The Incredible, Magical, Power of Three.

In the darkest of times, three old friends came to pick me up. It meant everything.

Jeffery and Erika, two friends who, while not mentioned in this essay, have also nourished and held me for decades and who will remain family forever. Photo by Daniel Collopy.

Editor’s Note: I realized upon re-reading this that the way I describe my friends might sound a little obnoxious and/or pretentious. Please know that I have friends from all different types of financial and educational backgrounds. Because of my education and background, many of my friends are affluent but I also have many who aren’t who have supported me equally. The reason I play up my friends’ accomplishments is that I am so, so proud of them because I’ve known them since we were kids - none of their success was a given. I’m a gasser-up type friend. And the reason for some of the status-based descriptors is to show that the type of people I grew up with came from varying backgrounds as well. When you tell people you’re from a rural place, you’re often met with annoying stereotypes. We’re not all backwoods idiots, though we often get treated like that when we tell people where we’re from.

I’ve been overwhelmed - so much so that it’s been impossible to keep up with my commitments, personal and professional. I’m in an odd, stuck pattern with a few long form projects that involve a ton of physical, tough labor, the type of work where I am doing things with my hands and brain from sun up to sun down that make it impossible to sit in front of a computer to keep up with more high-level, executive organizational tasks. The only reason I have time to write these words is I woke up at 1:30 AM on very jam-packed Thursday (gym, pick up my mom at LAX at 10 AM, take care of my dog, edit four video commercials, and direct my mom in helping me get my mess of a house set up for an “everything goes” holiday sale I’m having at my LA place this weekend. You are welcome and encouraged to come if you are in LA this weekend, it’s going to be really fun and there are going to be a ton of gorgeous things for sale, holiday and everyday decor as well as some great furniture.

I don’t wanna get too into it, because quite honestly this story has gotten so repetitive, but I haven’t had a day off, like a real day off where you do something fun and relax, in a very, very long time. On Thanksgiving, I took the day off to clean my LA place for the first time in nine months and I went to the gym - that was a huge joy and a pleasure (but again, not relaxing) because I haven’t been able to keep up with keeping this clean given how time consuming it is to keep my Yosemite house clean for guests (it’s on deep discount on Airbnb right now by the way because winter weather is agreeable meaning it’s a lot easier to host guests).

The long form, very challenging projects I’m working on are well paid, but the money is going to be too little, too late to get me out of a very scary financial pickle because of how content producers are paid. For one project, I have been working since July and won’t likely be paid until February or March of next year. I have spent thousands of dollars on these few projects in order to produce them, getting back and forth to my cabin to work on them, and buying supplies like wallpaper paste and primer and brushes. I think given how our economy is shifting to more and more people doing gig work like I do, where we don’t get 1099’d for everything, there needs to be a shift in how people are paid. It’s not really doable for people struggling to get back on their feet to wait eight months to get paid. None of the marketing people setting up these collaborations would want to wait that long for their next paycheck. Why should I, the “talent” be expected to?

All of this is to say, I’ve been a strange combination of very busy with work (both physical and brain/computer work) for most of the year. And for most of it, I’ve been alone. My job in many ways is to present ideas, to make them appealing, to be appealing myself. And I’ve done most of all that in the isolation chambers of my LA rental, my station wagon driving back and forth to the cabin, and the cabin itself. But recently three friends showed up for me in a very physical, real way and it was one of the biggest gifts I’ve received in a very long time. Really the last time I received gifts like this was in 2018 Jen Rettig helped me create my HGTV show and Rebecca Zajac agreed to come on to be its design producer, allowing me to see my designs come to fruition without having to do all the minutiae - something I’d never had before.

Caroline

I go to Londo Lodge quite frequently to clean it for Airbnb guests and to do projects to keep it as beautiful as possible - for myself, for guests, for content, and because I think I may have OCD when it relates to aesthetic things - a topic for another day. Every time I go up, I text Caroline, a brilliant and accomplished woman (I still have a hard time not calling her a “girl” because we’ve been friends so long) who works as a biologist in Yosemite. I am so proud of what she’s done with her life. It’s no surprise though, she comes from a family of incredibly accomplished, highly-educated people (national park superintendent mother, dean of Ivy League medical school grandfather, an uncle who facilitated the implementation of Obamacare in California, and so on). Caroline and I have been best friends since freshman year at Mariposa County High School, where we both kinda looked around and went “wait, what the fuck is happening???” because we were so different than the general population of the school. We’d pass notes to each other in freshman health class about how homophobic the health teacher was being (Caroline grew up around a lot of gay people, both her aunt and uncle are gay).

