when surrounded by those you love. The expectation is always just way too high. There’s always so much pressure around the holidays for everything to be perfect; the food, the gifts, the music, etc., all of it has to sparkle & shine with the luster of the lights we surround ourselves with in this time. It’s not for me. I think to some extent the holidays seem too manicured for my taste, we put layers of wrapping over our problems & grievances & tie our emotions all up in a bow topped with a smile. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to the point at hand that I established in the first paragraph.

If you don’t fall in line with holiday cheer you’re labeled as a Scrooge or a Grinch when in reality I think the holidays put a massive lens on the places in which we feel pain, especially where friends, family, & other relationships are concerned. It shows us that we’re not making enough money, or haven’t been successful enough in the previous months to truly dote upon those we love in the fashion that we wish we could. In short the holidays are very painful for so many of us, but we become the outcast for not falling into a jolly line.

I’ve always had a hard time with masking emotion when it comes to the holidays, I grew up in a family where things often got swept under the rug if they were considered counter to the mood or feelings of the rest of the family. Not trying to devalue my family or upbringing, it’s just a very midwestern/southern thing to do that I’m sure many of you also grew up with.

All of that being said, the music of the holidays that I tend to gravitate towards are those that many would deem “depressing.” I love the lonesome, longing, heartbroken songs that truly exemplify the emptiness of the holiday season & I found that quite a few people feel the same way.

Is this a blog designed to promote the “Holiday Blues” playlist I made? Not entirely, but partially I guess. I felt that after assembling the playlists & getting a lot of response on them that I should explain a little about why I connect with this type of music on such a deep level.

The holiday season has always appeared to me as a glaze over of our interpersonal problems as well as those facing the world. We cover the slush of winter with packages & bows & cheer ignoring the hurt, so I appreciate music that speaks to that longing for understanding & connection.

If you’re interested in my Holiday Blues playlists I’ll link them below!

Happy Holidays to you all!

I hope it’s as stress free & warm as it can be but understand there’s absolutely no pressure to feel “in the holiday spirit.”

Have a great weekend!

-C

Blog: The Impending Doom Of 30

I feel that a lot of people are excited about turning 30; they’ve worked through the clunky bits of life, figured out who they are & what their interests are & they are ready to openly embrace the next stage of adulthood & officially wave goodbye to, what most seem to consider anyway, adolescence. I however do not share in that exuberance, I am not looking forward to turning 30, or at least I wasn’t.

Excitement for your 30s often stems from feeling fulfilled in the aspects of your 20s that you wanted to make happen. You achieved the goals & dreams you’d set for yourself & now its time for those aspirations to mature along side of you. I however, do not feel I’ve met the aspired goal of my 20s & that makes me, in all honesty, fearful. I work in an industry that can be very vain a lot of the time, it strives to make stars out of the adolescent because, let’s face it, who goes to concerts & actively listens to current music? The adolescent.

I remember being at a meeting when I was 27 at a major agency in Nashville where someone said something to the effect of “oh, you’ve still got a few more years where you can make it” in response to learning my age at the time. That is a sentiment that has been peekabooing in & out of my brain more & more as my 30th birthday rapidly approaches.

If I’m being completely honest I’m not nearly as far along career wise as I’d hoped I’d be at this point. I always figured I’d be two albums deep at a major label with a global tour by 30, signed to a major publishing company but I guess the saying is true; man makes plans & God laughs.

I also suffer horribly from the plaque of comparison, it often steals my joy & if you read these blogs often you’ll know I touch on that frequently. It is a battle I am constantly losing that I think to some large degree stifles my creativity. It causes me to put immense pressure on myself to “write the next great thing that’ll go viral” or “create something entirely unique that becomes the next big thing.” To create any “art” that is over-the-top, commercially viable BS, instead of the inner working of my heart & mind. You know, the thing that actually makes you an interesting artist.

Lately it seems that the almighty above or the universe itself recognize this state of panic & have done everything in their power to present me with media that seeks to placate my nerves.

Last night I had the pleasure of watching Lin-Manuel Miranda’s screen adaptation of “tick, tick…BOOM!” staring Andrew Garfield, a show I hadn’t seen since I was in high school. The musical, which is autobiographical in nature, centers around musical writer Jonathan Larson as he strives to strike gold in the musical theater world. Often the thief of Larson’s joy, comparison plays a bit part in the show itself as he too panics with the thought of turning 30 with nothing to show for his artistic efforts. He even goes as far as citing the fact that at this point in their lives McCartney had already written his last song with Lennon & Sondheim (RIP) had already premiered Sunday In The Park With George. While the musical that the show is about doesn’t make it to Broadway his next effort, “tick, tick…BOOM!” had slight success but it wasn’t until he was 35 that he wrote one of the most impactful pieces of musical theater in history, RENT.

Likewise, another bit of media that landed in my lap was Tabitha Brown’s “Feeding The Soul (Because It’s My Business).” If you don’t know who Tabitha Brown is, she’s a sweet soul that rose to prevalence over Tik Tok who has fought her whole life to be an actor & now is signed with one of the largest talent agencies in the world & is currently working on two of her own shows! Tabitha is 42 by the way & didn’t get “discovered” til she was 40.

Example after example after example has fallen into my field of consciousness to the point where I think I finally get the message, I actually think it’s going to stick that age is just a number, we all bloom & thrive in our own time & that timing is divine. Sometimes there are lessons you need to learn about yourself, the world, or those around you before you can soar. Sometimes you don’t realize what you truly want until you’ve been through the trial & error of seeing what you don’t want. Either way, I’m done being afraid of my 30th birthday. I’m done thinking it has some baring on what my level of success can be & who will be interested in what I have to say. I’m going to keep being me & pushing onward, come 30 or high water.

Keep your chin up & have a marvelous weekend.

Much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Sympathy Vs. Empathy

A few weeks ago I was part of a songwriting workshop with a few of my fellow songwriters led by Leena Regan. One of the first things she started out with on the very first day of the workshop was reiterating the importance of trust & vulnerability in the co-writing space. It is often very hard to be vulnerable with people if you don’t trust what they’ll do with the information you give them after all. We as writers, or I guess even as humans, tend to paint the broad strokes of our stories & negate the little intimate details that personalize the story to you. I think a lot of us have been taught over the years that broad strokes equal more of a mass appeal & I’d argue that’s a false belief.

Think of your favorite artists, think of your favorite songs. Are they broad or are they very specific to the story being told or the life of the artist/writer in question? I’m going to go ahead & guess that, for the most part, they’re very specific. These are the songs we should all be trying to write, those that are personal to us, those that convey emotion not only in the listener but also in the artists themselves. Ever watched an artist try to sell a song they have no attachment to? It’s painful.

So what’s my point in all this? How does this relate to all of you non-writers out there? How does this apply to your life? Leena’s next point in fostering a creative space conducive to specific art is to approach the write, the story of life you’re being told, with empathy.

I think most people assume that they’re empathetic humans, I’m not arguing that you’re not, but I would like to highlight, as Leena did with us, the importance in the differences between being sympathetic & being empathetic. I think a lot of people assume they’re synonymous. That sympathy & empathy are one in the same, but at simply is not the truth. Let’s break it down by definition first.

Dictionary.com defines sympathy as ‘feelings or impulses of compassion.’ Well then what is compassion? It is ‘a feeling of deep sympathy & sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.’ Meanwhile the definition for empathy reads ‘the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.’ Notice the difference there? Sympathy boils down to simply feeling, it does not seek to equalize, it simply exists as a separation. You feel this way & I recognize it, but I want to fix or change it. Empathy on the other hand is the equalizer. It is identifying something within yourself that can relate to the other person’s experience. It does not seek to repair or alter, it seeks to humanize & understand.

There’s an excellent video from Brené Brown that was shared along within the lesson, in it she shows that often the sympathetic seek to divert. “I lost my house.” “At least you had a house to lose.” “I failed out of college.” “Well, at least you could afford to go in the first place.” Where in the empathetic would approach “I lost my house” with something along the lines of “I’m so sorry to hear that, I’m here for you & I’ll do my best to meet you where you’re at emotionally” or “I failed out of college” with “do you want to talk about it?” It does not seek to repair or override someone else’s life experience or emotion. I’ll link Brené’s video below, she explains it a lot better than I do. It’s also a short video that I promise it’s worth the watch!

I have said quite often in blogs of the past that I feel we as humans sorely lack empathy. I think it is one of the biggest things dividing us as people. So many of us strive for empathy but stop at sympathy, we do not bring ourselves into the experience of another to the best of our ability, instead we simply seek to divert & adjust. In the writing space beautiful art is born from a space of empathy, in the corporate world employers begin to understand their employees, in the political world we begin to recognize & acknowledge those we marginalize & belittle. Empathy is the key to all of it. It takes the selfish angle out of the picture & instead strives for human understanding. We could all use a bit more empathy, we could all show a bit more love & understanding.

I write all of this from a place of love & with a desire to unify, not alienate, but I hope the next time someone comes to you with their pain or troubles that the words “at least” don’t appear in your response. Treat your peers, your family, your loved ones, your colleagues, your grocer, your gas station attendant, your etc, with empathy not just sympathy. We each deserve to be met where we are not passively rushed out of our strife.

I hope you have a great weekend & remember be loving to one another.

-C

Blog: Be Kind, Remind(er).

Tis the season once again, the holiday season & with it comes all the ingrained stress. Lines get longer, the gifts we wanted to give or the ingredients we needed to make that one special dish get more & more scarce. Tensions rise & often with it, so do tempers. We often get lost in the capitalistic frenzy of “I need, we need” that we forget about the people we interact with on the day to day basis. Having spent some time myself working in customer service space; from being a barista to driving ride share, I can personally tell you when the weather turns cold, so do the people, at least where November/December are concerned.

This blog actually came at the request of a dear friend of mine who basically wanted me to use this platform as a PSA. She works as a barista & for whatever reason people think it’s okay to treat those hand preparing a beverage for you like garbage. I know the feeling, I’ve been there. People can often make you feel dirt low simply for the dumbest of reasons. I don’t know what brings people to the point of being completely & utterly devoid of empathy but I guess that’s a question we try to answer each & every election cycle as well.

I guess the point of this PSA style blog is simply to remind you to be kind. I know for many of you that isn’t necessarily a problem, but I feel the point needs reiterating. You have to understand that the people preparing your coffee, ringing you up at the gas station, running around returning the mountains of clothes that have been tried on, restocking shelves, waiting your table, driving you home, etc. are exactly that, people. They are, as you are, flesh & bone. They have their own lives, their own desires, their own struggles, their own disappointments, & their own thoughts that are equally as valid as your own. You do not out rank them in humanity simply by being a customer.

I truly think one of the most harmful practices we as humans have engrained into the customer service space is that “the customer is always right.” The customer is most definitely not always right. Let me say that again. You, as the customer, are not always right. If you make the customer the one & only priority as an employer you completely negate & dehumanize the needs of your employees. In addition to being better people to one another in the customer exchange, I think the current state of The US in general is also emphasizing the need for employers to do better.

You don’t need to be an asshole to get your point across, if anything I’ve found that usually ends up getting you farther from your goal. If you treat people with the respect & dignity they deserve you are 1000% more likely to get what you want or need. And maybe that’s the key to my super power, maybe that’s the key to getting a reservation anywhere you go, not being an asshole about it & genuinely taking an interest in the wellbeing of the people you interact with.

This is all a long form way of saying, be kind. Tis the season of giving; thanks, gifts, love, so give kindness a shot. You may find it makes you feel better as well. To quote a dearly departed mentor of mine, Billy Block, “if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.”

