No one ever grabbed my ass on the stairs down to
the D. But on the stairs up to the El, it happened
all the time. I guess it was anatomically more natural,
like reaching for an apple, but the first time,
I wasn’t sure how to feel. I think I felt warm,
which wasn’t an emotion. It felt like a rite of passage,
though I’d never heard of rites of passage.
Disgusting is what I said when I told my friends.
A grown man. I was twelve then. It felt like flattery.

From the El, I could look into other people’s windows,
but if I saw them at all, what they were doing mostly
were the same kinds of nothings we did in our own
apartment. What I usually saw were their curtains
blowing in and out, ’cause their windows were wide open.
It wasn’t like the High Line, where many years later
I saw two men in a hotel room doing a performance
just for me. The High Line used to be an El. It still is in a way,
though it’s covered with flowers. And I’m the train.

When I turned nineteen and got married, I went to live
up by Mt. Eden. It was cheap and noisy and the El
ran below our window and our daughter died and we were
still in school and took the D train to Manhattan now.
But coming home one night, I looked up and saw curtains
blowing in and out of someone’s window. I was on an El,
I don’t know where, or how I made it home. It wasn’t our El,
but it’s the El I dream about: I’ve just come down the stairs,
and now I’ve got to figure it out. Up on the platform
you could buy peanuts from a dispenser and either
give them to the pigeons or eat them yourself.

Joan Murray

A few years ago, my mother’s youngest sister shared with me stories she had written about her parents, sisters, and brother. She wrote about their lives in great detail and her narrative came from her heart and memory. The stories helped me understand their legacies; therefore, I asked her permission to preserve them in online book format so we can share them with the younger generations. I edited her stories in Vietnamese and English. I put the website together. I also came up with the book title. Familý was a play on my mother’s family name: Lý. For the visual identity, I pulled together NaN Serf and its sibling NaN Serf Sans, designed by Daria Cohen, Fadhl Haqq, Léon Hugues, Jean-Baptiste Morizot, Luke Prowse, and Florian Runge.

Allegedly the worst is behind us.
Still, we crouch before the lip of tomorrow,
Halting like a headless hant in our own house,
Waiting to remember exactly
What it is we’re supposed to be doing.

& what exactly are we supposed to be doing?
Penning a letter to the world as a daughter of it.
We are writing with vanishing meaning,
Our words water dragging down a windshield.
The poet’s diagnosis is that what we have lived
Has already warped itself into a fever dream,
The contours of its shape stripped from the murky mind.

To be accountable we must render an account:
Not what was said, but what was meant.
Not the fact, but what was felt.
What was known, even while unnamed.
Our greatest test will be
Our testimony.
This book is a message in a bottle.
This book is a letter.
This book does not let up.
This book is awake.
This book is a wake.
For what is a record but a reckoning?
The capsule captured?
A repository.
An ark articulated?
& the poet, the preserver
Of ghosts & gains,
Our demons & dreams,
Our haunts & hopes.
Here’s to the preservation
Of a light so terrible.

Amanda Gorman

My father was a builder. When I was a kid, he took me on the roads to watch him built houses, temples, and theaters with his crew. In his tribute wordmark, Hồ Hữu Tỷ (his name) fit together like a building block. I love the way squares and circles are built together to make up Megazoid, designed by David Jonathan Ross.

Last night, my wife broke the chain when she tried to turn off the ceiling fan. We bought a new switch at Lowe’s for about $7. The replacement process takes 10 to 15 minutes. We use these fans in our bedrooms a lot because our second floor is always hot. Our AC unit doesn’t work too well. I am not sure how long we can ride it out before we have to spend about $15k. I just don’t want to think about it. Being a homeowner comes with too many responsibilities and I have very little skills to fix them. Oh well!

As I was debating whether I should spent over $50K to buy a new Toyota Sienna or fixing our 2011 Toyota Sienna XLE, I chose the latter. This time I chose the Auto Team in Manassas. One of the co-owners is a friend’s uncle. Even though it was my first time, I could trust him. He’s an honest mechanic. He replaced the front struts and sway bar links.

Parts

• Struts: $190 (2x)
• Sway bar links: $48 (2x)

Labors: $400

Total with discounts: $850

The AC is still not working. The sliding doors are still not fixed. Nevertheless, I can still use in in the winter to drive to Whitetail for work.

I do not condone gun violence. I condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk. My condolences go out to his family.

Nevertheless, let’s not forget that Kirk was a right-wing provocateur who built his fame and fortune on abomination, disinformation, polarization, and radicalization. Kirk knew damn well what he got into when he boasted, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

America has a dead-serious gun problem and Kirk’s violent rhetoric only makes it worse. He normalized gun violence. He was a great political performer. He rose to the occasion and seized the moment. He was unstoppable until a bullet caught up to him.

Again, Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be shot and killed, but let’s not forget there was another school shooting on the same day at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. Kirk’s death is heinous, but the lives of so many innocent children we lost to mass shootings are also tragic.

At this point, we still don’t know the motive behind Kirk’s assassination, but what we do know is that gun violence is neither the left nor the right problem. Gun violence is the American problem.

I still rollerbladed as much as I could. I hadn’t picked up any new skills. I skated for about half an hour at the skatepark and spent another 30 minutes on the basketball court simulate ski carving on my big-wheel rollerblade.

I played volleyball with other scout dads every Wednesday night. Three weeks ago, I hurt my right thumb and it hasn’t fully covered. I need to learn how to avoid finger injuries.

I also picked out a bit of pickleball. It seems like my wife enjoys pickleball as well so we can play together. I want to get the kids to give it a try as well. We’ll see.

Then again, I still can’t wait for the winter to come so I can ski and snowboard. These are still my favorite sports. They are even better when I get to do them for free. I hope the weather will stay cold and pray the snow god as well.

Yesterday, I decided to rework and refine the wordmark for Scalia Law’s Career & Academic Services. It is set in Acumin Variable, designed by Robert Slimbach, to give give a nice and balanced text block. The colors came from Scalia Law’s branding.

I cancelled Netflix. I only subscribed to Netflix so I could watch season two of Squid Game, but I kept it until season three released. I would have kept Netflix if my family were streaming it. Only Xuân watched Cobra Kai. After he finished all of the series, he stopped streaming. I don’t have much time to watch either. Netflix is overwhelming with content, and yet I just don’t know what to watch. I enjoyed stand-up comedy, but it didn’t have that many new specials. I watched a few episodes of Sex and the City and they were enough for me.

In a way, I enjoy reading more than watching. I have been wanting to subscribe to the New Yorker, my favorite magazine, but I am still holding off. I am just not sure if I want to read articles or just focus on reading books. I don’t have time to read everything and if I were to subscribe to the New Yorker, I would want to read everything.

I subscribed to the New Yorker a few years ago and the paper magazines were piling up in my home. I felt guilty for not be able to read them all. Maybe I just subscribe to the digital version. I do want to support the New Yorker.