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Brass Birmingham: A Play-Log

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When life is a dream, what is the point of dreaming?

While sleeping last night, I played a board game I have never played.

Despite what my subconscious may tell you, I suspect these are not the rules:

Setup

While one player provides an insufficient explanation of the rules, other players select a difficulty level for the game, indicated by various wooden logs.

Level 1:

  • A big log.

Level 2:

  • Three smaller logs.

Level 3:

  • A big log, but a slightly different color.

Components

You, now physically at a lumber mill in a small town in upstate California (not near redwoods), are met by an older, experienced logger who comments on the uniqueness of the region’s dirt.

Turn Sequence

You place your token at the beginning of the board. You move your token around the board with little understanding of why or wherefore.

When you land on a space, the space enacts a horror-themed mechanic reminiscent of Luigi’s Mansion.

Variants

You brainstorm various puns on Brass Birmingham.

Some of these places place the Birmingham in England (“Neon Newcastle”); others place the Birmingham in Alabama (“Copper Chattanooga”).

Return to Reality

You awaken and text the friend with whom you will be playing Brass Birmingham the following day.

You mention this dream and your plan to watch a video containing the actual rules.

Not because that game sounds more fun, but because flying to California for a logging session would take longer than the allotted three hours.

Pets, Colleagues, Livestock

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The creature is the same, the category is the frame, the frame is the game.

Is your cat a pet or a colleague?

Our categories, often arbitrary, shape our relationships.

Snickers

My parents’ cat died yesterday. She was a comfort animal, treated like a member of the family — albeit one who would literally bite the hand that feeds her. Upon receiving scritches, Snickers would drool, then grow overwhelmed by the pleasure and bite you. Her teeth were quite sharp, prompting the end of the scritching and Snickers’ confusion.

Dubbed The Belle of Amherst, Snickers hermited upstairs, leaving her room only once or twice per year. A working cat? She hadn’t caught a mouse in her life. Snickers would meow so my mother would lift her up to the food bowl on the windowsill. My mother laughed about Snickers forgetting the location of her food. I laughed because Snickers had learned to take the elevator instead of the stairs.

Snickers was a family member. We will miss her.

Smidgen

After ending a relationship in 2018, a best-friend-sized hole throbbed in my heart. Since dog is man’s best friend, I considered adopting.

Unsure for how long I would want a dog, I reasoned: I would delightfully care for a dog for the next few years. After that period, I wasn’t so sure.

Most people in this circumstance wouldn’t adopt a dog, at least in cultures where dog is family-member. I understand that dogs feel emotional attachments. It does seem cruel to adopt and abandon.

However: 

  1. “Abandoning” is meaningfully different from what I planned to do (I wouldn’t simply leave it on the street)
  2. In that world, one more dog sits at a shelter and I wallow without a dog.

Many shelters are over-crowded, especially with chihuahuas, and often kill the animals they can’t care for. Even if somebody took a dog for a year, then returned it and the dog was immediately put to death, didn’t that dog get an extra year of life? By caring for a dog, even temporarily, don’t you improve the dog-shelter ecosystem? It’s hard to say that some amount of dog separation pain overrides the value of a happy year of a dog’s life.

I concluded the “dog-as-commitment” perspective didn’t fit my values, so I adopted a dog with the plan to rehome her if my preference changed. When I called the shelter to put Smidgen on hold, the receptionist laughed, saying she had been at the shelter for months: no one would swoop in to steal her from me.

Smidgen and I traveled together for around three years. More than anything in the world, she loved lap-sitting. She’d sit on my lap while I drove across the country. She’d sit on my lap while I read a book. Sometimes we’d go to dog parks so she could sit on my lap and watch the other dogs.

Six months into our relationship, I mentioned the uncertainty I had about keeping her. Consistently, people responded with comments like, “Well, you’ve made a commitment.”

Where does this social pressure — that a dog is a family member — come from? It might be the social shaming of abandoning or abusing dogs (which is categorically different from re-homing them). It might be the strong vocality of people who grow incredibly attached to their dogs.

In my uncertainty, I only found one write-up about a family that adopted a dog, had it for six months, and decided it wasn’t for them. The write-up lamented the absence of shared experiences like this.

Partner

Partner grew up surrounded by animals: cows, chickens, sheep, ducks, geese, guinea pigs, parakeets, a rabbit, and dogs.

