Moral Luck Sucks

Every once in awhile, I fall into a deep, existential panic over the concept of moral luck.

Moral luck, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "occurs when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of moral judgment despite the fact that a significant aspect of what she is assessed for depends on factors beyond her control." It presses against a very common intuition, which is that we should not be held accountable for things that we did not choose or which are out of our control (i.e., the products of "bad luck").

For example, suppose two drivers each strike and kill a pedestrian. One did so after carelessly running a stop sign. The other was driving perfectly carefully, but a pedestrian happened to jump out on the street and was struck. The first driver we generally agree can be held liable, often even criminally liable; the second driver we do not, because the former made a bad choice (driving carelessly) while the latter did not.

But here's the thing -- all of us, even those of us who are generally good drivers, have probably run a stop sign at some point in our lives. I have, and I've gotten a grand total of one traffic ticket in my entire life.* 

Do you know what happened the time I ran a stop sign?

Nothing. Nobody was killed or hurt or frankly even noticed. Which is the case 99% of the time people run stop signs. It is a very unlucky 1% who run a stop sign exactly when a car or pedestrian is crossing as well and seriously hurt someone. Again, unlucky.  It is not in the driver's control whether someone jumps out into the street or not. Yes, the more often one runs a stop sign the more one plays the odds. But ultimately, it is purely a matter of luck that I was in the 99% that hurt nobody, versus someone else who hurt someone. Yet that pure luck distinguishes someone whom, at best, we might say deserves a $100 ticket from someone we'd say deservedly should spend decades in jail for vehicular manslaughter.

And that thought makes me dizzy. I'm very much a rule follower. Other than that one traffic ticket, I've never been involved with the law in any way, shape, or form. And yet, it is just a matter of good fortune that I -- living the exact life I've lived and making the exact choices I, the consummate rule-follower, made -- could have been sent to prison for decades with nobody thinking it at all unjust.

No moral to the story. Just sharing a thought that's responsible for this month's bout of insomnia.

* It was for an illegal right turn while driving to school. The route from my house to school included a right turn on a street with a "no right turn" sign operative from 7 AM - 9:30 AM. That didn't affect me, though, because I drove to school at 6 AM. But one day there was a two-hour snow delay, so instead of driving at 6 AM, I was driving an 8 AM. A cop posted up on the corner and probably bagged half the senior class. Yes, I'm still salty about this.

There's a Print Club, and I'm In It

 

As some of you know, my recent hobby-obsession is art collecting. And while I don't limit myself to one particular medium, to the extent I have a concentration, it's on prints.

Being the self-reflective sort, I wondered why editioned prints in particular appeal to me so much. The standard "pitch" for prints is that they are a cheaper and more accessible point of entry into the fine art world than other mediums. We've talked before about how the same A-tier artists whose paintings go for a million dollars-plus have editions available you can snag for a thousand dollars or less.

Being a cost-conscious sort (and certainly not a megamillionaire), that's definitely playing a role. But there are some other things I like about prints in particular.

One is that prints are limited editions, but not one-of-a-kind. People who are purists about paintings over prints often harp on the uniqueness of the former. But I actually kind of like the communal aspect of sharing in a particular work -- at least, to a limited extent. A club that anyone can join is pointless, but a club that only has one member is pretty boring. Print ownership is like being part of an exclusive but still interesting club.

For example, the image pictured above is an etching I recently acquired by Leonard Baskin, titled "Artemis". In addition to his "regular" artistic career, Baskin founded and owned the Gehenna Press, which published limited edition fine arts books. One such book was an edition of the Greek tragedy Hippolytus, of which only 200 copies were made, and included with the book were ten illustrations, "Artemis" being one of them. Outside those 200, Baskin created a supplemental edition of 90, which is where my copy comes from. So 290 total -- not too many, in the scheme of things. And even better is who else is in that small circle. For "Artemis", I now know that a piece on my wall also is in the collection of (among other locales) the Delaware Art Museum and the Cornell University Art Museum. That's pretty neat! I won't claim that all or even most of the works I own are represented in museums, but I do have pieces that also are found in the National Gallery of Art, the Walker, the National Gallery of Australia, and Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum. That's a pretty good club to be a member of!

And lest we find all this talk of museums and exclusive clubs a bit too posh, there's a related phenomenon that I am quite sure plays a large role in my love for prints: they're numbered. "Artemis", for instance, is numbered 68/90 (the 68th example from the edition of 90). And I love those numbers.

Why? Well, you see, long before I was an art collector, I was a baseball card collector. That was my big childhood hobby, and while I've long since gotten out of that game, I still have my old collection. Interestingly, even as a child one of my favorite things to collect were vintage cards from the 1950s and 60s. But in terms of contemporary cards, the coolest ones were the rare inserts. And the coolest of the inserts were the cards with an individual serial number.

We in the baseball card collecting biz were very naive when this started to become a thing. The 1998 SPx Finite set's common cards were individually numbered to 9000 -- huge, by art world standards, but I remember thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. And of course, some cards were rarer, and some were a lot rarer. I have a Greg Maddux numbered to 11 and a Scott Rolen numbered to 25 that I kept in a bank deposit box for decades, less because of their value than because I was freaked out at the prospect of losing them.

Anyway, the point is that seeing a limited edition print numbered X of Y pulls on a deep, deep well of childhood excitement and enthusiasm and nostalgia. A painting may be unique, but it doesn't have the number attached to it. And while that might not be the most sophisticated impetus for a collecting interest, I think there are worse grounds for a building a hobby than that.

Hand Foot Mouth Cock Sacky, Part II

Nathaniel has been sent home from daycare again, with suspected hand foot and mouth disease (aka coxsackie). As you may recall, he had this back in January. As you may also recall, I also had this back in January, with much more severe symptoms.

The timing is ... interesting. My parents were here to visit and literally left this morning. In fact, they were still at PDX airport when we got the call. I admit, my first thought was "great -- Nathaniel's sent home right when we lose extra babysitting." With a little time to reflect, I begrudgingly concluded that it was probably better that my seventy-five-year-old parents were not in our house with a highly contagious disease floating about.

As for Nathaniel, I don't begrudge him getting coxsackie again. He is a baby and his immune system is puny and weak. My immune system, by contrast, is strong and virile, and so I should resist the disease much better this time -- right?

