Tag: good things

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personal

Two unexpected silent dance parties

He’s in second grade

Think I’ve been to one silent dance party – where people dancing wear headphones to music by a DJ, but spectators generally don’t – in my life up until about a week ago.

Then I went to two within a week or so.

The first was when I went to the biergarten last week, which I didn’t know would be happening but my buddy Katrina did…

…and the second with another friend when we went to get burgers and beers around the way…

…and we ended up staying so long that it became yet another outdoor silent dance party – again, I didn’t know that this would be happening at all.

Or, rather, the food took so long that the whole thing became yet another outdoor silent dance party.

Think that’s the coolest thing about living in New York City, though; you can go out for one activity (dinner/drinks) and end up in a completely different activity (dancing/singing) with zero effort.

Check that: The weirdest/coolest thing about the night was that this fella walked up to me and asked, Excuse me, do you have a YouTube channel?

It was actually the second guy in two days to recognize me. I’ll tell you about the first one later.

Pretty flattering, I gotta say.

Her: (after) I think his friends were encouraging him to talk to you.
Me: That’s so funny.
Her: You’re a celebrity!
Me: (laughing) A D-list YouTube celebrity, but yes.

I’ve got a buncha smart devices all over our pad and, when the boy’s here, he generally wakes me up by saying, Papa, good morning! It’s time to wake up.

Well, one day when he was away, I woke up to that same sentence. (!?)

For a moment, I wonder if I’d somehow forgotten that I’d picked him up and leapt out of bed to see if he was in his room. He wasn’t.

It turns out that he figured out how to log into the family account on his tablet and made an announcement. From his grandparents’ home in NJ.

He’s definitely gonna be a handful as he gets older.

In any case, I picked him up for real last week and the pad is noticeably more joyous now.

He just started second grade. Isn’t that a kick in the head?

Him: Papa, good morning! It’s time to wake up.
Me: (groggily) Five more minutes…
Him: That’s what you always say!
Me: Because I always need five more minutes, kid.

Location: this morning, pancake brekkie with my favourite little human
Mood: tired, but oh so happy
Music: You’re my little piece of summertime (Spotify)
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personal

A Bohemian Biergarten Bday

I joke that this is how most people react when I arrive places.

Great skin

The thing about Scenic Fights is that I actually like alla the people involved in its production.

And there are a lotta people involved in it; I think you’d be surprised if you actually saw the entire crew. I suppose that’s why it looks so polished.

In any case, Tom is the main cameraman and he turned 30 this past weekend so, after the gym one night, I went to Astoria to the oldest biergarten in New York to celebrate.

The last one I’d gone to was with my college friends but I actually came to this one with other friends from my gym a while back. This time, I went with my friend, Katrina, from my current gym.

Me: (at the gym) Wait, what on earth is in your bag, lady?!
Her: Broccoli. What?! I needed to get groceries.
Me: OK, you’ll need to stay 10 feet behind me at all times.
Her: Are you serious?
Me: Kinda.

The train took forever to get there so we just chatted. One thing I learned about her is that she has 200,597 unread emails.

Me: How is that even possible?
Her: Well, a lot of them are junk mail and…
Me: (interrupting) Jesus Christ, I don’t even know where to start. First of all…

Getting back to her groceries, once we got to the joint, the guy at the door wouldn’t let us in.

Him: No outside food.
Me: It’s groceries, man.
Him: No outside food.
Me: It’s raw broccoli! Trust me, we’re not gonna be whipping this out to eat in a bar.

He was grumpy but ultimately let us in.

I would totally whip that out and eat it in a bar.

Immediately bumped into Tom’s best friend, who works for Scenic Fights as well, as soon as I walked in.

Me: Which group is ours?
Him: This whole section is ours; all of these tables are for Tom.
Me: Whoa, we own this joint.

I was starving so the first order of business was buying some fries and a kielbasa plus drinks for me and Katrina.

In terms of just the food, this is what $19 will buy you in NYC.

For serious.