Two weeks ago, our general contractor brought over some eggs and mentioned he has a sick chicken. His wife has spent about $2,000 trying to revive this chicken. Partner noted afterwards that she had newly realized she didn’t grow up with pets: she grew up with farm animals. One cow was named T-Bone after its future. When raccoons raided their coop, the family shrugged and replaced the chickens. (As Partner puts it, “Chickens are like 3 for $10.”)

I don’t think there’s clear superiority to the pet perspective over the farm animal relationship. The relationship seems more driven by one’s background and emotional experiences than logic.

I’m reminded of the Supreme Court case National Pork Producers Council v. Ross. In oral arguments, the Humane Society argued for the ethics of pigs in kinder conditions. Pork producers rebutted with the ethics of affordable pork. A plurality of the Supreme Court ruled the ethics “incommensurable” – impossible for courts to compare.

Mother

My mother grew up with a large extended family, all in their forties or older when she was born. By the nature of aging, they began to pass away when my mother was quite young.

My mother sees each pet as a family member.

I grew up without an extended family. My four-person nuclear family has always been healthy. I don’t have that particular pain that causes me to strongly desire more family. (But I did adopt Smidgen from a best-friend-sized hole.)

When my time with Smidgen had neared its end, I asked my mother: “If I rehomed her, would you want her?” My mother said yes.

She relates to what she sees as a family member. I relate to what I see as a dog.

What’s it like to be a pet? 

Smidgen and Snickers shared the same bed for about four years. Snickers hissed whenever Smidgen got too close. I wonder whether they considered each other family.

Will Smidgen be sad that Snickers is gone?

Reply to tell me: what’s your relationship with the animals in your life? And if you’ve ever rehomed a dog: did anyone in your circle understand?

Win the Hand, Lose the Tournament

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“You already want. Want at the right level.”

Somehow, moving 6,205 lbs in 45 minutes is easier than moving 0 lbs.

My life was forever changed when I encountered this idea in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: 

  • Virtue is formed through habitual, repeated actions.

In college, I focused on habit formation. Routine is simple – and for me, can be easy: “Every day” is often easier than five days per week. Habit is a valuable default. 

But sometimes, excellence requires non-habit. Sometimes, wanting to win can make you lose.

Know When to Fold ‘Em 

The hunger that makes you a cutthroat poker player can also lose you tournaments. 

In many poker tournament situations, the winning move is to fold. There are plenty of spots where one has the guaranteed best hand yet the proper move is folding! (E.g. pocket aces with a short stack on a tournament bubble when multiple other players are all-in.) 

The fastest way to lose a fortune at poker is over-bluffing. 

Give up on this hand. Find a better spot.

Know When to Walk Away

The strategy that makes you a skilled weightlifter also exacerbates your injuries. 

Ten years ago, I bulged a disc in my spine. 

Three weeks ago, I re-activated the same injury. I paused deadlifts and squats, only returning to them 3 days ago. My sciatica flared up again. I stopped.

In the long term, one day without lifting doesn’t matter. One week wouldn’t matter. A re-injury could bench me for life. 

Wanting to lift weights makes you a good weightlifter. But wanting to lift weights can also make you a permanently-bad weightlifter.

Know When to Run

For the next 6 weeks, any lifts involving my back would be “rolling the dice”. Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t like gambling: I like situations where gambling leads to an edge. 

This isn’t one. Today, I’m taking a rest day from the gym.

Count Your Money When the Dealin’s Done

The game isn’t one poker hand. The game is long-term winning. 

The game isn’t today’s weightlifting. The game is long-term health. 

These intellectual reframes – “it’s not about this hand” and “it’s not about lifting today” – can have cascading effects. They relax your mind. They create new patience. 

Today I will take a rest day. And each second when I’m not lifting weights, I will remind myself I’m getting stronger.

Score is the Thief of Commerce

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“To win, score the most. To score the most, stop keeping score.”

Last week, after three days in my metaphorical writing cave, I hollered to Partner, “I know I haven’t been doing dishes. I owe you.” I caught it immediately: “Actually, I think keeping score is bad practice. I take it back.” She laughed and continued on with her day.

I like scores. Keeping score is a clear and straightforward way to understand and compare performance. But sometimes, keeping score can be actively harmful.

