The pandemic forced a change. I was no longer commuting a mile to an office each day for work, work happened at home. I lived that life before I moved to Baltimore, but at that time Elsa and I lived together in a small one bedroom condo and my desk was in the bedroom. Working from my bedroom was not always great. But this time, we had a large house and I could set myself up at home. Previously, I had a small desk on the top floor where Elsa kept her office. Working from home full time meant making a more permanent space, hopefully with greater separation between Elsa and myself.

So we made an adjustment I had thought about for some time, moving all of our gym equipment out from one of the smaller bedrooms and up to the loft where my desk was. Down went my desk into the bedroom and I now had a dedicated room at home for me. It is clearly my office, but it also opened up another opportunity.

From the time I was 14 until college, I played guitar for hours every day. Slowly through college, I played a bit less all the time– it’s hard to be loud in dorms and apartments, but I still played all the time and was deeply invested in my identity as a guitar player. But grad school came, and so did work, and suddenly I basically stopped, almost entirely. I know that this happens to a lot of folks, but to this day I remain surprised. Guitar was a huge part of my identity, not just a thing I did sometimes. I played in bands all throughout high school. I obsessed over gear. I used to drive to find new guitar shops or even return to ones I frequent to see what new used equipment was there and play for hours. But a part of living is shedding parts of ourselves to make room for new things and somehow guitar was a casualty.

Like many folks who rediscovered hobbies during the pandemic, guitar crept back into my life. In this instance, however, I’m not so sure how much of my playing was about having time. I think a fair bit of my resurgence came from having space. As I put together my office, rather than fill the walls just with art or furniture, I hung my primary electric and acoustic guitars. They were now right behind, in reach, in a room with a door. Just that difference was enough to start me playing a bit again.

I’ve never taken up guitar like I used to–there’s very little which I can dedicate even one hour a day to. But I’ve been more consistent than in years. Some weeks it may only be twenty minutes of noodling, other weeks I pick it up for a bit every day. Slowly, I’ve at least started to redevelop and maintain my calluses. I don’t play nearly as well as I used to– I can feel the difference in my dexterity and confidence– but I’m getting to passably close to where I was.

For the first time in over a decade, I’m starting to play with other people again. The last few Saturday afternoons I’ve piled into a small basement with my guitar and amp and hung out playing with a drummer, two keyboardist/synth players, and another guitarist. And we’ve been improvising over a few things and writing some new music. It’s music I’d listen to, and I’m having a blast. Yesterday we played for almost 15 minutes straight off of a small riff I wrote in April of 2020. It was just something I recorded to my phone because it sounded cooler than I expected. I was playing it to practice my picking and timing, and now I’ve got my own song (really our song now– it’s gone so much beyond my start point) stuck in my head.

It’s funny. My senior year of high school I went to the gym to lift weights at least a couple of times a week. I was playing volleyball every day after school in the spring. And most weekends, and even some weekdays, I got together with friends and played guitar and wrote music. Twenty plus years later, I’m going to the gym 3 days a week to lift weights. I’m playing volleyball 2-3 nights a week. And most weekends, I am getting together with friends and playing guitar and writing music.

I am not sure if the 20 years I spent (largely) away from these things would have been better if I tried to keep it up. I think it was important for me to grow out of the things I loved to do for a while. But about 6 years ago I started lifting weights again. And about 3 years ago I started playing volleyball again. And although I started playing guitar at home a bit more starting 4 years ago as well, it’s really just the last few months I’ve started playing with other people and writing music again. All of these things are utterly recreational. I can do them entirely with a joy and ease that I didn’t have when I was younger. I have returned to them all way more willing to be silly and without expectations. And I’m just having so much fun.

My house in Baltimore is about 3.25× the size of the condo we had in Providence. According to Redfin, it’s only worth about 35% more these days.

Location, location, location.

Gosh this is so bad. I hate losing the local paper of record to this right wing nut.

Our local paper of record was just bought by a local media magnate. That would normally be great, except this magnate is Sinclair, which is not only a horrific right wing propaganda machine destroying local media that’s actively hostile against Baltimore City for being black and democrat.

Used my sunglassess as a UV filter for this photo.

Folks wonder why I’m hesitant at times to outwardly advertise my Jewishness to strangers, yet just a few blocks from my home…

Hi Jason,

I just realized you were in Europe on holiday :-) How was Paris? It has been quite some while since I last was there. It would be nice to go there again (and it is pretty near – only four hours by train, I think). But then I would need to speak French, and I’m not good at it at all :-D Did you get around well with English?

Wow, that is a long time at the same place. I can not quite compete on that point; I was in my ninth year at the old workplace. There was also a lot of change, but I had more personal change and development in the end. So, I needed something new. And I also wanted to switch to product development compared to agency/consulting work.

Volleyball is fun, but it would not work for me to do regularly – too much social responsibility – which is one reason I like swimming. I can do it alone. But I also like being in the water. It is easy to do, and you can think about stuff while swimming. I don’t need to look outside so much compared to running. And I don’t only use my legs, which is also good, as I have a lot of tension in my arms and shoulders from being at the computer all the time. I started with around 500m at the beginning of the year, and now I’m up to 1000m, which was my unofficial goal for this year. Right now, I need around 30 minutes for it.

It is interesting how sometimes you don’t want to be alone with your brain – I also have this. But it got less so over the past few years (as my mental health got up again). But I’m used to being in my world inside of my brain. And it helps me when my body is doing something physical simultaneously. I struggle with classical meditation, where I must sit still and not think. There is so much going on in my brain at all times :-) Luckily, there is more positive stuff now again.

It is interesting how you can use them as a journal. I was initially using my blog as a journal as well. But when I started to write morning pages, I managed to move some of the stuff to a private place. I can use my blog again more for intentional writing – right now, I’m still trying my hand at fiction writing. But it did not go well this quarter. I was too distracted by the new job and the migraine battle.

Although the workshop was fun, I was much more nervous than I should have been, and I’m still trying to figure out why. I need to work on my pacing; I should have rehearsed it at least once. But at least everybody is not up to date on “Cybersecurity.” They think a bit more about strange emails they receive and ask me whether I made another test with them.

And speaking about work. I’ve seen that you work in a fully remote company. Was this an intentional decision for you to not work in an office? I assume that you were doing this already before the pandemic. I’ve only switched to remote work with the pandemic now. And I would not want to do it any other way. Unfortunately, I have already started to feel the pull of the office as most of my coworkers are in the office regularly. But I don’t want to. Having 100% remote work in my contract is one of the perks of the new position!

Cheers Chris

Hi Chris,

We were fine with mostly English, though we stayed largely in central parts of the city and my partner Elsa does speak French (and Spanish) fluently. I am unsure how I would have felt without her and zero French to fall back on, but I think overall the city was more welcoming to me as a very obvious American than I expected. It was my first time in Paris, and the furthest north I’ve been in Europe (probably pretty close to as far north as I’ve ever been, now that I think about it – most Americans, myself included, don’t remember just how far south we are compared to Europe).

I work with quite a few people who grew tired of agency work and wanted to build a product. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone leave to go back to agency work who had that experience, but I haven’t had a conversation in some time about the advantages or disadvantages with any of my employees. Most of them tired of not getting to influence what they built, of feeling like they did a less good job because clients only wanted to pay to make something work, not make it last and all of that. But I also suspect that swimming in the problems of your own past decisions doesn’t always feel good– I know I’m constantly in a state of frustration with my past self.

Allovue has always been at least partially remote. When I started, I lived in Providence, Rhode Island about 375 miles from where I live now and where our “home office” was. We had a few team members in the Baltimore area, but we always had a few remote. Some of us travel quite a bit for work, and even the folks from Baltimore often worked from home at least a few days per week. Over time as we grew, the team was almost never majority Baltimore based. So as a result, we were always a “remote first” workforce. We had an office, and use ebbed and flowed. Some teams were a bit more locally-based, others more likely to be remote. In the end, with less than a third of the company in Baltimore, we had way more office than we needed. 2020 was year four of a five year lease and we were already contemplating downsizing the office or radically reconfiguring it. We actually subleased most of our space. But COVID was the clear end of in office work for us– we actually got out of our lease early because another tenant wanted our space, and we never seriously considered having space again. We now have a small room in a co-working space that we mostly use as climate controlled storage. It also gives us access to a conference room for times when that makes sense to use.

I was probably one of the folks who used the office most, even though I travel a lot. I moved to Baltimore about 7 years ago for various reasons (I needed to move, and work and my best friend being here made Baltimore the right choice). My first year here I didn’t have any office space at home, so it was pretty important for me to go in. But once I bought a house in the city and space for a home office, it became less important.

I think remote work has to be a priority to actually work. I don’t think you can be a part of a small percentage of people doing it.

I’ve never done morning pages– I’m not a morning person and can’t even really generate a morning routine, unless you count staying in bed too long, then staying in the hot shower too long, then begrudgingly starting my day. But for some time I was writing in a journal at night. I would write the things I got done, then reflect a bit on work and my personal life. I’d write how I was feeling in just a few sentences, then rank the day. It helped me when I needed it, but for some reason didn’t last long.

