They liked the idea. Paintings and photographs could fill the walls. Writers and poets would be given time and attention. We’d eat good too.

“What should we call it?” the artist asked.

“The Blowout,” the poet said.

“What is a blowout?” I asked, looking at photos of celebrities with voluminous hair and highlights. “Ah, that’s good. That’s real good.” The man’s not a poet for nothing.

From that breadless conversation, we sat on it through two winters and, hopefully, not another spring, as I decided to follow through and finally make the magazine happen. I’ve never been an editor, but who needs experience when you have good friends, good taste, and the internet at your disposal? We can just make things happen because we want to.

A few weeks ago, I walked past a deli with my wife that had a sign saying “Improv show at 7pm with $10 deli purchase.” Eh, why not? Worst case, we’d walk out, so we shuffled on in, bought some waters and snacks, and hopped up the stairs into an in-progress show. This is why I love New York. On a random Thursday, we discovered there is a full stage on top of a deli where four people put their dignity and comedic prowess on the line for strangers. They held our attention, non-stop, for an hour! These days, big budget movies often fail to pull that off. Those improv players wanted to make it happen, and powering through failed punchlines and weird audience suggestions, they put on a really entertaining show.

What is stopping us? We can make a space to curate and highlight the work of the people we’ve met. Having worked on my own stuff for so long now, I’ve missed teaming up to create a larger project. I’m excited to work with people to build toward a vision again. So, this spring, we’re launching the magazine on Substack.

The Blowout

Coming soon

By Wes Mann

It’s open to short fiction, poetry, essays, visual art, photography, and the occasional interview of a contributor.

The first issue’s theme is “Heat.”

Subscribe to The Blowout to receive the first issue in your inbox once it’s available!

We’re keeping it small to focus on getting the issue out and gradually iterating on the aesthetic, but I will be reaching out to more people for contributions. Although there is no public submission, if you have an idea to match the issue’s theme “Heat,” send me a DM.

Took a day off last week as I had my brother visiting, so dedicated my time to spending it with him. Walking around with a sixteen year-old is a surreal experience, especially with a brother. They remind you of yourself all the time, not in the I-remember-those-days way, but by recognizing all the potential.

I’ve lived over twice as many years as him, but he’s already lived a full life and there is still so much life ahead, multiple lives even, which just highlights how much potential a person has no matter how much they think they know or how much others think they don’t know anything. Sixteen is a weird age. How many people will he have been by the time he hits my age? I keep saying he’s a child, but his wisdom consistently rejects my condescension. Like, he’s going to be so much taller than me, already a shoe size larger, and our genes tend to produce late bloomers. The world better watch out.

All week, we would ride the subway and walk blocks of skyscrapers and Hudson River brine. He listened on his head phones the whole time. At first, I wanted to say “listen to the city,” but at nineteen I would have been wearing massive Beats-by-Dre headphones and a scowl across campus. Despite concerns to the contrary, I was never upset, but the music blocked out the noise, transforming the chaos into a tapestry to be appreciated and accompanied by running thoughts. Instead of chastising him for not paying attention, figured I was a just his guide for the city’s provided meditation to a brilliant young man ready to burst into the world with new ideas and fresh human concerns.

There is much more here, and I’ll write more about it over time. I’m excited to mine more insight from my relationships with them. It may take me a bit, but I’ve got an essay cooking about taxis, cynicism and personal style based on some lessons I’ve learned from my little brothers, muses of infinite inspiration.

See you next week,

Boxes of Huggies and Pampers and Up & Up filled the basements shelves of Target as I debated what gift would minimize the annoyance of two newborn parents. We’re talking less than ten days new. I didn’t know what to get, what was best for their baby, but couldn’t ask either. All I’ve heard are the stories of no sleep, unwanted visits, and hoards of unwanted packages from well-meaning friends, especially non-parents, cluttering spaces into a claustrophobic den of cries and cardboard.

My wife gave me a simple mission. Buy muslin towels and onesies. I spent ten minutes scouring the back of the store, scanning nooks I may have missed, assessing lotions and powders. What even is a muslin towel? A quick check with Claude showed they are very comfortable and I could have enjoyed being wrapped in an adult-sized muslin, maybe with some jazz pumped through some noise-cancelling headphones. Sadly, none of my assigned bounty was present. I huffed and scrambled through the store to find some distracted help in a red vest.

“Excuse me,” I said, “can I get some help?”

Having stopped from walking the opposite direction, they looked up from their phone with an eye roll.

“I’m looking for muslin towels and onesies.”

“We don’t carry clothes in this store. Towels are in the bath section.” They were already headed away.

A Target with staff that guides you to kitchen towels and doesn’t carry clothes gets filed away as a store I won’t be visiting if I ever have a kid. It was back to basics, ready to just pick up what I could fit in my backpack: bleachable kitchen towels, non-fragrant baby wipes, and lotion. They seemed like useful items. Worst case, could take them back home to the cabinet under our sink.

After checking out, I headed to the park to catch our friends on their baby’s first walk. Usually, I skip out on the early public appearances of friend’s parents. My normal answer to “are you sick or recently been around someone sick?” is “it doesn’t matter, I don’t want that kind of responsibility.” I don’t want to see a baby bad enough to have the potential guilt of their pain and suffering on my conscience, but it was warm and breezy outside, and those gifts had to get delivered.

I followed them along the park on a long walk, their blue dot steadily a few blocks away on the map, wanting to call them to slow down but distracted by thoughts of how my life would change with a baby in tow. It took half-an hour for the whole group, with a few extra friends and another baby, to slow down and stop at a coffee shop, my feet welcoming the respite.

No screams, no tears, there were smiles all around the sturdy strollers and swarm of adults. They exchanged tips from the doctors and other older parents they knew, enjoying the smell of fresh scones and wind off the water.

At someone’s shoulder appeared an older lady. “Crazy lady” popped in my head, not because of her weathered clothing or scraggly sneakers, but because I just don’t trust strangers who stand and stare at children.

“How old are they?” she asked.

Nobody answered.

“How old are they?” She asked again, louder, stepping closer to hover her head into the group.

In my head I’m like “old enough to back your ass up,” but before I could get belligerent, a more amenable and eloquent person among us answered honestly and ushered her away.

Hot coffees in hand, we all walked back to the park, getting filled in on the recent action of the week. I pleaded our friends’ forgiveness for my cheap off-brand Target haul. Although, you can always use wet wipes.

Some are liars who hide it, and some are liars who claim to have none, but as I consider how I’d lie about my shame, I think I’d choose video games. I love video games. Tactical RPGs are the best fix to funnel your brain cells when they scatter to the edges of your skull. Narrative 3rd Person Shooters are immersive enough to escape the everyday stories in our feed. Yes, we could just put down our phone, but then we couldn’t find that last word in the day’s New York Times puzzle. It wouldn’t be shame if I didn’t like it and it wouldn’t be shame if it didn’t need to hide behind a metaphor. I might play video games at any time of day.

3:00 AM

Enough darkness to fall asleep but daybreak too close to get a full night’s rest. Civilization whispers “one more turn.” A new district will be built, technology unlocked, and a new city will fall to your empire. The plan is clear, tangible, provides immediate feedback, and you can easily put the controller down whenever you want to. Nobody is awake to tell you to stop. Nobody is awake to ask you for anything. Bags and eye strain are problems for the future. Who cares? Just wake up, drink water, eat, function like a responsible adult, and put everything back without leaving a trace. What were you up to? A bunch of nothing. When did you go to sleep? Oh, not too late.

8:00 AM

Weekend? No obligations. Weekday? No meetings. Still in bed and time in ample supply. Open eyelids, tap, tap, tap, pin number, swipe, everyone else has a wonderful life and the world is on fire. How many words can I find in the day’s spelling bee? The crossword should be quick. Why do they make this so hard? They used this clue before and the sun is so bright and my hips don’t want to leave the mattress and I just want to play pattern match on endless mode, but how is it already…

Noon

The body will wither without food. Without food it won’t move. The body must move to get food. How did humans survive the hunter gatherer era? Have we regressed? If I lose to the Act 1 boss in Slay The Spire again, I will crack my phone. That’s a lie. The computer is necessary to beat the boss. Do Not Disturb blocks notifications from dropping in, from disturbing total noise-canceling focus as there’s nothing worse than a phone call right before beating the boss. Keep climbing, looking for the right cards, skipping options that don’t do it for you this time, honing in on the perfect deck, but they don’t come, welp, just settle for what’s available. Why is this fun? The boss was beaten, but in an efficient, do-what-you-gotta-do kind of way. What time is it?