Macro scoring enables comparison between multiple options. Micro-scoring corrodes as it leads you to optimize the wrong things. As my family motto goes (it’s intentionally too long for comedic effect), “Before you hyper-optimize a process, be sure you’re optimizing for what you actually want and not a correlate.”

The Bad (Reflexive Scoring)

Should I owe Partner dishes? I was heads-down on work because I spent the previous three weeks coordinating medical appointments for Partner and renovation work for our apartment.

As Middle East history teaches: if you dig back far enough, you can find huge grievances on all sides. Without touching on rightness or wrongness (as I do not have a sufficiently long stick with which to touch), this process does not seem to form stability. And stability is something I would like in my partnership.

Simply: if Partner feels I’m not doing dishes enough, she will say so. If I feel I’m not washing dishes enough, I should wash more dishes.

Score-keeping as a way of digging yourself out of a hole will often lead to resentment of the scorekeeping mechanism (or participants, which is even worse).

The Good (Reflective Scoring)

I once heard a successful startup founder describe his romantic check-ins. He and his wife divide his work into four categories: money earner, father, lover, friend. Rating each on a 1–10 scale, so long as his overall score achieves more than 25 points, he passes. For this partnership, this calculation may solve a real problem: it recognizes a person’s contributions despite changes over time.

This scoring process is a feedback instrument, driven by deliberate weighing of details — not a reflex prompted by momentary discomfort.

The Bridge (Incentive Alignment)

Hourly work misaligns incentives. This structure causes less efficiency and innovation: working faster costs the worker money!

I realized this structure with my $16/hr marketing internship after my sophomore year of college. I automated all my work, and all the other interns’ work. My superior said, “Sit tight and read.” I arrived to work early and left late because they paid me hourly. I was always there to do work if they wanted to give me work. (Now, I would take a slightly different tack: raising this lack-of-work to my boss’s boss. But at the time, I thought arriving early and staying late to maximize my dollars was the standard way to play the game.)

Even if your boss is your best friend, the hourly contract puts you in opposition. The score isn’t a personality conflict; it’s a contract feature. No amount of scorekeeping can account for misalignment.

The Ugly (Anti-Commerce)

Some work should be 90%–10%. In my partnership, Partner captains cooking 90% of the time; I captain travel logistics and social plans 90% of the time. I’m sufficiently capable to create edible food. Partner is sufficiently capable to book flights and schedule with friends. We simply enjoy it less (and are less skilled).

Micro tit-for-tat prevents specializing and trading, which is the fundamental lesson of commerce. So long as we both share the common knowledge that we’re both helping the team, the score is anti-helpful.

When partners are aligned on what they’re moving toward, the allocation can skew without it mattering. Some weeks she does more; some weeks I do. The “oxygen mask before helping others” frame applies: feeding yourself, whether literal food or via nurturing work, isn’t a withdrawal from the partnership — it’s a contribution to it, because your effectiveness is shared.

The reflex inside an aligned partnership imports structural-scoring logic into a relationship that thrives on more flexibility than scoring provides.

The score is the thief of commerce.

The Reckoning (Trust)

Would you rather employ someone values-aligned and unskilled, or skilled but misaligned? For piecework, I think skilled but misaligned. For a teammate, values-aligned. (That said, I am historically incompetent at working with unskilled people.) But I guess that’s still better than someone who will sabotage, even if they do it unknowingly.

Alignment produces trust. A scorecard substitutes for trust, poorly.

Last night, Partner asked me to do the dishes.

On Skillful Calibration (and Safely Pokin’ Gators!)

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To improve, calibrate. To calibrate, employ expected value calculations (which is more fun than it sounds).

Two years ago, a friend passed on the opportunity to invest in Anthropic. He now regrets passing.

This friend prioritizes calibration. Yesterday I learned why he generally avoids risks. When viewing a risk, he considers only the magnitude, failing to also include the risk’s probability.

Expected value is one of game theory’s most powerful calculations: 

  • Probability × Magnitude = Expected Value. 

My friend is not unique: people often drop one of the two terms. Include both in your simple math; your outcomes will be better calibrated. (And it only takes a second!)

Magnitude-Only: Frozen From Fear

Considering only the downside magnitude over-biases against action. This heuristic will keep you alive but not enable you to thrive.

This example occurs whenever somebody says, “But what if it fails?” as a conversation ender. Slap a probability on that bad boy and you’ve got an EV.