For some reason, I was in the mood for a cranberry vodka but she wanted the hard seltzer.

Me: Can I try that?
Her: Sure.
Me: Oh, that’s pretty good. I’ll have that later.

After we had gotten some food into us, we started to relax and socialize.

Tom’s super tall so I always joke for him to not be taller than me. He obliged, as the good friend he is.

Him: Honestly, there are a lot of drawbacks to being tall.
Me: Oh, yes, tell the old, short Chinese man how awful it is to be 30, white, and tall in America.

Also met his girlfriend and another buddy’s wife. After a while, they started offering to set me up with their friends, which I found both funny and flattering.

Girl1: What about her? (shows me her phone)
Me: Super cute. How old is she?
Girl1: 27.
Me: Oh, man…
Girl2: Wait, here’s my best friend. You’d love her.
Me: Also super cute. How old is she?
Girl3: Younger! 26.
Me: Wait, [that’s the wrong direction] how old do you think I am?
Girl2: I dunno. 33?!
Me: (to friend) MARRY THIS GIRL! (to her) You are my favourite person at this table. The rest of you can go pound sand.

Tom’s girlfriend and another girl took my phone because they wanted to give me suggestions on my dating profile.

Me: Anything you don’t like?
Her: Honestly, that’s a really good profile and good picture choices. And you’re lawyer? I thought you were a martial arts teacher.
Me: Ivy-league educated lawyer. And you should see me cook, lady.

Tom sat at another table with some other people, and motioned me over.

Him: Come meet some of your fans, Logan.
Me: Wait, my mom’s here?

The people at the table also thought I was about 33 and when I told them how old I was, two women immediately asked me what my skin care regime was.

Me: I dunno. I stay outta the sun and eat mostly protein, fat, and fiber.
Her: You don’t moisturize?
Me: No. I’m a dude.

Now that I think about it, women that find out my age generally ask me my skin care regime. I should have a better answer.

In any case, Katrina and I stayed out pretty late. There’s a funny(ish) silent dance party video I need to dig up to show you.

Now, I have an app that tells me when the next train is and it turned out that that one was coming in 5 mins and the next one was gonna be 23 minutes later so we made a mad dash for the station.

Me: (running, then stopping) Dammit, I dropped your broccoli. Again, who buys…
Her: (running) NOT NOW, LOGAN! LET’S GO!

It was a fun night and nice group of people. But the kid’s back soon, so I’ll be back to daddy duty this week.

Which is fine, cause I miss him like crazy.

Location: Penn Station, yesterday, off to go get my treasure
Mood: happy
Music: I’m starting to forget all of the ridges of your spine (Spotify)
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personal

You want some Yellowfin Tuna?

OK, steel it

The Counselor dropped me a line outta the blue and we had a relatively nice conversation, which I’ll just keep to myself.

She may be the only woman in NYC that hasn’t told me to go fuck myself.

Then again, it’s early in the week, yet.

My buddy Steel hit me up too.

Him: Can you come by and pick up some yellowtail tomorrow?
Me: Heck yeah!

The last time he gave me fish from one of his massive fishing trips was almost a decade ago. Still remember it well; it was right around my old gym.

Me: Waking up at two am to go out in the middle of the ocean in a small boat? That’s like my nightmare. Then again…tuna!

I had a wife and no kid then. And I was hanging out with a completely different set of people.

It’s like that was a different me altogether.

Same for him.

This time he went fishing with a couple of dot com millionaires and his chief surgeon brother. They dropped six figures for the two-day trip.

Him: Yeah, they had serious fuck-you money. This bottle of wine was $1,200 and we had three of them.
Me: Dammit, why can’t we have fuck-you money?
Him: We became lawyers.
Me: Man, that was dumb. Well, at least we hang out with people that have fuck-you money.

Like I said, we’re the average of the five people we hang out with the most. There was a time I made it a point to be the least successful outta the people I hung out with.

Been reassessing what I’ve been doing with my time and with whom. I feel like I’ve been sleepwalking through the last couplea years.