When I moved to Fish Camp, where Londo Lodge is located, I thought I’d go up to the park every week and do a big hike. And get to see Caroline (she lives in a house near the base of Yosemite Falls, very close to the one I grew up in). But, and this is also a story for another day, the logistics of trying to renovate a huge house in the woods and keep up with the constant natural disasters prevented me from doing that. So I’ll text Caroline when I’m up there but I never see her. She’s got two young kids who are the age where they need constant, constant care. And a very challenging executive level job within the National Park Service. So she really doesn’t have time to do the one hour trip to my house when I’m up there to come visit.

But a few weeks ago, when I was working on a very pretty yet very, very exhausting and labor-intensive makeover project in my living room for a brand, she offered to come to Fish Camp to take me to lunch at the Tenaya Hotel, which is just down the street from my property. It was a very simple gesture, but it meant everything to me because I love her so much and am sad I never get to see her. But also I’d been working tirelessly on a project and I didn’t, at the time, have money to go to the store to buy food or even to get gas to get home. Thanks to those of you who subscribe, a few hundred dollars came in the morning I had to leave so I buy gas to get back to LA. Thank you for that, genuinely.

One of the frustrations with my situation this year and the previous five (basically since I stared shooting my show) is that I just haven’t had time or bandwidth to show up for people. I love doing things for people. I love being generous and giving people things. I used to go up to my parents’ house and help with house projects, holiday decorating, etcetera. But now I don’t have the time or money to do that. I used to give away decor and furniture all the time, now I can’t afford to do that - I have to sell it to get by which gives me a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. To be in a situation where you can’t be as generous and “there” for your friends and family because you are trying so hard to stay above water is a horrible fucking feeling. One that I’ve had since 2018 when I started shooting my HGTV show that has lasted through the pandemic because of how hard it’s been for me to stay solvent.

I’m bringing that up because Caroline came to my house, took me to lunch, and then left after lunch I basically told her I had to keep working (I was moving furniture, priming walls, and wallpapering to try and get a video shot before I left so I was on a very tight deadline). It felt awful to not be able to invite her over to have coffee or just to hang out. But I didn’t really have a choice.

The biggest gift she gave me that day was understanding and seeing what I was dealing with - often one of the most painful things for me is doing work that really looks “fun” (and can be, under better circumstances), that you are constantly told is fun, but is often painful and hard. An example, I picked up a sofa that other day to put it in place for a shoot, there were loose/torn staples on the bottom that ripped my hands open, I got blood all over the sofa, I had to deal with cleaning my wounds and getting the blood off the sofa as quickly as possible before it stained, all delaying the whole thing. I get that what I do is a privilege because I get to make a living off my creativity, but it can be physically very painful in a real way that’s not just me complaining and being a baby, in a way that no one sees and one that I can’t talk about much because it can make me look bad to potential brand partners.

The gift Caroline gave me was just seeing what my bandwidth that day was, meeting me there, and giving me the gift of a nice lunch at a restaurant, something I get to do very, very rarely. It was a small thing, and she could afford to do it (despite the totally inflated prices of literally everything near Londo Lodge). But she’s also busy and overwhelmed, she’s also struggled with anxiety and depression during the pandemic (it may seem over to some of you but for me it’s still kinda the vibe in my life).

I guess it’s just a reminder of how a small, simple gesture can mean so much to someone. So if you have the means, maybe think of someone in your life who isn’t doing well right now and take them to lunch, even if it’s just Chipotle, they will appreciate it. And appreciate you saying “Absolutely not, I want to pay! I want to spend time with you and it is making me feel good to buy you something” like Caroline did.

Everyone wants to be taken care of from time to time, so a small act like taking someone to lunch might make a much bigger impact than you think.

Olivia

My friend Olivia, an advertising executive who lives in Chicago that I have also been best friends with since high school (yes, I believe in having multiple best friends, why not?) came to stay with me the day of the election, November 5th. It was good timing, because I’ve spent quite a few recent elections alone, just sitting there in existential dread in a cabin as we waited to see if some dolt who ruins America’s image internationally (and thus our main export, culture) was going to win. Olivia had a ton of work meetings so she wanted to stay with me because that way we’d actually see each other.

I highly recommend this tactic for close friends. Personally, I don’t really like hotels very much. I just want to wipe the whole thing down with a sanitizing wipe when I walk in the door. And for some reason a lot of them are doing this annoying thing now where instead of using duvet covers they just put the duvet between two flat sheets so the duvet insert gets exposed while you wiggle around all night and you wake up being like “great, thanks for the scabies or whatever!” I’m not totally a germaphobe, but for some reason hotels freak me out.

So when Olivia asked to stay, I was more than happy to have her. We have been having slumber parties since high school, and right now it feels like most people want just want comfort.

Before Olivia arrived, I did something that was hard for me but that I was proud of myself for. I’ve been trying to be really honest with people about my financial situation without burdening them with it. Olivia mentioned that she wanted to go out for dinner every night and go to the bars in West Hollywood (she lived in LA for a long time and has lots of gay friends here). So I said, “I would love to do those things but I can’t afford to right now so I might need you to treat me if that’s okay.” Her response? “Oh yeah no, you’re not paying for one single thing while I’m in town. I’ve got my corporate card.”