While I am a person that likes certain comforts and consistency, I don’t know that I have a lot of habits. I think I view a lot of habits as things that are almost compulsions. They don’t stick. But there are times where I can use a … short term habit (which, this feels like totally not a thing) to break out of a certain thought pattern or rut.

Letters-as-journal for me really just means that writing a letter like this at the pace I write them creates time for a kind of introspection and retrospection that I don’t normally have. I don’t let out thoughts that are diary level private, but it’s also not quite a log. That’s why I settled on journal.

Constraints change outcomes. I didn’t want to get too deep into my own head, so I wanted to write in public. I wanted to write letters to slow down the pace of today’s “common” internet interactions. I thought it would build a different kind of communication, and it has. And I wanted to mostly talk to strangers so that the topics would keep me on my toes. That’s worked too.

Congrats on hitting your 1000M goal! Thirty minutes sounds both short enough to be manageable and utterly exhausting. I’m about to start book 29 for the year. I have a very modest goal of 30 books this year– the least I’ve read since 2018– and I hope I’ll hit it. What other goals did you have for this year? As we fast approach 2024, what are your goals for next year?

Jason

Meta note: this month I’m corresponding with Katie Dexter

Jason,

First, I’d like to apologize in advance that I haven’t written in some time and I’m quite rusty. That said, I’m excited to be writing you a letter as you’ve always been in my periphery during my time in Baltimore. Our circles are similar, yet never seem to quite overlap. Hopefully this exercise can close that gap and allow us to learn more about each other. Hopefully you’re settling into the cooler months, and maybe you have some travels planned to go somewhere warmer sometime this winter, would love to hear if you do!

I’m not sure if you know but my partner and I had a baby in April and it’s been the most fantastic and wildly unexpected thing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been off work for the past 8 weeks, and I am returning on Monday. My time off has given me much to think about in terms of labor, capitalism, and how I want to spend my time going forward. I won’t lie, I did miss working. There’s something magical about solving problems using code, and I think you will understand how a break from that magic could leave me missing work. What I do not miss is the stress of always being available and online and ready to help and jump into things. This time away has given me a lot of perspective in what work life balance actually means. I hope that when I return it’s not overwhelming and I will be able to uphold some boundaries around my labor. Of course things have gone off the rails during my time off, which is why this letter is delayed. My company was acquired and I’m navigating the stress and uncertainty of returning to something completely different that I left.

I’m curious to know more about your own relationship with work. How do you balance that and doing all of the other things that are important to you? I know there’s a delicate balance and I’m trying to understand how to incorporate taking care of myself, my 6 month old, and still performing at work. It seems….wildly impossible.

Something I’ve been doing the past few months is taking a few hours each night when my baby is asleep to do something enriching for myself. I draw a tarot card, I make meaning of what I interpret from the cards. I read - lately heavily into understanding theories of psychoanalysis and the human psyche. I’ve been catching up on music, and got into listening to some difficult jazz. I wondered if this is me grasping at maintaining my own identity while also being a parent. It’s hard to know, but I do know that it seems easy to just get blended up in just being a parent and that’s not really ideal. Identity is such a big signifier and so is our perception of other people’s identities. I think it could be interesting if we shared our perceptions of each other, since we don’t really know much outside of a social media following. It could be a fun exercise.

Let me know what you’ve been up to, what’s got your attention these days. I look forward to hearing from you, and chatting with you over the next month.

-Katie

Hi Katie,

I spent a few months in Mexico City last year essentially escaping winter— we were gone from the Friday after Thanksgiving until mid February. This year, no such grand plans. One of our dogs is getting older, and there’s no way we could take extended time away. We did land some stupidly inexpensive flights to Paris, so I’m going for the first time for a few days after Thanksgiving. I think that will be the only non-work trip this winter. That said, I’m writing this from Phoenix, so I do get my share of warmer locales, even if most of my time is at hotel conference areas or in school district buildings.

Congratulations on the baby! I can only imagine the big shift that has created, alongside an acquisition at work and … you somewhat recently moved houses too right? Seems like a lot.

That said, “grasping at maintaining identity” is definitely something I relate to, and it’s a big part of my relationship to work. I’m getting close to my 10 year anniversary at Allovue. And while I’d like to think that I’m a person who is more than his job, it’s often quite hard for me to separate my self-perception and identity from what I do and where I do it. It’s deeply unhealthy, but so much of my time, energy, passion, sweat, pride, fear, stress, frustration, and failure are all wrapped up in what I do.

The last couple of years I’ve started playing Volo Volleyball pretty regularly when I’m at home. Faster pace, team sports are great at turning off my brain. I literally can’t think about work about 97% of the time while playing volleyball. And while I haven’t made some deep, life long friendships, I now have a bit of a sense of community with folks who are regular players that make me feel connected to something that isn’t work— at least a little. Going to the gym to lift weights, which I also do with small group training, doesn’t help in the same way. There’s too much time to be in my own head and thinking. The pace and collaboration of a sport seems key. And it really does help— I come home exhausted, and still sometimes return to work and some of the stresses. But after volleyball, I’m rarely able to be quite worked up to the levels I let myself get whipped into throughout the day.

I love solving problems with code. I love thinking through a process and how to make it more efficient or effective, how to store the data needed for each step along the way, and how to present information more clearly to folks. I even like mentorship and management, when I feel that I’m up to the task. But there’s a lot more that comes with leadership of a small company that isn’t pleasant. And I often wonder, would I be much better at this if I were doing only 3 of the 15 things I am responsible for? And even if I would be better, would I actually be bored? I joke about a simpler job and a simpler life, but the people closest to me don’t think I could last 15 minutes without be overstimulated and pulled in 100 directions. They might be right, but that’s probably something I need to unlearn, someday.

What’s got my attention…

About halfway through this year, I realized the theme I wanted was “lighten” or “light”. In various ways, my life has felt very heavy pretty much since COVID. I have absolutely failed to make any progress on this idea, but I’ve been returning to it a lot lately. I need to find ways to be a little less serious, a little more fun, to feel a little less burdened (mostly self-imposed). So I’ve been trying to pay attention to my media diet and my habits and identify the things that seem to help. I’ve been reading less and watching fewer movies. And I’ve been walking less. And I very much feel as you do – work is a thing I love, but being always available, and letting so many things feel urgent and allow them to spike my anxiety… that’s not so great.

So, as per usual when the days get short, I’m turning inward and trying to get my health back on track. Maybe it’ll work better this year than last year.

Jason

Baltimore, where it’s 80 degrees at the end of October and the trees are doing this.

The strong breeze in Baltimore is giving Fall vibes and it’s glorious. 🍂🍁🍂

We started the second day of our executive retreat with an hour long walk in Baltimore City where we hung out with these two.

Dear Jason,

I was in my thirties when the year 2000 came along, so I spent much of my childhood and young adulthood writing letters (phone calls being very expensive, and the proto-internet being unavailable to ordinary mortals). With phone calls, texts, and interactions on social media, communication is a constant back-and-forth. A letter is more like an essay. Yes, you are writing to someone else, but you can more fully unwind your thoughts without interruption. So I think the answer to whether one is having conversations with others or with oneself, when it comes to letters, is “yes.”

Letters are the one form of communication that allows you to finish your sentences. To communicate in paragraphs. And to ponder, over days or weeks, or longer even, what was said and what it sparks in you to say. I don’t think there really is a communications substitute for letters.

I love your comparison with pinning down a job description as being similar to describing the ocean as “blue.” I like the phrase “areas of responsibility,” as well. Perhaps as I get used to my new line of work, I will think of it in terms of areas of responsibility.

And this leads me to your questions about how to manage working with people who are going through serious challenges, while preserving my own soul; as well as shifting to being nondenominational, and what that has done to my tool kit.

The nondenominational aspect is actually more comfortable for me, just because my own personal and familial spiritual and religious background is pretty mixed. I think wisdom traditions like religions tend to hit on the same set of practices because we are all still human beings. I think the relationship of religion to the spiritual aspect of reality, is like the relationship of language to the physical aspect of reality. Religions are human-made modes for articulating and interacting with spiritual realities. So I’m “fluent” in some religious languages, and have a few little travel phrases with others. For patients who are connected with a faith community, my job is to support that, not undermine it. For patients who no longer feel connected to those traditions, or who want nothing to do with those traditions, we can often still do something like meditate together. At heart, I’m a pluralist. One of my favorite quotes from Frederick Buechner (?I think?) is that when it comes to the divine, we are like oysters at a ballet: we might dimly sense light and vibrations and movement, but we really don’t understand what’s going on.

Now, to soul preservation in emotionally intense environments… The rabbi, therapist, and organizational leadership theorist Edwin Friedman wrote brilliant and difficult books about leadership in congregations, based on family systems theory. I honestly think anyone who is in leadership anywhere, ought to read Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. It’s strange, provocative, filled with insights I haven’t seen elsewhere (so many pop culture leadership books are shallow or insular or both). I highlighted my first copy so much I had to buy another one.

