One of my newish favorite images of my kid, among the thousands, is him standing on the front of a lumber cart at a big-box home improvement store, holding his “sword” that his mom made for him out of parts from a toddler tool kit, wearing a dress that his mom also made him—really just kind of a skirt made out of a piece of fabric with beetles printed on it.

You could probably read a lot into his outfit, I suppose. But he has watched Frozen many, many times in the past few weeks, and I believe he likes to wear the dress because it makes him feel powerful. Elsa is the most powerful character in the movie, and she wears a dress. The sword, I’m not sure about, because Elsa never uses a sword, but lots of details about the movie are a little beyond him right now. But if you had sent me a photo of him with the sword and the dress on the front of the moving cart six years ago, and you had told me that I was the person pushing the cart, I’d have a lot of questions.

Our little guy turned three and a half last weekend. I don’t write much about him, or being a parent, and I always wondered if I could write something original about the experience of raising a kid. But it’s probably easier to just try to write the truth.

Years ago, back when I woke up to an alarm clock and not a child with immediate needs, I asked my friend Chris what he thought the biggest surprise about parenting was, and he said, “That the clichés are true.” Which I didn’t believe at the time, but he knew and I didn’t know anything.

Until 2021 or so, I did not think I’d ever become a parent, and I thought all parents said the same things about having kids: It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It goes by so fast. Et cetera, et cetera. And now I say all that cliché shit too, always reminding myself, dammit, Chris was right.

Here are a few things I’ve observed and thought about in the past 3.5 years:

Your kid is the cutest
Did you know that your kid is the cutest kid in the world, to you? It’s true. I imagine there’s some biological reason for this feeling among parents. Unless, of course, YOU think MY kid is the cutest kid in the world, in which case I would like to commend you on your impeccable taste and judgment.

Kids say the darndest things!
Or in our kid’s case, he said “Fucking Christ,” every once in a while, for several months when he was about two and a half. Hilary very politely tried to say that he could have picked it up from either of us, but I’m pretty fucking sure she was just trying to protect my feelings.

“Slow days, fast years”
I interviewed 40+ dads in the months leading up to Jay’s birth and the year after, and when I asked them what parenting forced them to improve about themselves, a great many of them said “patience.” This has never been more clear to me than when I ask Jay to wash his hands after using the toilet, or before eating. It is FUCKING ASTOUNDING how many things a three-year-old can find to distract himself from the one thing he is supposed to be doing. Look, I have 20 browser tabs open and can take an entire workday or two to write a 1,000-word essay, but six and a half minutes to wash your hands? Come on, man.

HOWEVER. Every bit of progress we mark as our little dude becomes more of kid and less of a baby means that part of his life—and our lives with him—is over. We have a shared Notes document where we type phonetic spellings of words Jay mispronounces as he learns to talk, because every time he figures out how to correctly pronounce a word, we lose his innocent, Beginning Talker words like “hollowcotter” and “dagedder.” [See Raymond Beisinger’s “The Affabet”]

Kids force you to be present.
Sure, playing with a toddler can sometimes feel tedious, especially when your presence is requested not to actually participate in the playing with, say, a train set, but to sit and watch your kid play with a train set. But when you pull out a smartphone and try to answer an email or check the weather and 15 seconds later you hear a tiny voice saying, “Dad,” as in, “Pay attention to me,” it’s really hard to not feel like a real asshole. Most dads I’ve talked to mentioned regretting that they had to work so much when their kids were young, and I get that, but at least work is earning money to provide food and shelter. There is literally almost nothing I can access on a smartphone that is worth ignoring my kid over. Even if he’s watching paint dry and asking me to watch him watch paint dry.

It’s gross
Previous to having a roommate who didn’t know how his butt worked, I thought I had a maybe slightly above-average comfort level with human feces. Like I feel like I have a Hirayama-in-Perfect Days level of comfort with cleaning toilets, don’t mind digging catholes or blue-bagging it in the backcountry, and have, since 2013, sold a “Grand Canyon Groover Calendar,” made up of photos I took while doing groover duty every day of a 28-day river trip. Well well well. Without getting into too much detail, the birth of my child marked a new epoch in my poop journey. This past December, we had a potty chair sitting next to our Christmas tree, long story, but that’s where we were. The irony of having a groover in my living room was not lost on me.

This is why we can’t have nice things.
Before I had a toddler, I had some stuff I cared about, and it was “nice.” Some of it’s still “nice.” Some of it has been dropped and/or broken and/or destroyed. Now that Jay has been our roommate for three and a half years, my possessions all probably fit into three categories:

1. Stuff that absolutely cannot get fucked up and needs to be hidden from child at all costs
2. Stuff that’s nice and that a toddler could maim themselves with, and therefore must be hidden from child
3. Stuff that’s nice, but let’s be honest, is less important than my kid’s experience of exploration and discovery, and therefor shareable, even if he breaks it, or that’s what I told myself after he broke it

It’s hard
People say raising a kid is hard. In my experience, they’re correct. I think what I didn’t expect was the diversity in types of “hard”: The interruptions of your own sleep that for the first three months or so feel like they’d be an effective interrogation tactic, the sudden disappearance of any time for yourself after decades of having what feels in retrospect like all the time in the world, trying to understand the psychology of a human being who is just discovering they have hands and that they act very irrationally when they are hungry or tired, the slowing down of literally everything you try to do as you chaperone an amateur human being through an airport or hardware store or the steps of putting on a sock—I could go on.

Am I complaining? I am not. Being a stupid idiot who believes that almost every meaningful thing in life requires difficulty or discomfort, I have realized that if I was forced to trade in all the hours it’s taken me to help raise this kid and do something else with them, I’d probably just pick another hard thing to do.

Also: I didn’t even do the physiological and psychological work of turning this dude from a zygote into a seven-pound human! Or the breastfeeding. As a dad, my body didn’t change in any noticeable way the entire time! I was just the assistant for all that stuff (maybe assistant manager?). And I still thought it was hard. Can you imagine if I had to be pregnant, give birth, and immediately feed and care for a thing that was a fetus 15 minutes ago?