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I’m Neurodivergent & You Can Too!

Yesterday I received confirmation in the form a diagnosis for something that I’ve been fairly certain of for a while now. I truly hope this wasn’t something that I manifested into my life by believing it to be true, nor do I think it defines me, but it is what it is. No, I’m not dying, no, it’s not a physical ailment. In terms of physicality, with the exception of a hyperactive allergic response system, my body is a-okay! Yesterday, after several months of formal testing, interviews, & the like, I was diagnosed with ADHD.

At first I was over the moon about this information, I finally had factual evidence to back up the thing that I have a strong feeling was there all along. It felt a tad like an “I told you so” moment, where I got to sit back & show the truth to those who had doubted me for years & years, including those in the medical field. I wanted to email or call up everyone that denied me & show them the extent of how wrong they were (I scored an 87/100, the threshold for ADHD being 65), but that’s just being spiteful. Then that feeling began to shift. You see, in addition to my newly minted neuro-divergence I was also diagnosed with consistent moderate depression, but we already knew that didn’t we? (See the plethora of blogs I’ve written in regards to mental health.) However, depression does this lovely little thing where it likes to seep into everything you do, for the most part I’ve gotten pretty good at blocking it out, but last night was different.

As it began to permeate my thoughts I began to think about my past, to think about all of the years I asked psychologists or therapists if I could get formally tested & they denied me. All of the sudden all of the symptoms in my life that I had jokingly brushed off as a part of my assumed ADHD became very real & cemented themselves as fact, not just a feeling I had. I suddenly found myself starring into a valley of grief & regret that I could not for the life of me escape.

I thought about school, how it could have been different if I’d been diagnosed &/or treated. I thought about my career & all of the times I knew I should have been doing things but could not for the life of me bring myself to do them, sometimes these blogs included. When it comes to ADHD it all boils down to one thing, following the dopamine.

So why wasn’t this caught earlier? Why did it take me til the 2nd half of my 29th year to uncover a truth I’d always known? That boils down to masking.

In addition to the ADHD, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar, etc. panel they also had me do an IQ test. Much to my ego’s delight, I scored in the “highly intelligent” section which is a lot of the reason my neurological nature went unnoticed. People who are different, those of us who grew up queer, depressed, social awkward, have attention variability dysfunctions, etc. learn to mask. We learn to camouflage our differences because we feel it either helps us to fit into society better or we don’t want to burden people with having to cater a response unique to each of us. My intellect got in the way of a lot of my symptoms because I overcompensated for my differences or didn’t voice my struggled or misunderstandings. I also lacked the physical hyperactivity of the traditionally stereotypical ADHD kid so I guess I can’t blame those in my childhood for not noticing.

All of this led to my grief; I mourned for the “could have been, would have beens” even though they may never existed anyway. I went through the spectrum of emotions until I could process them no longer & my brain felt fried. I called my parents & my mother reminded me that lingering on the past is a lost cause, what’s written is done & moving forward into brighter things is the only option.

I have begun believing more & more in divine timing. I think successful relationships happen only when we’ve put in the time & the work to be ready for them. I think advances in career do the same thing, so maybe there was a reason I wasn’t meant to have confirmation of this information until now. Maybe it’s a reason that I have yet to see or understand but in hindsight will appear perfect. I don’t know. All I know is that’s what I’m choosing to believe, I’m choosing to create a new start going forward further understanding who I am as a person & what makes me tick under the hood.

Far be it from me to think ADHD is a death sentence or like there’s something wrong with me, I actually think down the line we will all progress towards neurodivergent brains especially as technology advances & our focus continues to divide. I think it’s a natural part of our evolution, society just hasn’t caught up yet which then sends those of us who think differently spiraling into depression as we fail time & time again to fit in.

If you have a feeling about yourself please don’t hesitate to consult someone about it, especially if it’s medical. Be firm & insistent on getting the testing & treatment you need but also be aware your thoughts have power to them. Sometimes the things we dread become us but other times they were already there. This diagnosis does not define me, it doesn’t change who I am as a person, it just gives me more context into navigating the world going forward & for that I am grateful.

I love you all dearly, know that I see you & value you as a human being. Keep pushing on & remember to be kind to one another & yourself.

-C

Travel Blog: Disneyland (COVID Edition)

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Hi friends,

Happy Friday!

As many of you know, I, on the occasion that I get to travel & do fun things, tend to write travel blogs about those experiences. The past couple of weeks I have held residency in LA primarily for work but I also managed to clear up a day just to make Disneyland happen. I wanted to share what I found there & how it differed specifically from my trips to Disneyland in the past. I also wanted to frame this in the light of my usual travel blog with pictures & stories to add a bit more fun into the mix.

I hope you enjoy!

BTW, unlike my other travel blogs that are often many parts, this will only be one. I was only there for one day.

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DISNEYLAND/CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

Allow me to start this by saying that I am not a Disney adult. I am a huge fan of a lot of the mouse’s properties specifically where things like Star Wars & Marvel are concerned, I am also a lover of animated films, but I am by no means a fanatic, nor am I a Disney Parks fanatic. I don’t have the inside scoop, as of yet, BUT I did do quite a deal of pre-planning before even setting foot in their doors, which during the current Ponderosa Steakhouse, is a requirement.

Let me first say that to even get into the parks, under the current conditions, you have to reserve your ticket & your parks ahead of time through the Disneyland App. We wanted to park hop, so we had to book our reservations & date of entry extra early. In addition to your park reservation you also have to make virtual queue reservations for two of the current rides, Rise of the Resistance in Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge & W.E.B. Slingers in California Adventure’s Avengers Campus. Reservations for which open up at 7 AM the day of.

I set my alarm the morning of our trip for 6:55 AM in order to get up & make our ride reservations. They allow you to form groups in the app, combining all party members’ tickets into one section so that you can book for the entirety of your party & not just one person at a time. We had been assigned a starting point of Disneyland with our park hopper pass which meant we couldn’t apply for a spot in the W.E.B. Slingers’ virtual queue until noon, we also weren’t allowed to enter California Adventure at all until 1 PM…with that park closing at 6 that night for Oogie Boogie Bash, a halloween party that requires a completely separate ticket & reservation…Anyway, I logged on right at 7 AM & our virtual queue spot for Rise of the Resistance was set to be around 11:45-12 PM. That should show you how quickly they fill up. Think of it like Southwest Airlines boarding group check-in.

We arrived at the park a little later than I’d have liked which ended up being around 11 AM. Disneyland is currently opening its doors at 8 AM & California Adventure does the same at 10 AM. They also are apparently not running the tram system at the moment. How that prevents the spread of COVID when you spend the day masked up with a ton of strangers all crammed together on rides, I’ll never know. So yes, you have to walk from the parking garage to the park entrances & yes, it is a walk, around a half a mile.

We entered Disneyland & immediately headed to Galaxy’s Edge. As I mentioned above I am partial to Star Wars which is probably the understatement of the century. I love Star Wars, truly, deeply. I grew up on it, I have been many a character from Star Wars for halloween, I consume all the lore & media available around Star Wars. So I was looking forward to this portion of the park to say the least. Quite frankly I was convinced that I was going to cry walking into Galaxy’s Edge but I didn’t! I definitely had the cheesiest of grins though.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Upon entering Galaxy’s Edge we immediately went looking for food & drink, we were all pretty hungry. I popped into the Milk Stand & got a Blue Milk & a Toydarian Swirl. I liked the Blue Milk a lot, the Toydarian Swirl, not so much. It was overly salty for some reason & they’d put way too much tajin on it for my taste. After a drink we walked over to Ronto Roasters for some lunch. Ev & I both got a Ronto Wrap (a sausage topped with pulled pork, peppercorn sauce, & tangy slaw all wrapped up in a pita) & Jenna got the Ronto-less Garden Wrap (a plant based sausage, kimchi, pickles, & peppercorn sauce also atop a pita). In addition to the wraps we also got an assortment of drinks; the Tatooine Sunset & Meiloorun Juice. I preferred the Meiloorun Juice but ended up swapping it out with Jenna & Evan because they couldn’t pallet the Tatooine Sunset, which I truly didn’t mind.

After lunch it was time for us to join our physical queue for Rise of the Resistance. Yes, you heard that right, after you spend several hours in a virtual queue you then have to spend around 20-30 minutes in a physical queue. While in the queue it became time for us to book our spots in the W.E.B. virtual queue. We tried & we tried to get in but the app wouldn’t let us through so we ended up missing out on a spot in the queue…more on that later. We got onto Rise of the Resistance & I immediately started geeking out. The ride operates in a fashion that makes it so you enter a landing ship in the park before being sent into space & being picked up by a star destroyer. You then exit through the same doors you entered through into the hanger of the star destroyer, it’s fantastically immersive! From there you’re shown to your “prison holding cell” where you are busted out by members of the Resistance cutting through the wall. You’re then set in a cart led by a droid & have to escape the star destroyer before returning to Batuu i.e. Galaxy’s Edge. It’s truly a superb ride with some impressive effect & animatronic work involved!

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

By the time we got off the ride it was almost time for us to enter California Adventure. Did I mention the park was beyond crowded the day we went?! So most waits for rides were at the bare minimum thirty to forty minutes. We got to Cali Adventure right around our entry time & made a be-line to Avengers Campus. We did this partially because much like Star Wars I’m a tad Marvel obsessed but then so is Jenna, at least where the MCU is concerned, & partially to try & fix our virtual queue issues with W.E.B.. I was given the task of talking our problem over with a park manager because, if you remember in my previous travel blogs, I have a super power of always being able to get a reservation anywhere. I explained to the parks manager what happened, may have been a tad exaggerated on the details while keeping them honest, but when he looked at our party he found no reason we shouldn’t have been able to make the reservation & added us to the last queue of the day, 5:30 PM. Bag secured.

Once we’d secured our reservation in the virtual queue we headed to Pym’s Tasting Lab for some libations. It was a hot day in Southern California & water, amongst other drinks, were a must. Evan & Jenna got the Honey Buzz, which they both agreed was way too sweet, & I got the Particle Fizz because anything P.O.G., Passionfruit, or Guava will always get my vote. We took our drinks & walked over to Pixar Pier to ride The Incredicoaster, an Incredibles themed launch coaster. Along the way we also snagged a few bottles of water & a pickle which we had downed completely by the time we boarded the ride.

I was more than pleasantly surprised by The Incredicoaster! It was truly a lot of fun. The drops were there but not too extreme, the twists & loops were also there but again, not too intense & the theming of The Incredibles trying to catch Jack-Jack fit perfectly. There’s even a part of the ride where they pump in the smell of fresh baked cookies (subliminal advertising for the cookie stand at the ride’s exit)!

After the rollarcoaster we came to the consensus of being way too hot & hopped over to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure because it was indoors & air conditioned. The ride itself is fine, a dark ride that casually takes you through animatronic events of the movie, but we had really gone in just to get cooled down seeing as it also had no wait.

We left the pier & went back to Avengers Campus to try & get on Guardians of the Galaxy-Mission: BREAKOUT! but they had just closed it for a re-theme they do during Halloween that revolved around monsters of the MCU. So instead we got food. At Pym’s Test Kitchen Ev & I split the Not So Little Chicken Sandwich & Jenna had the PB3 Superb Sandwich sans Candied Bacon. The food there was excellent with the exception of the stale bread on the chicken sandwich which we easily removed & ate like a fried chicken steak. I also got a Proton PB&J Punch here which was a fascinating drink to say the least.

We decided to go back to Disneyland because most of the rides we wanted to do were there, our reservation for W.E.B. wasn’t until 5:30, & all the ride queues were short seeing as everyone & their mother had flocked to California Adventure for that 1 PM call time.