4:00 PM

Close laptop. Eat. Drink. Exercise. Strangers on the internet can still get this work in FIFA. Curve when you shoot, unless there’s time for a power shot. Through balls on the ground. Headers are too unpredictable. These strangers forfeit when losing early and tilt too easily with a properly timed and overly extended dead-fish celebration. After three wins come three losses, but a tie means promotion, so come three more losses and one game left. Do we use the free win? No, that’s for those who don’t deserve it. The next stranger puts up three goals in five minutes and…don’t have time for this, got things to do. Focus on the bigger picture. I sign into my laptop that opens to a big “PLAY” button in the center. Could sneak in another run. Close laptop.

9:00 PM

Would we have more fun if we cared less and didn’t analyze or compartmentalize or intellectualize what made us happy? Maybe the thinking about the thinking is the enjoyment and the games are just a conduit to think in a controlled way in a controlled environment without anyone watching.

Midnight

Long live the single player game.

Just. One. More. Turn.

I only start a new page for new ideas, so the margins and line breaks get filled with curved and smudged lettering. It’s better to get the idea out of my head than to impress the memory of my lessons in penmanship. We didn’t have laptops back then.

The first few pages date to the day after an auntie-who-isn’t-my-aunt wished me well on my writing. “Every good writer needs a good notebook.”

Somehow my first thought was “it’s not a moleskin.” No upfront placeholder exists to indicate a reward if found. It’s full of amazing ideas and terrible writing. I can’t lose it.

Every time I unlatch the leather and check which pen is stuffed in it, splitting the binding, I think about my auntie, but my relationship with these pages is halfway over. I’ll earn the second half. The ideas are too good, the writing still needs improvement, and my auntie never expected anything.

🪞 Reflection

A short one today.

I look at this notebook everyday and it accompanies me everywhere in my backpack. It’s utility has made it so precious that I limit my best thoughts to this specific notebook despite the dozen others I’ve purchased since.

Do you have an item that is so useful, you’re afraid to wear it out?

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✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

I don’t usually call out books that I haven’t finished, but Im about 20% into this tale and it’s blown through all of my expectations. I went in thinking it would be a dry, didactic tale about trying to hide as a black man in 1950s America. I was wrong. So far it’s a vibrant and voicey journey in the head of a man who has rationalized his existence and I’m excited to spend more time in his head. Will report back!

🎧 Song: Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi

Years ago, for a party, we looked up “Japanese Electric Funk Disco.” This song was on that playlist, which has mostly been taken down due to copyright, but began a love for 80s style Japanese city pop. Think others like “Do you Wanna Dance Tonight” by Toshiki Kadomatsu and “Sweet Love” by Junko Ohashi. It’s got that trance nostalgia of wearing an oversized three-piece suit down the street before you meet your girl for a cocktail while it rains outside.

🪶 Before flying away

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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In an Arctic shelter, a man hunches over a wooden stump, carving wooden figurines. He’s lost the equivalent of a toddler in body mass, but the moldy moose jerky out back weighs even more. His carvings, a pair of dice and a tribe of pegs with charcoal-drawn faces, scare away the boredom of solitary confinement. As a fire roars behind him, he mutters into a camera.

“This is trial by fire.”

The man rolls the dice and scribbles a mark for 6. He rolls again.

“Six is on the chopping block.”

He rolls for each peg and tallies the votes.

“Fire represents your death. We’re going to throw you in the fire.”

As the number six peg turns to ash, the man voices its cries and turns back to the camera.

“And that ladies and gentlemen, is how Trial by Fire is played.”

This is a normal exchange on the Netflix reality show, “Alone,” where ten contestants are dropped into the Arctic wilderness to see who can survive the longest without tapping out. The winner get a half million dollars.

Each of them can trap rabbits, hunt squirrels and birds and moose with arrows, forage for berries and roots, build a shelter insulated from the elements, and fish. I’ve never seen so many fish caught with fishing line just wrapped around a stick. Unlike many reality shows that manufacture drama between contestants, Alone portrays a character study of extremely capable people competing against their own minds. Survival skills are just baseline. Everyone on this show can hack it.

Here are a few lessons I observed while enjoying this anthropological study.

Talent is necessary, but mental health is central to longevity.

For one contestant, after compiling a nice food system and comfortable shelter early in the season, his misgivings of fatherhood began to seep through. He admits to encouraging his kids to bury their emotions. “I want to protect them.” That’s how he’s protected himself, but everyday, as he chops firewood in the deafening silence of the wilderness, those emotions bubble to the surface without a daily routine to stuff it all back down. Soon enough, he turns to the camera with a satellite phone and says “I’m officially tapping out.” The money was forfeit.

Getting more of what you need is more important than protecting what you have.

Another contestant, could not, for the life of him, protect his food. He’d cache his fish in a tree to be stolen. He’d cache his beaver under heavy rocks to be stolen. The only safe place was inside his stomach. Despite this, nature seldom punished him. After every loss, he’d pick up a couple more days of food. I’ll never forget how he would catch birds. Find a really really long branch. Tie a loop at the end. Then, chase the bird with the branch over its head, so it can’t fly away, and notch the loop around the bird’s neck. This method had no business succeeding, but it did. Complete sorcery. Disappointment never lasted long, as he kept finding ways to stay positive, move forward, and find more food.

As much as we focus on savings and frugality, consistently earning more raises spirits, and good morale is key to long term survival. It’s no different than a business. It can have huge coffers, but if it stop can’t stop bleeding cash, it eventually runs dry.

Those who enjoy the process itself will outlast someone out to prove their worth.

During the first week, one of the roughest, toughest dudes in the show burned his hand while boiling water. He bandaged it up, but couldn’t use his hand to hold a bow, so he couldn’t hunt. A few days later, he broke his tailbone. Over and over, he would say “I’m not tapping out. I’d rather die.” He started suffering debilitating stomach pains and no bowel movement for 10 days. The medical staff deemed him unfit to continue. The money was forfeit.

Contrast this to the man filming roulette-style tribal sacrifices among wood carvings to lighten his mood. This is the same guy who would film TikTok style short videos of himself as a mountain man or medieval squire. The contestant with quirky humor would say “I belong here.” When building his shelter, he built it big and professed “This is not my shelter. This is my home.” The guy didn’t view his situation as a chore. Instead of proving his validity, he just lived. He decided to thrive.

Setting uncertain expectations is a foundation for failure.

Late in the season, another contestant suffers fours days of illness, despite having caught a few large fish that he’s stashed frozen at his bedside. Yes, it was that cold. He cooks a fish and stares at his bowl, a worm swimming in the juices. He picks another fish and begins to pick through the black dirt inside. There are bite marks. Mice have not only eat his fish, they’ve dedicated throughout the filet. The man has been eating rat shit for four days.

He discards the food and sleeps off the sickness, but wrestles with an empty food cache. A notification fires for an upcoming medical check. He believes this is his moment of salvation. There’s no chance any other contestants could have lasted this long, not like him. He confesses his confidence to the camera that either his mom, or dad, or maybe a sister will come around the corner and surprise him after the medical check. He starts dreaming of what to do with the money.

After taking his weight and checking for frostbite, the medical crew copters away. The episode ends on him falling to his knees, sobbing.

Take things day-by-day, one moment at a time, in order to endure. Attempting to manifest a premature timeline will only set you up for disappointment.

🪞 Reflection

The takeways from this show strongly resonated with a lot that’s been on my mind recently, especially the theme of “enjoying the process.” It can be applied to writing, finances, fitness, anything that requires a long-term mentality. I know Alone is a reality show, but it’s a much more endearing and honest depiction of the human condition that other confectionary entertainment on TV.

For those that have seen it, any other lessons you took away?

Leave a comment

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Story: Jesus is Waiting by Amy Hempel

I’ve recommended Amy Hempel’s collected short stories before. It’s one of my favorite books. I’ve reread a few stories from her sub-collection The Dog of the Marriage the past month. I believe it is her second most recent collection and I’ve truly enjoyed it. This story in particular has helped me learn how to pass time and world build through the depiction of someone’s routine and habits. She’s a master in subtext too. I won’t say what it’s about, because I may still have more to discover. I encourage you to give it a read!

