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The first thing you need to know about Beatrix is that she is the sort of person who reads the fine print. Don’t ask her to sign her name to anything unless you’d like to wait while she reads every word and fully understands what it is she is signing.

She ordered her absentee ballot weeks ago. She knew we’d be picking it up from her in person (to deliver to the ballot box, in person — we’re not trusting the USPS this cycle) so she had plenty of time to spend on it. This is the first time she’s voting in a major election.

So, it should surprise no one that she’s an excellent voter. She took her responsibility as an engaged citizen seriously.

She took the time to research every candidate and ballot measure. She wrestled with the difficult fact that sometimes you don’t like either choice very much but it is incumbent upon you to choose the one that is less bad. She discovered that sometimes you don’t get a choice as there’s only one candidate running. That with many ballots measures not checking the box yes or no is registered as a yes or no so you better put something in a box.

In other words, she spent the time learning how to vote the way we all should vote. We should all be taking the time to learn who everyone is. We should look at their records and not just listen to what they (or their websites) say. We should learn about the issues and what we truly care about. We all should take the time to read the fine print too.

The best time to do this is all of the time. The second best time is weeks in advance like Beatrix. We shouldn’t be trying to learn about what’s on the ballot and what we plan to do five minutes before we walk out the door to the polling place. We should give it the attention it deserves.

We should read the fine print and know what we are signing.

Watching my daughter voting for the first time has inspired me to do better. I hope it inspires you as well. At the least, I hope it reminds you of the responsibility that voting entails and that it is your right to make sure you get to do so.

I don’t know how fully prepared I was for it. I knew Beatrix would be comfortable in New York. After all, she’s probably visited the city a couple of dozen times in her life before now. Since she was born, New York City was “a place we go”. As much as we have visited anywhere else, she’s probably been to New York City even more.

But, it is one thing to visit a place regularly with your parents. It is a whole other thing to live in a place full time. Granted, she’s not actually in the heart of the city. In fact, one of the benefits of where she’s enrolled is being on a small historic college campus in a quaint college town with easy access to “the city”. Even still, in no short order she’s become a New Yorker.

She always walked faster than everyone else around her but now she’s around a place where everyone walks just a fast as she does. She navigates the city with ease above ground and under it. She’s become the person who fights the pedestrian against car/taxi/truck battle for crossing the street and wins. She’s become the young lady who flips off cat-callers and tells off harassers (and don’t try to shrink away into the crowd because she’ll point you out and shame you further — just ask the last guy). She takes no shit, nor prisoners. She has that New Yorker air about her.

I always knew in my gut that she could make it anywhere. But I’m especially proud to see her making it there.

In 1999, I got hired to work doing Quality Assurance for PowerOn/Now Software. Among their software offerings was a pair of programs, sold together, called Now Up-to-Date and Contact. They were calendaring and contact applications for true power users. Folks that not only needed a ton of unique features above your average calendaring and contact software but, perhaps most importantly, needed to be able to share that information with others in a team/office/company or even family basis.

The best way to test software is to use it and so I did.

Ever since, Now Up-to-Date and it’s evolution BusyCal (which is still developed by the original developers Dave Riggle and John Chaffee) has been an essential part of my and my family’s life. We often say in our house “if it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t exist” and it’s true. The elegant design of the shared calendaring feature is the only way we can keep track of what everyone is doing and when.

In other words, the software Dave and John wrote decades ago has been a part of my life for almost half of it.

We don’t often think about how important software can be in our lives. How it can make it better. How it can become essential to it. How, by extension, the humans behind that software have in no small way made our lives better.

I thought about that today upon meeting Manton Reece, the lead developer of my favorite blogging tool, Micro.blog. Not only what an honor it was to meet someone who has created something that makes my life easier and better in no small way, but who also developed a little program called Clipstart years and years ago that I used and loved. I got a chance to thank him, in person, for making my life better.

I’m sure there is software and services you use daily that makes your life better. Remember that a human made that. If you ever get the opportunity, thank them.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to Vincent, one of the juggling and unicycle coaches at circus. One almost never sees Vincent still. He’s almost always practicing juggling.

For the first time in the 18+ years I’ve known him, it occurred to me to ask, “How much do you juggle every day?”

