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A super interesting pairing of host and guest: Damon Young interviewing Fran Lebowitz on Friday night in Pittsburgh. (I fanboy’d out a little when Damon’s dad later and unexpectedly asked me to take a picture of him and his son.)

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May your heart (and belly) be as full as my belly (and heart)

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Welcome back, everyinz.

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The Best Week of Summer

We were on our way to Jim’s house so Grace could play with Jim’s daughter Anna. She’d finished her last day of a one-week day camp called “The Best Week of Summer” at the local Episcopal church, and I was using the few minutes we had together in the car to ask her about it. We came to a red light, and she paused.

“Wait, what?” she said, “A teenager? In a stroller?”

At the corner to our left was a woman and a teenage boy in a wheelchair. The boy’s arms were outstretched, beating rhythmically, tiny distances up and down, his head nodding in time, and he’d just thrown something on the ground. The woman, apparently exasperated, gave the chair a shove away from her and turned away, gathered herself through a heaving breath, and turned back to him.

“I dunno, Grace,” I said, “I think that’s more of a wheelchair than a stroller.”

“But I don’t see a cast on his ankle,” she replied.

“I don’t think he’s injured,” I said. “I think he has an illness. Like maybe Cerebral Palsy or something like that.”

I didn’t expect her to know what Cerebral Palsy was.

“Or sin?” she returned.

I doubletook. Doubletaked. Neither of those look right. You know what I mean.

“Or WHAT?” I said.

“Sin,” she continued. “Mr. Richards from camp said sin is a kind of illness. Maybe he has sin.”

The light was about to turn green. I thought about how skis can retain my whole 172 lbs on the shimmering top of feet of snow if I just tread lightly enough, if I just don’t stop.

“It’s really confusing to call sin an illness,” I said. “I get why Mr. Richards or whatever would say that, but I don’t believe he meant something like this.”

“Or maybe he doesn’t love Jesus enough,” she offered. “Maybe that’s why he’s hurt.”

“Grace,” I said, “I know we don’t go to church, but I did when I was young — and for a long time — and I have to tell you, that’s not how I think about sin.”

She went on. “But Jesus can heal any illness. Jesus can cure any sickness, Dad. Jesus can even heal coronavirus.”

The light turned green, and we turned left onto Thorn St.

“Jesus cannot cure coronavirus, sweetie. I’d be okay letting you believe that if it weren’t dangerous to your health, but it is, so you have to know: Jesus absolutely does not cure coronavirus.”

There was a pause. I felt my pulse in my head, heat in my cheeks. Never. Fucking. Again. She will never go back to that camp. I should have trusted my instincts. Those fuckers are grooming my kid to join their hate cult. Shit, shit, shit.

“Jesus can cure anything,” Grace went on. “But God is Jesus’ father and God created everything, which means he created coronavirus, so that’s awkward.”

Her voice rose to say “that” and dwelled on “awkward” as I finished the turn and passed the library and the post office and came to the perilous intersection where the borough building sits. I opened my mouth, let go the science-dropping that’d been perched on my tongue, and took in a new breath.

“I’ll say!” I said. “Hey… we’re about to get to Anna’s house. Let’s talk about this later, if you want to.”

“Ok,” she said. “But not now. I just want to play.”

Play. Yes. The one job of a 6-y.o.

The path to learning, to belonging in the world of the cooperative, to the green lights, to blue skies, to the love betrayed by “The Best Week of Summer.”

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Happy 2022 from the Barnes family! If you want to read our 2021 newsletter which is not as hilarious as it has been in some past years, hit this link.

Cheers!

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Happy holidays from the Barnes family! To read the whole thing (or at least see the pics) go to https://is.gd/barnes2020

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Grace: Mama, you and I are both similar because we have the same pajamas, and daddy and I are similar because we both breathe when we sleep.

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Literally the day after his project car of the last two years passed inspection and became street-legal, if not road-worthy, my son misjudged a turn on a particularly treacherous stretch of road near us and lost control of his car, sending it and him sliding sideways into a guardrail and fence. Had the guardrail not been there, his car would have gone over the edge of a 30-foot drop down into a creek-bed, would very likely have flipped and tumbled, and it likely would have been a very different crash had that happened. As it went, he was extremely fortunate to have been left entirely unscathed (except for the likely death of both his car and his ego - both arguably good in the long run), and, although I realize I’m pushing my luck by even hoping it, maybe he’ll slow down once he gets back behind the wheel of a car.

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RIP Squiggy

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I’m sure there are reasons to have kids other than to troll them as teenagers

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How it's going

Grace: Mommy, will you come in the bathroom?

Jul: Why, honey? Is everything ok?

Grace: Yes mama but I finished pooping and I need you to wipe me.

Jul: Grace, you're a very big girl and I know you can wipe yourself.

Grace: I know mama but I don't want to, because it will make me not be fancy!

Jul: Ohhhh no. It is not ok for you to become too fancy to wipe your own butt.

