3 Days in Jacksonville

Hello wonderful people.

I am in the back of an airport taxi on the way back to Manhattan from the Newark airport. I spent the last three days in Jacksonville, Florida. I think it’s funny and endearing how much men love Jack Kerouac. I haven’t read any Kerouac, but he was hot, right? I think I get the whole writing about travel thing. It feels like documenting something and sharing it in a way that has real detail and life around it. Like building a map out of words in a way that is always a little bit frenetic.

I left for Jacksonville on Thursday. I flew united and took a 6 am flight, so I took a 3 am revel and forgot something so had to run to the deli at 3 am. Saw some new unhoused neighbors. I think someone hissed at me or maybe blew a kiss from their car. I walked quickly, in my glasses that I have had since 15 and got dried hairspray on during my pageant days that I can’t get off so I couldn’t really see anything very well. I couldn’t reach what I needed so that man at the register handed me one of those claw things and I couldn’t grab it it with that either and the whole thing felt very comical until he came around and just got it for me.

Then to the car, to the airport. The day before I travel I can never sleep. I don’t sleep a lot as it is, but it’s as if I’m always determined to be as exhausted as possible on a plane. I slept a wink and then said yes to coffee when the cart came by even though I knew I probably shouldn’tve and I spent the rest of the flight editing the FUCK out of the Jon Haidt interview we’ve been working on.

Then I got to the airport and was picked up by a beautiful, kind Spanish man in a deliciously beat up car. We met last month on a boat.

THURSDAY

That night, there was a hurricane. I’d seen the warning on my app and took note of it, but convinced myself if I didn’t think about it it would go away. Well, I was in Florida now and it did not go away.

We went to a Mexican restaurant that reminded me of dinners with my parents at On the Border growing up. Had jalapeno margaritas and chips and tacos, as the crowded restaurant teemed and buzzed with people wanting to get wasted in honor (in spite?) of the hurricane.

Then we went to a bar called Lynch’s. We were here momentarily, as they were closing for the hurricane. I had one gin and tonic. Probably well, but I didn’t ask. We left here and got as close to the beach, on foot, as the wind would let us.

Then, we went to Beach Bowl. I’m terrible at bowling. I love the right gutter and it loves me back, but I had one tequila shot, no beer even though it was cute and colored because I haven’t had a sip of beer since I was eighteen years old. The night ended after this.

FRIDAY

On Friday, we woke up, got coffee at a local coffee shop. I walked in in little shorts and a bikini top and felt simultaneously at home and out of place. Jacksonville, in total felt very familiar to me. Like Wichita, Kansas with a beach. But as I’m reminded each time I return home, I’m the one who has changed. For the better, I think, I hope. A little more me, a little bolder, but different for sure. I got an Americano and then we stopped by a smoothie place and went to the beach. Laid here for a good bit. Got in the water for a moment, before going back to read more of Ada by Nabokov. My third print edition is well lived-in now. I write in all my books. Now it has sand as well. My current book mark is the wrist band from the Axel Arigato NYFW event where I saw so many internet people and Zach Bia. I remind you that I saw Zach during that weird dinner at Cipriani. I’d like to think that we’re spooky action at a distancing. I like to think this because the thought makes me laugh.

We left the beach and went to the pool. I sent emails in the car and worked on my to do list. Floated in the pool for a few minutes. So peaceful I could fall alseep and almost did. That evening, we got a drink at Local until a table opened up at Mezza Luna.

MEZZA LUNA

The host was reservation cold “You can put your name down on the waitlist.” Sometimes I think people get off on that. That’s why I could never be a host, or a bouncer. All you have to do is tell me that it’s your birthday, or your mother's, or that you woke up and saw the sunrise, and I’m letting you in.

