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It is maybe five years ago and I am sitting in a bar that is masquerading as a Mexican restaurant. I am with a friend but for all practical purposes I am alone. I recognize a man sitting a few tables away as a co-worker from a previous project. Someone I had not seen really at all since I abruptly left the project a year before. I waited for a break in the conversation with my friend which was surprisingly difficult given I wasn’t speaking and only partly listening. I walked over to the other table and said “hi jay” and he turned around. I was in full introvert trying to be charming mode and didn’t notice right away that Jay didn’t recognize me. He didn’t recognize me because he wasn’t Jay. ...

I am walking along the sidewalk in Phuket keeping an eye on the kids and trying to avoid the hawkers of goods only tourists could want. We turn the corner in the direction of our hotel when Elisa saddles up to me and grabs my right hand with her left. I look down and say “Hello Elisa” and she responds “Babi, I love you”. Elisa turned six in August and started first grade today. First grade is the first real day of school here since Kindergarten starts from the time they are three and is a kind of combo pre-school and education experience. I think back a couple of years, to the summer of 2011 when I worked from home for 14 months. I would take Elisa out every day after lunch to the “big playground” and sometimes she would play and sometimes she would just nap in her stroller. I’d sit in the park and watch her play or sleep while I listened to my podcasts. When my work was done for the day, I would take her downstairs to the apartment playground and watch her play some more. All this time with Elisa had some effect. Her English was better at the same age as the other kids. And she was really close to me. ...

Lydia, Elisa, and I are playing nerf basketball in my apartment. Lydia has made two long distance shots so far, the same as me. She has a grace about her when she moves and a joy when the ball goes into the hoop. Then she announces she is done playing. I negotiate for her to play until the next basket is scored and she says “ok”. This is Lydia. One moment a gift. The next moment her feet dug in, protecting. One might say she is like her father. Her father would. ...

In the kitchen sink sits the small green plastic strainer that my mom used to catch organic things as she washed the dishes. It is now used to filter cigarette ashes when my father washes his ashtray which isn’t really ashtray but a small dish. Kind of an ode to when he quit smoking 40 years ago during our Russian River family vacation (happy joy joy). Truth be told no one except him really knows for how long he quit. There was the cigar phase and then the sneaking of cigarettes phase. Men do like their secrets and this was one of his. ...

I have a story of love to tell. A story of love ruined by ruined loves gone past. And the cycle repeats. “If I had only met you when I was 25” then I would not be the man I am now. The man someone could fall in love with but not the man that can love. I am afraid of love, shaken by it, destroyed by it. I seek comfort in solitude, my children, my routines. But then I need to feel a touch, and embrace, another heart beating with mine. ...

I have a time travel machine, however in only goes in one direction. My mind, however, has another kind of time travel machine and one that mostly only travels in one direction as well. To the past. The year is 1997 and I’m thinking about CJ. CJ was my Labrador retriever and taught me to run in the rain. Or I should say taught me to love to run in the rain. In 1997 I was living alone with CJ and between my work and grad school at night I wasn’t home very much. This wasn’t good for CJ as he had a lot of energy. To do my job as a dog dad I would walk up early with him every morning and run with him and when I got home at night, no matter how late, I would take him running again. On the weekend I went on especially long runs with him. Rain or shine like a mailman without mail. ...

Shunyi is a suburb of Beijing where the people with enough money can live in a very comfortable low security western style jail. If you have not been to Beijing, yes, I am being sarcastic. If you have been to Beijing and Shunyi, you will know what I mean even if you think I am wrong. I should back track. Unwind this puppy. I am a fundamentally open minded person (at least that is what I tell myself when surrounded by myself) and can understand that for some expats and rich Chinese the Shunyi suburb lifestyle is the best Beijing has to offer them; it’s just not for me. Not with its moonscape with dust landscape and the quasi chic experiences even though I do see the appeal of a house with a basement. ...

I am driving to the office when a rock classic comes on the radio. It feels good. It calms my nerves. I want to listen to more. I want it louder. I park and look for my headphones in my backpack. There are none. I think I will be ok since I don’t feel that bad at that moment. I get to the auditorium. It is big. Maybe can seat 1,000 people. Up to another 5,000 could be watching online. I do a final walk through with the presenter and I am nervous but as we walk through the talking points I start to calm down. I think I will be ok. I am thinking about it as a sports event and how I could block everything out and focus then. ...

I am standing at the counter with Lydia waiting for our drinks. Cold drinks on this hot Beijing May afternoon. Lydia is getting a mango lemon drink and me, feeling super, went for a Strawberry milkshake and by the looks of things it was going to be a good one. Just as I started to wonder why it was taking the stand’s worker so long to blend the milkshake a boy, maybe 12, scooted between me and the counter and right into any sense of space I had. My good mood disappeared and over my right shoulder came the boy’s parents asking him what he wanted. They could have whispered in my ear, they were that close, but instead if felt as if they were yelling over my body to reach the boy. At first I held my ground in some kind of childish demonstration and when that had no effect I became even more childish and stepped away with a flurry and stood at the edge of the street, fuming. Lydia walked up to me and put her arm on my back and said “relax, dad, relax”. And I did. Is it possible this girl isn’t even 10 yet? ...

I tap open the Baidu Music app, search for “Beat It” by Michael Jackson and stream it over my living room speakers. I move in front of the coach gently dancing and then into a full out dance when the lyrics start. My two daughters look up and laugh. I keep dancing. They join and soon we are all laughing and dancing and happy. I play YMCA next. And this is how I knew my descent from Everest had begun. ...