I was standing elbow deep on a crowded subway, my ipod had died, my book was at home, and I had eight stops to go. I didn’t feel like people watching. I didn’t feel like listening to the banjo player. So I reached for my moleskin.

I love when I flip through my little hipster notebook and find forgotten, random crap I’ve written.  While some of it’s really weird (I went through a haiku phase), other stuff is actually share-worthy.  Only  now do I remember scribbling down some thoughts while sitting at a beach bar in West Palm Beach this summer. I had snuck into this little resort so I could enjoy free cocktails and appetizers. I was slightly tipsy and mostly sunburned. My hair was salty. Here’s what went down:

“As I sit here at the bar that I innocently snuck into for the complimentary snacks and cocktails, I am surrounded by overweight women with obviously faux breasts sticking out of their rainbow-colored bikini tops with sunscreen slathered on their cheeks.

You don’t get this in the woods.

The ocean frightens me. I look out and see both the whole world and complete emptiness. When they say  the more you travel, the less you know, this is how I feel when I stare at the ocean, looking out into an entity that covers 3/4’s of the world’s surface. I am full of sand, my nose is inevitably resembling that of Rudolph’s, and I’m conflicted as to whether or not I am enjoying myself.

When I’m at the lake, I feel significant. I am enveloped in its boundedness; I can walk around it, swim through it, and not be taken under by thunderous waves or flesh-seeking sharks. But what about the city? The city also bounds you like the banks of a lake, but its mass can swallow you as well.

I don’t want to be trapped in between concrete.”