Upon re-entry of the land we made our way to Indiana Jones Adventure, one of the best rides in the whole park if you’re asking me or Jenna! The line was relatively nonexistent so we were on & off in a breeze. We then made our way over to Pirates of the Caribbean, which, if you haven’t ridden, is 1,000X better at Disneyland than its Disney World counterpart! I said what I said & I’m sticking to it. After we had basically, again, walked onto Pirates the people were starting to return from California Adventure. We snagged a few Spicy Pickles from Bengal Barbecue & walked back on over to Cali Adventure just in time for our W.E.B. reservation.

If I’m being completely honest we weren’t exactly the most upset about not getting a W.E.B. reservation initially. You see we thought the ride was going to be very similar to Toy Story Midway Mania in the sense that both rides are “shooting gallery” style where each individual person racks up points shooting at targets. We weren’t really into the idea of that, but we went! We’d put in the effort to secure the resy so why not give it a whirl? There was no one in line when we got there & we actually walked onto this ride, that is after the ride pre-show played, shout out to Tom Holland, pleasure getting to see you as always.

I’m going to lay this out flat for you all. RIDE W.E.B. SLINGERS IF YOU GET THE CHANCE!!! The ride is a complete & utter blast! You are loaded into a cart, Toy Story style, you are given 3D glasses, Toy Story style, but unlike Toy Story there is no mounted gun. “But Charlie,” you may ask, “how do you score points then?” Well my lovelies, you score points by “webbing up” spider-bots & assisting Spider-Man through many different rooms in the ride. What do you use to web up these spider-bots you ask. YOU USE YOUR ARMS!!!! YOU LITERALLY EXTEND YOUR ARM, TOBEY MCQUIRE SPIDEY STYLE, & WEB UP SPIDER-BOTS LIKE THE WEB FLUID IS COMING OUT OF YOUR WRISTS!!!!! It’s a workout for sure but honestly was probably the most fun we had all day!

We exited the park right around the time it closed for Oogie Boogie Bash but not before I picked up a shiny set of display web shooters that I actually ended up using as part of a last minute Peter Parker Halloween costume that weekend. When we once again re-entered Disneyland we immediately went for Dole Whip by the Enchanted Tiki Room. The sun was setting, the day was starting to cool of & it was a nice. We then decided to head back over to Galaxy’s Edge.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

If you haven’t caught on, yes, we did spend most of our day bouncing between Avengers Campus & Galaxy’s Edge & I couldn't have been happier about it!

Jenna’s one request when we booked our Disney trip was that we grab drinks at Oga’s Cantina, she wanted herself a Fuzzy Tauntaun (fizzy lip tingling drink). Unfortunately Oga’s is now on a reservation/waitlist system only & all reservations for it are booked out about a month in advance. So we decided to head into Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. On the way to Smuggler’s Run my reservation sense was tingling & the super power once again kicked in. I opened up my Disneyland app to check on Oga’s & it was still showing a ‘full waitlist,’ I clicked the ‘add name to waitlist’ option anyway & much to J’s surprise was immediately given a wait time of 15 minutes. So naturally Smuggler’s Run got to wait.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

In Oga’s I once again start geeking the F out. It’s a Star Wars cantina through & through & it feels like it was literally ripped out of one of the films even though it’s an all new creation. I ordered an Oga’s Obsession (boba & jelly concoction served in a petri dish) & The Outer Rim (a pomegranate margarita-esque cocktail), followed by a Takodana Quencher (dragonberry rum with kiwi & pineapple) which I was not a fan of. The other two things were bomb though! J got a Fuzzy Tauntaun, naturally, & Batuu Bites, an assortment of crispy veggies. She was disappointed to find the fizz wasn’t tingly this go round & apparently it had been a problem all day. Evan got Jabba Juice, a non-alcoholic orange/pinepple boba drink.

Oga’s Obsession

After we’d payed our tab at Oga’s it was almost time for the thing I’d looked forward to doing all. freakin. day! It was time for me to build my lightsaber at Savi’s Workshop! Yet another thing that you have to book in advance, Savi’s allows you to build a custom lightsaber all your own. You first choose what type of hilt you want; something reminiscent of the Old Republic, or maybe the Jedi themselves, something more in line with the dark side, or maybe something more that feels like having had to had scavenged for parts. I chose “Peace & Justice” a style more inline with the Jedi.

Once you choose your hilt style you are given a pin to mark which your preference was before being shown into the “back room” of Savi’s to construct your saber amongst around 10-12 other people. I was placed dead center. Like the whole show that accompanies the build was happening right in front of me. This is the moment I expected to cry, the moment I assembled my own lightsaber. I didn’t. I was, however, visibly shaking. To quote Evan it was like an ecstatic tremble.

The first thing that happens once you’re placed is that you’re told to choose your Kyber Crystal. Your options are blue, green, violet, or red (you can buy more colors & crystals in the store next door). I chose blue, anyone surprised there? After choosing your crystal you are given the interior mechanism of your hilt & instructed to insert your Kyber Crystal. The assistants of the show then place your designated tray of parts in front of you & you are walked through the process of building your hilt around the inner mechanism. You have the options of two different pummels, two different igniters, two different emitters, & four different grips (of which you pick two). When your construction is done the cast members come around & place your hilt into an “ignition chamber” attaching it to a blade. You then all ignite your sabers at once as the room darkens & the chambers all open simultaneously. Chills. Instant full bodied chills. I got them but still, no tears much to my surprise. In addition to my blue crystal I also got a red & a white, the latter of which I lean the most towards. If you understand Star Wars lore you know what that means.

I tried desperately to get Jedi robes & a tunic while at Disney but they said they’d been sold out of them for months. I had planned to use that as my Halloween costume for the weekend but I guess some plans fall apart. I even tried to get a Resistance pilot suit but alas everything was too small.

Our last venture of the evening was Smuggler’s Run, yes we made it aboard! Another ride that I cannot recommend enough, Smuggler’s Run puts you in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. In a crew of six two people are assigned pilot (one controls vertical stick, the other horizontal), two people are gunners, & two people are engineers. It’s a lot of fun & I may have gotten a little too competitive in the midst of it.

With the park closing down & exhaustion setting in we walked (ugh) the trek back to the car & made for In-N-Out for a late night dinner. Overall I’d say it was a pretty great day at Disney, I just wish it hadn’t been so crowded so we could’ve ridden more things or maybe ridden things multiple times!

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FN-2187

Blog: Boundaries, Have You Set Them?

We are in the middle of what has been designated “The Great Resignation.” What that means/what that entails has been the mass exodus of workers from the corporate world. Why are people leaving in droves? In short, they’re realizing their worth. The silver lining that has shown through the cloud of the pandemic has been that people have grown sick of being treated like cogs in the corporate machine. They have looked at their lives, looked at the impending mortality presented by a global pandemic as well as the ever escalating climate emergency, & thought “WTF am I doing with my life?!” It’s hard sending yet another BS work email on the behalf of someone who doesn’t care a lick about you or your well-being while the world literally burns outside your door. People are realizing that for so long we have lived at the whims of our corporate overlords & that life isn’t meant to be lived under lifeless florescence of a forty+ hour work week for not even close to a livable wage.

This all boils down to the fact that for so long we as workers were encouraged to compromise ourselves for the sake of our jobs. We have been asked to overstep the outlined terms of our employment & go above & beyond what exactly we were hired to do. It is not only the norm but the expectation. If you aren’t sacrificing your time, your health (mental or physical), your desires for the sake of some company that wouldn’t do the same for you, you’re a bad employee & people are sick of it & if I’m being honest, I’m so happy that their sick of it.

Living your life slowly working your way into the husk of a human is no way to live. We are meant to explore, to socialize, to connect with each other, with our planet. We are meant to run & breathe & be free, not to be chained to a desk for the majority of our lives. This is where boundaries come in. We as a society are in a pivotal moment where we can renegotiate the societal contracts that have minimized so many of us for so long. We are in a position to demand the bare minimum things that we should have been receiving all along but that mentality doesn’t need to be limited to our work lives.

So many friends of mine who come to me for advice could use a healthy reestablishment of their boundaries. Whether it’s familial, interpersonal, whatever, so many people I know don’t know how to tell the people in their lives “no.” It may stem from fears of abandonment or rejection but we are often far too afraid to “offend” the people closest to us. Here’s a little secret, if you can’t be honest with the people close to you about the things that harm you or diminish your quality of life then you’re not that close to them. Those who love & respect you will hear you out & put in effort to honor the boundaries you’ve set. You should be able to sit down with your friends & family members & have a conversation about something they’ve done that harmed you or made you uncomfortable & have them hear you & I mean really hear you, not just passively listen. You should be able to do all of this before these things happen as well. Your loved ones should honor & respect your predetermined boundaries.

Boundaries are healthy, they allow us to assert our health & wellbeing into our lives & keep us in check. I think we all need a healthy dose of them from time to time but I also think it’s okay for you to constantly be pushing your own boundaries to expand your realm of comfort. As Elizabeth Gilbert says “fear is boring” it is a boring emotion to have because it always leads you to the same place of nothing. Respect your own boundaries that keep you happy but don’t be afraid to tweak them from time to time. Also don’t expect people to automatically know where your lines in your sand are set, communicate.

As always I hope you all have a fantastic week! Shout out to Jenna Vitolo for this week’s prompt, it’s always a fun exercise for me to get ideas listed at me & see what sends my brain into a tangent, this week it was this, next week it’ll definitely be something different! Keep up the good work & stay healthy out there!

-C

Blog: Song Scammers

I was reminded this week of an occurrence that happened to me as well as a few other writers I know a couple of months ago. Someone, it seems, has been targeting the songwriting community, a community notorious for having sooooooo much money……, & scamming us.

I received a message a few months ago over Instagram DM. It was a “father” requesting that I, a songwriter, write his son, Solomon, a song for his birthday. I asked for details; what was he looking for, what level of production, what artists he liked, what things he wanted included in the song, etc. Here are the details I was given:

-It was Solomon’s 6th birthday

-Solomon loves Spider-man & Cat-Boy

-Solomon’s best friend’s name is Jena

-Solomon’s dog is named Maxxy

-Solomon’s father likes to “swing him around the room” so he can pretend to be Spider-Man

-He has Cat-Boy pajamas that he runs around the house in

-Solomon’s favorite artists are Jack Harlow, Justin Bieber, & Ed Sheeran

These were all the details I was given to include in this “birthday song” & it was to be in the style of one of the listed artists above. His “father” had also stated that an acoustic demo of the song would be fine, just vocal & acoustic guitar or piano. He was also apparently offering $500 dollars for this song.

I recruited Evan to help me with the song, offering to split the fee with him & we sat down & wrote the damned thing. I had been communicating with the client back & forth regarding the pay & how it would be sent. We’d agreed to PayPal I believe instead of a direct deposit & we were going to do $200 upon completion of the lyrics & the remaining $300 for the finished song & file.

After completing the song I messaged him & told him I was sending over lyrics for his approval & once he signed off on them I’d & got paid I’d send the song over. He then tried to pull some story about how one of his assistants had over extended his account on PayPal so it’d be a week or two before he could send money that way so instead he wanted to send the money direct deposit. I told him I wasn’t comfortable sending my account info over text but would request a direct pay if he could send me his phone number attached to the account. This is when he stopped responding.

I waited a few days before I reached out again, asking if he still wanted the song. No response. I tried again a few days later. No response. I waited a week, again, nothing.

I eventually let it go until we were having game night one night via zoom with our friends, Leena & Max, who live in Australia. I brought up this strange occurrence & they both immediately went white.

