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I was curious -- I'm married and 34, moved to NYC in late 2019, moved away for a year and am back now. It can be challenging to make friendships at this age, especially since so many men I know at my age socialize almost exclusively through their partners. As someone whose partner travels frequently for work, that is a challenge.

I don't think I see anyone more than once a month who isn't my wife or a coworker. Most of my friends are on a once every other month rotation.

Kinda? My wife loves Billie Eilish, I am familiar with some music through TikTok and maybe from some other places, like the radio? I have read her wikipedia article and her brother's as well. But no I do not actively seek or press play on Billie Eilish, not for any particular reason.

8am...take my dog to the park, get lunch, pick one of a zillion things I could do in Manhattan, like walk around shops or go to s museum or just chill in a park.

uh...that predictions around artificial intelligence mirror

I think the world is, in aggregate, oriented around the lives of men and thus feminism is a necessary and essential counterbalancing force. Personally, its always been clear to me that men dominate; maybe just observing the gender dynamics of my parents as a kid was enough. Like if your mom no longer has her own last name, already her identity is compromised and you have to make an effort to remember she has a different family name. Even that extra detail felt like 'oh wow why do we have this extra complexity around women?' and the need to account for that has always felt obvious to me. That being said, actually behaving like a 'feminist' and learning how to see through my own privilege is a lifelong series of learning through mistakes, learning through reading, learning from conversations with the women in my life.

Cigarettes?

I like the idea of buying longer lasting things that are maintained, like vintage clothing, old furniture, old instruments, etc. However, as someone who grew up with very little, I think H&M selling t-shirts for $5 is a gift to every single kid in America whose parents or guardians won't or can't buy them clothes. Kids hustling on odd jobs like babysitting, tutoring, or selling shit like candy on the subway can actually afford H&M. Who gives a shit about sustainability when you are too embarrassed by your clothes to even go to school? Hand-me-downs are great in functional families, but when your family sucks, you might not even have a hand-me-down. I guess that is a rant...having been a poor kid, I care far more about poor kids (of all kinds) having agency in their lives than essentially any other political goal.

Ah jeez I don't want to talk about this at all.

In late 2016, I adopted a dog. I've always liked the name Django for a dog. It sounds like Dingo, it's an uncommon name, Django Reinhardt is a fascinating musician. I named my dog Django. I wondered for a minute...will "Django Unchained", a movie I consider to be one of the less successful Tarantino films, tarnish the name of my dog? Will this somehow result in a problem? I googled Django, and as expected I saw entries about Jazz, about the Python web development framework, and of course Django Unchained. I decided Django isn't _only_ about Django Unchained and if someone has a problem, I'll explain.

I had a creative collaborator for some time who I considered a fair weather friend but relatively close. Let's call him Finley. If we had a project going on, we were sticky and always together working. If not, I may as well have been dead. Texts ignored, plans flaked on, blah blah blah. We also belonged to the same circles of people who had attended college together but solidified into friends years later in a separate city.

Before I adopted this dog, I also started dating this woman, who is now my wife, and well it is hard to pinpoint why exactly but that seemed to start a bit of overall friction with this friend group. In Finley's circles, I def had some 'romantic tension' with a couple of the people, lets say Y & Z in the group but nothing that ever happened. I'm also very strictly a monogamist -- it is just easier for me. Over time I felt more and more ostracized by members of the group Y & Z "Can we get drinks alone" or "I never see you anymore" yet also ignored by Finley, who I considered my closest friend. It felt obvious to me that as my relationship became more serious Y & sometimes Z were unhappy with it, even if it was only shown indirectly. Group hangouts usually felt like...I guess no one even wants to acknowledge my partner here.

One day as we're about kick off our next creative project, which up until that point had been grueling months long efforts on nights and weekends, Finley comes to my apartment.

Finley: "Everyone thinks you are a racist for naming your dog Django after Django Unchained."

Me: "Uh, well I'm obviously not a racist but like...who is saying this?"

Finley: "I'm not at liberty to tell you..."

Me: "Ok...well Django isn't named after Django Unchained, thats also like a incredibly uncharitable view of me, a living breathing human and not a meme"

Finley: "People are talking about you at parties. This is Trump's America, you gotta fix it."

Me: "Who is talking? What parties? How often?"

Finley: "I can't tell you."

....

three hours later

Me: "Finley, just get the fuck out of my apartment, you come here to lecture me and my partner for hours on how we're racists without acknowledging the years I've known you and you've known me to be not racist"

one day later

Me: "Finley came over and went HAM on me and my partner about how we're horrible racists"

Finley's partner: "Oh he can be really in one of those moods, I think he'll get over it."

three days later

Finley: "Hey look I'm sorry about how that whole thing went down can we talk?"

Me: "Sure"

Finley: "I'm sorry, I understand, can we keep this between us?"

Me: "Sure"

Finley: "Lets kick things off with the project in January"

Me: "Maybe"

three days later

Me: "Honestly fuck Finley, he wants me to protect his reputation despite doing jack shit for my reputation? He's also unwilling to examine that maybe his 'sources' are biased to hell. I'm over this friendship."

It's been a cold war since then.