Recently

This was a big month. May 1 feels like eons ago. I’m in a different place (New York). The situation with COVID feels dramatically different. Acquired a few new gray hairs due to the absolute horror which is the logistics of moving cross-country, especially during a pandemic. We spent a few nervous weeks waiting for furniture to arrive, and dreading the next interaction with our absolutely-terrible-no-good moving company. When VCs and some tech company ‘disrupt’ moving by undercutting and technologizing movers, I will make an exception and cheer them on: this industry deserves to end. But then, seeing so many old faces, reconnecting, finding a new favorite restaurant and bar every few days. Visiting family. Feeling some optimism about the general future.

Caleb Porzio’s making 100k as an employee versus being self-employed was a big read this month. Nothing has changed, in terms of my work situation - still working for a few wonderful clients on an hourly basis, working on Placemark in the rest of my hours. But I’m doing the things, buying health insurance in New York, improving my accounting, things that confirm that these are the things I’m planning on doing for a while. It’s exciting and a bit scary, but that’s normal.

I’ll write a real post about this soon: I packed up the theme for this blog and am now hocking it on Ko-fi for $100. 6 people have bought it already, which is incredible! More to come in that respect - I’m happy to help folks start off with an obsessively refined blog theme, and am getting more used to the idea of selling things on the internet for money.

Reading Nick Maggiulli on how millenials are not, precisely, the poorest generation was enlightening. It’s one you’ll want to read to the bottom, because there are a lot of wrinkles in the data that really drive home the idea that it’s really hard to generalize about wealth-by-generation and there are a lot of exceptions and surprises.

Soaking up some financial schadenfreude in Hindenburg’s writeup of HUMBL, rekt’s stories about Defi scams and hacks, and Politico on Wall Street trying to sell crypto to the masses, and Bloomberg on ‘breaking the buck’.

Thao Nguyen’s cozy, clever first album has been back in the rotation. It’s a little hard to find on the internet - I’m lucky to have an MP3 copy from some time in college. Her taste and guitar work is some of the best out there.

We’ve been watching The Expanse, which is entertaining, though less smart than it tries to be. And Premium Rush, an absolute gem of an anti-car, anti-police, pro-bicycle, pro-people movie.

I’ve been reading The Warmth of Other Suns for months now, my free time and attention span apparently a little zapped by everything. I’ll finish it soon, and read some more books: The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn feels apt for this era.