Probability-Only: Missing the Magnitude

A friend once described why they don’t vote: “the likelihood I’ll have an impact is near-zero.” Ah, but tomes have been written about the enormous magnitude.

When someone says, “It probably won’t happen,” or “it’s a drop in a bucket,” check they’re also considering the size of the bucket. If the impact is large enough, the low likelihood that your single drop makes it overflow may be enough.

EV → More Fun

During my all-time favorite date, Partner and I hooted & hollered at an alligator.

Twenty minutes earlier, we strolled down a path through a Louisiana swamp. Partner meandered toward some tall grass. I said, “I wouldn’t do that.” Partner was surprised because her self-preservation instinct usually eclipses mine. I mentioned alligators, and said: in this circumstance, the magnitude is very bad (being eaten by a gator) and the probability much higher than usual (Louisiana swamps contain alligators, and Pokémon has taught me to beware tall grass).

Compare that moment to later: on a bridge 10 feet above an alligator. The magnitude is still very bad, but the likelihood de minimis. (Teehee, alligators can’t jump 10 feet!) 

Since we knew ourselves to be safe, we could poke the gator with our metaphorical stick.

When something seems scary, investigate the probability. E.g. “I can’t miss work to see my child’s school play: I could lose my job.” 

This concern is well-founded, but misses two elements: the likelihood of losing your job (probability) and the fact that you can influence that likelihood via other actions (malleable probability). (I’ll write more on malleable probability another time, especially as it relates to luck.)

Expanding your Vocabulary

Expected Value is a core step, but it is only the first step.

Error bars can make this topic tougher. The question “How likely is extra-terrestrial life to exist in our universe?” prompts wildly different outcomes whether you include the error bars.

So even if you do the EV calculation, you’ll still be wrong sometimes, you’ll still lose sometimes, and there’s still more calculation to do. (For a fun example, see Pascal’s Mugging.)

There’s a Fine, Fine Line Between Campy & Bad

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Bad + heightened + self-aware = camp. Bad + heightened – self-aware = bad.

Can you discern between campy acting and bad acting?

On Thursday, I watched a play. Half the actors performed camp; the other half were unskilled. Camp is the mimicry and affectionate mockery of bad. There’s a fine, fine line between them: to the untrained observer, camp could appear as bad.

Thus, the performers must train the observers.

What’s in a Play?

A skilled actor who cannot entertain is not a skilled actor. However, in this situation, I do not think the actors are entirely to blame. An actor in an uncurated environment can only do so much.

The director is responsible for show cohesion, just as a coach is responsible for team cohesion. (A football player can reasonably say, “I played my role perfectly; today’s loss is not my fault.”)

Thursday’s show presented individuals but lacked a bigger picture. Every actor played according to their ability. Some of those abilities were poor. The director failed to account for this gap. Again, I think this is a coaching issue. Plenty of highschool sports teams have bench warmers and waterboys. Plenty of highschool plays contain “tree #1”. (And New York City theater likely has far more people auditioning than available roles.)

Just as a comedian must wink at the audience lest we think him a liar, this play needed a wink. The play was a small-theater (but professional) production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a musical containing archetypes — archetypes that, as over-the-top portrayals, may not be authentic. Inauthentic acting done well may be camp. Done poorly? Amateurish.

When the actors first entered the stage, playing mock-audience members, one could have said, “This is going to be campy.” A director’s note in the printed programs could have said, “We lean into the camp.” Instead, the performances fell into the uncanny valley.

A Holistic Hole

A basketball coach must do more than ensure each teammate performs their role. They must ensure the team gets the ball into the basket. Otherwise, you end up with beautiful acrobatics but complete strategic failure.

Or, in this case, a play that audiences did not want to watch.

In Favor of Race-Ism

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Not that kind; the playful kind. 

Two days ago, Partner asked, “Are most games races?” 

As a lover of games and bad puns, I present to you: 

RACE-IAL DYNAMICS: a taxonomy of games if we assume all games are races.

Why Touch Upon Race? 

Race is a touchy subject. Why perform this taxonomy at all? 

Story structures come from games. Flirting often mimics tag. Political jabs often mimic “I’m not touching you”. 

Separating the races allows us a clearer vocabulary about the different race mechanics found in a game. 

If you’re playing game A, which has race dynamic Alpha, would the game be better with race dynamic Beta? 

What’s in a Race? 

