moments

August 15th, 2023. Liberty, South Carolina.

Sucessful xSIID chip implant self installation. I put it in my hand in my kitchen while my roomates watched on in horror.

June 11th, 2024. San Francisco, California.

Arrive in SF for the first time with Vera to present some stuff at Opensauce. We stay with her college Kat (who has since become a very, very dear friend). The first morning (June 12th) we walk to Venga and Vera tells me she is willing to set aside her cultural nationalism and admit that Argentianian empanada's are, all things considered, quite similar to Uruguayan empanadas.

September 27th, 2024. Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina.

Hurricane Helene. Wake up to the house collapsing on top of us and water filling up the room. Try to save what we can but it's kind of hopeless. Car totaled, house collapsed and flooded,no power for several months, ICE checkpoints at FEMA aid stations, ineligible for disaster aid due to immigration complexities, etc. Emergency turn off.

October 5th, 2024. Greenville, South Carolina.

Vera and I's wedding. We had planned to have it at the house which was just destroyed, so we have it in a park next to a food court. Izzy officiates. After an hour or so with family we bounce around friend's apartments well into the night. At some point someone gives us a set of swords and we nearly kill each other. Gleaming.

October 7th, 2024. Anderson, South Carolina.

We say goodbye to everyone before we leave on our trans-continental drive to San Francisco. I have to get rid of a bunch of old chemicals, mushroom spawn bags, cell cultures, explosives, and other items I can't let anyone else store or dispose of before we head out. The last thing we do before departing is blow up a hunk of sodium metal large enough to get the police called on us.

Early morning, October 10th, 2024. The Grand Canyon.

Vera pulls an all nighter so we I can watch the sun rise over the canyon. Visceral inner experience walking along the ridges. A new appreciation for deep time. Eons swirling on the cliff faces. Sils Maria, experience of the Eternal Return.

Early morning, October 11th, 2024. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Vera has been driving for days. She takes pride in having, just prior to this leg, driven longer continuously than was flown during the longest ever bombing mission (to fuck with Gaddafi, she adds). We decided to detour a bit to stay with a friend who lives on the Las Vegas strip. She sips a Red Bull on the floor of a Casino, deliriously tired but paradoxically manic. This has been her mood for days already, but walking under the eternal sun of the Venetian canals brings it to new levels.

September 19th, 2025. Brooklyn, New York.

I am in the passenger seat of Nil's car trying to get a hold of Vera, who's not replied to my texts for a while now. I look up and in the corner of my eye I see her messy hair bobbing down a dim street, miles away from the rendezvous we'd set. I call out to her from the window. "Oh! Cool, I was scared my phone was gonna die :)"

Early morning, September 17th, 2025. San Francisco, CA.

It's time. The situation became too tenuous ahead of Vera's upcoming immigration court date. The mounting risk of immigration custody took over every facet of her life, she never felt safe anymore. But this morning there was a strange levity. The night before she'd seemed almost catatonic. I did our packing as best I could, but it's hard to pack for such a range of climates (an uncertain range, at that, as we hadn't really settled plans long term beyond meeting up with some of her family). Along the way we were set to meet with a variety of friends. One final hurrah. The prospect of seeing everyone on the way out was bittersweet, but so comforting. We'd fly to NV first, then NYC, then Paris, and eventually take a train to meet up with family in Geneva. Moments of terror. Airports accentuate the feeling of enclosure. They pull us aside for additional screening at the gate and I nearly passed out. But we take off without issue. The view of the bay out the window as we take off is unreal. The fog rests gently on the hills above the valley and the shimmering sun across the ocean felt like a warm goodbye.

October 7th, 2025. Paris, France.

Notre Dame. Vera bathed in light in the narrow alleys. The Deportation Museum. Struggle and love. The ruins of the old Bastille. The end of Satan. Profession of faith. Secret sun.

October 14th, 2025. Maldonado, Uruguay.

Walking along an old bridge over the water. What does it mean "to see with all the eyes that one can hold"? Openness to the possibility of a subject which can hold it all at once.

Golden hour, December 28th, 2025. Basilica de Guadalupe, CDMX.

Angels overlook the city from the site atop Tepeyac revealed to Juan Diego. It strikes me just how much weight this city is holding. Artaud in Paris, Benjamin in Mexico. Many heads of Queztzcoatl encircle the foundation. Love and holy terror. Mexican syncretism gives me so much hope. How many people are you? "Nothing human is alien to me"

Midnight, January 1st, 2026. Aigua, Uruguay.

Dinner with abuela. She gets us very drunk but the sheer quantity of mate keeps me going. At midnight the fireworks all erupt at once scattered thinly for miles across the rolling hills. As soon as it begins, animals start escaping from their pens. Goats, cows, dogs, and chickens run loose in the street. The commotion drowns out the fireworks. dozens of people run around to collect them all. Every 20 minutes or so, another volley of fireworks, and another set of animals escape. This goes on until around 2am. The next morning, we went to meet up with the rest of the family at a large, ornate family home near Maldonado, including some of the aunts, uncles, and cousins whom we'd met in Geneva. They also get us quite drunk. We entertain ourselves with the cows and the palm trees scattered around the property. Vera's very elderly great aunt asks me about my work, and I explain we are mapping what's under the ground. She walks me around the property showing me all the wells they've dug and re-dug over the last 50 years while bragging about her success rate doing it 'the old fashion way' (ie, with a dowsing rod).