“You’ll miss this”
There’s an old joke about mountaineering—or many jokes, probably, and the gist of them is basically: “That was miserable. I can’t wait to do it again.” It’s a joke, but it’s based on actual human psychology that we tend to forget the hard parts, and mountaineering, somewhat like child-rearing, has many hard parts.

“You asked for this”
I did. I asked for this. I consider myself privileged and lucky to be in a position to ask for this, and then receive it, and to have what has been a relatively smooth journey with it up until this point, all things considered. I would add the caveat, though, that maybe some of us weren’t super familiar with some of the specifics of the “this” that we were asking for, such as the amount of time I would spend using a Libman Easy Grip Scrub Brush to remove human feces from clothing, but also the feeling of reaching my hand down at a crosswalk and feeling a little hand reach up and grab my middle finger without ever taking my eyes off of vehicle traffic.

“You won’t understand until you have one for yourself”
See previous item. Also, to the extent that I understand raising a kid, I only understand my kid, not anyone else’s kid. Even if our kids are the exact same age, it’s not like we are comparing the same pair of running shoes or something— “Do you like the new cushioning in your Cascadia 19s? Me too.”

“They love to push your buttons”
I forget which parenting book I read this in, but yes, I too have felt that my kid has done a certain thing because he knows for sure that it will piss me off. Which is, of course, not true. Someone wrote somewhere that instead of imagining your two- or three-year-old is a smaller adult human who you can expect to act with some degree of rationality, it’s helpful to imagine they’re a raccoon, a creature you probably don’t think you can control.

“You get to see the world through a child’s eyes again”
Sure, this means watching some Daniel Tiger, or Bluey, or Frozen 25+ times or whatever. But it also means when I’m pedaling our cargo bike down the path to take Jay to preschool, trying to find things to talk to him about, and I see a three-quarter moon in the morning sky, and I realize this is a novel thing I can point out to my kid, and I say, “Jay, did you see the moon?” I am also telling myself to look at the moon, which is, compared to mentally cataloguing the dozen or so things I need to do today or stressing about an upcoming deadline, actually quite nice.

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QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT: Next Tuesday morning (January 13), we are opening registration for my 2026 “Running to Stand Still” Freeflow Institute writing + trail running workshop. It’s June 7-12 on Homestake Pass in Montana (10 miles from Butte, a couple miles from the Continental Divide Trail). We run every day (as a group, so not fast), we do two workshop/discussion sessions each day, and we eat lots of good food. This workshop sells out every year, so if you’re interested, send your email address to me at brendan@semi-rad.com (or you can just reply to this email) and I’ll send you an email when registration opens on Tuesday.

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I really appreciate that in the sea of “I DID X EXTREME THING” titles on YouTube, I got served this 13-minute film of this guy snorkeling in a river in Alabama in December, freezing his hands and feet (in a wetsuit) to create a very chill video of some nature, including this line of commentary: “It was pretty sweet to watch this colorful crustacean just straight up vibing in his natural habitat in the creek.” (video)

I figured this T Magazine photo feature titled “Our Favorite Home Libraries” would showcase a bunch of fancy, uncluttered Dwell Magazine-approved beautiful spaces, and sure, a lot of these are really pretty, but a few of them look like the books are doing a hostile takeover of a living space, and I appreciate that. [GIFT LINK]

I mentioned this once before the end of 2025, but newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration has put together a sample pack of all of my favorite products so you can try the gels, chews, and electrolyte drink I use. I mean, I didn’t win any high-profile ultramarathon races last year—or any races for that matter—but I did run 1500+ miles and cranked out 300,000 feet of elevation gain, without getting a single cramp(!). (I believe this link will give you 15% off the pack, but if not you might have to manually enter SEMIRAD26 in the discount code spot when you check out)

This is a really vulnerable piece of writing about body image and breast explant surgery, by writer and runner Sarah Lavender Smith: I Need To Get Something Off My Chest

I was never a massive Star Trek fan aside from watching reruns of the original series as a kid in the 80s, but damn if I didn’t love clicking and dragging around these 360-degree panoramas of the interiors of some of the ships of Star Trek. (via Kottke)

The r/ContagiousLaughter subreddit always delivers for me: Seeing how many capes I can put on my client before she notices

This list of every U.S. state’s “loneliest road” was fun for a couple reasons—the methodology, the fact that I saw my pal James Q. Martin’s name in it (as the person they asked to “judge” the 10 most scenic routes out of the list of 50), and the photography (although I’m pretty sure one of the photos is of Interstate 90 through Utah, which is not very lonely at all, in my experience). And also that the loneliest road in Iowa goes right through my parents’ hometown of Emmetsburg, where I spent many days as a kid.

The Ringer has put together a 64-member “Ultimate Traitor Bracket,” including traitors from movies, books, and real life, and they’re already onto the Final Four, but I thought I’d link to the Sweet 16 post here, because it’s just fun to see who they put in it: LeBron James, Prince Hans from Frozen, Fredo Corleone, Cypher from The Matrix, Scar from The Lion King, Iago from Othello, the list goes on.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 7 is Andy Pearson, VP of creative at Liquid Death, dad of two kids, ultramarathon runner, and co-host of the Between Two Pines podcast. Andy’s favorite things are:

1. Back to the Future Part II

2. Calvin and Hobbes

3. I Get Wet by Andrew WK
Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

4. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

5. Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady
Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

Other things we talked about:
The Curse

A heads-up: Registration opened for my Running To Stand Still writing + trail running course on Tuesday, and we have a $300 Early Registration discount if you sign up by midnight MST on Saturday January 17 (that’s tomorrow). If you like the sound of six days of mellow trail running, talking about writing and creativity with a group of fun people, and hanging out in the mountains of Montana, here’s the link for more info.