A “race” is approximately a competition involving time. Common words/constructions include: 

  • “First to X” 
  • “Most Y in [time]” 

RACE-ISM is the categorization of games by their races. (People who subscribe to 

this categorization are therefore RACE-IST.) 

Segregating the Races

Some races are pure: reach the victory condition before the opponent. Most games contain some amount of RACE MIXING (the incorporation of different race-like components, which tends to create stronger games, as we’ll get into later). Let us attempt for a moment to see the races in their purest forms. 

Who’s Racing, How & When? 

  • SIMULTANEOUS RACE
    • “I race while you race” 
  • SEQUENTIAL RACE
    • “I race, then you race” 
  • ASYMMETRIC RACES
    • “Can I X before you Y?”
  • ANTIPARALLEL RACE
    • “You want to go in one direction; I want to go in the other” (e.g. tug of war). 

Race Physiognomy 

  • RACE-RACE
    • “First to X”. 
  • SLOW RACE
    • “Who gets there last?”
  • SCORE RACE
    • “Most points wins” or, for golf “least points wins”
  • QUALITY RACE
    • “Best X within [time]”, where X is about quality traits, not numerical (e.g. the Great British Bake-off or gymnastics.) 
  • ENDURANCE RACE (or SURVIVAL RACE)
    • “Who quits last?”

Race Ends

The word “end” can mean either culmination (“the end of my work shift”) or goal (“you are working to what end?”). As this piece contains copious puns, I shall employ the word to mean both. 

  • RACE CULMINATIONS
    • TIME-ENDED RACES
      • A clock concludes the race 
    • PLAY-ENDED RACES
      • A player action concludes the race
  • RACE OBJECTIVES can be
    • the SAME
      • (“first to touch the tree”)
    • DIFFERENT INSTANCES OF THE SAME
      • (“first to checkmate the opponent’s king”)
    • DIFFERENT
      • (“can I tag this runner before they get to the base?”)
    • SUBJECTIVE
      • (“most satisfying to X person”)
    • OBJECTIVE
      • (“Highest measurable count of X”) 

Race Mixing

Most people only watch footraces at the Olympics once every four years, which implies we find them less interesting than other sports. Football, for example, contains:

  • An antiparallel asymmetric race
    • (offense vs defense) 
  • with mini asymmetric antiparallel races
    • (cornerbacks guarding wide receivers; offensive line protecting the quarterback while the defensive line attempts to pressure and/or tackle the quarterback), 
  • with multiple race ends and sub-ends
    • (the game itself concludes after the clock runs out of time (time-ended race), but the clock can pause due to various in-game mechanics)
    • (the number of downs is a play-ended race, influenceable by both teams) 

Football’s different races require different skills: speed, strength, and hand-eye coordination of course, but also time management, rapid-fire decisionmaking, and balance of risk-taking. Since games parallel the skills we use in the rest of our lives, the simple ones tend to be less generally valuable, just as the ability to perform one simple task (picking up a pencil) is less valuable than performing a more complex task (writing a biography). 

Inferior Races 

There are no inferior races. RACE-IAL PREFERENCE is a matter of taste. 

For example, my favorite type of race happens in cooking: One person speeds to finish the rice before another person can toast the marshmallow, all before the oven is pre-heated. As an added benefit, at the end we enjoy a tasty race krispie treat.

Rotational Monotasking

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The Subconscious Collaborator

You can’t multitask. But your subconscious can.

The literature against multitasking is vast. The human brain, for example, only possesses one language processor.

But how many of us have received a brilliant idea while performing a completely unrelated activity?

Harness it. Treat your subconscious as a collaborator: pass it work, receive it back.

Conscious & Subconscious

One’s psychological resources do not extend over the horizon, infinitely in all directions. Sometimes you can’t concentrate enough to read a single additional email. But in these moments of email exhaustion, you could compose a slide deck. (Or at least cook dinner.) 

Take my writing process: 

  1. Spew
  2. Nugget
  3. Outline
  4. Polish

Spewing more than one topic back-to-back forces my eyes to cross and my mouth to fill with cotton. Spewing on a topic, then immediately nuggeting it, prompts an outsized interest in the activities outside my window. But I can spew topic A, then nugget topic B, outline C, and polish D, no sweat.

My calendar becomes a beautiful spiral, like strands of A, T, C, and G in double-helixed DNA.

