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Indeed, verily, e’ery post e’er made.

Joyful job offers

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(Written a month ago. Published only after their negotiations ended with a successful and satisfied signing.)

Today I helped someone with a job offer negotiation. I awoke this morning thinking about the elements I’d include. I wrote them down. Then I asked Claude for tips. It shifted the sequencing slightly and reframed two pieces of content. Performing skillfully in this negotiation could be worth 10% in annual pay. That’s huge! A few thoughts:

  1. Most people dislike negotiations, so they end them early. If one more back-and-forth is worth $5k in annual pay, isn’t it worth doing the additional back-and-forth? What’s your hourly work rate? Even at $200/hr, that $5k pay bump is worth 25 hours of work. There’s no way the single additional back and forth is bad.
  2. Ignore everything that isn’t a number. Sure, their internal process matters: when you hear facts about how that works, file them away. But most of the conversation is just bullshit fluff. Ignore their attempts to move you emotionally: numbers and actual contractual terms are the only relevant part.
  3. Use both logos and pathos. Just because the only thing that matters from them is the numbers doesn’t mean the only thing that matters from you is numbers. If you can move a number through fluff, that’s valuable fluff!
  4. Walk through the pathways. It’s like a chess move: follow each action down to the end of its pathway as far as you can see. (“If I do X, they might do A, B, or C. If they do A… If they do B… If they do C…”). You won’t know all the details. That’s okay. You can ballpark them. (“If I accept the offer as-is, we have a deal. If I ask for infinity dollars, they’ll either tell me no or rescind the offer. But in the middle, where do I think their lines are?”)
  5. Be positive, affable, and friendly. Everyone wants to work with someone friendly.
  6. Signal flexibility on things that don’t matter. If you’re proposing a $150k salary, offer to take it as $140k salary plus a $10k guaranteed annual bonus if it’s easier for their books. (This is an actual scenario I’ve run into: in some organizations, bonuses come from a different pool from salaries, and you don’t care where it comes from.)

Three additional rules:

  1. Know what you want.
  2. Get what you want.
  3. (Therefore, generally) ask for what you want.

The Return of Funcle Gumbo

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Last time I visited these kids, I was less fun. It was pre-clown school, and I did not know how to play. I thought play was heavy and selfish. Play is generous and light.

This time, I found the fun.

The boys were skeptical on my arrival. I am big and foreign. They clung to their parents, fair self-preservation.

Immediately, my friend tasked me with doing a silly dance. A great way to break the ice.

Upstairs five minutes later, I pretended to be a train conductor, them my passengers.

Our next game: while they scoot by me, they give me a high five.

The scooting and high five game is peak game. It fits what they’re already doing, just adding a little connection and flair. We played that one for fifteen minutes. It set us up well for our penultimate game, go run away and then run back for a high five. It’s played as it sounds.

Our final game, Francis summoned me to the bath to play. This game involved him throwing foam letters out of the bath and me throwing them back in. A good time was had by all. They don’t know that I’ve been up before 6am each day these past 5. They don’t know I drove for four hours today. They don’t know I’ve got a lot on my mind. They just know Uncle Gumbo is fun.

Quotent Quotables:

  • “Uncle Bummo’s got a poo.” – Francis, age 2, about me, when I did not in fact have a poo.

Sidewalk Self-Sacrifice

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“If you’re walking on a sidewalk with a man, and you’re standing here [the left side, beside the cars], and he’s standing here [on the right side, farthest from the cars], get rid of him. Because he cares more about himself than he cares about you.” —a Reno mother teaching her Reno daughter.

This may come as a surprise to my readers, but I mostly agree with the mother. Not on the substance of the matter, nor on the mode of teaching, nor on the values being instilled. But on the fact that you should pass down to your children values that you believe to be important, and apparently this one is important to the mother.

The main thing I find missing from the mother’s description: learning. If the guy is unaware that this particular specific brand of physical comfort is significant to you, have you considered calling it out? I, for one, have learned that some women whom I like to date enjoy when I put my hands over their ears like little makeshift earmuffs whenever an ambulance drives by. I have also learned that some other women dislike this. I do *not* believe that it is an innate, values-correlated thing. I think it’s a choice that I can do, and that I could sufficiently increase my doing-of-this or not-doing-of-this to satisfy either the woman who likes it or the woman who does not.

