A Week of Being Kin Lane - July 7th, 2025
We made our way back to NY from Maine this week. The contrast between these two states of being is so very stark for me. I do love the simpleness and beauty of Maine. However, as I mentioned in my newsletter last week, the relationship you need to have with the automobile makes it a non-starter for me. I just want to walk, ride my bike, and take public transportation for everything else. I get why people love Maine. I’ve just made peace with the demons that historically kept me out of the city and have made rural life so very appealing historically.
We have been talking about getting Poppy a cat, but after watching her with a cat named Jackie in Maine, we decided against it. During our first walk back in NYC we saw the same old black bodega cat to which Poppy goes all “stupid limp”—reminding us of that Rottweiler instinct that is in there. This bodega cat couldn’t give a care about Poppy and it is just enjoying it’s morning breakfast and a good sit on the sidewalk in the morning sun before what we imagine to be a long day running the cash register at the corner bodega.
I can’t say enough about our morning walks in Central Park. I wake up every day feeling the weight of the world and all the anxieties I couldn’t shed during my nights sleep. The walk Audrey, Poppy, and I take in Central Park each morning helps me channel and realign this load, getting me ready for the day. The walk to and from the park, as well as the route into the park, over the bridge, by the baseball fields, around the carousel, back by the baseball fields, and under the tunnel, reconfigures my existence to get me ready to make it through each day.
There was no avoiding the news of the big fucked up bill that made it’s way to the President’s desk this week. No words can capture just how sad I am about what this bill represents. It reflects the same concerns I’ve had about the imbalance between our military budget and everything else for my entire life. However, it takes things in such a dark direction, focusing all of this toxic masculinity inwards on this country rather than just externally on the rest of the world. It demonstrates that we can afford change, we just don’t have our priorities in order, leaving us believing we can’t afford what truly matters.
Our daily rides in Central Park are the centerpiece of my day. Poppy and I really enjoy the 2-3 loops around the park each day. Even as the number of people increases with each loop—the wind in our faces, and the smiles we see make it such a rewarding experience. I think about nothing else while riding around the park. I get lost in slowly rolling the right hand edge of certain lawns that are notorious squirrel hangouts. I am thankful to have this opportunity to get myself healthy and spend these moments with Poppy, and epxerience the diverse people and voices rolling past us each day on our patrols.
Most week days after 2-3 times around Central Park we will also take a spin or two around midtown. Despite the occasional police car or taxi blocking the bike lane going through Time Square, the bike lanes down 7th ave to 38th street, over to 6th avenue and back up to the park are pretty nice. It isn’t all 100% protected from cars, but it is a dedicated bike line. We just take it slowly, stopping at all the lights and taking in all the interesting people who wander these streets of NYC during the day. You see a lot. New York changes once you make your way around it, filling in the gaps, getting to know each block, building, and street.
I wasn’t feeling the 4th of July this year. Full disclosure, I don’t feel most holidays. 4th of July hasn’t meant much to me since I was a kid. Since about 1985 I have been pretty disappointed in this country. Don’t get me wrong. I love this country. I am adamantly American. I am patriotic in a solemn and inward way. I’ve just had the flag waving conservative patriot flying their flags in my face and being aggressive about the 4th of July for most of my life. I just can’t see anything to celebrate this year, and the holiday feels like it needs some serious reflection. I was really feeling with Frederick Douglas, in his What to the Slave Is the 4th of July, as read by James Earl Jones.
We went to Lovely’s Burger in Hell’s Kitchen for the 4th of July. This dinner was the extent of our celebration and getting out for the 4th of July. The burger is the absolute perfect double smash burger, and always is perfect—leaving me feel very satisfied.
Alongside the burger, I always get their onion rings as a side. They compliment the burger so well, and I went ahead and splurged with the ranch dressing side to dip them in, which always rounds the combination out in just the right way.
I normally get an orange Fanta with my burger, but this time for some reason I went with strawberry. I am not regular soda drinker, but the combination of strawberry Fanta, onion rings, and smash burger is just really the perfect American meal (Hecho En Mexico) for me.
My reading has slowed in the last couple of weeks. I just finished the first volume of Ray Bradbury short stories, which has taken me a month plus to get through. In all fairness it was 915 pages of that really dense thin paper, but I can’t entirely blame this. I have had my head in starting my new business, and distracted by our wonderful trip to Maine. I pushed through the last 100 pages, but I am picking up The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson next. I don’t want to lose any momentum. Well, anymore than I have already lost. I am feeling like I will get back to normal reading levels in coming weeks now that I have a handle on what my business will be doing.
I have also stopped writing—other than these newsletters. That will begin to change again this week now that I have more of a handle on what I am building with my new startup. I have completed a lot of market research and crafted my go to market strategy for Naftiko. I have even begun crafting a nautical themed vocabulary for describing what we are building. Now that I have the initial plan laid, I feel like I can get back to exploring random ideas on Kin Lane, as well as Alternate Kin Lane. I have an opinionated position surrounding how I am approaching technology with Naftiko, one that will undoubtedly need exploration on my personal blogs in fictional and non-fictional ways. It is how I make sense of things, while also reaching out to others and building an audience along the way.
I can’t articulate how important reading and writing is to my world. It is how I work my way through time and space, as well as the news and politics swirling around me. Without it I am lost. If I am just writing and not reading books, things get off balanced. When I am reading books and writing regularly there is a velocity and rhythm that emerges. There is a clarity that unfolds when I reach a certain velocity and rhythm with reading and writing. This combined with tackling large scale systems problems, like Naftiko is doing, and my daily rides with Poppy in the park, I feel like I can stay ahead of the things that usually drag me down.
"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." - Mark Twain