Apparently this account, or several other accounts of the like, had been going around targeting songwriters, asking them to write a song with the exact above listed details, & then stealing money from them. How were they doing that? Well, instead of $500 they’d send you several thousand, over extending your account which they’d ask you to refund. They’d then claim somewhere, whether it was their bank or wherever that they never got the funds returned & it would pull an additional several thousand from your account. Apparently this occurrence was happening all over the songwriting worlds of Nashville & LA specifically amongst up & coming or unsigned writers who aren’t exactly rolling in dough.

The reason I bring this up & chose this as my blog topic this week was because I was once again reached out to by a “father” asking me to write a birthday song for his “son, Solomon.”

If you are a writer reading this I want you to heed my warning & report these people. We have a hard enough time getting paid by the avenues that are supposed to pay us, looking at you streaming services, & many of us jump at an opportunity to make easy money like this but it’s a trap.

I’m going to post the lyrics to “Solomon’s Song” below so it doesn’t feel completely wasted, keep in mind we wrote it with the intent of modifications which, naturally, it never received. Enjoy I guess haha.

SOLOMON’S SONG

V1:

Solly, I see it slipping by

How you grow up every night

Something’s older in your eyes

And I’m blessed to get to be there by your side

So take me catboy to the fray

Grab your mask & Maxxy & let’s play

On our grand adventure tell me how you’ll save the day

C:

So I’ll keep swinging you around like Spider-Man

Just as long as these two arms of mine can stand.

I’ll place you high upon my shoulders

Through the endless world before you.

I promise I’ll do all I can

Solomon

V2:

Solly, I can’t believe that

The last six years have come & passed,

I’ve tried my best to make them last

But time’s a gift that we don’t get back

C:

So I’ll keep swinging you around like Spider-Man

Just as long as these two arms of mine can stand.

I’ll place you high upon my shoulders

Through the endless world before you.

I promise I’ll do all I can

Solomon

B:

So take me catboy to the fray

Grab your jams & Jena & let’s play

What grand adventure will you take us on today?

C:

So I’ll keep swinging you around like Spider-Man

Just as long as these two arms of mine can stand.

I’ll place you high upon my shoulders

Through the endless world before you.

I promise I’ll do all I can

Solomon

Travel Blog: San Juan, Puerto Rico-Part Two: Viejo San Juan

Welcome Back!

If you haven’t read part one from my trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico, I’ll link it below! If you’ve already given it a read, thank you for coming back for this second part & of course thank you for taking the time to read my work in the first piece! Here’s that link for those of you that need a refresher:

PART ONE

All caught up? Great! Let’s head on into part two then!

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PART TWO

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DAY THREE

The problem with staying in an old convent is that the doors to your Juliet style balcony are often several hundred years old & made of real, non-particle board, wood. That being said, when you close them at night in order to block out the street light directly outside of your room, you end up completely blacking out your room. That’s definitely not a bad thing when it comes to getting some sleep however, when it comes to waking up it makes things a little more complicated. When you’re laying in bed in the pitch black there is no way of knowing whether or not it’s midnight, 8 am, or even potentially noon. All of this is a very round about way of saying that we didn’t wake up on this, our day three, until around 11 AM…

Our initial plan where day three was concerned, was to go either to El Yunque, Camuy Caves, or Mata La Gata. We did not realize that unfortunately, due to COVID, they were limiting the number of vehicles & patrons into each of these respective locations & were requiring reservations of which we had none. So our plans changed.

We decided, since the rainforest was off the table, to have ourselves a day in Viejo San Juan, further exploring the Spanish/Caribbean fort city we’d been staying in for the last two days. We set out from El Convento in search of café striking out rather consistently along the way. Our first attempt at caffeination was at Don Ruiz located within the Museo de las Américas which was unfortunately closed due to the Rona. Our second attempt was also closed though I’m blanking on the name at the moment. Some what defeated we continued down the hill making our way towards the more touristy parts of the city. We figured if anything would be open it would be down where the cruise ships let off.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

The day we’d chosen to embark upon greeted us with 96 degree air saturated by 80% humidity. It was hot to say the least. Despite our linen layers & downhill decent we were sweating bullets around halfway down the city. We happened to pass a paleta shop rounding one of the corners & stopped in for a small respite. We had unknowingly stumbled upon Señor Paleta, one of the highest rated dessert bars in all of Puerto Rico! I got a passionfruit paleta, at the recommendation of our host, Ev got mango. We ate our paletas, juice dripping down our arms, as we wound our way down to the docks.

Upon arrival the demographic shift was more than apparent; far less locals, way more tourists running around anxiously, shoving their way into the chain restaurants that greeted them as they exited the gargantuan ships. But, amongst the hustle & bustle of blind tourism sits Cafe Cola’o, it a quant little eye in the middle of this figurative capitalist hurricane. When we entered Evan & I were the only two minus the two baristas occupying the building & even then it felt a tad claustrophobic. I ordered one of their specialty drinks, iced, & Evan had a simple iced latte. The baristas seemed taken aback by the fact I ordered our beverages in Spanish as I’m sure majority of their clientele doesn’t speak a lick of it. I basically chugged my coffee, it was so good & so refreshing. As soon as the ice was rattling around the plastic cup in my hand my hunger began to set in.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Just up the street from Cola’o is a six table top bistro called Spiga, they are famous for their sourbough bread. A sleepy little black dog had settled into their siesta beneath the table we were assigned but we didn’t mind. I had the Prosciutto Caprese Sandwich & Evan had the Prosciutto Brie. I’m glad I ordered what I order because despite normally having a palette for Brie & Fig Jam, that day I wasn’t having it. My sandwich was incredible & Evan swears by his as well, despite me not being much of a fan. I grabbed another cortado before we headed back up the hill away from the tourism.

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

We had decided to give the old fort a tour, Castillo San Felipe del Morro. By the time we reached the top of the city again the sweat had really begun to soak in. With clothing now cling-wrapped to our bodies we walked along the curtain wall to the stretch of green Bermuda lawn that skirts the walk up to the castle. We paid the $10 admission fee & began our exploration. Much of the castle is built atop much older parts of the castle. There were often places where you could easily distinguish the original parts of the build from those that were only a hundred years or so newer. The castle is mostly empty rooms but has a few exhibits still set up along with some pretty amazing views.

After walking around the fort for a bit we headed back to the hotel to cool off before we went to dinner. We stopped at a Piraguas vender along the way & got two Guayaba Piraguas to help aid our refrigeration process. For those that don’t know, Piraguas are a type of shaved ice taken from a massive block. The shavings are funneled into a cup & pressed down before being topped with fruit juice, in this case Guava.

After hanging out for a while in the air conditioning of our hotel room we gathered up our energy & ventured back into the heat of the early evening in search of a happy hour. We ended up at La Taberna Lúpulo, a local taproom that served an interesting twist on classic cocktails, their twist being that each cocktail contained some form of beer. I got the La Patria Colada (White Rum, Créme de Coco, Fresh Pineapple Juice, & Coconut Porter) & Ev got the La Perla Punch (Lime, Passionfruit, & Coconut Rum, Fruit Juices, Topped with a Sour Beer). Both were incredible however their take on the classic Piña Colada was most intriguing!

After drinks it was once again time to eat! Dinner was Deaverdura a Puerto Rican place I’d find via the interwebs. We once again played my favorite game at a restaurant, surprise me, & our waitress brought us these bomb ass Shrimp with Fried Plantains & Carnitas with Moros y Cristianos. The food was truly to die for & their menu, which was written on a black board in the corner, changes daily based on whatever they feel like making.

After dinner was more food. I was stuffed but my dessert stomach was calling out for sustenance. Evan had found this place on Tik Tok that had a very interesting gimmick; they made waffles in the shape of, as they referred to them, “weenies” & “flowers.” In addition to their quirky shape apparently the waffles themselves stood on their own, no pun intended.

Back down the hill we went only this time we headed diagonal, going east. We found “Mr. Weenie Waffles” tucked inside a clothing boutique. It was run by one woman who was, to put it lightly, overwhelmed. We were second in line but she was finishing up a mobile order before the couple in front of us order & then had to do another mobile order after them of around four individual waffles. Each waffle has the option of being stuffed, iced, drizzled, & topped. Evan got a Weenie stuffed with Bavarian Cream, Chocolate Iced, drizzled in Dulce De Leche, sprinkled with Coconut & I got a Guava stuffed Weenie with Vanilla Icing, Dulce De Leche drizzle, & Coconut. Did I mention my obsession with all things guava or is that apparent? The reviews weren’t wrong, it was a pretty solid dessert. The funniest part of the whole experience was the fact that after we ordered a group of about six people came in & about an hour later on the Mr. Weenie Waffles Instagram page they posted a help wanted ad. Poor woman definitely needed some help.

We got a to-go Passionfruit Mojito from a bar called Marylin’s Place, the interior of which is basically a shrine to Monroe herself, & walked back up the hill. Viejo San Juan allows you to carry drinks while exploring so we used that as an excuse to tie us over until we reach the next bar.

We went back to La Factoria from day two, partially because we wanted to see what the other two bars within the bar looked like but mostly because their cocktails were bomb! Making our way into the far back room we were greeted by a DJ spinning traditional Latinx Pop as well as a dance floor full of people. We both ordered a Campeta (Aged Rum, Pineapple & Fermented Ginger) then sat back & watched the locals let loose.

After our drinks we started walking back towards the hotel but were drawn into a bar called La Cubanita. I blame the supernatural for our sudden interest in the bar as we’d never noticed before but it ended up being the perfect night cap. The reason I blame the supernatural is because our bartenderess, Kilani, was a self proclaimed witch, La Bruja de Viejo San Juan, & she created cocktails using the innate properties of the herbs which she mixed in. She treated mixology as if casting potions or creating elixirs similar to an apothecary. I wish I could recall the drinks she prepared for us as they were all perfect, truly perfection in addition to her being the lovelies human. The only one I can recall was a Lavender Mule made with rum in place of vodka which she cleansed with a dried sprig of lavender before serving the drink.

All the bars closed promptly at midnight having last call sometime right after eleven to make sure everyone was cleared out in time. With bellies full of rum we made our way back one street over to Hotel El Convento before closing our big blackout balcony doors for the night.

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DAY FOUR

This is by far going to be the shortest of the days in this blog series. Why? Well, because once again we fell victim to those damn convent doors. How those nuns ever woke up, I’ll never know.

Day four begins once again at 11 AM with foiled plans. The plan for this particular Saturday morning was to walk up the street to the Farmers Market that happens every Saturday morning at El Museo de Arte e Historia. Much like the day before, this museum & its courtyard were also closed…dammed Rona. So we went to see if the empanada place we wanted to try, Deshistoria, was open instead. Nope. The hours on their door were basically a massive “shrug” emoji as well, it basically said “we show up when we want to.”

Defeated & slightly hungover I remember a place in San Juan proper that we’d wanted to try that was also enroute to the airport. We went back to the room, packed up our stuff, pulled the car out of valet, packed it up, & headed into the newer side of town.

La Casita Blanca is as its name implies, a white house. It takes up about a blocks worth of real estate & has a massive tree rooted in the middle of its dining room. We found street parking with ease (remember that super power from the Maui blogs?) & were immediately sat by who I presume was either the owner or at least someone who had been with the restaurant for a long while.

This lovely Puerto Rican woman asked us if we'd ever been in/what brought us in to which the natural only answer is: curiosity. She swung a three foot black board with the days menu over the back of one of our table’s chairs & began explaining her way through it. Before she got too far in I told her what I’d told the waitress the day before, “I trust you.” I told her to bring us whatever & however much she wanted & with great intrigue she agreed.

