“Iran deal ends Trump’s war that revealed limit of US dominance.” — BBC

Step One: Withdraw from any agreement your predecessor made. A truly great negotiator does not inherit a deal; he wipes the slate clean so he can build one from nothing.

Step Two: Bomb them after claiming interest in negotiating. In negotiation, there are no rules, except one: ABB—Always Be Bombing.

Step Three: Claim victory. Announce that the nuclear sites have been completely destroyed. Do not worry if your intelligence officers tell you otherwise. Prematurely declaring “mission accomplished” signals to the enemy that you are well-versed in American military tactics.

Step Four: Continue to claim total victory until the reality becomes undeniable, then repeat Step Two. Demand the enemy’s complete and total surrender. Kill the person in charge, then kill the person you wanted to put in charge. Unpredictability is key to any quality negotiation. Never let them think you know what you’re doing.

Step Five: Mock allies for offering to help. A real negotiator goes it alone.

Step Six: Claim to be close to a deal. (Note: You do not need to actually be close.)

Step Seven: Threaten to destroy their entire civilization, preferably via your own social media platform. Make it clear that you do not want that to happen, and act as if it is beyond your control. To project maximal strength, a dealmaker must project maximal weakness.

Step Eight: Repeat steps five, six, and seven in an order of your choosing. If asked whether you regret claiming total victory, pivot to talking about your enemy’s imminent complete surrender.

Step Nine: Broker a two-week ceasefire. To avoid violating the War Powers Resolution, tell Congress that the war is officially over and you are now in the postwar phase. (Note: You can continue bombing both during the ceasefire and in the postwar phase. There is literally zero chance that Congress will stop you.)

Step Ten: Begin to back off your demand for complete and total surrender. Say that this was never your real goal.

Step Eleven: Send your second in command to negotiate on your behalf during the ceasefire. If possible, send your son-in-law and a real estate developer to help. It is essential for any dealmaker to have someone to blame when things don’t go their way.

Step Twelve (if applicable): If the enemy blocks a waterway, block their blockade. Uno Reverse is the most powerful card in the deck.

Step Thirteen: Extend ceasefire shortly before expiration, citing productive talks. If the enemy points out that there haven’t actually been any productive talks, double down. You must make it clear that you do not bow down to truth.

Step Fourteen: Clarify that you expect the allies you previously mocked to help you.

Step Fifteen (if applicable): Announce plan to help ships get through the blockaded waterway. Scrap the plan a couple of days later. You are not a helper; you’re a leader.

Step Sixteen: Announce that you are close to a deal. Repeat up to a dozen times, regardless of whether you’re in fact close.

Step Seventeen: Resume bombing. Steps Sixteen and Seventeen may be performed concurrently.

Step Eighteen: Sign a “memorandum of understanding” that reopens the waterway (if applicable) and leaves all the real issues for later.

Step Nineteen: If asked how this deal is better than the one you tore up in Step One, or if it was worth the thousands of lives lost, or if this deal actually brings us closer to preventing the enemy from acquiring a nuclear bomb, pivot to claiming that you are now in a “position of strength.” If possible, post videos of your Secretary of War doing push-ups to drive this point home.

Step Twenty: Declare victory for real this time. Mission accomplished.

Yeah, I’m  rans, bu  mos  people can’     ell.
Maybe  hey can  ell I’m nonbinary, bu  mos  days
 hey jus misgender me “hey ma’am” (  hough I’m no ).
I was born  his way, I always knew I was a boy
growing up, bu  back  hen I was called “ omboy,”
which a  leas  had “boy” in  he name. Puber y
blockers weren’  a  hing  hen, bu  sex-change
surgery was and I  ried every angle bu  my paren s
wouln’  buy i , so I s opped asking and grew up
wi h  he wrong hormones coursing  hrough me.
I looked like a sor  of girl, bu  fel  s ill so much
like a guy, bu   hen over  ime, I admi  I grew  o
apprecia e my female  hink bu s  ill, I never did
adjus   o my body, so I wear loose clo hing.
I wear a  rucker cap a lo  (mos  of  he  ime backwards)
and have never been a fan of mirrors bu  I don’ 
wan  surgery anymore because i ’s surgery … and
I have already been  hrough  oo much. I ’s a personal
decision  o live (as I do, a “ hey /  hem) and I was glad
when  hose pronouns became ubiqui ous
because  hen I defini ely fel  more seen. Bu , of course,
“ hey/ hem” since  he las  elec  on isn’  qui e as
accep ed, jus  like I’m no  qui e as accep ed…
Presiden   rump said in his inaugura ion speech
I don’  even exis ! I was in Canada during  ha 
momen , so I didn’  hear him, bu  he said  here are
only  wo genders and  hey are dic a ed by your body
a  bir h.  rump is mis aken on  his, jus  like he is
abou  so many  hings. He go  rid of our  rans flag
and he go  rid of our le  er “   ” in LGB   bu  he can’ 
ge  rid of me no ma  er wha  he  akes away
or how he spells ha e.

