Pour Me A Story, Vol. 31
feat. okguyadam, the ultimate trail mix and more
well would you look at the time? it’s Friday again and here we are with yet another edition of Pour Me A Story.
last week’s dispatch was the most-read post so far (probably due to the fact that special guest Dana Drew shared the link with her enormous Instagram following, but potentially just because of the high-quality prose) which is super cool. thanks as always for rocking with me.
it’s been an eventful week in the Crawford house. Alex took her solo vacation last weekend and headed to New Orleans with a friend, which meant I was on solo dad duty for just short of 80 hours. I was nervous, but it went just about as smoothly as could be. the little lady took all her naps, ate most of her meals, slept through the night and had a lot of laughs with her old man. it was exhausting but I feel as though it was a really great bonding experience for the two of us.
this flows in nicely to this week’s interview guest, who’s also a dad and has been an inspiration to me as I navigate the new-ish waters of fatherhood. phew, talk about fuckin’ high-quality prose.
Anyway, We Have Company
this week’s guest has been one of my Twitter pals for a few years now, to the point that I can’t remember when exactly we crossed paths. it’s been at least three years, because I vividly remember bullshitting with Adam when I still worked the 5:30am shift at the Denver Post. more often than not I’d bring a packed lunch to work, but given I’d woken up sometime around 4:30am, I was usually hungry by 9:30 and my packed lunch wouldn’t survive much longer than that. Adam could relate, and given he’s on the east coast he had a two-hour advantage and would usually crush his lunch before I could get to mine. he’s also a dad of a little girl and we’ve bonded over that shared responsibility in the past year or so as well. anyway here he is.
AC: hey pal, how's things this fine Thursday?
AS: I was going to start out by complaining about everything going wrong with my house and cars, but frig it - it’s a beautiful day and I’m working barefoot. how are you?
AC: nothing quite like feeling the breeze between your toes while you're staring at a spreadsheet, that's for damn sure. doing alright here man. one of the things I know we've talked about on and off for literal years has been "eating the food you brought to work for lunch at an unreasonably early hour." has the pandemic changed your workday lunchtime habits?
AS: oh absolutely. instead of eating my packed lunch on the drive in to work and then starving for the rest of the day, I eat an entire bag of Stacy’s pita chips at like 2p. I do not have the ability to regulate my eating in any helpful way. just chaos. I do eat a lot less fast food - but I also drink more because I don’t have to hide hangovers from anyone the next day.
AC: It's a weird balance right? I probably eat more fast food by virtue of the fact that I'm hiding THAT from coworkers whom I'd never house a Big Mac and a Filet-o-Fish in front of. a lot more fucking grilled cheese lunches, at the very least. late in March last year I also accidentally founded what's now known as "chip o'clock," which was the hour (around 3:30) where I felt it was acceptable to eat a whole bag of Ruffles sour cream and cheddar chips after not eating breakfast or lunch. but I'm sure you've found some upsides to all this work from home shit?
AS: Literally everything is an upside. No coworkers, no combing hair, no pretending to work. Last year was truly the best of my life, sorry to say. it was difficult to balance having everyone home because we felt like we were plopping the kiddo in front of the TV too much, but I got to spend so much more time with her. Every break I had, we’d take a walk around the neighborhood, or played soccer, and eventually we learned her how to ride a bike without training wheels by early April. She hadn’t turned 4 yet, and we were able to all go on rides around the neighborhood on our bikes together.
I have very few things im passionate about, and even fewer things I take seriously, but my kid is everything to me. I’ll drop everything to do some dumb shit with her. having the opportunity to do that every day for a year was really amazing.
AC: I know the TV struggle all too well, but sometimes you just have something you gotta get done. one of my favorite things on this site over the past couple years has been your posts about being a dad and watching your little girl grow up. I said last year that early parenting felt like showing up to a new job every day where you don't know how to do the work and your coworkers only speak Russian, and the next day nothing you learned the day before works. am I way off base?
