i saw Simone Biles in Texas, and also Qatar

'i just cling on, for dear life.'

Today is the first day of the Olympics which has me thinking of the great Simone Biles and the November I hung out with her in Houston, near her home and the family gymnasium, and then interviewed her at a restaurant near The Galleria mall. Biles made the restaurant staff so nervous, and its patrons so distracted, neither one of us could touch our guacamole.

“She just isn’t into finite ideas of excellence.” photo by Danyel Smith | Houston, TX | November 11 2018

The wilder part of that 2018 experience happened weeks before Texas, when I flew from Washington DC to Scotland and from there to Qatar where I landed post-midnight in Doha and hopped in a small Uber with a driver who was blasting a Bollywoodish remix of French Montana and Swae Lee’s huge hit, “Unforgettable.”