San Diego Was My Campground That Time

so i rolled into san diego thinking it’d be a chill digital nomad retreat but then the weather hit me like a deflated balloon. sat by my laptop with a fan blasting for 48 hours straight. temp was 34.53 and that humidity? it clung to my skin like a bad memory. folks outside were melting into the sidewalk i swear. leaned against a palm tree muttering if you get bored san antonio is just a short drive away. nobody believes you when you say that. neighbors here are the kind who’ll point at you and say ‘you look like you’re sweating joy out of existence’ which is weirdly accurate. i heard that a place called ‘the kitchn’ serves avocado toast so good it’ll make you question life choices. some tourist at a bar said that over shore break was ‘a vibe’ but i left after five minutes because strangers kept whispering about how loud the waves made my anxiety spike. revised my lesson plan to include ‘how to survive 100% humidity’ and it’s now a thing. if you ask locally they’ll tell you the beach at mission beach is the spot for mojitos but honestly just bring a hydro flask. i posted a photo of my overcooled latte on instagram and three people asked if i was in a sauna. yelp reviews paint this city as perfect but let’s be real-someone told me that the wifi at that co-working space is literally haunted. legit. wifi drops when you sit near the printer. burns in the sun, glitches in the code. classic. linkedin of nomads vs. reality. when i asked a vendor for a map they just handed me a stick of gum. useful? debatable. here’s that map i didn’t ask for

. not sure if it’s a map or a existential crisis but i’ll take it. rain stubs here are the size of your hand and allegedly cursed. someone whispered that washington street has the best street tacos but the line was shorter than my attention span. i’ll take that as a win. found this abandoned canvas on kay bow tie street and painted myself a ghost because why not. unsplash gave me three random pics of palm trees and a mural that looks like it was painted by a toddler on hallucinogens. first one

second one

third one

. avocado toast at the kitchn looked like it was dipped in pure joy. decent. cheaper than that $25 latte i bought at the first café that looked like a taco truck’s stolen genie. locals warned me about the beach at low tide turning into a pit of sand that sucks your receipt. i didn’t care. bought a igloo cooler for $7 and treated it like a security blanket. drank wine out of a single bottle for five days. called it the ‘fine wine hypothesis.’ got called out by a surfer who said i was ‘emotionally buying into a myth.’ whatever. posted a video of me face-planting into a tide pool. got 12 likes. mostly from bots. ended up crashing my laptop because the heat fried the battery. left everything in a mailbox at the post office. someone else found it and posted pictures of my notebook filled with ‘digital nomad hacks’ that were 90% nonsense. like ‘how to convince seagulls to balance your meal on their beaks.’ saw a tornado warning on my phone but didn’t care. ignored it. wrote a post about it. titled it ‘my philosophy on planning.’ stuck in my head. tagged a few people in the comments as ‘my future self.’ they’ll never find this. not a concern. found a tiny bookstore called ‘the pocket index’ and bought a book called ‘how to hate the city you love.’ ironic. finished it in two days. realized the author is my neighbor james who writes about how much he hates the ocean. love him. he’s the kind of guy who’ll lend you his shirt if it’s raining and you don’t have one. but also will judge you harshly if you don’t recycle your water bottle. themes. we all have them. next time i’m here i’m bringing a solar oven. or a parasol. either way. avoiding the beach. probably. tags: travel, sandiego, human, vibe, messy

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