It's a wet, grey Monday morning, so obviously no better time to write about how I'm grateful for my job. I've worked at Yardi Systems for the last five years. In that time, I've been promoted twice, and I earn more money in my current position than I ever earned at anything Magic-related. I've been able to work at home for the last fifteen months, and business hasn't faltered despite the unprecedented chaos and uncertainty that permeates pandemic life. My colleagues are good people -- intellige...

Pandemic Fine — noun — A state of being in which you are employed and healthy during a pandemic but you're also tired and depressed and feel like trash all the time.(Hat tip to @sarahesmith23 on Twitter.)I'm really tired of feeling pandemic fine. I'd be okay with it if there was an end point, even a distant one. There isn't one. I don't even know when the vaccine will be available. In moments like these, I remind myself that I have much to be grateful for. I have a home, a job, and a pantry wi...

When I was a child, I was a voracious reader. The scourge of the local library. My parents could scarcely keep me in books. Heaven was when they'd send me to school book fairs with a blank check and tell me to get what I wanted. It was a generous, impactful gift. Now, it's harder to make time to read. There's work (reading emails) and school (reading textbooks). Today, I found a small, ten-minute gap to read from Michael Lopp's The Art of Leadership, and the subtle shift it made in my day was s...

Writing when you don’t want to write is hard. Lately, I haven’t been feeling it. I feel like there’s a cyclical relationship between reading and writing. Read more, write better. Write better, read more. I read some this weekend. I could have read more. Again, it’s a matter of showing up. This isn't good writing, and it isn't interesting writing, but it's effort. That's worth something, right? I write on a mechanical keyboard: a Razer Blackwidow, to be specific. Mechanical keyboards feel amaz...

I forgot to post last night. Oops. I was a precocious kid. Solving problems came easily to me until it didn't. And when it didn't, I crumpled. I didn't know how to try again. It's an underrated skill. I wish I'd been better at it, back then. Failure is not properly rated in America. We look at it as a bad thing and miss its potential. I wonder if we look at failure on the appropriate timeline. I don't think we do. The Red Sox lost the first three games to the Yankees in the ALCS ... and then ...

I started drinking coffee a few years ago. On a friend's recommendation, I bought a french press, and ground my beans each day. It makes a big difference. There's a ritual to it: heat the water, grind the beans, fill the french press. Wait four minutes. Pour the coffee, stir in the half-and-half, let it cool for a few minutes. Drink. Try to drink only one cup each day. Rituals like that are valuable to me. Same with listening to vinyl. I savor things that help me focus. It takes anxiety and no...

In 2015, I started seeing a therapist. Six years later, I'm still seeing the same therapist. Biweekly, though it went up to weekly when my dad got really sick, and for as long as I could afford it afterward. Thanks to my therapist, my psychiatrist, my meds, and some amazing friends and family, I don't recognize the guy who showed up for therapy in 2015 anymore. I know I *was* him, but I don't think like him anymore. I have no plan to quit therapy. It's priceless to me. There's help if you need ...

Sometimes, I check in with myself to see how difficult things are. Everything is hard for everyone, especially these days. We're all running our own race. I'm a perfectionist, even in a pandemic, and I sometimes forget that it's okay to pause, catch my breath, show myself some compassion. It helps. My therapist once advised me to talk to myself as if I was talking to my best friend. It sounds a little weird, but it's helpful. There are plenty of reasons to feel anxious and sad, and plenty of pe...

When I was young, my dad and I visited the local arcade - Funspot, in Concord. One of our favorite games to play together was Punch-Out!!. Since we couldn't take the game home, we'd play pretend. Without boxing gloves, I used my baby brother's diapers. I'd pound away at my dad's fists, pretending he was Bald Bull. I was 5 or 6. He would have been 30. I'm 39 now. I still remember it vividly. He's gone now, my dad. I love imagining him back then. Fake-boxing with his oldest son. Working hard. Pr...

I think about privacy often. While I post here (and on Twitter) using my given name, I assert the right to choose what I make public, and what I make private. The argument of "you don't need privacy if you're doing nothing wrong" is bullshit. It assumes a baseline of right and wrong that elides a nuanced definition of ethics. You need privacy to be yourself. Furthermore, especially where social media is concerned, privacy is a health concern. Privacy of identity protects against the kind of da...

I wish I'd listened to Mister Rogers more when I was younger. When I get angry, it is a full-body experience. I work hard to be rational and reasonable, and that gets easily short-circuited when I'm upset. I feel like it's a common affliction for boys and men. We're told to be strong, and stoic. We're criticized for showing emotion, or for crying. (As an aside: Crying is so damn healthy.) If I could tell my adolescent self anything, it would be this: Get comfortable being upset. Make friends w...

I remember a conversation I once had with a business owner who was surprised by the success of their business. I suggested that their success came not from doing infrequent big things, but by consistency in doing the small things right. I think about that a lot. I believe in the Law of Large Numbers. Mistakes are inevitable, but if the net value of my actions on any given day is even 1% better than the average value of actions I could take that day, I will make good progress over time. Consiste...

My favorite comic book series is Phonogram. The premise of the series is that music is magic. Not that Magic. I listen to music daily, and the premise is credible. Music casts spells. Today, for example: I started off listening to some Andrew Bird, and I felt upbeat and cheerful afterward. The middle of the day was flat, so I didn't play any music. Had I thought to play something, I would have chosen something with energy. Maybe Sleater-Kinney's One Beat. It's now 21:30, and I'm playing Chasti...

By the time President Biden was sworn in, I was choked up. "It's finally over," I said to nobody in particular. Trump now lives in Mar-a-Lago. Good riddance. I struggle to explain the relief of knowing things will be different now. Never before had I felt that a President's administration was something to survive. President Biden is not a savior. I voted for him, but he was not my first pick for President. (That would be Elizabeth Warren.) Still, he knows there's plenty of work to be done, and ...

My therapist is a friendly person, though they never flinch at my fondness for swearing in my sessions. Oftentimes, they'll swear along with me. I wonder sometimes if they do it to alleviate my self-consciousness, or to establish a better connection. Either way, I don't mind. It helps. I've been seeing my therapist for almost six years now. They've been with me through my divorce, and through my father's death. They listen really well, and they indulge my stubborn assertions that I am, in fact,...

When I was a younger version of myself, I studied philosophy. My original plan had been to graduate college with a philosophy degree, and then transfer to a law school. While I'm grateful that things didn't turn out that way, the years I spent studying philosophy were priceless in how they affected the way I think about things. I learned to be specific, clear, and brief. I learned to assume that my audience was lazy, stupid, and mean. Above all else, I learned that attacking an argument is perfe...

1. DON'T let corporations read your email. If you're getting your email for free and it's not an .edu, chances are good it's being scanned for advertising data. I wholeheartedly recommend ProtonMail. 2. DO support your favorite creators. Pay for the music you love (Bandcamp is a personal favorite). Find a way to help your favorite blogger pay their rent or buy their favorite meals (e.g., Patreon, Ko-Fi). Think more OnlyFans, less PornHub. 3. DON'T consume social media mindlessly. All things in...