We'll see. Right now, half of my brain is interpreting every twinge and ache as a blister that's about to burst forth, while the other half is wishfully insisting that these symptoms are entirely psychosomatic. I guess we'll know for sure in a few days. Hopefully, I don't nearly pass out in any public places this time.

Family in Paris: It's Getting Hotter

I am back from Paris. It was very hot. And I need to vent.

Before I do so, I want to stress that we had plenty of fun on this trip. When I told my mom I was invited to present at the Critical Theories of Antisemitism conference, she seized the opportunity to organize a whole family vacation around the trip, including my parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter (who's six months younger than Nathaniel). And as far as that project is concerned, it was great. We saw a lot of neat things, and more importantly, we got to spend time together as a family.

But on the travel side of traveling, boy did we get rogered.

As a quick point of reference, here was what the plan was, travel-wise:

• June 12: Depart PDX for Chicago O'Hare, then continue onward to Paris.
• June 13: Land in Paris.
• June 13-17: Stay all together as a family in an AirBnb in Passy
• June 17: Brother and his family leave for wine country.
• June 17-20: Parents and our family go to an AirBnb in the Marais while I attend the conference.
• June 20: Parents leave for Normandy.
• June 20-24: Jill, Nathaniel and I go to a hotel in Montparnasse for the remainder of the trip.
• June 24: Fly home (via O'Hare), arriving in PDX at 9:30 PM.

With that said, here's the actual blow-by-blow.

June 12

• We arrive at the airport three hours early for our international flight, scheduled to depart at 1:45 PM. As soon as we get to the ticketing desk, we learn that our flight to Chicago has been delayed such that we'll miss our connection to Paris. The woman at the desk tries to rebook us on another flight.
• We spend three hours at the airport perpetually almost being booked on another flight. At one point she told us to run to the Delta counter to check our bags for a flight leaving in 40 minutes, only for that flight to get delayed (and thus make our connection impossible). Nathaniel is a good sport for most of this, but by the third hour he's starting to get understandably cranky.
• Eventually, the agent gives up and tells us to call a phone number. The earliest we can get rebooked? 7:30 PM ... the next evening (through Heathrow). It will get us to Paris a full thirty hours later than scheduled.
• We go home.

June 13

• I hear it might be a bit warm in Paris, so I decide to use the extra day to get a quick haircut. I'm so excited, I accidentally back out of our garage before the garage door actually, you know, opens. Now it won't close. Oops. No time to deal with that.
• We get a worried text from our neighbor who noticed our garage door was open. Aren't we supposed to be on vacation? That stung.
• Off to the airport (we manually closed the garage door before we left)! We've actually done the PDX-Heathrow flight before with Nathaniel before, so we're optimistic. And it pays off -- he sleeps through most of the flight! Way to go champ!

June 14

• We land in Heathrow. There is a tram to take us from where we land to the main terminal.
• Just kidding: the tram is out of service. We have to walk the entire distance.
• We get to our departure gate, which is actually apparently a bus depot. And given how long the bus ride to the airplane took, I think our plane may have actually been on a runway in Gatwick.
• We get to our plane. While we've purchased a seat for Nathaniel so he doesn't have to sit in our laps, the gate agent tells us that our car seat won't fit in the plane seat and we'll need to gate check it (along with our stroller, which we had already been gate checking).
• We board the plane and reach our aisle. The flight attendant is confused as to why we don't have a car seat, since it would absolutely fit on the plane.
• We land in Paris. Our "gate checked" stroller and car seat are not gate checked at all but are sent to regular baggage claim.
• Finally we reach the AirBnb 30 hours later than expected. My parents had hired a private chef to cook dinner from us; he's in the middle of serving when we arrive. It looks delicious but we're too tired to really appreciate it. It is a warm evening, but it will get hotter.

June 15-17

• We spend several quality days together as a family. I take the metro to a bunch of art galleries and auction houses (including one that had a very neat preview of a chateau's collection being auctioned off), then walk to the Arc de Triomphe. 
• It is getting hotter.

June 17

• Brother, sister-in-law, and niece all say goodbye, while the rest of us travel to an AirBnb in the Marais. The apartment has two main levels (not including a terrifying basement we don't mess with). The bottom level has two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. The upper level has a spacious kitchen and living room, all as one space. The problem is that the crib will literally only fit in the upper level, meaning that once Nathaniel goes to sleep we're all trapped in our hobbit hole bedrooms from dusk till dawn.
• I spend the day visiting art galleries. It is a lot of fun.
• It is getting hotter.

June 18-19

• I attend my conference, which is very nice, and my parents are able to watch Nathaniel so Jill can have some personal time as well.
• We book a time at an indoor petting zoo near our next hotel in Montparnasse, since that seems like a fun activity to do with Nathaniel.
• It is getting hotter. News reports speak of a generational heatwave making headlines around the world, with temperatures into the 90s and still rising. Paris is in a state of declared emergency.

June 19

• Our last night in the Marais. We are ready to check out of the AirBnb in the morning and move to our final stay location, the voco Paris Montparnasse, while my parents depart for Normandy.
• At 10 PM, we receive a message from the hotel that the air conditioning is broken. They suggest calling them for compensation and assistance rebooking.
• We call them. Nobody answers. The hotel may not even be open, as it is getting hotter.
• Scrambling, we book a new hotel near the Opera. It is almost three times as expensive as the old hotel -- which is what happens when you book on eight hours notice in the midst of a generational heatwave. Luckily, the email from voco suggested they'd provide compensation.

June 20

• We check into our new hotel. The people there are lovely and we really like the neighborhood. I decide to spend the day with the family to ensure we get settled rather than attend the last day of the conference. In spite of everything, I'm glad to be at this new hotel, particularly given their robust assurances that their air conditioning was in top-notch condition.
• On the other hand, Nathaniel learned how to whine today when he doesn't get what he wants. Literally -- it was a milestone discovered mid-trip. How lucky for us.
• I do go to the conference closing dinner in Montmartre. I consider not going, because I am very tired and it is getting hotter, but I decide to attend. By sheer exhaustion-related luck, I elect to Uber to the restaurant rather than take the metro, which turns out to be exceptionally wise as the restaurant is up a mountain of steps from the closest metro stop and the temperature is now approaching 100 degrees. Disaster averted.

June 21

• Conference is over -- now it's just family time! We decide to go to the petting zoo anyway, even though it is nowhere near our new hotel. It is a lot of fun, though it was extremely hot waiting outside on the building waiting for it to open.
• It is getting hotter.

