Friday Inspiration 513

why everyone runs in rom-coms, a walk retracing human migration from Africa, send John's grandma a 100th b-day card

Dec 05, 2025

An update from me as we enter the final weeks of 2025: As you may already know, this newsletter is supported financially by my friend Don. And Brian. And Julie, Scott, Kim, Travis, Adam, Charlotte, Zachary, and a bunch of other people who kick in a few dollars a month on my Patreon or through paid Substack subscriptions. I am grateful and privileged to be able to create the things I create for a living, and it’s because of the support of those people that I’m able to continue. I always joke about “having to get a real job,” but that’s something that’s always in the back of my mind—hanging up the weekly writing for a steady paycheck. THANKFULLY, for now, I have Don, and Brian, and other folks, and, maybe this year: you? You can help keep this newsletter going via Patreon for $3 a month (or more if you’d like), and you’ll get my monthly members-only Patreon update, in which I share lots of behind-the-scenes stuff about upcoming projects, things I’ve learned over the years, and my annual book recommendations (coming in a few weeks!).

If you get some joy out of this newsletter and you’d like to get yourself a gift for 2026 called “Making Sure the Semi-Rad Newsletter Keeps Coming,” please click this link to check out my Patreon (or click below to upgrade your Substack subscription to a paid subscription). Thanks again to everyone who’s been supporting my work for the past few years.

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I honestly was not expecting this video to go as deep/thoughtful as it did in four-ish minutes: Why Is Everyone Running In Rom-Coms? (via Kottke) (video)

thumbnail from Why Is Everyone Running In Rom-Coms

Maybe you are familiar with ultrarunner John Kelly, who has, among other achievements, finished the Barkley Marathons not once, but three times. Maybe you aren’t familiar with him. EITHER way, his grandmother, Stella, is turning 100 years old, and John put a post on Instagram saying she would love to receive some cards, including a brief bio of her and her address (Stella Kelly, The Glen at Oak Ridge, 200 Bus Terminal Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37830). I have a stamped and addressed card sitting on my desk right now, waiting a few days closer to the holidays to send it.

I broke out the microspikes for a lap up Mount Sentinel yesterday, and it was quite lovely, snow falling, the quiet trail, a very stiff breeze blasting my sweat-soaked wind jacket as my route went from the leeward side of the mountain to the windward side. It felt like my first real winter weather run this season, and I realized that I have no idea how my hydration needs change when the temperature drops, so I looked up a few articles on newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration’s website. This one, Why hydration still matters in cold climates and how to nail your strategy, by Katie Elliott, ski mountaineer and founder of Elliott Performance and Nutrition, was pretty eye-opening, even just for the fact that, ahem, did you know you actually pee MORE in cold weather? (FYI, clicking the above link will give you 25% off your first PFH purchase)

Any interview with Ethan Hawke is pretty much clickbait for me, but even if you’re not a huge fan of his work, I highly recommend listening to the two minutes starting at 10:39, where the conversation turns to why movies about regular people are important (this link will start the video at exactly 10:39).

I love this idea for this book: Sure, we know who paid for the Empire State Building to be built, and we know who the architects are—basically the rich people who were involved—but how about the actual workers who built it? The ones in the old photos we’ve all seen, roughneck daredevils (?) standing on exposed steel beams hundreds of feet above Manhattan, 40 years before OSHA was created. This article about the new book, Men at Work: The Untold Story of the Empire State Building and the Craftsmen Who Built It by Glenn Kurtz, is really intriguing. Also, did any of those guys ever drop a wrench from up there? Because that would be bad.

This is a super-long poem, but I was guessing from the title, “we acknowledge ourselves,” that it was a take on land acknowledgements, and once I started reading, I wanted to see where Iñupiaq poet Aisa Akootchook Warden was going to take it, and I was not disappointed.

I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this until my friend Glen sent it to me last weekend (thanks, Glen), but National Geographic Explorer and journalist Paul Salopek is walking across Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, retracing human migration from Africa. If I am reading the incredibly detailed and extremely well-produced website correctly, I believe he has just left Japan and is now on a ship crossing the Pacific Ocean.

I have not read that much Charles Bukowski, but damn, this is a really interesting piece about the most inspiring thing he ever said—which was in response to a journalist asking him what he thought about a library in Finland banning one of his books because someone complained that it was vulgar.

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Lastly: If you’re still looking for gift ideas, we still have some of these available in my DFTBA shop:

Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems (signed copy)