Biweekly Update From Ira's Inter-Temporal Search for Letting Go #1

Remember me? I've audaciously invited myself back into all of your inboxes for my newest trip which I started last Friday (minus the Canadian sisters who ghosted me north of the border). If you don't still want to be on the updates please let me know; if you want to avoid the tension that comes with telling off someone for whose vacation you no longer give a shit then I recommend marking it spam or just blasting through because it's only four updates. I took the leap from dreaming to being fully liable for the whole weight of accountability when I told my friends at The Thai Market that I wanted this trip to be about letting go - to be precise, letting go of all the ways that I judge myself which don't actually serve me. These are the top three ways I let go since and how they served me: <ol> <li>Letting go of my flight to Dallas: Within a few hours of asking the universe to help me let go the tests began, most notably with my flight getting cancelled. I suppose it could have been easy to be pissed and go off on some tailspin of anxiety about how all the plans are fucked but there were so few plans to get disrupted and such an abundance of wine to drink on the stoop with Tyler that all there seemed left to do was let go. As Billy Joel has been reminding me several times a day for the last couple-few weeks, <a href = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jL4S4X97sQ" target = "_blank" rel = "noopener">Dallas waits for me</a> and will still be there when the time is right.</li> <li>Letting go to a significant portion of my luggage in the backseat of the Uber: no matter how far ahead something gets planned, go-time just about always seems to be chaos - be it a wedding, starting class, or getting all your shit in the Uber. When I finally left my place I had just about every pocket in just about all of my bags open so when I tried to squeeze all my stuff in the car and the moment-force balance was not in my favor... I let go of a decent amount of loose change and God knows what else along with whatever standards I still had for smooth phase-change in that moment and hopefully it leaves nothing but pleasant surprises for any and all things transitional going forward.</li> <li>Letting go of my preconceived notions about what vacation looks like: after a jam-packed run with the Biweekly's very own zpc (Zach Cohen) in Austin and College Station and a small scheduling change (such is the way of the water-benders as you may or may not know) I rounded out my time in Texas, back in Dallas of all places (boomerang let goism, boom). A combination of market forces and being overly cavalier with reading the map, I actually landed in Irving Texas at what is listed as a hostel on Hostel World but functions as more of an unregistered half-way house in light of how many people have extended stays there. Left, right, down, and catty corner to my bunk was a convicted drug-dealer, a stripper, a gent whose 18 years sober from the hard stuff, and the Mexican vet Jesus who gets paid $4,400 a month to take classes at community college so long as he never graduates (Joe do you know about this???). While the Wild Wild West Backpackers Hostel isn't what comes to mind for the conventional and most-technically Instagramable vacation, especially during the summer of summers, it was cool to let go of all the preconceived bullshit how I should be getting my toes done at the base of some Norwegian fjort and just dance in the dark, drink the hard root beer, and of course analyze until one and all were blue in the face.</li> </ol> Other notable mentions for people, places, and things that I let go off this week include all the respect that I got for Andrew Callaghan from his intense investigative reporting and storytelling which he promptly and firmed flushed definitely when he let the whole crowd drink from the firing house of his doucher vibes during the Q+A for his new movie. A tip of my hat to Zach for his hospitality, it's not easy letting me crash on a couch for four nights so I'm grateful for the open arms along with the PhD level sipping sesh and analysis around the supply chain, biology, mechanisms, and chemistry involved with puling an espresso shot - seriously, we were getting into which pests affect the flavor profile in which ways, all just minutes to midnight I might add. <a href = "https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rrS0CU_8fEmvwqc5nBjTHoHJV9nVuVYc?usp=drive_link" target = "_blank" rel = "noopener">Pics</a>. Finally, something that I'm not willing to let go of is this Elvis <a href = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA142IsjQiE" target = "_blank" rel = "noopener">song</a> which I've also been looping on for weeks now, the <a href = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVbl0mQACSM" target = "_blank" rel = "noopener">Maneskin</a> cover also rips. Something else I'm not willing to let go of yet is the biweekly brand, it's too sexy despite my intention to update every week between now and Friday 7/26 when I'll get home. This trip also became the inter-temporal when my Dad wasn't suitably wowed by the interstate brand. Happy Fourth of July to all those who were in observance as it's looking like one of the last, to all those taking vacation in some way shape or form in the next week my challenge to you is to let go, big time if at all possible. Until the next attachment that we can let go of together, Ira