The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel

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I recently came back to Seattle after traveling for two weeks, and began eating simple, organic food again. I’m a vegetarian wherever I go, but I don’t always eat very well when I’m out around the world. After getting back on track after all the travel and different countries, I started feeling better within 24 hours.

The next morning I walked down the street to Espresso Splendido on Stone Way for a short 2% latte, and I suddenly remembered what good coffee tastes like. I hadn’t stopped drinking coffee on my trip—coffee is one thing you can find pretty much everywhere, in one form or another—but because of factors outside my control, I had stopped drinking good coffee, and I came to accept that mediocre coffee was just the way it had to be.

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I’m sitting in what may be the most dreary hotel room I have ever stayed in, which is saying a lot. My room is the size of a large closet, and no, this isn’t Japan with its neat cubicle hotels.

In fact, it really doesn’t matter what country I’m in at the moment. I could be anywhere far from home.

Virtually everything about this hotel is not working, and the despair of it is almost comical. Almost.

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Robert Bruce says that the most difficult thing about his chosen art form is having the title poet attached to him. Yes, Robert says, he is a real-life poet, but without all the stereotypes.

If you’re turned off by poetry readings and literary journals that nobody reads, don’t worry—Robert doesn’t like them either. Instead, he writes for his own audience, a loyal and growing group of people who check in at his site once a week for a new poem.

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Two years ago I was working in Liberia, West Africa and came to Chicago for a three-day conference. Coming out of West Africa to Europe and then North America is always a huge culture shock, and when I went all that way for just a weekend conference, I felt more disoriented than ever.

I stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott near O’Hare airport, and after arriving late at night after a series of long flights, I was excited to head down to the buffet breakfast the next morning. Here are a few observations on the experience.

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Sometimes it seems that wherever I go in the world, I’m always too early or too late to the party. One week ago today I was hanging out in Beirut, Lebanon, walking all over what I found to be a beautiful city, stopping for cappuccino along the waterfront and then having 40-cent falafel for lunch.

Today in the news, Beirut is under siege and the airport is closed. I’m usually disappointed when I find out I’ve missed a party somewhere, but this situation is serious enough that I’m glad to have missed it, and I’m concerned about the people I met there.

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