Anywho, they ended up catching THREE yellow-fin tunas; he caught the 65 pound one.

This is him with it; I should note that he’s six-foot-two and looks like Clark Kent so this fish was massive.

We went out drinking and eating in his hood. I chatted up the Irish waitress who had this really cool brogue.

Me: You know, my son’s part Irish. I should bring him by here to hear what his people sound like.
Her: You should, sweetie!

She then asked if we had lost a sandal.

Who walks outta a bar missing a sandal? NYC’s a strange town.

Sorry so blurry. We had been drinking for a while and that dude pounds.

Steel just bought an apartment in a brand new building on the UES and we walked by it. It was gorgeous.

Me: OK, I need you to do me a solid. If I ever have a date around here, I’m gonna bring her by, tell her this is my pad, and you and the fam have gotta jet.
Him: (laughing) Sure.

Not (necessarily) his pad, but you get the idea.

He ended up giving me like six pounds of tuna or so, which I tried my best to do justice to.

This was attempt number two. Man…you don’t wanna see attempt number one.

My dad used to make me sashimi/sushi all the time. Since I was a little kid.

Was always embarrassed that I had to eat raw fish when my friends got to have pizza. What a dumb kid I was.

Steel and Bryson were amongst the last of my friends to ever have seen him. I’m glad it was them.

I’ll tell you about that someday.

I wish I learned how to make sushi from him. I wish I did a lotta things with him but we ran outta time.

Shit. When you love someone, there’s never enough goddamn fucking time.

I miss him terribly.

Location: earlier this week, someplace called “the Upper East Side”
Mood: on high alert
Music: bring back the water, let your ships roll in (Spotify)
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business personal

So, what’s your deal here, anyway?

My rusty gears

My son was in his day camp the other day, trying to squeeze between a pipe and a column. He ended up getting wedged between the two when his leg went through the wall.

Evidently, he was hysterically crying and they couldn’t extricate his leg so they had to call the super to cut the drywall around his leg. That made him even more upset because he started telling them he didn’t want them to cut his leg off.

Ultimately, they cut him out and he was fine.

The end.

Her: So…what’s your deal here, anyway?
Me: (shrugging) Brilliant but lazy lawyer. I show up when there’s food to be eaten or pictures to be taken.

I’ve not been regularly practicing the law in over five years. I stopped after Alison lost the third baby figuring I’d come back when things got better. You know how that turned out.

Was just trying to save my family so billing hours, giving lectures, and writing memos seemed…silly.

All the more so when I failed in saving my family.

But, through it all, my boss would send me a random legal question or just simply straight-up check in on me. When we did chat, I could feel the rusty gears of my legal brain start to move again.

Him: Do you still remember it?
Me: Yes. It’s somewhere in my head. I just have to wake it up.

A new legal assistant at the firm wrote me asking me to schedule myself for updated firm pictures.

Gotta say, getting the email was touching. It’s funny being valued for something when you question your value all the time.

In any case, I went and was greeted by all these new and old faces.

Regarding the former, the new lawyers in the firm were curious about me because I suppose they never really discussed me.

Why would they? I’m a depressing story.

Her: Wait, how are you semi-retired?! How old are you?
Me: Ah, we’re playing the game. You have to guess.
Her: 33?
Me: (laughing) Well, that’s encouraging.

Afterward, my boss brought me and another attorney out to eat at Benjamin Steakhouse Prime, where I had an Old Fashioned and some food.

Me: …for example, in the Simpsons, there’s a product called Duff Beer. In Australia, someone produced an actual line of Duff Beer. What does the property holder have as an action? It’s not copyright, as it’s not possible to copyright two words. It’s not trademark because there’s no real-world product related to it by the Simpons’ owners. It’s not trade dress, not trade secrets, not patent. That leaves licensing. So, the legal question is: Does an IP holder have a cause of action for licensing when no previous licensing matter existed. Last I looked, the answer was no.
Him: (grinning and turning to the other attorney) One drink and the old Logan returns with ideas. Go on.
Me: Well, regarding the search for Alex Jones’s phone, there’s a legal question if a cell phone should be thought of as…

I felt the most like my old self than I had in a while. It was as if the last six years went away.