🎧 Song: Haveli by Fake Tattoos

This was playing the other day in our neighborhood Indian restaurant. I was vibing as I ate my goat sagg. The radio is also good focus music. Also - Always order the spiciest, even if they think you can’t handle it.

🪶 Before flying away

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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At midnight, during Sunday’s peak blizzard conditions, my wife and an old friend threw snowballs at me in Central Park as trucks passed by plowing fresh powder. On opposite sides of the road, we stomped out of the way into knee-deep mounds. I gathered snow into my ski gloves, packing and pressing it into lumpy balls piled at my feet. Ammunition.

Once the trucks had left, my wife turned to take photos of the trees. Light from the park lamps scattered, reflecting off the fully white blanket covering the ground. The park never felt so bright and quiet.

Splat. Ice sprayed my salty boots. Splat. A snowball whizzed by. My friend giggled as he lobbed warning shots my way.

I retaliated, throwing each of my snowballs with a slinging sidearm, reliving the baseball glory days of high school. Fresh snow packs together tight and flies like a baseball, but won’t bruise like one, so no injuries after our first exchange, just the simple joy of playing in the snow, pretending we were calling pitches in the majors to strike out Barry Bonds. I hadn’t thrown a baseball in years, but muscle memory is undefeated. It felt good to feel good at something.

During winter break my freshman year of college, our ultimate frisbee team had practices that finished around midnight. We practiced in the “bubble,” an inflated cocoon that covered the 130+ yards of the football stadium, protected from the elements, but you could still see your breath. As we wrapped up our first winter drills, I spotted some stray baseballs left over by the temporary batting cages.

I bet the team that I could throw one from endzone to endzone. A few people believed that I was a former center fielder, but the rest of them needed to see me drop back, two-step crow hop, and launch it in a perfect forty-five degree angle to barely cross the other frigid endzone. Muscle memory had served me well, made them witness.

I could still throw a seed, even with a snowball, into my friend’s hands across Central Park. The physical feat of throwing hard and accurately had tethered to my identity somewhere along the line of growing up. I can’t separate it from who I am. It reminded me of the day I met my old friend.

Almost twenty years ago, I had transferred to a new private school and my friend was one of the kids sitting in home room. The teacher went around, asking everyone to introduce themselves. Nicholas, James, Rahul, names among a room full of twenty or so boys. Thomas, Thomas. Finally, the class had all turned, eyes fixed on me.

“Wes.”

Pure instinct. To that point, everyone called me my full given name, Wesley, but teenage me decided to forever be known by his nickname. Nobody questioned it. Charles, Michael, Daniel. Nobody cared about my little deception. It was that easy to redefine yourself. A small act of self-actualization can underpin your identity the rest of your life. Make the announcement.

As I finished my recollection, the blizzard blew harder and ice flakes crusted our coats. We threw our remaining ammo into the trees and sloshed through the unplowed side streets back to the apartment to be stopped by strangers with an umbrella.

We were kids again, scrambling when the umbrella man screamed “Snowball fight!”

🪞 Reflection

Do you have any moments where you decided to reimagine yourself in some tiny way that stuck with you until now?

Also, who else, safely, made it out into the blizzard this weekend?

Leave a comment

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Likely, you’ve seen this book in your bookstore. It’s book #2 right after The Way of Kings, and I think its even better than the first. As I’ve said before, this dude can write a climax and the 1,400 pages shouldn’t scare you. It’s a thrill ride of epic fantasy proportions. Pure fun.

🎧 Song: 4 Raws by EsDeeKid

I was all over the Timothy Chalemet marketing campaign for Marty Supreme. He was infectious with his energy on the film and he did a guest appearance on a remix to this song. The original will pump you up for a workout.

🪶 Before flying away

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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When friends come to town, in bitter cold or sweltering summer, I’ll have a similar conversation with each of them walking the blocks of the neighborhood.

“Got a taste for anything?” I’ll say.

“Eh,” they’ll say, “Not really. I’m open.”

“I know a place.”

“That Italian place?”

My eyebrow will perk up. “Have I taken you yet?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

We’ll walk through the front awning and sit down, saying hello to whoever is behind the bar. Smiles, waves, smiles. The bartender sets down a cup. “Cappuccino.”

“Yeah, why not,” I’ll say, as if it were a real question.

My friend will study the menu. “What do you usually get?”

At this point, I’m leaning my elbows across the bar, head in hand, running my fingers across the key options. Caesar. Burrata. Spaghetti Pomodoro. Milanese. No nuts. Each dish has few ingredients, needs no more than salt, pepper, and a fork to eat it, can be cooked in a grandmother’s kitchen, yet is hard to replicate. The best food is simple. Even complex gourmet dishes strive to reduce, reduce, reduce.

Across the slate bar, our menus slide away and we’ll chat until the salad and tomato-basil cheese arrive to accompany the complementary salt, butter, and olive oil, served with focaccia. Tables hug the corner windows and line the booth along the mirrored wall. It’s a cozy spot. Condensation builds on the windows as regulars cycle in and out the front door.

“Space for two?”

“Ciao!”

“I’ll just sit at the bar.”

“Can you recommend a glass of red?”

“It’s so good to see you.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“I come here all the time.”

“The kitchen hasn’t closed yet, has it?”

In the middle of it all, the pasta will have arrived. Crush some tomatoes or grate some cheese. God blessed the world with noodles and sauce to glaze your tongue over dinner with good people, but noodles never last very long. A few good swirls of the fork and you’re scanning for eyes not to catch you preparing to run a tongue across the dregs of sauce across your plate. Lick the bowl. Prove the table is ready for a lightly pounded fried chicken cutlet.

I always take my friends to this restaurant, because it’s a solid. It’s delicious, predictable, and reliable against high expectations of the everyday. TikTok hasn’t filled it with clout chasers and regulars keep the neighborhood secret within trusted circles. A solid isn’t what you recommend to someone who only has one night in the city. It’s a backbone to the many nights you don’t want to be let down.

We’ll finish our prosecco just early enough not to be the last table to leave.

🪞 Reflection

I want your restaurant recommendations.

Gimme places that you would recommend if your reputation depended on the second time I went there to eat.

Leave a comment

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Short Story: Why Don’t You Dance by Raymond Carver

The opening story in Raymond Carver’s short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, is one you should read multiple times over. I still find something new every time I crack it open. The title story of the collection was a major influence on one of my favorite movies, Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which prompted me to read the book. I was late to the party, but Carver has fundamentally changed how I view writing a domestic scene. Give it a read, you might like it.

🎧 Song: Malina by Charlotte de Witte

Personally, I love this return to vibe out club tracks that you can close your eyes and get lost to on a dance floor. It’s my favorite kind of music and I hope you can get lost in it too.

🪶 Before flying away

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

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This afternoon, the man canvassing in the square stole a smile from me with that one. I’d heard it on Instagram a few times, but it was nonetheless skillful and grabbed my attention. The least I could do was smile.

“Just one question for you real quick.”

It’s never just one question. By now, you know to wave and tell them to have a good day.

I used to stand there and listen to the whole spiel about some very noble and just cause. Climate change, voter registration, or maybe justice for a recent puppy attack. Just nod my head, ask some follow-up questions, and show them that they are worthy of my time. Everybody else would ignore them. Imagine how lonely all those rejections must be in the middle of the sidewalk.

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The last time I did this, a guy asked me for money and a signature at the end, neither of which I was willing to give. So, I asked if they had a card or a website that I could look up afterwards. The guy looked at me like I was his mortal enemy, smiled and finally wished me a good day.

The whole ten minutes he spent talking to me, he could have been playing the numbers game with the other hundred strangers strolling down the street. It had taken me the rest of my walk home to realize I had wasted his time, not the other way around. Window shopping is inconsiderate. We all have jobs to do and salespeople don’t like wasted effort with bad leads.

After I passed the parrot guy today, I dipped into the subway for my three-transfer trip home. In the middle of the walkway, right before the last train, a lady cut me off. I saw her coming in the corner of my eye in front of some TikTokers doing a dance, but I didn’t trust my intuition.

