This was the second time in my life a best friend had announced to me that they were sorry to tell me but they were suddenly moving to Hawaii. Oh hell, no. Bradley and I had developed a friendship which was way too pure for this goddamn world and its …weather. So I invited myself to visit him and his exceedingly blue-eyed boyfriend, Jonathan in their heavenly studio loft in Chinatown, Honolulu.
For 2 months.

They didn’t say no.

Friendship! We swam with sea turtles, rope-swung, hiked towering watertrickles, drank mai tais on premature afternoons, crashed infinity hot tubs at sunset, buoyed ourselves in the warm and silvering dusklit Pacific, and turned a bottle of wine and a dirty concrete slab overlooking moonlit freighters into our own personal loveseat… And we were so good-looking!

But mostly, we opened a vintage boutique (rather, Bradley and Jonathan opened it while I pretended to be right about everything), Barrio Vintage, a concept pop-up. What a dream! Leather, cashmere, Gucci, Dior, preposterous prices….

Quite literally speaking, it was paradise.

Then Rian Flynn came and shit got real:

Continue reading The Unrepentant Tourist – Barrio Vintage, Honolulu