June 22

• We finally get in contact with the voco to discuss compensation. We ask to be paid the difference in rates between the hotels, since we had to rebook at the last minute. The man at the desk is confused as to why our new hotel costs so much, and says that had we called him, he could've found a hotel for much less money, so no, he will not reimburse us for the difference. After all, what if we had booked the Ritz Carlton?
• We point out that we did not book the Ritz Carlton, that the reason the new hotel was more expensive was because it was last-minute in the midst of a historic heat wave, and that we tried to call the original hotel and nobody answered so we were forced to do our best. These are apparently not persuasive arguments. There will be no reimbursement.
• Defeated, we decide to see the Calder exhibit at the Louis Vuitton Fondation. It is fantastic, and more importantly, extremely well air-conditioned, which is important because it is getting hotter.

June 23

• It's our last full day in Paris. We have some ideas for some things to do, but ultimately we decide to stay close to the hotel and its air conditioning. It is the hottest it has been the entire trip -- over 100 degrees.

June 24

• Time to go home! We leave for Charles de Gaulle at 10 AM. Today will be even hotter than yesterday, but thankfully we'll leave before the temperature peaks.
• Our flight to Chicago takes off on time. But Nathaniel -- who has always been fantastic on flights and has really been a rock star this entire trip -- decides that our luck has run out. He screams for the first third of the journey, then for the second third decides he needs to run up and down the aisle. Finally he sleeps a little bit for the final hour (but starts screaming again during the landing).
• We arrive in Chicago forty minutes early, and we have a three-hour layover. How lucky for us! We can relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, even grab some dinner. We just have to get through customs, pick up our checked bags, recheck our checked bags, and go back through security.
• Customs line stretches approximately back to Wisconsin. A nice official spots us and moves us up in the line (thanks Nathaniel), but then the customs agent checking people at the front of said line goes on break and isn't replaced. The line stops. It's been an hour since we landed.
• Finally reach the customs agent, who is very interested in exactly what sort of "academic conference" I was attending in Paris. I debate whether telling him I was at a conference on "global antisemitism" will make it more or less likely I'll be thrown into a prison camp. Land of the free, baby!
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out there were two flights arriving from Paris at the same time, and this was the other one. We sheepishly move to the correct baggage carousel.
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out someone took them off the carousel while we were at the wrong one and set them aside. We sheepishly gather our bags and then immediately recheck them. This process feels gratuitous. It's been two hours since we landed.
• There is a tram to get from the international to the domestic gates. It is up a flight of stairs. There is one elevator with a capacity of approximately 1.5 people, which moves at a speed best described as "glacial", and a line of twelve people in wheelchairs in front of us. We decide to take an escalator, studiously staring upward to avoid seeing any signs suggesting strollers can't go on escalators.
• After the tram and two more elevator rides, we get back into a long security line. By the time we reach the front, it has been three hours since we landed. We arrive at the gate fifteen minutes before boarding, having had no time to relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, or grab dinner. My eye is feeling irritated.
• We board the plane. The plane then sits delayed on the tarmac for an hour. My eye is getting worse, and starts exploding with tears. Fortunately, being absolutely exhausted and being unable to open my eye without excruciating pain synergize surprisingly well, and I sleep through most of the flight. Even better, so does Nathaniel.
• We arrive in Portland a mere hour late (better than thirty hours, amirite?). Grab our bags, grab a taxi, get home before midnight. Remember we need to call someone in the morning to fix the garage door. Go to bed. Pray that Nathaniel approximates sleeping through the night (he does, but only because he doesn't fall asleep until two AM).

Fin.

Mal Voyage

Greetings from Portland!

That's not a sentence I wanted to write. If things had gone to plan today, Jill, Nathaniel and I would be en route to Paris right now. But a delay on our first flight meant we were going to miss our connection in Chicago, and from there the day devolved into three hours of camping in front of an American Airlines agent as she strove unsuccessfully to find us any alternative flights. 

There were several occasions where we almost got booked on a flight to London, but then we kept being kicked out. But the most comical sequence came in attempting to get us on a flight to San Francisco (to London, to Paris). The timing was tight, since by the time we got around to that solution the flight was leaving in forty minutes (of course, we had been at the airport for almost two hours at that point). So the gate agent told Jill to get in line at the United booth so we could check our bags immediately in the event she was able to get us on the flight. Which she was able to do ... until she wasn't ... and then she was again ... and then she wasn't ... and then she was. And I have a corresponding text chain with Jill where I tell her to come back ... no stay in line! ... wait, no, come back--DON'T COME BACK GET BACK THERE!

And after all of that, the San Francisco flight was delayed too, so we wouldn't make the London connection.

After three hours, we gave up and rebooked a flight tomorrow evening to London and then onward to Charles de Gaulle, which will get us in a scant thirty hours later than scheduled. Huzzah.

A few bits of silver lining. 

1. We'll be able to sleep in tomorrow morning.
2. We've actually done this Portland --> London flight before, and Nathaniel did great on it. To be sure, five months old and seventeen months old are very different in terms of travel experience. But Nathaniel is a phenomenal sleeper and the flight is a red-eye, so we're optimistic.
3. And speaking of Nathaniel, he did pretty great all told. Most of the time we were at the airport, he was cheery and climbing around and generally a happy camper. By the end -- when we had blown past lunch time (we gave him snacks) and nap time -- he was understandably starting to get a bit cranky. But he instantly fell asleep on the Lyft ride home (which again augurs well for sleeping on the plane).

Anyway, the trip is off to an inauspicious start. Here's hoping tomorrow goes better.

First Last Day of "School"

It was Nathaniel's last day of school today.

Now, there are a lot of asterisks around that statement.

First, he didn't attend for the full year. He started in January, and didn't move to his current class for a few months after that.

Second, he's not even 18 months. What is "school", compared to "daycare"?

Third, he's coming back to the same place for summer camp in a few weeks. And related to the above, for an 18-month old, what is the difference between "school" and "camp"?

But even with all of those caveats, I am verklempt. He is positively thriving, and it is a joy to see. He's confident and he's active and he's learning and growing at an incredible rate. Picking a preschool/daycare felt extremely high stakes -- probably higher than it actually is -- but to the extent there was a "right" choice, boy did we ever make it.

And yeah, sometimes he’s a bit tuckered out. But that’s okay too.

So proud of my guy!