She started us off with Catfish Bread & Plantain Soup. The bread was kind of like a doughy chicharron, the soup more savory than I’d expected it to be & when combined, woof, incredible. The next thing she brought us were a series of Stews & Rice. One of the stews was Beef the other Chicken, one had Moros y Cristianos the other dirty rice. I preferred the beef while Evan preferred the chicken, so I guess it worked out nicely! In addition to the stews she brought us a pot of beans & half of a massive green avocado covered in veggies. The main course was so good that we couldn't stop eating it. We just got fuller & fuller & fuller but couldn’t for the life of us put down our forks.

When finally we’d slowed to a stop she came over to us looking slightly mournful & explained that what they were in fact famous for was their Tres Leches Cake & how it’d be such a shame if we missed that due to full stomachs. I AM A SUCKER FOR TRES LECHES CAKE & this one did not disappoint! You could very distinctly taste each of the tres leches involved, each evolving perfectly into the next.

We paid & thanked her ten times over before heading off to gas the car, return it, & catch a flight to the mainland.

Puerto Rico was a beautiful experience, I’m so glad I got to have it even if my experience was limited from the pandemic we are still fighting on the daily. A lot of the locales in Puerto Rico require not only proof of vaccination but also a mask until you are seated or eating so I guess if that bothers you, good, stay away from this beautiful place & its incredibly loving people. I can’t wait to be back & see more of the island, I know next time will definitely include El Yunque, Mata La Gate island, as well as diving Black Wall & even more mouthwatering delights!

Until next time Puerto Rico, thank you for the adventure & dear lord, thank you for the food & all the rum!

Mucho amor para todos!

-C

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

END OF PART TWO & SERIES

Blog: Stop Pressing Mute

Do you ever find yourself minimizing yourself, omitting parts of your personality or who you really are as a person just to make the other people around you feel more comfortable? Do you often do so even when you have no idea how that other person will reach? It’s sometimes like you have this whole preconceived narrative in your head about how they won’t want to be around you any longer or you feel like they won’t love you anymore because it doesn’t fit into their ideal of who you are as a person. You’re not alone if you do, I think to some extend we all do this, we all mute parts of ourselves, situationally, in an attempt to fit in.

I mean, why shouldn’t we? We evolved from hunter/gatherers, a society where being outcast could mean life or death. We depended upon the tribe or the collective for shelter, food, water, & other resources, so of course that mentality has been drilled into our brains. From there we cultivated farmland, becoming agriculturally bound & even then if you didn’t present properly to the ruling faction or the person in charge of getting your food, granted you weren’t farming it yourself, you would starve. These social constructs continued on & on & on perpetuated by class, religion, tradition, & other miscellaneous societal contracts that we’re all expected to adhere to, even if some of those contracts have long since expired.

We are now living in the 21st century, never have we ever been, as a global community, more connected. I know a lot of you would argue a dissonance because of technology & while I definitely think it’s a double edged sword, it has never been easier for us as human beings to find communities where we belong. There are people out there who believe the same things, feel the same way, geek out over the same material or hobbies as us & yet still we mute ourselves.

I am beyond guilty of this, it’s something I still fight to break on the daily because there is an expectation when you grow up a middle-class midwest American white boy in a baptist church with an often old school family. That’s nothing against them or my upbringing, it’s just a lot of the time for so many of us, the expectation & the reality collide & usually the expectation seems to win.

Think in terms of tectonic plates. One plate represents who you are as a person, the other being who you’re expected to be. As you grow up those plates fight for dominance & eventually one wins. I have always been envious of those who let themselves win over the localized social constructs. To many of us, they bear the name of “black sheep.” I always thought myself a black sheep because the person living inside didn’t match the mask I was presenting, but I let the weight of expectation submerge me.

There are so many things, even to this day at the age of 29 that I wish I could be, so many regrets for times I wished I were bolder or more “me” so that I didn’t have to actively & delicately tear down the person that so many thought I was in order to reestablish the truth. That, however, is a waste of time. Living in regret is giving energy to a past that is already written, not a future that is yours to make. There are so many things I wish I could be outwardly without the fear of losing those I love or feeling their affections diminish. There are so many songs, speeches, blogs that I’ve written, that no matter how much I want to share will probably never see the light of day & that sucks. They are the parts of myself that I continue to lock away out of someone else’s comfort because at the end of the day I am still choosing comfort over the truth.

I hope you’ll do better that me. I hope you will choose yourself. It’s a hard thing, believe me, I know, I just want you all to know that you’re worthy of love as you are, as who you are, unapologetically. You are worthy of love. This is as much a reminder to me as it is to you all but I hope you take it to heart. As I said before, there is a community out there that would love nothing more than to embrace you, as you are, complete & whole with no alterations & no subjugations & I ache for you to find them if you haven’t already. It’s time to pull back the curtain & show the world the beautiful being that you are. It’s time to stop pressing mute on who you are.

Blog: Are You There Seasonal Depression, It's Me, Charlie!

I’m going to try & keep this blog pretty light despite the subject matter at hand. This being September, it is also Suicide Awareness Month & as someone who has definitely looked my own existence in the eye & found myself wanting just to come out the other side of it, I like to touch on the topic at least once annually throughout the month. I don’t plan to expand upon the topic of the month in this blog but I felt the need to come on & talk a little about my on going battle with the root cause of my own past self harm thoughts.

If the title of this blog weren’t indicative enough, I struggle with seasonal depression. It’s the reason for my distain of fall & winter, it’s the reason I have a hard time with the holidays, it’s the reason I want nothing more than to be a snowbird. I was reminded yesterday of my biannual condition when, while running errands, I began to feel the pull of the sun drifting farther from this hemisphere of the earth.

It’s a weird feeling & kind of hard to describe to those of you who aren’t sensitive to energies. I know that comes across as leaning metaphysical but a lot of us roaming this earth are sensitive to those types of energies. I, personally, find it very difficult to sleep during a full moon. I don’t think it has anything to do with the light but instead has more to do with the gravitational pull. Think of it as being able to sense rain. A lot of animals can feel the barometric shift in the atmosphere, some people’s joints start to become sore right before a storm. That’s how my brain works when it comes to serotonin production during the colder months. I feel the departure of the sun usually before the rest of the populous does.

I was also presented with this prompt due to the change in month. A lot of people are under the false impression that September marks the beginning of “spooky season” with technically doesn’t begin until the latter half of the month. I tend to try & cling to summer with every fiber of my being simply for the fact that I want to cling to my natural serotonin production as long as I can. Autumn often marks the turn of my mental state & it is something I dread annually.

I had the unfortunate experience of my body sensing the shift yesterday & immediately, despite my best efforts, it sent me into a debilitating depressive episode. I say all of this to inform, to give you a lens into the mind & body of those like me who dread the cold season every year. Last night seasonal depression hit me over the head like a ton of bricks & has left me trying desperately all day to shake the feeling.

I take antidepressants throughout my year but usually end up having to vamp them up from October to March. Some years are worse than others. Last winter, with all the COVID mess, it was worse than it has been in a long time. I pray this year is different. I pray this year is different for all of you out there who live with the same prognosis.

All I’m here to do is offer insight, to show & tell exactly why I have such an aversion to Autumn & Winter, to why I welcome the return of summer so fervently. I’m not going to go into the fact it also plays host to the widest array of possible activities & foods, hence summer being the best of the seasons, I’ll simply leave it at the medical & bid you all a fond weekend.

I hope each of you knows that you have value on this planet & that you mean something to someone. I know there will be times where that doesn’t shine through the gloom but light can only shine in the dark. I love each of you dearly & am glad you exist. Have a fantastic week!

Blog: Where Do I Even Begin?...

If you’re a weekly reader of my blogs you may have read last week that I had a previous topic in mind when I went into that particular blog that didn’t end up happening simply because I felt called to go in a different direction, which is where we ended up. Side note; if you’re a weekly reader of mine, from the bottom of my heart thank you! I was hesitant to start blogging for the reason that it is often times baring your soul for strangers on the internet. Come to think of it, I actually think it may be easier to be open with strangers than to open yourself up to those closest to you. All of this is to say I hope you’ll come to this blog with as much love, kindness, & support as you have in the past. If you’re new to this whole carnival, welcome, I’m glad you’re here. Onto the topic at hand.

Something I desperately struggle with as an artist, creative, entrepreneur, business owner, etc. is starting. They say you have to start to succeed, which naturally is true, but I often find myself standing at the precipice of inception unable to budge. You see I immediately run into the feeling of overwhelm. I know all of the things I need to be doing but I’m struck with immobility because of the overwhelm of it all. It’s not like I don’t know how to be an organized person or how to prioritize or make lists, it’s just that I get an instant state of panic & can’t begin to even fathom the steps moving forward.

I know I’m not alone in this either, I’ve done a little bit of surveying over the last few weeks in this exact field of study. I wish so badly that it weren’t the case, I wish I could find myself presented with a challenge or a list of things that would lead me to success & not immediately go into mental gridlock but I can’t for the life of me find a way around. I say all of this not for your pity but more as a way of sharing my struggles in hopes they resonate with you. I also almost wonder if I’m in part begging for help especially where the music industry is concerned. I feel I’m often presented with a ‘do thing & you’ll get that’ but I feel no one addresses the ‘how.’

I think the reason for all the vagueness is that a lot of people don’t know themselves, they stumbled upon success or happened to have friends or family in high places & that’s equally, if not more frustrating. A part of me wants to stand atop the BMI or SESAC building & scream “WTF DO I DO?!” but I know that wouldn’t solve anything & would simply make me look like a loon. I guess I’m just feeling lost in a sea of people who know exactly what they want & how to get it. I feel drowned in complete uncertainty.

Again, all of this is meant to find common ground with you as a reader, if this doesn’t resonate with you specifically, I’m sorry. I also wanted anyone out there feeling this way to know that they’re not alone, that you are seen & heard & felt. You are deserving of success just as I am but sometimes the path ahead feels less like a road & more like an endlessly winding labyrinth. I am writing this not only to remind myself to have patience & persistence but to also remind you to do the same. They say good things come to those who wait, but I think that’s a bit of BS. I think good things come to those who claim them because they know they’re meant to happen. So claim your good things & don’t worry about the mess in between. Even Theseus relied on little more than a ball of thread to escape his own maze. Don’t get too overwhelmed by the massive walls around you or the things standing in your way, take it one inch of thread at a time.

Blog: Persevere

Hi lovelies, how has your day been?!

I hope you’re having yourself a wonderful August in spite of the garbage can fire that seems to be the world at the moment. There’s a lot of pain & heavy feelings going around & I know that so many of you are feeling them so deeply with every fiber of who you are. In all honesty I started this blog with a completely different intent in mind, I was going to write about something that has nothing to do with any of this but as I’m sat down to write, this is what has come to the surface.

I don’t want to get into the specifics of what is happening locally, nationally, globally, etc., not because I’m afraid to steer into the politics on it (you should know me better than that by now) but because I feel this blog needs more general appeal. It needs to be able to be stumbled upon years from now & spark something in the reader outside of the timeframe of its current intent. I’m not ascribing to this some grand purpose or importance because I know it won’t be that, this is just the thoughts of a late twenty-something with a heavy heart trying to inject the smallest amount of light back into the darkness in the hopes that it ignites something brighter in you that you can pass along.

