My 8th grade history teacher, Mr. Vernon, addressed us as “miscreants”. As in, “Good morning, Miscreants. Today we’re going to talk about Pearl Harbor.”

His stories described a series of tenuous, interdependent constructions. Think dominoes, nesting dolls, syllogisms, trolley problems, standoffs, polycules. This was less pedagogical style and more verbal affliction, reinforced by decades of unmedicated thirteen-year-old regiments storming into and out of his classroom. Miscreant regiment, bell, miscreant regiment, bell, Summer. Regiment, bell, regiment, bell, Summer. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Each time he told them, Mr. Vernon’s stories grew more tenuous, constructed, afflicted.

Part of my worldview developed in Mr. Vernon’s class. Neither societal nor personal history is about collecting facts or divining truth. You and I will believe whatever suits us, even of it doesn’t benefit us. History defines our credulity, ambitions, and anxieties: what was, is, and should never be.

Mr. Vernon taught us that President Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor in time to have saved everyone at the base. America and the Allies had broken the Axis’ code. Had FDR saved the sailors at Pearl Harbor, Vernon told us, it would have cost millions of more lives. The Axis would have changed its cryptography. America would have joined the war too late. Roosevelt was a monster and god, irredeemable and exalted.

In my unmedicated, epigenetic prepubescence, I latched onto that one. Is letting that many people die ever the right decision? The world is different after something like that, even of it never happened, because some people believe it. “Shall we play a game?” Everything is tenuous, constructed, afflicted.

A friend of mine does defense industry adjacent work. She says that drones can identify each of us, anywhere, by our unique heartbeats. (Forsaken, again, by our hearts; companies immiserate love.) Once they identify us, the drones can make us deaf, melt our eyes, explode our hearts. Maim or kill anyone, anywhere, instantly.

It feels like Vernon’s class. A question of what this means if it could come to pass. If someone, somewhere has this ability, or will, it doesn’t matter if we know they do. If someone, somewhere, believes. It is a double-slit experiment, observer-expectancy, a Monty Hall problem. A seagull transforms into a butterfly and we are irreversibly different, even if nothing else seems to have changed.

Welcome to August 2026’s Disappearing Moment, an inventory of my experiences. I hope you enjoy it.

Bougie Products

I mix Base Performance Electrolyte Salt into my pre-run drink. As a salty sweater, it seems to help. It costs 16 cents per serving.

Personal Finance and Investing

WARPSimLab is free, open source personal finance simulation software. It’s nifty.

Reading

• Brett Bonfield, “John Waters, Marc Maron, and Ben Edlund”: Old interviews, never published.
• Jeffrey Friedl, “Source of the Famous ‘Now you have two problems’ Quote” (I Loved It): Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use AI.”  Now they have 99 problems.
• Sacha Judd, “One Big Room” (I Liked It): Philosopher Agnes Callard, uni-context, social media, and libraries as salvation.
• John MacFarlane, “Twenty Years of Pandoc” (I Liked It). I’ve been assembling a list of people whom I’d like to interview. John MacFarlane is near the top of that list.
• Emily Wilson, “An Uncomplicated Man” (I Liked It): Classicist Pissed Off Dreamgirl. The world is conspiring in my favor. I liked the movie and agree with Wilson.

Brettsplaining

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A lot smaller than animated GIFs. Welcome to 2026.

Survey

There were six responses to last month’s survey. Everyone agreed that AI is the most boring topic in the history of the world.

This month’s survey is about coaching. I have enrolled in George Mason University’s professional coaching certification program. I have no idea how many of the people whom I know have worked with coaches. This seems like a good way to find out. (Note: You can only pick one answer, so if more than one answer applies, please choose the one that feels the most applicable.)

To see the survey and respond to it, you have to subscribe via email and answer it through an email interface.

When I Need a Cleansing Cry

• “Boys You Won’t” (Wrens). “And you want me, you want me.”
• “City of New Orleans” (from Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie Together In Concert). The soundtrack to the drive from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to see my paternal grandparents.
• “Come Play With Me” (Wedding Present).
• Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall win the gold medal in the Women's Cross-Country Skiing Relay at PyeongChang in 2018. Chad Salmela made the call.
• Sifan Hassan finishing the 2023 Chicago Marathon. “I am getting emotional seeing how hard she is pushing.”
• “Kennel District” (Pavement). “Why didn't I ask?”
• Mourner’s Kaddish (and thinking of my paternal grandmother)
• Derek Redmond’s story, as told by Rick Weinberg
• Molly Seidel crossing the finish line in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Women's Marathon. “YES!!!”