Like I always say, thank goodness for the good souls.

I also saw my mother-in-law the other day with the kid for a quick visit and return.

She made us some strip steak…

…amongst other things.

Thank goodness for the good souls bearing steak and drinks.

Location: earlier today, having a burger with my favourite little human in Union Square
Mood: happy
Music: Lately I’ve been thinking about things I shouldn’t (Spotify)
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personal

You would have been proud of me, I think

Some celebratory dinners

We were all pretty hungry after the meet. Some people wanted to eat out in Long Island but I told them that Flushing was a better bet.

I piled into Panda’s whip along with Randi, while everyone else got into their respective rides, and we all headed to Flushing to 1392, a seafood joint.

It was pretty hard getting around with my bum knee but I somehow made it work.

Panda, Randi, and I got there first and we ordered up a ton of seafood.

Everyone else came afterward and we inhaled all the food we ordered.

But the thing is that Panda wanted dumplings so we ended up going to a second place to get that, which was the mall that I usually hit up.

Afterward, Randi wanted a drink so we went to a really cool rooftop bar on the other side of the block. I’d never been.

There were some pretty interesting looking drinks.

Since I was still in diet mode, I got the “low-calorie” cucumber drink option that was good, but not great. You can see it below with the wedge of cucumber.

Ended up getting a second drink later on which I can’t remember but was even better.

The waitressed noticed me hobbling around so I asked her for a bag of ice and she was super sweet and gave me this for my knee.

Me: You’re my second favourite person here!
Her: Who’s the first?
Me: Oh, me. I think I’m just lovely.
Her: (laughs)

This is pretty much how I spent the entire time at the bar.

Afterward, we all split up and Panda drove Randi and me to the Barclays Center so we could grab the 2/3 to head home.

Me: Can someone gimme a lift to a 2/3 train station?
Him: You can take the 7-train right here.
Me: I know that and, normally, I would. But there’s no way I could make it up and down alla those steps for transfers and stuff.

Randi and I were on the train after a bit and we just chatted about the day before I finally hit my stop and made it home.

My housekeeper let herself in earlier in the day so, when I opened the door, it smelled like it used to smell when I was out late working and Alison was home and cleaned.

Me: (to no one) I’m home! I won one match.

I shuffled my way to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of rum.

I think I did pretty ok, I said, to my empty apartment. You woulda been proud of me, I think.

No one answered so I downed my glass and slowly poured myself another.

Location: meeting up with a huge Seinfeld fan out in Astoria for a drink
Mood: happy (enough) but missing the boy terribly
Music: Every time you look my way I can’t even handle myself (Spotify)
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personal

SOGI Pt 1: Making weight with beer, lamb chops, and skirt steak

But I want to!

As I mentioned in my last entry, I did my second competition this past weekend.

Pez told me a while ago that she was gonna compete for the first time herself and I told her that, if she did, I’d go to support her – of course, she encouraged me to compete myself.

I considered it; in my last competition, I was woefully unprepared for leg attacks because my old gym just never focused on them.

Plus, I also got almost no sleep the night before, so that led to me losing the only match I had that day.

Still, in the past two years, I spent a lot more time learning about leg attacks – both attacking and defending. I figured I would make a decision last minute but only if it made sense.