The world is a dark place but there’s so much beauty to be had in it. I know at times that can be hard to see, we’re blinded by the headlines & the disasters we’re faced with, but I’ve found that humanity thrives best not in the moments of grand retribution & triumph but in the small moments that remind us what it is to be alive. It’s in the moments of soft realization where you are reminded of the things you love & why you love them. It’s in the daily mountains we climb, each looking far different from those of our peers but still often requiring immense effort to best. Humanity is found in the perseverance of life because how else do we define life if not the will to keep going even when everything is screaming at you to give up?

I know I don’t have all the answers, I don’t claim to & there is immeasurable beauty in that, in the mystery. We are amazing, luminous beings who often do such dark things to one another with little to no regard. We pick fights, we subjugate those we deem less than, we rage war, & rip apart our planet but I believe, in the end, the light will prevail. I know it’s hard. I know it is. I know there are days when it feels hopeless, where you feel lost in all the noise, or shoved aside, placed in the background. I know that feeling sucks. I’m not here to say the night is always darkest before the dawn, I’m here to urge you to look for those incredible moments of beauty. I’m also fully aware that this may come across as “fluff” or the drippings of my bleeding heart. I mean it, I do & I believe it myself.

I know things look bleak. I know that brighter tomorrow looks a million miles away & feels like it may never come at all, persevere. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither will the world or your world change over night, but brighter tomorrows are worth fighting for.

I’d be lying if I said that all of this had a clear end in mind. I just wrote what came up as it happened. These may end up just being the ramblings of the heavy hearted but I hope it ends up being more than that. I hope you get some substance out of it even if it’s the smallest of amounts. I don’t really know what to say to you other than I understand the pain that you feel, I understand the hopelessness, I understand the hurt & the abandonment you feel, I do but these are not the end all, be all. Keep pushing on & finding those moments of life that get peppered into the every day. Treat people with kindness & love unconditionally.

I love you immensely.

Happy Friday.

-C

Blog: Feeling Caught In The In-Between

I’m sitting here in my living room on a rainy mid-summer Friday afternoon in Nashville, TN, contemplating whether or not to go to an album release show that I was invited to this evening. Under normal circumstances the show would be a no brainer but when considering the rain (it’s outside) & the massive wave of COVID-19 Tennessee is currently facing I’m more than hesitant & that’s where I’ve been caught the last little while, in “the in-between.”

I’m going to once again apologize for my blog absence the last couple of weeks, I was spending time with family & was under the weather, which seems to be my new normal these days. It seems every time I leave Nashville I’m faced with the same questions; How is music going? When are you touring next? When does your next project come out? And these are questions I’d truly love to have answers to. It’s not from a lack of trying or a lack of interest or desire that my life feels held back from these things but it is more a feeling of responsibility.

As I’ve said in previous blogs, I took the pandemic very seriously, having a lot of family members in the medical fields & a lot of people I care for with auto-immune diseases, in addition to my own respiratory issues, I quarantined & masked up. As an artist, someone who is trying to make it in this business, that was hard. It was hard not only from the standpoint of having to halt any forward momentum I was having but also hard because I saw so many of my peers acting as if nothing had changed & going about business as usual, which I guess brings us to now.

I am vaccinated, I’ll happily proclaim that. I got injected as soon as I possibly could. I am also someone who has grown tired of this “anti-vax/anti-mask” movement & am 100% in favor of mask or vaccine mandates for businesses. I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines trying to be the good person who does what they can to help other people around me instead of whining about my freedoms but alas, those of us who are responsible & actually give a damn must sacrifice our own freedoms so that the selfish can continue to play & spread the disease & make things worse. I say all of this not so much to try to change the mind of anyone reading this who falls under that umbrella, because let’s face it, if the mountains of evidence won’t change your mind, how could I? I am more so saying all of this so you understand where those of us who are most vulnerable are coming from.

As I said, yes, I am vaccinated so I am protected, hopefully, from being hospitalized with COVID. That being said, I’d love to play shows, I’d love to go to events & be a person again, but I have this underlying fear or guilt that I’m then contributing to the problem. That I’m contributing to the filled ERs & the deaths, which in part, is true. I have so many friends, so many colleagues that are moving on, playing shows & what have you & I’m so jealous of them. I wish I could do that freely & not feel immediately guilty for doing so.

I’m caught in this purgatory of do I or don’t I where I know I’m vaccinated & know I can enforce that if I wanted at a show but I’m also the low guy on the totem pole, I don’t have the luxury of putting on a show & having it sell out in two minutes. So I feel stuck in inaction biding my time until the numbers start to dive again & I can psych myself up to booking shows again without the fear that they’ll just be cancelled again two weeks later.

It’s exhausting & it’s debilitating & makes you feel like crap but I feel a sense of responsibility that I wish half of the other people in this country felt as well. I’m tired of this pandemic, just as we all are, but the more days drag on, the more I’m tired of the excuses. We could be out of this, living a somewhat normal life if people would actually start giving a shit about their neighbors instead of just themselves. But I guess that’s the case with most things in this world.

Blog: A Little Belief Goes A Long Way

Howdy folks!

How’s your day been? I’m sorry I missed you all last week,I’ve been busy, busy, busy in the best possible way! I was wracking my brain a little bit this evening on what to blog about after having finished a day of blogging for someone else. Then I thought, well, there it is!

I recently started a new job outside music/songwriting/what have you. It’s freelance work writing, I’m turning a podcast centered around production into a blog. The job is whenever I have the free time to do so or whenever my boss needs a blog to post & pays a livable wage! Imagine that! And I can’t help but feel like I manifested it into my life.

For those of you who were unaware I had to leave my previous freelance job at the beginning of COVID & was thankfully on unemployment up until recently. Our lovely, terrible excuse for a Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee, put a moratorium on the extension for unemployment benefits that was put into effect by the federal government. The date of this expiration being July 4th. Happy Independence Day!… He put this moratorium in effect despite Tennessee having one of the highest unemployment rates in the country & the highest COVID infection rates. I knew I needed to find a job stat but there didn’t seem to be anything working in my favor. Was I applying for work? Yes, but I didn’t want something soul sucking & I wanted something that would pay me what I know I’m worth, what we’re all worth, which is something you can live off of.

So the weeks passed, every one getting closer & closer to the 4th of July but instead of being stressed about that fact I found myself in a state of unwavering peace. How? Well, I had this belief that something would come along, something that allowed me to set my own schedule, that paid well, that wouldn't leave me a husk of a human, that allowed me to be creative & express myself artistically. The weeks went by, spring turned to summer & summer faded into fall, not really, but still nothing. I still kept faith. I believed in it, I believed that the opportunity I had no idea was coming was actually coming my way.

Enter the week of the 4th. Still nothing. That is until a friend of mine reached out on that Wednesday & asked if I could send a sample of these very blogs that I’d been doing weekly for heaven knows how long now. I did & asked what it was for to which she explained that her boss, to which she works social media for, was looking for someone to convert their podcasts into a blog format. It was entirely freelance, allowed me to be creative, & it paid well. I immediately reached out to the host in question, simply introducing myself. We set a time, had a meeting, I sent over a sample of my work, & I was hired! I never once doubted the job was mine, not once. Never did it cross my mind that it could be given to someone else or that I wasn’t deserving of the position, I knew it was mine because, at the end of the day, it was!

Why can’t all things in life be like that? Why can’t I have that level of belief with everything in my life? Why can’t I believe opportunity will fall into my lap like it did just a few weeks ago, unwavering & confident? It definitely goes against our human conditioning to do so, there’s no doubt in that. Why must we as humans doubt everything we work towards or are worthy of?

A friend of mine, Amanda Francis, a self made millionaire, whom I mention often in this blog wrote a book called “Rich As F$ck” that all of you should read! In RAF she says that she believes money will come to her like she believes the cars on the highway won’t randomly sideswipe her. Laws of attraction & all that. You have to believe it like you believe water will come out the tap when you turn the faucet, that the sun will rise in the east & set in the west, that your plane won’t come randomly crashing to the ground for no reason. That’s not to say, give into delusions though.

You see attracting the things you want requires work. Another friend of mine, Stephen Lovegrove, likes to give his clients that he coaches the analogy of the cheesecake. It is as follows: Say you’re craving cheesecake, have to have it, no if &’s or buts about it. There are several ways you can get the cheesecake. You can go out & buy a slice or a whole cheesecake from the cheesecake factory or another restaurant, you can go to the store & buy a cheesecake, you can get the ingredients at the store & make your own, you can have the ingredients at home & make one that way, &/or you can order UberEats & have a slice of cheesecake delivered. You know what you can’t do? Wish it into existence. You have to put in some for of effort & follow it with the belief that the cheesecake is yours, that one way or another you’re getting that cheesecake come hell or high water.

I think this job opportunity was a test for me, it was affirmation of what faith & belief can achieve, it was proof that we all attract the things we believe to be true, whether that good things or bad things. So why stop here? Why stop at my freelance job?

My advice to you in this practice is to start small, be it monetary, opportunistic, or what have you. As I mentioned several times in my Maui blogs, I have super power that allows me to get a reservation at any restaurant or find a parking spot anywhere. How? Because I believe there’s no alternative option. There is no reality that exists for me in which I have to hunt for parking or miss a restaurant I want to try because they’re booked up or in this case, have the job I want. So give it a shot, start with parking spaces or restaurants & see how it works for you. You have to believe it though which does require a good deal of faith to pull off, but once you tap into that the options are limitless!

So give it a shot!

What’s the worst that could happen?

Blog: The Rolodex of Resentment

I had this week’s blog idea come to me in a dream, no literally it came to me in a dream & much like the owner of the music industry herself, Ms. Taylor Swift, I wrote it down for all of you to read today! Congrats! In said dream I was presented with a rolodex style presentation of a lot of my memories since I had moved to Nashville except for they all had one thing in common; they were all memories that I had come to resent for one reason or another. All of these resurgences were very vivid & I got to witness each of them one by one, over & over again until I understood the message I was being given at which point I awoke.

In the still early light of the then 5 AM morning I was overcome with a great sadness. It wasn’t a “poor, poor me” type of sadness but more of a sadness from the realization that I’d been carrying all of these memories around aimlessly for the last ten years I’ve worked in this industry. I had held on to so much resentment for so many different people because I felt lied to by them, cheated by them, forgotten by them & it had grown to the point where it was beginning to affect my self esteem & creativity.

The music industry is a hard business, it truly is. It’s all about who you know & who knows you; it is truly a business built on relationships. That’s why I think a lot of these memories had dug their claws so deeply into my psyche & had such an influence on me over the years. I’d had people of influence promise to pass along projects or give things a listen just to be left in the dark. I’ve had friends go on to great success that then turn “too good for you” & leave you in the tracks before getting on a stage or getting a write up in a magazine all about how we have to “help the next person in line.” I’ve had people I looked up to, who I saw as mentors disappear out of the blue, or friends in industry positions more willing to help others than those they call their close friends & I’m certain I’ve done this unintentionally to people as well.

What’s my point in all of this? Why dedicate a whole blog to a dream & a realization? Because resentment & the emotions associated with it are heavy. Jealousy & envy are heavy, bitterness is heavy, grudges & ill will are heavy & I struggle with them. I struggle with leaving behind the weight of envy in the face of other people’s success, especially those I’m close to & if I’m being honest, I hate that. I want to be so openly & honestly proud of my friends, because they work so damn hard & are so talented & worthy of accolades & success in their own right but I always have the shadow of “why not me” lurking.

I’m trying to get over these things, I really am. I’m trying to let the past go. I’m trying to meet the success of my friends with genuine, unbothered happiness for them because they deserve that. I think this dream was alluding to all the work I thought I’d done & telling me “oh, no, no, you still have so far to go!”