How To Be Honored By Friends

I've occasionally commented on the weird "honors" I get from nutty lunatics who hate me. Sure, they're extreme, and sure, they openly detest me, and sure, they probably are mentally ill. But on the other hand, do my friends place me in a group of some of the most illustrious legal scholars of the 21st century? Do my friends dedicate whole websites to declaring me a "disgusting Zionist punk" (it's still up!)? My enemies, I've often quipped, seem to have a far higher opinion of me than my so-called friends do!

It is in that light, though, that I'm especially pleased about two presentations I gave over the past week -- the first at the Washington State Judiciary's appellate conference, and the second at Reed College. Both talks were wonderful in their own right. But it was equally exciting who I shared the program with. In Washington, I followed directly after none other than Erwin Chemerinsky. And at Reed, I was part of a "free speech" program headlined by Cass Sunstein. Those are pretty big names -- ones fit, I daresay, for even the most discerning ramble from a damaged personality blasting off email screeds about Jewish perfidy.

So thanks to all my friends and supporters, for finally catching up to my enemies. I'm profoundly grateful.

(But in all seriousness -- I am profoundly grateful. It is awe-inspiring to seriously keep company like that).

Food Poisoning

I had food poisoning this weekend. Did I miss anything important?

I was all ready to write a very TMI blog post regaling you with the dirty details of my day -- which was exactly as miserable you might expect -- but I finally thought better of it. I will relay one story though (Yeah, it's a little gross. Feel free to skip this one).

As you know, when you throw up you can sometimes taste what food item it is that's coming back up. For me, last night, it was a donut.

At first, I was annoyed that that was what was being regurgitated. What a waste of a perfectly good donut!

But then I thought (and this was all occurring while I was hunched over the toilet), "well, if I have to throw up anything, isn't the donut the best thing to throw up? After all I already tasted and enjoyed it -- that's the fun part! All that's happening now is I skip the nutritional impact!"

And I was very pleased with myself for approximately two seconds, before I realized that I just invented an eating disorder from first principles. Whoops.

(Later in the day it happened again -- I was marveling at the fact that stuff kept coming out of me even as I wasn't putting any food into me, and I caught myself wondering how much weight I must have lost over the course of the day. The answer was: less than you'd think! Becoming violently ill is in fact not a good weight loss strategy, to say nothing of a general healthy living strategy, and I don't recommend it at all!).

Promotion

Yesterday, I was informed that the Lewis & Clark Law School faculty had voted to grant me tenure.

Also this week, Nathaniel's preschool wrote to tell us that he was ready to be moved up to the next age group.

Both pieces of news are, of course, very exciting, and very emotional.

For me, this has been the culmination of literally twenty-five years of work. I first knew I wanted to be a law professor in high school, when I had the good fortune of being on the debate team with a friend whose father taught law at Georgetown. It was soon very apparent that he had the job I wanted. He got to think interesting thoughts for a living. How cool was that! That's what I wanted to do!

Becoming a law professor was my ambition. And that was a big deal, because I didn't (and don't) really see myself as an ambitious person. For the most part, I'm a pretty content person. I'm happy with what I have. To really want something is fraught. You might not get it. And my pursuit of an academic job reflects that -- I went on the entry-level job market five times before I finally got a job offer. The preceding years were full of one heartbreak after another. I had jobs change requirements in the middle of the interview process. I had one school interview me on three separate years, advancing me to the final stage of the process twice, and then both times end up pulling the hiring line altogether days before the actual vote for budgetary or internal-politics reasons. I had schools in dream locations or with dream program setups where I was the runner-up. And I had years where I didn't get any callbacks at all.

It was maddening. I knew this was what I was meant to do. I knew this was the only job that would make me happy. And I knew that I was qualified. I had an outstanding academic record, a solid clerkship, legitimate teaching experience, and a lengthy publication record featuring articles in some stellar journals. None of this entitled me to a job, of course. But I knew I wasn't delusional in thinking I should have been competitive for one. People often stressed how much getting an academic job was a matter of luck. I know even more now that this is entirely true (I've said that serving on the appointments committee here at Lewis & Clark has been equal parts cathartic and retraumatizing, because peering inside the black box one gets a sense for how random and arbitrary this whole process can be). And while at one level that was meant to be comforting -- it's not you, it's the cosmos -- for the most part feeling like "well, I guess the universe hates me" wasn't comforting at all.

Words cannot express how low I got in the midst of my years of unsuccessful attempts. In fact, I have a distinct memory of being absolutely miserable at the conclusion of yet another heartbreaking hiring cycle and swearing that, no matter what eventually happened or how things might play out in the years that follow, my future self would never say "but it worked out for the best."

I won't betray my past self's promise. Maybe I'd be equally happy if I had gotten an academic job the first time around and never went through this rigamarole. But what I can say is that I am incredibly happy, and incredibly lucky, and incredibly fortunate to be at this school and in this city, with these colleagues and living this life. At the end of the day, there aren't many people who can honestly say they're living their dream, and I am.

And speaking of dreams, let's turn to Nathaniel's own big promotion.

The message wasn't surprising. Nathaniel was by far the oldest in the "infants" room and was already walking (and starting to kind of say a few words). In fact, Jill and I had talked about broaching the subject of when he should be moved up just a few days before we got the email from school. Nathaniel was ready for new stimulation and new challenges. He'll go from being the oldest kid in his class to the youngest, which will be an adjustment, but it will also be how he learns. He's already had a few sojourns into the new "Cats" class (he's currently an "Owl") and has gotten along well with the older kids. They're going to ease him in over the next few days, but it's time to make the move.

Weirdly, I've felt even more emotional about this than my own tenure vote (though in the latter case, the lack of emotion may be due to no small measure of disassociation during the runup). One of the things I was most worried about in becoming a new father was sentimentality. For my entire life (childhood and adulthood), I've been someone who gets very sentimental about change. I don't like it. I get comfortable where I am, and don't want to let it go. I still have all my childhood stuffed animals in a box (and thought of losing them in any way still is the fastest way to spur an emotional breakdown). I was devastated when my parents sold my childhood home. I had a panic attack around seventh grade because I was scared of growing up. It's a whole thing. And the thing about raising a kid is -- they're non-stop change! They outgrow things, they move past things, they transcend things. Everyone says to get excited about the growth, but I knew myself, and my propensity would absolutely be to fixate on the loss. I was sincerely very, very worried about this.