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This [professional enduro mountain biker] guy waited for McDonald’s to close to see if he could ride his bike for 24 hours straight in the drive-thru, an endeavor I respect immensely. (video) (thanks, Devin)

From the “key takeaways” at the top of this article: 1) Scientists have identified a stone wall nearly 400 feet long, lying 30 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. 2) It was built by hunter-gatherers more than 7,000 years ago, though its purpose remains uncertain. (via Kottke)

In 1983, artist David Hammons made a bunch of very round snowballs and sold them for $1 alongside other street vendors in Cooper Square in New York, and now I have to watch the documentary about him because the trailer at the end of this piece about his “Blizz-aard Ball Sale” looks fantastic.

My friend Nick Triolo mentioned this to me at least three times (twice in person and once in his Substack) before I finally got my act together and started listening to it: Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, by Jad Abumrad, who you may be familiar with from his fantastic Dolly Parton’s America podcast from 2019 or his other, also quite successful podcast that he did up until 2022, Radiolab.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

As I understand this (from reading about it on WebCurios), this is basically a live visualization of plane traffic for every airport in the world, made possible by three different websites and a bunch of computer magic my brain is too small to understand but WOW is it fun to click around a little bit. Kind of fun to type in your local/favorite airport and see what’s going on right now.

I follow the r/FoundPaper subreddit, and there’s often some interesting/mysterious stuff in there. This is less mysterious, but kind of a window into a nightclub’s operating instructions for when Carrie Underwood made an appearance there.

I met Evan Ward on our 2022 Freeflow Institute writing workshop (when we sea kayaked around the San Juan Islands in pre-season temperatures and semi-dicey weather), and I’m not saying the writing course necessarily had anything to do with this piece Evan wrote about volunteering to help people fix bicycles, but I loved it, both for the narrative and the reminder that sometimes doing simple things for people can make the world feel a little less crazy.

I forgot to mention this last week and we’re now halfway through the first month of the year, but if you’re a Strava user, I started this club a few years ago called “100 Grand,” and it’s basically for people who track how much they go uphill. If you get to 100,000 vertical feet (in one sport, or all sports) in a year, I send you a sticker. If you want one. And if you get 400,000 vertical feet, I will send you four stickers. I like the metric of vertical feet (or meters) because it has nothing to do with performance—just reminding yourself to go uphill every once in a while. Anyway, here’s the link to the club if you’d like to partake for the next 349 days.

Finally: I recorded this My Favorite Things podcast interview with Andy Pearson, ultrarunner, podcast host, and VP of creative at Liquid Death, in May 2024, and I finally published it. We talk about Back to the Future Part II, Calvin and Hobbes, Andrew WK, On the Road, and The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America. There’s some crazy stuff in this episode, but the craziest thing to me was when Andy mentioned that he once had a co-worker who “didn’t like music” (!?!?!?!)

Kevin and I were running on the trail, chugging along, talking about why people write. Because if you ask a writer, they’ll tell you it’s often essentially a form of self-torture. Yet, we—writers—are compelled to keep doing it. But why?

We were on the fire road that cuts across the face of Mt. Sentinel about 800 feet above town, a double-track of dirt that goes for almost two miles of wide-open views and is a fantastic place to go if you enjoy talking while you run, because you’re right next to each other the whole time, minus one or two spots where you might have to step aside for another runner/hiker/dog walker.

I had a couple things to say about why it’s hard for people to write, because I am technically a writer, which just means I have figured out ways to publish enough words and make enough money for the IRS to not contest it when I put “writer” in the appropriate box on my tax forms.

On the day that Kevin and I went on this trail run, I was about 60 percent finished building a set of shelves in my garage, mostly out of materials I’d salvaged from the old shelves someone had built in our garage a few decades ago and didn’t work for us anymore.

Kevin had recently finished building something very similar and had sent me a photo of it, so here we were, two runners, who were also amateur carpenters and people who want to write, talking about all that stuff as we jogged along.

I note all this because I said to Kevin something like,

Well, it can be hard to justify spending several hours trying to write something, because at the end of all those hours, you might not think what you wrote is any good. If you spent that same amount of time and a bit of money buying some wood and trying to build a table or a set of shelves, and you didn’t quite get it right and the table or the shelves wasn’t the greatest thing ever, it would probably still be usable in some way.

Maybe you mess it up somehow and have to start over once or twice. And if you cut a piece of wood an inch or two too short, you might have to go buy some more wood so you could try it again. Sure, you fuck up some wood, but you end up making something, in your hours as a novice woodworker.

And that’s considered a normal hobby—compared to writing—because at least you’re making something that has a purpose, if only for the people who live in your house. Very different from, say, writing poetry, or short fiction, which may never get published or even get read by anyone else.

But look: We both know that you can go to a home improvement store and buy a set of those wire rack shelves, or a set of plastic ones, and they’ll work just fine to hold your stuff.

But you didn’t do that. You took three or five or eight hours or whatever and penciled out a sketch and went and bought some wood and some screws or nails, and you measured the wood and cut it and clamped it together and tried to get all the angles right and cut more wood and drove in screws or nails and got some sawdust all over yourself and maybe a couple splinters in one or more fingers, and you made something yourself, and it maybe didn’t turn out exactly like you thought it would, and maybe you didn’t end up saving any money after all, but it works, and it fits in the space better than something from the store, and now you can say, Sure it’s not perfect, and sure, plenty of other people could do better, but I made this one.

I guess I think that’s why we write.

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The early-registration discount for my Running To Stand Still writing + trail running workshop this June in Montana ends January 31. More information and an application link can be found here.

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Here’s a video version of the above essay:

I didn’t know that much about Tara Dower before watching this film, but I particularly like how she would rather introduce herself as “trail folk” instead of “ultrarunner,” and that one of her biggest talents seems to be inspiring an entire squad of friends to help her achieve her insane goals (and they all seem to be having so much fun doing it)(video)

Apparently a huge swath of the northern United States could see the northern lights this past week. I missed them, and maybe you did too, but this commercial airline pilot sure saw them from the cockpit of a Boeing 787 flying from Calgary to London and WOW did he get some wild photos of them.