AS: parenting is uniquely personal. there’s nothing that you can read that is the right way. just don’t kill the kid and don’t kill yourself worrying about killing the kid (the second thing is much harder than expected). We put Sadie in the crib in her room on night 1 home from the hospital. Switched to formula after a week, fed her red beans and rice after she could swallow real food. throw out whatever you’re told and just do what works.
I was much more emotional than I expected though, and that was the toughest part. that’s why twitter was a release. I was able to be brutally honest about my fears, and it helped me get past them. This is an open invitation to any of your readers: if you are a dude and cry in private because being a dad is scary, DM me. I love those conversations.
But, after the first few years that stuff eases away and you get to just have fun. and my god have I had fun. By the way, have you been out with M and had another dude say “stuck with kid duty huh?”
AC: I think the only person who's commented while I've been out with the baby has been a homeless dude who shouted repeatedly "this guy knows what it means to be a real man, taking care of his baby," so that was encouraging. I haven't come across any dudes who've made it sound like a chore, but I do feel sorry as hell for them.
on your previous point, I think a big thing for me was that while I had no shortage of very kind folks like yourself offering a DM-based safe space to talk about it, I was definitely scared that I was the only one who's ever felt like "holy shit I'm in over my head" and that I'd look like an asshole for thinking or feeling it. that was a huge learning curve. a big question: is sadie gonna be a sixers fan or do you take the approach of "she should root for whomever she chooses rather than dad's team?"
AS: She better be! I accidentally bought a starter jacket that I think is for women at a game several years ago, and have never worn it, so somebody needs to. I have no idea what interests this kid will have yet, though. she doesn’t like watching soccer or basketball, but she knows who my teams are and she has a Sixers cap.
I am able to influence her TV and music interests much more though. I found that if you just sing a song a few times, it’s her favorite song too. so she loves Jimmy Eat World, Paramore, Whitney Houston, John Denver, Annie Lennox, etc. And she watches cool shows like Avatar and Bluey (best kids show of all time and it’s from your island) and shit like that. so if she doesn’t end up liking my teams, we’ll still have some things in common. especially the hiking and camping, I think that’ll stick.
AC: that's definitely something I've noticed even at this young age. I'm amazed by her ability to remember and recognize stuff, be it specific characters on the one TV show she watches (not Bluey, but I've heard good things) or when we play the same three songs to her in the bathtub she'll perk up immediately and dance. do you still get struck by the lightning bolt of "holy shit, I have a child?" I swear I'll be sitting in her room watching her play and then "oh man lmao that's YOUR KID" hits me like a freight train.
AS: Yeah, that happens all the time still. Strangely, I notice it more now when she gets in trouble for something and I’m having the stern talk with her while her face is covered in tears, and I zoom way out of my body and see my dad yelling at me. You haven’t gotten to experience it as much yet, but as they learn things you get so fucking proud and they get proud and they learned how to do it because you showed them. But then it also hits you when you see your kid clearly suffering from ADD and you’re like whoops that’s my definitely my bad, but that’s my kid. But to me that’s why i derive so much joy from being a dad, because it is all leading to something and who knows what that’ll be?
One of my favorite things though is when they first start taking big kid baths, and then they shit in the tub. That’s definitely a peak funny kid bit.
AC: hahaha man, we had our first tub shit about two weeks ago... while I was in Vegas. perfect timing. but we’ve seen glimpses of “doing something we taught her to do” with clapping and waving and saying “hi” and “bye,” and she’s figuring out the Lil Tykes basketball hoop too which I’m psyched about. changing direction a little, how are you feeling about “life back outside the house” unfolding in front of us? what do you think you missed most about the wider world?
AS: Man, I’m ready. I feel a little weird about being so incautious at this point. I don’t wear a mask unless required, though I will gladly comply with requirements. It’s hard to reconcile that with the fact that it’s not over for a lot of people, but what can you do? The thing I miss most is the white guy smile to strangers.
