8 January 2025
AVENUE PASTEUR
You develop rituals when you are homeless by choice. Mine started in Marrakech, desperate and accidental. Scent has become the one thing I won't travel without.
I perfume my sheets. Every city, every room, every night. It's the ritual that makes sense of a life in three suitcases. I buy them all at Madini in Tangier. Founded in 1919. Probably. Avenue Pasteur, Google Maps will take you right there. Or I will.
American expiring, European pending, professional nomad by choice or pathology. Madini's cut crystal decanters hold something better than real estate: portable comfort. Instant belonging. Home fitted with a convenient atomizer.
Scent rises from the sheets and suddenly you're not in a hotel or an Airbnb with gross sheets. Orange Flower—you're in that riad with orange trees in Spring. Jasmin—drinks on the roof at Villa Mabrouka at dusk. Bois d'Or, Mudhila and Oud Abayad—incense and wood smoke under canvas, somewhere between Erfoud and nowhere. You're everywhere and nowhere.
(NB: Real Jasmin is so heady and deep that it becomes masculine. I often wear it solo).
This is the mathematics of rootlessness: Eight euros a bottle to never be somewhere impersonal. My only permanent address is whatever I sprayed on the pillowcase. I travel with all of them. Conveniently they can also be worn on the body so the fantasy continues in “real” life.
I can't tell you where to order Madini because you can't. It is only available at their stores. At some point I'll stock Madini in my online store which currently exists only in my mind (give me a shout if you like this idea).
What I can do is encourage you to find your own version. This isn't about the brand you choose but about the ritual. Elevating the most banal task-sleeping. Because the way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
Being homeless at 48 means accepting you'll never arrive anywhere. But every night, for those minutes between spraying and sleeping, the sheets smell like a choice rather than a circumstance. Like maybe this untethered life is exactly what I ordered.
Try it. Next time you're lost, spray something beautiful where you sleep. Watch how quickly nowhere becomes somewhere.
-Mx
8 December 2025
BEAUTIFUL REPRODUCTION
I was born too early. Or too late. Never quite in time.
I’m from the generation that watched the internet arrive. Yet I ache for the world I missed. White linen suits going yellow at the collar. Gin fizzes at 3 PM because what else is there do? Ceiling fans churning heat into something bearable. People who ‘winter’ when wintering was a verb for the wealthy.
Al Moudira let me live that life. Alone. Which is the only way to properly disappear.
it opened in 2001. Zeina Aboukheir built nostalgia from blueprints. A fever dream of domed ceilings, Ottoman arches, Arabesque tiles – all invented yesterday to feel like 1923.
You enter and immediately become someone else. The transformation is instant, cellular. Cast in a film – Death on the Nile, The English Patient. Traveling alone means no one to remind you who you were before.
A vintage Mercedes limousine waits to ferry you to the Valley of the Kings. 30 minutes away, the pharaohs sleep. You visit them in leather seats that smell like 1962, then return to gardens that shouldn’t exist in desert – jasmine and roses staging their own rebellion against geography.
The bedroom: salvation. After Egyptian sun, you collapse onto sheets so white and crisp they feel medicinal. Every piece of furniture auditioning for permanence, antiques from the surrounding shops migrating into rooms like beautiful refugees.
The pool at sunset is theater. You float while the Theban hills turn from gold to purple to black. Staff light torches. Someone, somewhere, is playing an Oud. You’re not swimming – you’re performing leisure for an audience of stars.
Dinner for one on the terrace. The waiters treat solo travelers like mysterious novelists or recovering spies. You let them wonder.
Everything here is performing a past that maybe never existed but should have. And you, alone, get to be both actor and audience.
Solitude in a place built for romance is its own romance.
Born too early for the past, too late for the future, perfectly timed for its beautiful reproduction.
–Mx
4 November 2025
There's a secret circuit in Paris that has nothing to do with restaurants or museums.
Classical concerts in churches across the city. Where the acoustics were designed by God and the architecture turns music into something physical. You're not attending a concert. You're inside an instrument.