The Spiral

Plenty of games contain this sort of interlocking loop. When the same shape shows up across domains, the underlying move tends to transfer. Weightlifting benefits from a rotation of muscle groups. A football play contains individual loops per player, each intersecting and overlapping. Recognizing the shape enables you to take the tactics from one game to the next. 

Why not relate to your mind in this way?

The Subconscious Collaborator

In college, I practiced the skill of passing information to my subconscious. “What is six times seven?” could be performed consciously (visually) or via telling oneself, “Come back to me when you know six times seven.”

I call this process rotational monotasking, since you’re not performing two tasks at once. Your single activity is passing and receiving. (I don’t think of these as two activities, just as I don’t think of listening and talking as different activities, but as sub-parts of “conversing.”)

Years later, friends would introduce me to the bomb defusal game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. In this game, the defuser must pass information about the bomb to specialized experts, who perform their mini-tasks, then pass information back to the defuser. By no coincidence, I performed naturally as a defuser, thanks to it mimicking the same process: pass and receive.

In play: I tell someone the colors of horizontal wires. They tell me they need the serial number. I say “one moment” and circle back. We pass information, ignoring the irrelevancies, and pulling the right answer when ready for it. The team works faster when everyone has a productive activity. Your job as defuser: ensure everyone else always has a task. 

In what other areas does one perform this pass and receive? 

  • As a leader/delegator. (“Tell them the end state and the why; let them invent the how.”)
  • With oneself, to improve one’s skill at a topic without dedicating conscious resources. (“Brainstorm fun ideas for my blog title” → you’ll start to notice them while grocery shopping.) 
  • When one has hit a wall. (“I don’t know what else to do here. Give me the next move when you know it.”)

Some people have developed impressive loops. Can you feel the difference between 41°F and 41.5°F? Many river guides can. Can you tell yourself to wake at 6 a.m. and do it? You can learn it.

Rotation buys you the ability to focus on the present without losing that other idea.

When you pass a topic and return to it: 

  1. You’re newly rested, so you see it with fresh eyes and enthusiasm
  2. You’re in a new circumstance, so may have new ideas based on the new context
  3. You can spend the intervening time on other activities (rather than banging your head against the wall)
  4. Your subconscious has time to work on it (ah, the glory of the shower thought!) 

When you have an idea, you needn’t tackle it immediately. With infinite seconds between now and a deadline, what are the odds that now is the right time to think on it? Process creates product. Improved process → improved product. 

This very post: spewed Wednesday, outlined Thursday, and polished Friday for your enjoyment.

Consistency, Consistency, Consstncy

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“Every Day” means Every Day! means ¿Every Day? 

I have a motto: Seven days a week means seven days a week. (Except when it means five.) 

I have three categories of “Every day”: 

1. Religious Commitments 

If lightning struck me and I awoke in the emergency room, I would still write every day. 

The commitment is inflexible. The details are wishy-washy. Sometimes “day” stretches into the early morning hours of the next day. Sometimes “writing” means a scribbled sentence onto a post-it note reading “I don’t want to write today.” When I was writing two pages per day for my first book, many days started with writing “I don’t want to write today… I don’t want to write today…” until I got in the groove and shifted to the topic. Most days, I pen and publish a brief essay. 

When I injured my back, I performed a prenatal core workout as my daily 5 minute abs. 

This “every day” works because the requirement is rigid but the goal very easy. 

2. When 7 = 6 

    I lift weights every day. 

    (Except for ~2 days per week.) 

    I tell myself I lift weights every day. Sometimes this approach is honest: Over the last two months, some weeks, I lifted 7/7 days. 

    The issue: Weightlifting relies on unpredictable activities. How well will I sleep? How recovered will I be? Sometimes, I need a rest day to prevent injury. 

    7 days per week therefore becomes 6. But if I aimed for 6, 6 becomes 5… and 5 becomes 4…  and very soon I’m watching cartoons with Dorito dust on my chest

    This “every day” works because the requirement is flexible but the goal very intense. 

    3. The Failure of Flossing 

    Jeff Foxworthy’s dentist asks, “Have you been flossing every day?” 

    “Not every day…” Jeff admits. “The last time I flossed… You did it!” 

    Most people don’t floss. I don’t brush my teeth in the morning. (I only brush at night.) 

    Turns out I brush in the morning every day the way most people floss every day. 

    Default to Yes

    I experience a large mental cost oscillating about action. 

