Sliding Doors

 Back in 2005, prior to moving to NYC, I was suffering through five or six months of unemployment in Seattle when an unusual work opportunity presented itself that would have changed the trajectory of my life. 

I had been in Seattle for four years at that point and while I loved the city, after being unexpectedly laid off, I had no prospects for a new job after all this time. I good friend of mine informed me of an opportunity that had popped up in the Bay Area, working as a personal assistant to one of the cities wealthiest denizens, Peter Thiel. I knew nothing about being a PA beyond what I had seen represented in film and tv, and was completely unaware of Thiel, who at that time was still not quite as wealthy and influential as he would become. But the prospect of moving to a new city that I was quite fond of appealed to me so I bit at the opportunity.

The first step was a telephone job interview, and we had a pretty good, albeit brief conversation. He was intrigued by my time spent living in New Zealand, but made it (understandably) clear that he couldn't hire someone for this role based on a telephone conversation. So a few days later I found myself on an all expenses paid trip down to San Francisco to be interviewed by himself and a few key people in his professional life.

Sadly (?) I never got to meet him in person - after a few interviews with some of his existing staff, including his retiring PA who stated that she was trying to get him to hire one of her friends, I was dismissed from the interview process. I honestly can't recall what snafu's I  may have made, but I most likely wasn't qualified for the job.

So it's been interesting to see his name come up, time and again, in the news for a variety of reasons. His attack on Gawker via the Hulk Hogan lawsuit destroyed the company, all because they outed him. I knew he was gay those many years prior during the interview process, via word of mouth, and recall wondering during the Gawker incident whether or not his rebuttal was due to some insecurity around being gay or just out of spite? 

Over the last four years he has been continuously supporting Donny Chump and his ilk, a move I find both peculiar and disturbing. How can someone who is clearly so smart and influential be supporting someone as incompetent and ridiculous as Chump? What could possibly be his motivation? Some bitter, twisted heartlessness resulting from spending so much time in the closet during his younger years?

How could I have fit into this puzzle? How much could I have influenced him if I were his PA? And conversely, how much could he have influenced me? Considering my age and prospective role, presumably his influence may have impacted me more than the other way around.

Still, it's interesting to think how much different my life may have turned out if I had been offered that position. Still, I can't complain, as only a few months after those interviews did I find myself sleeping on a couch in my best friends one bedroom apartment, restarting my life.

A Little Wordle Will Do Ya

 Wordle truly is the perfect little game. It's the first thing I do when I wake up each morning, contemplating my opening gambit - usually some variation on strep/strip/strap - before solving the puzzle as quickly as I can. At least that's mostly the case. If I'm stumbling and fumbling with my answer, if by guess 4 I have almost no clue as to what the word is I'll pause. Perhaps for 10 minutes, perhaps for a few hours, before I pick it back up with a fresh set of eyes and a clear head.

I'm on a 27 game winning streak, which I'm proud of, but enough of those have come down to the last clue to keep me from boasting too openly of my "success". 

I discovered that there is a Wordle Archive as well that you can use to play past games and practice your strategy around how best to solve clues. 

The New York Times recently purchased the game for a small sum of money (somewhere around $1 million apparently). Here's hoping they keep it just as it is.

The Devil's in the Details - and Donny Chump's Trying to Hide the Details!

 I know that Donny Chump has been out of office for over a year now, but the damage done by him and his family still clouds American democracy. I know I may be dreaming, but I still think we are getting closer and closer to at least Chump getting comeuppance, most likely taking down those opportunistic flies circling him at the same time.

While there are many different potential paths upon which justice may still be delivered, my greatest hope is what they will discover while unravelling the events leading up to and on the day of the January 6th Insurrection. 

I still believe that he too dumb to dream up the steps for conducting a coup himself, however it's becoming clearer and clearer that those circling flies were up to no good and that Chump may have been more aware than previously expected. The committee investigating that fateful day continues to slowly unravel more and more details, exposing the depths of the swamp in which the Chump's reside. 

Today's revelation that there are gaps in the call logs clearly illustrates that he and his team are engaged in an extensive cover-up in the immediate hours after he left the stage from which he encouraged the Insurrection. Considering how little he filtered from his speeches and from Twitter, it take no small leap of the imagination to envision what he may have said that is so damning that they are trying to cover it up.

The trouble for Chump, is that these sort of things won't stay undercover for long. Too many people would have been present, and all it takes is for one loose lip to damn him. It might not lead to jail time, but it will expose him for what he is, making it impossible for any but the most ardent follower to continue supporting him.

And that's really what this country needs. A moment for those who fell for the con to understand the mistakes the made. To realize that in fact, they were wrong (as most surely suspect) and that it's okay to admit it!