I got really excited when I saw this video pop up on YouTube, listened to it like ten times, and announced to Hilary, “Hey, new José González album dropping soon,” and then realized that the album is not coming until March 27th. So, “Hey, new José González song available now” if you’re into that sort of thing, and if you’re not, let me just say that I have asked my music industry friend if José González is indeed the very nice guy he seems to be, and have received confirmation. He’s just one of those musicians who could keep writing music that’s 70-90% the same as his old stuff for the next 20 years and I’d keep eating it up.

I have feelings of great validation whenever I hear that someone smarter/more successful/faster than me espouses some sort of trick I’ve been doing for a long time without knowing that it’s actually a thing. Like when I read that author David Epstein sleeps in his workout clothes to eliminate that small bit of friction when he needs to get out and exercise the next morning. Or when sports scientist and CEO of newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration Andy Blow says to spend two minutes the night before thinking about what training you’re going to do the next day as one of his tips of How to motivate yourself to train this winter. (<—This link will give you 15% off your first 2026 order on the PFH website, but you might also have to enter the code SEMIRAD26 when you check out)

This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve shared a link from the r/FoundPaper subreddit but I particularly enjoy this definition of art, and the photo of the room in the school basement where it was found.

This poem, “Occasional Poem,” by Jacqueline Woodson, simultaneously feels so effortless and so powerful, which is probably why she’s written more than 30 books and won a whole bunch of awards.

This photo gallery of the “snow monsters” that appear during winter conditions at Japan’s Mount Zao ski resort is so cool. I don’t know what else to say but it’s worth scrolling through on a screen, probably the bigger the better. [GIFT LINK]

I loved this short piece on Geographic Geoff’s substack, which answers a question that, like me, maybe you’ve asked before but maybe just in your own head, and maybe you, like me, were not in a place to google it, and then forgot about it, but now, please enjoy the answer to that question, “Lots of countries end with ’-stan’ but why?”

On our most recent Trailhead podcast episode, Zoë and I interviewed our mutual friend Doug Mayer, who started the tour company Run The Alps, and who has also run the 330-kilometer Tor des Geants not once, but three times, and wrote a graphic novel about the race. I probably say this a lot because I try to have fun in most things I do, but this episode was really fun to record, and I hope if you listen to it, you laugh as much as we did.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 8 is Chandra Brown, writer, educator, raft guide, and founder of the Freeflow Institute (where she has graciously allowed me to teach an annual writing workshop since 2019). Chandra’s favorite things are:

1. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

2. My Morning Jacket, At Dawn (album)

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

3. America Windows by Marc Chagall, Art Institute of Chicago

4. Sturgill Simpson concert at the Wilma in Missoula, November 8, 2016

5. Her dad’s Micromet weather data collection units, early 1990s to present

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If you get partway through watching this 9-minute video about “The Owl Man of Logan Airport” and you think, “OK, I get it,” please let me advise you to stick around to hear Norman Smith tell the Starling vs. Peregrine Falcon vs. Snowy Owl story (video)

This post has a handful of the captivating photos that Martin Roemers took of people around the world posing with (or in) their vehicles, and if you want to see a few dozen more, click through the links to his website (I wondered why the background was white in all the photos but one of the first photos on his website is a behind-the-scenes shot where you can see a vehicle parked on a huge white fabric backdrop). The book, Homo Mobilis, looks pretty great.

If you click on one thing in this week’s newsletter, let it be this wonderful story Anne Kadet wrote about The Trumpet Player in a Tux at Grand Central Station—and do yourself another favor and press play on the video so you can listen to the music while you read about this guy’s amazing life story and perspective.

Sometimes I think really good satire is just basically holding up a mirror to the things we do, without much exaggeration, and forcing the audience to admit that yeah, humans are pretty ridiculous. Like this McSweeney’s piece, Let Us Walk You Through Our Very Reasonable Baby Registry.

“The algorithm” gets a lot of well-deserved flak nowadays, and I think rightly so, but every once in a while it delivers me something like this 30-minute live set from this super-chill Ethiopian jazz duo Zena, from this Addis Ababa-based YouTube channel that has barely 1,000 followers, and it redeems itself a little bit. (I am aware that it’s not just one algorithm, of course).

Who among us has not at least once in their life been left hanging when trying to high-five/fist bump someone? This video of “left hanging moments” from NBA games was heartening for me, as I got to watch Very Cool NBA Legends like LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant get left hanging many, many times, and do the same thing we all do: self-clap. Like don’t feel bad, it happens to everyone, including the greatest shooter of all time.

I was going to try to write something original about this 17-second video of this guy getting served food, and by the fourth time I watched it, cackling every time at the end, I can do no better than the most upvoted comment, “Oh the look of betrayal on that man’s face”

AND: a quick favor to ask: I’m coming up on one year as co-host of UltraSignup’s The Trailhead podcast. If you’ve been listening, and could take 60 seconds and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, I’d be grateful. And if you write a review, send your mailing address to me at brendan@semi-rad.com, and I’ll drop one of my “Put in the miles so you can put in the miles” stickers in the mail to you. Thanks!

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If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. 

For a good chunk of this video, I thought, “maybe this is a little too heavy to put in my newsletter,” and then I remembered the director is Irish, and it couldn’t stay heavy the entire time, which is probably why it got nominated for an Oscar (video)

I started following Dedra Smith/Pikitsuaki Designs on Instagram a few weeks ago because one of her wonderfully clever western designs made into my feed and I thought “well, this looks interesting” (I think it was this one or maybe this one? ) and they’re too good to not share here too. (here’s her website if you’re not on Instagram)

I don’t know how many people who read this newsletter will perk up at the mention of “a collection of 40-plus essays, short stories, comics, poems, illustrations and other works by trans creators, exploring the deeper meanings of the Fast & Furious franchise,” but I’m just going to say that I finished reading 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies this past week and it was one of my favorite books I’ve read in the past few months. Probably one of those books/fanzines that will sell 1,000 copies but I’m really glad to say that a bunch of people made it. (It does say it features “erotica” but I think there were only one or two stories in the whole thing that were, ahem, racy.)

