Tag: Family

Haggling in la Niebla de Guerra (Feb 24 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which our hero brings a negotiation to a key fight. 

After trying and failing to close my bank account at Wells Fargo, I strutted into the hardware store ready for a fight. 

“Three of the big keys; four of the small. How much?”
The older of the two cashiers replies, “Thees wun ees twenny. Thees wun ees fore.”
$20 is standard, but I know I can get the small for $3.50.
“I’ll give you $70 for all of them.”
“Huh?” The older man asks his younger compatriot.
The younger one says to me, “Set prices, no negotiating”.
“Ok, then just three big ones.”
They discuss my request in Spanish. They assume I don’t speak Spanish. They’re correct. But I do know my numbers. 

The younger fellow cuts the three big keys. When he’s done, the older fellow says, “Udder wun?”
I show him the small key. (I have 8 keys currently on my ring.) He takes it. I say, “I don’t know the price.” He ignores me. I think to myself: “After they’re cut, I have the leverage anyway” and look around the cash register ot see if there’s a fee for credit card. 

The older fellow finishes the small keys and rings it up: $68.99 for the seven keys.
I pull out my phone to pay with tap.
“Ahhh, card?” The older man says.
I suspected he would respond this way. But there’s no sign up-charging me for card usage. 

I pay and he gives me the receipt. I feel like a winner.
Then I look.
$15 each for the big ones.
$4 each for the small. 

Did I school him, saving $7.01 over retail price?
Or did he hoodwink me into thinking the $15 keys are $20 each? 

At home, I tried all three of the big keys. Success.
And then all five of the small keys. Also success.
Wait.
Five?
Did they copy me five keys instead of three?
Ha.

[Note: Last time Partner visited this store, they charged her $30 for a copy of the big key. 

New York City: where everything is made up… but the points definitely matter.] 

Less to Share (Feb 22 2026) 

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our… 

If my previous life was breadth, my now life is depth. 

When friends call, I have less to share. Not because I’m doing less, but because my focus is more tailored. 

I’m not flâning around Paris, happening upon big brass bands. 
I’m not traipsing around Rome eating lasagna. 
I’m not hand-over-handing chains to the top of Angels Landing. 

But I am doing things I like to do: 

  • Selecting the location of each light switch in my new home. 
  • Optimizing the width and swing of each door. 
  • Completing a daily Peloton workout. 
  • Spending time with my partner, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. 
  • Studying and playing poker. 

It’s just… 

The depth of these doesn’t lend itself to sharing. 

(My partner disagrees. She thinks I just don’t have practice in sharing it. I agree with her, not with me.)

My poker friend and I talk poker. 
But most others don’t have enough context to follow. 
And my poker skill doesn’t even go that deep! 

What did I accomplish recently? 
I selected a cooktop, hood, two dishwashers, and oven. 
Did I enjoy it? 
Sure. 
Not earth-shattering, but sure. 

How much of this change is the lowered intensity of my more-flat-than-one-year-ago hormonal state? 
How much is a decreased verbal fluency that seems to have come with the switch back to testosterone? 
How much is being in the moment more, rather than reflecting less? 
I’m not sure. 
I don’t know. 

One of my dearest friends, when he had kids, shifted his entire focus to them. 
This is typical. I get it. 
Now, sometimes he calls me with nothing to say. 
He’ll hum or say “dum-dah-dum-dum…” 
I think he enjoys being with me, even if that’s all it is right now. 

Outside my window, the wind swirls snowflakes. 
This particular alcove tends to send them upwards. 
My partner enjoys watching. “Snowflakes don’t go up!”, she says. 

Yet here
they do. 

[Says Partner about these last two paragraphs: 

I think this is touching and banal and worth sharing in a way you should find more about your day-to-day life. 

Today you woke up to some of your favorite people at your front door.

You helped make a delicious dish you’d never made before that everyone raved about.

You wandered through the snow too far through the park because it was beautiful.

You scooted gleefully through Morningside Heights.

You snuggled and played NYT word games until you helped someone vent about their in-laws and recognized your role in soothing their worries.

All of these you could paint beautiful pictures of.

I used to do photography (*cough* also award-winning in a Ukiah competition *cough cough*) and one thing that inspired me about Ansel Adams’ work (other than the fact that they’re beautiful) is that he could see the beauty in the world and capture it to share. He didn’t photograph “interesting” things. They’re just random landscapes that tons of people could see, but he was able to recognize and capture that beauty in a stunning way.

]

Queens: a Lightyear Away (Feb 21 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero commutes for community. 

Partner and I visited a poker friend in Queen. It’s an hour away from our home on transit. It didn’t feel like an hour. Still, that’s two hours round trip. Partner comments that this distance is roughly equivalent to training from San Francisco to Palo Alto for a party. 

We did. 

