Tag: Work

Stuck in the Mud (Feb 12 2026)

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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. 

Anger & Elation (Feb 8 2026)

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In which annoyance passes and delight arrives 

This morning I wrote an angry email. To someone who has done me wrong. Done me wrong in at least two ways. And now, a third. 

In buying this apartment, I worked with many people. Some more competent, some less. But this particular person was in charge of the majority of the paperwork and timeline. And is responsible for 1) much of the work not starting until three days before closing (despite having 4 months to complete it and it being scheduled to be a three month process); 2) sending me out looking for a printer at 11pm in suburban France because she needed a wet signature on something that actually later turned out to not be wet signature; and 3) now needing me to do something after closing that both isn’t my job and exposes me to liability, but which I need to have happen since it’s my money on the line. 

So I wrote an angry email. An appropriately angry email. Not one filled with emotion. One that tells her that I don’t accept this scenario and if needed I will find someone else, higher up on her team to fix it. 

This got me thinking about the recent social shaming of people who ask to speak to managers. 

In many of our commercial situations, it’s one of the few powers that individuals do have. In my case, it’s a large national bank where someone’s screwed up thrice, but I’ve had to be nice and cheery and pleasant about it because I needed their future cooperation. But now, that deal is complete. I don’t need her positivity: I need her to solve this. 

How much of our recent social shaming of Karens is an implicit political backhand slapping of assertive women? I’ve never thought it appropriate to shame that function. (Entitledment, sure. But that doesn’t strike me as the main element of a Karen.) 

I’ve never respected any generalized term that uses a person’s name as a metonymy. (Karen; Chad; more recently, Kyle.) They tend to engage in the bad type of stereotyping. 

This is to say I don’t mind behaving in a manner that others might describe as Karenly. 

So tonight, I sleep. And tomorrow, maybe I send. 

It’s no fun to be done with a thing and then be told you’re not done. 

—

Tonight I hosted a superbowl party. I love the superbowl. It’s the most patriotic I get every year. Football, advertising, halftime show: there’s something for everybody. 

I created a little gambling game. My partner and I made nachos. We used the event as an excuse to get cake. 

It’s nice to live somewhere. 

I look forward to building community. 

“Everything is hard in New York City” (Feb 5 2026)

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In which Our Hero prompts anger and ridicule. 

I’ve heard this said many times. Probably 3 times in the last 2 weeks, and many times before. And I… like… don’t believe it? 

Two days ago, my partner wanted to schedule a doctor’s appointment. She called the specific practice she desired, best in the country for the thing she cares about. They booked her for Thursday (9 days out). Then, she asked if they had a cancellation list she could be on to get anything sooner. The scheduler offered her the following day (yesterday) at 10am. She attended the appointment with great success. That doesn’t sound hard to me. AND, this is a medical function that NYC residents most say can be hard to get into. 

What do I think is actually happening? Options: 

  1. There is so much to do. The City is an endless treasure trove of possibilities. In a normal city, you might want to do 3 things aside from work on a given day. In New York, you might want to do 8. 
  2. Some things *do* take much longer. Yesterday, I moved a couch from a third-floor walkup. A third-floor walkup is not something that even exists in many parts of the country! Transporting the couch to my truck took ~50 minutes. Compare that to the ~15 minutes it took me to transport a much-heavier bedframe to that same truck. But the bedframe was in an elevator building. (Driving, too, can take forever. But most of the time, you won’t drive. And the subway is very speedy. (And most Americans are used to driving forever anyway.))
    1. Waiting in line can take forever. If you want to attend a specific show, you might have to get in line for tickets 3+ hours before the ticket purchase opens. 
  3. The people feel squeezed and stressed, so the difficulty of doing things becomes much more. When you work an intense 9-5 that really works you from 8-6:30 (or in some cases 7am – 8pm), you have brief evenings and weekends for both errands and all the life you want to squeeze out of New York. 
  4. Rent *is* really fucking expensive. Therefore, you are much more likely to feel squeezed. But that doesn’t make things themselves harder. It just makes you uniquely susceptible to 1) feeling like you can’t give up that 7am-8pm job, and 2) feeling like everything in your life is intense. 