This is a story about my friend Syd’s friend Brian, written by their friend John, who happens to work for the New York Times. It’s about Brian’s nearly three-year battle with prostate cancer (after his oncologist told him he had three to five years to live in March 2023). It’s called “A Role Model for How to Die,” and is of course about a tough subject, but in the limited time I’ve spent with Brian, his spirit and personality definitely shine through the story. [GIFT LINK]

We interviewed author Brad Stulberg this past week for The Trailhead about his new book The Way of Excellence and it was a great time. I found myself highlighting lots of passages in the book, and my first question for him during the interview was basically “So your new book is about excellence. What’s something you’re you terrible at?” And he was a good sport about answering that (as well as our other questions).

I saw this Ringer headline, “How will we remember the Luka trade 100 years later?” And thought, “This HAS to be a joke, because, you know, American professional basketball leagues aren’t even 100 years old (“Go Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons!”), and a hundred years is a long, long time to remember anything, let alone a trade between two (OK, three) basketball teams. I am please to report that it is, indeed, a joke, and honestly a good bit, since I am barely aware of what’s going on in the NBA and I couldn’t escape coverage of the one-year anniversary of the Luka trade this past week.

Here’s a fun project coming up from some friends of friends: the World Climate Relay, a challenge week (June 5-12, 2026) involving (hopefully) 10,000-plus people from more than 50 countries, to raise more that $100,000 for high-impact climate charities via the Giving Green Fund. (It’s the same dates of my Freeflow Institute writing + trail running workshop so I wasn’t going to participate—but maybe we’ll do it as part of the workshop?). More information here if you’re interested/need something to get you motivated to get out there in June.

And finally: This mug was the best-selling item in my DFTBA shop last month (and so far this month):

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 9 is Mike Sowden, creator of the immensely popular Substack, Everything Is Amazing (I’m a paid subscriber). Mike’s favorite things are:

1. Halloumi
2. The soundtrack to Raise the Titanic, by John Williams

• Main theme
• Re-recordings of the soundtrack by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra:
  • Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

3. Microadventures by Alastair Humphreys

Publisher’s page | Bookshop | Amazon

4. Electric blankets
5. Distant lights seen at night

NEXT WEEK: On Thursday, February 19, at 6:00 p.m. MST, I will be doing a YouTube livestream + Q&A session about this year’s Freeflow Institute Running to Stand Still trail running and writing workshop in June. Sign up here via this link and I’ll send you an email the morning of the webinar containing the link to the livestream and a discount code good for $250 off your course registration. Hope to see you there!

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I love that Flea (yes, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) is still making music, is playing both the bass and the trumpet (his original childhood instrument) on said music, is putting out these funky videos on YouTube, and seems to be doing it in a very DIY style (he has less than 50,000 subscribers right now?), and that he just put out a song like this. (video)

It’s probably partly because I haven’t read that much of Charles Darwin’s actual writing, but also partly that he is such a revered titan of science, that I found these snippets from his letters so funny, including the one quoted in the title of this post, “Oh my God how I do hate species & varieties.”

Yesterday an algorithm served me a video titled something like “how to train like [Denver Nuggets star] Aaron Gordon, and I thought, “How dare you think I, a middle-aged dad, would compare myself to a 30-year-old full-time athlete who is paid millions of dollars each year to be good at basketball.” I did not click on the video, but I did click on this link in an email from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration because it was titled “How to balance your training with work, family and life,” and I was not disappointed to see coach Dougal Allan pretty much say, “be reasonable,” and also to think of time commitments to work/family/fitness as investments, instead of the other way around, in which you would think of the “sacrifices” you make when choosing how to spend your time. [clicking on the link to the article will apply a 15% discount to any purchase you make from the PFH website]

I was a little uncomfortable in the first few seconds of this video of this guy who starts out very aggressively wanting justice for the theft of his bike (because that’s usually how videos on social media go), but was quite relieved to see how the situation resolved. (thanks, Joe)

Hilary wrote a Substack essay about riding the bus with our little guy, Jay, and everything she says in the piece is true. She and Jay have also converted me into a fan who is now incorporating it into many bus-there-run-home or run-there-bus-home preschool dropoff/pickup plans. But the essay is of course about bigger things.

This is a 15-second video but a very powerful take on the saying (which is also the title of the video), “Everyone’s living a life you know nothing about. Be kind” (via Kottke)

This feels like a long time ago (even though it was just last summer) but Mountain Outlaw magazine published a profile of me with photos by my friend Bobby Jahrig, and words by journalist Maggie Doherty, who was great to chat with.

My first thoughts when reading this story were 1) “I would never do that to my mom and dad” and 2) “I hope my kid never does that to me,” but thought #3 was “WOW, that’s what I call commitment. Or insanity? Or both.” (thanks, Justin)

And finally, here are some new t-shirts I designed from an idea by Patreon supporter, ultrarunner, and all-around swell guy Ned Abbott (we’re donating 50% of the profits to a nonprofit recommended by Ned):

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Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 9 is Kurt Wikel, geophysicist, dad, and brewery co-owner.

Kurt’s favorite things are:

1. The Simpsons

2. Daft Punk — Homework

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert W. Pirsig

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

4. A Coconut Named Bob by Austin Weaver

Publisher’s Page | Amazon

5. Dune by Frank Herbert

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

Movie trailer

This film is about the Manhattan loft artist Jay Ells has lived in since 1967 (starting rent was $110 a month!), and he says some interesting stuff at the beginning (no hot water in the apartment for the first 35 years), but it gets even more fascinating later on. Also: That view. (video)

At first I wasn’t going to include this, because I don’t know if it will resonate with anyone who doesn’t have nostalgia for the computers of the 1980s and early 1990s, but then I clicked on the post and read in the description that its made out of “LEGO-compatible bricks,” which is pretty mind-blowing and I think maybe more universally relevant.

