Monthly Notes No. 3

For non-obligatory work, if I don’t first do something perfectly, I’m put off from trying a second time. This ain’t good for a series that depends on being posted on the cusp of the month. Also: who cares, what a silly reason to not write. That said, I wasn’t feeling it last month, and start of September was hectic.

That, and there’s been a lot on the mind that doesn’t resolve easily. Our inner workings don’t give a damn about the Gregorian calendar.

Since getting back from our honeymoon, I’ve finished twelve books, enjoyed four-or-so TV series, watched a movie, travelled to Lake Tahoe for my nephew’s wedding, learned a few new recipes, played tennis four times weekly, designed a pitch for Walmart US, shipped two major Zello features, and started a new tennis season. I finished a case study I’d sat on since May.

Also spent a lot of time angsting. In my head. As one does.

“Finished” twelve books, not “read.” Audiobooks are great for long workdays and the commute, and for not sitting while present enough to read. Don’t get me wrong — I love to sit — but usually when disassociating into Instagram and Reddit, not when focusing on a book. I listened through The Murderbot Diaries after watching the Apple TV+ series, read^[1] Isles of the Emberdark, listened through The Broken Earth Trilogy,^[2] and most recently listened to Anji Kills a King^[3] before moving onto Katabasis.

Zello’s yearly boat party was cancelled following our uncharacteristic summer rain, but Sam was visiting from Santa Clara, and I made pizzas for the design team. This was Andrew’s first time meeting Sam in person, and our Product Advocate manager joined us for dinner at my apartment. Thank you, Neven, for the tradition.

It’s weird to learn terrible things about deceased family. You’d think that with many more people dead than are currently alive,^[4] this wouldn’t particularly matter. Andrew Jackson might’ve been an awful man, but my grandfather wasn’t just an absent grandparent, he was an awful man who I knew. That he’s recently deceased^[5] just newly frees those formerly close to him to disclose, and others to lionize him, while the rest of us can’t confront him. I often think about not wanting to die with regret, but damn, also with unresolved – or compulsorily resolved — conflict. In different ways we all want to do better than our parents and grandparents, but I’ve got a slam-dunk^[6] ahead of me.

I also can’t believe that he was unique, and then damn so many must live miserably.

Since getting back our honeymoon, I’ve perfected recipes for standard crepes, Galettes Bretonnes, and rye crepes. Mostly sweet fillings or egg-variations in the standard, lox or tuna melts in the buckwheat, and seitan reubens in the rye. It’d be hyperfixation had I not also started making garlicky cannellini beans at least twice weekly, and kale caesar regularly. I’m a man of variety.

Alex’s wedding was a time, and Tahoe was lovely. Given our distance from that family, we were happy to participate, but I felt a measurable relief in returning home to my people, and the next day having my weekly happy hour with Simon and our friends. My people are here, and while the family’s larger and often conflicted, for now our immediate family’s all together in Central Texas.

Wes, my older brother and Alex’s father, often has much to say about our dad. I’ve watched my older siblings’ relationships with him evolve over my lifetime, and I’m fortunate to have only known my father and not theirs. As I approach wanting to do better than my parents from not yet having a child, and I see my older siblings on the other side of parenthood, I can’t help but wonder if in striving to do better and differently, we invent novel ways of fucking up.^[7]

In my personal writing regarding Clyde, I dwell on what exactly we learn from our parents. We’re ourselves with thanks to and despite them, whether purposefully or not. I think it’ll be many years before I’ve unpacked Clyde’s effects on his family, and my own father’s on mine and my siblings, but I hope that while figuring that out, I can practice loving those around me such that they know they’re my world.