AC: oh I 100 percent know which smile you're talking about. it's this one right?
AS: yes, my bridge to the world, taken from me. I simply do not know how to communicate with people in brief public encounters if I can’t pull the corners of my mouth back and mouth the word hi. But mostly, I miss those once every few months quick pop ins with old friends. The pandemic stripped me of the energy to even try to arrange those, so even though I could easily invite someone over to my deck, that has slipped away a little. Would like to make that happen again. It was easier to meet up somewhere with a big game as pretext. It made it easy to slink into a cave and stop trying, if one was inclined to do that. Also I just want to hit a solo movie. What about you? Ready to hit the Chuck-E-Cheese again?
AC: the judge says I'm not allowed within 500 feet of Charles Entertainment Cheese's anymore, so I gotta find a new spot to hang with the fellas. I definitely agree about the strangeness about the, uh, fluid level of precaution here. like my therapist just told me her building no longer requires masks, which is great and I'm totally down for it, but I feel like there's also an element of showing respect for the safety of others there too. I'm already feeling more comfortable about being outside in general, but if the tradeoff for that is "carrying a square of fabric with me just in case," then it's a perfectly reasonable compromise to make. I still don't want to be responsible for endangering someone else's health.
other than that I'm excited to be in a gym again and try to start working out, and the idea of casually seeing people here and there is equal parts nerve-wracking and enticing as well. and good call on solo movies. alright man two more softballs and I'll leave you alone. first one (which I'm personally excited to hear, knowing you and I have some musical tastes in common) is that the special guest gets to pick the song of the week.
AS: that’s a lot of pressure! but the windows-down weather always has me break out Remy Shand, so let’s do The Way I Feel.
AC: fuck yeah, it really feels like "windows down weather" went away last year so we deserve even more of it this year. alright man last one, this is where you get to plug something important to you or meaningful or that you think people should check out or whatever. sky's the limit.
AS: Just want to say that it has been an honor to be interviewed for this article in The New Yorker magazine, so thank you. I’ve got nothing to plug, but just tell your followers to look for me at the Sixers parade this summer.
AC: buddy if the sixers win the chip I'll see you at the parade myself. thanks for taking some time with me dude, the Tuscaloosa News is glad to have had you.
AS: hey wait
Worthy Consumables: Trail Mix Edition
I mentioned a few weeks back that my buddy Mikey is currently making his way north along the Appalachian Trail, which just consistently blows my mind.
earlier this week he sent me and Alex a photo of himself standing beside a tree with the number 1,000 emblazoned on it, signifying how many miles he’s covered since setting off on this wild journey back in late February.
since he indicated he was staying in town tonight, I figured he might have a few minutes to cast his mind back, so I asked him if he’d rank the top 5 meals he’s had off the trail. he was kind enough to oblige, and I thought I would share that list with you.
1. Damascus, VA, The Damascus Diner: chicken-fried chicken and like half the menus for breakfast, under $20. Amazing.
2. Roan, TN, Mountain Harbor B&B: brunch. Voted “best breakfast on the trail” by people. Not sure who.
3. Daleville, VA, Three Li’l Pigs BBQ at 9am. While not the best BBQ I have ever had, I enjoyed it immensely. Just laughing at eating pulled pork sandwiches at 9am in rural Virginia. It was magical.
4. Front Royal, VA, BBQ sandwich. I got it two days in a row.
5. Marion, VA, McDonald’s. I ate a double quarter pounder, double cheeseburger, chicken sandwich, large fries and soda. I then walked across the street and got three donuts. Then I ordered Pizza Hut three hours later.
Editor’s note: if I was hiking 15 miles a day, I’d have done the same damn thing.
Parting Note
as has become the tradition, our special guest calls the shots when it comes to the song of the week. I was secretly hoping Adam would go with some nu-metal, but this is good too.
that’s it from me this week folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. catch you next Friday for installment 32, and be well in the meantime.
— adrian ✌🏻