Église de la Madeleine looks like a Greek temple that got lost and decided Paris would do. Napoleon almost made it a monument to his army. Thank God he didn't. Three centuries collapse into now when the music starts. The pillars don't just hold up the roof - they hold the sound, turn it golden, send it back blessed. Bach makes sense here in a way he never will in Lincoln Center.
You sit on small wooden chairs (not that much different from any concert hall, really) listening to music in spaces designed before amplification existed, when architecture was the technology. The music doesn't just play; it inhabits. The space doesn't just hold; it transforms.
€30 for transcendence. Long enough to feel transported, short enough to still make your dinner reservation.
Winter adds its own drama - you'll see your breath while Vivaldi plays, surrounded by gold and marble, understanding something about beauty requiring sacrifice. Dress for the Alps. Beauty and warmth have been enemies since the Renaissance.
Spring through autumn? Perfect. The churches breathe with you instead of against you. Same glory, less suffering.
Link above. Search 'Paris' and pick your church. Some are Baroque, some Gothic, all are under €30. Tuesday could be Mozart. Thursday could be transformation.
-Mx
30€ FOR TRANSCENDENCE
24 October 2025
FORMAL EMERGENCIES
Three suitcases, a garment bag, a carry-on, and a massive tote. 115 kilos. This is what home looks like when you've decided walls are optional.
One suitcase for skincare, medications, fragrances, watches, jewelry, peptides and supplements – the price of being 48 and optimized. Another of clothes and shoes for any climate and occasion because I never know where I will be or who I will need to become. The third for what I can't explain but must have: fabric for cobblers and tailors, ceramics I'm turning into candles, things I’ve collected while traveling, German laundry detergent, a tripod, extension cords, must haves that make Airbnbs bearable.
Inside the garment bag: a tuxedo. Always. The tuxedo is philosophy. Not because I attend galas (well, sometimes), but because I've decided to be someone for whom formal emergencies are possible.
Everything I own either travels or waits in storage.
When I left Manhattan, I grabbed whatever lurked in my closet, bought cheap cases from Amazon. Four years later, I'm professionally nomadic. The Amazon luggage died honorably in service. Zippers burst. Wheels departed. They weren't built for carrying an entire life. They were meant for 10 days in Hawaii.
Briggs & Riley. $900 for one suitcase sounds like insanity until you realize what you're purchasing: a portable liminal space. Black ballistic nylon that survives what I do to it. Handles outside the frame – engineering genius meaning more space inside. Lifetime warranty. Four years of maximum weight, minimum mercy. Not one failure. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? No question.
Storage units in São Paulo and New York act as my closets. I arrive like a traveling salesman of my own existence, swap summer for winter, treasures for practicalities, offload what I've collected, grab what I need for the next season, next climate, next life.
If I’m over my weight limit I buy an extra suitcase. I only have one life and I’m not going to deny myself.
Accumulation despite limitation. Transformation through transportation. The weight as proof I'm still becoming.
Home is 115 kilos (more if I smile at the check in agent just right), perfectly and lovingly packed. Always.
-Mx
$109 OF BREAD
23 September 2025
My biological family exists in the subjunctive tense: they would accept me if. My chosen family lives in distant cities, scattered across time zones, available via WhatsApp but not for holidays. Lonely? Sometimes. But my most reliable family is myself. And myself wanted panettone.
For the uninitiated, panettone is what happens when brioche claims Italian citizenship and has an affair with fruitcake. The result transcends both parents. It must, or I wouldn't be evangelizing about bread.
Every Italian grandmother makes it. But Roy Shvartzapel – Jewish, Israeli-American, based in San Francisco – makes the only one that matters. This is what happens when outsiders approach tradition: they see what it could be, not what it's always been.
Roy’s Panettone: three days of fermentation, butter folded until the dough becomes memory foam, candied orange peel he makes himself because store-bought is betrayal. I'm a purist about this. Classic Orange Raisin only. Order Chocolate and you're the kind of person who thinks improvement means addition.
The ritual: Christmas morning, one-inch slabs, 350°F oven, watch the sugars crystallize into amber glass. The butter weeps then caramelizes, creating a crust so delicate it shatters at first bite. Inside: soft architecture, yeast and orange and butter having a conversation about transcendence.