We interviewed journalist and athlete Christie Aschwanden on The Trailhead podcast last week, and asked her a bunch of questions about recovery. She had some interesting takes on cold plunges, sleep trackers, HRV, and the beer mile, but the thing I really wanted to ask her about was a very simple quote of hers, “stress is stress,” which gets into why sitting at a desk all day answering emails and doing work isn’t “rest,” even though it’s definitely easier than, say, working as a carpenter.

I learned some very interesting (and heartening) facts from this story from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration: Detraining: Will I lose fitness by not training for a few weeks? Including how much fitness you lose by taking time off, but more importantly, how much you retain even if you have a week in which you don’t get to do very much of what feels like “training” (like when you catch a gastrointestinal bug or respiratory virus from a three-year-old). [Reminder that clicking on the link to the story will give you 15% off your first 2026 order from PFH, if you choose to buy anything]

I read this piece twice, about this guy spending 4.5 months in federal prison and how it expanded his social circle, and I am still thinking about many things in it, including but not limited to how most of us would do anything to not go to prison because it’s awful but how, paradoxically, this guy seems to be surprised at the quality of the friendships he made in his time there, so what does that say about us in the 21st century? [GIFT LINK] (via Kottke)

I’ve been listening to Japanese chillhop musician Brockbeats since 2017 or 2018, and I have never been able to find out anything about them—no real bio, no photos, nothing besides some videos of human hands tapping buttons on music equipment to make beats. But, they have a new album out this week, and it is just as pleasant as always.

I feel like Megan Amram probably started writing this piece while having a conversation with a friend about how “protein is in EVERYTHING nowadays!” And one of them said, “Wait, it’s not in everything, right?” And then she just took that idea and ran with it as far as she could.

Alex Hutton’s paintings of roller coasters are wonderful to look at, and the type of thing I’d hang on a wall if I had more walls and way more money, but maybe the most interesting thing about them is that he does not actually ride roller coasters.

I follow the r/oddlysatisfying subreddit because, true to its name, it provides images of oddly satisfying things, as well as just plain satisfying, not oddly at all, things. Such as the way snow fell and settled on this person’s pergola, which they then photographed and shared with the rest of us.

I mentioned this new shirt design a few weeks ago, and the [bestselling] coffee mug design below it as well, and I was thinking they’re both quite simply worded, but kind of have a similar ethos: We’re doing OK.

You’re Doing Great shirt

This F—ing Sucks mug

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From my aisle seat on our two-hour flight, I glanced over occasionally at the passenger across the aisle as she went from texting on her phone, to flipping down the tray table and watching a news commentary show on her ipad, to switching to playing a game on her ipad, then finally folding up the tray table and texting on her phone for the final descent, landing, and taxiing to the gate, never spending more than a few seconds without interacting with a screen. 

“Wow,” I thought, “That’s probably what I look like too.” 

When we got home from the airport that evening, I checked the Screen Time app on my phone and realized I had, apparently, spent 2 hours and 27 minutes with my phone screen on that day. I had picked up my phone 70-plus times. 

Is that a lot? Not that much? Below or above average? I googled it, and then realized I actually don’t care how it compares to anyone else’s phone usage. When I think of the holiday cards we send each other at the end of the year and summarize what we’ve been up to, i.e. “Parent 1 started a new job and ran a marathon, Kid 2 is taking tae kwon do lessons and making friends at kindergarten, et cetera,” I don’t want mine to read, “Brendan continues to pursue his passion, which is apparently looking at his phone for a huge chunk of his waking hours and not knowing why he’s doing it.” 

Because yes, I use my phone for certain essential tasks, like maintaining a shared grocery list with Hilary, texting friends and family, taking photos, checking the weather forecast before I get dressed for my run, a few work things. But I am also aware—and have been aware for years now—that a lot of that screen time is spent on total bullshit: I pick up my phone to check the weather, and then I only half-consciously decide to watch three to 17 minutes of standup comedy video reels on Instagram, or get sucked into reading a news story and then another one and then another one. 

Sure, I could download an app to help me spend less time on my phone. I could buy a product that promises to help me limit my distraction. I could get rid of my phone and get a “dumb phone.” Or, hear me out: I could just recognize that every time I pull my phone out of my pocket, it’s a conscious choice, and a choice that often results in me being a) not fully present or b) wasting several minutes of my life or c) both. 

I have been through this before, as a person with a tendency toward addiction. I used to smoke, which, as you might know, has been proven to be dumb as shit, but also very addictive. And as a person who smoked 20 cigarettes every day for years, I’ll tell you: One of the worst things about it (besides all the obvious health stuff) was how often I thought about the next cigarette. Sure, smoking one of them took five minutes, but I probably started thinking about the next one 10 or 15 minutes after I finished the last one. Even if you don’t do the math, that’s a lot of thinking about something. 

When I was in treatment for addiction 150 years ago, there was a saying that went something like, “First it’s just fun, then you have fun with problems, and then you just have problems.” A line graph of that might look like this: 

I’m not going to compare smartphones to cigarettes or other addictive substances/habits (although I wouldn’t be the first person to do so). And I’m not saying my phone has caused the same problems I’d have with, say, heroin or alcohol. But maybe it’s worth asking: How much fun am I having? 

Or: How much fun am I missing out on when I’m on my phone? Maybe you can multitask (even though the data says you probably can’t), but I know this about myself: Every minute I’m looking at my phone is one minute I’m not fully present doing something else: having a conversation, playing with my kid, listening to a song, watching a movie, enjoying a cup of coffee. 

I have drunk thousands of cups of coffee in my life and hopefully will be able to drink thousands more, so I’m not that bothered by being a little distracted when I do that, but my kid is only going to be three years old once, and even the most boring thing he does is worth being there for. 

So the day after that flight, I decided to try to keep my screen time under one hour per day—an arbitrary number, but one that seemed prudent enough. Could I fit in all the weather forecasts, texting, photos, grocery listing, social media, banking, and other essential phone tasks I needed in 59 minutes a day? 