Welp, the stars aligned in a way that made it hard for me not to compete:

      • I’ve been dieting for some Scenic Fights things coming up and have been walking around at 148 pounds. The cutoff for my best level was 145 so I figured I could quickly make weight, which is usually the hardest and most taxing thing for these types of competitions.
      • I’d been training pretty consistently four days a week so I feel good about my conditioning.
          • In a way, my getting injured – and being out of training for a few weeks – made me really amp up my training schedule because I felt I needed to catch up.
      • My son was originally supposed to go to his grandparents the day of the competition but he actually wanted to see them earlier so I relented, opening up that Sunday for me to compete.
      • Here’s the best thing: This competition was two hours away from me by train in Long Island BUT it just happened to be eight minutes from my college buddy’s house where we joined them for a pool party over Memorial Day Weekend.
          • Even better, my college buddies Gar just happened to be having another all-day pool party the day before the competition and said I could crash there, saving me from having to wake up at 5AM the morning of.
      • This particular competition allowed video weigh-ins the day before. This meant that I could weigh myself the afternoon before, send them video evidence, and then stuff my fat face with abandon with my college friends.

This is all precisely what happened. Well, almost.

See, on Friday, I trained with most of the other competitors and then planned to skip coming in on Saturday and, instead, head to Gar and Wynn’s to have BBQ and daydrink until night, crash, and then wake up bright and early the next day for the actual comp.

But my buddy Miller roundly – and publicly – criticized this idea.

Him: Dude, if you’re gonna do that, you’re gonna lose. Just don’t go to the party or don’t go to the competition.
Me: But I want to!
Him: Then just don’t drink.
Me: BUT I WANT TO!

Ultimately, I compromised and went into the gym on Saturday.

Partly causea Miller and partly because I woke up at 147.6 pounds and I needed to work off 2.6 pounds.

I only enrolled in the competition about six hours before the window to enroll closed so I wasn’t sure I’d even make weight and be able to go and compete although I woulda gone to support Pez, Mouse, and everyone else that was competing.

So, I went in on Saturday and worked out. After 1.5 hours, I was still 146 pounds. So, I stayed another hour or so and everyone told me to go pee.

Me: Why is everyone telling me to go pee?
Her: Because it works!

And it did. Finally…

With just 25 minutes to spare to get to the train, I dashed off to Penn Station, just barely caught the train to my buddies and got picked up by Cappy and Gar.

They waited for me to start grilling up the lamb chops and skirt steak. Because I already made weight I ate everything there – including various donuts from Doughnut Plant.

Managed to hang out with my friends – and both alcohol and carbo-load – for a while before I called it night and crashed.

Unlike last time, this time, I got a solid 8+ hours of sleep.

When I woke up, both my friend Panda and Pez were ready to grab me and bring me to the comp.

I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow. Or soon.

Her: I don’t want to make you sit around and wait for me.
Me: It’s fine. I’m injured anyway and you sound like you’re a having a really bad day.
Her: Yeah. I could use a hug, to be honest.
Me: I think I can help you there.

Location: the Upper East Side in a studio apartment
Mood: happy (enough) but missing the boy terribly
Music: I get by on happy enough (Spotify)
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personal

Cyrano de Low and the Siege of Melos

Yo-Yo, the Philosopher

Back before I met Alison, I recall writing emails to women on behalf of my friends, or – at the very least – editing them.

Now, with everyone texting these days, I find myself being asked by friends to respond to messages from women. It’s all pretty amusing for me, gotta say.

I was trying to explain to one friend that communication isn’t just what you say but what the listener/reader hears.

To further drive the point home, I told him something that I tell my friends alla time but also gave him two versions of the same concept: The first is by Thucydides during the Seige of Melos and the second by a kid called Yo-Yo in my junior high school.

 

On a related note, a young woman in my gym is going back to college – an ivy league – and wondering what she should pick as her major if she wants to go to law school.

Been telling her that, if that’s the case, she should really consider philosophy and read more from people like Thucydides – although, admittedly, he’s more of a historian than straight philosopher.

I actually never took any philosophy classes as an undergrad and it’s a regret of mine.

As for my own dating life, I saw the Acrobat and the Counselor recently, which is always entertaining, conversation-wise and otherwise.

Me: (noticing her ordering an open drink) Aren’t you concerned about roofies?
Her: With you? No. Not even sure I’d object. No wait, I would. I’d want to be awake for that.
Me: Noted.

The Counselor was actually in my area doing a cold sauna, for people with inflammation (everyone has inflammation to varying degrees).