“Can I ask you one thing before you go?”

She got a left juke and stutter step. I have no idea how she reacted, but deep down I think we both appreciated the sincerity of our unspoken good days.

A carrot. The answer is a carrot.

🪞 Reflection

Someone once told me that toll booth workers had the most depressing job in America. Obviously, this was before the rollout of automated, no-stop toll roads. Picture a person shuttling change to hundreds of people everyday with few, if any, interactions containing a mutual exchange of complete sentences. My friend would play this game where the goal was to get the toll worker to say at least seven words, to force some marginal human interaction, opposed to the faceless handoff of germ-ridden coins.

I used to think this was a noble pursuit. Now, I think it’s an imposition on a person who just didn’t want to be bothered ding their job. That’s how I felt about trying to show the canvasser that I was listening. I wasn’t actually interested; instead, just serving my own self-importance.

What do you think? Would you try to spread a little cheer and human exchange?

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✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Are you looking for a fast-paced, space opera detective story? A conspiracy across the galaxy that can only be solved by some jaded, hard-boiled dudes? Then this book is for you. It’s the first of a 7+ book series, but the first one here is a fun tension-filled ride.

🎧 Song: Let’s Play by Dabeull

It’s got that 90’s soul feeling without taking itself too seriously with that cover, but good enough that we should take it as a seriously good time.

🪶 Before flying away

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Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

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Sunlight pierced the nose slit in my eye mask the other morning.

I didn’t want to wake up, but the morning light had been so bright, reflecting off the two-week-old snow across the rooftops, playgrounds, bike lanes and everywhere else that hasn’t turned to mud or black ice. The view from my window was the usual reminder I hadn’t left the house in a few days. That, and tripping over the mound of coats and cardboard boxes blocking the path out of the room. I dug through my closet, couldn’t find socks, and only found my emergency set of underwear and a t-shirt, the faded, free merch from four jobs ago that you throw on just to make it to the next load of laundry.

I blamed the weekend of the blizzapocalypse-that-wasn’t on the bedroom’s disarray. We threw a party, our first “big” party, the night before the storm. Buy fruit. Scrub some toilets. Buy cheese. Clean the kitchen. Buy ice. I spent most of the day shuttling through the kind of cold that makes your bones hurt when you stand idle. Vaseline and Burt’s Bees were my best friends.

We had to move the clutter scattered throughout the apartment into the bedroom. None of our friends or family would pass a lie detector test to prove we are tidy people, but we try to give them an excuse to pretend when they walk through the door.

Outside the bedroom, the apartment felt like a real livable place. Why move everything back? But there I was, staring at a t-shirt and pair of boxers that should have been recycled way before we even moved into this place. Panic cleaning for friends and hoarding emergency undies are just nodes in the same routine. We stumble through adulthood, faking it as we make it through chores and meals and hygiene. Still, I can’t be wearing dirty undies.

I had to leave our hot apartment, thank god for blessing us with radiator heat, and head the two blocks to the cleaners.

The ride down the elevator was mental preparation. Yeah, it was cold, but I had on my coat and puddle-stompers, the same boots to evade the real threats of the New York sidewalks, semi-truck tall mounds of grey snow encroaching the bus lanes, and piles of trash bags at the foot of those mounds, seeping juices to make a collage of shaved ice, sprinkled with a week’s worth of dog pee and feces. Walkways suffered alongside my apartment, stuck in stasis until the weather would thaw out the excuses for neglect.

I stepped outside. It was just below freezing, but multiple days of single digit weather help you feel the difference. My boots stomped through the black slush and puddles in the asphalt. Shop owners salted their sidewalks, sanitation workers manually shoveled snow, and the city was back to business.

I feared the owner at the cleaners would say “Where have you been? We missed you.”

When my bag hit the scales he said “Good to see you, it will be ready this evening.”

🪞 Reflection

I’ve been in the mood for lighter, more vignette-style stuff recently. Still heavy on observation, but not as emotionally heavy, sitting in the “I don’t know if this is profound, but this thing is interesting” space. Not every week will be like #15 or #17. Sometimes, there’s just dirty laundry you gotta handle.

What have you all thought about the lighter observational posts?

Stay warm and stay safe!

Leave a comment

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Story: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges

This first story of his short story collection Labyrinths, which is a real mind bender. Had to go over this one with a pencil and take notes, but I highly recommend it for a book club if you ever need a short suggestions that pack a punch of a mental puzzle.

🎧 Song: Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye

It’s Marvin Gaye. Just listen.

🪶 Before flying away

♻ If this post resonated with you, restacking it is the best way to share and show support for the publication.

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some recent posts and personal favorites:

For a pseudo-housewarming party last year, a guest gifted us an orchid. Two stems stretched out of the thick, floppy leaves resting in the soil. The beautiful white flowers were so heavy that plastic stakes were clipped around the stems just to keep it upright. I don’t think I’d been given flowers since high school theatre productions. It felt nice. The flowers livened up our living room.

We had been taking care of another orchid for a few years, but it didn’t grow and hadn’t seen flowers since we first bought it. We kept it in a jar of water, but forgetting to change that water for two months caused it to shrink. One by one, a leaf would turn yellow. We’d clip it to conserve energy. A fungus would spot. We’d spray it with vinegar. A comic cycle of poor plant parenting, unabated by ChatGPT.

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The old orchid had to be put to rest. We got a brand new, bigger pot, and two types of orchid soil. Fun fact, orchids don’t sit in soil. They live in an assortment of moss and effectively, wood chips. At least, that’s the combination working for us right now. Every week, fully soak the soil and let the sun dry it out on the windowsill. Letting in the breeze and admiring the view of petals and busy neighbors across the street was a novel morning routine, until a snap rang through our kitchen.

A stiff stem and its full row of flowers sat on the kitchen floor. Sadly, a breeze had flapped our blinds hard enough to snap a twig off. It didn’t shatter the pot, thank goodness, but only three flowers remained. Plant parenting isn’t easy. Over the next few weeks, the stub of the old stem yellowed. I clipped it off, as we know, to conserve energy, but the other flowers slowly wilted and fell. What was I doing wrong?

It was time for the professionals. We visited the plant store to treat our newly gifted orchid with proper knowledge from an expert.

Orchids need sun, ample amounts of it, if you want them to flower.

Do not leave them in dark humid jars to be fungused and clipped to death.

I hit the routine hard. Sun. Water. Sun. Water. Keep away from the breeze. Five new buds stuck out and two extra leaves sprouted. We had a summer miracle on our hands, which was the result of consistency and maintenance, if you can believe it! We keep it off the radiators in the winter. Now, all of our other plants have stuck to a strict cadence of water and sunshine with a smattering of insect repellent. I’m not sure what’s worse, fungus gnats or spider mites, but either way, the discipline and the patience has paid off.

Our little orchid lost its former stems to yellow and wilted flowers again, but a new stem has spiraled into existence. Literally, it’s curved because we didn’t clip the new stem into the plastic stake. Its growth chases the sunshine. Plants are so smart. Every week I turn it 180 degrees to keep the weight distributed.

I’m excited to see what flowers will bloom from the six new buds!

🪞 Reflection

This was an up-and-down week, so I spent a lot of it studying our orchid to give me something nice to think about.

Any plant parents out there? We’ve got 5 or 6 sitting on windows throughout our place now.

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✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Somehow I never have a copy. I checked my Amazon order history and it turns out, I’ve bought this multiple times because I keep forgetting that I gave my latest copy away. It’s a good book. If you’re looking for a deep, hard science fiction book, this is a go-to. Arguably, the pioneer in plausible Mars terraforming fiction books.

🎧 Song: Tank! by the SEATBELTS

Keeping on the anime opener train, this one is a classic from Cowboy Beebop. Always puts a jolt through your spine with those trumpets. I remember when buddy of mine burned me a copy of this, and a few other songs, in middle school. I was hooked and forever grateful.

🪶 Before flying away

♻ If this post resonated with you, restacking it is the best way to share and show support for the publication.

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

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Two glossy eyes stared at us from a mesh backpack on the subway. A cat, calm among the standing-room-only crush, stretched its paws over the edge of the bag. A harness tethered the cat, but it had no interest in escaping. A cat this cozy on public transit must have been used to the chaos of the city and deep love from its owner. As we exited the train, I lost our staring contest and the cat followed our steps through the window, ready to track the next object on its urban adventure.