Well, I juggle for probably 1-2 hours a day if you add it up which is not necessary but I do it because I love it. I like to keep my hands busy. But, juggling is one of those things you can lose quickly if you’re not doing it every day. It’s better to practice for 10 minutes every day than to do it for 2 hours a day once a week. I can tell the difference between my students who only juggle when they’re here once a week and the ones that juggle fruit or something in the lunch line to show off to their friends every day.

I suspect there are a lot of things in life like this. Things that are better to do a little bit each day than to do a whole lot regularly. I’m going to make an effort to identify and pay attention to those daily things more.

One of the running conceits in the most recent summer show at Circus Juventas, Whimsy! involves Lady Licorice, played by Beatrix, becoming more and more annoyed that she and The Candy Sisters never get to finish their routine. Whenever someone enters Candyland, they have a welcome routine and it always seems to get cut off, interrupted, or the visitor doesn’t stay long enough to see it. It’s one of my favorite elements in the show.

For sixteen years now, our family has had a routine around Beatrix’s circus schedule. Weeks were largely structured around when she had circus classes after school. When we ate dinner together as a whole family and how were built around it. If I had to plan dinner for just Bethany and I and something else for Beatrix to eat between classes. When both Beatrix and I were at Circus in rehearsal for a show so Bethany was on her own. Pretty much everything in our lives was a complex scheduling Tetris around Beatrix needing to be at Circus. It was a routine that we never fully thought would ever be finished.

In the show, towards the end, Lady Licorice and The Candy Sisters do get to finish their routine and it’s beautiful.

This afternoon, Beatrix took her final bow at Circus Juventas. She got to finish her routine for the last time and it was even more beautiful than the first.

And, with that, we as a family have finished ours.

When Bethany and I first came together, I was a full time single dad to two children already. They were in their teens and, quite frankly, I was looking forward to to having a life with adult children living on their own and Bethany and I being able to have the “freedom” a child free life affords.

When we started talking about having a kid together, I was initially hesitant to the idea. Mainly for that reason. I wanted to travel and eat at high-end restaurants and go to theater and museums and all the other things I’d been looking forward to once the nest was empty.

I (obviously) ultimately gave into the idea of having another child with Bethany under one condition; we’d still do all those things — but we’d do them with the kid.

This is how we’ve ended up with an 18 year old that has been places and had experiences by her age that few will have in their entire life…

She’s seen several Broadway productions with the original cast including Hamilton and Hadestown. She’s even met some of those cast members.

She’s been to many of the world’s top museums. She’s seen nearly every Vermeer and Picasso and Monet and Van Gogh. She’s imitated the sculptures at The Vigeland Park in Oslo and The Rodin Museum in Paris. She contemplated the work of Jackson Pollock at MOMA and Hilma af Klint at The Guggenheim.

She’s eaten in Michelin star restaurants. She’s eaten at an all plant-based one down an alley behind an unmarked door in East Germany. She’s had a private behind the scenes tour of The French Laundry and of their gardens across the street and had steak frites a table away from Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Yountville.

She’s been to many, many, many countries — at least one International trip every year of her life. She’s seen musicals on London’s West End and underground mechanical performance art in Berlin. She rode horses on the beaches of Costa Rica and hiked glaciers in Iceland. She’s been to the birthplace of humanity in Tanzania and the world’s smallest pub in Ireland. She’s walked in the footsteps of Plato in Greece. She’s blown bubbles off the top of the Eiffel Tower.

She’s been to big gay raves as an infant and mythical forest creature themed raves as a young adult. She’s watched Taylor Swift on the Era’s Tour and Bandits on The Run at The 7th Street Entry. She’s been to concerts at giant stadiums and house front porches. She’s sung karaoke at dive bars and lip-synced at drag shows.

Honestly, I’ve only just scratched the surface. To say this young lady has had a full life would be a gross understatement. That is exactly how we planned it.

In one month we will be going on what will perhaps be her most life-changing adventure to date — we will be getting in the car and driving half-way across the country to deliver her to college. While I’m sure she’ll still travel with us from time to time and continue to have amazing experiences with us there, I also know she will be making a new life full of amazing experiences without us. We’ve set the bar high but know she has it in her to take it even higher.

