Sometimes days off are the most exhausting of all.
I feel fear.
Fear about the largesse of what I’m doing.
Not about the wrongness.
Just the largesse.
This morning I awoke excited for a day of poker & bedrot.
But my partner (who is currently in San Francisco) texted me about a potluck in Brooklyn.
The potluck: 11:30am. Her text: 9:45am. So I sprinted through a 20min Peloton ride and hightailed it to Brooklyn.
I enjoyed the party. Two people who I especially enjoyed. One an excellent storyteller and the other a skilled hypeman.
Then, two hours of poker. I dialed up my social shenanigans while dialing in my poker playing. Crushed the game. Save for one situation where I lost a 47% vs 53% scenario for $100, the cards were win-win-win!
Then, at the subway station en route to a friend’s penis party (more on that later), a woman held out her phone with a picture, asking me how to get to Times Square. Her language sounded familiar. I said, “French?” She said, “Creole”.
I tried French to no avail. Must be too distant from her creole (despite it clearly being French-influenced). I successfully got her to the right station. But it was through a series of sounds and gestures (“boop. Boop. Bing!” means “not this station, not that station, but the one after”.) Sometimes all those years of French class are less effective than the communication skills I’ve recently learned from my year-and-a-half-old nephew!
Finally, at the penis party. 5 years, he’s had it. (A phalloplasty, specifically.)
The food? Tacos (heh) and penis-shaped cake (pronounced “cock”).
I liked these folks. Lots of laughs, an Irish catholic lesbian my new favorite among them. Great sense of humor and vibrancy for dark humor in life.
That lesbian is a building examiner. She says if my architect self-certifies, I don’t have a building examiner. That’s nice. Sounds like I’ll pass code!
Walking home from the subway, I’m struck by a few elements:
- I’m afraid. Fearful. Terrified. Of becoming house poor. It makes sense to me. I see how people do it.
- My community is diverse. This morning’s pot luck was 100% tech or tech-adjacent. My favorite people were a couple of churchgoing presbyterian boarding-school grads. Then, everybody at the party tonight was either trans, jewish, or both (or the plus-one of someone trans or jewish). It’s no coincidence that the host is trans and jewish.
- For years I’ve asked, “Who are my people?” At least I’ve found those people self-select. Autistic, definitely. Intellectual, yes. But aside from those traits, I don’t think it’s as clear as it would be for my trans & Jewish friend.
Sometimes I wonder how much we’re carved by influential experiences that we didn’t select. By how much our scars draw us to others who’ve experienced similar.
Then I walk home. Suddenly, I’m all alone. It’s glorious and sad. Lonely and elevated. Freedom and…
…
…
no. that’s it.
just freedom.
Julian Wise 