I could eat the entire loaf. Have eaten the entire loaf. $109 of bread as a single meal because when you're your own family, you make your own rules about abundance.
Expensive? Everything worth loving is. Loneliness taught me this: when you're your own family, you don't economize on traditions. You buy the best panettone on earth and eat it in your underwear while the city sleeps.
This is the tradition I invented: Pre-order now before they sell out. Buy two. Hide one in the freezer for February when the world feels impossible. Tell no one. If you're coming to Europe, bring one for me.
Creating tradition from nothing is the loneliest freedom. Also the most honest. No inherited obligations, just chosen devotions. A Jewish baker's Italian bread, eaten by someone who's only 25% Italian, on Christmas morning.
My tradition, now yours.
–Mx
18 September 2025
YOUR PAST FACE
HAS TO LEAVE
The fountain of youth exists. It comes in a 60-gram tube and requires a prescription.
Tazarotene is the childless rich aunt in the retinoid family – the one who shows up to Christmas (maybe) with perfect skin and no explanation. While Tretinoin was busy having children and getting suburban, Tazarotene was quietly getting work done in Switzerland.
At 48, watching my face negotiate with gravity daily, I’ve become a scholar of collapse. The way skin thins like old parchment. Here’s what nobody tells you: elastin is the real loss. Collagen gets the press, but elastin holds the architecture. Watch a 20-year-old’s cheek bounce back. That’s elastin. Watch yours move like memory foam. That’s time.
Tazarotene directly rewrites the gene expression tied to both proteins. It doesn’t metaphorically rebuild – it literally forces your cells to remember their job description from decades ago. It speaks directly to your DNA and says, politely but firmly, remember who you used to be.
Your face will peel. Not metaphorically. Literally sheets of yourself will roll off in the shower. I find this philosophical. Also disgusting. Both things can be true. Your past face has to leave for your future face to arrive.
The pea-sized amount advice? Written by someone with a pea-sized face. I use an inch-long stripe. My face is 6’5” proportional.
Some people ease in gently, three times a week, like entering a cold pool. I went daily from the start. Two weeks of fire for a lifetime of architecture. Your skin either adapts or you learn exactly how vain you really are.
The trick: Get both strengths (.1% and .05%). Recruit your (very clever) dermatologist. Tell them you need it twice daily. Stockpile like the apocalypse is coming. Insurance thinks they’re funding one tube; you walk out with six or eight. Legal theft.
If I could only take one product to a desert island, it’d be this. Well, this and moisturizer. Even architectural renovation needs hydration.
No before/after photos because I never thought I’d be someone who documents their face.
Still searching for the rest of the fountain. For now, rebuilding my face one gene at a time.
As always, happy to help.
–Mx
LITTLE VIALS OF POSSIBILITY
12 September 2025
I'm cheating time and happy to admit it.
At 48, I inject the future into my thigh three times a week (the fold of skin between my cum gutters and upper thigh, if you want to be specific). Little vials of possibility. The chemistry of becoming rather than declining.
Peptides are amplifiers, not miracles. They turn your 7 into a 10, not your 0 into a hero. What started as vanity became philosophy - can we negotiate with Father Time? Yes, and I am proof. (And yes, these days we take selfies in our living room where there is better lighting.)
IGF-1 LR3 – Direct anabolic effect. Drives muscle growth, repair, and recovery systemically. Everything gets stronger (and better looking).
Tesamorelin – Growth hormone-releasing hormone analog. FDA-approved for belly fat reduction, raises IGF-1. Refusing the dad bod nature insists you deserve.
CJC/Ipamorelin – Synergistic stack mimics natural GH pulses. Incredible for sleep, recovery, fat metabolism, skin. Sleep like 25, wake up like you give a damn. Pro tip: Stack with Tesamorelin - stock the bar, then pour the drinks.
Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) – Dual agonist (GLP-1 + GIP). Boosts insulin sensitivity, kills appetite. The head clarity when you're not thinking about food? Revolutionary.
Retatrutide – Triple agonist (adds glucagon). Extra fat burning, increased energy. Still experimental. The future of optimization. I love this stuff.