It is nothing like any other leadership book I’ve read (and I have endured many). If you decide to read it, abandon your expectations and just experience it, like you would experience meeting a neighbor who was a true eccentric.

One of Friedman’s themes is the importance of self-differentiation for leaders, and how that affects the flow of anxiety through the group (whether it be family, congregation, company, whatever).

The core to healthy leadership in groups like congregations, which have high expectations of “meshing” emotionally with their leaders, and which also have high anxieties – is practicing self-differentiation, and practicing what Friedman called “non-anxious presence” (and what I, and many others call, less anxious presence). A leader who self-differentiates, who is non-anxious when others are anxious, can effect profound change in group dynamics over time. (I did it in my parish; it took several years.)

What does that mean in plain English? To my mind, it means that you know who you are, you know what you are about, you know what is yours to do, and you know what is not yours to do.

Can I be emotionally present with people who are anxious, grieving, in distress, without absorbing their pain and taking it with me to my next visit, or into my own soul? Friedman says, if we’re really intentional and practice a lot, we can self-differentiate and be a non-anxious presence maaaaybe 70% of the time.

I use what I call spiritual disciplines to train myself to self-differentiate, and to be a non-anxious (or less anxious) presence in emotionally difficult situations. Most of these practices might be called self-care practices in the secular world.

I keep a rule of life (what I call on one of my blogs a “personal framework,” because it doesn’t have to be religious), which I try to reread once a week to remind myself of what I am about, in this world. I journal, pray, and do what we jokingly call “speed yoga” each morning, I shut off my phone when the work day is over, I attend church (relaxing not to have to lead the service any more!), I get out for walks, I keep in touch with friends and family. I consider my home to be my sanctuary, and I make it a pleasant and relaxing place to be. I am getting serious again about practicing a real personal Sabbath, a day of rest from Friday night through Saturday. (And not what Eugene Peterson called a “bastardized Sabbath,” where I’m running around doing errands all day, which is what I fell back into.) I also use rituals.

It seems a number of people in hospice work use rituals. A nun I met who was also a chaplain would, when she was washing her hands between visits, envision all the sadness from the previous visit washing down the drain, so she didn’t take it to the next visit, or take it home with her. I know a social worker who discreetly wipes her feet on the mat before she goes in to a home (she is wiping away all of her assumptions and agenda, to be open to what will happen), and who wipes her feet (again, discreetly) as she leaves the house, so that that household’s problems stay there and don’t travel with her to other visits, or to her own home.

I ritually wipe my feet before I get in my car, and on a low stone in the alleyway before I walk into my house. I also ring a meditation bell three times at the end of each work day, which signals to me that my work is done for the day, and I need not think about it any more.

Rituals are fantastic. They communicate to the body as well as the mind, so you truly can let something go, and relax.

…And nobody likes to watch Young Frankenstein with my husband and me, because we quote along with the whole movie 😂

“Put… the candle…. BACK!”

A work trip to Jamaica? Wow, that sounds intriguing! Is this a conference? Have you been to Jamaica before? (I’ve never been, but would like to go.)

What do you do to balance your work life and your home life? How do you leave space and responsibility for YOUR soul (as you put it so well), with a job that can be done – as I am assuming – remotely?

Best regards,

Anna

Anna,

There is a practice in Judaism when returning from a funeral. Before entering your home, you perform a ritualistic washing of the hands. What is the purpose of this? Much of early Judaism was obsessed with purity. The mikveh was a central part of life. It could be seen as a public health measure to wash after being in the presence of remains. But I think it is not merely about physical or spiritual cleanliness. I think the washing is much like the rituals you encounter in hospice workers– we are meant to take a moment and ensure a separation. The funeral was then, our home will be now. The Hebrew word for “holy” means “separate”– that which is holy is separate and distinct; it is holy by being apart. The Sabbath is holy through separation from the rest of the week.

I think learning to be self-differentiated, to be separate, while not being distant is a challenge of leadership. We need to practice deep empathy without being overrun and controlled by it. Empathy doesn’t require that we absorb the anxieties of those we are leading. But the way most of us know how to practice empathy naturally leads to some… leakage. We need moments to flush and seal.

It could be worse, it could be raining.

This was my first time in Jamaica. We’re doing some work to help modernize their school financial management. Quite a lot is still run on paper. It’s a small project for now that might grow significantly. I got to spend some time in a a rural high school reviewing their systems and working with several government agencies. It was a wonderful learning experience and a real stretch for me to apply the skills and knowledge I’ve built up for over a decade in a completely different context.

I do work fully remotely. In this same job, which was always remote-friendly, I started remote, then moved to Baltimore and went into the office for a few years, and during/post-COVID we went fully remote. Remote work was much harder when I lived in Providence. First, we had a one bedroom apartment so my office was the bedroom. Second, I was flying to Baltimore 2-3 times a month in addition to my regular work travel. Things are much better now that we have a large enough house that I have my own office with a door to close.

But separation is still hard, because I work across all of the North American timezones and I’m a bit of a workaholic. So there’s a few things I have to do. For starters, I schedule all of my time at the gym (small group training, with 1 trainer to up to 6 people max) and volleyball each week. I find that if it’s on my calendar, I go. And physical activity is especially helpful for me to achieve separation. It’s hard to think about and be consumed by work while playing a team sport especially.

I struggle sometimes because my work is at a computer, and many of my hobbies are also at a computer. So I only read on my Kindle or with physical books– my iPad would lead me right back to work. I also struggle because I work with my best friend, which is mostly a blessing but occasionally can make it hard to disconnect from work stress and anxiety. Especially when something is big enough to impact us both, it’s a major support that neither of us can lean on because it’ll just lead to a bit of spiraling.

I aggressively use Apple’s new Focus Modes. I broadly let very few things notify me, but I let even less post 6pm or on weekends when I turn on “Down Time” – it hides all my apps for a few useful widgets and reduces who can reach me to just a handful of people. Otherwise, 6pm or weekends means I have to go seek something out for it to get my attention. I’ve found this quite helpful, even if I still impulsively open Slack a few times a day.

This weekend I went to a bar and magic show. One of the tricks involved guessing the super power that people wished they had. What super power have you always wanted? And more importantly, what is your actual super power? How did you discover it?

Jason

Hi Jason,

I totally agree with you on the “more money helps, but don’t expect much” messaging being both a) true and b) not a great story to tell! And I also appreciate your point about the sheer number of school boards not only contributing to the problem of just having too many elected positions, but that there is not enough talent to go around. I suspect that Americans react to poor governance by adding even more oversight (further diluting the talent pool!) rather than cutting the number of elected positions, leading to even worse governance and on and on in a negative feedback loop.

Since I may only have time for one more of your responses, I did want to get your thoughts on mass transit given your interest there. You may know this, but for outside readers: I’ve commuted via MARC train to DC for nearly 10 years. When I started working in DC, that was 4 days a week in the DC office (1 WFH), gradually moving to 3 days a week (2 WFH), then the pandemic (full WFH), and over the past 18 months, roughly 1 day a week in office. Just this week, I received the announcement that our DC office would close and I will be full-time WFH beginning in December. Remote work is its own interesting issue, though I’ll briefly say that I worked remotely for Brown University while working in Iowa for nearly 5 years in 2009-14, and it was really tough. However, the changes in technology, company acceptance, and the sheer percentage of remote co-workers has really made a tremendous positive difference in my work life.

OK, so back to mass transit. I see, on the one hand, mass transit enthusiasts (with whom I sympathize) discuss all the benefits of robust options, and being clear about the need for increased transit frequency to encourage more riders. I read recently about the potential revival of the Red Line in Baltimore, which would finally connect the western and eastern regions of the metro area, which have been significantly underserved for decades. On the other hand, I look at MARC ridership numbers since 2016, and I have significant concerns about the continued viability of commuter rail in the region absent massive infusions of cash. Going from an average of roughly 800k riders per month pre-pandemic to a post-pandemic high of 338k in May 2023 is alarming. I’ll admit that the last time I rode MARC this month had higher ridership than typical, but let’s be really optimistic and say ridership rebounds to 500k per month. A drop of 40% doesn’t seem sustainable to me, but I see a disconnect between transit advocates and the numbers (and my personal experience). MARC trains aren’t infrequent, and I’m not sure there’s capacity on that line, which serves Amtrak as well, to add more trains. MARC has also, for some reason, stopped running their electrified trains and is all-diesel, which is bad both environmentally and travel time-wise. What’s going to happen when Maryland runs out of pandemic aid and has a budget crunch?

I don’t want to overinterpret my experience, though. Perhaps commuter rail’s ridership issues are exacerbated by having ridership that is more likely to shift to remote work. It also appears the federal workforce, compared to other sectors, has disproportionately allowed WFH, and federal workers make up a significant percentage of MARC ridership. Is the future about more investment in intra-city (as opposed to commuter or long-distance) mass transit? Would love your thoughts on this (but please don’t use the word Maglev or I will cry).

Best, Jacob

Hi Jacob

It’s interesting how important feedback loops are in building systems. We see the strains of unexpected pathways all across our current government structure.

