The face of someone midway through a SERIOUS amount of traveling. 

I never wrote about Hong Kong! I meant to, but then ended up getting all distracted by the apparently massive controversy over whether or not filter-using is an acceptable life choice, or makes you actually literally the worst kind of human being there is (I can happily argue for both sides). And then the trip fell a bit into the distance, and I moved on to analyses of semi-obscure perfume oils and slime-making.

(Read about the Indonesia portion of our trip here.)

Current mood.

Alright. So. Remember that time I ended up with the top half of my body inserted into an industrial-sized dumpster coated with 6-inch-thick black slime? Or that time I was driving down the highway and realized that the scent of Cheetos and death that was making me choke was coming from...me? Or the time Lucy's dead eyeball fell out of her head and crawled across the floor (well, not exactly, but let's not nitpick)?

This is all to say that I feel like maybe I was born to be a blogger. Because really: when you're bent over in a parking lot while your ex-husband kneels behind you, Windex-ing poop off of the seat of your pants, it can help to think, "Well, at least I know what I'm going to write about tomorrow."

So my dad just left - his Uber literally just pulled away down my driveway - and I am sitting here at my dining room table in tears. Because as much as I dreaded leaving...once I was there, I realized very quickly that what was happening was that I was on the trip of a lifetime.

And now it's over. And that's ok, of course - and of course I'm happy to be home...but still.

On a lighter note: I'd thought I'd skipped the whole "jet lag" thing (hahahahahahah) because yesterday I was ping-ponging around acting more or less like I had mainlined a whole bunch of speed instead of just popping my usual Omega-3s (that is a joke; if you think I'm together enough to take vitamins you have not been paying attention these past few years). But it turns out that I was apparently going through some kind of adrenaline-induced mania, because I am currently Zombie Jordan.

Raja Ampat, Indonesia

In No Is Not Enough - one of my favorite books, and one I think about often - the activist Naomi Klein describes taking her five-year-old to the Great Barrier Reef. She was there to study climate change and the related destruction of the reef, and thought a great deal about whether to show him the vast landscapes of barren, bleached coral. Her instinct was to impress upon him, even at that young age, just how much had been lost, and how much more could be lost still.

And yet she didn't. She instead steered her child towards the most vibrant, beautiful corners of the reef, the parts still teeming with fish and coral and the kinds of colors you see only in dreams or on acid trips (or so I hear). Because how, she reasoned, can you fight for something if you don't learn to love it first?

Here we goooooo.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm both mildly claustrophobic and not-so-mildly anxious about flying? I am mildly claustrophobic and not-so-mildly anxious about flying (especially after this little incident).

So to say I approached the idea of a 15-hour flight to Hong Kong with some trepidation would be an understatement. I pictured low-grade panic, exhaustion, and a smattering of lower-back cramps, just for kicks.