Welcome to Ask Roulette, the newsletter.
How does this work? Each newsletter you’ll see one reader’s answer to the previous question. Then you’ll see the question they have for the list, which you can respond to if you’d like. Or you can just read and enjoy.
Previous ask:
If you are partnered, how did you meet your partner? If you're unpartnered but would like to be, what's your dream meet-cute?
Nick answers:
I moved to Boston about a decade ago, and I didn't have too many friends when I moved. And while the general 'Boston isn't friendly' idea isn't quite true, what it is is very practical; and what isn't practical is making new friends or trying out new relationships in the depths of a dark and weary winter. Fortunately for me, a distant friend from undergrad decided to move up here shortly after I did and when she did, we moved in together, and her deliberate social organizing of all kinds is the reason I have any friends here at all.
As part of that, she met a cute boy at some kind of entrepreneurship brunch thing, and he invited her to a weekly Sunday potluck at a big apartment in Cambridge's Harvard Square that he hosted with his roommates. More than 20 people were packed in, sitting and eating all around the space. I had a long conversation with a handsome man who invited me to go on a run with him sometime (we did). I also caught the eye of a different man in a loud shirt covered in tiny circles. We didn't speak much, or at all maybe?
But my roommate and I kept going to this potluck in the same apartment every single Sunday. The subsequent Sundays were a lot less populated, but a steady crew of regulars winnowed out, including that second, loud-shirted man. A few weeks later, he sent me a DM inviting me to dinner ('Just the two of us?' I replied, coyly). We've been married a year and a half, and the entire potluck crew came to our wedding.
Nick asks:
What is the first job you can remember aspiring to have as a child? What do you do now? What happened?
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Thanks to everyone who responded. See you next week.
Odds & Ends
Close readers will notice that I haven’t been in your inbox for a couple weeks, and in part that’s because I’ve been extremely busy with a few big projects that have come my way. One of the ones that I’m most excited about is that I am now on board as the executive producer of “What Now? with Trevor Noah.” I’ve been trying to find a way to work with Trevor for a couple years now, it’s nice to come on board and help guide the show. I was lucky enough to sign on right as two pretty special episodes came out — one marking Trevor’s 40th birthday, and one with Idris Elba that I’d like to think pushes far beyond the usual celebrity interview.
I think Trevor’s warm and smart and empathetic; and that’s the kind of shows I like to make. All that said, I always make sure there’s room to be very very silly.
This Tony Romo ad in T Magazine brings me endless delight.
Many years ago, in the era of the mp3 blog, my good friend Chris stumbled across a cover of “Don’t Let Me Down” by a Ghanaian singer named Charlotte Dada. It’s been sitting on my computer ever since, and has sustained me through the years… perhaps the most perfect cover song I’ve ever heard. Last week, Chris let me know that he once again stumbled across it, this time finally on Spotify, tucked into a strange mid-70s compilation of Beatles covers. Anyway, the point is, Charlotte Dada’s “Don’t Let Me Down” is now on streaming. Hallelujah!
(the rest of that compilation is pretty wild, too)
Find me on Threads!
I aspired to be a detective. It was a joint aspiration with my best friend at that time, who was also my cousin and lived across from me. We both bought 'The Usborne Detective's Handbook' and came up with missions. The most memorable involved an elaborate afternoon of frying cubed potatoes, getting my siblings to eat them with their fingers and then smearing their fingers on a glass panelled sliding door for us to dust with talcum powder. The powder, brush and a notebook fit in our matching Detective Kits, plastic and brightly coloured, it was all very important business. We were missing a trench coat though and I lusted after one I saw in a Burberry storefront. But we live in Singapore, where it is mostly warm and humid throughout the year, and wearing a coat would be the most conspicuous thing to do.
Today I am an artist and an arts administrator. I think it was the dramatic feeling of being a caricature detective that I liked. Cleaning up clumpy talcum powder, wiping down the crime scene and convincing my sisters to continue their criminal careers was also challenging so we resigned. But maybe if I had lived somewhere where I could wear a trench coat things would be different...