And she held herself up to that, to a degree she totally didn’t need to. For example, one night she had a client dinner she couldn’t bring me to (nor did I want to go to), so she insisted on ordering me food. I told her no over and over and over because that felt silly, “You don’t need to buy me food when we’re not even together!” But she is who she is, so she wouldn’t take no for an answer (I had her order a salad from Sweetgreens).

This isn’t really about wanting people in my life to come and pay for everything. Sure, that’s nice. But it’s more about them seeing me and my situation and, without any prompting, proactively seeking ways to take care of me. It feels so good to be on the receiving end of that type of energy. Olivia is VERY overwhelmed right now. She has a one year old, five year old, and a seven year old. She has a VERY demanding job that requires tons of meetings, parents dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane in Asheville, and her own set of pandemic-related stresses. She’s currently the sole provider for a family - her husband’s job at Google was just unceremoniously outsourced. She makes a lot of money, but she has a TON of financial responsibility. So it wasn’t nothing for her to come to LA for a week and take care of me - she did it because she knew I was in a traumatic spot and just needed to be taken care of for a minute.

I will say, I think Olivia was lying about how she paid for me. I think the dinners we went to (which to be fair were with professional contacts and clients) were perhaps put on her corporate card. But knowing her, I know she paid for all of the things she bought for me with her own money. And she lied to me about the corporate card thing so I would feel okay with it. She proactively, aggressively, made sure I would let her pay for things.

As I said before, this wasn’t about money. This was about a friend seeing that I needed to be held, and holding me. And it was so, so deeply felt.

Christopher

Christopher is a friend of mine who was a year ahead of me at Cornell and a year ahead of me in graduate school at Penn. We have been close since sophomore year because he was best friends with Megan, one of my co-RA’s at Risley, the residential college “castle” at Cornell known for its offbeat residents and famous alumni. It was a magical place with unisex bathrooms that was just one hundred percent accepting and filled with the type of “nice kids” who were my core group in high school. Megan, my co-RA (I was an RA sophomore through senior year), was hilarious. Whenever she saw any of her friends on campus she’d scream “YOUUUUUUUUU FUCKKKKKKKERRRRR!” in the funniest way possible. It immediately made you laugh.

Megan and Christopher studied Landscape Architecture at Cornell, which for some reason was in a different college (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) than my colleges (Architecture, Art, and Planning and Arts and Sciences - I have two undergrad degrees from Cornell, long story). Megan brought Christopher around Risley all the time and we’d go to the few weird/dumb gay events in Ithaca together. There used to be a gay bar, far outside of town, in a double wide trailer, called Common Ground (which sadly closed). I’d go there with Gregory and my other friends and we’d dance around like kids who had no idea how to be at a bar.

Having this type of long form history with people is so special and rare. I don’t have a ton of friends from grammar and high school because I didn’t have a lot in common with most of them. But the ones I do have, I feel a very close kinship with. We have slept in the same rooms together, woken up together, seen each other at all stages of the day and all stages of life. They have been excited for me when something fun and glamorous happens (a book, a show, etc). But more importantly, they’ve been there for me more when those things aren’t happening.

There’s a certain strangeness to the way success and light “fame” works. When you are riding a high, people come out of the woodwork and claim you as their own. When you falter, those same people fade off into the distance, their interest in you disappears when you are no longer “shiny.” I cannot tell you how many people from Yosemite, where I grew up, and Mariposa, where I attended high school, came out of the woodwork to congratulate me and claim me as one of them. The same people who did the exact opposite growing up. Did I hear a peep from those people when my show was canceled? Of course not.

That is why friends who show up when you are at your lowest are best friends. That is why Christopher is so special to me. Now, getting to what he did for me recently.

Christopher is an executive creative director who recently relocated from New York City to Modesto, California - a shocking move I warned him he may not like (he didn’t). No offense to my Central Valley readers - I was born in Merced and I know the area well and I know that there are great, intelligent people there. I just have kind of a negative association because it’s sort of my hometown. That being said, I had some really cool friends from Merced and Modesto growing up so I know there’s a lot of lovely people there. But yeah, it’s not my vibe. Modesto is about two hours from Londo Lodge, so whenever I go up there, I text him asking him to come visit me. He rarely has time because he travels a lot, mostly to Southern California, New York, and Hawaii (where he grew up). But the last time I was up there a few weeks ago (or last week? I have no idea time doesn’t make sense to me anymore because I have been working so much). He came up with the specific interest in helping me finish my living room makeover and taking care of me.

