📖 PrologueStill here. Still showing up. Spring has arrived, and with it — something that’s hard to name, exactly. A lightness, maybe. Or a kind of opening up. The winter was fine, but it was winter. An especially grey one, in January, no less. And then one weekend in late February/early March, it was 22°C and suddenly there were people everywhere along the Seine and everyone seemed to remember that this is, in fact, one of the best cities in the world to be alive in. I’ve been reading — lightly, skeptically, curiously — that 2026 is a numerological “1 year.” The beginning of a new 9-year cycle, after 2025 closed the last one. Coincidentally or not, it seems that an Aquarius multi-year cycle that had been around since 2018-2019 ended in April. Seven years in Paris. Seven years married. A daughter who’s nearly two and a half. I’m not saying the stars planned it. But I will say: spring 2026 feels less like a season and more like the start of a new chapter for us.
👯♂️ On friends and good daysThe best thing about spring in Paris is what it does to people’s social lives. Everyone comes out of hibernation at once. Something we’ve been doing for a few years now: once a year, around our birthdays, we gather as many of our favourite people as we can in one place for an evening together. It’s grown into something we look forward to more every time — all of us a little older, with growing families, more stories, more to catch up on. There’s something about getting everyone in the same room that a hundred separate coffee dates can’t replicate.
And then this year, we started something new: a monthly Sunday morning breakfast at ours. Friends show up, we put out pastries and good coffee, and everyone stays as long as they want — an hour, three hours, whenever life calls them back. Long conversations, kids running around, no agenda. It’s become one of my favourite things we do. A way of recreating a real sense of community, deliberately, in a city where that can be easy to lose if you’re not paying attention.
Once a month, we host a breakfast gathering for some of our closest friends
Shana baked a Sesame Cake and her signature Pandan-White Chocolate cookies for the occasion A few weeks ago, one of those evenings also happened to be out in the city. Our friend Matt and his wife Claire joined Shana, Azul, and I for an afternoon along the Seine — the kind of day where the light stays long and nobody’s in a particular rush to go anywhere. We ended up at dinner at the iconic landmark that is Au Pied de Cochon, a legendary place in the Paris dining scene that we had wanted to visit for years. Cue Azul on a high chair, commandeering a disposable camera while eating truffle coquillettes au jambon, all of us delighting in shared profiteroles, the building across the street lit up properly by the time we left. Paris gives you one of these once or twice a year. You just have to be ready for it.
Our New Yorker friends happened to be in town during a gorgeous spring weekend
Life by the Seine A few days later, I got an invite (through Paris Basketball 😎) to visit a brand new food court & event space due to open up soon. This place is located on the other side of the basketball arena and I've known about it for a while. "Central Chappelle" is a third space: café, food court, concert venue, a gorgeous terrace for the summer, and community space (Adidas co-designed a dedicated space to run podcasts, allow local youth organizations to get together, and generally do cool stuff). It's rare enough that a place like this opens from the ground up (3500m²) and it's even rarer to be given a private tour and an invite to attend a soft launch event. I had a blast, and it was especially heartwarming to see Shana identify the great work that went into designing this space (she was looking at every furniture, every detail of how the space was put together), while our daughter was running around, exploring the space, cheering up some of the staff getting ready to open. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about what environment she'll grow up in, and it makes my heart sing to think about the possibilities that are ahead of her. How cool to think that we attended the pre-launch of this space that she'll probably get to go to when she's a teenager with her friends a few years from now. How cool to think about the possibility of getting her a Paris Basketball season ticket with me, if she chooses, and share this passion together! (There's a good chance, given that she now identifies basketball, shouts "Ball!" or "Allez Allez!" when she notices me watching a game or highlights.)
Then on a sunny Sunday, we went to support our friend Sutanya — who you might know as Dinner For One — at her pop-up residency at Comptoir Sur Mer, a seafood spot next to Canal Saint-Martin. She was co-hosting alongside another Caribbean chef, and it was the kind of meal that makes you genuinely happy for someone. Plantains, bold sauces, a layered cake to finish. Buddy Buddy was just a block away — a place I’d been meaning to try — and then we walked home through the warm afternoon with the stroller. The chalk on the pavement on the way out read l’amour au pouvoir. Felt right. This is the season for it. Hosting more. Visiting more. Saying yes to things.
Sutanya's popup residency at Comptoir sur Mer
Woman of the Hour
Quick pick-me-up in the afternoon
----- 🏡 On homeMy wife and I always talk about the concept of "Home being a thing that’s never quite finished" — and we mean that in the best way. It keeps evolving to reflect who you are now, not who you were when you first moved in. These past few months have been good on that front. Shana painted a kitchen wall, which sounds like a small thing and somehow completely changes the room. The first real hot days of the year arrived and we finally sorted out the balcony — outdoor blinds making a real difference when the temperature outside threatens to warm up our home during the hottest days of the summer. It's only been a few days but we can already feel the difference. Next up: indoor blinds, a new bathroom mirror, and a few other things that have been on the list for longer than I’d like to admit. Slow, intentional progress. The kind that feels right.
