Pour Me A Story, Vol. 29
feat. Marley Crawford, that drug called nostalgia, Hanson (!) and more
hello there pals, and welcome to this week’s edition of Pour Me A Story. as always, I’m grateful to each and every one of you who opened this in your inbox or clicked through from Twitter or found the print edition on a bus stop bench.
let’s jump right in!
The First 365
today was a big day in the Crawford household: baby’s first birthday! that’s right, our little bundle of joy is now a walking, talking, solid-food-eating bundle of energy. it’s impossible to truly get my head around the idea that she’s a whole year old, because that then gives way to the understanding that the world has been a very different place for more than a year now.
I’m sure that, in some aspects, parenting was easier (or at least, slightly less noisy from an information standpoint) back when I was a kid in the mid-80s and early 90s. one of the things that was a blessing and a curse early on after the baby’s arrival was the ability to Google whatever new-parent-panic-inducing thing was happening at that particular time.
it seems like a good thing to have a civilization’s worth of parenting knowledge at the tip of your thumb, but the reality was often that every website would have a different opinion. combine multiple pieces of wildly varying advice with sleep achieved in 90-minute chunks between feedings and you’ve got a recipe for major overthinking.
the great thing, though, about raising a child in a high-technology age is that I can take a spin back through her earliest days any time I want, thanks solely to the camera roll on my phone. sometimes I’ll be looking for something entirely unrelated, stumble across a photo of a child who only bears a passing resemblance to the toddler who wreaks adorable havoc on our apartment every day, and just burst out laughing.
how did this year go by so fast? in contrast, how is she somehow still only 1? shouldn’t she be like 11 by now? I don’t understand how time works, I guess.
Anyway, We Have Company
to celebrate the little lady’s birthday, this week our special guest is none other than Marley Crawford, my first-born daughter and the person in charge of our household. please bear in mind that this will be a considerably shorter interview than in previous editions, due mostly to the fact that I’m writing this way past her bedtime. (Ed. note: because I’m nothing if not a writer of integrity, her interview responses consist solely of words she does in fact know and say.)
AC: hi bubba! happy birthday.
MC: Hi!
AC: just to confirm, who am I?
MC: Dadadada
AC: good stuff, that’s my girl. how are you feeling on your very first birthday?
MC: Happy. Hi!
AC: hi to you too. who was the first person you saw today?
MC: Mamama
AC: that’s because dad slept in until 6:40. who do you think your favorite family member is?
MC: Kitty!
AC: I think you’re right. which family member do you think is still to really relax around you?
MC: Kitty.
AC: two from two there pumpkin. now, here’s a photo of some of your favorite bath toys. can you name the animals?
MC: Kitty!
AC: that’s right, they’re all kitty. good job! okay one last one: who are you?
MC: Bubba.
AC: I simply cannot get one past you. I don’t know where you got those big brains but it wasn’t from your dad.
Nostalgia Is A Hell Of A Drug
in last week’s edition, I mentioned that I’m taking some solo vacation time next week (spoiler alert: there may not be a newsletter next week) and heading to Las Vegas for a couple days.
you may not be able to tell by the slap-together nature of this newsletter, but in many aspects of my life I’m a serious planner. or, more accurately, if I’m not a serious planner, I’m a serious over-analyzer. I don’t do too many things without considering them from literally every conceivable angle beforehand.
this has certainly been the case for as long as I’ve been traveling to the United States, ever since my very first trip back in the summer of 2008. I was flying solo on that vacation and so, as a 22-year-old who was unable to affordably rent a car, I opted for a coach tour that took me from L.A. to Vegas, the Grand Canyon, all through the South and then up the East Coast. it was 27 days of absolute mayhem on a bus with 49 other drunk 20-something foreigners, and I don’t regret a single penny spent.
after that trip, when I returned to the work grindstone, I was both hooked on travel and obsessed with reliving my memories, so I sat down to write a trip journal, day by day, in retrospect. it took me more than two years and clocked in at 80,000 words, but I did it. I spent $250 having it printed in two hardcover volumes as a memento, and 13 years later I cringe every time I go back and try to read it. it’s exactly the sort of painful prose a 22-year-old thinks is funny, but it definitely captures the spirit of the vacation.
I mention this now because, again, it’s a trail of digital breadcrumbs that folks in previous generations simply didn’t have such easy access to. in the past few weeks, as I try to remember things I’ve done on Vegas trips past or things I promised myself I’d check out but never did, I’ve turned to the deepest recesses of my Gmail inbox to dig out these little nuggets of trip-planning inspiration from emails and Gchat logs with travel buddies.
I wrote in 2017 about nostalgia being a powerful drug, and while I’m extremely openminded about new experiences, I’m also a creature of habit and enjoy the familiarity of repeat visits to specific vacation spots, if only because I no longer have easy access to the familiarity of my hometown or the places I grew up.
but one thing is for certain: this Vegas trip will not be the rager that previous ones have been. not when I’ve gotta get off a plane at the end and go take care of a small human being.
Worthy Consumables
I’m completely out to sea this week for this segment, and honestly don’t have much inspiration or memory of recent Things I’ve Enjoyed Consuming. BUT!
we just watched the first episode of Them on Prime, and it is incredibly unsettling. I was under the vague impression that it was a series from the pen of Jordan Peele, of Us and Get Out fame, and after watching the first episode I was certain he was behind it.
a quick Google search tells me that Them has been accused of biting Peele’s style, so while it isn’t his show, it certainly is similar thematically. set in Compton, California in the 1950s, it follows the (presumably) horrific events faced by a Black family who moves from North Carolina into a white neighborhood.
so far I’ve found it disturbing as hell (for the racism aspects) and disturbing as hell (for the brief, but creepy, horror/supernatural aspects) and I’m curious to see where the series goes. I might be entirely wrong about it, but if you enjoyed Us or Get Out, it’s probably worth giving a shot.
Parting Note
this one’s for the baby, who was unable to select her own song for the end of this edition. but she boogied to Hanson at bathtime tonight, so who am I to choose anything else? notwithstanding the fact that one of the band members has revealed himself to be a piece of shit, this is still a jam.
thanks again for hanging out with me for another edition of Pour Me A Story, gang. I’ll be on vacation next week, so you’ll see me in your inbox again on May 14!
— adrian ✌🏻