a great writer.

Last week, while sitting at the closest Starbucks (shame) and trying to cram in as much work as possible, an older man crept up behind me holding his laptop. “Are you good with computers?” he asked. I smiled and cleared a spot at my table. “I’m ok,” I answered. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to meet and stammered through something about a spreadsheet. I finally realized that he wanted to copy a spreadsheet from one folder to another. “Oh, that’s easy!” I told him. “You won’t believe how easy it is.”

So I showed him: select the spreadsheet file, control+c, control+v. He couldn’t believe how easy it was. He went back to his table with the spreadsheet in the right place.

An hour or so later, as he was leaving, he came back to my table and told me I was kind. He gave me his business card. We talked about his wholesale flower business, how he had been in the neighborhood for 20 years, how his niece in Israel kept telling him, “Uncle Benny, you need a website.”

He asked what I did for a living, and I told him, "I’m a grant writer." But he heard, "I’m a great writer." And he didn’t even hesitate. “Oh, you’re a great writer! You can help me write things! Advertising, website. Give me your card. I will call you.”

And that was that. I gave him my card. Who knows if we’ll cross paths again, but whatever happens, he’s out in the world thinking I’m a great writer.

On an entirely different note, I can’t stop thinking about this piece on racial privilege. It says a lot of things that I’ve been trying to find my own way to say.

So it’s dark and has been for the past four hours, because it’s December. We hung up a single string of Christmas lights, which is helping. I’m starting some new work tomorrow, thinking about dusting off my bike to get there, thinking about how casual my business-casual can be. On it goes.