edible derangements

i just returned from trip #3 to los angeles- the huggy, write-me-soon farewell tour. this summer’s visits have endeared me to the gangly, bizarro city, probably because i never once touched foot to a gas pedal. my besties faced off with the 405 exhaust and crunch, knots coagulating on their backs, while i curled up in the passenger seat with a popsicle and watched palm trees, mid-century car washes and taco trucks sail by.

now i’m packing and packing for my stint as a hapless english teacher in germany. a ten or eleven month stint. owning twice my weight in begonia-print dresses with lingering goodwill odors, i’m ensnared in a luggage space swamp. after a “packing tips” google search, i decided to take some strangers’ advice: stacking my clothes in manageable, flat piles and rolling them up, taquito-style. this shape supposedly requires less room than the unadventurous folding method. my suitcases will be composed of giant fabric bratwursts. even my wardrobe is prepping for germany.

which is all to say: post-LA, i’ve been rolling up and shoving around and getting down to this song in my head:

farewell, LA! don’t have any historic, freeway-rupturing earthquakes while i’m gone now, you hear?