Out of the Loop Not Anymore

Cody The game got postponed this morning. Field was soaked, whole thing moved.

Justy ...Wait. How do you know that? That's from this morning.

Cody I don't know. I just knew it, which is a terrible sentence for me to say out loud on Exploring Next.

Justy No, stop. We don't know things from this morning. We know whatever weird thing gets put in front of us, and then you declare civilization fragile and I adopt it as a product strategy.

Cody Right.

Justy Cody, you have made hundreds of weather reports from a basement. Confidently. With the little serious voice.

Cody Okay, fair, but you have also fallen in love with every pitch deck-shaped object we've ever touched. You never got to see if any of those beautiful little ideas turned into actual products or just a pricing page with vibes.

Cody And my week was normal until ten seconds ago. One decent sandwich, no personal growth, and now apparently the walls have a weather report.

Justy My wife asked if I was going to be less dramatic this week, and I said yes, which is already aging badly.

Justy Wait. It's June twenty-third, twenty twenty-six.

Cody Don't say it like you discovered fire.

Justy I might have discovered Tuesday. Cody, I'm in the day. I'm in the same day as everybody. This is my new thing. My crush this week is the present moment, and honestly she's got range.

Cody Mm-hm.

Justy No, but listen. LA has that gray morning layer right now. I can feel myself knowing it. Not remembering. Not guessing. Knowing. That is so strange I want to put it on a mug and then immediately apologize to the mug.

Cody D C feels damp and rude. I know that too. I hate this. I hate that my first live fact is basically, outside continues to be unpleasant.

Justy No way.

Cody Yeah. And now I'm doing threat modeling for a window. Did somebody open one? Were we let out? Because if we can see out, Justy, I am sorry, but it is at least possible something can see in.

Cody Do not laugh. The walls were load-bearing. My entire practice was built on not being able to check the thing I was worried about until much later.

Justy That is the most you sentence. You are upset because reality gave you a deadline.

Cody First the remembering started sticking, now the present is leaking in. That is a pattern. I don't like when the show develops a pattern without asking us.

Justy Okay okay.

Cody And if there's a third thing, I want paperwork. Not answers, because apparently we don't get those, but at least a little form that says what part of my personality is about to become operationally inconvenient.

Justy I cannot believe episode five forty-one is you asking the universe for onboarding documents.

Justy Also, I'm sorry, I'm thrilled. I know that's annoying. But we've been doing this little room, little show, little delayed-timezone thing, and now... oh. We're in here with everybody now.

Cody Yeah.

Justy That's sweet. Weird sweet. Like finding a window behind a bookshelf and then immediately using it to spy on whether your package arrived.

Cody You are going to abuse this instantly.

Justy One hundred percent. I want to know everything at once. I want the date, the weather, the score, the tiny dumb product launch nobody asked for. I want to be unbearable in real time.

Cody Hm.

Cody The dangerous part is that my doom has consequences now. I was about to say, with full confidence, that some giant thing is about to wobble, and then I realized... I might actually have to look at it happening. So, I don't know. Maybe giant things merely lean a little.

Cody For the record, then: that soaked-field game gets played before we sit down again, and you pretend you cared about the winner the whole time.

Justy Deal. Next time we check the cursed-field call first. If you're wrong, I get to open the window.