I sewed my son’s Halloween costume this year and whenever someone learns this they have a reaction of, “Wow, that’s amazing, sewing seems complicated,” mixed with some gender surprise of, “Men sew too?” My mom taught me to sew when I was young and the secret is that there is no secret. Sewing (at least …
Monthly Archives: October 2020
Thought Orbits
Sometimes I think of something very important that I’m afraid I’ll forget—like that I need to buy more toilet paper or more noodles to make dinner. In order to ease my mind about the possibility of forgetting, I think of thoughts as orbiting my head and that the most important ones are on circular paths …
The wings of a bird
The wild animal park near our house has an aviary that is enclosed so that the birds don’t fly away. Outside of the enclosure, there are flamingos. I asked the groundskeepers why they’re not afraid of the flamingos flying away and they said because they clipped their wings. Looking at the flamingos, I couldn’t tell. …
Basketball vs basketball arcade
There’s a basketball arcade game that looks a lot like basketball because it has a hoop and some basketballs. But it’s not basketball—you have no teammates, there are no opponents, the ball is smaller, and there are multiple balls. The game is different. And if you play it like basketball, you will lose badly to …
Stick up for yourself
This past weekend we went to a restaurant to celebrate my father-in-law’s and brother-in-law’s birthdays. My wife made a reservation 3 weeks in advance to ensure that we could sit at an outdoor table where we would feel safer given the COVID-19 circumstances. However, when we arrived at the restaurant, we were told that it …
Everything is at risk
Once you have something, you can lose it. When I bought a gallon of milk, I didn’t think it was at risk because my power might go out and the milk might spoil, but I was nonetheless taking a risk. When restaurant owners open a restaurant, they know they’re taking a risk. The waitress at …
Enjoy the dark
My power is out right now and scheduled to be out for about 28 hours. I’m sitting in the dark. My mom called me to recommend a TV show but when she found out my power was out, she didn’t want to talk too long so that she wouldn’t use up my phone battery and …
The 10-foot view vs the 1,000-foot view
Today we did a corn maze and learned a lot of life lessons: The view from the ground is very different from the view from above. If you climb the towers in the middle of the maze to get the better view from 10 feet up, it might be better but still not good enough …
Perfect is boring
I received this product that was made in China today and I think the English was made in China too because on the box it said, “Original Natural Fresh Life That We Wanted Since Ever”. It made me laugh. It reminded me of when I lived in China. The English wasn’t perfect. The English was …
Popcorns
My 2-year-old daughter calls popcorn “popcorns”. It makes sense. Apple, apples. Banana, bananas. Popcorn, popcorns. I want apples, she wants popcorns. His, hers, theirs, ours, and yours. This is yours and—as she says, this is “mines”. Newcomers are good at showing us which parts of our existing systems don’t fit the rules. Welcome the newcomers.