I hadn’t realized I was carrying around all of this unpacked baggage, that I was letting the past or the perceived views of others no longer directly in my life have such an influence on my life, but it had. I’d gotten to the point where I started to believe crazy things about myself. I started to believe that I must not be a good artist if not even my friends are willing to help me, I began to believe that I was a bad songwriter or a bad singer & you know what, those things manifested themselves physically. I developed vocal chord dysfunction, I completely forgot how to write songs because I put way too much pressure on each thing I wrote being a masterpiece & I began to fall into the cracks of the music industry after I’d worked so hard & for so long to hoist myself up.

I know now these are lies that I told myself over the years. I am worthy of success, I am worthy of a thriving career in this business. I am talented both as a performer & as a writer. I am marketable as a brand, I am desirable as an artist. Dark, low vibration emotions & parasites do wonders on the body & mind, terrible wonders, but impressive none the less & I’m done letting them have an influence on me.

I want to leave this one final line for any friends of mine that may happen to read this. I am so, so incredibly proud of each of you & all of the things you’ve accomplished in your lives. I am overjoyed to see you soar & hope you know I will always be there to support you. If I have ever done any of the above listed things to you, please reach out to me & let me know.

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Resuming The Game

I, much like many of us were, was pretty heavily quarantined for the majority of COVID. I didn’t leave my house unless it was necessary & when I did I wore a mask everywhere I went, into every place I went, & did my best to maintain social distance along the way. Responsible, or at least what I tried to be. However, recently, we as a society, in the US especially, have started reopening our doors, doing things again, having events again, I know for some of you that never stopped (eye roll at that) but for those of us who were good, considerate humans, the transition has been jarring to say the least.

I went to three separate events over the last week of my life, all of them were music biz, network-y things that I had to be a person at. I had to put on “real” clothes, show up, & act like I belonged there, & not just sit on my couch in PJs. And you know what, it was hard. Truly.

I’m an introvert at heart, I love my people but there comes a point where I desperately need to be alone so that I can recharge my social battery. So after almost a year without use you’d think my social battery would be primed & ready to go, yeah? *Cue Buzzer. WRONG! NO, I wasn’t at all & I’m finding myself drained before I even walk in the door, not a good thing. On top of that, I’ve forgotten several huge aspects of networking in the music industry; how to dress fashionably, how to behave like an artist, & how the hell to talk to people.

I was never the most converse person, but I at the very least could do my best to turn on my Aries charm on & hold conversation with someone. No dice. I feel like I’ve completely forgot how conversations work, I feel like I’m talking like a middle schooler talking to their crush in the halls between third & fourth period. I’m tripping all over myself, failing to remember words, completely talking the conversation into a dead end or being unable to engage all together. It’s sooooooo fun.

On top of all of that I came home every night I went out over the last week completely & utterly drained. I was exhausted. I’m not sure if it was physical/mental or anything of that variety but it was definitely social. Normally I can bounce back pretty easily, spend the rest of my evening collecting my thoughts & do it all again the next day, but this time the next day I felt worse. Sapped. Devoid of any social energy what. so. ever.

So what’s my point? Why devote a whole blog to this? Is it just so I can get on here & bitch about being on the “other side” of COVID or having a social life? No. My point in all of this is that I know a lot of you are feeling the same exact way. A lot of you are finding yourself unable to be social for long periods of time because, let’s face it, a lot of us haven’t had to be for the last year. I was discussing this with a friend last night & he compared it to being in the middle of a game & having it paused just for the game to resume without any warning while you’re sitting on the bench. You have to gather as much as you can as quickly as you can & hope you’re still warmed up enough to perform the same way you were when the game was stopped initially. Or at least that’s what it feels like the expectation is.

I know a lot of us were ready for that, ready to hit the ground running & get back into life, believe me, I was too, but I’m not anywhere near warmed up. There was no transition back into the game, no stretching, no drills, no returning to where the game left off before the madness resumed. So it’s no wonder you feel you’re struggling to catch your footing. The game has resumed while you were hydrating on the bench.

Please have patience with yourself. If we’re friends, acquaintances, whatever, have patience with me. Socializing wears me and so many other introverts down, we weren’t ready to get right back in coach. The ease into it that a lot of us needed has been completely overshadowed & we’re already burning out. Remind yourself that it’s okay to say no to events, to say no to your friends & family because you matter too & your mental health, energetic health, etc. matters too.

I hope you all have a safe Fourth of July weekend! And I’ll see you all back here next week!

-C

Blog: Do We Still Need Pride Month?

How is it already the end of June?! How has 2021 flown by so quickly?!

At the beginning of the month I knew I wanted to, at the very least, write something about Pride Month, seeing how June is Pride Month. So, I guess, why not make it the last blog of the month? I was wracking my brain over & over searching for what I wanted to write about this year as I usually do some form of Pride post in the month of June. Did I mention it’s the month of June & it’s also Pride Month? Sorry haha, just feel like I’ve said that a lot in my first couple lines of this blog. Anywho, back to it. I was struck by this idea for a blog post when I came across the comments section of the CMT Pride Playlist on the godless wasteland we all know as Facebook along with a slurry of hateful individual posing the question “why do they still need a Pride Month?” Their rationale being that “they got their right to legally wed” along with, of course, “there’s no straight pride month.” Vom. The post is hyperlinked if you’d like to go read the rest of these truly distasteful humans’ comments or if you just want to listen to the playlist itself. This blatant ignorance got me thinking though, do we still need an LGBTQ+ Pride Month? I mean it’s not like, though it should be more so, it shines a light on LGBTQIA+ history? So, should pride month still exist as a form of visibility for members of the alphabet mafia, after all, marriage equality is the law of the land. But then after the smallest fraction of a nanosecond I immediately landed on the answer being “of course we do.”

People who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community are still, in terms of rights & opportunity, considered second class citizens in this country we call the United States. That’s not to even mention the atrocities they face around the world by simply being who they are or loving who they love. They are disproportionately discriminated against, attacked, brutalized, rejected, marginalized, & forced to the sidelines of society when compared to their CIS gendered, heterosexual peers; especially when it comes to transgender people of color. I think all too often, at least outside of the community, the perception is that the battle is over, the fight has been won but I’d argue it’s just getting started.

Let’s take Arizona for example. In 1991 the state made it illegal for any teacher to promote LGBTQ+ “propaganda.” That meant anything from same sex education, to expressions of gender identity, to even the acknowledgement of certain historical figures being a member of the community. This wasn’t even the full extent of the law though. Say a student was struggling with their identity in any form other than heteronormativity. If they were to go to one of their teachers & ask for advice or assistance & the teacher offered any form of advice other than “talk to your parents” or anyone other than me & they were caught doing so they would be fined upwards of $5,000 dollars & have their teaching license called into question just for trying to be helpful or offer mentorship to a struggling student. Fortunately, that law has since been eradicated though that hasn’t stopped Arizona law makers from trying to implement similar laws in its place. As recent as April of this year a motion was put into effect to try & make it illegal for any school to teach about anything the government deemed even remotely LGBTQ+. This included historical figures, events, mention anything about gender expression or sexuality outside the CIS/Hetero. It also, unsurprisingly, included lessons about the HIV/AIDs epidemic unless all students involved had signed consent from their parent or guardian. (link) Sounds just like a diet version of the previous law.

I’m sure some of you are going to make the argument in favor of that policy since “students should be learning at school, not exploring their identity” but adolescence is the time in most of our lives in which we call our identities into question. The “who am I” of it all becomes a constant part of middle & high school life & if you don’t have a way to investigate that or ask even the most innocent of questions without feeling like who you are is unworthy of societal recognition then that can lead down some dark hallways.

Let’s talk stats:

90% of LGBTQ+ students reported hearing anti-LGBTQ+ slurs on a daily basis in their schools. Most saying they average hearing around 23 a day.

Around 28% of all LGBTQ+ identifying students end up dropping out of school due to harassment, not only from their peers.

About a quarter of LGB youth report having been physically assaulted because of their sexuality, a higher average of around half of any trans students say the same.

An astonishing 3/4ths of trans students reported having been sexually harassed simply because of their gender identity.

LGBTQ+ youth are twice as likely to abuse drugs or alcohol as compared to their CIS/Het peers.

Anywhere from 20-40% of queer youth have reported homelessness at one time or another though it is thought that number may be much higher.

(link)

Let’s look outside of schools shall we?

We all remember the trans military ban of 2017 right? Sounds like equality winning out to me. What about in 2019 when the previous administration made an attempt that allowed insurances to legally deny an individual coverage simply based on gender expression. In addition to being a massive blow to the transgender & non-binary folks living in this country, it also would have allowed doctors to deny care to anyone with an LGBTQ+ identity. (link) I angry wrote an entire blog post about this that I ended up never posting, I can still see it sitting in my drafts out of the corner of my eye as I write this. The crazy thing is, these two movements barely scratch the surface of the damage the previous administration did or attempted to do to the queer community at large! Here’s a full list if you’d like…(link) Fortunately a lot of these measures have been reversed by the current administration, though not all of them.

Let’s talk more stats:

LGBTQ+ suicides account for 30% of all suicide deaths.

Greater than 50% of those identifying as transgender say they have at one time or another attempted suicide.

1/5th of all LGBTQ+ individuals report having experienced hiring discrimination with people of color reporting a higher number of 2/5ths.

Around 46% of all LGBTQ+ members aren’t out to their coworkers work mostly in fear of discrimination in one way or another from their peers as well as higher ups.

(link)

But it can’t all be bad can it? Well luckily, no! According to a recent survey, Gen-Z is the queerest generation we’ve ever seen, at least from an honest statistical standpoint. According to a 2021 Gallup poll roughly 15% of all Gen-Z-ers polled identified as LGBTQ+ in one way or another, sometimes multiple! It seems the more recent we go generationally, the more people are willing to express their true selves openly & authentically with the Millennial statistic being about 1 in 10. (link) Another beautiful thing happening is that more & more fortune 500 companies are beginning to cater to the needs of their queer staff with around 91% actively making positive changes to their discrimination policies in regards to LGBTQ+ matters, another 53% offering benefits for civil unions, & 65% offering transgender inclusive healthcare plans, and these numbers are rapidly climbing!

So I ask you. Do we still need Pride Month? Do you think the course has been corrected enough to warrant a stall in the fight for equal rights or do you think, like me, that there is still a long, long way to go. I’d like to issue you a small challenge. I’d like you to be a little bit of introspection here & look at how you treat you LGBTQIA+ peers. Is it the same as how you treat your CIS gendered or heterosexual friends? If not, what can you change? Are you as an employer doing what you need to do to be inclusive? Are you as a parent, as a friend, as a sibling doing enough? I want you to look at yourself honestly & answer that question. Are you electing individuals who enact policies that harm marginalized communities such as these? Are you treating all of your neighbors with the love, respect, & decency they deserve or are you stabbing them in the back behind closed doors, from the other side of a keyboard, or in the polling station? I seriously want you to ask yourself these things, to get your ego out of the way, to got the “what about me” out of the way & open your eyes to what is actually happening in the world around you. I didn’t even make a dent in the hindrances of freedom for members of the queer community here, mostly because I wanted to focus on the US, where it is currently Pride Month. I’d advise you to do your own research, to go into these comment sections & see for yourself because if you willingly turn a blind eye to the suffering of others how is that coming from a place of love?

I’ll leave you with one last bit, brought to you by the weapon most used against those in the LGBTQ+ community:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you do unto the least of those among you, you have done unto me.”

— Mark 25: 40

Happy Pride Everyone! Be proud of who you are & the path that led you here! Keep fighting the good fight & know that love is always the answer.

-C

Travel Blog: Maui-Part Three-Food For Thought

Previously On

…

PART ONE

PART TWO

Now, back to our regularly scheduled content!

