Walking down 113th st in Harlem, a man jumps out at Partner and says, “Boo!”
Partner responds by singing “It’s a hard knock life!” in his face. (The song they were playing on their boombox.)
He laughs.
At the gym, I asked the lifter in front of me: “Can I use the 70s for a set?” He said sure. I returned the 70s. I saw his jacket. “Did you go to Yale SOM?” He says no, but he was admitted and chose Columbia instead.
We talked for the next 20 minutes. We exchanged phone numbers, then I did my last two sets and met Partner in the lobby. He walked out shortly after that. The three of us went to an Ethiopian restaurant together. Everyone is a stranger until they’re a friend.
This afternoon, I taught a couple friends how to play a card game (tichu). It took two hands for them to get the rules, and the strategy would take even longer. I wanted them to learn the strategy faster, so we did an open hand: I walked through the logic in different spots. They would have learned much of this strategy eventually, but I’d rather they learn faster, and they’d rather start on level two.
Julian Wise 