What he did in addition to a TON of manual labor (lifting and moving huge furniture, making a gigantic painting, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming the whole house, and so on) was bring a huge amount of food and cook every single meal we ate. He knew generally I was financially stressed but what he didn’t know was that while I was trying to pull off this incredibly high-end living room makeover, with an expensive, gorgeous sofa, a $4000 luxury television, and expensive wallpaper from Europe, I had $3 in my bank account and literally didn’t have money in my account to buy food or extra supplies to finish the project. I’ve been in this situation a million times before, and I know how dumb it sounds, but the aforementioned expensive items are all sponsored in exchange for me producing marketing assets like video and photographs. The reason for the makeover was to create a dynamic story for the paying sponsor (the company that makes the TV) so it sounds illogical to do all this but I’m doing it to hopefully attract more sponsorships via producing a really good makeover that makes people excited about the absolutely stunning television (I'm genuinely in love with it).

Christopher went to school with me, has traveled with me multiple times, and has seen me in just about every state. And that’s another thing I loved about him coming. I know he’ll forgive me if I fuck up and act weird. While he visited, I had a few bratty moments:

Me, picking up the sofa, gashing my fingers on broken/open ended staples, smearing blood all over the sofa, screaming, “GOD FUCKING DAMNIT I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE ONE MORE FUCKING PIECE OF GODDAMN FUCKING FURNITURE ONE MORE GODDAMN FUCKING TIME EVER AGAIN I HAVE EARNED BETTER THAN THIS!”

Me, carrying a giant, hundred pound wood panel painting I made (in a tremendous time crunch) out of scrap wood and old doors I found on my property because I couldn’t afford to buy more supplies, that barely fit in my wingspan, from the garage to the living room, finding I couldn’t put it down because there was no space open, screaming “WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERY FUCKING THING IN MY LIFE HAVE TO BE FUCKING HARD WHY CAN’T THERE JUST BE A FUCKING PLACE TO PUT THIS WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS I HAVE BEEN WORKING SINCE I WAS FOURTEEN CONTINUOUSLY I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THIS SHIT ANYMORE!”

Both of those were pretty bratty, unrelatable moments. But they are feelings that I have sometimes. I’ve watched as peers get more and more help over the years while, since the pandemic, I have had less and less to the point where, aside from friends and family coming in from time to time to help, I mostly do shit on my own. I pride myself on being the type of person who isn’t “above” any job. I scrubbed the toilets for my Airbnb all year - I’m not a diva. But there are times, when I am physically exhausted and physically injured by my work (remember when my knee exploded from removing the carpet in my house for a shoot?) that I get frustrated. And quite frankly, I think that’s okay. We all get mad and say shitty things sometimes. But people don’t always have enough understanding or empathy for your situation not to judge you for ugly outbursts.

When I apologized to Christopher about the bratty, entitled things I said, he blew it off in the best way. He literally didn’t care and said, “Yeah, I got it. You’re tired. You’re allowed to get mad. It isn’t anything.” I find myself constantly in need of reassurance lately. So that was yet another gift Christopher gave me while he visited, cooked for, cleaned, and generally took care of me.

It’s hard for me to describe how/why my life feels so overwhelming right now, but generally it’s that I have to work all the time, no weekends, and and still not making ends meet. So these beautiful moments of, without prompting, friends showing up and scooping me up and just taking care of me is so intensely heartening.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love and what it is lately. I have a very complicated relationship with my ex - there’s a type of love there but I’m figuring out what it is and we are very, very much just friends. And I’m not sure what I think about relationships anymore - everyone is open or poly and I just can’t wrap my brain around whether I could do that (even though I totally celebrate anyone who can, I’m a no judgement type of guy when it comes to relationship types). But I find myself wondering what if anything romantic love is. It feels like it’s a cultural fabrication of some sort, a world of belief that is fun to play into but maybe isn’t real. What I’ve learned from my past romantic relationships is that, even with a partner, you’re still alone to a certain degree. You’ll never truly know exactly how deep, true, and meaningful their connection with you is. So I’ve put a pin in looking for that type of love.

Last night as I got home after a harrowing three days of furniture moving, yard work, and driving a terrifyingly large truck six hundred miles filled with things to sell at my sale this weekend, a thought came to me. I think these people, these friends of mine (and many, many more who aren’t mentioned here) are the loves of my life. I think I will know and love them until we pass. And for that I am so thankful. What a gift.

I don’t think there’s any bigger blessing than love and care.

It will come to a relief to some of you, after reading all of that, that I've decided to give up my LA place and move to Londo Lodge, hopefully just for two to three months to catch up financially and do some upgrades to the house to make it even more luxe for next year’s summer season. I have a lot of fear and feelings about that, for reasons I’ve described before, but I have to do it to save my house from foreclosure. That’s a whole story on its own, so stay tuned for that. But I’m, for now, feeling at peace with it if a bit fearful.

I think for the next few months I’ll need my friends more than ever.