SFO to Montpellier. October 19th, 2012.

The ham sandwich at hand is much too tall for a human's mouth. I eat nervous, at the gate for a flight to France; I'm leaving my country again. This is a moment, I think, for a banal act of cruelty that oozes corporal. My brother once mentioned something Schopenhauer wrote about the balance of enjoyment and pain in this world, which we discussed, though briefly and in tangents, as we tend to, a fragment from long talks about anything outside of that place, that beautiful, haunting place dropped in the mountains, a mirage of kindness, a veneer over all the suffering piled up and all the pigs too depressed to live, dying into the infinite because they dared to possess the gall to ever be. I think of Levine's pig to slaughter and a drive through Detroit. This sandwich is not bad and it's never been great, all roots and swirling directions and vectors. This really is no time for studies in pessimism or supply chains, despite the joy it promises. Everyone I have met today has been kind and I get to play football again soon.