The kitchen wall is now painted in this velvety chocolate color
Balcony Season is now open! Speaking of Shana: she’s been absolutely killing it lately. New clients, great networking opportunities, content that keeps getting better. She’s building something real, and if you’re not already following her work — on interiors, identity, and what it actually means to create a space that’s yours — you should be. Her newsletter is available via Substack and she’s on Instagram, obviously too! Go follow. Oh and she recently published episode 2 of her podcast — in which I'm her guest and we go over how we met!
Click to listen to Shana's latest podcast episode ----- 🤖 On having a helper on my shoulderI wrote about this a bit on the blog — the personal guides I’ve been building with AI: Paris recommendations, Berlin Travel Itinerary, coffee instructions for my favorite brewing methods, workout plan, and shared cooking recipes. Each one started messy, took 2–3 rounds, ended up genuinely useful. But those were the visible output. What I’ve been noticing more lately is the less visible stuff. The best way I can describe it: there’s a little helper on my shoulder now. Not for everything. But for the things that used to create low-level friction or background noise in my head, it’s been quietly useful. In the kitchen, for example: I’ll share what we’ve got, what our week looks like, what we’re in the mood for — and come out the other side with a clear meal plan and the recipes to execute it. Not generic ones. Ones that fit our actual fridge, our actual schedule, the fact that we have a toddler with opinions. It’s just having a well-organized second brain to think alongside. At work it shows up differently — more like a strategic sounding board when I’m trying to assess a situation, or step-by-step guidance when I need to structure something I’ve done a hundred times but want to do more cleanly. And honestly? Sports research. Being able to just ask a question and get a direct answer instead of going down three browser tabs. I’ve reclaimed a non-trivial amount of mental space that way. The thing that surprised me isn’t the capability. It’s the cumulative effect. Less background noise. More room to actually think. A little bandwidth back — and in a life with a toddler, a demanding job, and a full social calendar, bandwidth is the real currency. ----- 🏀 On sports (briefly, I promise)Paris Basketball has been a ride. Early elimination from Euroleague Playoffs this year, but we're now aiming to run deep into the French domestic league playoffs, starting 2 weeks from now. I'll be renewing my season ticket for a 4th year running.
Solo Night out at Paris Basketball I also made it back to the NBA Playoffs viewing party at Le Grand Rex — 2,500 people in one of the most beautiful old cinemas in Europe, watching playoffs basketball together, with guests including Mickael Pietrus and Maxime Raynaud, one of the best rookies of the year. My second time going. Already hoping for a third.
2500 NBA fans in a classic movie theater dating from the 1920s, to watch the playoffs together Side note: I picked up a leg injury at Thursday basketball a few weeks ago — hematoma plus a minor ankle tear — which meant a few weeks of rehab and sitting out. Being cleared to test jumps again felt like a bigger deal than it probably should have. Turns out your first real sports injury in your mid-thirties recalibrates your relationship with your own body in ways that are hard to predict. Glad I was able to go back on my first post-injury run yesterday, at almost my normal pace!
Yesterday's run along the canal, before grey/rainy weather later this week... ----- 🤩 What I’ve been intoGorillaz dropped The Mountain and I’ll say it plainly: second best thing they’ve ever made, behind Demon Days, ahead of Plastic Beach. The trilogy is complete. Tom Misch’s Full Circle has also been on heavy rotation. Excellent. One of my all-time favorite artists, and one that is incredibly meaningful to Shana & I. The day that I got ready to meet her, his track The Journey was playing on repeat.
Gorillaz - The Mountain
Tom Misch - Full Circle Reading: finished Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - Season 8, the comic book follow-up, in omnibus form — things get wild, then somehow earn it. Also finished: Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski. I came to baseball relatively recently — Ken Burns' documentary during lockdown was the gateway — and this was a perfect follow-up. A love letter to the game through its best moments, and genuinely fun to read even if you're not a lifelong fan. Currently working through Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I found in the shared library bookshelf in our building, which remains one of my favourite things about where we live. Our trip to Berlin last month also deserves its own entry, and it got one on the blog — Vietnamese community history in the GDR, Tempelhofer Feld, reconnecting with an old friend, watching BCL basketball with the full work team. It’s on my blog, if you want the long version.
----- Life is full. Good. Somewhat boring in all the right ways. Thanks for reading. Reply if something resonates — I always read them. — Tibz |