I’m meeting James in Bali and it will be the first time we’ve seen each other in three years.

I remember reading somewhere that male relationships are essentially quixotic. Which is to say, our bond depends on shared and foolishly impractical pursuits. This is certainly the case for James and myself, as we seem to deal almost exclusively in half-baked adventures. Indo fits the mold perfectly and we are approaching the trip with no map, no plan, no goals other than to catch up and maybe find a couple of waves. Basically, we are bringing the team back together and ignoring any lessons we already should have learned

This trip was born out of a conversation that occurred seven months prior in which James laid out the fundamentals of “Meanwhile Outside”. Our minds were racing and we wanted to hash out the ideas more fully, but I still had a separate trip to finish before getting to Australia and until then the prospect of any meaningful MO discussions were severely limited. After half a year aimlessly faffing about the sub-continent I found myself fantasizing about less people. less sweat, and more beef. At the same moment, James was stuck in a cold farmhouse and a cooling relationship. Needless to say, when the idea of meeting in Indo was floated, there wasn’t any hesitation from either party. With great sighs of relief we left Indian summer and Australian winter behind with the hopes of striking a happy medium somewhere in between.