I’m jealous of the lady carrying the backpack. Cats seem like ideal companions. Curious, independent, low maintenance. I’d love one, but adding yet another thing to care for in life feels so emotionally expensive.

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A few years into an empty nest, my mother adopted a silver fur ball that could fit inside your fist. I thought a pet would inhibit her flexibility, make her second guess girls trips away from home. Someone had abandoned the kitten after growing tired of the responsibility, so my mother, whose massive heart I’ll owe until infinite, took in the fur ball, and designated it as my little sister ever since.

My first visit home with the cat was mostly staring contests, watching the cat sprint and zig zag through the house, and bloody claw marks on my feet. You couldn’t sleep with them exposed. The kitten was born to hunt toes. When she would eventually fall asleep, she reclaimed her bed, my old bed, nestling into the sheets from the pillows down to my chest.

I hadn’t chased the love of an animal since the black terrier poodle from my childhood. My parents adopted the dog before they separated, back when the memories forming in my head were just rough images, phantom emotions, and the stories I still choose to believe. My favorite is the time I was alone, for only a hot second, with the dog in the main bedroom. My parents heard me making loud noises and rushed back into the room. The dog was standing over me, panting, tongue flapping, as I giggled uncontrollably in my diaper. My father has told me that story so many times now, I think that’s why I chased the dog’s affection growing up.

My father took custody of the dog and moved south. When I would visit him, I was so jealous. How did he get it to follow him around? It was never on a leash. Dog food, leftover steak, fresh water, McDonald’s, it always ate well. Flying down the highway, it would stand on my lap, stretching its nose and floppy tongue out the car window. My father would say “she’ll be fine,” as I clutched her torso, so afraid that she might jump out onto the freeway. The dog only paid attention to my dad, but I wanted it to love me, so I did the only thing that made sense. Protect it from the danger that, naive or otherwise, only I acknowledged.

Over the years I learned to feed the dog, let it out, and play with it unprompted. One day, when we visited my grandmother, I was walking across her house, down to her basement, and a black chubby mess of hair meandered down the steps behind me. As she got older and slower and blinder and lost control of her bladder, the dog would accompany me. Nobody was closer to her than my father, but I obtained my childhood desire.

Why did it have to come with my first true lesson with death?

After one too many puddles of urine that I couldn’t hide, my father called me from the countryside. I was 14, looking through a window at a barren tree in my grandmother’s front yard. My father had just buried the dog. I wasn’t allowed to join the last rites. For three days, my eyes burned and tears would roll down my face until I decided never to put myself through that again. If that’s how I felt, imagine putting down one of your best friends, to chose to end its pain, carry its corpse, dig a hole, fill the hole, and summon the words you might deem fitting for a life that had only brought you joy.

I didn’t envy my father that day.

The anticipation of grief clouds time with my mother’s cat. She no longer zips through the house or attacks feet. Her days are spent sleeping in my mother’s room or on her special window ledge overlooking the front of the house. Although, she will prowl and never misses a meal.

A few months ago, I was cat sitting, morphing to the cat’s routine. Bits of dry food during the day. Wet food at 5pm and 6am. Our rhythm was so set, that one morning at 5:59am, I felt a presence in bed. I opened my eyes to see my mother’s cat standing above me, her eyes staring as if to say “You gonna get up or nah? It’s breakfast time, human.” Slowly stepping down the stairs, she guided me through the dark to her bowl in the kitchen. She was fed a little extra that day.

When I visit my mother, the cat treats me like nothing special, a person who belongs and doesn’t require attention unless they step out of line. I didn’t adopt her, but I love that cat. One day, I will receive a call, tears will fall, and my mother’s nest will be empty again.

I would love a cat to feed and raise and fuss with, but I’m not ready to volunteer for the inevitable loss. Love is expensive and I don’t know how much of it I’m willing to spread around when the object of my affection is guaranteed to leave in short order.

🪞 Reflection

Have you come back from losing a pet before? They really are wonderful and full of so much joy.

I had to stop midway through when I started writing about our dog. Death is difficult, even if it’s a pet. Some may say that I’m limiting myself and the love of the pet’s life is worth so much, and it’s the only reason the pain of death even exists. That’s fair.

If you are dealing with the loss of a pet, or any loved one, I hope they lived a wonderful life and I’d give you a hug if I could.

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✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

This is a classic, yet philosophical book on the meaning and purpose of life. It’s all absurd dealing with life in the face of the absurd and analyzing it in gross intellectual detail.

🎧 Song: Eutow by Autechre

Hard mood pivot. This is an awesome pick me up and groove machine. Put this on after reading this week’s essay to emotionally reset 😀

🪶 Before flying away

♻ If this post resonated with you, restacking it is the best way to share and show support for the publication.

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some recent posts and personal favorites:

The chat bubble sat under a set of broken text conversation, short phrases, no punctuation, most without timely replies.

Why is dread, that feeling of impending bad news, my first reaction?

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After years of monitoring email, text messages, dozens of slack channels, group chats, and a well-trained reflex to unlock my phone and scroll instagram for no other reason than having it in my pocket, voice messages spook me. Only marked by a sender and timespan, they linger, occupying the space between a benign message and a catastrophe that requires the subtlety of a voice.

The Schrodinger’s cat of modern communication.

This friend is not some sentinel who marks text messages read. Days or weeks go by without a reply, maybe a few memes or videos strewn about the conversation. We’ll lose context from one topic to the next, needing to rehash everything through the eventual catch up call anyway.

But I had stepped out of the shower to see the sound wave projecting the flow of their voice for sixty eight seconds. If you don’t listen to the message, it doesn’t exist, right? No. It sits there, taunting you, waiting for you to listen or skip the entire ordeal, calling the person back asking “Is everything alright?”

Now, I recognize there is a time and place for voice messages. My WeChat literate family members, of which I am not included, communicate mostly with voice messages. I’ll open up the family chat to see a 50+ message long thread, a wall of unskimmable chatter, and know that I’ll never catch up, too late to join in on the banter. Voice messages are a nice asynchronous substitute for phone calls, cutting out the idle pauses in conversation.

But a long, lone voice message from someone who never sends them? That can bubble your guts. This is what it’s like communicating with a bad texter, a backwards game of crying wolf.

So I make this simple request for a warning system. Preface with “NOT URGENT” and please don’t say “Call me” unless it’s both important and too sensitive to share details.

I never did listen to the voice message. I went straight for the phone call, which thankfully contained no bad news, as they just asked how the writing was coming along.

Maybe the real dread was reporting my progress.

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis

It’s a pretty dark book with a lot of terrible people, but it’s a great depiction of early twenties drift and the deft prose of a detached narrator. Can’t believe Ellis wrote this right out of college.

🎧 Song: battlecry by Nujabes and Shing02

My main recommendation is just to go watch Samurai Champloo. You can enjoy the song in the opening sequence together with the beautiful animation of this Edo period love story.

🪞 Reflection

What is proper voice message protocol? How do you communicate urgency and importance in your text messaging? Still use voicemail?

Leave a comment

🐦‍⬛ The Murder

A chance to highlight recent posts of others and help you discover more.

I found through a podcast that a friend often recommends. Her newsletter is a cool take on economics and this particular article caught my eye in the midst of the gamblification of everything.

Kyla’s Newsletter

Everyone is Gambling and No One is Happy

Good morning from Washington DC! This is a long one, so it might be cut off in your inbox. Also, if you’re looking for an economic holiday gift for your loved ones (or for anyone at all), and want to support local bookstores In This Economy? is a great gift…

Read more

4 months ago · 1233 likes · 116 comments · kyla scanlon

🪶 Before flying away

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See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some recent posts and personal favorites:

As I stood on a rainy Hawaii beach, my wife drifted out of sight. A dense mix of swimmers, surfers, and rolling shoulder-high waves masked her snorkeling tube and yellow flippers.

She’s a big girl.

Beach chairs and umbrellas folded in a quick exodus from the drizzly shore.

I rubbed my neck, scratched my chin.

Be patient. She’ll be fine.

Red flippers floated by.

No need to raise an alarm.

If I called 911, logistically, how would it make a difference?

Waves continued to crest, unbothered by my concern.