The number of guys who are taught that sort of physical protection these days is low. The frequency with which a guy *starts out* protecting the woman that way is also low. Often, it builds over time. This mother is going to teach her daughter to select only high-machismo, high-protector men. That may be too much. The right level of protector is more likely to be someone who is decent-protector but still needs to learn the ways that you want or need protection.

It’s shit like this that is pushing back dating and marriage and slowing down natalism.

Apparently, I don’t agree with the mother.

Partner thinks my analysis of this whole experience is wrong. Partner thinks this mother-daughter dynamic is more of a teaching-one’s-daughter-to-pick-a-partner-who-is-a-member-of-a-specific-ingroup than it is teaching one’s daughter a specific set of values to find in a mate. She may be right.

She also mixes up her rights and her lefts.

If so, I *certainly* don’t agree with the mother.

Your analysis?

Fun experiences from underground poker

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An assortment of actual happenings from tonight’s poker game:

  • One guy deals the flop in the middle, then the turn on one side and the river on the other side. If you don’t remember the sequence of cards, you’re sure not going to be able to derive them.
  • We have chip denominations 50, 100, 500, 1000, and 5000. The only blind that uses a 50 is the first one: blinds start 50/100, then go 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, etc. We therefore have one denomination of chip for exactly one blind level! That’s comedy!
  • All-in AKs vs AQo preflop. Board runs out 86648 and we chop 😦
  • Ran AK into 99 on Q94A6. Lost 20k. Down to 6100 on a 20k starting stack. Next hand shipped A5o, called by QQ, spiked an A and we have a serviceable stack
  • Tables combine and we draw the ace for first dealer. We’ll take it!

After I bust in tenth place in the tournament (preflop 33 vs 8Q vs AJ, flop QJ4), I suggested a cash game to the other eliminated player. The host suggests we play 50cent / 1dollar blinds. She asks how much we want to buy in for: ten bucks? Twenty? I say “I’ll do fifty”. The other guy does too.

We set the blinds at $1/$2. They don’t organize the blinds in the generally accepted way, but it’s consistent so I accept it. Twice, the dealer (our host) deals the flop before giving us hole cards. She’s clearly very high. On one of these occasions, we just continue from the flop. The other player and I laugh very much. At the end of twenty minutes, I have all the chips. On our last hand, he doesn’t look at his cards til the turn. I flop two pair. He turns a pair of kings. We put in all our money. I win.

Down $60 in the tournament; up $50 in the cash game.

Walking Manhattan from Top to Tip

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I walked today from the top of manhattan to the tip of manhattan. From 225th st to South Ferry, a total of 13.7 miles. A few lessons:

  1. Breaks are bad.
    1. Don’t sit down. Sitting makes your legs more tired than continuing.
    2. Breaks kill your psychological momentum. Our team completed our 13.7mile task in 8 hours. Many people circumnavigate the island (32 miles) in 12 hours.
  2. Company matters.
    1. Our crew chatted, joked, and sang. The good vibe helps the miles melt. We started with four people, but an additional 6 joined us for various segments. Their novel energy kickstarted our enthusiasm.
  3. Travel light.
    1. Of our party of four, two carried only the clothes on our back and the items in our pockets. One had a small backpack. One had a large backpack. At least three quarters of the large backpack (by volume) went unused. This person may be the least athletic of our crew, so overpacked due to fears of being unprepared. Ironically, their fear of being unprepared made their backpack the heaviest.
  4. Choose your path wisely.
    1. We walked down broadway the entire way. A perfectly pleasant path. For my next trek, I’ll walk along the water: more beautiful scenery, and less chaos of other people.
  5. Keep your eyes open.
    1. At the end of the journey, when a man bikes by balancing a car tire on his head, make sure you see him and smile.

The Surgeon Paradox, a.k.a. Don’t Choose The Owner

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If two people perform at the same level in a work function and one of them fits the archetype, the other is generally better at the actual work. This heuristic is called the surgeon paradox.

Similarly, if someone is the owner of the weightlifting gym and they run some of the intro-to-barbell classes while another coach runs the other classes, the non-owner coach is likely better. This fact comes form the question, “How did they get there?” If that question offers a reason they don’t have to be good at their job – nepotism, eg – then they’re the wrong person.