Over the last week, these are things my partner or I have done with less than 12 hours from conception to completion: 

  1. Bought 4 slices of 4.5-star New York pizza for $5.99
  2. Scheduled and picked up for ~1/3rd of retail cost:
    1. A like-new minifridge 
    2. A robot vacuum & mop
  3. Scheduled and picked up for free:
    1. Bedframe with sidetable and drawers 
    2. Coffee table
    3. Desk
    4. Peloton shoes of exactly my partner’s size 
    5. Wheeled dolly 
    6. Vacuum
    7. Plates/cups/mugs/silverware
    8. Blender
    9. Microwave
    10. 2 large-size instantpots
    11. 3 plush chairs
    12. 1 plush comfy chair 
    13. 1 large L-shaped couch
    14. 1 desk chair
    15. 1 gaming chair

That doesn’t sound like it’s difficult to do things. That sounds like some things are difficult to do. (Getting into one of the elite public schools? Fuggaddabouttit!) And when the line at grocery checkout is 50 people long (as it sometimes is), you might think it’s hard to go grocery shopping. But there are 25 open checkout stations, so that line is really equivalent to only 2 people in front of you. 

So far, New York has been kind and hospitable. Yes, there was a threatening person in front of my building who followed me inside 2 days ago. But hey, isn’t that culture? 

Mellow and Dramatic (Jan 26 2026)

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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. 

Fencing with Contracts

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If good fences make good neighbors, do good contracts make good colleagues?

Three times in the last two years, someone has tried to break a business agreement with me.

In all three cases, the agreement was clear.
In two, they admitted they were breaking it.
In the third, he agreed the agreement was clear, just “insane” enough that he thought it
shouldn’t count.

What determined the outcome wasn’t fairness.
It wasn’t reasonableness.
It was leverage and the strength of the contract.

Today I noticed something about how I read agreements: I’m a textualist.
I see words as meaning what they say.
Not what we wish they meant.
Not what feels reasonable later.
Not what’s convenient once money or ego is involved.

Textualism is simple.
Five dollars means five dollars.

What it doesn’t protect you from is character.

Two times, I fought and won.
This time, it looks like I’ll lose.

Not because the text is unclear.
Because the other guy has leverage.
And laws protect the weak against the strong.
But sometimes they’re insufficient. 

When I make an agreement I later regret, that’s on me.
I try to construct agreements that I won’t regret.
Sometimes I fail.
I can think of two recent scenarios.
In these, I don’t blame the other player for creating something that benefits them to my detriment.
Doing so would be simple, but wrong. 
Good fences, and good agreements, can prevent a fight.
But if someone feels backed into a corner?
Too often, people change their minds when the winds change.
Ultimately, all diplomacy is bigger army diplomacy.

Easing In

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In which Our Hero builds the lazy river…

A guy who needs exactly my services is posting on Twitter about it.

I want to help. I know it’d be a good fit. I’m one of the five best people in the world at it.

Do I reach out?

Before you say “yes,” it’s a little more complicated.

He has to want it before I can close the deal.

We’ve already spoken… and he’s not ready.

So what do I do?

I make it easy for him to say yes.

—

Let’s talk about generosity.

Generosity isn’t martyrdom. It isn’t giving to others such that you can’t feed yourself.

Very few causes are worth dying for. Dying – or even destabilizing oneself – is rarely the most effective approach.

Generosity is finding what someone else needs and giving it to them.

And this guy needs ease.

—

At clown school, a fellow student told me that the creative people he knows don’t plan.

They go with the flow: having meetings when they have meetings, happening upon each other as needed.

I thought: that just means the powerful, successful people are the ones who make it look effortless.

That’s what this guy needs.

His current stress is mental load. He needs my work to remove that load.

I can’t convince him.

I need to make it easy.

I’ll be in his city in ~2 weeks.

I’ll wander to his area, grab coffee, maybe step into his office, meet his team.

And if I can make it easy enough for him…

Well, that’s the job.

–

Three key areas of my life came into alignment today. I said to my partner, “When you work hard, sometimes you get lucky.”

Is this generosity, or strategy?

I don’t think those are opposites.

Clown School Day 2: On Priorities and Preferences

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Clown school is the study of choice.

Wait, no — that’s economics.

Clown school is the study of…

Well, now I’m thinking about choices.

Here they are:

  1. Study the Shakespeare lines for next week
  2. Drink alcohol at the local bar
  3. Sit with people drinking alcohol at the local bar
  4. Run
  5. Eat
  6. Clear out my email inbox
  7. Write
  8. Rehearse with classmates for this week’s presentation

A day only has so many hours.

School takes four, plus thirty minutes on either side to prep and recombobulate. Add eight hours for sleep (okay, nine — I like to wind down in bed :), and you’ve got thirteen hours accounted for. I like running every day, so add an hour for stretching, run, five-minute abs, and shower. That’s fourteen hours. Ten remain.

