Zinzy

Brushing my teeth on Friday morning, I think about the weekend ahead, secretly complaining that my social engagements will keep me from getting the rest I need. Then I remember Easter Monday. The true marker of my mid-thirties is the excitement I feel at the prospect of a bed, and nothing but it.

I hold a baby this week, one of my favorite ones. His face has two states that exist simultaneously: the one of utter shock and surprise only newborns can have, and the one that reminds you that babies know everything about the world and forget it as soon as they start to speak. He laughs when I bop his nose, although I quickly learn that the force with which I bop Anja’s adult nose shan’t be applied here.

There’s a French bakery in Amsterdam that I visit on Wednesday with my colleague Ruby. Since their actual oven is somewhere else, I wonder if the shop even calls itself a bakery. After all, French standards would forbid it. The caramel éclair reminds me of that time at Un Dimanche à Paris, a high I’ve been chasing since mid-2018. The bread has been in the window too long. I ask if they have plastic bags, and I’m told no. I say I think that should be illegal in bakeries.

My childhood friend Mathilde comes for dinner on Sunday. Anja and I are giddy with excitement. In preparation, we practice our harmonies to Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic"over voice messages. Her husband asks her if she, too, heard the cat meowing. We’re celebrating her birthday, and I got her gifts at Java Bookshop. When I ask them about the East-Asian gay guy who writes letters to his mom, they immediately give me Ocean Vuong’s new book of poetry. Seeing her again, I better understand what It means to have a soulmate. I sing so loud I give myself a migraine. It’s worth it.

It took a while before I settled into a suitable solution for the way I produce content on this website. I write Markdown, and had set up mdx in case I ever needed some more complexity in my content files. I would mostly update content through my desktop client, but have Working Copy for iOS installed, which I enjoy as much as anyone could enjoy a touchscreen Git client. I was missing some functionalities that are natural to the way I generally write, and so I decided to move my content into an Obsidian vault. I could make a spiel about how I love the “slow web”-ness of writing things on my phone and only publishing them when I’m on my computer, but I simply haven’t figured out how to do it any other way.