This young lady who has already lived a lifetime has new lifetimes of her own to live.

I wrote this five years ago but can’t find where I posted it. It still holds true today so why not post it here, now?

My message for today’s celebration of America’s Independence…

The dream of the United States of America has never aligned with the reality of the United Sates of America. How we imagine ourselves to be has never been who we actually are. Does this mean we should not keep dreaming and striving for those lofty goals? No. And if we were ever to achieve them, we should engage new, more lofty, ones. But, to deny the recognition of these self-evident truths actually undermines our intentions to realize the undiscovered country of our declarations.

For if we declare the job “done”; If we have reached that mountaintop; if freedom for all was truly achieved with the declaration of our intentions and the subsequent amendments to our constitution, then what now should we strive for?

The answer is this: the work towards freedom, justice, and equal rights shall never be done. Even if achieved it requires constant vigilance to maintain. So, as we celebrate what we have, knowing there are those with less, we must re-commit to those values and push further.

— Jul 4, 2021

Before our daughter Beatrix was born, when we found out we were having a girl, Bethany asked me what I hoped she’d be like.

I said, “I hope she’s just like you.”

I feel like I’ve written enough about Beatrix here and elsewhere over the years that most of my longterm readers can probably imagine what she’s like.

I really meant it (and I’m glad I got what I wished for).

Bethany is, by far, the smartest person I know. The hardest working too. She knows a whole lot about a lot of things and uses every bit of it in service to the world.

She is sweet and thoughtful and generous with her resources.

She has opinions that are held firmly and fiercely defended. She holds those she considers friends in the same way. She is incredibly loyal.

Her wit is rapid fire. It cracks like a whip and can cut like a knife. Mostly, it makes me laugh. If someone could invent a weapon designed to make me fall in love that is hard coded to my DNA, it would work just like her humor and wit.

She rarely says no to anything that seems like an opportunity; to make our lives better, to provide for those she cares about, to make meaningful connections, to make a life — any life — a little bit better.

She is compassionate, loving, and beautiful inside and out.

But what has made our marriage as strong as it remains after two decades together it is that she’s an incredible partner. The way we are able to divide and conquer every daily duty and challenge that comes our way with grace and humor and love. But, most importantly, we remember to let each other know how much we appreciate that regularly and take time to acknowledge and celebrate how special that partnership is.

So, here’s a small public thank you to Bethany Gladhill in celebration of 20 years of marriage. She is the love of my life and I wake each day knowing the seemingly impossible will occur — I will be even more in love with her by the time my head returns to the pillow. Every. Single. Day.

Bethany, I love you most.

A subject that my mind has been unreasonably fascinated (dare I say fixated) on recently is this; no one really knows why we yawn. There are theories, of course — from one’s blood containing increased amounts of carbon dioxide in need of release to a body’s way of controlling brain temperature. Especially elusive is why it seems to be contagious. There are many theories but no definitive answer.

Something as common and basic as yawning is a mystery and I love this. I love such known unknowns. It seems like there should be a simple explanation for such a common benign thing , and yet it alludes even the minds of science.

This is true of many things, especially when it comes to the brain and human behavior. We know more about the far reaches of the universe than we do the depths of our own mind. This gives me a great comfort. I can’t really explain why. The best explanation is it makes me feel human.

Which leads me to wonder about the limits of artificial intelligence…

Because, as far as I understand it, it can only ever know what we know. Perhaps it can take all the disparate pieces of our knowledge and see connections and come up with new ideas and solutions based on these that we humans would be otherwise limited to. But, those limits of human knowledge correspondingly are the limits of AI. AI may be able to beat us in collective capacity and perhaps even speed of understanding, but its knowledge, or lack there of, is ours.

AI can’t tell me, definitively, scientifically proven and agreed upon, why we yawn. And it won’t be able to until we humans can begin to answer that question ourselves. Until we take all of the theories, do all of the testing, run it through scientific methods, and be able to say, with an overwhelming level of certainty, “We yawn because…”

So, this puny human will continue to obsess over and be delighted by the mysteries of our amazing brain and rest in the comfort that AI doesn’t know any more than we do.