    Writing 5 days per week is somehow more difficult than 7. If I give myself an out, I consider and negotiate. Instead, I commit and know my category. 

    Seven days a week means seven days a week.

    (Except for the contexts where it should mean five.)

    (Or zero.)

    (Or negative one.) 

    Four Umpires

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    Games require fairness. Fairness requires… Umpires?

    Bottom of the ninth, tie game, runners on first and third, the coach signals for a new pitcher.

    The Away team choruses from the first-base dugout: “You got this, Julian!” “Go get ’em, Julian!” (No relation.)

    The new pitcher takes the mound. He has the wispy, windswept hair of an early-2000s teenage heartthrob, and just enough muscle to suggest he started working out when puberty hit a couple years ago. 

    Julian throws his first warmup pitch.

    A player walks from the third-base dugout to behind home plate. Maybe 15 years old. He accuses a woman old enough to be his mother: “Are you taking videos?” 

    “No,” she replies. “You guys were [doing something she found objectionable].”

    Julian throws his second warmup pitch. The boy continues the accusation: “Were you taking videos?” 

    “No, just pictures.” She continues her explanation. 

    “I don’t care.” The boy stomps back to third base. 

    A third warmup pitch. The umpire calls the game back in play.

    Julian straddles the mound. His neck swivels, unable to see the opposing players on first and third at the same time. The previous cheers have gone silent. Julian twitches his knee. Something catches his eye near first. He looks over at it.

    “Bawk!” yells someone from the third base dugout. 

    “Bawk!” the umpire agrees like a chorus of chickens. “He lifted his knee and put it back. That’s a bawk.”

    “What’s a bawk?” Partner asks me. I start laughing. 

    “What’s a bawk?” she repeats. 

    “It’s…” I begin.

    Suddenly, everything is happening at once. The umpire clears the path between third base and home, like he’s making way for prince Ali. The player touches home. His friends cheer. A tall man says “Excuse me” to someone beside us; he removes a sun-shaded phone from the fence, where it was probably recording or livestreaming the game. The umpire walks over to the Away team to explain the rule violation. A younger looking boy has both palms against his cheeks and mouth agape like a real life Scream. Someone says, “At least we gave them a hard fight.”

    I turn to Partner and explain. “Basically, the pitcher isn’t allowed to trick the base runners. So there are a lot of very precise rules about what he can and can’t do. I think I’ve heard my father say ‘breaking the plane of the knee’ at some point, meaning you have to pitch immediately when you do that. If you break the rule, as punishment for your shenanigans, the players are awarded a free base.”

    “And that’s called a bawk?”

    “Yep. Spelled B-A-L-K.”

    “Ballk.”

    “Yeah, but pronounced like what a chicken says. Rhymes with ‘walk’.”

    “Bawk.”

    Fifteen minutes earlier, Partner and I arrived to the baseball fields. Four fields, spread out in this grassy oasis one third of the way from the top of Central Park.

    Over the next hour, we will watch four ball games. The most notable play in every game will be by the umpire.

    More Like Guidelines

    The first players are either middleschool or highschool kids. Brown jerseys for the pitching team. No one on base. 

    The pitcher throws a warm-up pitch. The ball bounces three feet before home plate; the catcher tosses it back.

    The batter approaches the plate. The pitcher throws. This ball bounces too. “Ball,” says the umpire.

    Partner and I watch eleven subsequent pitches. Some fly high, into the chainlink fence behind the catcher. Most bounce, like the first two. None cross home plate between the batter’s knees and shoulders. 

    Dutifully, on each pitch, the umpire says “Ball” and the corresponding number.

    One at a time, players populate the bases. After all twelve pitches are thrown, the bases are full.

    The pitcher begins his windup. The batter steps out of the box. The pitcher stops. 

    “That’s a balk!” the umpire shouts at the pitcher. “You can’t [I stop paying attention].”

    “Let’s go to that game,” I say, gesturing across the field.

    “Walk around or through?” Partner asks.

    The umpire is walking back his previous position, calling it a “No pitch.” 

    “We can walk through. He’s not going to throw anything hittable.”

    Partner and I walk behind the third-base fence, then skirt into the outfield in foul territory. As we pass the left fielder, I notice the players on each base slowly advancing one base.

    When a child has thrown twelve balls in a row, are you really going to call him out for a balk? Sometimes the spirit of the game calls for bending the rules. If a child pitcher can’t throw a single strike, that sounds like a rule problem. I’m reminded of the problems I experienced playing pony baseball: Stealing is legalized before any catcher has the arm to throw out the runners. A runner on first is effectively a runner on third. 