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Earlier on our trip, over a Christmas breakfast accompanied by a surprise dose of caroling hotel staff, my wife had said “I really want you to see the turtles and monk seals!” Animals don’t usually get me out of bed, but she smiles when I have new experiences, so we wandered the beachside neighborhoods, up and over hills of vacation rentals, along overgrown cliffside guardrails, and down to the water to find a semi-circle of traffic cones with signs: “PLEASE LOOK AHEAD. TURTLES. STAY BEHIND SIGNS.” While my wife skipped around pointing at the shelled sunbather, I read the other sign next to the lifeguards: “WARNING. RIP CURRENTS. You could be swept out and drown.”

She squeezed my arm. “Wes, the water is so pretty.”

“Sure is.”

Her eyes popped wide open. “I want to go in the water.”

“I bet you do.”

We were already walking to the blue shack across the street to rent snorkeling gear.

“How many sets for the week?” The cashier said.

My wife looked at me with the eyes of a cat watching wet food evenly being spread across its bowl.

“Alright,” I said, “two please.”

We hustled back to the beach, where she flopped her flippers into the ocean. I sat on a mound watching our stuff. My normal excuse to remain dry is a fear of petty theft, but mix an unease of wide open spaces, mediocre swimming abilities, and a distrust for the unknown, and you’ll understand why I just sat, watching my wife head into the water.

I pulled a book from my pocket. She might have felt rushed if I looked too bored, hoodie on my head, alone among strangers in bikinis and folding chairs. The pages failed to hold my attention.

My wife bobbed, dove, resurfaced, and dove, each time floating closer to the sandbar beyond the other snorkelers. Where was she going? How deep was the water? If the tide took her, I couldn’t swim fast enough.

A megaphone rang across the cove. “Attention snorkeler! Return towards shore! Attention snorkeler! Beware the currents!”

She surfaced, taking off her mask as I waved like a maniac to summon her home.

With each stroke toward shore, I breathed easier, until she approached me wringing the salt water from her hair. “Are you having fun?”

I stared past her shoulders. “It’s too deep.”

“What?”

“Don’t go so far next time. I was waving you to come back.”

My wife moves through the world brushing her hands against roadside shrubbery, chasing sunsets, devouring undiscovered foods, and spying on fish in their own home. I scan the surface of the water for threats, sidewalks for missteps, and new places for exit routes. As a person cursed with hyper vigilance and logic guiding your everyday, how do you exist in a marriage to an explorer without taking their very nature as disregard for your psychological well-being?

I remember the first time she zipped halfway across the world, alone, to a new country. We had graduated college, only together a few weeks, and she texts me an update of her trip to South Asia. All day, she had munched on street food, hitching rides across the countryside with strangers on motorcycles. I couldn’t berate her. This was the beginning of, what would become an almost three year long-distance relationship. I didn’t want her to feel shackled from thousands of miles away. I discovered early that she follows her own curiosity without the same concern for risk or the minutiae of safety that I over index. She’s a joyous, independent woman, and I cannot control her actions. If I did, it would eradicate the exact traits that make her so alluring.

But my spine still shivers and my mind still plays through disaster.

After the public rebuke from the lifeguard on Christmas, we walked together along the beach.

“Did I make you worry?” my wife said.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m just glad the lifeguards were there.”

“Okay, soon, I’m gonna try the other beach. I think it has more fish.”

We agreed on a new system of hand signals. At first, she tried waving, but that might raise alarms. So, we agreed on the periodic, three-fingered ‘okay.’ It lowered my blood pressure, but carried an extra burden as she would stay nearby where the good fish didn’t appear. Her concern for my worries meant my fears hindered her enjoyment.

Find an alternative. Snuff my concerns and join her exploration.

A week later, at the new beach, I slipped on the extra fins and donned the other mask.

“Hold on,” she said, taking the mask and scurrying away to an activity tent behind us.

I waited in my trunks, imagining jellyfish, rip currents, and the jagged edges of nearby rocks.

She returned with our masks. “Defogger. Making sure you have a good time!”

I tried. I really tried, but my flipper was too big and kept floating away, the reef cut my legs, I was too impatient to just float on top of the water and breathe through the spout without hyperventilating. After one too many waves crashed over my head, I realized I’m just not a snorkeler and couldn’t even save my wife if she was in danger. I trudged back to the shore and sat under our umbrella. She was disappointed. I dashed her hopes of a mutual underwater adventure.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Saw some fish! Go have fun.” I toweled off, threw on my hoodie, grabbed my book, and turned around, unable to see her as the rain started to fall on the bright, sunny afternoon. Unlike Christmas Day, no lifeguards manned the shore, ready to save my wife from her own curiosity via megaphone.

Much of a relationship is knowing some things just aren’t about you, or, at least, not everything should optimize for your own enjoyment, or even comfort.

My wife drifted out of sight. Sometimes, I must wait, sit with my worry, and loving her means watching from the shore, trusting she’ll drift back.

The afternoon showers cleared.

Two yellow flippers floated toward me over the waves.

My favorite snorkeler ripped off her mask revealing a smile from ear to ear.

“I saw so many fish! A pair of eels, a pink fish, a rainbow fish, a black and yellow fish from Finding Nemo…”

If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some personal favorites:

I’ll be brief this week. In short, 2025 was a year of failed goals and the joy of process.

I stopped writing to you all on Substack last Christmas. I didn’t finish my novel. I can’t run a 5 minute mile. I was injured for 4 months. I did not read 25 books.

My ego took a hit.

But, as months went by, as I fell further and further off pace of my targets, the dread of missing my goals gave way to the joy of discovering what’s necessary to be the type of person that CAN achieve what I want to achieve: a writer, a runner, a husband, a brother, a son, a reader, a mentor.

Thanks to many discussions with my wife, my friends, my parents, and a lot of self-talk, I started to build the right habits, admitted willpower is no longer enough, and focused on process.

Just write. Just read. Just run. Just love. Just keep going.

Wednesday Wesdom is part of this process and thank you so much for reading.

Here’s to a wonderful 2026. There is so much in store.

Be safe. I hope you know that you are enough.

Love,

Wes

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This might not be in the Christmas spirit, but I’ve always found gift giving to be the most hollow of the love languages. Don’t get me wrong, I like receiving gifts. Who wouldn’t like finding wrappings under the tree or a few extra digits in their Venmo balance?

I tend to give my love very differently. Quality time and acts of service usually top my list, treasuring the fleeting time I have with the people I love and doing what my mother taught me best: making life with those around me better by covertly managing others’ minutiae. Track keys, grab an extra hat, spot that uber, spend two hours frying up chicken for your friends because they haven’t had a good batch in a minute and you know that they know that shit is delicious. Most important though, keep showing up. Good friends show up. Afterwards, just make sure they know you are looking out for them. Marketing your love is an underrated skill.

As I’ve learned this year, so is gift giving.

A few weeks ago, I was disappointed because some friends didn’t want to play afternoon board games. Rightfully so, as I’m a sore winner. Playing with me requires a particular appetite for smug expressions and petty psychological manipulation. Instead of enduring my trash talk, we had a mature conversation about politics and family. But then, my wife said the magic words: “Let’s go to a book store!” My butt left the seat and I was the first to throw on a coat, hustling all of us out the door. Now, we didn’t make it there immediately. Some cocktails made a visit to our lips before the bookstore, so yeah, I was in a good, good mood.

“Aight, aight, aight,” I said, throwing my hands up on the sidewalk as if I were a platoon leader. “Imma get a book for all of ya’ll. What you in the mood for?”

“Wes, there’s no need, you already gave us books from last time that we haven’t even read yet.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

They couldn’t deflect my assertions, not at this point. I was too happy. I noted their literary moods and we marched to the bookstore. I roamed the shelves for personalized recommendations, a good city story, something deep and philosophical, a maybe happy ending, and somehow, I left with six or seven books for my friends.

It was a good night, which spoiled my pretension for gifts. I never really understood how good it would feel to pick out the perfect thing for someone and share it with them.

If reading is an author’s direct communication to someone’s mind, then sharing the right book is telepathy between readers. You’re crafting a shared language of emotion, perspective, and thought.

Through books, it seems so obvious now that the beauty of gift giving is not in the cost or obligation, but in the personalization of the love.

The secret of a loving gift is a clear message: “I see you.”

