What’s your best tip for budget travel?

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You get what you pay for, and budget travel generally means having to deal with a series of tiny issues in an unfamiliar place. Some people are very good at flying by the seat of their pants, but I’m not one of them. I need stability, and bargain-basement shopping will not do that. The one thing I suggest is having several friends check out the flight you want to buy, and have them buy it for you from their location. For some reason, every single time I’ve flown to Portland, it was cheaper to buy it in Portland than Houston. Geolocation matters, because there are different prices in different areas of the country.

So if you want to go to Northern Europe, pick six friends in the US and PayPal whomever has the lowest base price. It probably won’t be you.

You can also get what you want by traveling when no one else wants to, so you get the same nice hotel but it’s cheaper because Helsinki is 50 below or whatever. It will be so much nicer if you try to fit into the infrastructure of the place you want to go rather than trying to fit it to your American expectations. I fully expect to freeze my ass off in Helsinki, because no matter how many layers you put on, cold is cold. But at the same time, I have the city to myself and all the other tourists are back in the States.

I do not want “show mode” Helsinki. I want kahvi and Hessburger….. a Long Drink, maybe some salmiakki ice cream……

I just want to eat my way across the country in peace. 😉

I told my dad I wanted to spend my 50th in Helsinki, and that’s been a running theme for the last two years. I really want to go to the Independence Day festivals on Dec. 6th, but the problem with that is I have rarely found anyone willing to sign up for that kind of cold, but I might get people to come with me if I’m flexible on dates.

Plus, my birthday is around Labor Day, so the air will be crisp; the kind of frost that lives in your bones comes later.

If it were up to me, it would be me and Aada and whomever she wants to invite, because I know that she is the center of my world, but I am not the center of hers. She has a husband, and I am so happy for her…. and also ridiculously happy that I do not. It’s not about gender. I don’t want to marry anyone. I just want to date people and forget about the relationship escalator. I want relationships to last for a long time, but what I will not do is put hopes and dreams into them, particularly surrounding exclusivity. Women have been primed to believe that one person can be your entire world, when that is absolutely not the case for anyone. Thinking that one person can be everything to you is just sparkling isolation.

I’ve also been married and divorced twice, so I am relieved of the notion that when you meet The One it’s going to last forever. My forever has been in Aada, the muse that inspires me creatively, but would rather have a root canal than be romantic with me. Believe me, I get it. If Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson didn’t make it, we wouldn’t, either.

I have chaotic neutral line cook energy. So does he.

Ariana Grande is perfectly perfect in every way. So is she.

I’m not talking about specifics, here…. just vibe. You ever look at couples and think, “I just don’t see it?” That’s us….. sort of like being twins but one of us is Arnold Schwarzeneggar and one of us is Danny DeVito. And then you hear us argue like an old married couple who are both ready to smother each other in their sleep and you think, “ohhh. There it is.” Not actually romantic, more of an Oscar and Felix situation.

“The Odd Couple” is a fantastic name for us because the odd couple in the show wasn’t queer, either. They were two divorced men who packed it up to live together. Homoerotic energy? Debatable, because the longer I live the easier it is to see that there isn’t one type of connection. Men are capable of astounding intimacy, we just don’t allow them the room to be unmasked and fragile.

“Macho” is a mask. Full stop.

Connecting to people is all about unmasking, because people value authenticity and don’t want to feel like you’re selling something. Not a product, most likely an idea. It is off-putting when you’re just trying to get through the day and the other person is in “Show Mode.”

The reason I love Finland so much is that they have never heard of “Show Mode.”

How can you identify the most extroverted Finn? They look at YOUR shoes when they talk.

I cannot wait to be with my people. Not on a budget designed to be Top Ramen for every meal, but one that is flexible and supports my very persnickety neurodivergent needs. Being autistic is expensive.

Lean in.