Pour Me A Story, Vol. 11
stepping boldly into a new year
hey there pals, happy new year! I hope this finds you on the tail end of a holiday season that was at least somewhat relaxing despite everything going on around us, and hopefully not nursing too bad of a hangover after whatever modified new year’s eve celebrations you partook in.
being a certified New Dad, I was in bed long before midnight last night, because the baby does not give a single shit about whether we’re starting a new calendar or the traditions of the world at large, and she’s ready to get up before 6 a.m. regardless.
she’s been wearing herself out better than usual lately because, out of the blue on Tuesday evening, she decided it was time that she stood up on her own two feet for the very first time. you could’ve knocked me over with a feather. I was standing in the kitchen talking to Alex, then poked my head into the living room to make sure the suspiciously quiet eight-month-old child was okay. she was better than okay, evidently. she was standing perpendicular to her playmat, using a walker toy for support and looking fairly pleased with herself. she’s also beginning to crawl, a skill she’s far less impressed with, so it stands to reason that life for her parents will never be the same.
The Last Normal Day
usually this is where we’d do Anyway, We Have Company, but I didn’t have the heart to pester somebody during the week between Christmas and new year’s eve for the purposes of this newsletter, so I thought I’d deviate from the standard formula just this once.
the end of a year inevitably brings with it some nostalgia-inducing content with it on social media, from Instagram “top nine” posts to threads upon threads on Twitter of things we’ve written or published or created this year, to…well, I don’t know what happens on Facebook because I very rarely have the stomach to log on there anymore.
this year-in-review type of content has looked a little different this year, for obvious reasons, and one of the formats that I’ve personally been intrigued by is one on Twitter to the effect of, “post the last ‘normal’ photo from your camera roll before the whole world changed.”
I didn’t play along because, in the strictest sense, the last ‘normal’ photo on my camera roll is probably of some mundane bullshit that I took to remember later, or a screenshot of a really bad take that I wanted to make fun of on Twitter. but it got me thinking about the last ‘normal’ photo I posted on social media, at a point where we really had no idea what the following 10-plus months had in store for us. here it is below.
that snap was taken March 4, with my two new direct teammates at work HQ in Indianapolis. a couple weeks earlier I’d been offered a new internal role, and when I visited Indy I had begun transitioning from one team to another. later that evening, the three of us and another coworker went to a bar to spend some quality bonding time bullshitting over wings and beers.
the place was not only enormous but absolutely packed with people. wall to wall Hoosiers. we stayed for a good two or three hours, trading war stories from our personal and professional lives, speaking over the din that comes with “crowded sports bar” territory. as we all eventually parted ways with goodnight hugs, there’s no way it could have dawned on any of us that so much of our evening — dining in busy restaurants, hollering across the table at each other, even hugging — would soon be things we would look back wistfully on.
the following morning I dragged myself out of bed and went to the hotel gym, where I put in a half-assed effort on the bike and treadmill, and I had a tickle developing in my throat, as has been one of my morning-after symptoms of shouting in bars for at least 15 years. throughout the course of the day my voice and I parted ways, and I could feel my sinuses reacting as well. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry: I didn’t experience any of the telltale symptoms of coronavirus, it was just a combination of “plane flu” and late-night revelry.
the following week back in Colorado there was little said about what the growing momentum of covid-19 would mean for our office attendance, until at an all-hands meeting on Thursday we were told not to come back in until further notice, although that would probably only be “a couple of weeks.” that was March 12.
since that Last Normal Day photo was taken, life has changed immensely even just within the walls of our apartment. I’ve become a father, a runner, a weekly newsletter writer, each seemingly more unlikely than the last.
the newsletter part is pretty self-explanatory. for a few months I chewed on the idea of people having a tough time wanting to talk about the good things happening in their lives amid all the difficult things going on in the world. I don’t think that discussing one takes away from the other, and I wanted to create a forum for folks to share their good news. hopefully I’ve started to build that. please, dear readers, lemme know what I can change, what I can improve on, what you’d like to see. this is for y’all.
the fatherhood thing? well that’s just a mind-bender in its own right. with the beauty of hindsight I can say that I was utterly unprepared, and I owe a lot to Alex for knowing what the hell to do in a myriad situations. on the other hand, it genuinely reassured me when people from every corner of my life told me “don’t worry, we didn’t know what to do either. you’ll figure it out.” and they were right! we’re figuring it out. parenting appears to be a one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of affair, but one day at a time we’re learning and getting there, and that’s all we can do. we have a happy, healthy baby girl who’s learning to get around under her own power, and that’s pretty special.
as for running, well. I almost wrote an entire Christmas Day edition of this here newsletter chronicling where this whole “runner” bullshit came from, but it felt a little self-indulgent (which is ironic, since this is 1,000-plus words of self-indulgence) so I scrapped it. but in a year where it’s been difficult to feel as though I’ve made any progress at anything, it’s been surreal to watch my mile pace and run times go down through sheer force of practice and effort. for years I told myself and anyone who’d listen that I’m “not the right body type to be a runner,” or “I’m too flat-footed” or “too heavy” or “I can’t do impact-heavy cardio.” as it turns out, respectively: that doesn’t matter, they make shoe inserts for that, no I’m not, and yes I can. this new undertaking has culminated in me registering for a half-marathon in March, and training is underway. stay tuned.
Worthy Consumables
on Thursday evening I posted one of those annoying questions intended to generate engagement, although I did it because I was honestly interested.
even if you’re not a user of the Bird App, click through and check out the plentiful replies. as we all know, it’s been a difficult year between unemployment and uncertainty about the workforce and bills and the absence of government support and whatnot. but it was super heartening to see that so many folks were able to treat themselves to something that made life a little easier or more pleasurable for them over the past 10 months.
for the record, I’m not certain what my own answer to that question is. there were a lot of new pairs of shoes, which is fucking absurd given we don’t go anywhere anymore, but I think the best purchases I made were probably a new set of cookware (earlier this month) and my first new set of golf clubs since I was a kid. I remain a mediocre golfer, but being able to do something outdoors while remaining at a safe distance from other people this summer was worth its weight in gold.
what was YOUR favorite purchase of the year? lemme know below, IF YOU DARE.
Parting Note
as I’ve said in these pages, I’ve been very fortunate this year, all things considered. my family and I are healthy, I’ve remained employed and housed and able to afford some luxuries along the way. the things I’ve lost to 2020 are inconsequential indeed.
but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t hurt to lose them. this year was to be the 10th annual Rhode Island Seafood Festival, an event I’ve put my heart and soul into since the second edition. one of my favorite moments of the year — every year — is around 7:15pm on the Saturday after Labor Day, as the first day of the festival winds up, and a lingering crowd made up mostly of staff, friends and family are rocking in the dusk of a late summer day to TJay and the Tallboys, who always close the show on Saturday nights. we weren’t able to throw the festival the way we wanted to this year, and for the first summer since 2012 I couldn’t spend it at India Point Park in Providence, and that was difficult for me.
one of my favorite tunes TJay and the Tallboys play is Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, so here it is.
thanks again for reading, pals. I appreciate every single one of you. I hope the new year is kinder to all of us than 2020 was, and I hope we can all find a little more peace this time around.
— adrian ✌🏻