J Brooke’s debut collection, I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side (Driftwood Press) is out today.

I am Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Caligula, successor of Tiberius, Son of the Divine Germanicus, and Supreme Commander and Holder of Tribunician Power, Pontifex Maximus. And I decree, in regard to the upcoming White House UFC event…

It’s a bit much, right? Like even for me. Pretty gauche, no?

Caged brutes pummeling one another bloody on the historic lawn of the Executive Mansion? All to celebrate President Trump’s birthday?

Come on, what are we doing here?

I might have been guilty of some runaway self-indulgence from time to time. I mean, I used to literally drink pearls and once declared war on Neptune.

But is America really going to sully its iconic symbol of democracy with Dana White’s CTE speedrun machine? Why can’t Trump keep his bloodsport / ego strokefest in the coliseum where it belongs? This whole ordeal is really giving mad kings a bad name.

And what’s next? Pete Hegseth’s hardcore backyard wrestling in the rose garden? How about a JD Vance dunk tank on the south lawn? Or Stephen Miller as a carnival geek biting heads off live chickens and guessing immigrants’ weights? I’m just saying, this is beneath the most sacred of America’s institutions.

I know this might seem surprising coming from me. And don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to bread and circuses. But considering that the price of bread is currently skyrocketing, Trump spending millions on a red-white-and-blue-drenched octagon is a real slap in the face to John Q. Plebeian.

Besides, there’s an appropriate time and a place for brutality and violence. It’s like I was saying to my trusted advisor/horse the other day: The orgies stay on the orgy ships, and the beheadings and burnings stay in the gladiator arenas, or the prisons, or the slave quarters, or sometimes on the orgy ships. But I don’t spill blood at home. For one, that’s where all my stuff is. And two, I like to keep business and pleasure separate. Mostly…

Of course, maybe I’m expecting too much from the modern world. As you can imagine, things were very different in Ancient Rome during my four-year rule. Allow me to set the scene:

I was a megalomaniac leader completely unmoored from reality. I declared war on the environment. I led many unsuccessful invasions and declared victory anyway. I built monuments to myself and insisted that my minions worship me as their god. I engaged in heinous sex acts and even lusted after my blood relatives. And finally, I routinely humiliated senators and political adversaries with childish nicknames like “Little” Marco Naevius, “Sleepy” Tiberius, and “Crooked” Cassius Chaerea.

Again, everything I’ve just described must be completely foreign to the United States in 2026.

Also, the majority of Roman citizens celebrated my eventual assassination. Not sure if there are any parallels there…

Regardless, the concept of restraint is timeless. While I am obviously 100 percent on board with the ruling class engaging in debauched carnality and unpunished murder (is that still a thing in 2026?), please, let’s try to keep it classy.

Day 4,382 of people asking whether “normal workers” could really move large stones without assistance from mystical sky beings.

Yes. That is generally how construction functions.

A man approached me near the Nile today and whispered, “But have you considered… visitors from the stars?”

Brother. We do not even have reliable sandals yet. Why would intergalactic civilizations travel unimaginable distances only to help stack triangles?

People dramatically underestimate what thousands of organized humans can accomplish when they are adequately fed, aggressively supervised, and denied alternative career paths.

Another traveler asked: “How could ancient people possibly understand mathematics?”

Excellent question. We accidentally invented geometry while trying to avoid carrying rocks incorrectly.

There is a strange tendency among future civilizations to imagine ancient Egyptians spent all day worshipping cats, speaking in riddles, and waiting for aliens to explain basic engineering.

I showed one visitor the ramps.

The pulleys.
The labor records.
The architectural planning.

He nodded thoughtfully and replied, “Interesting. But what if extraterrestrials?”

At this point, I believe some people simply find aliens emotionally comforting.

Do you know what sounds more believable than “A sophisticated civilization developed impressive construction techniques over centuries”?

Apparently: “Space people.”

Yesterday, someone pointed at the pyramids and said, “There’s no way humans did this.”

This feels deeply insulting considering humans also created taxation, organized warfare, and raisins.

Clearly, we are capable of terrible perseverance.

The workers themselves would be furious hearing these theories. Imagine dedicating twenty years to hauling limestone under desert heat only for somebody in the future to conclude, “Honestly, this feels Martian.”

Also, if aliens truly possessed advanced cosmic technology, why would they choose pyramids? Why not invent indoor cooling? Or chairs that support the lower back?

Tomorrow, I must return to supervising entirely human workers using entirely human tools to build another entirely human monument that future people will somehow attribute to lizards from space.

Congratulations are in order to the Ralph Bunche Library, my favorite place to spend time whenever I find myself at Main State. See the FEDLink award, or just read these excerpts:

The Ralph J. Bunche Library at the U.S. Department of State has been named the 2025 Federal Library of the Year by the Federal Library and Information Network, or FEDLINK, in recognition of its technological innovation, operational restructuring and global support for American diplomacy. The FEDLINK award recognizes federal libraries that demonstrate outstanding service, innovation and measurable impact in support of government operations.

Established in 1789, the Bunche Library is the nation’s first federal library. In fiscal year 2025, library staff served 18,000 unique patrons across 175 countries. Much of the library’s recent work focused on using AI and data analysis to better understand patron needs and demonstrate the value of library services across the Department.

[Snip]

The library’s newly minted assessment and strategy team used AI tools to analyze 18 months of customer relationship management case entries to identify common themes across requested library services, including business and organization vetting, legal and policy research, regional and country-specific research, database access, specialized subject research and historical research. The analysis helped the library shift how it describes its work, focusing less on internal processes and more on the mission-tailored outcomes Department staff achieve with library support.

While you appreciate all the AI tools and clever strategy don’t overlook the library’s stacks, which are extensive and redolent of old leather-bound volumes and dusty ambiance, exactly as they should be. That is the heart and soul of a library, and it just doesn't come across through a screen.

Here’s a tip: there may be uncatalogued Easter eggs of information in those stacks which will amaze you. For example, when browsing references on the Spanish Civil War, I found a stray pamphlet put out by the Nationalist government in the early 1950s that had group photos of every international volunteer unit on the Republican side and their battalion flags. It was evidently collected by the U.S. Information Agency, and some State librarian was good enough to keep it.

The unstated goal of that pamphlet seemed to have been to associate the civil war with the communist take-overs of the Soviet Bloc states in the 1940s, implicitly aligning Nationalist Spain with the U.S. side in the early Cold War. In other words, portraying Spain as the first Iron Curtain victim but for the resistance of the Nationalists. Spain’s ticket into the good graces of the U.S. and NATO after a regretful wartime dalliance with Nazi Germany, perhaps. In any case, it was an example of a public diplomacy campaign by Franco’s government.

All that was good material for my research purpose, but that artifact only existed because of The Unknown Librarian who wouldn’t - couldn’t? - throw it out.

Faced with a badly printed little book on terrible quality newsprint that left smudges on your fingers if you touched it, my nameless benefactor chose to err on the side of being a collector. It might have been another fifty years before a library user next touched that item, but I owe someone my thanks.

That’s just the sort of footnote to history you might find if you tear yourself away from your screens, now and then, and go hands-on with paper and ink. Who knows what else may lie undiscovered in those stacks?

This past winter in the Midwest was a systemic shock. There is no gentler way to put it. Coming back to this climate, feeling that heavy, gray, bone-chilling freeze, I found myself counting down the weeks until the world finally thawed. I wasn’t just waiting for the temperature to rise; I was longing for a specific frequency of existence.

This is my first full summer back in America. It also happens to be the summer I turn 40.

In Ghanaian culture, entering your forties isn't something to hide. It’s the official induction into your grown-woman era, a time when you stop asking for permission and start claiming your space. And because of that milestone, I have a very specific, uncompromising vision for the next three months. I want travel. I want slowness. I want beauty, festivals, sweet stone fruit, and discovery. I want the beautiful chaos of sending my three kids to American summer camp for the very first time, a rite of passage that feels so uniquely American to watch them step into. We only live in the floating rock for a moment. A blip.

And as a water sign, I take being near the water with absolute seriousness. I want the swimsuits, the sexiness, and the long, uninterrupted days where the sun melts away every lingering remnant of that brutal winter frost.

But if you have three kids, you know that spontaneity in America is a logistical battlefield. The sheer mental load of getting everyone out the door can kill the vibe before you even turn the ignition. Have you ever tried to get three toddlers to put on their shoes with urgency?!

To pull off a summer of this magnitude, I realized I had to rely on my old training. I had to look back to my time at the State Department.

The Tradecraft: Go Bags vs. Stay Bags

In my previous life navigating global logistics and diplomatic environments, readiness wasn’t a lifestyle aesthetic, it was a literal survival mechanism. We lived by the rigid gospel of two distinct setups:

The Go Bag (Agility & Evacuation): This is your 72-hour lifeline. It sits by your front door or in your trunk, packed with the absolute essentials: legal documents, cash in multiple currencies, flashlights, water purification, and emergency rations. It operates on a single assumption: The environment has turned hostile, and you need to move right now without friction.