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SECTION TWO: MAUI CONTINUED

DAY FIVE

In case you were unaware, Maui is home to a very popular local restaurant, Mama’s Fish House, which is located on the north shore in Paia. I have very fond memories of going to Mama’s as a twelve year old lad & was understandably invested in going back this trip. However, COVID regulations being what they are in the state of Hawai’i at that moment, Mama’s wasn’t taking any walk-ins & their reservation list was booked out until August. I had called a few days prior to Sunday to see if there were any random cancellations but had, until that point, no luck. I was advised by the receptionist to try & call or “walk-in’ right as the restaurant opened at 11 for their lunch seating.

Sunday rolls around, Evan & I pack up the car with all the things we figured we’d need throughout our day & we headed up Paia. We arrived at the gate of Mama’s around 10:40 & pulled into a spot. Within a few minutes a line of cars had already began to form behind us. I made the call a few minutes before 11 to see if by any miraculous chance something had opened up & BAM!!! SUPERPOWER STRIKES AGAIN!!!! They had a table available at 11:20. Feeling rather hungover from the previous evening & needing to burn some time, we went back down the street to Choice Health Bar where I grabbed a Tropical Beets pressed juice & a Noni shot, a local ‘cure all” that I will definitely agree with them, is an acquired taste.

Juiced up & nearing the time of our newly minted reservation we headed back to Mama’s, immediately found a parking spot up front (superpower), & were shown down to the lower host stand. After around five minutes staring at the collection of autographed photos they have by the restaurants entrance we were shown to our table.

The vibe of the fish house was exactly as I remember it; deep Koa accents with open breezeways set nestled in the side of a hill, bay front, just off a grove of palm trees. We sat, order a little bit of the hair of the dog, & enjoyed the warm sea breeze sweeping through the venue.

At the recommendation of the waitress we ordered the Macadamia Nut Crab Cakes & the Toko (Hawaiian Octopus) for an appetizer. The crab cakes were up there as some of the best I’ve ever had, as was the octopus! For our main course we split the Mama’s Curry & their daily special of Mahi Mahi. We’d had three separate people in the restaurant rave about the curry & boy, were they right! The fish was so fresh & so perfectly prepared, it practically melted in your mouth. Dessert was espresso & a Polynesian Black Pearl, Mama’s signature dessert. The black pearl is a Passionfruit Mousse topped with Chocolate Ganache with a Cookie Shell & Passionfruit Drizzle! I’d had it before & I had never forgotten just how incredible it is!

We wrapped up at Mama’s around 12:30/1 & were absolutely stuffed, the problem with that being that we had another dinner reservation at Merriman’s at 4:30. While doing my initial restaurant research for Maui I’d stumbled upon Merriman’s & had managed to snag their very last reservation for the foreseeable future. Say it with me folks, superpower. So hoping to burn through a few calories, aid the digestion process, & having just made it through the 24 hours elevation limit following my dives, we went up to ‘Iao Valley to hike!

We were under the impression ‘Iao was a longer hike than it was but it was stunning nevertheless. The drive up to ‘Iao was very reminiscent of the Road to Hana in the sense that you go from one ecological biome to another in almost the blink of an eye. You go from Hawaiian hill country to lush rainforest. It was raining up in ‘Iao but we didn’t mind. In all honesty we were pretty hot & sweating from sitting down at Mama’s. We basically did the hike in 15 minutes then spent the next 45-ish just wandering around the park, going down to the river, contemplating swimming, trailblazing, etc.

Having a little extra time between our hike our & early dinner we decided to go back & change as we’d gotten a little muddier than we’d initially anticipated. We cleaned off & got back in nicer clothes before we climbed back into the car & went up Lahaina way.

Dinner at Merriman’s was set right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the north shore to the backdrop of a wedding happening just below us. It was served grand prix style so we got to pick from a few options in each category; appetizer, entree, dessert (naturally). Evan & I once again split everything we ordered getting Ahi Poke & once again, Octopus. Evan favored Merriman’s octopus, I think I favored the Mama’s one, both were exceptional though. Our entrees were Shrimp & Scallops as well as a Macadamia Nut encrusted Mahi Mahi. Dessert was Passionfruit Pot De Creme & a Flourless Chocolate Cake. I wish we’d gone into dinner a little more hungry but I don’t think either of us regret getting to do both restaurants even if they were bumped a little close time wise to one another.

We went back to Kihei & ended up once again sat at the bar at Nalu’s before calling it an early evening. I had a dive that departed from Lahaina at 6:45 AM the next day & we were going to need to leave our condo around 5:45/6 to get there.

END DAY FIVE

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DAY SIX

As I stated above, Monday started with an early morning. We left the VRBO at between 5:45/6 AM & went back up the coast to Lahaina. My check-in at Lahaina Divers was at 6:45 at their shop. I checked-in, grabbed a wetsuit, collected the rest of my gear & walked through old town Lahaina from the shop to the harbor. Aboard the ship I was shown to my BCD & tanks for the dive before we did one last check & headed off to Lanai. Evan went on his way to explore Lahaina, landing somewhere with a chocolate croissant on a beach.

The dive Monday was to the Cathedrals of Lanai, a series of lava tubes off the southern coast of the island of Lanai. Our first dive spot was Cathedral One, a lava tube with a large stone in the middle they refer to as “the alter.” I was paired with a dude from Colorado but the total population of our dive group was 8-10 people. I think I decided at this early point in my dive experience that it might just be worth it to pay the extra bit of cash to have a private dive guide or at least to get a smaller dive group. The amount of times I got kicked in the face, run into, etc was alarmingly high. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun, I had a blast, truly. It was just a lesson learned at 40 feet below the surface.

At the first cathedral we swam upon a series of rare crabs, several sharks lounging in a cave, & a massive porcupine puffer, not to mention the breathtaking, pun intended, cathedral itself. We exhausted our tanks, returned to the boat, & went off to our second dive location.

Our second tank of the trip was reserved for Sergeant Major, a dive they can only do when the current conditions are right. The site is named as such due to the large quantities of Sergeant Majors, a striped yellow & grey damselfish, that school there. The main draw to Sergeant Major’s lava fingers however is the presence of the Javanese Eel. A Javanese Eel, otherwise known as the Giant Moray, is just that. Giant. They can reach up to three meters in length & weigh up to sixty-six pounds. Did we find the eel? We sure did. Was it magnificent? It definitely was!

At Sergeant Major I felt the pressure of the close quarters especially when it came to getting the whole group to see the fauna of interest. In one such occasion I did my best to get out of the way of a less than observant fellow diver & ended up with a three inch gash across my thigh from a run in with a stony coral.

I don’t mean to sound down trodden on the dive, it was a blast & truly an amazing experience. I honestly can’t wait to dive the cathedrals again & my dive guide was awesome! I’ll just definitely be doing so in a smaller group.

After our dive was finished we all boarded the boat & headed back to Lahaina. Evan met me at the dive shop where I picked up a t-shirt & a sticker then we headed down the coast towards Leoda’s to get a post dive pie or two.

At Leoda’s we got one of their Famous Banana Cream Pies & a Pineapple Macadamia Nut Pie. As much as a banana cream pie fan as I am, I think the pineapple one was my favorite! In addition to the pies we went to the small local convenience shop next door & grabbed a few pieces of Spam Musabi.

Once we’d returned to Kihei I went down for a nap after feeling sapped from the morning. Pretty sure we returned to Nalu’s yet again that night. We’d made friends with the bartender/manager, Sue, & were going there to hang out with her & exchange stories.

END DAY SIX

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DAY SEVEN

Our last day in Maui.

Our flight out wasn’t until around midnight & I’d asked our lovely VRBO host for an extension on our checkout time since we had nowhere to go until then. She graciously gave us the entirety of the day!

We slept in a tad as we knew the day & night ahead of us was going to be a long one, especially with that red eye flight out. After waking up a bit later than usual we set out to grab one last snorkel before we had to say goodbye to Hawai’i. We ventured down to Wailea to Makena Landing & got to snorkeling amongst the divers. Was I fairly jealous of the fact they could stay down while I had to come up for air constantly, yes, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless even seeing two separate turtles & almost running into one!

After our morning swim we headed back to start cleaning the apartment we’d called home for the past week. Since our host had extended our time for free we decided to make it as easy as possible on her & cleaned majority of the place ourself, including laundry. Once we were satisfied, we packed our stuff into the car & headed off to get one last shave ice from Ululani’s.

I got the same flavor as before, the guava, mango, passionfruit mix with macadamia nut ice cream but instead of a second POG I got a Thai Tea with Sweetened Condensed Milk on it! Shaved ice in hand we went down the road to return Evan’s snorkel gear & bid the Maui Dive team one last fond farewell.

We’d been invited by Sue to come sit at Nalu’s with our bags until it was time to catch the shuttle from the rental service to the airport. So that’s exactly what we did! I wasn’t mad about that decision at all, especially since I wanted to grab one last bowl of poke before we left. Sat at the bar of Nalu’s we met a couple from Fort Collins who were on the last leg of their trip too. We sat exchanging drinks & stories until I received an urgent call from the shuttle service saying they needed us to get on the earlier shuttle to the airport. I honestly didn’t know it was an option but the driver disclosed that we could also just drop the car at the parking lot across from the terminal & they would come pick it up in the morning. We opted for that option & sat at the bar for another hour or so.

After many a hug & sad goodbye we drove to the airport dropping the car exactly where the rental company had asked. The airport looked like a ghost town, especially compared to the week before. We breezed through the livestock/produce check, check-in, & security & made it to our gate with an hour to spare.

END DAY SEVEN

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END SECTION TWO: MAUI

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SECTION THREE: KANSAS TO NASHVILLE

We’d received a comp upgrade on our seats & were each put in the exit row. I guess no one else thought to try & do the same because the exit row, on both sides, was completely empty. So, we took advantage of that! I took the left side of the plane, Evan the right, & we had our very own economy class lay flat beds!

Getting surprisingly more rest than expected & landing in Phoenix, we got to our gate & took an additional nap followed by another nap on the flight from Phoenix to Kansas City. We picked up dinner on the way back to my parents & met my sister & her family there for dinner.

The next morning, before heading back to Nashville we met my sister & niece at Snooze AM Eatery for breakfast before swinging back by my parents, picking up the dogs, & heading back home to Nashville.

END SECTION THREE

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END BLOG

EPILOGUE

I hope you enjoyed my stories, I hope I was able to capture even the slightest bit of majesty & magic that Maui has to offer & transport you there for even the briefest moment in time. Maui is an other worldly place full of immense beauty, personality, love, & culture. It is a place all its own & if you let it, it’ll readily make you feel welcomed & right at home. Much like any place I travel I have found that the people are truly what makes them special. This world is a colorful tapestry of life experience, trials & tribulations, & all of us are searching for the same things, identity & home.

Maui was already a special place in my heart but now it has cemented itself there. I’ve found myself over the last few weeks having a very hard time leaving it behind not to mention how much its sabotaged my sleep schedule. I urge anyone to find a way to Hawai’i but if you go, do so with respect. These islands are someone else’s lands, someone else’s home, someone else’s traditions & they are worth celebrating. Treat the land with respect, treat the people with respect, & do your best to leave it as you found it for those who come after. Yes, Hawai’i is beaches & ocean but it is so, so, so much more than that. It is a thriving culture & community that deserved to be preserved & passed down from generation to generation. Mahalo Maui for an unforgettable week. I’m grateful for the lessons you taught me, the friends I made, & the amazing opportunities you laid in my path. I can’t wait to see you again & I truly hope it is sooner rather than later.

-C