GHK-Cu – Boosts collagen, wound healing, hair growth. Your skin time travels backwards. @NIOD CAIS 3 for topical serum version.
BPC-157 – Heals tendons, ligaments, gut lining. Controls inflammation. Wolverine's healing factor in pill form.
TB-500 – Systemic healing, builds new blood vessels, reduces scar tissue. Essential if you're training hard at 48.
Current protocol: IGF-1 LR3: 10mcg 3x/week post-training, Tesamorelin: 0.5mg mornings non-lift days, CJC/Ipa: 6.7/13.3mcg bedtime, Tirzepatide: 2mg 2x/week
Massive nuance here. Don't copy. Talk to me first. Hierarchy: Sleep first. Nutrition second. Training third. Then peptides. You can't inject your way out of a life poorly lived.
At 48, I'm not trying to be 25. I'm trying to be the 48 that 25-year-olds think is impossible.
–Mx
THE PERSON
YOU’RE PRACTICING
10 September 2025
Can a dessert be a map? A map to the person you're rehearsing to become?
Every time I pull this tart from the oven, I practice being someone else. Someone who lunches at three in the afternoon. Someone for whom time is elastic. Someone European in that ineffable way that has nothing to do with passports.
Quietly sophisticated. Unpretentious. Substantial but not heavy.
Suzanne Goin's Italian Almond Tart. Food & Wine magazine, 2005. Twenty years I've been making this.
Suzanne ran three restaurants in Los Angeles when I lived there - Lucques, AOC, Tavern. I went as often as my credit card allowed, chasing the Mediterranean dream she piled on a platter and set down before me. Today only AOC still stands.
It's satisfyingly crunchy, slightly salty from cornmeal, perfumed with orange, rough-hewn from the almonds. Not unlike how I see myself - textured and complex.
Last month in the Hamptons: two tarts, 6 gays, 48 hours. Gone.
It comes together with just your hands - no machinery, no precision. The tart requires a springform pan, though I've made it in a Pyrex (watch it more closely). You may need to break the tart to release it which is perfect. Itself a metaphor for something, probably.
Serve it alone - it needs nothing. Or with Suzanne's roasted grapes and champagne sabayon if you're ambitious. Or ice cream. Or Champagne. Whatever feels right.
Make two - one for the dinner party where you're performing generosity, one for the morning after when you eat it with coffee, alone at your counter, practicing being the kind of person who doesn't need to explain why this matters.
This is dolce far niente in pastry form. The sweet nothing that's actually everything. The life you're making.
Recipe in the comments.
–Mx
PS - If you like to cook (like really like to cook) do yourself a favor and make Suzanne's Thanksgiving menu from Bon Appetite magazine. It's a lot of work but goddamn it is worth. every. minute. Confit turkey thighs? Heaven on earth…
YESTERDAY’S PERSON
8 September 2025
In Morocco, yesterday's person lives in your skin. Once a week, I pay for his funeral.
You're lying on warm marble in a steamy room, feeling distinctly sacrificial.
Black soap arrives first - olives that died and learned chemistry. Five minutes while it negotiates with everything you're ready to release.
The kessa glove is democracy's answer to expensive skincare. Viscose so rough it could refinish furniture. Applied to flesh with the dedication of someone restoring a fresco. They scrub. You look down. Your dead skin has rolled into grey pills, years of poor choices made visible. Disgusting. Satisfying. Necessary.
Rhassoul clay from the Atlas Mountains comes next - clay that was seafloor when Morocco was ocean. Mixed with herbs and orange flower water. You're painted head to toe. You marinate in mineral. The heat makes borders negotiable: where you end, mountain begins.
They rinse you like a newborn. Hair washed. Skin dried. Apply argan oil like a blessing.
Turkish hammams whisper. The Moroccans understand: transformation requires violence.
@hammamdelarose if you trust women with strong hands. Specifically Oumaima’s.
@royalmansourmarrakech if you need marble to match your expectations.
Or buy a soap, the kessa glove and clay from @themoroccans and bury yourself to pretty at home. But some rituals require witnesses. Plus it’s really hard to get your back. Even with my condor arms.
-Mx