Yamaha: The World’s Best, And Possibly Only, Grand Piano, Motorcycle, Yacht, Guitar, Saxophone, And

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

Let's extend that to things other than people as well.

Don't pressure anyone into anything they don't want.

Normalize disliking people and avoiding them without starting a conflict and insisting that they're bad people. You don't actually need to be able to call someone toxic and abusive in order to justify that you're not vibing with them.

Three months ago I pitched an idea for a party game. Today, ‘WHAT THE PLOT?!™’ is a real game and available for pre-order! I am so excited. Thank you everyone for your support!

NYC Data Stories: Allyship

Seeing unhealthy patterns in your family and deciding that those pattens end with you and will not be passed down to future generations is an extremely brave and powerful decision.

Forgive yourself for repeating what was taught to you as a child, then put the conscious effort into deprogram these patterns.

See, I thought they were satire

might just devote my blog exclusively to the onion headlines

The Hague, Netherlands: Spanish street musician Borja Catanesi and the 68 year old dancer from The Hague mr Roland Parijs