Well, I did. Every day for two months, I kept my phone screen time under an hour (except for two days when I went over by four minutes). I did not feel a significant transformation, write a novel, get shredded, learn a new language, or start playing the piano. I don’t even know what I spent that extra time doing. I just felt a little bit … more sane? Better? 

When I sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, I just stared at the clock for seven minutes. I went out to dinner with a friend, and when he went to the restroom, I just sat there with my phone in my pocket. I have tried to embrace what it feels like to just sit there, instead of checking the little slot machine in my pocket whenever I’m the least bit bored. 

I have quit many addictive things over the years, and in every case, I have found it much easier to completely eliminate whatever it is from my life instead of trying to moderate my usage of it. I am aware that people can drink just one beer or one glass of wine, or smoke a cigarette now and then, but I am not one of those people. The hard thing with a phone is that you can’t just get rid of it—or at least I can’t, at this point in my life. So I have to figure out a way to moderate it. Which I honestly kind of hate. But maybe this is a little bit of progress. 

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If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. 

My friend Ed, whose excellent Mountain & Prairie podcast you’re probably aware of if you’ve been following this newsletter for more than a few weeks, and who is also tapped into some Red Hot Chili Peppers content pipeline probably because of our shared love of Flea’s memoir, Acid for the Children, sent me this video this week, and it was a breath of fresh air. (video)

If you missed yesterday’s email, I wrote a piece about getting some time back from my phone, using a very simple idea/metric, and how it’s been going.

This is super-interesting but also extremely technical: A story about calculating the longest line of sight possible on Earth. As the author states at the end of the piece, visiting the actual spot to confirm the calculation would involve some significant mountaineering—but also at the end, in the footnotes, he says that the inspiration for the idea came from a 2012 forum thread on SummitPost, which warmed my crusty old mountaineering heart. (via Kottke)

I love the Poem of the Day emails, but I love them even more when they give me a poem I can read in less than 60 seconds and then think about for days afterward, like this one, which stuck the line “when you’re broke, everything you touch is artificial” in my head, where it will live for a long time.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has come up a bunch of times in conversations I’ve had in the past few weeks (including podcast interviews with Brad Stulberg on The Trailhead and the episode with my friend Kurt Wikel on My Favorite Things), so when I saw this piece by Ted Gioia, “The Real Story Behind ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’” I of course read the whole thing and learned a lot of the backstory of a book I read/loved when I was 21.

Michelle J’s newsletter isn’t huge, but I read it every time I see a new post pop up. I have technically made a living as an adventure writer, and when I teach writing, that’s kind of where I come from, but I really want to teach people how to do what she does, which is make funny, thoughtful stories out of normal things like, well, this one, The Hidden Power Dynamics of the Office Potluck.

I saw some photos of Kyoto University’s graduation ceremony on a Reddit post saying it was “an art school graduation” in which the school lets students wear whatever they want, but as far as my research has found (someone please correct me if I’m wrong), it’s just the university’s graduation ceremony. Anyway, this article is the most detailed piece I found on it, the costumes are fantastic and I think more higher learning institutions should adopt this idea.

I linked to this article on the Precision Fuel & Hydration website a few months ago, “How to start strength training for endurance,” and I am not trying to be an evangelist, but would like to say that I have been doing the exact two workouts mentioned in that article during my two gym sessions per week since Thanksgiving, and I can’t believe I didn’t start doing it sooner. (Also, if you click that link to read the article, you’ll get 15% off your first purchase of PFH stuff from the website, including this package of my favorite PFH fuel)

I have probably spent 1000 times as many minutes reading about AI than I have using actual AI tools, but it’s always refreshing to read something calm and thoughtful about this whole *gestures at everything* era we seem to be in now. There were a bunch of bangers in this essay by Charles Yu (which was apparently adapted from a lecture he gave at Davidson College), including this paragraph: “But the achievement of a degree does not cover, does not even purport to touch, emotional intelligence. What is a Ph.D. in reading the room? In teaching your kid to ride a bike? In crying because you were moved by a piece of music? We consider elephants intelligent because they mourn their dead. What is a Ph.D. in grief, awe, wonder, curiosity?” [GIFT LINK]

We announced this on social media last week: An alumnus of my Running to Stand Still writing + trail running workshop has offered to provide a full-ride scholarship to this year’s workshop (June 7-12, Homestake Pass, Montana). The deadline is March 28, 2026, and the details and application are here.

And if you’re wondering what it’s like to attend the workshop, this video I made with my friend and Freeflow Institute founder Chandra Brown should give you an idea of our general vibe:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 11 is Zoë Rom, journalist, podcaster (Your Diet Sucks, The Trailhead), running coach, elite ultrarunner, and stand-up comedian.

Zoë’s favorite things are:

1. Blalock’s Indie Rock Playlist
2. About a Mountain by John D’Agata

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

3. Ways of Hearing
4. Nathaniel Russell’s Art
5. Lady Bird

Other things we mentioned:

“Temptation” by Jukebox the Ghost

“Welcome Home” by Radical Face

The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal

The Things We Carried by Tim O’Brien

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade

I did not expect to get choked up watching this video about basketball player Audi Crooks and her family, but I am also not surprised. (video)

I was not the biggest Star Trek fan but damn do I love a good set of “fictional spaceship cut in half” images, in this case the USS Enterprise D.

I am once again doing what some people call “training” (for a big goal this fall) and really enjoying my time on the trails here in Missoula, which are ranging these past few weeks anywhere from dry to muddy to covered in snow and/or ice. To keep my toes from getting jacked up no matter how badly I treat them, I have been wearing and loving the Ultra Run Crew from Injinji, who is not only sponsoring this month’s newsletter, but also giving you all 20 percent off toesocks with the code SEMIRADMAR26 for one week only—here’s a link for newsletter subscribers.