The good news has been that I've done way, way better than I ever could have anticipated on the "adjusting to change" front. A huge part of this is attributable to Nathaniel, who has handled every major adjustment with aplomb. Bassinet to crib? No problem. Dropping bottles? Barely noticed. Going to daycare after staying at home with mom and dad? Easy-peasy. He's a remarkably mellow and resilient guy, which makes it easier for me to be resilient too. (One of his teachers once wrote a message speaking of Nathaniel's "quiet dignity", which is an objectively hilarious way to describe a baby).

Anyway, for whatever reason this "graduation" hit me a little harder than the prior transitions I've rolled with. He's growing up so fast (in fairness, this one doesn't just "feel" fast, it is fast -- he's only been in his program for three months)! And while I know he can't stay in the infants room forever, for someone like me, who's seen his baby thriving in his current position, it always feels fraught to move him somewhere new. What if he doesn't like it? What if he misses his old teachers? What if he gets scared? All the questions every parent worries about (and one thing I love about sending him to this school is that the teachers and staff have seen it all before -- they'll know what to do). I suspect that three weeks from now, when Nathaniel is all settled in and thriving as he always does, I'll feel fine.

Regardless, there is something special about sharing this big promotion together. He's taking his big step up, and I'm taking my big step up. How lucky I am, to get to experience this moment of growth from both vantage points.

The 1001 Faces of the Permacold

Nathaniel is in daycare, and I have a cold.

This is a sentence that is true today, was true the first week we sent Nathaniel to daycare, and has been true virtually every day in between.

I had heard about the permacold -- that as a parent you just spend the first X number of years of your child's life sick as he brings every single mildly transferable virus home with him. I had heard about it, but didn't quite believe it. Nathaniel stayed home with us for his first year, so he wasn't really affected, and so neither were we. It was all rumor and legend. And just as we miraculously missed the travails of having a baby who wouldn't stay asleep, maybe we'd miss this too. Maybe all the terribles of raising a little one are rumors and exaggeration!

Nope. This one hit. And the interesting bit about the permacold is that it makes you vividly aware of all the different types of colds one can have (because one is essentially speed-running them in a rapid and never-ending cycle). Sometimes you have a dry cough, and sometimes it's a productive cough. Sometimes you're congested beyond belief, and sometimes your nose won't stop running. Sometimes your throat is scratchy, and sometimes it's swollen. Sometimes your teeth hurt, and sometimes you snore just from breathing. It's not that any of these symptoms are novel or unfamiliar, exactly. It's just that normally they're spaced out weeks or months apart. To oscillate between all of them in 24 hour shifts is very disorienting.

And the bonus irony is that Nathaniel is basically unaffected by any of the diseases he vectors into the house. He coughs and sneezes and has a runny nose, but it never really bothers him all that much. It's mom and dad who are shambling around the house like the night of the living dead. Even when he gets sent home from daycare for something more serious, like pink eye or hand-foot-mouth disease, we're the ones who really end up suffering while his behavior barely changes at all. Objectively, I know that's far better than the alternative. Subjectively, it's tough not to feel a twinge resentful.

Jill was out tonight to see a play, so I got to put Nathaniel to bed (Jill and I share the nighttime routine, but the very last part of it is Jill's time). He hadn't gotten the best nap in (and the nap was late -- from 4:15 - 5:15), so I was a bit nervous. But I did my best solo version of the nighttime winddown process, and Nathaniel was very obliging. I gave him his kisses and told him how much I loved him, and he snuggled up against me and rested his head on my chest. I put him down to sleep, and he went right down, and all is right in the world -- no matter how much I cough.

David's First Math Problem

Last night, I had a math problem.

Sort of. Not really. I'm not saying it's a hard math problem, or an interesting math problem. It may be a profoundly weird way to look at a math problem, and the way I solved it may be a really silly and convoluted solution to the math problem. But it stuck with me until I just had to tackle it -- and I haven't done any real math in about twenty years.

Okay, let's get to it.

At an auction, the amount an item sells for is known as the "hammer price". But it is not necessarily the case that either the buyer pays, or the seller receives, the hammer price. Rather, there is both a buyer's premium (BP) and a seller's premium (SP) that is calculated as a percentage of the hammer. The buyer pays the hammer plus the BP; the seller receives the hammer minus the SP. In other words:

• Final buyer's price = Hammer + (Hammer x BP)
• Final seller's return = Hammer - (Hammer x SP)

Imagine two different auction premium models. In the first, the buyer pays no premium (BP = 0), and the seller pays a premium of 50% (SP = .5). In the second, the buyer pays a premium of 30% (BP = .3) and the seller plays a premium of 20% (SP = .2). Assuming the final buyer's price remains constant, which model is better for the seller?*

The answer is obviously the second -- but not by as much as might appear at first glance. Since the buyer pays no premium in the first model, they'll pay a higher hammer price than in the second, which partially offsets the first model's higher seller's premium. It's just not enough. To give an example, for a buyer willing to pay $130 for an item:

• In model one, the item would hammer for $130 (130 + (130 x 0)). The seller would get half of that, or $65 (130 - (130 x .5).
• In model two, the item would hammer for $100 to yield the same final buyer's price of $130 (100 + (100 x .3)). The seller would get 80% of the $100 hammer, or $80 (100 - (.2 x 100)).

So model two is better than model one for the seller by a ratio of 16/13 (80/65 = 160/130 = 16/13).

That was not the math problem.

I looked at that number: 16/13. And I thought, that's an ugly number. It expresses out to 1.23076923077 -- yuck!** Moreover, it's an ugly number that, at first glance, has relatively little to do with the relatively nice numbers we saw in the inputs -- .3, .2, .5. Where on earth did 16/13 come from?

16/13, I knew, was not just the ratio that applied to the particular example buyer's price I chose ($130). It was the ratio for any buyer's final price fed into these two premium models. The seller's return would always be 16/13 times higher in model two compared to model one.

What I wanted was (and this was the math problem) was to write some sort of equation or proof that would spit out that ugly 16/13 number, not just for one particular buyer's price but generally.

Now all of this thinking occurred last night, in bed, right around when the daylight's savings time switch happened. It was pretty unproductive.

But this afternoon, I decided to actually take out a pen and paper and really see if I could do this. Here were my steps.

Fb = Final Buyer's Price

Fs = Final Seller's return

H = Hammer.

(1) Fb1 = H + (H x 0) = H

(2) Fs1 = H - (H x .5) = Fb1 - (Fb1 x .5) = .5Fb1

Since The Final Buyer's Price in the first model is just the hammer, we can substitute it in for the hammer in calculating the first model's Final Seller's Return. The Seller pays a 50% premium, so they receive half the Final Buyer's Return aka half the hammer price.

