NC Is A Mess; It's My Fault

I should have stayed in Chicago.

To marry later in life is to leap into a novel’s uncharted epilogue, where the ink is wet, the plot untamed, and the stakes thrillingly opaque.

For 22 years, I danced through Chicago’s electric haze—a kaleidoscope of Johnny Walker Black & soda soaked nights, raucous laughter, and urban grit that pulsed through me.

Then, in a reckless burst of fate, I met my buddy Jose’s cousin, a woman of quiet fire, and we bound our lives in a vow as impulsive as it was inevitable.

By spring 2010, I traded the city’s clamor for the hushed mountain ridges and hollers of Western North Carolina, chasing a new verse with her, already rooted in this strange soil. I thought I was writing a pastoral; instead, I stumbled into a political requiem.

We settled in a rural pocket near Asheville—a place locals slyly call “AsheVegas,” though its pulse is more hymn than hipster. Here, Baptists outnumber baristas, bears rummage through dusk, and the absence of deep-dish pizza feels like a personal affront.

I arrived b…