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

A short, heart-warming story about asserting individuality against societal pressure, and the absurdity of what makes people comfortable versus what makes you happy. Blew through this in 3 hours, I highly recommend, and will likely read again.

🎧 Song: 12 Days of Christmas by Gucci Mane

Did you know Gucci Mane had a Christmas album? Now you do. It is and isn’t exactly what you would think it is.

🪞 Reflection

1. It’s almost Christmas, so how about giving us your book recommendation this week? Always on the lookout for a good read. Personally, I love the psychologically tense stuff with good prose.

2. When it comes to friendship, not romantic love, how do you typically rank the love languages? Do you prefer to give love differently than you receive it?

• Physical touch

• Quality time

• Gifts

• Acts of service

• Words of affirmation

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🐦‍⬛ The Murder

A chance to highlight recent posts of others and help you discover more.

I thought did a good job here distilling why this Ziwe interview with Vince Staples felt different:

Johnny Flash

When Controlled Chaos Meets Calculated Comedy: Why Vince Staples Was the Perfect Match for Ziwe

There are interviews and then there are encounters the kind where two energies collide so naturally it feels scripted even though you know it’s not. That’s what happened when Vince Staples sat across from Ziwe. It wasn’t just a good pairing; it was chemistry born from two people who understand that performance doesn’t have to mean dishonesty, and comedy…

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4 months ago · 88 likes · 11 comments · Johnny Flash

🪶 Before flying away

♻ If this post resonated with you, restacking it is the best way to share and show support for the publication. Don’t have the Substack app? Feel free to forward it to a friend who may enjoy.

See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

Share Wednesday Wesdom

If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some recent posts and personal favorites:

“It takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap, honey” — Dolly Parton

During last weekend’s New York winter wonderland, snow burdened the branches throughout Central Park, muffling ambient chatter despite heavy foot traffic. We meandered, necks craned to the sky, taking in the serenity of a crisp December morning. As we left, four women, each with blonde hair down to their waist, walked past us out of the slush, wearing matching outfits of knee-length tan coats, black stockings, and high-heeled boots.

“That’s what’s so tough about New York,” one woman said, “you have to look beautiful, but like you didn’t try at the same time. Naturally beautiful. Very little makeup and this constant, effortless blowout1.”

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As we waited for the walk signal, their conversation faded down the block.

I couldn’t relate, but their plight felt so genuine. There is nothing effortless about sitting in the salon chair every few days, nothing cheap about affording it, either. Plus, the “no makeup” look is either excellent makeup or the result of a controlled diet, skin care regimen, plenty of rest, exercise, hydration, hydration, hydration and all the other time-consuming activities that internet beauty standards require.

Thigh gap.

Clean girl.

Glass skin.

Pilates body.

Have you tried pilates? Try struggling to lift yourself into a perfect “v” shape, toes and arms stretched to the ceiling, held up by nothing but your abs. It will humble you, real quick.

If any woman in your life looks effortless, even if they don’t, respect the hustle. “Natural” beauty projects an ease and confidence in its performance. Imagine the all-encompassing pressure to maintain it.

Like the beauty of a snow-covered tree, without the effort of the branch, it all falls to dust.

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Severance by Ling Ma

A friend of mine didn’t finish this one, but I was curious to pick up their copy and I’m SO glad that I did. I finished it last week. It’s a cool twist on a zombie story that focuses on the languid, empty corporate experience in the early 2010s. It’s also a cool, meditative walking exploration of NYC. If you have COVID pandemic PTSD, I don’t recommend it. It was published beforehand, but it’s a little uncanny.

🎧 Song: LIFT ME UP by KOMPROMAT

I’ve got no idea what language this is, but it’s a catchy, energetic bop. I hope it lifts your spirits today!

🪞 Reflection

I initially wanted to take this one in a whole different direction around being humbled in pilates and humbled by walking next to a person who is dressed way better than you all the time. I got triggered by this post by the WSJ on swag gap, which “refers to a fundamental difference in the way two people carry and present themselves.”

Are you surrounded by people that inspire you to look better? If so, what is it about them that spurs that feeling?

Also, any tips on finding a good tailor in NYC? I will continue to ask everyone I meet until I do it 😀

🐦‍⬛ The Murder

A chance to highlight recent posts of others and help you discover more.

I’ve shared Deirdre’s stuff with you all before, but this one had me laughing, so I’m sharing some more:

Snaps

Legacy of Joy

This is a story about driving alone in LA, specifically after 5 on a Friday night during the holidays, specifically on an errand to get something you should have gotten months ago, specifically hitting traffic here and there, on roads you travel all the time, and have travelled as either a passenger or a driver, visitor or resident, …

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4 months ago · 72 likes · 34 comments · Deirdre Lewis

I know a bunch of you out there are runners. Carl is a fellow runner and writer, so this one resonated:

Mostly Music

On the Corner with Running and Joyce Carol Oates

New Year’s resolutions, right? But here’s the deal: January 1, 2022, the day I committed to being more physically active. A week later, I began waking up at 5 to log miles before work, as my wife had suggested. I was out of shape. Overweight. Bloated from the decade-plus of pushing hard in the office, eating whatever whenever, and vices. For a basketbal…

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4 months ago · 7 likes · 7 comments · Carl Schell

🪶 Before flying away

♻ If this post resonated with you, restacking it is the best way to share and show support for the publication. Don’t have the Substack app? Feel free to forward it to a friend who may enjoy.

See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some recent posts and personal favorites:

Holding a cold pole in the aisle of a train car, I was chatting with my wife.

“That’s so messed up,” I said, pointing at the abomination.

My brain only registered “IQ is 50% genetic” with a decision between a black and a white baby. Who approved this ad? They intentionally designed it to provoke someone into writing about it on the internet.

It’s such an easy jump to make this about race, but damn, I saw “guess which half of this image has a higher IQ.”

Got me! I was provoked.

I snapped the photo and wagged my finger in silent protest. Once I left the train, I googled the website. It’s just a service for in vitro fertilization, IVF, with genetic screening included, allowing you to preview risk factors and other genetic probabilities for your potential children. I have no issues with IVF, but the company positions it as shopping for the “best baby.”

For the same reason you may have clicked on this essay, the ad weaponized outrage for attention. Why was it so effective? What did my reaction reveal?

As a black person in an interracial relationship, I’m sensitive to topics on genetic preferences, especially about building a family.

Will my child be dark? Light-skinned? Will they have my nose? My wife’s eyes? Will they be as mixed and beautiful as people tell me to expect?

These are real, recurring thoughts, which undermine much of the moral high ground I asserted when ridiculing the ad. It’s easy to justify reducing risk factors and genetic complications. It’s much harder to deny my curiosity. What if the complications were cosmetic? How would my genes mix with those of my life partner?

Maybe I deserved the looks from the other passengers on the train.

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Let’s reduce this to a simpler scenario. Instead of seeing all possible attributes, limit it to one. All else equal, there are two embryos to implant, a boy and a girl. This isn’t just early information, like a gender reveal; this is a choice.

Choose a boy. Or choose a girl. Predetermine the sex for a child you will bring into this world.

Years later, how do you explain it to them? Explain how and why mommy and daddy chose their sex. Ignore the morality for a moment. Logistically, what method would be most comfortable for you? We could use pragmatic arguments like, “men just have it easier in the world,” but that may perpetuate the exact biases that make life harder for women. We could use shameless arguments like, “we wanted a girl,” but then they will just ask why and we’d be back at the beginning.

Imagine scaling those explanations to cosmetic preferences like skin and hair color. How would our kids internalize that we wanted them to be more or less black, more or less Chinese? It’s impossible to make the choice decoupled from our own biases.

We could eliminate the choice itself. Pick a random number from a hat and see who pops out nine months later. Problem solved, but herein lies a humbling hypocrisy.

Now that I have the choice, don’t take it from me.

This service is targeting someone like me, a potential parent who, when given the opportunity to optimize according to my own worldview, will try to give my children the best foundation possible.

Instead of rolling the genetic dice, I’d rather sit with the discomfort of explaining to my children how I scratched at the edge of playing their God.

How do I reckon with this?

I don’t know, but for their sake, I must.