(3) Fb2 = H + (H x .3) = 1.3H

(4) 10Fb2 = 13H, divide both by 13 --> (10/13)Fb2 = H

Not as neat as the first model, but that also lets us express H as a function of Fb2.

(5) Fs2 = H - (H x .2) = .8H

(6) Fs2 = .8((10/13)Fb2 = (8/13)Fb2

(7) Fs2 = (8/13)Fb2 and Fs1 = (1/2)Fb1.

But by stipulation, Fb1 and Fb2 are the same (the buyer is paying the same final price in each model). Meaning:

(8) The ratio of Fs2/Fs1 = (8/13)/(1/2), multiply those by 2 and you get (16/13)/1, or just 16/13.

Tada!

And listen: maybe you're good at math. Maybe you do math all the time. I'm not and I don't. I did not enjoy math in school, and I have generally avoided math as an adult. Indeed, I've written about my complex relationship with my own math educational trajectory, which while not exactly a tragedy was not exactly a triumphant tale either. So I felt very good about being able to work this out, and to stretch some muscles that had lain dormant for quite some time -- even though to be honest I'm still not entirely sure why this particular hypothetical sunk its claws into me so.

Yay me!

* If you're wondering where these two "models" came from, model two represents the rough premiums charged by a standard commercial auction house, and model one represents a charity auction where returns are split 50/50 between the consigner and the charity beneficiary. My initial inquiry was to ask just how much the consigner is losing by doing the charity auction (with the answer being "they are losing, but not as much as they might think upon seeing that steep 50% seller's premium").

** In hindsight, while writing this post, I realized that just by flipping the ratio -- 13/16 -- it would be at least a little less ugly (13/16 = .8125).

The Big 4-0

I turned 40 yesterday.

As in so many things, my emotions are a mix of "the world is a trainwreck" and "my very narrow slice of it is great." I have a great job, a great family, a great house in a great city. I'm raising a great baby. I'm financially secure. If the looming specter of fascism wasn't darkening my doorstep, I'd have no complaints at all!

My wife turns 40 later this year, and she has for quite some time now been insistent that her forties will be her best decade. I've never been quite as convinced that same will be true for me. It is cliche to say "I don't feel forty; I still feel young" -- but I do. Not, you know, in terms of being able to ski or stay out late or not have random body parts start hurting for unknown reasons. And there are plenty of areas where I've always been an old soul crotchety old man. But in terms of exuberant enthusiasm? Or in terms of enjoying feeling taken care of? Or just liking video games and Star Wars and Legos? Or feeling like an up-and-comer who will wow the powers-that-be with his fresh new ideas? I still feel very young. 

And once you're forty, you are not young. There's no getting around it. In your thirties, you can kind of futz about still being a young professional -- forty isn't ambiguous. I feel like I am constitutionally required to lose all knowledge of technology, and never voluntarily listen to a new artist ever again.

But it is what it is. Time stops for no man. I'm lucky that, with a minor false start related to a (turns out wholly unneeded) dentist's appointment, I had a very nice fortieth birthday-day. The more "official" celebrations came around the Super Bowl and this weekend, but yesterday included good food and chocolate cake and quality time with wife and baby and the Olympics. So let's go back to the basics -- I am very lucky. Here's to (at least) forty more lucky years.

Hand Foot Mouth Cock Sacky

It's been an eventful two weeks. And I'm not even talking about *gestures vaguely* the world.

Last week, Nathaniel started daycare. A few days later, on Thursday, I had my first day of class, and Nathaniel was diagnosed with hand foot and mouth disease -- aka coxsackie. My mom says the latter name "sounds better" than "hand foot and mouth disease". I'm unconvinced. While "hand foot and mouth disease" sounds like a reason to put a cow down, I'm not sure "cock sacky" is much of an improvement.

Anyway, Nathaniel was, as is his wont, completely unbothered by any of this. But it did send him home from daycare.

On Monday I had jury service. I arrived at the courthouse, checked in, found a seat in the holding pen, and then suddenly lost all color and started sweating profusely (I mean, profusely). I stumbled over to the main desk to ask for some water, which they provided ... along with calling the paramedics because "you don't look right." Thus ended David's jury service, and began several hours at the Kaiser Westside ER. Who doesn't love beginning a jury tenure seeing one of their fellows carted out on a gurney? (I actually asked the paramedics if this happened every week -- I kind of assumed that there was always someone who was "sick" and tried to get out of jury service -- but he told me that no, I was his first jury-pool patient).

I started to feel better Tuesday, except that I started to see some weird and painful blisters on my hands. And my feet. And maybe the back of my throat. And now today, on Nathaniel's first birthday, I think "I probably have hand foot and mouth disease." It's his birthday, but he's giving me presents. What a mensch. The bonus irony is that HFMD rarely is symptomatic in adults, but I guess I'm the reason why they hedge that a bit!

So now I'm tip-toeing around the house (not to keep quiet, but to avoid the painful spots on my heels), and thinking deep thoughts like "how does the blister decide to be on that centimeter of my finger, rather than the centimeter directly to its left?" It's not like the blisters are clustered around veins or arteries, or near parts of my body that are either especially high or low use. It all seems very arbitrary. I'm very curious about tracing the physical pathway of the virus load from when it enters my body to when it manifests in blisters in these very particular spots.

Unfortunately, the medical treatment for HFMD seems to boil down to "take a tylenol and buck up", so now it's just a matter of trying to rest and waiting to see if that ambulance ride from the courthouse to the hospital results in a $94,000 surprise medical bill. What fun.

Care Day

Nathaniel had his first day of daycare today!

As is typical of these things, it was harder on mom and dad (mostly dad) than baby. Nathaniel was happy when we left him, and happy when we picked him up, and the daycare center sent some adorable photos of him playing and napping (sidebar: I cannot imagine how big a change the job of early childhood daycare provider has gone through since the dawn of the app era). Dad held it together during drop off but was sobbing in the car ride home, and then started tearing up again upon pick up once I saw that he had done well (I cry from relief).

Tears aside, though, this is good for everyone. It's good for Nathaniel to socialize with other kids, and it's good for us to have a bit more freedom during the day (it's terrible for our bank account, but there's not much to be done on that). Indeed, my main thought was to wonder, once again, how universal childcare isn't the #1 top voting priority of every American who has ever been a parent.

