Simple Comforts: Southern No Longer Hey Joe, how is home? ask cherished cheek busting friends and fam...usually within the first 15 seconds of conversation. I respond, "home is....is good, its great to be back," through a brimming smile that Im pretty sure is genuine. Roughly 10 days ago I was dangling my Timbaland booted feet over ruins on Weynu Picchu (Young Mountain) while taking in the spell binding view of Machu Picchu (Old Mountain); and now, at this very moment I'm sitting in my parents house, watching my dad watch Gardening with Cisco, listening to whispers of words like "job" echo off walls and minds, hearing phrases from mami Greenberg like "you know the green MnM is supposed to make you horny?" Things are still in their fresh phase, and I am revelling in those situations described above and the company of all faces that I have known longer than two weeks.

Coming back has been thought provoking and relaxing in a hot tub kind of way; I thoroughly enjoy dwelling on those little things so easily taken for granted in American life. Bathrooms. American bathrooms hold a plethora of tiny things or cositas that were at first missed, but after a short time there absences weren't felt and actually added to an over inflated air of ruggedness building beneath my skins surface. A few examples include toilets, thier seats, TP, hand soap, running water you didn't have to collect and pour yourself, functional locking mechanisms stopping Korean tourist girl from busting in like a S.W.A.T. team member to take you and all your pantless warm ankled glory in. I really didn't miss those things after too long, and now that I am back in the lap of super luxury, American bathrooms have a cold, sterile, fragile and fluorescent museum feel. Maybe I should just go to Tacoma....and its really something that this paragraph was dedicated to banos in its entirety.

Home is beautiful of course. Its beauty can be found in the following things that reek of comfort and simplicity: a room with a view whose price doesn't have to be bartered. Sharing a bed with a wonderfully fat feline who snores louder than most. Having access to a refrigerator stocked with more abdominal 6-pack shattering food than I could imagine, and I can sadly imagine it could probably feed five families in some places I had the opportunity to visit. Road and noise regulations. Pedestrians having the Goddamned right of way as I almost ate bumper and died so many times from the wheel of reckless drivers that it IS funny. God bless pedestrians and their rights of ways everywhere. Having more to my life than my back pack and its 30lbs of contents. Knowing things. Like where the beer is in the Westgate QFC and not having to ask directions every 30 meters after changing cities every 4 days. Maybe resting a little easier (now that I am home) that my folks can rest a little easier knowing I'm not wondering some dark alley or jungle path, walking along the brink of some treacherous fate just waiting to befall me. Of those priceless things that South America bore like the exotic fruit of some rare tree I will not talk; in this moment I simply choose to savor those tiny details that define familiarity and make home what it is. If I know your name and you're a North American, I will probably be seein you soon.  ¶ 8:30 PM