The Stay Bag (Endurance & Lockdown): This is what you keep at the office for when things go sideways but you cannot leave. If an embassy goes into lockdown, your Stay Bag holds the items that preserve your dignity and stamina over forty-eight to seventy-two hours: a fresh change of clothes, proper toiletries, comfort snacks, and extra phone chargers.

Diplomacy cures you of the illusion that stability is permanent. Years later, I still maintain this tradition. I have versions of these bags in my home, my office, and the trunk of my car.

But recently, I was listening to NPR’s It’s Been a Minute, and the hosts started talking about the concept of a "Summer Go Bag." They joked about umbrellas, picnic blankets, and the eternal struggle of finding a sunscreen that actually works.

It hit me right in the chest: Why do we only apply strict, rigorous readiness to crises? Why do we only pack with intensity when we are trying to survive a worst-case scenario? This summer, I am reclaiming the tradecraft. I am transitioning from defensive readiness (surviving a crisis) to offensive readiness (claiming my joy).

The Manifest: My Turning-40 Summer Go Bag

The Summer Go Bag is my spontaneity insurance. It means that when the sun hits perfectly on a Tuesday afternoon, or a festival lineup drops, or the kids get home from camp and the beach is calling, we don't spend ninety minutes negotiating logistics. We just grab the handles and go. As a Ghanaian-American woman, a mother of three, and a water sign turning 40, my manifest requires a few non-negotiables that you won't find in a standard lifestyle blog:

1. The Protection (Zero White Cast)

"To Garrett's point about sunscreen, I have so many friends who still don't wear sunscreen. It blows my mind. Some of them make me look like the Blair Witch. Yes, the white cast is real." — It's Been a Minute

We are absolutely not doing the Blair Witch aesthetic this year. Protecting rich, brown skin requires the right formulation. My bag permanently houses a high-end, completely sheer sunscreen (no ashiness, no purple tint, no ghost-lit look in family photos). It’s a mandatory line item for me and the kids before anyone steps into the sun. I love Black Girl sunscreen and my go-to Korean brands I purchased on my last trip to Seoul.

2. The Hair & Skin Restoration Kit

As a Black woman who loves the water, the beach isn't just a trip, it’s a major hair operation. You cannot take water seriously without a plan for the aftermath. My bag includes:

A heavy-duty leave-in conditioner and detangling spray to immediately melt away the effects of chlorine and salt water for me and the kids.

A jar of pure shea oil or high-quality body butter to seal in moisture the second we step off the sand, because the Midwest sun will dry you out if you let it.

Satin-lined caps or wraps for the drive home.

3. The Infrastructure for Slowness

The Premium Beach Umbrella: As the podcast rightly noted, you cannot have a luxurious, hours-long beach day if you are fighting heat exhaustion under the glare of the sun. True slowness requires a micro-climate of shade.

The Drawstring Picnic Blanket: This lives permanently in the trunk. It’s compact, portable, and turns any impromptu park visit, festival lawn, or sandy shore into an immediate lounge setup.

4. The Grown-Woman Essentials

The "Turning 40" Swimsuit: This is not a utilitarian, "let me chase a toddler" mom-suit. This is something intentional, confident, and unapologetically sexy.

High-End Hydration: A heavy-duty insulated flask filled with ice-cold water—and perhaps a separate, smaller one with something crisp and sparkling for festival afternoons.

Quick-Dry Turkish Towels: Traditional terrycloth towels are heavy, take forever to dry, and hold sand like a magnet. Turkish towels pack down flat, weigh nothing, dry in minutes, and double as a chic wrap or head covering.

5. The Three-Kid Camp Reset

The Post-Camp Cleanse: A pack of heavy-duty body wipes and three pre-rolled, lightweight changes of clothes for the kids so we can transition from the camp bus straight to the water without a pitstop at home.

Non-Melting Fuel: High-protein snacks that won't turn into a sad, melted sludge in a hot car.

The Ultimate State of Readiness

Turning 40 feels a lot like realizing you finally know exactly what needs to go into your life’s Go Bag. You spend your twenties and thirties packing for everyone else, anticipating every conceivable emergency, and trying to fit your vibrant, expansive identity into boxes that are too small for you.

This summer, the bag is packed entirely for pleasure, beauty, and presence. The kids are taken care of, the infrastructure is in the trunk, the sunscreen is clear, and the element is calling. We survived the winter. We earned this sun.

We are ready!