Today was just a half day -- tomorrow he stays through the afternoon. But for the time being, it's looking like an A+ adjustment from an A+ baby. I couldn't be prouder of the little guy.

Life is a Metaphor for Life

I had one of those deep/dumb epiphanies the other day. Raising a baby is really a commentary on the human existence and how we relate to the independent existence of other people!

Nathaniel's latest milestones are, in rapid succession, crawling and pulling himself into a standing position. And every time he hits one of these milestones, I am beside myself with joy. That's for his sake, of course -- he's learning and growing -- but also mine. He can move on his own! If he wants a toy, he can just crawl to it. If he's bored with his current vantage point, he can maneuver himself to look at something new.

And yet.

Every one of Nathaniel's new milestones carries with it new opportunities to defy my will. It was, admittedly, very nice when I could set Nathaniel down and I'd know he'd stay where I put him. If I didn't want him to move, he didn't move. Now? Things aren't so simple. I might want him to play quietly in the living room; he might have an alternative idea of booking it at top speed towards the nearest stairway. As much as I love and cherish these milestones it was, I find myself ruefully admitting, a lot easier when I could basically control his every move.

Right now (as in, over the past day or two), Nathaniel is at that lovely stage where he can pull himself into a standing position ... but can't quite sit back down. This is a problem since the standing up part is very exciting and far preferable to, say, a nap, but the standing up indefinitely part is infuriating and demanding of a response from mom or dad. One might think that after being laid back down in these circumstances -- apparently baby's most heartfelt desire -- one would not immediately roll over and pull oneself back up again, but you are not a ten month old. Nathaniel has (and objectively still is) a great sleeper, but this has been a rare moment where I've had to spend hours coaxing him down for a nap that, ironically enough, he absolutely does want to take but keeps on self-sabotaging by standing up along the crib instead.*

Anyway, much like with humans, generally, on net I'm happy that this human is learning and growing and becoming more independent (I reserve the right to change that assessment during the teenage years). But yeah, I do have newfound appreciation for why those developments sometimes engender resentment.

* Jill once spotted him on the monitor crying before he pulled himself into the standing position but nonetheless proceeding to finish standing up anyway, as if he was possessed by some infernal demon forcing him to stand against his will.

Flying Solo

I'm back from my giant transatlantic trip. The schedule was:

• Depart Portland on Monday
• Arrive in Stockholm on Tuesday
• Deliver lecture on Wednesday (read a write-up on it here!)
• Leave Stockholm and arrive in Chicago on Thursday
• Give talk in Chicago on Friday
• Attend remainder of conference on Saturday
• Fly home Monday.

Woof! That's a lot! But it was all good.

The Chicago leg of the trip was relatively normal -- my wife and baby met us there (my mother traveled with them from Portland to make it easier), and after the conference we caught up with various friends and had a nice vegetative Sunday.

The Sweden leg, by contrast, represented my first international trip by myself. Actually, I'm not a big international traveler at all -- this was just my fourth time out of the country. Of those, the first was a cruise with my family through northern Europe when I was in high school (that included Stockholm as a port of call, as it happens) and the second was a college Model UN tournament at McGill in Montreal. After that, I didn't go abroad again for almost twenty years until this summer's England trip (where my whole family came along).

This trip, by contrast, was just me, and I had plenty of time to myself. I landed at around 1 PM local time and I knew I needed to force myself to stay awake until dinner Tuesday to stay on any kind of schedule (even though that would mean having stayed up well over 24 hours). So I went to the Moderna Museet, then took a leisurely walk through Stockholm until I got back to my hotel. On Wednesday, a similar situation -- I delivered my lecture in the morning (I woke up around 4 AM), but the remainder of the conference was in Swedish, so I spent the day walking around town visiting various art galleries until dinner time.

This may seem cheesy, but I'm actually pretty proud of myself. To be sure, "took a solo trip to a foreign country" feels like a milestone one is supposed to hit at around 23, not once one is nearly 40. But I have a strange relationship with travel -- as a young person, I was a great traveler (I jet-setted across the country in high school going to debate tournaments without a care in the world), and then starting around when I graduated college I grew to become an incredibly anxious traveler. I've gotten a little better, but even today I greatly, greatly prefer to travel with my wife.

Unfortunately, with a nine month old baby, it really wasn't feasible for her to come all the way out to Sweden with me (success of our England trip notwithstanding). And ... I did fine! I managed jet lag well, I was able to get around town and see the sights fine, I even was able to navigate the train at Arlanda airport when my taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong terminal. Does it help that everyone in Sweden speaks English perfectly? Of course -- but it's still a big deal to me.

The Enthusiasm of a Man Child

As I approach forty years old, it is natural to reflect on what one gains, and loses, by aging. It is, of course, cliche for a forty-something to look back longingly on their bygone youth, and I'm not immune to the impulse. Luckily, my nostalgia doesn't really take the form of wanting a fast car and/or a ponytail. In general, I remain quite comfortable in my own skin.

But there is one thing recently that struck me as a genuine loss and that I genuinely mourn -- enthusiasm. Not having it, but how it is received.

I like liking things. And I like getting excited about things. It is fun to discover a new thing, and to be excited about it, and for people "in the know" on that thing to respond positively to that excitement. As a kid, if you're excited to -- to pick a random example -- learn about airplanes, and you project that excitement next to a pilot, they'll be delighted and they'll usually gladly take you aside and explain some neat facts or give you an opportunity to check out a cockpit. If you're excited about cooking, and you meet a chef, they might let you watch them in the kitchen or give you some pointers on how to prep a meal. Enthusiasm is met with enthusiasm. It's nice.

As an adult, unbridled enthusiasm isn't met the same way. It's not (usually) looked down upon. But it isn't (usually) met with the same reflection back. To be clear, I don't begrudge anyone for this. The sort of investment we might give a single child as a reward for their enthusiasm isn't scalable; we couldn't give it to everyone.

Nonetheless, I can say with full honesty that I genuinely miss this response, because I actually do still try to relate to things that excite me with a sort of unguarded, exuberant, childish enthusiasm. Why wouldn't I? It's joyous, and why would I want to train myself to feel less joy just because I'm older and greyer? But this sort of enthusiasm, from a middle-aged man, understandably isn't met with the same affective glee from those in its path as it did when I was a kid. And I miss that, because it would still be cool to get the equivalent of the tour of the cockpit, and for the most part the days of getting that just because I'm excited about something are pretty well behind me.

