Friend revelation: "Checking out."

So, my one (white) friend from Mississippi is kind of checking out and making a major life change.

For years now he's been regularly phoning in some undergraduate teaching and doing editing as his main thing and then going out on tours and coming back to apartments that he'd have on short-term leases, or sometimes apartments that he'd share with girlfriends, but he's done with that now, and he's doing all remote editing, and since he can do that and he wanted out of a relationship with this last girlfriend before he had to pay October rent, he switched cars and got an SUV and adapted the back so he can sleep there, and he also has a battery-driven cooler and a place for this big water tank with internal filtration, and now he can drive around the country and linger different places and his only rent is his gas money, as he put it.

"And repairs," I was like, "If you have car problems."

He also said the last winter really got to him in the city, in a way that it just never had before.

"Bad vibes," I was like.

He also also said that he felt like he'd run out of options in the city and was thinking to when he was happiest, and he realized that it was on the road touring, so he thought that he could pick up stakes and make that work, after spending some time with his family in Mississippi, and maybe the winter in Arizona.

And, Cracker Barrels have designated sleeping spots in their parking lots where people can pull over and sleep, and you can use your Planet Fitness subscription to work out nearby and shower.

He also said he likes how I describe what I'm doing not as "dropping out," but as "checking out."

"If you check out," he was like, "That implies that you can always check back in."

But, he said that he actually didn't think that there would be any opportunities coming down the line that would be worth working towards, and when you're in that situation, you have to not worry about work and go and find for yourself a life worth living, though the one thing that does make him worry is retirement.