Week 11 of 2025

I just hit “send” on today’s Second Breakfast newsletter. I hadn’t intended on doing so. I’d announced in Friday’s newsletter that I was going to take the day off to recover from yesterday’s half marathon. But yesterday’s half marathon was so shitty, I guess I had to write it all out of my system.

You can read all the details of the half over there. Oh, does that mean you need to pay for a subscription? Heh. You should do that.

And I realize now that I’ve sat down to write this blog post that I’ve poured so much energy into that essay that I have very little left for this one. That’s a pity because there are a couple of things I really wanted to explore at length here -- like what the hell is happening in the Matlock reboot. I watched a lot of episodes while I was sick with food poisoning, initially drawn to the show simply because of the casting of Kathy Bates as Matlock. I had no idea that it’s actually a revenge fantasy: her character assuming the name and southern mannerisms of the old Andy Griffith TV character so that she can secretly identify the corporate lawyers who were involved in covering up research about the addictiveness of opiates (her daughter died from an opioid overdose).

I also wanted to say something about the importance of friends right now. I had three meeting with friends last week -- two on Zoom and one in person. It’s the thing that’s truly sustaining me right now: other women.

Regular sustenance, of the food sort: I ordered bagels from Kossar’s to coincide with Kin’s return home. I picked up some cookies from Culture Expresso when I was in the neighborhood picking up my bib for the NYC Half. I had a coffee with Erica at Charlotte Cafe. Kin and I had burgers at Lovely’s Old Fashioned -- consistently great. We got dessert at Oasis Cafe, which sadly has become consistently mediocre. Post-race, we went to Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles II, and I inhaled a massive plate of pan-fried noodles with pan-fried tofu. Nothing hits quite like carbs and fat and MSG after a race. For dessert, we stopped into Huascar & Co and I bought two cupcakes and a panetela. I ate the latter, and the cupcakes are definitely beckoning me for tea.

Not sustainable: I canceled a meeting today with some folks who are making a documentary about AI and education. I think it’s going to be yet another hagiography about Sal Khan, and I’m just not interested in being part of this or even being framed in a simplistic “nay-sayer” sort of way. Also: funded by the Koch Brothers? Hard pass. I’ve passed on a couple of “big opportunities” recently for similar sorts of reasons. I guess, as I try to rethink everything, I feel it's important to not scale. Degrowth. Decompute. New motto, of sorts