Parking-lot traffic three separate times: outside of Dwight, Illinois; Springfield, Illinois; and East St. Louis, Illinois (traffic was perfectly smooth near Chicago, Illinois). Icy roads through St. Louis, then blowing snow through the Ozarks and right up past Springfield, Missouri. A fifteen-and-a-half hour driving day, 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and that’s a two-hour discount because I stayed the night with Chris in Arkansas instead of pressing through to Tulsa.

The part of the drive that made me cry was not the snow or ice, or the fatigue, or sleeping on the futon. The part that made me cry was under clear skies and no traffic; my brother was driving, we had six hours behind us and (this was before the delays) anticipating six hours to go, and he had the country music on, and I was so, so happy. This was the kind of thing we’d done before, plenty of times, usually out west, eight hours across South Dakota and back.

But that was before I was married. The occasions for a long drive with my brother are going to dry up here for the next, oh, thirty years? (It only happened this time because we were going the same direction and Becky had the chance to fly home—which turned out to be even more of a blessing than anticipated, being spared the stress of the weather.) So the chapter of life where Chris and I light out on the road for hours and hours, that’s coming to a close.

It isn’t the only one. Emotions were not far under the surface when we were all up north last week. This was the first year that one of my grandparents was in the memory care facility, and/but I still have four grandparents, and that’s a lucky streak that won’t hold out forever. (I know more than one grandparent will be reading this, but I don’t think “not forever” is too much of a shock. Hope not!). This was my first Thanksgiving with a wife and probably one of my last few without kids. The dog is getting old and he’s moving slow.

The overall sense is that it’s the end of one era and the start of the next. And one thing I’m thankful for, I was thinking about this, is that I know I’m going to miss everything that I have now, which is inspiring me to enjoy it and also hold onto it as much as I can. I don’t know but I would guess, that when grief finally finds me, I will be wishing that I had savored this time more, and had more to remember it by. I’m trying to get ahead of that.

So if someone in my family says “I wish I’d kept a diary,” especially as his own memory fades, I am interested in taking that as advice or even instruction. If someone writes down a task, in her own hand, to put in the annual Thanksgiving job jar, well, that slip of paper is certainly coming with me. If you offer me old jackets or mugs or hand-painted lunchboxes that my ancestors have used and loved, let alone a sculpture you made of a robed Greco-Roman figure complete with a removable wooden sword, yeah, I’m absolutely taking that home. No question.

Let’s say the era I’m talking about has been the last ten years, the years that related to my family more as an adult among adults. I don’t think I would say I’m thankful that this decade is ending. I know I’m looking forward to the next one, which isn’t the same thing. But I would, without hesitation, say that I’m thankful I have such a long runway to make the transition. And for all the gifts I’ve been given.

46.84

is how many miles I’ve run since last issue. Astute readers might have noticed that’s 37% less than last month. Am I going to blame my trip north? Am I going to blame the cold weather? No—I am going to blame the fact that I am currently sick with a cold, and so I haven’t gotten out there in almost a full week. On top of those other things.

I am telling you this because I am giving myself an excuse to write a shorter newsletter than the previous two have been. I don’t know if that makes a difference to you, but it does to me.

One other thing I’ll say about running: one of the runs included in that 46.84 was 6.5 miles almost entirely in the pouring rain. I expected to have 30-45 minutes of dry weather before it came down but I was wrong about that. Had a warm shower afterward and had a great time. Highly recommend.

Spies, Again

Last issue I wrote 1,500 words about spies and information for this newsletter, and there’s more where that came from!

Specifically, three things:

First, in an article titled “Writing a Spy Novel in an Age of Geopolitical Chaos” I found a beautiful turn of phrase:

Reading a good spy novel should be not unlike solving a chess problem. The outcome turns on a series of moves already encoded in the starting position, but you don’t feel manipulated or swindled as these play out; it’s the rules of the game.

I thought that was perfect. I love the feeling, in a story (spy and otherwise) to walk away thinking “this was wild but it couldn’t have happened any other way.” I feel it most acutely in tragedy: like Hamlet could have avoided a lot of the things that happened to him if he had made different choices, but he was who he was, and so the choices were almost preordained. That’s not to say it was formulaic, I like when there’s a twist, but it’s important that you look back and the twist arose from the structure the story already created for itself.

It would be like if you deliberately sent someone the link to the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” It would feel like a trick, yeah? Our culture has conditioned us to distrust links associated with that video. And then if you click the link and it takes you there anyway, you might be surprised, but honestly, what did you expect? I told you what was going to happen. If you clicked the link.

Movies that make me feel this way: The Northman (2021), Thoroughbreds (2017), The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (also the book of the same name), Calvary (2014), The Prestige (2006).

Second spy thing.

In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) released a handbook to help ordinary citizens commit sabotage. Presumably this would be useful for like the French Resistance? But there’s a section (beginning on page 28) that feels oddly resonant to the 21st century desk job. Here are some samples:

General Interference With Organizations and Production

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions

7. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision—raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with some higher echelon

For Managers

1. Demand written orders

12. Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files

14. Apply all regulations to the last letter

The whole thing feels like a joke, but the manual is right there on cia.gov, an official US Government website. I think it would feel a little too Fight Club or even Office Space to complain that there are a lot of backwards policies and redundant bureaucracy in the modern office, so instead I will simply imply it.

Third spy thing, related to the second. A 28-year-old Houston man was arrested last month in Houston for being affiliated with ISIS. Included in his records, now seized, were communications with an ISIS operative called “The Nightmare.” Sounds like a pretty scary guy! Was he a nightmare in the torture chamber? On the battlefield? No: he was a nightmare to work with because he gave so many notes before signing off on graphic design projects.

Said was an aspiring ISIS graphic designer who was working with ISIS’s second-in-command graphic designer. That person told Said that ISIS’s chief designer gave him the nickname  The Nightmare because of the extensive notes and revisions that were required before any piece of propaganda he worked on was pushed out.

Just another day at the office. I won’t be posting ISIS flyers on my own newsletter—a man’s got to have a code—but click the link to the 404 website and you’ll see he really did some nice work tidying up the layout.

Two Archives Full of Cool Photos to Browse

Inside the Design Nike Archives (DNA)

And the second is the Natick Soldier Systems Center Photographic Collection available from the Digital Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The US Army has made lots of clothes, and these are the photographs of them, and some end up looking pretty cool. I would recommend, instead of the full catalog, looking up collections already compiled from the New York Times and The Guardian. Terrific outfits going on here.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays from me and mine to you and yours. See you next month when I’m back feeling 100%.

From Tulsa,