Again, this isn't a claim of injustice or a call for something in the world to change. It is just a reflection, thinking about my own personality and my own (I'm realizing this more and more) determination not to let go of the things and practices that bring me joy just because I've gotten older.

Face Forward

It is another day of milestones for Nathaniel.

First of all, we put him in a front-facing stroller seat for the first time. I already miss being able to look at his adorable little face as we go out for walks, but I'm excited for him to get a better view of the great big world out there (admittedly, today the "great big world" was mostly Target and the mall. But we did walk a bit around Multnomah Village, so there was that).

Pictured: Two desperate civilians on the streets of war-torn Portland

Second, we purchased what we hope will be Nathaniel's "permanent" car seat, as he's almost too big for his baby car seat. It's got some lovely bells and whistles -- the 90 degree swivel to get him out is especially appreciated -- but once again it comes with cost: the baby car seat functioned as an easy-breezy carrier (it easily detached from the car seat dock and latched into the stroller, and it was also easy to just carry around), and once again it looks like those days are just about over. Now if we want to carry Nathaniel, we have to actually carry him. RIP my back.

And third and finally, tonight we are leaving Nathaniel for the first time with an actual babysitter, as Jill and I go out to see Dan Soder (aka Mafee from Billions) do standup comedy. To be clear, we've left Nathaniel with grandparents before. And we've had a non-relative babysitter play with Nathaniel while we were still in the house before. But this will be the first time we're combining both. Unfortunately, Nathaniel seems to be at a strong stranger-danger/separation anxiety phase, and so we can imagine there might be a lot of tears and screaming. Obviously he'll be fine, this is an important milestone, there will be no permanent damage, etc. -- but mostly, we're just trying not to think about it too hard.

And meanwhile, as all of this is happening, my own government is threatening to invade my city.

This feels reminiscent of the last post I wrote before Nathaniel was born -- the many, many ways that moment (just days before inauguration) felt like a "midpoint" in my life. Before child, after child. Before age, after age. Before autocracy, after autocracy.

And this feels similar. I am still, in the scheme of things, new to Portland. We've been here less than five years. But I can honestly say that I love this city. I love living here, I love working here, and I love the idea of raising a family here.

The stories that Trump and his lackeys tell of Portland are -- and I cannot stress this hard enough -- lies. They are lies. This city is not "war-torn". It is not some sort of anarchistic hellscape. We are not unsafe here -- we go downtown all the time to enjoy Portland's culture offerings. What would make us unsafe is the prospect of being literally subjected to an invasion because the man in charge of the most powerful army in the world has decided he hates my city and hates the people who live here -- which is to say he hates me, hates my wife, hates my baby, and hates all my friends and neighbors. Make no mistake: that's why this is happening. It is not for our benefit. It is not to make Portland safe. It is to make Portland suffer.

And we will suffer. How many people will avoid downtown because they don't want to get caught in the Stasi crosshairs? How many shops will lose business? How many families will be broken up, or even if they're not, have sleepless nights and days terrified that they will be broken up? That's the wages of this war, and they're not remotely accidental. The cruelty continues to be the point.

Nathaniel Updates

What's new in the world? Boooo!

What's new with my adorable baby? Yaaaay!

Here are some of the latest developments on the Nathaniel front (for the record, he's 7.5 months):

Sleeping: He remains an absolutely incredible sleeper. Down at 7 PM, always sleeps through the night. I give him a bottle at around midnight, but he dreamfeeds it. We've even mostly reached the point where we don't have to rock him to sleep -- just plop him in his crib and he'll handle himself. If I die in the next few months, know it's likely that a jealous parent assassinated me.

Rolling over: He did this several months ago and then kind of just, stopped. Well, he's started again in earnest, especially in his crib. This does have one unfortunate consequence though -- he doesn't always seem to realize he can roll back over (from stomach to back). The rare times he wakes up crying, it's usually because he got on his stomach and is mad about it.

Bouncing: We got one of those bounce slings for him to sit in while we are in the kitchen and it is his favorite thing in the world. Hugs from mom and dad? Eh, take it or leave it. Time in the bounce sling? Forever, please!

Quiet: I took Nathaniel out to visit some art galleries the other day, and the gallerist remarked that he was the quietest baby she'd ever met. Which checks out -- when we're out of the house, he is the mellowest guy you'll ever meet. He's alert, and interested in what's happening around him -- but he scarcely makes a peep (or a smile).

(Interest in) crawling: He's not crawling yet, but he's definitely interested. We're seeing more knee shimmies and butt waggles when he's on his stomach, especially if there's a toy in front of him he wants to reach. To be honest though, I'm of two minds of how much of a mover he's going to be. On the one hand, he loves to move (see "bouncing"). On the other hand, he's often happy to sit quietly without moving for long stretches (see "quiet"). So I can imagine him zooming around the room at the first opportunity, and I can also imagine him just hanging out because, like, why is over there any better than over here?

Making ... Friends ... Is .... Important

Jill and I made new friends recently.

This was a big deal because, if I'm being honest, I had kind of given up on making new friends.

That's a slight exaggeration. A closer truth was that I was kind of waiting until Nathaniel started going to school and/or daycare, where we'd presumably make friends with other parents. But relying on your six-month-old to make friends for you seems kind of pathetic.

Although, effectively, that's what happened anyway. We were out on a walk with Nathaniel where we serendipitously ran into some neighbors doing the same thing with their kiddo. She is a little older than Nathaniel is, but still in his basic age range, and in a rare burst of extroversion I decided I was not going to let this opportunity go to waste. We made small talk, exchanged numbers, and invited them over to our house for dinner and board games. And fortunately, we seem to have hit it off. Friendship unlocked.

I am not the first to observe that making friends as an adult is hard. You're playing the game on easy while in school -- surrounded by people around your age and chock full of common experiences. Out in the real world, you have to put some elbow grease into friendship. Work can be a substitute, but for someone like me whose workplace doesn't include many age peers, it's not really a parallel. What you really need to do is go out and do activities, which never was really my jam (here marrying my best friend is a disadvantage -- why would I expend time and effort into going out to do things with other people when my favorite person is already next to me on the couch?).

Nonetheless, friends are important. I am worried about social isolation and the decaying of social bonding opportunities. I don't have macro-solutions for it, so I'll just pat myself on the back for actually going out and making friends.