Update for Everyone VIII: He who laughs have the last laugh

[Crumpets]

I'm in London right now, and even though I've been here several times before, this is my first time being here alone. My parents and I have pretty different travel philosophies, so for the first time I've finally been able to just get lost and wander for hours on end in a city that's already one of my favorite in the world. I've averaged over 14 miles of walking per day for the last 4 days. I ended up stumbling upon Camden Town, which is an area I had never been to and knew nothing about. That's a really amazing place that really doesn't get its deserved accolades. I would seriously consider moving here if I had any job prospects and the visa process weren't sure to be a nightmare. To any Londoners on Atlas, your city has a lot to be proud of, even in 2021.

[Crumpets]

I'm writing a novel. No one will ever read it, but it's fun for me

Congratulations! What's it about?

I wrote one the last two years currently under review by family and friends. I'll definitely try the find a publisher or, if not successful, do it myself online. I already started another one.

It's a Gaimanesque urban fantasy involving a werewolf working as a civil servant caught up in a mystery. It's quite fluid, and just came to me as I wrote it.

I once had a spur of the moment story idea centered on a Communist Party official in, say, Cold War-era Hungary who becomes a vampire. A stoic, apolitical police investigator, tasked with looking into a recent string of murders involving mysterious bite marks on the victims' necks, is forced to team up with an underground Catholic priest. It has yet to see itself past the phase of me, unasked for, telling others about it.

I would 100% buy and read that.

[Crumpets]

I just got an invitation to interview for one of my really long-shot job applications. And while I still think it's very unlikely it'll go anywhere, just the fact that I got noticed by a team of researchers I've followed for about four years has me totally manic to prepare for it.

Catching a flight to Bozeman, MT to hang out with my brother before my flight to Yerevan two Sundays from now. I was also hoping to squeeze-in a trip to the Upper Peninsula, but such is life. It's really gonna hurt when my savings run out.

There should be a direct Bozeman-to-Yerevan flight. It would pull in some really cool people even if it was only a few dozen per year.

[Crumpets]

Just accepted a job offer, so it looks like I'm going to be moving back to DC next month! Last time I lived there was some of the happiest I've been in my life, and I ended up moving out summer 2020. So in a lot of ways, this feels like the final end of my own personal "greater 2020 dispair" chapter of my life.

[Crumpets]

Tirana is absurdly beautiful. A must for a revisit. I hate to accord this status to a non-Slavic capital. Hopefully Sarajevo or Zagreb can unseat it.

Love it or hate it, Albania is certainly unique. I was talking to a friend of mine last night from New York who says she never wants to visit Albania because old Albanian women in the Bronx keep thinking she's a witch and either try to get her to put a curse on someone or tell their sons not to associate with her. I kind of want to do a compare/contrast trip to Albania and Chechnya to try to learn their whole family/clan culture.

[Crumpets]

Have my first ever Hinge date (or "app match" date of any kind) on Saturday. Wish me luck, and if she turns out to be a serial killer, it's been nice posting with you all!

[Crumpets]

Have my first ever Hinge date (or "app match" date of any kind) on Saturday. Wish me luck, and if she turns out to be a serial killer, it's been nice posting with you all!

Update: This went staggeringly well for a first-ever app-dating date. We went to a crepe place for lunch and then for a walk through Rock Creek Park. It was a little awkward starting out (what first date isn't?), but once we got a rhythm to our conversation, we really hit it off, and it's clear we have really, really similar interests. Like, she was telling me - the person who got my master's in Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asian Security Studies and wrote my dissertation on antiquities smuggling - stuff that I didn't know about Soviet antiquities policy that she learned doing research in Uzbekistan. Suffice to say, it was a really good day, and we've already agreed to meet up again.

[Crumpets]

I was talking with the parents of a friend of mine that I met in elementary school who in turn are friends with the parents of a girl who mildly bullied me around 4th-5th grade. (She's now a Trump supporter living in Florida, apparently.) Despite never having talked with her or any member of her family in at least 15 years, they have apparently heard through this very tenuous connection what I do for a living, and are convinced that I am actually secretly a spy working for the CIA. And knowing how Trump types feel about the "deep state" CIA and all the paranoia associated with it, I have to say I kind of feel like I'm getting the last laugh on this one.

[Crumpets]

Went on a lovely date today, have date #2 scheduled for the 20th. Definitely the high-water mark for social/romantic optimism since ~March.

[Crumpets]

I don't have much interest in the "developed world". Anything they have, the United States likely has better to see besides history. I am more of a nature tourist anyway.

Your map does not say nature tourist at all, nor does it have any coherent logic other than liking Latin America.

The only good thing there is to see in the US is nature. Anything built by humans in the US is terrible.

More like Latin Americans.

[Crumpets]

Just saw Oppenheimer. It was so good it resulted in getting my first kiss with the girl I've been seeing.

[Crumpets]

Woke up today in a Trump precinct in a Trump county in a Trump state, had dinner at a different Trump precinct in a different Trump county in a different Trump state, and am going to sleep in a third Trump precinct in a third Trump county in a third Trump state. Ironically, the only reference I've seen to Trump all day was someone who had scratched "F*** Trump" on the door to a bathroom stall in a rural gas station.

[Crumpets]

Pro tip if you're ever on a date with someone whose first language isn't English and who didn't grow up in the Anglosphere: the "why is 6 afraid of 7?" joke absolutely kills.