The advice that has always served me well is that one conversation leads to another. This is how the world gets built. The old axiom “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is axiomatic for a reason. In order to get your ideas implemented, you have to be seen, first. Without the right eyes on, your ideas will languish in obscurity. Most people die thinking that their great ideas aren’t that great… when the truth is much simpler than that. No one saw it.

Monty Python has a great skit called “How Not to Be Seen” and you learn the biggest lesson the hard way…. “don’t stand up.” When you stand up, you are open in your vulnerabilities and weaknesses. You are ripe pickings for anyone who wants to do you harm. But what the skit doesn’t tell you is that your friends cannot see what you’re doing, either. I have found that your friends do want to help you when they see the concrete steps. They will not jump in if they don’t know how.

For instance, Riker had a great idea for our storytelling podcast theme song. I just need to make sure that it’s legal. Otherwise, I will sing the loop he needs myself, because he picked something that reaches so far back into my history that I could sing it in my sleep. He’ll even give me time to warm up. 😉

Now that I think of it, if I put the loop here, he can grab it on his own.

Meanwhile, I used Kindle Unlimited to get three grant-writing books this month alone. I need them because I have huge ideas and little money. Grants are the first step towards provisioning, and The Sinners’ Table is a large undertaking, even if we only manage to feed 50 people at a time.

My vision for The Sinners’ Table is to get chefs I’ve worked with and possibly known quantities like Gordon Ramsey, Tom Colicchio, and David Chang to come to Baltimore for a few days to both cook and teach. Number one on the call sheet is my friend Evan Henson, because when we worked together at the Laurelwood Pub, he’d been to culinary school but hadn’t run his own brigade. He went on to become Andy Ricker’s chef de cuisine, and if you don’t know that name, it is dear to me. Andy is one of the most talented Thai chefs I’ve ever run across, and not having Pok Pok in my neighborhood anymore no matter where I live is just grief.

I have told Evan that if he knows how to make Andy’s chicken wings, I will have trouble letting him go home. 😉

There are two reasons I would like to get “names” to Baltimore:

• The unhoused could never afford this type meal on their own. It is dining with dignity to give it to them free with no expectation of payment. To have someone like Gordon Ramsey is not because he’s necessary. I can teach people how to cook. I’m just not a beacon of hope like he would be, because my words don’t carry the weight that his would.
• Those at the top of their field have no problem teaching. Everyone gets to eat. Those who wish to learn to cook in hopes of getting a stable job at a restaurant need to see how it’s done by volunteering on prep and dish before service.

I’m not just talking to my friends, though. My therapist is a big part of all my success, because in order to move on, I had to give up my old life and prepare for the new one. I didn’t give up much. Aada was so all-encompassing that I gave her too much power she did not see. There will be no thank you for the 12 years she got out of me while I was dying inside. There will only be anger that I could not be dead inside forever.

But luckily, that will not be my story. My neurons are healing and I am starting to feel real feelings. I could not connect to anyone else while I was connected to her. It’s not what she wanted, but it is what happened. I will have to wonder if she would have come toward me if I’d decided to keep quiet about all the cuts we made on each other’s skin.

I don’t wonder much, though, because the best indication of future behavior is the past.