You’re probably familiar with the term enshittification  (if not, it’s in the dictionary now), which is kind of not in the purview of this newsletter, which is called “Friday Inspiration,” which is almost entirely made up of positive and inspiring content, because enshittification is kind of depressing. BUT, this video by the Norwegian Consumer Council is inspiring for its originality and tone, as is their quest to fight enshittification.

My Freeflow Institute Grand Canyon 2025 co-instructor Dr. Len Necefer wrote this great piece, A Letter to Those Younger Than Me, and instead of trying to sum it up in a couple sentences here, I’ll just quote my favorite part and recommend you read it:  “There is a difference between earned grief and cheap cynicism. Earned grief comes from engagement. It comes from having tried, from having been in the room or on the ground or in the water, from having put something on the line and watched it not be enough. That grief is honest and I respect it and I carry a lot of it. Cheap cynicism comes from never having tried. It comes from the sideline, from the comment section, from the safe distance of someone who decided early that nothing would work and then arranged their life to prove themselves right. One is a wound. The other is a wall. Learn to tell the difference. Build your life on the wound side.”

The title of this poem, Now You Are Like a God, is perfect, and the poem itself should be required reading, as a sort of palate cleanser, for anyone who has watched TV news coverage that makes them feel that every block of every single city is a crime-ridden hellscape.

John Craigie’s new album I Swam Here popped up on my radar a month ago, and something about it just feels like an antidote to Everything Going On right now—calm, chill, a bit of reverb in the vocals. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately, as well as some of his older albums (enough to where I think Hilary is getting a little tired of it). But if that sounds good to you, here’s the new album (recommendation: start it on the second track, Fire Season).

I forget where I saw a mention of this podcast episode on The Atlantic, How To Age Up On A Warming Planet, but as someone more than a little prone to climate anxiety, last week was perfect timing (even though the episode originally published in May 2025) to hear what Sarah Ray, professor and chair of environmental studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, had to say about staying sane in an uncertain world. To paraphrase (but you should really listen to her say it in more detail): make sure you’re getting together with your community/neighbors, and redirect your attention to the things (and people) you love. [GIFT LINK]

Also: I got to interview my Trailhead co-host, journalist (and standup comedian) Zoë Rom on My Favorite Things this week, and we talked about Nathaniel Russel’s art and flyers, as well as Blalock’s Indie Rock Playlist, John D’Agata’s book About a Mountain, the Ways of Hearing podcast, and Lady Bird:

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I had decided to film all my runs for a week, and exactly one mile into my first run, Jay wanted to get out of the jogging stroller and play in the snow. So we did.

I didn’t really have a strong overall vision for the video, but 10 minutes into it, it seemed like an appropriate vibe: not so much “Run Your Fastest Race Ever With This Workout Plan”—more “OK But We Don’t Take Ourselves THAT Seriously Around Here.” I ran the final four blocks to Jay’s preschool, dropped him off, and continued my run, clocking a 22:18 second mile. Which felt authentic.

I am aware that being a 1) middle-aged guy 2) raising a preschooler while 3) trying to make a livable income off of writing and art is not probably an ideal path to being a “successful” ultramarathon runner. But I love to run on trails and am grateful that I get to do it most weeks, and I thought I’d attempt to share what that feels like. So there’s no music in this short video, just the sounds of my footsteps on varying surfaces, and they’re all real running routes I do on a regular basis, squeezed in around my family and work life. It’s not flashy, just a kind of tour of the places I run.

The week I filmed was February 23 through March 1, which was more wintry than most of our winter here in Missoula. I’m thinking I might to make one of these videos every season this year—I hope you enjoy this one: A Week of Training: Winter. It ended up being way more fun to make than I anticipated.

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A big thanks to Hilary for sending me this 9-minute skateboard video that’s more of a visual love letter to Paris with some skating by Andy Anderson, the most joyful part of which I believe might be the credits, among many joyful parts (video)

Mike Sowden, whose Everything Is Amazing  newsletter I have mentioned here many times, sent me a link to this website with the simple message “Top 100,000 Wikipedia articles of the year….as if they’re skyscrapers in a city.” I see no need to further elaborate on his words, and if that kind of data visualization sounds fun to you, here’s the link to check out WikiCity. (OK, sorry, I would in fact like to further elaborate, or just ask: Why is the Wikipedia page for the number 4 the 1,100th most popular Wikipedia page?!?!?)

Anne Kadet walked around New York for three days in order to ask 200 New Yorkers to name their worst enemy and collect their responses, which are relatable, touching, funny, quite diverse, and worth reading.

Thanks to Hannah sending me this link, I now know what a nudibranch is, and I am also very happy that artist Arina Borevich seems to have created her own lane in the art world by making felt interpretations of the colorful marine sea slugs, which seem to sell out very quickly on her website.

Reuters spent a ton of time and resources figuring out the identity of Banksy, and if you want to read a super-long piece about how they did it (and who Banksy is), it was published online this week and has MULTIPLE CHAPTERS. I was a bit conflicted about whether or not I wanted to find out, and if you don’t want to know, don’t click the link (although you might have already seen it somewhere else).

This is good advice for (as stated) “if you’re feeling overwhelmed,” and also if you would like a little chuckle.

What happens in this story titled “Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler” is probably not inspirational in a positive sense, but I thought the writing and research were honestly quite bold: McKay Coppins, staff writer at The Atlantic, practicing Mormon, and married father, takes $10,000 of The Atlantic’s money to gamble with for the 2025-26 NFL season (he OKed it with his bishop since it was a journalistic exercise). I got hooked and read this entire piece in chunks over the past week (if you listen to it, it’s almost 74 minutes), and wow. What happens is maybe not surprising, but illuminating nonetheless. [GIFT LINK]

One more thing: Thanks to a very generous alumnus of my Running to Stand Still running + writing workshop, we are able to offer one full scholarship for this year’s workshop in Montana. So if you’ve thought about joining us but need some help, check out the application here. The deadline to apply is March 28.

Related to that: I took a series of screenshots from Ethan Hawke’s interview on Subway Takes to try to explain why I teach writing workshops (including, of course, this year’s workshop, which has a few spots left):