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

This was a beautiful book, full of writing craft which I aspire to match. Deeply emotional, the structure matches form, and it tells a story through the everyday experiences that accumulate into a full portrait of a marriage and family.

🎧 Song: Dissolved Girl by Massive Attack, Sarah Jay Hawley

My Spotify Wrapped said I’m 47 and in the top 0.006% of Massive Attack fans, because I listen to Mezzanine so often. So in that honor, here is my favorite song on that album. No, I’m not that old. The 90’s just had great music.

🪞 Reflection

Alright, I don’t anticipate much agreement or consensus for this week’s essay, but I appreciate sitting in the quagmire with me. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts in the comments.

Most directly, have you encountered any existential choices that you previously thought you wouldn’t make, but have now found solace in explaining how you made them? The idea of parenthood is one that keeps putting my future self on trial.

Also, for more of my meditations on future parenthood check out:

🐦‍⬛ The Murder

A chance to highlight recent posts of others and help you discover more.

A really cool example of support within the Substack fiction community, where Naomi Kanakia reviews Peter Shull’s novel, Why Teach?

Woman of Letters

Why Teach?

During my twenties, my friends would circle constantly circle around the same topic. They would ask, “Should I go for a career that earns money? Or a career that helps people…

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4 months ago · 99 likes · 26 comments · Naomi Kanakia

🪶 Before flying away

♻ If this post resonated with you, restacking it is the best way to share and show support for the publication. Don’t have the Substack app? Feel free to forward it to a friend who may enjoy.

See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some recent posts and personal favorites:

The fake wooden rails creak under the grip of his clammy palms, a dangerous, but more importantly, unsatisfactory state, given he assembled it. “I’m not crazy about that,” he says. It’s his responsibility.

Still at work, his pregnant wife already has enough on her plate. He can build a crib.

Then, why does it creak? His grip tightens. He can do this. He’s about to be a father. This is nothing. He can handle a crib. Is it stable? He shakes it again. Not sure it’s stable. He must test it. Rock it. Twist. Jostle. Shake. Ugh, his wife can’t deal with this right now. Hold your shit together. Fix this.

As his wife steps through the doorway, the crib collapses, thundering through the apartment.

“Hey,” he says, “you’re back early.” A full bracket rests in his hands, dislodged from the crib’s foundation.

“Why did you do that?” His wife says.

“I regret it.”

His own fault. Always is.

Seeing the mess he’s made, his wife ushers him to the couch, lays him down, and rests a cool towel across his forehead. Her whispers soothe the voices in his head, pulling him away from the ledge, yet begin to cut with the edge of “I love you, but why do I have to put up with this.”

My worst nightmare.

When your cognitive design is a hollowed out bowling ball, coated in diamond, housing thousands of reflective, rebounding marbles that feed into an unrelenting cycle of self-talk that demands you keep your shit together, hell is comfort from the people you’re supposed to protect.

Stay calm. You let them down. Breathe through your nose. You failed.

Once you appear to settle down, the marbles just ricochet harder into the feedback loop of silent suffering.

Why can’t you stop breaking things?

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That is hyperbolic, but that is anxiety. It hyperbolizes. Every thought, every observation, amplified, feeding its own voracious appetite for analysis and judgement.

In this early scene of Michael Angarano’s and Chris Smith’s film, Sacramento, Michael Cera plays the fraying husband, depicting the stasis of a man caught in a web of uncertainty and first world problems. Put in perspective, everything is okay, should be okay. Each small failure, every mounting responsibility, is still a problem, his problem, jeopardizing a carefully carved identity: a level-headed, self-sufficient provider. A man. Cope with nostalgia. Avoid through preparation and introspection and dreaming and more preparation, but your narrative will crumble under its own duress.

I got to witness Michael Cera’s brilliant performance in a theater. The audience would giggle at his character’s obsession with what should be trivial inconveniences.

Don’t be so silly. You think too much.

Take an action, any action.

Just get out of your own way!

Around my seat, waves of nearby laughter would compress me into a smaller and smaller ball under my coat, as I watched a mirror of unspoken fears and self-criticism performed on a big screen. What is it like for your angst to be depicted for entertainment, to feel seen, yet invaded at the same time? I cried. Until the credits rolled, I cried.

That night, hood pulled over my head, I left the theater in silence, dissecting my own tension between preparation and paralysis, perception and progress.

Sacramento is sold as a Comedy. It delivers a Horror film, excavating a thin veil of self-confidence among millennial men.

If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome 😀

Dive into some personal favorites:

On the last play of an inconsequential pickup game, my knee couldn’t handle the acute stress at the edges of the bowed legs connected to it. I stopped to swipe at a defender, then I was left prone under the basket. No pop, but I was hobbling with a pain that makes you worry instead of scream.

All I wanted was to make some new friends. NYC can feel lonely, because you know how much potential there is to meet people. The court could provide. Four of my best friends today composed a solid starting five back in the 2010s. We wouldn’t run Rucker Park or anything, but we made a solid combination:

The gentle bruiser,

The squirrely ball handler,

The reliable mid-range shooter,

The pure athlete,

and me, the skinny guy who defended tall people by default, because he could jump high enough to grab the rim.

We hogged courts by beating groups of 35-year-old strangers. Weekends were corporate PowerPoints, ball, and dim sum in the Lower East Side.

Our starting five has since dissolved, gone on to stellar careers, started families, and some even discovered life’s secrets to inner peace. To the contrary, attempting to reignite the spark, I once punched a wall at a basketball court because I couldn’t contain my anger after a foul. The metal rod replacing my metacarpal still chirps that some things aren’t that serious.

Ball just ain’t life for me. It’s a thief.

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Although solitary, running is my true meditation. Not a place to process my thoughts, but a systemic overload of lactic acid and fresh air to block them all out. Add the right musical metronome and the replenishing targets of other runners in Central Park, and you have the recipe for sustained focus. A cure for digitally induced hypnosis. Just leave the apartment.

Meditation has an on-again-off-again relationship with me, but she always take me back, every time, proving I should have never left.

Being out of shape sucks.

New Year’s to Memorial Day, no race to prepare for, no coach in my ear, just me and the feel of my feet against the pavement, I built a foundation. I came within seconds of cresting that 19:00 5K mark. I flirted with a five-minute mile. Cruising, I could toss miles over my shoulder into my back pocket.

Then the errant step in search of some former basketball glory, driven by a need to prove myself, stole my stride. Two weeks in a cane. A month of assuming it would heel. Three months of therapy. I feared a forced retirement from my identity as a runner, an identity which I didn’t realize gave me so much freedom until I couldn’t do it anymore.

But now, the cold air’s been shredding my lungs again, inducing snot in my esophagus, and pumping endorphins to my brain. Worn out hammies and tight hips keep yelling at me to stop sitting so much. I’m listening. We ain’t perfect, but we feeling free. Catch me outside.

Few things feel as alive as passing people in Central Park.

✨ Shiny Things

📚 Novel: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

A lovely friend gifted it to me for my birthday and I blazed through this hilarious book in a few hours. It’s a philosophical doctrine disguised as a sci-fi novel.

🎧 Song: Appetite by Chris Lorenzo

🎥 Video: Real freedom in Central Park

🪞 Reflection

Everyone has hobbies and activities to decompress, but when do you feel the most free, even if alone?

🐦‍⬛ The Murder

A chance to highlight recent posts of others and help you discover more.

Poetically Prosed

When's the last time...

my night didn’t end with my bed? I’m a creature of comfort a slave to threads my waking hours are a tapestry of boredom predictable patterns knitted into marrow tomorrow tires this wheeling about used to be amusing a muse …

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5 months ago · 1 like · Taru Marcellus

Between the Wines

Fear Is Boring

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5 months ago · 8 likes · BB Corcoran

Snaps

Funerals, Strangers, Alcohol and Bagpipes

Gloria I went to the funeral of my boss’s mother last week. I’ve never spent time with my boss outside of work and I never met his mother but I feel like if you get invited to something like that you have to say yes. Gloria was 103. She was loved, that was clear, the room was packed and spilled into the halls of the country club where the event took plac…

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5 months ago · 54 likes · 20 comments · Deirdre Lewis

🪶 Before flying away

Happy Thanksgiving!

See you next Wednesday.

Love,

Wes

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If this is your first time reading Wednesday Wesdom, welcome!

Dive into some bangers: