Atlantic City: where the ice cream trucks are suspiciously late

so, let me just say--this place hit me different. i rolled into Atlantic City last night with a DSLR, a hot take on existential dread, and a thermos of coffee that’s now probably frozen solid. temps are 3.82, which is technically ‘warm’ but your face leans toward ‘glacial corridor’ anyways. the wind here is like it’s trying to steal your soul. i heard that from a guy at a dive bar last Tuesday, slumped over a beer like he was confessing to a priest. maybe he was. who knows?

i grabbed a cheap sneaker from a thrift store and started photographing things. a rusty carousel, a bench with peeling paint, a man in a neon tracksuit balancing a pumpkin on his head. sounds grand, right? the locals say this is the city’s way of celebrating its volatility. i laughed. also, someone told me that the boardwalk has a curse. not the ghost kind. more like, if you take more than three photos of the same thing, the universe starts crying. i tried it. my phone battery died. poetic.



guyoatsuit guy? definitely a charlatan. but then again, so is this city. i saw a review on TripAdvisor that said the seafood is legendary. not specific. just... ‘legendary.’ i took that as a warning. i’m making my own pressed sardines now. tiny ones, wrapped in seaweed. paranoia is a flavor.

(not many people talk about the weather here. i asked three strangers, and two of them still don’t know what Celsius is. one believed it rains here. another said it’s ‘just moisture in the air.’ maybe they’re both right. idk. i just checked and it’s 3.82 degrees, which is basically a polar bear’s take on a spa day. hope you like that kind of thing.)

‘someone told me that if you walk the beach at midnight, you’ll find a treasure chest,’ a drunkuit at a dive bar whispered. i didn’t believe him, but then i saw a shell on the sand shaped like a key. it was empty. no treasure. just saltwater and bad vibes. i blamed the moonlight. or maybe the 35% humidity. who knows?



got a bite from a food truck that smells like regret and cilantro. the owner said he’s a chef but also a poet. he wrote the menu on a napkin with tears in it. made sense. i got the ‘sin city spaghetti’-literally just pasta with existential dread. yelp says it’s ‘a metaphor.’ i’m taking notes.



you get bored? atlantic city is just a short drive away from somewhere a little less… blue. i don’t know where. i lost my GPS once. ended up in a field with a stop sign that said ‘HUMAN ERROR.’ but hey, that’s the vibe. if you’re here for a quick escape, the beach is great. if you’re here to overthink everything, the weather’s on your side. it’s minus 2.32 when the wind kicks in. feel that?



a local warned me about the canal. ‘it’s haunted by a guy who yells at ducks,’ he said. i asked if he was joking. he said, ‘i don’t joke about ducks.’ so i didn’t go near the water. settled for a moose in a field. it was calm. very moose. very peaceful.



also, the moon was out last night. big one. i took a photo. it looked like a catalog shot from some bizarre nordic noir film. here:

this place is not picturesque. it’s not chaotic. it’s just… doing its thing. like it knows it’s not supposed to exist, but here it is. i’m leaving tomorrow. probably. maybe. i’ll check. the coffee shop downstairs has a sign that says, ‘we’ll sell you coffee if you promise not to leave.’ writing that down. taking notes. errands. maybe a lie.

anyway. happy travels. or not. let me know if you find that key-shaped shell. i’m collecting urban legends. also, if you’re a chef-poet, hit me up. we can bond over sardines and bad forecasts.

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