I suspect that Americans react to poor governance by adding even more oversight (further diluting the talent pool!) rather than cutting the number of elected positions, leading to even worse governance and on and on in a negative feedback loop.

This is definitely a part of what’s going on. Our inability to build infrastructure is, of course, about a reaction to horrible abuses by government and industry, followed by tons of rules and procedures to avoid those problems, generating new problems.

Proceduralism and legalism are the poor tools we’re strangled by as they act as restraints on abuse.

So let’s talk rail.

Here’s my overall take– moving people with cars first and primarily is a mistake. Moving people with trains works under certain circumstances, which the US largely fails to create. Moving away from electrification with MARC rolling stock is a great example. Instead of electrifying the few, infrequent spots that needed diesel, MARC invested in worse trains that lead to worse speeds and worse service. We standardized on the wrong thing.

I think commuter rail in Baltimore is largely doomed. The distance is too short, and the trains are far too infrequent and too slow. MARC has never had sufficient evening or weekday service. It’s never had service not focused on the heavy commute at 9 and 5. It’s got too many stops on rolling stock that’s far too slow. Baltimore to DC is possible with conventional rail in 25 minutes. It should be the case that trains have been running for decades by now, departing at :00 and :30 on the clock face and getting to DC in 25 minutes. But it hasn’t and it has broken transit. It’s helped to fuel suburban sprawl around DC. It’s just a mess. And of course, Baltimore City itself doesn’t help by having very poor access by public transit to Baltimore Penn. I don’t think we’ll see it “work” in our lifetimes the way that it should. But I do think we should invest anyway, because I think it just takes decades of investment to undo decades of supporting car culture.

Baltimore itself should be focused almost entirely on building better transit within Baltimore and the parts of Baltimore County that should be Baltimore City, except racism. I don’t think that relying on the DC connection and commute is a strong strategy for Baltimore. That’s not how I feel about Providence and Boston, meanwhile– Providence needs the strongest possible connection to Boston to thrive– but Baltimore both stands better on its own with a stronger metro area and has secondary connections to Philadelphia and New York. We should let Amtrak get its shit together on high speed rail along the current alignments in the Northeast Corridor and benefit from that. MARC just needs EMUs and regular service. Baltimore needs to be far less reliant on cars and focus on quality of life.

I once did some back of the envelope math that determined that simply by using bad rolling stock and having 3-4 stops that are largely empty in completely empty places south of the city, the Baltimore Light Rail takes 20-25 extra minutes to get from BWI to the Convention Center. The Nursery Road Light Rail stop makes the Boston suburbs look like transit-oriented development.

I’m pretty concerned about all the Red Line proposals right now. All of the routes have some significant curves that will impact speed which impacts frequency. The vision for tunneling seems to make some tough choices. I’m not convinced Maryland knows how to manage a project like this and do that kind of tunneling inexpensively. Bus rapid transit seems like a terrible idea, but I don’t see the red line as proposed connecting the Light Rail and Subway in such a way that makes for a coherent transit system. It’s clearly a necessary step, and I’m still mad we’re at least a decade behind now, but I also think it’s still too small with no plan for follow through to have the impact we need. I find myself agreeing with some of the advocacy saying that light rail is not enough – we should instead use heavy rail like the subway and MARC, especially with two explicit station connections to the MARC, and save on rolling stock orders and maintenance.

I’d like to see a bigger plan. Could Baltimore push for a better North-South corridor (studies are ongoing, probably should be along Greenmount to York up to Towson, in my opinion) at the same time? Could we explicitly staff up our transit agencies with experts on cut-and-cover tunnels and become the only place on the East Coast that knows how to build with Spanish costs? Could we then export this expertise as part of our investment?

It’s all going to be too expensive and take too long because it’s too small. More is more with transit, but we’re not willing to do that kind of thinking.

That said, if we don’t force denser zoning and construction out at CMS, Security Square, SSA, and the I-70 Park and Ride I’ll be furious. No more trains to parking lots in the County that just lead to people complaining that people from the city can access them.

Thanks for your letters this September!

Jason

Hi Jason,

I agree that the awards in speculative fiction are great - they’ve been helpful to me in exploring genres that I don’t have a lot of experience with. The Hugo Awards, for example, led me to N.K. Jemisin, Arkady Martine, and Cixin Liu, all of whom I’ve enjoyed. Interestingly, I’ve found that the big literary fiction awards - Pulitzer, National Book Award, Booker Prize - have been misaligned to my taste in fiction. I’m not entirely sure why that’s happened (it’s probably just me getting old). I’m also a reader who will endure through a book I’m not enjoying, particularly if it’s a “classic.” I do need to wean myself from the notion of a canon (the perils of majoring in English!), though there have been books where the struggle has been productive for me and I’m glad I persisted to the end. If only I knew which challenging books would result in that feeling! I’m also with you on a significant chunk of non-fiction books being more well-suited to a long-form article, particularly books that take on current events. It’s unfortunate that there’s not a strong market for non-fiction books too long for a magazine but too short for a full-length book, a sort of non-fiction novella category.

You really had to poke the bear by mentioning school boards. That said, I’ll start with the positives. I truly believe that the vast majority of school board members have good intentions. This is almost exclusively an unpaid, volunteer position. Don’t get me wrong, volunteers are essential. So many of our institutions rely on enthusiastic amateur volunteers to keep them running. This is certainly true in the institutions to which I belong, whether I’m in an active role like co-chairing a social justice committee at my synagogue or leading my neighborhood HOA, or primarily a passive member, like my kids’ schools’ PTAs or community sports leagues. There’s an assumption with these roles that a) everyone is acting with good intentions and b) the complexity of the role/institution is low enough that an amateur can do it without payment. School districts are…not that. I don’t have to tell you about the system complexity and financial complexity of school districts. These are not systems that should be overseen by well-meaning amateurs. However, we have this historical legacy of elected school boards, so what to do? I think the best option would be to, when possible, assign oversight of school districts to elected executives like mayors and county executives. Here in Baltimore County there is clear frustration from the county executive that he has little control over the largest budget item. This also ties into the concern that there are too many elected positions in the United States, which creates policy choke points and low-information/low turnout decisions by the public. This Atlantic piece bluntly states it: Americans Vote Too Much. Alas, a key hurdle here is that a lot of people believe that additional elected positions lead to better, more considered policy decisions, rather than (in my view) confusion about accountability and multiple choke points that stifle good decision-making. Recent attempts to streamline decision-making, like mayoral-led school districts, seem to have fallen out of favor, perhaps due to the unpopular decisions that many mayor-led systems had to make (e.g., school closures).

How do you feel about school boards? Other problems I failed to identify or different ways of looking at them?

Sticking with school governance, I’ve been wondering for the past two years about the roughly $190 billion in federal COVID relief funding to schools, which according to this Chalkbeat article works out to about $4,000 per student. While I know there were certain required set-asides to address learning loss and a few prohibitions, it seemed to me pretty much a blank check. I’ve struggled to find good information on how the funds are being spent or any impact on student outcomes, which is concerning! So I’ll end with a question for you: What do you think will be the long-term impact of the biggest one time infusion of funding into K-12 American education?

Jacob

Hi Jacob,

I find all of the non-speculative fiction awards similarly frustrating. They’re just not the kind of strong indicator I might like a book that I get from the Hugos or Nebulas. I used to believe in finishing any book I have started, but lately, I’ve been more willing to put something down. Sometimes it’s just not the right time, sometimes it’s just not the right book. I can always go for other attempts, but if a book just stops me in my tracks, it’s time to move on. I’d rather be reading than not reading because of some sense that I should always finish my book.

I think that assumption of complexity– and that an amateur can contribute effectively– permeates huge portions of our American system. A lot of “small d” democracy and volunteerism is built on visions of a society of small towns centered around just a few institutions everyone took part in. That’s why we vote too much (I also loved that article), but it’s also why we have some bad assumptions. I think by ceding control to volunteer amateurs, elected or not (and they’re barely elected), we signal that it is possible for amateurs to do a good job!

I think a core problem with the municipal control piece is that most municipalities, organizationally, are less complex than schools. The web of local, state, and federal funds, statutory requirements, and complexity of service delivery means that most school operations are simply harder than running county or municipal governments. So while I like moving the elected accountability in some sense, from an organizational perspective, the municipal functions would probably be more easily absorbed by the school systems than the other way around. There’s this huge frustration among mayors and county executives and city councils that the schools are a “black hole”– but in truth, the schools are more transparent, have more sophisticated practices, and have more difficult jobs to do– at least in my experience.

I think my core issue with school governance, and boards in general, is less that they exist and more that there are far too many. I think it’s probably about reasonable for Maryland to have county level boards and districts. I think it’s a disaster that Nassau County, New York is over 50 districts or that Rhode Island has 39. I’d like to see consolidation of districts, at least from a governance stand point, and I’d like to see more of their governance move up to the states. There’s no current state capacity, but it’s absolutely not to our advantage that we have so much variation in our school system. The only thing having lots of school districts truly guarantees is inequitable funding of schools, and that’s not the kind of variance worth chasing. But there’s also just not enough talent out there for 15,000 school boards and 15,000 superintendents and central offices. Regional service providers covering some core operations don’t go far enough.