The concept is to step into a super cold – negative 140 degrees Celsius – room and just be there for three minutes.

She was part ice cube when I met up with her.

Her: It was so cold, Logan!
Me: (laughing) I can imagine.

We ended up going to the Dublin House, which I’ve actually never been to, despite it being only a few blocks south of me and one of the oldest bars in NYC with a really cool neon sign that was recently rehabed.

Me: You should take advantage of me while you can. These looks won’t last forever.
Her: (shrugging) I figure that if you were going to fall apart, it would have happened already.

The Dublin House was cool but without air conditioning so we went to another of my usual bars around the way.

This one had both air conditioning and candy all over the place. Unfortunately, I’m dieting for a couple of things coming up so I ended up trying to hand the candy to other people so I wouldn’t be tempted.

We’ve both been so busy that we’ve not actually seen each other in a while so we ended up chatting most of the evening.

Her: My last boyfriend was closer in age to my dad than me.
Me: No kidding. What was the age difference?
Her: (thinking) 15 years?
Me: Wait, that’s the difference between us.
Her: Oh! You’re right. I forget.

Location: sitting in front of a 14TB external USB drive at 5400RPM and an 8TB external USB drive at 7200RPM with a USB-C hub and wondering if I should shuck both, and then swap the internals.
Mood: super tired
Music: Fell in love with a girl who’s a few years younger (Spotify)
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personal

Don’t lead with that

That’s misleading

Her: So, you have allergies but you decided to bring in a ton of pollen producing plants into your home? If you two aren’t together any more, why don’t you get rid of them?
Me: (shrugging) I’ve grown accustomed to them. Plus, while it’s awful for me, hopefully, the boy will grow up with pollen and won’t get allergies. That’s the hope, anywho.

Back when Mouse was staying here, her health took a nosedive which broke my heart. Still does, TBH. But that’s neither here nor there.

We couldn’t figure out why – it turned out that my apartment is ridonk dry, with winter humidity levels in the teens but, I didn’t know that then – and thought it was maybe the air quality.

So, to this end, I started getting alla these air-purifying plants.

While she’s not been here in years, I kept alla the plants alive (mostly) and even started adding to the plant collection.

Now have two avocado trees, one of which is supposed to do well in apartments and fruit,…

…two blueberry shrubs, a snake plant, several ZZ plants, a spider plant from my friends at Evolution, one tomato plant, and a ton of scallions.

And, of course, I still have Harold.

Always wanted a fig tree and my mom was going to give me one, but it turns out that you actually need wasps to pollinate them so I’ll just have to content myself with figs from my mom.

Maybe I’ll try growing some strawberries?

So far, only the tomato plant has borne any fruit but I was thrilled to have them and made a sandwich with them just the other day.

It goes back to me liking to fix and build things myself. There’s just something about consuming – literally and figuratively – something you made yourself.

Speaking of fixing things, I’ve been fixed up about six or seven times in the past few months.

More if you count people like the French Dancer and Pharmacist that just randomly end up in my orbit.

I don’t write about most of them because the people that set me up are friends of mine that think well of me, so the last thing I want to do is gossip about the friends that they send to me.

Besides, everyone’s been lovely just…not really my speed for a number of reasons. Let’s just blame it all on me and my particularity, for the sake of brevity.

The funny thing is that, despite this blog detailing my pretty ridonkulous dating life, people continue to try to set up their friends with me.

I can only imagine that it’s pretty awful out there if I’m a top contender.

Still, hope springs eternal…

Her: I told her you were a lawyer.
Me: That’s misleading. I’m essentially an unemployed single-parent that spends most of his time rolling around with sweaty dudes.
Her: Don’t lead with that.
Me: Noted.
Her: Also, don’t mention the blog. God, why do you even have that thing?

Location: earlier tonight, the gym, trying to rip off my ex’s foot – she was trying to do the same, but better
Mood: hangry, of course
Music: Let’s make believe that we can fly (Spotify)
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personal

Just-ever-so-slightly

Controlling the effects

Saw my mom and sis this past weekend. They were happy to see us, I think.