On Tuesday, I took part one of an intro-to-barbell class. We learned squat and overhead press. The instructor was a dedicated weightlifter named Christian who had been teaching for 10 years.

Today, I took part two of the class. The gym’s owner led this class, and he spent more time socializing than I would like. When we started 10 minutes late, he promised that he would push longer. Then, he ended 5 minutes early and pitched the gym: they offered open gym and classes, didn’t I know?

I first learned this heuristic when backpacking around Asia. Thailand offered (at that time) 90-minute massages for $6. The worst massages, I quickly learned, were given by attractive young women. The best massages came from older women or men, presumably because the clientele (overwhelmingly young men) would often choose the young women for reasons other than the massage quality. (I’m talking about normal thai massages: get your mind out of the gutter.)

Sometimes the owner is the most knowledgable or most helpful. They commonly have the most skin in the game (eg because the business is their reputation on the line). When incentives are aligned and you want to be sold something, they might be your best fit.

On the other hand, they probably invested time and attention in an area that’s not “be the best lifting coach”.

When I send Partner, I’ll send her to go on sequential Tuesdays so she doesn’t have to experience the owner. We already have a gym membership. We aren’t looking to fill out new membership forms; we just want someone to critique our lifting form.

The Pleasant Walkthrough

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Wednesday at 4pm is my favorite part of the week. My contractor, designer, and carpenter meet me at the apartment. We walk through the building, pointing out errors and making new decisions. We confirm what’s happened over the last week, and I agree to pay them. This structure is fun. A few key points:

  1. I enjoy paying them. I pay for work immediately after it’s performed. They invoice me with clear line items. This structure means I enjoy paying them. I look at a new wall on the invoice, verify it against the real, in-vivo new wall, and pleasingly transfer them their money. I don’t hound them for work; I confirm that the work has been performed.
  2. I create clear sources of truth. I’ve only signed a few documents. Those documents control. I like this structure. It avoids the standard sort of mistake: someone operating from the wrong set of plans.
  3. I indicate mistakes, quickly. With a subcontractor structure, minor mistakes will inevitably happen. They clearly have these mistakes built into their timeline.
  4. I don’t sweat the small stuff. One time, I walked into the apartment to find my designer working with the A/C on and the window open. Yes, someone should correct him. But the cost to me in goodwill for flagging it would be way too much.
  5. Bring food. When Partner is around, she bakes cookies or brownies. When she’s away, I bring dried mango. Today, my contractor brought some mango too. Sharing food creates friendship.

Today, I gushed about the apartment. I often do this, saying things like “What a beautiful space! This is stunning”. I mean it. I love the work that they’re doing and the team I’ve hired. After I mentioned this, my carpenter said, “Your friend said the same thing.”

“My friend?” I replied.

“Yes, the one you sent by with his girlfriend. The one with no hair. He said you used to work together. He came here, then he went to 1F. He also loved the exposed beams.”

I thought for a moment, then I said, “I don’t know that person. I bet he just wanted to see the apartment!”

We laughed, and my lead contractor said, “That’s New York for ya”.

Who says you can’t go back

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In which a ghost flits through l’école… [Written Mar 20 2026]


My father and I explored Étampes today, including a lunchtime visit to the school where I spent 4 months over the last year.
We chatted briefly with the administrators; I said hi to a few students.
The school felt oddly empty. Perhaps students spend their lunchbreak during these warmer months acquiring baguettes or eating outside.

Two students said hi along with my name, and I returned the greeting, then recalled their name a few minutes later.

Another student startled at seeing me. They looked like they’d seen a ghost.

Then, after school, around 4:30 or 5pm, I ran the 3.5mi loop I’ve done so many times.
I ran it slower than I did before I broke my foot.
I’ve become over the last few months: much fatter and happier.

I arrived home and wanted an orange.
I’ve enjoyed sumo citrus oranges these last weeks in New York.
I donned a shirt and walked to the local market.

On my way back, oranges in hand, I spotted two students sitting together.
One, a person who had wanted to fuck me.
The other, the person who wrote me hate mail.

What an odd experience.

I walked past, noticing how odd it is to be of any interest to others.
To gossip about a person gives them power.
Celebrity is formed by being an interesting subject for gossip.

Then later, I received a text from the at-school startler, asking if I’m returning to school.
I told them how “JuJu plans and JuJu laughs…”
They prodded again.
I repeated my lack of planning.
They said, “alright man, you do you. just know you’re a bit of a controversial figure so it would put people a bit at ease if they knew what to expect”.

What a weird thing to say.
Are you trying to protect others from feeling uncomfortable?
How do you think that makes me feel?

Does it make me feel good? Loved? Enjoyed? Respected? Seen? Invited? Welcome?
Or does it make me feel alone? Ostracized? Rejected?
Is it fun for me to feel those feelings?

Should I tell you that their discomfort makes me feel uncomfortable?
Is that enough to be conclusive?
If I feel uncomfortable, is that the end of the conversation?
Who are “they” exactly, and what exactly do they have to say?
Do they have some gripe with an underlying reason?
If so, I don’t know exactly what it is.

Only one even had the balls to message me about my being a pariah.
And that message was unhinged.
Unhinged, for example, in that they wrote three long, unanswered blocks of text and then finished with “Merry christmas” (they had sent it two days before christmas), and then deleted only the merry christmas message.
Why would you delete the only kind part?
That’s frightening. Objectively frightening.

Is this what celebrity is?
Being interesting enough to be spoken of?

I first wanted to attend this school because of the Bouffon class.
Some clowns are desirable, friendly, and fun.
Others are grotesque, disgusting, horrid (bouffon).
I have always found myself outcast by groups.
This group is not the first, nor will it be the last.
My elementary school administration, middle school classmates, college secret society, after-I-graduated improv group as well. Now this: a clown school.

If running away to join the circus is what people do when they’re rejected by society,
what do we do when we’re kicked out of the circus?

I have a great relationship with the admin. They’re kind, thoughtful, good-teaching bunch.
I also have a few friends I’ve made from school.
But man, there are a lot of crazies and stupids at clown school.
I don’t really care about being most of their friends.
What would be the point? What do they have to offer? What would be the mutually beneficial part of our spending time together?
But it sure does hurt to be yet again ostracized for bullshit reasons.

Returning now to the text and the question:
Why is their discomfort more valuable than mine?
Have you ever asked that question?
Their discomfort is conceptual – fear at some concept?
You’re making me hurt in the here and now.

I would pose that very question to this texting clown…
but he’s an absolute dolt and owes me money.

So I smile and I wave and I play the politician
and his life continues on
and theirs does too.

And I leave this year of clown school,
going instead to New York City.

And maybe in a year or two I will run into one of them
and they will shriek and run away
and by the time that happens
I will have learned
how to turn their fear

into gold.

P.s. No, it did not make me feel loved, seen, appreciated, and accepted.
It made me feel alone, rejected, hurt, and sad.
It conjured up the image of a bunny cowering in a corner
while some dark shadowy figure looms above it…

But that’s the key about dark shadowy figures:
what can a shadow do?
No arms. No legs.

They’re dispelled by the light.

The Dog Show: Play’s Dead

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I watched a play tonight by the former head writer of The Daily Show with John Stewart. This man has 13 Emmys, a Grammy, and a Peabody. I expected the play tonight – which was in previews – to be clunky but well-written. I was disappointed.

The show is called “The Dog Show”. It features four actors and a projector. The screen shows a dog; one of the actors reads a monologue from that dog. Cute and simple.

Some of the monologues are relatable (the dog beside the dining table begging for chicken). Some were clever (the existential questioning of a chihuahua who was purchased for $1200 yet lives in a purse purchased for $4800). Some are heart-wrenching (the dog whose owner abandoned her beside the road). Most were overly long, empty, surface-level bleh.

I’ll give you two examples:

  1. A dog who finally experiences his life purpose when his owner throws a frisbee. Beautiful concept. But the execution needed dramatic cuts. This dog starts by talking about playing fetch, then his relationship with his owner, then slowly transitions over to the frisbee. It’s just too much exposition. Cut it. Start straight with “The disc. I saw it, and every one of my ancestors, all the way back to the wolves, pointed our noses directly at it.” I’m surprised that the head writer of The Daily Show – a medium that provides little time – would contain so many unnecessary beats.
  2. The ending is a border collie saying he’s smart and then discussing the moral of the play. The border collie does not actually act like a border collie, however. Border collies are not the sort of smart where they intellectualize. They are the sort of smart where they require a task to accomplish at all times. What is it actually like to be a creature whose existence requires constant engagement lest he be destructive? I don’t know: all this show gave me was a person saying “I’m a border collie, so I’m smart.”

As I was leaving, I heard one of the actors say, “I just hope we get reviews.”

After seeing this show, I can understand that desire. The show is insufficiently content-filled to actually warrant much writing.

If they want someone to 1) chop all the fat off of the script, and 2) point out all the spots where the show lacks actual dog perspective and/or heart, I’m available.

Complicated and Boring: Baldur’s Gate 3

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I like accessible games. “A minute to learn” isn’t necessary, but it helps. A well-written rulebook is sufficient. During COVID, I read the whole of the Gloomhaven rulebook — all ~95 pages. Beautifully written, well-structured, clear and clean. Loved it. I liked the rulebook more than the game.

I like elegant mechanics. Does the game test my skills, causing me to grow? Does the challenge progressively meet my level?

I spent four hours trying the alleged best RPG of all time. Released in 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a computer-based license of Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition.

I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons around five times. Loved it every time. This game had everything I dislike about D&D, and nothing I like.

I like D&D’s innovation. Inventiveness. Possibility. What do you want to do? Do it! See what happens! Every action you take can be turned into a set of probabilities based on your skills and the outcome of those probabilities determine your success. When I say every action, I mean *every* action. This dame walks into your office searching for her disappeared husband, and you want to punch her in the nose? Be my guest! You smash her nose. She calls the police. Now that’s your story.

A good dungeon master (game leader) will accept everything thrown at them. They will guide you to where they need you without you feeling overly led. (They didn’t build this miniature map of the crime scene for nothing!) They will take you on a journey of mutual exploration and creation, giving you a mental experience that is at once novel and personal, but also timeless and compelling.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has dice. It has quests. It has storylines. It offers a mirage of the freedom that I enjoy. But when I get bored of the relatively-linear optionality and tried to steal from the merchant, it showed me a cutscene with a line of dialogue that I shouldn’t — and worse, can’t! — do that. When I pushed one of the townsfolk off of a high ledge, only half of that area rally around to attack me, and when I killed them I couldn’t even loot their bodies! How are the other half just watching, waiting to have the exact same normal-scripted dialogue conversations with me after I’ve massacred their village? I’m willing to accept the consequences — could I please have a little realism? If not, just cop out the way other games do, and don’t let me kill the people. But you can’t have it both ways: you can’t offer freedom without providing reasonable responses.

Creativity comes from constraints. The constraints of Baldur’s Gate 3 are at once too vast (the list of spells on your early-game characters number like 20, each with its own hyper-specific details), and too narrow (I can kill this townsfolk but I can loot their body).

I’ve never understood why people like D&D combat. It’s always been my least-favorite part of the game. Puzzle-solving and situation-navigating prompts creativity. It requires thinking and strategizing. Compared to that open set of possibilities, the combat feels like a funnel. Quite possibly I’ve never played with a dungeon master of sufficient skill to craft a fight that pushes at the edge of my ability, but I think it’s even more likely I just don’t get any joy from imagining chopping off a goblin’s head with a sword. I’m as much a fan of violence as anyone (if you’ve never shot a gun, you should really visit a shooting rage!), but imagined conceptual violence doesn’t do it for me. I don’t feel grand from the mental image of a theoretical-me stabbing someone. It doesn’t require enough skill to be satisfying.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is neither accessible nor elegant. I wonder if the people who love it are those who have already steeped themselves in D&D, and therefore this language is familiar to them. After four hours, I’m just not impressed. The storytelling, combat, and strategy: none excite me. None feels like it’s at the edge of my knowledge, expanding my understanding. It’s closer to a series of empty hours.

I felt this way after 45 minutes playing, when I completed the intro tutorial. I pushed through, since the game is so allegedly excellent. I am now giving up. I don’t think I’m missing anything.

I do have a number of long plane rides ahead of me. I might open it back up to see if it clicks. I wonder what stops me from enjoying this game that has a 96/100 on metacritic, designating it a “must-play” with “universal acclaim”. If you have any guesses, let me know.