The party was hot sauce themed. They collect hot sauces from all over the world and sample them with friends. A great way to get people to cUsually on Valentine’s Day. This year a week late. 

I met lovely people. Most work at the NYC parks department. I’m a big fan. Two canvassed for Mamdami. I asked one why she likes him. She said she likes his positivity and that he treats people like people (instead of, I gather, like numbers). 

Now, 2.5hrs later, I’m ready to be in my soft snuggly bed. Ready to start the sous vide pork belly in preparation for tomorrow’s morning poutine for the hockey game. 

And after my second cat in two days, 

Ready to have a cat 🐈. 

So what if Partner is allergic? 

She’ll learn. 

Elbows and Existence (Feb 20 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

An infinite array of options; I’ll be aye. 

My elbow tenses.

At 32 years old, my first repetitive stress injury. 

Second, after a pickleball shoulder. 

But this elbow is also a pickleball injury. 

Squeezing paddle, sure. 

But also the orientation of my elbow as I laid on my back, my computer on my chest for too many hours: the hunched-over curl of a crone despite my then-13 years old. 

I hunched today as I did then. 

Now I pay. 

It’s odd to grow old. To scrape off one’s vigor and exchange passion for comfort. To realize my mind may be and continue to be heading farther away from me, not nearer. 

To replace exuberance with action. 

Having finished most of the big explore, to replace it with exploit. 

Enjoying everyday enough to select it among the infinite. 

To have experienced enough to know. 

How many have made pilgrimage to Seoul for the finals of your favorite childhood sport? 

Ran shirtless in Indonesia? 

Meditated in Thailand? 

How many have eaten pasta two blocks from the Vatican? 

Kayaked the arctic ocean? 

Swam the Great Barrier Reef?

Negotiated for tee shirts in Mumbai? 

I don’t feel like a life unlived. 

I feel like the foundation; the fundamentals of everyday existence: 

That those thusfar empties are slowly seeping solid. 

I don’t need to see the thousand buddhas again. 

I’ve seen them, snapped selfies with silly smirks, stumbled upon the graveyard, and biked home. 

Share these with a future wife and children, sure. 

Invite my extended family to duck and cheese at my Paris pied-à-terre. 

Learn what makes my new brothers laugh. 

When the door has opened, why keep knocking? 

Another Day, Another Deep Dive! (Feb 19 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero works hard (or hardly works?!) 

Remodeling an apartment is hard work. 

Between 10:05am and 6:30pm, non-stop (with breaks only for bathroom; no food), I… 

  1. Rejiggered my apartment floorplan, composing a total of 32 different line-item changes, including
    1. Selecting an oven.
      1. This was easy because 1) we want it mounted below the cooktop, and 2) our cooktop has a list of 20 different models that could safely be mounted below the cooktop. 
      2. This was difficult because our cooktop has a list of 20 different models that could be mounted below the cooktop. 
      3. All-in-all, a combing and comparing game. 
    2. Selected two dishwashers (my apartment will have two! :D)
      1. Did you know you’re supposed to clean your dishwasher filter regularly? Did you even know your dishwasher had a filter? Did you know they now make dishwashers that have basically garbage disposals in them so you never ever have to clean the filter again???
    3. Removing one refrigerator, but leaving its dedicated power supply and also placing another dedicated fridge power supply elsewhere. (I suspect I will eventually want to have two fridges, maybe two fridges and a chest freezer, maybe two fridges and a chest freezer and half a cow. That is a later problem.) 
  2. Crunched through 8 different general contractor proposals with the help of Claude and ChatGPT, resulting in
    1. Almost definitely selecting my contractor to hire. 
    2. A list of 44 open questions and contract terms to adjust with him. 

After that work sprint, I… 

  1. Completed a 20min Peloton Max ride and a 5min Peloton core workout. 
  2. Played penny poker for 2.5hrs. Lost $71. Played very well, except for one call. That call cost me $45. 
  3. Played dollar poker for… I’m still playing while I write this. Lol. Currently down $37. 

My Partner has a rule: She goes to Central Park every day. It’s less than a block away. I support this rule. 

I do not have that rule. 

Today, the farthest outside that I went was to drop trash off in our building’s bins. 

I have a rule: Live a good life. 

Today I did. 

Stuck in the Mud (Feb 12 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero <schlorp schlorp schlorp>.

On our long third date, my partner and I got stuck in the mud. 

We were rock hounding after snowmelt, down a dirt road off another dirt road in the middle of nowhere without cell service, and my two-wheel-drive van got stuck. 

I was driving; clearly my fault. 

We discussed our options: 1) get unstuck; 2) sleep here and walk the 5-7 miles to town in the morning to get cell service to call for a tow. 

