Ten short hours after I landed at CLT, I found myself at Customshop in Charlotte’s Elizabeth neighborhood with a photographer, a pharmacist and a tattooed accountant. This isn’t the set up to a joke exactly, but there is a punchline, which I’ll share later on.

And I hadn’t just flown in for a visit. Surprise! I have moved back to Charlotte.

At the end of 2022, I went out to California for a job opportunity … but immediately regretted it. As they say in the movies, money isn’t everything, especially when it comes with relentless gaslighting and verbal abuse, and all at a higher tax rate to boot. I once survived Stage 4 cancer, you see, which therefore means I know my limits.

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