So if the math works so well, why have I been failing?

Sequencing.

I haven’t been eating lunch, so I’m starved after school, which is prime socializing time. If I brought my lunch, I’d be less famished at 2 p.m. I like doing movement class fasted, so I’ll keep that. But maybe a nice burger patty and baguette for lunch… could be nice. 😋

And then, who to socialize with?

Drinkers have it easy: go where people drink → drink → hours disappear. I don’t enjoy drinking, nor do I enjoy drunk people, so I’ll pass. (I gave it a try today. “Maybe this context is different,” I thought. Turns out it’s students slowly soppifying, discussing people who aren’t present, maybe one bit of information every thirty seconds, and a lot of “what was that?”. And when someone stands up to leave, it feels like monkeys pulling the escaping monkey back into the boiling soup.)

I’m glad I ran. I’m glad I ate. I’m glad I wrote.

I’d like to be more social. The key, I think, is to socialize in my own way.

It’s day two. I’ve not yet clicked with the people I’m going to click with.

I grabbed coffee with a student today. That was nice. Worth doing. An enjoyable hour.

There are thirty of us. Will I get coffee with everyone? At one per schoolday, that’s six weeks. 😬

I prefer meeting people one-on-one. Spending time in depth. Learning what makes them tick.

I’ve scheduled dinners for tomorrow and Thursday. I hope to find people I enjoy seeing socially.

The class itself has been nice. Not much to it, but nice. We’re learning the definitions of words by repeated use. A few tactical elements (“Show your teeth! We want to see your teeth!”); mainly punishments (“You forgot the game: you get a zero!”).

I want to meet my people. To find the ones I fancy. Then, to build habits around those happenings.

9 a.m. wakeup. 9:15 a.m. rehearsal. 10 a.m. movement class. 11:30 a.m. lunch. Noon improv class. 2 p.m. rehearsal. 2:30 p.m. phone call with my sister, perhaps while running. 3:30 p.m. rehearsal, study, socialize, catch up on life… 🤔

Clown school is about choice, if only because everything is.

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17 syllables on my most exhausting week in memory

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New job + old job = tough week. I couldn’t do it, but I care.

(I started a new job this week. It’s co-founder at a startup. I’m still ghostwriting for some people & editing for others. The co-founder role is a full time gig. My former job is still a full time gig. Dear Lord [that’s you, Smidgen], How are we gonna get through this?)

(The ending “I couldn’t do it but I care” is intended as an allusion to the impossibility of stretching oneself until necessity and desire intersect. I’ve done things this week that I couldn’t have done. But must + want => can. So I do.)

Musings on the future of work (or, why you should be excited–not concerned–that I’m currently nocturnal)

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Individuals (and small teams) have always been the ones acting, but now they’re more movable (you could imagine the Google phone team basically “stealing” the Apple phone team by wooing them over. This seems unlikely 20-100 years ago). The game for corporations, therefore, becomes more along the lines of “make an environment that’s attractive to the right sort of individuals/teams”. Now, this is probably obvious for anyone who asks the question “why does every startup have pingpong tables and free lunch?” but let’s take it a step further:

The top performers have always been eccentrics. Weirdos. I live in a van and drive around the country. (Not that I’m necessarily a top performer, but I’m certainly working with more successful people than most people who have the job title “writer”.) These are people who will form their own unique strategy for working (I’ve been nocturnal for the last week because it seems to help my novel writing).

This is mainly interesting to me because it creates opportunities for people to create highly-specialized products/services that assist very specific (i.e. unusual) people with very specific needs.

If an individual is such a great, high, top performer, they often have an assistant. I bet the assistants for top performers in many fields have similar jobs, though, and there wasn’t previously enough value created by these oddballs to warrant tools to help them.

Now, we’re recognizing that (a) no number of Walmart greeters could equate to one Sam Walton (just as no number of gazelles would ever hunt a lion [it’s a bad analogy but you get the point]), and (b) we can see how much value Sam Walton created (he built Walmart!) as compared to your average joe, so we’re able to create tools that will help, say, the 10 Sam Waltons in the world be 1% better, which is huge value but would previously be uncapturable. (Or, more accurately, provide tools to make the 1000 people in the world who are 2 orders of magnitude lower than Sam Walton be 5% more effective.)

I guess, what I’m saying is: could someone please make me a business-casual onesie that I could wear in public?