2 hours later, after around 10 overly optimistic “that’s it! We’ve got it!”s, both the van and I were covered with mud, and our gentle rocking (putting some rocks just behind the wheels and move back; putting rocks in front of the front wheels and move forward; repeat without rinsing) had us back on solid ground. 

—

Yesterday, I made a mistake. 

A reasonable mistake. 

A mistake that… 

Because, like, how can a refrigerator exist that doesn’t fit through a normal width doorway? 

A fair question. 

But it turns out my doorway is 1.5” short of normal width. 

Oof. 

—

At 9am someone posted “free fridge!” In the neighborhood free group. 

Within 40min, I had dibs. 

At 11am, my super lent me his hand cart. 

At 5:45pm, my partner and I walked the 5 short blocks and one long block to pick it up. This walk took 20 minutes, 5 of which was spent buying a ratchet strap for a 15% discount because it lacked a component that wouldn’t affect our use. 

At 7pm, we reached home with the fridge. 

… and realized it was too wide for the building’s front door. 

So I took the fridge doors off while my partner measured our unit door. 

She reported back, “We’re going to need to take the unit door off too, but it should fit”. 

At 7:45pm, I had the fridge doors off and it at the front door to our unit. 

At 8:15pm, we had the unit door off, despite 3 screws being stripped before we got there, and concluded the fridge bulges slightly in the middle

At 8:40, we had just enough screws back in the unit door to close it (if you physically heave up on the knob to seat it properly in the latch), stowed the fridge in the basement, and went for pizza. 

—

What did I learn? 

  1. Excitement and optimism can distract from considering practicalities. 
  2. Doors may be a standard 30” wide. But some doors are not standard. I imagine the same applies to other common items (eg cars). 
  3. Avoiding the sadness and pain during the installation and re-installation will increase the likelihood this sort of event happens again. 

The whole experience was frustrating and grumble-provoking. 

Many parts of me were generally annoyed at the situation. And therefore annoyed at all its contents (me, my partner, the door). 

It’s interesting, however, that this didn’t cause my partner any emotional harm. (I asked.)

Evidently she also felt frustration and dissatisfaction, but the annoyance I felt at her didn’t come through to her. 

Since getting engaged, this appears to be a change. Maybe the fact of having an increasingly-solid foundation means we’re both less worried about some of the minor pokes and scuffles. 

She knows that it’s us against the problem. And the problem is challenging and frustrating and annoying. So even though I’m partially annoyed at her (because I’m annoyed at everything), it’s chill. 

And that’s nice. 

Because sometimes we get stuck in the mud. 

And when we do. 

90% of the time it’s my fault. 

😂 

Hate Mail (Feb 11 2026)

Julian2 Comments

In which it’s nice to be seen 🙂 

My first piece of hate mail arrived in the form of a google document from my partner’s former grad school weightlifting friend. It articulated all the terrible traits that he observed during the long weekend we stayed with him. It included such gems as, “There were multiple occurrences of him saying something to the effect of ‘this happened because of some thing you did Nikki’ or ‘whose fault is this?’ And because he was saying it in a silly way it is expected to be a joke.” 

I read this criticism to a clown school friend of mine, who asked, “Oh, so you were doing bits?” 

“Yes,” I replied. “One was blaming Nikki for absolutely absurd things that were clearly not her fault, like the weather.” 

“That’s a pretty good bit.” 

“I agree.” 

—

Then, two months ago, I received a second piece of hate mail. This one came as a series of text messages from a fellow clown student. She derided my blog, my relating to other humans, and my analytic approach. I hadn’t spoken with her in ~a month (I had broken my foot and stepped away from clown school), and before that, I recall only neutral-to-positive experiences. Apropos of nothing, she sent me this diatribe. 

I have since shared that letter with a few friends. To a person, they describe it as “unhinged” (or various synonyms). 

In her hate mail, she made a few good points. My writing was likely alienating to some clown students. Clown school is a beautiful place and a precious gift. 

She also took some shots. Specifically, she said I “wasn’t funny yet” (the newsletter was called “Am I Funny Yet?”) and she described my blog as “very public and mediocre”. 

After I received that letter from her, I of course didn’t reply. I also of course didn’t alter my writing or publishing schedule. The article I published that day prompted a second screed from her the next day. She – in whatever reality she was experiencing – thought my intervening post had been about her (it had not). 

This second screed brought me great joy. 

“Ah,” I thought. “How wonderful it is that she reads my blog every day!” 

—

I like to live my life in public. I adore New York partly for that reason: meeting strangers and living in an environment where big, bold people are appreciated. I take my shirt off in public. I do so even though I’ve grown breasts. 

I also think it’s funny to call a blog about someone’s daily struggles “mediocre”. It’s not polished. It’s not complete. It’s not intended to be either of those. It’s a documentation of my attempts to do new and challenging things; a collection of my thoughts and observations and learnings and experiences. I’ve never been accused of waiting for perfection (and my partner, at least, thinks my life is better for it). That’s one of the clowning lessons: fail more, and befriend your flops. 

