Week 7 of 2025

I’m not sure if this is a New York thing or 2025 thing, but there are two online influencers -- one with 359K followers and the other with 668K followers on Instagram -- who appear regularly in my offline world: the first at my gym, the second in my ballet class. I don’t see myself as an influencer -- perhaps I associate the word more with creating video than written content. I don’t like thinking of myself as a “content creator” either; writing feels like much more than “content,” and the act of writing -- bound up in reading and thinking and writing and rewriting -- doesn’t feel much like “creation” either. But I try very hard, particularly now that I see these two influencers so often (and see them working, to be clear), not to feel disdain -- it’s not them, right? It’s the system. It’s the pressure to be an Internet entrepreneur in some shape or form, now that every other social safety net is being dismantled before our eyes (and has been, to be clear, since Al Gore invented the Internet).

I went up to the gym influencer today and told him that I’d started watching his videos -- they’re great. He’s a former NFL player and they’re aimed mostly at the kind of strength and agility needed to catch a football and run like hell. But I know that plyometrics are something I should incorporate more into my own workouts -- power, not just strength, is something you lose with age. But I find jumping, particularly up onto the plyo box or over hurdles, to be terrifying. Watching his videos -- watching him pop up into the air -- is at once unnerving and encouraging. I introduced myself to him today, and he said “I see you putting in the work.” And I felt like that kid who handed Mean Joe Greene the Dr. Pepper. I was elated.

The person in my ballet class is far less approachable. Her Internet persona is very much focused on her story -- unlike my gym friend, she’s not a coach -- and even when she’s not filming (she’s never filmed in our class, thank god) she exudes a kind of aloofness that makes me uneasy. One week, our teacher paired us up to dance the waltz, and I could tell she was mad as hell as she’s one of the better dancers and, well, it is called “Absolute Beginner Ballet” for a reason, right?

I’m thinking about all these forms of performance -- dancing, running, writing, video making -- as I was on the radio last night, on Leonie Haimson’s “Talk Out of School” show on WBAI. I want to get better at “live” as I far prefer relying on “scripted” -- I see myself as a writer, not a speaker, I guess. Some of this involves just boosting my confidence that what I’m going to say is smart and worthwhile, that I do indeed know what I’m talking about. (Leonie asked me to explain generative AI last night, how it was different from earlier forms of AI, and woof. I need to come up with a better answer to that question.)

Confidence. It’s such a strange thing. Even if you know you can do something, even you’ve totally prepared yourself for the undertaking, the task can still seem so daunting. I ran the farthest I’ve ever run on Saturday -- two full laps of Central Park, with a little tacked on to the end to hit 14.8 miles. It actually wasn’t so bad at all, even towards the end -- I felt really really strong. (That is, until I got home and saw that the elevator was out.) But I’d still spent much of the week worried about the run -- not even necessarily if I could do it or not. Just worried, just lacking full confidence in my ability. I had a similar thought this morning when I loaded all the weight onto the barbell for my top set of deadlifts -- the same weight I lifted last week. But still I sort of balked.

Kin and I are listening to the audiobook of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. I find the way that both he and Hannah Arendt write with such devastating precision and clarity to be exhilarating. But I appreciate too this gulf between their awkwardness -- seen sometimes in interviews -- and their confidence -- also seen in interviews but certainly manifest in their prose.

And then there’s the confidence of the decidedly dull men who are taking a wrecking ball to democracy. But I don’t want to write about that here. That’s the writing of my day job; my blog is meant for other explorations.

We found a new bagel place this week, still saddened by the closure of Absolute Bagels (and not fully satisfied with the ones we ordered from Ess-a-Bagel a couple of weeks ago). This new batch, from Kossar’’s Bakery & Bialys on the UWS, were great. I’d go as far as saying that the cinnamon raisin bagel with the cinnamon raisin cream cheese was the best I’ve had. I’ll try a sesame one tomorrow after my speed workout.

Again, with the shaky confidence -- I’m nervous about that workout. I’m still quite frustrated with my Garmin watch situation, which is particularly annoying when I’m trying to do intervals. I have 6 x 1-mile interval repeats, followed by 3 x 200-meters (with a 20 minute warm up and 20 minute cooldown) tomorrow, which I’ll do on the treadmill (because of the cold and the wind). But the treadmill and the watch do not match at all; nor does the new watch match what the old watch used to say my speed was at a particular treadmill setting. So tomorrow’s run could be 14 miles, could be more could be less. Who knows.

I mean, I know I can do it, regardless. Thankfully, there’s no need for me to make a video of the struggle. Thank goodness, I'm a writer. Speaking of which, here are this week's Second Breakfast offerings: "Discrimination Engines" and "Broken Webs of Knowledge." I can almost say I'm feeling pretty confident with my writing. Almost.