I do think that ESSER was pretty much a blank check by design, and yet, I also think it will have virtually no impact. The data how dollars were spent will, I think, become clear in about 12 months. We’re just about to the end, which means the expenditures should all have been recorded and can be analyzed. We do an “ok” job of this on the Relief Funds tab for districts on the Arizona School Finance Portal – we decided to show the spending on relief funds by “function” code in Arizona. For the most part, it’s a pretty good indicator on the school district activities. We do have the data by object (the “what”) as well.

Ultimately, districts with lots of money largely couldn’t help themselves and hired staff, from what I could see. Some of those staff are just going to go away, some they struggled to hire in the first place, and some may stick around in states like Maryland where additional state funding is sufficiently backfilling ESSER investments. Those that received less funding were more likely, it seems to me, to use it for backlogged capital expenses where possible. Neither of these were necessarily bad uses of funds, but I don’t think that we will really see much impact from any funding that isn’t permanent. Districts just can’t plan to restructure what they do and how without reliable, recurring revenue. And I don’t think there’s a whole lot we can do that is one time, on the margin, with persisting impacts.

This is all conjecture just based on conversations I’ve been having. It’s strange to be on the side of “more money helps” while also saying “like this, don’t expect much”. It’s a horrific position to defend.

I guess this is my pessimistic prediction: the capital projects backlog will continue to be long, but things will be less bad than they would have been. The current interest rate environment is going to make it even harder to chip away at things like build quality, and the ESSER funding may delay that being a total disaster long enough for interest rates to decline a bit.

Sorry for the late response! We had our all-company, in-person meeting last week at the Belvedere followed by our Education Finance Summit at the Maryland Center for History and Culture. I flew up to NY directly from the conference for Rosh Hashanah at my parents and… things got away from me.

Looking forward to your next letter.

Jason

Absolutely incredible thunderstorms here in Baltimore again and it’s the best.

I don’t understand why Whole Foods in Baltimore does not carry rolls of any kind. I like to eat sandwiches, and not only on sliced bread! I swear it’s like no one who shops there can look at a carb.

This month I’m corresponding with Jacob Mishook

Jason,

I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. When we originally decided on corresponding in September, you mentioned it would be timely given the start of the school year and that we’ve both worked in education policy. So in keeping with that theme, I’ll start with the biggest education policy story of the last year, the “science of reading,” popularized by the “Sold a Story” podcast. I’m not an early literacy expert so I can’t comment on the merits of the argument of the pendulum swing back towards phonics - though my layperson reaction was that it is compelling - but I do have a few observations:

• In the twenty-plus years I’ve been in the education policy field, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reaction to a single piece of research-influenced journalism larger than “Sold a Story” on early literacy policy. I’ve seen various numbers out there, but at the low-end at least 18 states have considered “science of reading” bills in the last year. In a field as frankly slow-moving as education policy, this is truly exceptional, and makes me wonder how it happened. A compelling and lay-friendly story, sure, but that can’t totally explain it (there’s a lot of good journalism out there). I could spin up a “just-so” story about parents seeing their kids struggle during the pandemic, but that seems incomplete as well. Any ideas here?
• At the same time, the act of reading seems both larger and smaller in American culture now. Larger, of course, due to recent laws restricting what young people can read in their schools and libraries. But also smaller - the National Endowment for the Arts regularly puts out fascinating studies of Americans’ reading habits. The most recent one, from 2020 (using 2017 survey data) focused on the ways in which people read books (e.g., print, electronic, audio). And that’s certainly interesting (as an aside, I’m a dedicated print reader, and do not have the type of concentration needed to listen to audiobooks). But the broader reading trend seems disheartening:

I assume reading is falling victim to the crowded landscape of leisure activities, but maybe a real policy focus on reading over time will reverse the trend?

• Which brings me to a (happier) last point - you and I are enthusiastic readers, though perusing our respective Goodreads activities, we don’t have a lot of overlap. At the risk of some overgeneralization, you appear to have a clear preference for speculative fiction, while I’m maybe more of a magpie but with a tilt towards (hate this but for lack of a better term) “literary” fiction. If my favorite pastime is reading, my second favorite might be reading book reviews, which leads me in a lot of different directions and also a huge pile of unread library books. How do you decide what to read? When and how do you find time to read? Are there books or genres you’d want to read more in depth if you had more time?

Jacob

Hi Jacob,

I had a great Labor Day Weekend. Although it was too hot here to be outside (which has been my general feeling about Baltimore since about June 1), I took a little time off from work for a “staycation” of sorts. That meant doing a little bit of clean up/clean out at home and heading to Oppenheimer on Tuesday for a solid 3 hours in air conditioning when no one at work could reach me even if they tried on my day off.

It is remarkable how fast “Sold a Story” had an impact– especially since this was one of the least well-kept secrets in education policy… since I started this work in 2009/2010? I remember reading Daniel Willingham on learning styles and reading all the way back then and thinking it was wild how far practice had strayed from evidence. I think like many odd things in the world today, the answer is probably something like “It’s COVID, stupid,” just as you suspect. I’m not sure I would actually attach it to parents seeing their kids struggle. Instead, I think it probably has more to do with the broader breakdown in trust. Education has long been plagued by everyone loving their teachers, but thinking teachers in general are not great. Their school is great, but schools in general, not so much. I think pure enthusiasm from an adult that parents and families trusted and liked translated into belief in their expertise and capability. With so many districts failing to meet parent expectations, whether that meant opening or closing, I think that trust was just broken. We were ripe for a story that politicians of all ideologies could get behind that said, “Schools are doing something wrong that we all agree is wrong.” In so many ways, bad reading instruction was just super popular reading instruction. It was instruction teachers enjoyed, and we just reached the point where that was far from enough for families.

I’m not sure what to make of reading trends. On the one hand, looks bad! On the other hand, there’s this additional culture zeitgeist around things like “booktok” and the seeming staying power of independent booksellers. There’s also this whole world of self-publishing on Amazon and what that has meant or not. Books feel like they’re in a weird place, from a production and business model sense, and I wonder if we have to be careful about “books” versus “reading”. I really like long form, non-serialized storytelling. I like movies over most television most of the time. And I like books. I don’t think the novel is dead, but I wonder if what we’re seeing is a business that is struggling to pivot and deliver what its customers want in a world where culture is changing so fast.

I have a firm rule in my own reading– I try and stay away from most non-fiction. I can enjoy non-fiction, but there are a couple of hang ups I have. First, I find that almost every non-fiction book contains 90% of its value in 10% of its page count. I find myself constantly wishing that books were just longer form articles or monographs or sometimes even blog posts. The other reason is because I read non-fiction all day long every day. I read news magazine articles, blog posts, newspaper articles, and listen to many non-fiction podcasts. I’m awash in non-fiction in all my other media consumption. So there’s a balancing act there as well. I find books to be the wrong form for most non-fiction, and I find myself lacking in fiction every where else I consume new media.

Deciding what to read then is a bit more tough. I do heavily stick to science fiction and fantasy. I’m fan of the term “speculative fiction” because that’s where most of my interest lies. I find that it’s helpful to have unrealistic elements in a story as an animating mechanism. It’s not so much about having an exciting story– I read plenty of philosophical, non-exciting stuff– but instead, it’s that I find it easier to understand the message or ideas of a book when they’re a bit more plain. The point of most good speculative fiction is to manipulate the world and have characters that respond in realistic ways to a world with those rules. Playing with the rules makes the ideas more concrete and obvious to me. Reading literary fiction, which I do enjoy, I often find myself unsure of what an author is saying with their work. Literary fiction for me is all plot. I can’t penetrate the message. I don’t suffer that same deficiency with speculative fiction.

One thing that’s great in science fiction and fantasy is I can track some of the key awards– the Hugos, Nebulas, Locus, etc– and pick up the nominees I have not already read. I also then follow down the path of certain authors as well. I’m not that big into book reviews, but I imagine I could be. I just haven’t really found a spoiler free source that resonates with my own taste. Perhaps the closest thing is a nerdy pop-culture podcast called The Incomparable, which has book club episodes. Sometimes I just look at the “what are we reading?” notes at the end of episodes that have nothing to do with the book discussed and choose things at random.

If I had more time, I probably would read slightly more non-fiction, but quite judiciously. I would have to work harder to find the books that earn their page count. And I also wish I read more short story collections.

I didn’t answer everything, because we would be going on for quite some time, but I’m glad we’ve got September up and running and are discussing reading.

I’ll throw you something that haunts me that you can choose to respond to or not in your next letter– what can be done about school boards? The situation right now is, not good, to say the least.

Jason

Hi Jason,

At this point Claire and I have sworn a blood oath that we’ll never move again. I struggle to think of other events that so thoroughly expose you to the ways in which your society is seemingly held together with little more than string and wishes…

I think that’s why, as well as attempting to integrate physical note-taking into my life, I have spent a lot of energy thinking about it; I’m attempting to improve my existing invisible armour [sic] for surviving the actions of other people, whilst building whole new defensive mechanisms. My theory: To improve the infrastructure that is my thinking and feeling will inevitably negate at least some of the negative influences of “the crowd”.

Everything you say about the effect of physical working, as if it is tied closely to your ability to take action, is how I feel. When my environment is mostly ok, if not good, then sure enough the digital workspace is reliable; however, when enough “life happens” events occur the physical systems are both a safety net and reminder that I should rely on them in more than just emergency situations. The Analog system has definitely been influential in this way for me as well, though I have yet to begin using the Sidekick.

I like to use outline software — Jess Grosjean’s Bike, specifically — for planning or just dumping my thoughts quickly and have come to use it just for work. Beyond that I can only recall mind mapping being useful when working with other people and haven’t had the experience of trying to do that with software; it’s safe to say I’m doubtful that the experience would be anywhere near good enough to justify the effort involved.

When we moved last it was from the coast to a land-locked region and dealing with the change in air type has been difficult. Coastal air is ridiculously good wherever I’ve been across these isles and the current move will get us back there; it’s the only item on the short list of conditions for moving so soon that was likely to be met… and then of course the unlikely ones fell into place all at once. Life happens, as it were.

Sorry for the late response, again. It’s annoying how much I’ve enjoyed this, though, given the whole life thing happening. I’d happily do this again, once we’re better settled and stuff.

Simon

Hi Simon,

I’ve been thinking a lot about “air” myself lately. It somewhat came up in the last letter, but I find myself reflecting more and more on my physical environment and the weather I’m experiencing.

We spent last winter in Mexico City. It was a weird time in my life– work was still quite busy for both of us and I was recovering from surgery. I didn’t really feel physically up for much for some time, and I got severe food poisoning twice. It’s unclear to me how much of that was being in a new country with new foods or just my whole gut being a mess 8 weeks after an appendectomy and some pretty heavy anti-biotics.

We were spending our time somewhere built for indoor-outdoor living during its worst weather– occasionally in the 50s (low 10s C) at night!– and I was not fully myself. But we spent every day at least a little bit outside, walking around, and being in our environment. We explored more than we explore at home, because there was more to explore. Walkability where I am now is great for about a half mile in all directions. Walkability in Mexico City stretches as far as your legs can take you in every direction.

The air is different there– land locked and at altitude without it ever really freezing. Here at home in Baltimore, we are below freezing at night in the winter and have long stretches where the days are never below the 90s (32+C) and the humidity is set to maximum (outside of South Asia, perhaps).

I thought being in Mexico in winter meant avoiding the worst of the weather, but this summer has me wondering if perhaps the heat and humidity is more oppressive to me than the cold.

Unfortunately, in large parts, I think I’ve got the same pact you have with Claire with Elsa. Elsa is quite happy where we are, and any moves we’d make would have to be big. And I have to admit, given our current life needs, we are in the right house that would be terribly difficult to find somewhere else. A move would have to be driven by a need for a different lifestyle leading to a need for a different space, but that doesn’t feel all that likely. I don’t quite feel stuck, but I do feel that the expense, energy, time, and challenges of moving are making it hard and harder to quench my considerable wanderlust. You’d think traveling as much as I do for work and fun would help, but … it’s not quite the same.

When I travel, I really like to do what I call “urban hiking”. Choose a restaurant that’s a solid hour walk away for lunch and spend my morning ambling my way there, stopping wherever and whenever I want. Repeat for dinner. See as many of the neighborhoods as possible, moving through and spending your time like someone who lives in each space, but covering more ground. Sometimes I take a car or public transit 30 minutes away to give myself a new start point and work back toward “home base”. I’m not as engaged by a museum as I am knowing 10 coffee shops, 3 independent bookstores, 4 places the punks hang out, 6 pizza slice shops, and fancy dinner or two.

It doesn’t seem likely I’m going to get to live a different version of myself in these different places, but I want to achieve some poor approximation of that other version of myself while I’m there.

Maybe that’s part of the appeal of a blank page. Somehow, it’s more easily malleable for understanding a different version of myself. My digital tools feel more fixed.

Jason

Meta: This month I’m corresponding with Simon Woods

Hi Jason,

Sorry for the late start — my reward for scheduling something for August is an unplanned move. I think there’s a line about the quickest way to make god laugh.

I hope all is well for you? Given the wonderfully dystopian nature of our summers now and my inability to consistently keep up to date with, well, much of anything I’m unsure exactly how most people are keeping at the moment.

You hit the nail on the head recently regarding subject matter. Journaling, notebooks, and all associated ephemera have become a sudden, significant part of my life. Not only have I been journaling but I have more than one journal available, as well as two planners, and a host of notebooks of different types. I started building my collection at the very end of last year, beginning from maybe a handful of books.

It definitely caught me off guard and I realised that by separating certain aspects of my thinking from the computers in my life I had found the level of compartmentalisation that matched my long-term ambitions. It helped me to find a source of inspiration for what I mentioned in that original blog post: intention. In many ways, the physical books allow me to talk to myself within the constraints of writing in which I am comfortable and motivated, whilst the computer remains the best tool for talking to other people.

This was all news to me, having struggled to wrangle these thoughts for the past few years, and given that I am curious to know if physical notebooks play any such role for you?

Speak to you soon, Simon

Hi Simon,

I used to joke that the sure sign of when my life is getting chaotic is when I struggle to get a hair cut. I go through entire periods of time where planning something 4-5 weeks out, or even finding a slot that lines up with when I’m free can start to feel nearly impossible. Plans are comfortable fictions we cling to at our own risk. The dystopian nature of summer is making me rethink a lot of things about my life though— I am becoming less tolerant to the heat and humidity as I get older and yet have never lived somewhere with hotter and more humid summers than my home for the last 7 years in Baltimore. Escaping the heat (and cold, to a lesser extent) to be somewhere I actually want to be outside will need to become a permanent feature rather than a partial release.

Physical notebooks have a way of flashing in and out of my life. At times when I am really struggling emotionally, I’ve found that writing some quick and easy reflections at the end of the day can be helpful. Writing on the computer doesn’t always work for writing about how I’m feeling, especially the kind of writing that is never meant to be read. I don’t find that this kind of journaling is meant to be precious or returned to. This is the kind of writing I’m doing to help myself think and reflect.

Sitting at a keyboard and staring at a blank screen feels harder than a blank page. I know that there are people who feel like a beautiful notebook being sullied by first-ink is a meaningful barrier. But for me, staring at a blank screen feels constricting. It’s too easy to pause over a word or a sentence. It’s too easy, with the legibility of text on screens, to keep whole paragraphs in sight and think about the whole. Stream of consciousness on paper feels good. I can’t type fast enough to keep up with my thinking, but I can almost fool myself, which leads to bad writing. Writing by hand has no hope of catching up to my thoughts, so there’s a rhythm and speed to it that feels good when I’m trying to find words.

On the other hand, notebooks for work can play a different role. When I’m particularly scattered, I find a written down task list helpful. I need something physical and outside of my screen that catches my eye and attention throwing me back toward what I should be getting done. Doesn’t always work. So I like using something like the Ugmonk Analog system or Sidekick Notepad. I like using dot grid notebooks because what I write in these books are almost always bulleted lists, task lists, or drawings.

I still can’t get down with “mind mapping” or even diagramming software. When something is amorphous, writing or drawing is far more likely going to help me organize and resolve my thoughts. Sometimes I find myself writing about the same thing over and over again over weeks, each time tweaking it slightly. Going through this process often reveals some strokes that I keep drawing, and they become deeper and more solid. And eventually, I’m writing nearly the same thing and I know that I’ve figured something out.

There’s no ambition in my use of physical notebooks. They come and they go. But there are times in my life and types of thinking that just work better with a nice pen and paper.

Jason

All summer there’s been construction work along Falls Road. Early on in the project, I thought about how much they were ripping up the street and hoping that we’d finally get something better than a thousand bits of patchwork and properly repave the street. To my surprise, a few weeks back, they cut the telltale grooves into the street that indicated we were going to get fresh, curb to curb, asphalt.

Imagine my delight when we had new street after extensive construction.

This has only been met by sheer rage, as just a few weeks later, a new crew shows up and cuts a huge trench right down the center of the road. They have been laying down metal plates since, and I’m sure when they’re done they’ll fill it like a pot hole.

This entire road was torn all the way down for work, and no one could coordinate with the next guys? They just show up a few weeks later and fuck it up?

This kind of every day incompetence in planning and coordination by local governments drives me insane. It’s the kind of low quality services that are unacceptable at $22.48 per $1000 property tax rates.

We need people who care enough about government services to do them better.

And now for something not entirely completely different…

I’m writing a letter to someone else this month. So without any further ado, a double dosing of Letters for July.

Hi Jarrod,

It’s a bit strange to be starting one of these. For those that don’t know me who are reading along, and as a reminder to Jarrod, I started writing Letters on my own blog this year. I wanted to have a different kind of online social interaction, and I wanted to do it with people I may not really know. I thought it’d be a nice way to build up a dialog, be a part of building an Internet more like the one I wanted, strengthen some para-social relationships, and make sure the “long form” content on my blog kept flowing.

Jarrod reached out early, but not early enough for me to have booked up my year. But I’m glad that he decided to do his own project on his blog. I agreed to be a part of that project, so here I am, following my own rules, and writing the first letter for the month of January to Jarrod.

By way of further introduction, I’m the Chief Product Officer at an education-finance technology company, leading engineering, design, and product management. I love what I do, because I get to bridge problem solving and consultative work in my area of expertise (education policy), my skills as a data practitioner, my danger as a software developer, my taste (which exceeds my talent), and my never-strong-enough management skills to solve real problems for K12 schools. It’s wild to be a part of a startup for the last nine years from pre-product, pre-revenue, pre-Series A to now being a “real” company with over 50 employees.

I moved to Baltimore, MD about 7 years ago where I live with my fiancée (which I still have to look up how many “e”s each time), her mother, and our two aging dogs. Prior to that, we lived in Providence, RI for 10 years, and I grew up on Long Island, NY.

These days, besides work, I’m focused quite a bit on volleyball. I played (poorly) in high school, and I play now (slightly less poorly) in adult recreational leagues. This was one of my “I’m vaccinated, let’s go!” activities I reintroduced into my life after 17 years away from the sport. It’s been a ton of fun (and exhausting) and at this point it feels essential to my mental health. I also read quite a bit of fiction (or at least I think), typically hitting between 30-40 books a year. I love to travel, and travel quite a bit for work. Recently, I spent a week split between Portland, OR and Seattle, WA and had a great time getting out of my own routine for a bit and wandering. My style of travel is what I call “urban hiking”— I choose a spot for each of my meals in different parts of a city and wander between them all day long and see what I stumble into. I love getting a feel for somewhere different, and I love to walk.

I’ve been lightly following Hey Dingus, largely impressed with your consistency and keeping an eye on the “Projects” page especially, which is the type of thing I’d like to expand on my own site (see /books, /letters, etc). How do you feel like it’s going? Is it the outlet you hoped for? What’s success for you?

Looking forward to our month.

Jason

Hey Jason,

Oh boy, I’m going to have to step up my game this month. That letter had me in awe of your skill as a writer. It flowed, man.

Thank you for that fun introduction. Given the room to stretch out their descriptions, I’ve found that everyone I’ve corresponded with so far has highlighted such interesting parts of their lives. You are no exception.

For a brief introduction of my own, I’ll say that I like to exist at two ends of the spectrum of “extremely online” and “completely disconnected”. Often flip-flopping between them with little warning.

Perhaps a little more explanation is necessary. My day job is as a mountain guide and gear shop specialist, I’ve spent most of my summers as a camp counselor, and I spend much of my free time outside. I’ve spent months (years?) of my life in a tent, gleefully leaving the internet-connected world behind during those times. But I’ve also been a certifiable nerd and Apple enthusiast for as long as I can remember. In fact, in the time between being a full-time camp director and my current job, I spent a few months working as a Technical Specialist in an Apple Store. Technology engages the part of my lizard brain that loves shiny things in a big way. So anytime that I’m not working and I’m not playing in the woods, I’m probably devouring the latest tech news, spelunking the web, or – as of the last few years – sharing that passion through writing my blog.

Lately, I’ve been considering more about how I can build a better bridge between those two interests. Sure, I get into all the topographical navigation apps, track my rock climbing fitness and routes, try the latest camping gadgets, and am generally known as the “tech guy” in my outdoor circles. But I can feel that there’s more to share. I’d like to write more about my experience in the outdoors – to share how and why they make me feel so alive – but it’s proven difficult to break into that genre.

Honestly, that’s one of the reasons I was so eager to follow in your footsteps for this project. I saw it as a way to try out a different kind of writing.

But enough about me, you offered so many jumping-off points about yourself that I want to explore!

What does it mean to work at an “education-finance technology company”? Do you create finance software for K-12 schools? I was corresponding with Chris Verbree last month about how special it is to be part of something – a company, organization, community – from the very beginning. We agreed that having the opportunity to influence the movers and shakers (and sometimes being one yourself) is compelling. What have been your takeaways seeing that company, and your role within it, grow from its infancy?

Your “urban hiking” approach to traveling sounds like the perfect way to explore a new city. I get intimidated by big cities and tend to stick close to my hotel or AirBnB. Case in point, I recently visited your old neck-of-the-woods, Long Island, for the first time but didn’t get out to see hardly any of it. We used DoorDash for a couple of meals and wandered only once. But with a plan and destinations in mind, I could see enjoying the exploration much more.

Your excitement for volleyball is palpable, and I’m so happy you’ve found your way back to it. I strongly believe that having a hobby to stretch your body is as good for you as having one to stretch your mind. Like you, all kinds of foot-powered travel appeal to me. I went for a 10-mile run just this morning that I only intended to be a 5-miler. I just felt so good to be out and moving that I couldn’t stop. A mental health tonic, indeed!

Thank you for your readership of HeyDingus. “Consistency” is my theme for the year, so I’m quite tickled to hear that it has been noticed. After several years of stasis, my appetite for new side projects there has grown considerably. I’m not holding myself to them all going on forever, but they sure are fun to toy around with. My /lists page has been a creative outlet in particular.

Oh, and I’d love to hear more about your pets and what you love about them. I saw your post at the end of June that Gracie’s health hasn’t been the best. Allow me to offer my condolences. It’s so hard to see a family member in decline. My wife and I have a cat, a dog, and a turtle that we call (and treat like) our “fur babies”. They bring us such joy and it’s hard to imagine our family without them.

Finally, I’d like to offer my gratitude for kicking off this Letters project movement (can we call it that?). You nailed the allure of it when you said it was to build up an Internet like the one you want to see. Thanks for putting it out into the world.

Talk to you again soon,

Jarrod

Dear Jason,

Yesterday I attended an event for youth who are overcoming addiction. For eight weeks, they take lessons in classical guitar and djembe drums, make art, journal, and connect with adults who share their stories of overcoming addiction. Then they put on a concert and share what they’ve learned.

As part of the event, spoken word artist Tracy T-Spirit Stanton shared her story and two of her poems. Her entire performance was stellar, but one line is ringing in my head: “If you lead the body, the mind will follow.”

I put a lot of trust in my mind. I wasn’t the pretty one or the athletic one, but I was the smart one. And I held onto that identity as safety. Not too long ago my therapist said, “It’s really tough for you to be wrong about things, isn’t it?”

Um, yeah. I hate that.

One of the things that was hardest to accept about getting divorced was realizing that my own mind had been unreliable. I’d overlooked, dismissed, rationalized, and denied so many things. Clear signals. But I wasn’t ready to deal with what those signals meant, so my mind invented stories. As long as I didn’t ask too many questions, I could keep ignoring things.

But my body knew. Oh, did my body know. I had migraines regularly. I couldn’t sleep. And I developed an ovarian cyst that required major surgery. It was as if my body was taking all the emotions I wouldn’t let myself feel and truths I wouldn’t let myself face and putting them into this mass that became cancerous and could have killed me.

I had this very vivid dream a few days after surgery. I was still on pain meds, so I’m sure those were in play. In the dream, I was lost, running through the woods. It was like a maze, there was danger, and I was trying to find my way out to safety. This voice came from nowhere, right in my ear, saying: “Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!” I woke up startled, heart pounding, disoriented, but with this sense that something important had happened.

I still didn’t want to listen, though. So I went back to ’normal life’ and kept myself busy ignoring as much as I could. Then came quarantine. There was so much time and so little distraction. I couldn’t keep the storylines connected. One early early morning in September I was standing outside. Couldn’t sleep, as usual. Staring at the sky. Thinking, thinking, thinking. So much thinking, but so little sense. And I had this physical sensation like my brain was falling apart. I remember reaching my hands up as if I could slip them inside my skull and hold the pieces together.

That was it, finally. I’m still amazed that my body created a physical sensation to match what I was experiencing mentally and emotionally, and did so in such a powerful way that I couldn’t ignore it. I’m really grateful. And I pay a lot more attention to my body now. I also don’t get migraines anymore, so that’s cool.

I didn’t start this letter with the intention of going through my recent personal history, but it colors everything for me these days. My mind is still trying to sort things out all the time, analyze, categorize, find congruence. That’s part of who I am, and it’s not bad, but finding a balance is the work I’m doing now. Respecting and using my mind, yes. And equally respecting and trusting my body to tell me things more viscerally and immediately, and to listen when she does. The body says no, the body says yes, the body says wait, the body says be careful. Sometimes the body says run the fuck away! And sometimes the body says, “Hang out right here, because this is delightful.”

Annie

Hi Annie,

Are we going to the same therapist? I, too, find it tough to be wrong about things. I rationalize. My identity my whole life has been defined by my power to process fast and rationalize. I miss out on entire emotions, because I’ve already rationalized. I blow past signals and warning signs like the train in Back to the Future 3 heading for 88 mph or the gorge, which ever comes first.

This is why going back to playing volleyball has been so important for me. I need to spend literally hours each week playing a game that takes so much of my body and concentration that there is no “mind”. There is no thinking. There are no stories to tell, except maybe about how shitty it feels to be shanking a pass. I have to have time that I shut it down. That’s also why I have to read fiction. I need to fill my mind with a different mind.

Those are forms of rest. They quite the mind. But what I’m less good at is where you seem to have made it – listening to something else entirely. I haven’t figured out how to, in the quiet, let some other signals creep in and teach me things I need to understand about myself.

I have only started to slowly get better at this. Unfortunately, it was also due to excruciating gut pain– my appendix. After being sent home from what could only be described as completely negligent urgent care, I went into the ER a few hours later because I listened. Of course, my body was screaming, but even my doctor was a little surprised (in the best way) that I actually brought myself to the ER because things got worse. And I did so, in many ways, just in time.

The effect has been troubling. I’m far more nervous about aches and pains and changes to my body than I’ve ever been. My body has failed me in the past, but perhaps more importantly, I’ve learned not to trust my own sense of what is serious and what can be ignored. I have recalibrated, and I’m not quite sure yet if my new normal means “listening to my body” or “living with irrational anxieties in yet another area of my life”.

It sounds like you’re getting great feedback. Your body is telling you that the hard things you’ve had to do are the right ones.

We’re coming toward the end of our month, and I realized, partly my fault, we got heavy fast and never did some introductions and light stuff. So I thought I’d take this moment to pull us back a bit, reintroduce some folks to me, who may have already forgotten what I have going since the start of this project 5 months ago, and end us in a place that I hope feels like hanging onto because it’s delightful.

So here’s my run on paragraph about myself.

I’m in my mid 30s, no kids, living with my fiancée (who I’ve been with since 2010 and have been living with since 2011) and her mother. We have two dogs that are getting up there in age. I work for a tech company doing tech things for US K12 school districts after getting a master’s degree in urban education policy and working for school districts and state departments. We’ve been in Baltimore for 6.5 years now and lived in Providence for 10 years before that. I grew up on Long Island in New York. I read 30-40 science fiction/fantasy books a year (I prefer speculative fiction to SFF), play volleyball a few times a week and try to lift weights 3 times a week. I continue to struggle with being meaningfully overweight like I have been my whole life. We love to cook and eat. I am broadly interested in tax policy, urban development, and transit policy. I like to think about the world we’ve built around us how it changes our behavior and how we can build a better world, physically and politically. I’m a structures person, and I think a lot about them, whether when doing policy work or programming and data work. I tend to think of systems and structures as the geography and human behavior as water running over that terrain. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch a lot of cooking and educational YouTube videos. I like a great coffee and just about any Diet Coke (no, Pepsi is not ok, but I’ll suffer through it). We love to travel, having recently spent a few months in Mexico City. Elsa, my partner, was born in Mexico and is half-Mexican, half-Haitian, and trilingual. I travel a lot for work and I travel a lot for fun and I’m absolutely terrible about taking vacation.

The last few years, at least partially triggered or accelerated by the pandemic, have led to a lot of changes in my life and what I’m doing and who I feel like I am. But I have to admit, I feel like there’s a lot more coming, any moment now.

Thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking,

Jason

It’s stunning outside in Baltimore today.

(Meta Note: yeah these went out of order, but I answered as they came in, and was glad to do so. So the title is correct for the month this applies to, and the publish date is correct to the date I responded)

Hi Jason!

It’s our last week of letters and I had actually written one earlier in the week after yet another untenable situation broke in the news. But it was filled with rage, laced with fear and madness and I didn’t want to end our time together like that.

So instead, at this late hour, I will tell you a brief story about a teacher I had in High School and the promise of perseverance.

This New Jersey English teacher that I had for both 10th and 12th grades was a polarizing figure amongst the student body when I was in school. You either loved her or hated her. I loved her. She expected only the best out of her students. Not HER best, but YOUR best. She didn’t care for the usual disruptive classroom shenanigans but she would easily be a co-conspirator of shenanigans when the time was right. She taught you everything about words, sentence structure, etymology and “hacks” on how to figure out what a word meant. She exposed us to literature and all the worlds contained within.

She even started a creative writing society at school and a literary publication/newspaper (both of which I participated in during my time there in the late 90s).

I knew then that she was a writer, getting short stories and poetry published but never a novel.

However, last night I attended a book launch party at a hotel just north of Baltimore. Available to the world as of yesterday, this party was for her first published novel. It’s the first in a series of, as she says, “at least five.” Published a “mere” 23 years after I graduated… likely 40+ years since she began writing…

It was a pleasure to see her again after all these years and my honor to ring in the dawn of a new era with her - the era of Ef Deal, published novelist. A lovely reminder that it’s never too late for new things to happen, never too late to break through, and never too late to do the things that you love to do, that fill you with joy and magic.

I am new to the steampunk genre and I thoroughly enjoyed her book. I can’t wait to hop into the next adventures with these characters. Set in 1840s France, it’s a quick read and a rousing good time laced with horror, mechanical imaginings, intrigue and a wee bit of romance. If it’s up your alley, I’d love to hear what you think of it when it makes your “read” pile.

Best,

~Julie

Hi Julie,

I’m glad to end on a more uplifting note. It’s made me think of one of my own English teachers, Ms. Biondo, who I had in 9th and 11th grade. It was her first and then third year of teaching. I don’t think she had quite gotten the hang of it all yet, and I know I didn’t make things easy at all. But I also remember getting just tiny glimpses into who she was, and I feel pretty strongly that as a teenager I missed a lot that I would understand today. It’s strange to think about, but it’s quite possible we would be friends as adults. One of my only regrets from giving up Facebook years ago was that it was a great way to connect with some of my old teachers.

My best teachers, the ones I gained the most from at least, were always controversial. I wonder if you have to be polarizing to be great, at least for some kids, because what each of us needs from a teacher is so different.

Steampunk is funny as a genre. Sometimes it feels like a genre, in that the mechanical is key to the mechanics. Sometimes it’s more of a setting. But I like horror and intrigue and romance and “rousing good times” so it’ll for sure go on my list, even if I am not the biggest fans of puns.

Given all the upheaval and changes and self-discovery that you’re currently in, I can’t help but to wonder what you’ll be doing in 20 years that will have been a 40 year project for you. I wonder what your book launch party will end up being and where things land.

I’ll be looking out for whatever it is.

I wonder the same for myself– being so engrossed in my current job, I sometimes fantasize about when this all ends what will I rediscover or suddenly realize has been sitting in the on deck circle all this time that I can’t wait to do? I can’t see it or feel it right now, but I hope it’s out there.

Jason

My grandmother lived about a five minute drive from one of the better multiplex theaters in Nassau County. Whenever I stayed there, we went to the movies. It was our routine. I loved going to the movies.

Later, a much smaller theater opened up walking distance from my house, just in time for me to be old enough to head out on my own in the evenings. It wasn’t a great spot, and I still saw most movies elsewhere, but it was incredible to be able to walk a mile and see a movie.

One of the few treats in college was walking down College Hill to the mall, then head all the way up 6 floors to get to a huge movie theater at Providence Place. I had friends who liked the same movies I did, and I formed more memories there. Like that time we went to see Shoot ‘Em Up, without me knowing a thing about it, constantly looking over to my friends with a huge smile. Or that time I went to see the new Star Trek film with Fiona and found out it was one of the only movies she’d ever seen, that movies were just not a thing in her life.

Elsa’s mom likes the movies, and so do we. So we went a lot, especially when we first moved to Baltimore. Her dad would buy us stacks of tickets to AMC through fundraisers at Elsa’s younger brother’s school. Movies were “free”, or at least less expensive, and a good time.

But I think we might be done with the movies.

We’ve long had a “nice” home theater. The first thing Elsa insisted we upgrade when she moved in was my old 32" LCD to a TV that would “fit” the space between the bookshelves (at the time, a 50" tv). Now, we are fortunate enough to have a 65" OLED TV. I’ve always cared about sound, slowly upgrading to a quality setup with great speakers (Paradigm Monitor 7s in the front, with a Bowers and Wilkinson center channel, because the Paradigm sounded terrible to my ears, and two Paradigm Titans in the back, all bought second hand over time, with a nice SVS sub). Our home theater has been great for years.

Of course we didn’t go to the movies for a few years because of COVID-19, and we’ve gone back a few times post-vaccination. But this weekend, we didn’t go to the movies. We didn’t last weekend either. John Wick 4 is out, a movie I definitely want to see. The new Dungeons and Dragon movie is out too, and that’s also something that, because of good reviews, I’d normally want to see in a movie theater. Lights out, world turned off, and popcorn by the bucket, full attention on silly fun with big picture and big sound.

I just didn’t think to go. I don’t super feel like going. What would have almost been a default behavior before just, isn’t. The “event” movies I need to see are fewer and fewer. Most theaters have worse projection and sound than I have at home. With the habit broken, the magic has been too. I’ll see the second part of Dune in theaters. Star Wars will one day get me back in my seat again too. But not much else pulls me toward the movies today. Maybe I’m just done.

A new theater is opening up soon, walking distance from my house. Maybe I’ll take a walk to the movies. It’s a little sad to think that maybe, not.