A short story about loss and redemption, via a watch and a subway grate

My latest misadventure with home ownership.

Zachary's latest podcast from the Thacher Report, including a little freewheeling chat up front. 

Is this the end of the Covid journey? I don't know, but it's the end of life on the road. 

As I wind down my crazy -- for me -- Covid adventure from fleeing Manhattan to living on a friend's farm to living in rural Vermont, I'm now back in NYC and finally settling down. I found a house to buy. I'm a first time buyer and a lot of people are in the way of a sale. So I ask myself, do I need a broker? 

Read the post here: https://medium.com/thacher-report/how-to-buy-a-house-in-brooklyn-2a7857960a55

Dating while Running from Covid - Summer 2020

You rest on blankets under a dark sky strained with starlight. Dinner is finished. The children sleep. Your tent is set up and arranged just the way you like it. Your pack animals have been fed and hobbled. You’re with the adults, you can see their faces by the light of fire.

To imagine Vermont in summertime, picture Montana’s Big Sky, listen to Janis Joplin, think of laidback yet conscientious Northern California, add in dairy farms, embrace the progressive politics of, well, Vermont and down a pint of New England style IPA.

A small town of gender-neutral farmers bike to work, dispense non-profit equal-access healthcare and help build each other’s houses. Is this a story dramatic enough for saving the world? Are we rugged enough like Republicans and communal enough like Democrats? 

Kids pedaled bikes along dusty streets smeared with the buttercup glow of sunsets. There was no traffic. There were no stoplights. It was Jane Jacobs with a sun tan.