What I'm Up To
​Volume 97

Hey friends,

Here’s what I’ve been up to since Vol. 96…

1. July Happenings
​I missed it! Last month marked 8 years of writing "What I'm Up To." Few endeavors in my life have seen such commitment over time. Our morning workouts, weekly date nights, monthly reading & networth goals, annual goal-setting retreats... Time on the task over time yields extraordinary benefits. Consistency, in its own way, is intensity. 📈
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So why this newsletter? I started it to maintain connections with readers like you, and it has certainly done that. Ryan Holiday, someone I connect with infrequently, shared, "I feel like I know everything going on with you from your newsletter."
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I still believe the most surprising benefit has been learning the power of reflection. The newsletter is just a few hundred words—typically an hour time block for me. In reality, I usually invest many hours over several days. I scroll through photos and my calendar. And I reflect. Living life once is a gift. Living it twice is better. ✨
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Early in the month, I called an audible. My afternoon was unscheduled, and I was depleted. I texted Wendy, “Want to catch a matinee?” 🎥 Thirty minutes later, in one hand was hers and in the other a Jellyfish IPA, while the opening credits for F1 scrolled at the Alamo Drafthouse. 🍺

July 4th started great. I smoked a brisket and we had friends over. But the rain kept coming. Thankfully, our friends in Kerrville survived the horrific floods with only damaged property or vehicles. If you haven’t donated to the relief efforts, please consider doing so now. ❤️‍🩹 The news cycle moved on by month's end, but the hard work of recovery and repair will take years.
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Gus, Wendy, and I traveled to Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 for about ten days. We visited Edinburgh (1, 2 & 3), the Highlands (1 & 2), Islay (1 & 2), and Glasgow (1). Links are to my Instagram posts where I journaled our trip. ✈️
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I really enjoyed reading Outlander (set in Glencoe and the Highlands) and The Blackhouse (set on the Isle of Lewis) while touring. Both added to the flavor and immersion. Gus somehow read nine novels in nine days. 📚 We got to reconnect with Marjorie, one of Wendy’s bridesmaids, and meet her husband. We sampled whisky 🥃 at five of Islay’s distilleries.

My luggage was lost on arrival. 🧳 I made the decision that I wouldn’t let the inconvenience spoil my good time. Our first morning in Edinburgh, we bought some cheap hiking gear, an invaluable navy flannel shirt, and some sundries at a drug store. I contentedly lived out of a shopping bag until the last day of our trip, when we tracked my bag to a warehouse in Glasgow. 🎉

Two tips for my fellow travelers: Always load your Kindle with a few great novels set where you're traveling. And also stash an AirTag in your luggage!
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I celebrated my 56th birthday 🎂 back home in Austin with a massage, movie, pizza, and key lime pie.
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​2. What I’m Reading
​For fiction, I enjoyed Blood Over Brighthaven by M. L. Wang. I can’t remember who recommended it, but a “great stand-alone fantasy read” is what sold me. I didn’t want the pressure of another series in my reading life. It was a solid, stand-alone read about a barrier-breaking female mage who must choose between her dreams and her humanity. “It’s much easier to tell yourself you’re a good person than it is to actually be one.”
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My friend Carly has been trying to get me to read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon for a few years. A trip to the Highlands provided the perfect excuse to dive in. If you’ve been living under a cairn, it’s the story of a post-WWII nurse who is transported into the past. It’s a terrific love story set in the brutal period before the Jacobite uprising. I was surprised to learn that Gabaldon hails from Flagstaff, Arizona. Her descriptions of the Highlands felt deeply authentic, which I confirmed every time I looked up from my book and out the window. “I’ve yet to see the auld woman believes in witches, nor the young one, neither. It’s men think there must be ill-wishes and magic in women, when it’s only the natural way of the creatures.”

​The Blackhouse by Peter May came from a lucky internet search for novels set in Scotland. The Isle of Lewis setting was a nice stand-in for the Isle of Islay. It's the story of an Edinburgh homicide detective called to return to the island home he fled to help solve a murder. The protagonist has to face his own past and all his old friends who never escaped the barren island. "It's odd how people can get locked into a kind of time warp. There's a time in their lives that defines them, and they hang on to it for all the subsequent decades; the same hair, the same style of clothes, the same music, even though the world around them has changed beyond recognition."
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Finally, I loved When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy by Sam Vander Wielen. I met Sam at Craft + Commerce in June and loved her wise, authentic vibe. She left her career as a corporate attorney and became a creator with an online business. That business grew to 8-figures in just over 5 years. She also learned how to separate her personal happiness from her business success. "If you're disappointed because you thought your business was going to fix your life, I'm sorry to be a downer, but it won't. What it can do is give you the opportunity to make many facets of your life richer and fuller. It will gift you the opportunity to be a better person, one who faces their fears and shadows."​
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​3. What I’m Watching
​Wendy and I loved F1. Brad Pitt channels Steve McQueen cool throughout. The cockpit views of the racing action will get your pulse racing (if a shirtless Brad Pitt does not.) We also watched the detective series Department Q! (Netflix), which is set in Glasgow. Matthew Goode is excellent as the starky, haunted cop. And Kelly Macdonald does a wonderful turn as his reluctant therapist. As is often the case with great film and television, the series is based on a series of novels. Department Q can thank Danish crime fiction author Jussi Adler-Olsen for a great yarn and colorful characters.
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For my birthday, Wendy chose AJ Goes to the Dog Park because it was at the “right time” and set in her hometown of Fargo. We all wanted to leave but because it was a film festival, we were afraid the filmmaker or his mom might be in the theater. 🙈 Here is what one Reddit User wrote: “I walked out after 10 minutes and saw I Know What You Did Last Summer. About 30 minutes into IKWYDLS, I snuck out to use the restroom and as I was doing that, the audience for AJ Goes To The Park had let out and they looked broken, sad and walked with this heavy weight as if they just got out of a work meeting where they were getting cussed out by the boss. That has to be the most disappointed audience I have ever seen.” 🤣
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Finally, Gus and I streamed 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, so we could catch 28 Years Later in theaters. We can thank 28 Days Later for fast zombies and making Cillian Murphy a star. 28 Weeks Later was a better movie than either of us remembered, despite having no Cillian Murphy. 28 Years Later appears to be the first installment of Danny Boyle's three-part opus. I loved Jodie Comer as the sick, unstable mother. Ralph Fiennes’s cameo as a post-apocalyptic doctor/shaman is fantastic.

That’s it for this month. Please reply back and let me know what you’re up to!

Be well, do good deeds, and eat tacos!
Jay

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