    We walked to the baseball field where Julian would soon bawk, then continued toward the softball games.

    The Competent Umpire of Slow-Pitch Softball

    The softball game on our left looks competitive. The game on our right, less so. We go left.

    The cocky third baseman nabs a line-drive one-handed. “Out.”

    Partner and I walk behind home plate, where the umpire is chatting with an off-duty ump.

    This umpire wears no mask nor padding. No padding for the catcher. Nor helmet for the batter. I learn something new about slow-pitch softball.

    The next batter hits a ground ball toward third base. The third baseman fields the ball mid-stride and throws off-balance, clearly showing off.

    The umpire calls “out,” then turns three-quarters of the way toward the fence behind him.

    “I coulda played at Arizona,” the umpire continues. “A-S-U. Got a full ride. Said no. What did I know? I didn’t want to go to Arizona.”

    He turns back to the game: “Ball.” 

    He turns back to his friend: “I played everywhere. Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic…” Returning to the game: “Strike.” Returning to his friend: “Hawaii.”

    I’m impressed by how he can both continue the conversation and accurately referee the game.

    A batter waits just outside the batting box.

    “Can we go?” asks the pitcher.

    “I’m waiting for you,” the ump responds.

    “I’m waiting for you,” says the batter.

    “No you ain’t,” the ump responds.

    As an unbiased observer at this game, I can confidently say: they were not, in fact, waiting for the umpire.

    That Ain’t the Rules

    Partner and I approach our final softball game of the day.

    Ten kids in ragtag outfits and red pinnies, aged between 22 and 25, versus ten older guys, between 30 and 40, in matching jerseys.

    The pinnies are having a blast — yelling and hollering, cheering among themselves.

    The pitcher throws. Ball. Strike. The inning ends.

    The pinnies take the field. I count ten players and seven gloves. 

    “Don’t you have gloves?” the umpire says.

    Someone shouts back, “No.”

    Someone else says, “But it’s okay. We don’t need ’em.”

    “You need gloves,” says the umpire.

    I turn to Partner. “You definitely don’t need gloves. Gloves were only an early 1900s thing. I’m pretty sure they’re not required.”

    Partner: “Might be a beer league thing.” (According to Partner, beer league is a type of casual softball where players drink beer in their dugouts between fielding.)

    The older team lends three gloves to the pinnies.

    Partner and I watch an inning or two. It’s riotous, raucous fun — all hijinks, everybody trying their best, but no pressure on winning.

    One pitcher throws a ball that arcs around 13 feet high. The ump calls “strike three.” The batter taps the top of his head.

    “That’s too high,” I say to Partner. “If it’s above 12 feet, it’s a ball.”

    The ump says, “It bounced before the line. That’s a strike.”

    The batter is out.

    The game rapidly evolves into “Who can throw the highest pitch that still lands short of the line?” Some are clearly over 15 feet, landing at the front of the plate, and still being called as strikes.

    I pull out my phone. In under ten seconds, I read aloud to Partner: “Four-to-ten-foot arc. Any pitch too high or too flat is a ball, unless the batter swings.”

    The players are now chopping at pitches coming down above their heads. The game looks less like softball and more like swatting flies.

    Yet, somehow, no one seems to mind.

    Partner is getting cold. We’ll watch this final inning.

    The pinnies are batting. Runners on every base.

    The umpire yells something to one of the baserunners. Another pitch. “Ball.” Then the umpire yells, “He’s out! Three outs!”

    I walk over to the third-base dugout. I ask one of the kids in pinnies: “How did that inning end?”

    He tells me: “The ump said no leading off.” He gestures toward second base. “He wasn’t on the base, so he called him out.”

    “And what about the pitches. Don’t they have to be under ten feet?” I ask.

    “I don’t know. I don’t know the rules,” he tells me.

    “How did you guys get to be here?”

    “We went to college together. Seemed like a fun thing to do.”

    I wonder what it would be like to play a game without knowing such fundamental information as What counts as a strike? and I should bring a glove.

    Walking home, I give Partner my shirt to stay warm, and I’m struck by how much more fun the pinnie team was having than any other team we watched that day.

    They don’t know that the ump ruined their game. So maybe… he didn’t.