To quote my partner: “Being mediocre is the first step towards being kinda sorta good at something”. 

At present, I have 21 Substack subscribers and 168 subscribers. 

I’ve never looked at my stats before. I haven’t cared. I still don’t. But it’s nice to know that her estimate is also true numerically. 

So yeah, with my hundred of fans and my abnormal life, I’m proud to be: 

Very Public & Mediocre. 

Going Places (Jan 28 2026) 

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero voyages through space and time

Theo works nights at the front desk of the only hotel in this small French town. He works days at the car dealership, cleaning cars. He also works days on his talent management company. He wants to build the ROC Nation of France. He is 23 years old and wants to retire by 40. He prefers the American work ethic to the French one. I tell him to make sure to increase his hourly wage, not merely his number of hours worked. 

—

“You sleep when you can.” 

The businessman in the neighboring airplane seat says he lives his life out of suitcases, in identical rooms in identical towns. He changes time zones frequently: today Munich, tomorrow Mumbai. After years of struggle, he gave up on circadian rhythms. He sleeps when he sleeps and works when awake. One day, maybe he’ll have a partner. I wonder how old he is. 

—

Ilian is 21 years old, on an airplane for the first time. He’s snapping pictures out the window as the plane lifts off, and sets his phone to record video when he’s sleeping. “Comme un gros oiseau”, he says. Today he goes to Iceland. Next year, to Switzerland. Also on his list: Japan. I tell him Japanese pork was my surprising highlight of the cuisine. He doesn’t eat pork. “You’re Jewish?” I ask. His eyes widen in what looks to me like repulsion. “Muslim,” he corrects. He shares with me a breadstick he brought for the trip. We exchange phone numbers. When I return to Paris, we’ll go to a museum. Maybe one day I’ll tell him I was raised Jewish. 

— 

Somehow I became 32. I don’t remember 31 from 30. I can’t parse 29 from 28. I suddenly understand why my father takes a moment to isolate what year an event happened. “It was nineteen … (pause) eighty … (pause again) seven,” he’ll say, and then be proud he pinned it down. 

Six years ago I didn’t want kids. Five years ago I didn’t want a life partner. Four years ago I started taking exogenous sex hormones. Three years ago I flew to Australia to escape heartbreak. Two years ago I met my now-partner. One year ago I still lived in a van. 

Tomorrow, I buy a home. 

And the day after? 

Mellow and Dramatic (Jan 26 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero mellows in the drama 

Today was the first day of the second term. I’m not there. I’m in Etampes, four minutes walk from the school. I walked earlier today by the train station cafe that doubles as the student haunt. Yet I’m not there. Do I miss it? 

Today my mother and I dawdled down a classic Parisian street. Over lunch we swapped plates four times so we could experience what the other was eating. An Eastern European tourist offered us alcohol at Jim Morrison‘s tombstone. A California native gushed his worries about American politics 10 feet away from Molière corpse. 

This evening, my housing purchase was confirmed. After 8 years nomadic (homeless?), it’s time to put down roots. My partner ordered a bed for the empty apartment. I ordered locks for the doors. We’re buying one way flights like we always do, only this time they’re to home. 

The clown course I’m missing is melodrama. A fellow student once told me that melodrama is about stretching moments. What should be a five second stroll becomes ten minutes of dramatic, hyper-experienced anguish. 

Today stretched. From sprinting for the train to dashing through loan documentation, I was hyper present. Focused. Immersed. 

That’s one of the goals (or is it *the main goal* of clown school). Presence. Giving. Moving forward. 

I don’t miss melodrama. 

I’m excited for my life. 

Ease is what you make it (Jan 24 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which intense and easy coexist 

At the start of today, I expected an easy day. Farmers market in the morning, then relaxing in this little medieval town, perhaps with a stroll around the lake.

But when I’m with my family, things happen!

My mother – who was up until 4am last night – walked for ten miles around Paris today. “Because today is so nice and tomorrow will be cold and rainy”. 

We sped through the annual scallop festival; sauntered winding streets in the outdoor flea market, strutted down the jardin des tuileries, and basked under the calmest place I’ve found in France (a particular library room near the Louvre).

We ate four of my favorite French foods: tomme de brebis, galette, a particular raclette wrap, and carbonara at the best Italian restaurant in Paris. (You may think carbonara is Italian. But if in France, doesn’t that make it French?)

Le jeu changed over time. From find caffeine to find food to find the most outrageous item being sold to people-watch to make the train. 

(We made the train home, despite it leaving in 20 minutes and Google telling us the walk would take 22 minutes.) 

If this were my everyday, I’d be exhausted.

Exhausted,

but happy.

😌