The cat, less so…

Also saw the surgeon, his brother, and their families this past weekend at another dinner party.

Surgeon’s wife: You really should ask out French Dancer. Except, she’s really young.
Me: Yeah, really young. I’m busy enough as it is, anywho.
Her: Oh! What’s the latest?
Me: Where to begin?

A couple that I didn’t know was there and the wife commented that I was probably 34 vis-a-vis something else entirely.

Me: Well, you get a hug for that.
Her: Wait, how old are you?
Me: Almost 50.
Her: How is that possible?!
Me: (shrugging) Same as everyone else: 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For 49 years.

I often marvel at how many really good souls I’ve met in my life.

While my luck – broadly speaking – is of the stripe most people don’t want, in that small regard, I consider myself lucky.

On a related point, there were about five women that I met after Alison died. They all had a hand in helping me pull myself outta my crazy and depression, to varying degrees.

Unfortunately, I was probably the worst version of myself so it’s no surprise that none of them are really on speaking terms with me. I get that.

It’s one of my 10,000 regrets.

On that point, Lviv rang me today. After everything that went down between us, I’m touched that she still finds the time to check in on me.

I told her, honestly, that I was grateful.

Me: Before you left, you said, very simply, “Love shouldn’t be this hard,” [about a messy situationship I was in]. I appreciate that and you. Thanks for that.
Her: Aww it’s good to hear, I just want you to be happy.

She didn’t realize what a profound effect her throwaway line had on me. In fact, it’s probably the main reason everything in my life has been so different – and better – these past several months.

Of course, she’s part of my possible pasts. I wonder what woulda happened between us if things were different.

I wonder about so many things that were just-ever-so-slightly outside of my control.

Boy: Why’s he so mean?
Me: I dunno, kid. Here’s the thing, though: You can’t control other people and how they treat you. But you can control how you let things affect you. Pretty soon, you won’t care. So, you can start not caring right now.
Him: OK. I’ll try.

Location: earlier today, chatting up a tall singer named Izzy in a park
Mood: hopeful
Music: I’m out of my mind but I’m feeling just fine (Spotify)
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personal

His first piñata

A weekend with the boy

It was a gorgeous spring weekend this past weekend in NYC so I brought the kid out to as many things as I could while I could.

The first was a dance class that French Dancer actually taught with him and his friends, courtesy of the surgeon and his wife. They seemed to all have a good time.

She and I keep saying we’ll meet up for some coffee but, considering that she’s in her 20s, that would just be for the company. I’ll let you know how that goes.

The next day was a school fair where he asked, repeatedly, to get dunked…

…I ultimately relented and let him do something where a bucket of water was dumped on his head. He loved it.

All-in-all, we were there for a solid four plus hours and he had a blast. My only hope is that he has some nice memories of it.

If nuthin else, he got to spend a lotta time with his friends, which was sweet to see.

He also had some hot dogs – again –  and chicken to boot. I didn’t really want him to have them but he made a compelling point.

Him: Papa! It’s a fundraiser!
Me: Fiiiine. I’ll go get them for you.

The next day, we went to a playground where he made some new friends…

…and then we tried out his new bike, that was slightly too big for him but I figure he’ll grown into it…

…and then a birthday party with two of his classmates (twins – man, do I know a lotta twins in the world).

That piñata was a huge hit.

Huge.

All-in-all. It was a pretty sweet time with the kid this past week.

I  wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

He grabbed a ring pop outta the piñata. This is the aftermath.

Gotta say, I’m doing much better – mentally – now that May’s over.

Hoping this summer’s gonna be very different from the past few summers.

I’m looking for some joy and kindness if I can find it.

I do have some leads this time around, though.

Her: I’m bored. Come keep me company.
Me: Hard to resist an invitation like that, darling.

Location: earlier today, in Paxi for six hours total
Mood: optimistic
Music: You take my grey sky and turn it into blue (Spotify)
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