Grace: Mom! It is too late! I am ALREADY too fancy for that! Don't you know?

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Grace: Mommy, why are humans big and apples are little?

Mommy: Well...

Grace: Is it because a scientist shrunk apples so they would be smaller than humans so we could eat them?

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Celebrating the 10-year anniversary of this tonight.

Okay, so here’s how this engagement thing went down.

Julie’s birthday was on Sunday. Months prior, she’d been asking for an iPhone 4 for her birthday. “I’m ready to become an Internet addict like you!” she’d say, and I’d look up from liking a “Yo dawg, I herd you liked liking posts” post and nod affirmatively but quickly and return to the task at hand.

For some reason, Julie started to think that I hadn’t really paid much attention to her birthday suggestion. I could tell by the way she said so all the time, so finally I told her, “Look, babe, if you want to keep your current number AND get on my family plan [wink wink], we’re just going to have to go to the store together when the time comes. I can’t order it like that online. It could be October before we can get you an iPhone. What can ya do?” What, indeed.

Meanwhile, I’d been pinching pennies and saving for a Nice Engagement Ring for over a year. You know how I like to cram my beliefs down people’s throats on the Internet? Well, one of my beliefs is that it’s asking for trouble to finance an engagement ring. I know, I know: ridiculous, right? So take my other beliefs with a grain of salt. But this one’s meaningful to me, so I was very disciplined about living on a very restrictive budget while I socked away a few hundred bucks for the right ring.

Now, one of the benefits of taking forever to save up money for a ring is you get real comfy with the idea that you’re getting your love a Really Big Gift. And when you get comfy with that, you get kind of obsessive about really doing it right. Okay, maybe not you, but me. So I paid ridiculously close attention to her tastes and preferences, but most of all to her subtle cues - cues like, “Hey, honey, I like this one right here: PLU#1457LJK191 okay? Write that down.” And when I was 85% (or more) sure that I knew what would rock her world, I went to The Right Jewelry Store and made some shit happen. You didn’t realize this at the time, but you heard all about it last Thursday on Twitter.

Then, I went and talked to her parents. I’m not going to tell you much about that part, but I’ll tell you this: Guys, regardless of what you think of the tradition of asking a girl’s parents for their blessing (or support or whatever) to marry their daughter, I recommend doing it. It’s a real Man Task, and the adrenaline rush alone is worth twice the panic you’ll be stricken with as they open the door and ask what was so important that it couldn’t have waited until the weekend.

Anyway, after a lot of talking, Julie’s parents welcomed me (and my three children - lest you should underestimate the gravity of this) to their family, and I thanked them and told them how grateful I was for their support and how excited I was to propose to their daughter. That was the end of Thursday.

On Friday, I rigged up an iPhone 4 box, stripping it of its innards and implanting it with the ring. This was important, right? Because I’d made reservations at a killer restaurant - ostensibly to celebrate her birthday - for Saturday night, and I needed her to think she was opening an iPhone long enough for me to get from my side of the table to hers and down on one knee so I could ask her to marry me, and I needed her to be looking inside the box for a couple of seconds for the surprise of it to work. So, anyway, I hid the ring in an iPhone box, and wrapped it up like a birthday present, and fast-forward to dinner Saturday night, okay, because I’m getting hungry and my fingers are cramping up a little bit here.

Dinner was great. The restaurant is BYOB (which you’d know if you’d clicked the link), which was great because it meant I could hide the wrapped box in the paper bag with an extra bottle of wine at my feet. When the meal ended and our check had been left, I reached into the bag and pulled out the box.

“I have to admit something,” I said as I pulled it from the bag and into her view. “There has been a little misdirection here.”

I set the box on the table in front of her and waited.

She looked at me and said, “You got me an iPhone! I knew it!” Now she had the wrapping paper off. “You did!”

“Like I said…” I replied.

“What? You already have it programmed and everything?”

“I had to open the box,” I continued, as she lifted the top.

She removed the inner lid and froze, staring at The Right Jewelry Store logo on the tiny boxtop inside. Her mouth went in slow motion.

“Wha…” she trailed off, but by the time she looked back up at me, I was on my knee before her.

What, exactly, happened next is anyone’s guess. Neither Julie nor I can seem to remember. All I know is some people at the next table started to clap (probably, they were The Gypsy Kings, because they were experts at clapping), and Julie developed a temporary speech impediment that was accompanied by trembling and lasted for a couple of hours, and dessert was on the house.

And somewhere, in the middle of it all, she said “yes.”

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Happy 2020!

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Happy end of 2018, y’all. Here’s to 2019!

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Getting in the car

Grace: Mommy, me want my cheese!

Jul: I have some cheese for you, just let me get you strapped in.

Grace: Cheese help!

Me: Helps with what?

Grace: My sadness.

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the singularity cometh

Me, an influencer: Hey Google, play the worst Paul McCartney song.

Google: Sorry, I can't do that Jet.