We sat on the patio, which was wonderful because the AC was blasting and all I had to wear (I’d packed terribly) was a vintage Victoria’s Secret slip. We got olives and marcona almonds and he handled the wine, and we killed a bottle of it, and it was red and wonderful. He got white truffle pizza, I got scallops. I love scallops. Went through a real phase with them when I was 20 because I didn’t know what they were until I was twenty. Having them took me back to this brand deal I did with a mall in New Jersey that had a nice restaurant in the back, but no one knew about it because it was in a mall. Scallops feel like luxury. The way they give to your teeth with a little resistance if they’re seared nicely. The risotto had corn. I don’t love risotto, it’s a bit heavy for my taste (or read: I’m a retired ballerina and beauty queen who is still a little bit afraid of butter), but the corn was a nice add and a good surprise.

SATURDAY

I am writing this Sunday and I am good-hungover (like wake up, read, write, run hungover), which is the hallmark of a good night before. Woke up. Coffee. Gym. Hot Literati stuff. Around 2 or 3 we went to watch football and drink. America.

SPORTS BAR

I’m very bad at watching sports on the television. I never know where to look and then I sort of forget that I’m watching anything and I just spiral into my own mind. I got a Tanqueray and tonic. I love a dry gin. I know Hendricks is smoother, but I don’t always want my gin to be smooth. Ate fried calamari and banana peppers, as I was passed a Tequila shot. Football. I put a few ebay bids on some Prada and Valentino items. Remind me to add ebay and therealreal to my unpluq tag.

More shots. This time I asked for gin.

“A gin shot?”

Yes.

SANDBAR

Then, we all went to this gorgeous bar in a hotel. Off the elevator, thrown over a muscular shoulder, all tipsy giggles and fun. I got a vesper. It was clean, but I think I would have liked it a little more with lillet or maybe some vermouth and I’m still coming off of the one at Gage and Tollner which was disgustingly good. So good. But the view was everything. Pink clouds. Warm air. Warm, clean air.

LYNCH’S

At this point, the night started to truly become night, and the transition between spaces started to blur together. It has been a long time since I’ve taken shots of any sort. Actually, I did for my publicist’s birthday last weekend, but I feel like an apartment shot doesn’t count. Less ceremony. Lynch’s was full now compared to the night of the Hurricane. We drank. We played darts. I am equally as good at darts as I am bowling. I had eaten very little and was going nonverbal, but someone ordered food and the kind, beautiful man put a little chicken tender in my mouth and a chicken leg in my hand.

I love being fed by hand like that.

A band started playing. We all began to dance.

LAST BAR

After Lynch’s, the night truly because transient and we ended at one more place that felt like a place I’d been with my brother. I just remember flashing lights, men standing alone at the bar, something, something Drake, House music, and suddenly we were in an car back. He commandeered the aux, “Take it off…. slow… steady…” This made me miss Griffin. And my friend Hannah, who had invited me to something in New York this weekend saying, “Come dance all night.”

I love that no matter where you are in the world, people find a way to party. I plugged my phone in, gathering my things that night for a flight. My phone warned me that there was water in the charging port and that if I plugged it in it may not work. I didn’t listen and woke up with little battery.

AIRPORT

I got to the airport, still hungover. Texted my family that I loved them and turned off my phone. I got an Americano and a kind bar and some taffy for my publicist and some gummies for my best friend and my mother. Lovergirl fall is going to Jacksonville to see a beautiful man you met on a boat and getting gifts for the people you love so that they know that you love them.

REFLECTIONS/COMING HOME

I get the solo travel thing now, as I was telling a friend in DC last weekend who travels often and often alone. And turning off my phone really cemented the “why” for me. Adapting to new places is nice. You get to be a wanderer in a strange new places, stripping yourself of identity or perhaps playing with how much of your identity is shaped by the place you are at that point in time. You can be anyone. You can go anywhere. And it’s better to lose the digital identity as well, to turn off the phone for increased presence and more pointed introspection.

My phone is still off. I went to the cab stand and got a cab instead of an uber. Told the driver my cross streets and felt a sense of pride in knowing them without needing a phone. My uber driver in DC used to be a taxi driver. He said that it was nice to just know a city before ride sharing came along. So many things, phones, people, routines, can give you a false sense of security in a world whose excitement is in the not knowing. Whose excitement is in the discovery. Like building a new fence the day before a hurricane.

What if you never built the fence to begin with, and just let the world in. Leading with questions and trusting that the answers will come, when you are ready.