are you celebrating father's day today, or are you a jehovah's witness?
i am both, so it really makes for a strange holiday
STARTING THIS ONE OFF RESPONDING TO LAST WEEK’S BY TELLING YOU ALL THAT I DID IN FACT GO TO THE YANKEES GAME LAST WEEK AND HERE IS A PHOTO FROM IT:
HERE IS ANOTHER PHOTO FROM IT:
YES THEY DID PLAY THE CUBS AND YES THE CUBS DID LOSE 57-4. Ok, it was 18-4, but is there really a difference at that point? Either way, it was fun and cool, and there was a very racist set of twins next to us who were harassing an employee. Wanna guess what team they were rooting for? The good ol Cubbies. Racist Cubs fans? What a surprise!
You will NEVER guess where I am this week/weekend. Actually, wait, let me start off by changing the subject to something else first, and then I’ll have you guess where I am.
My friends and I do this trivia thing at a cute lil Irish pub in Williamsburg every Tuesday, and usually — and I don’t say this lightly — we absolutely kill it. But THIS time, we got fourth place, and I absolutely take the blame. Do you think this girly knows anything about sports? I thought the Cubs lost 57-4 the other day.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I can comfortably have you guess where I am.
I am in a part of the country of the U S of A that is very haunted. Oh, that’s the whole country? Well, then, I am in a place that is like a newer England. And also, there are a lot of people who were accused of being witches here at one point, and I’m not talking about me calling my mom one when she wouldn’t let me go hang out with my friends on a school night, AM I RIGHT. Yes, that’s correct! I am in New England; Groveland, Massachusetts, to be exact. My friends have taken me (hostage) here to prove to me that they do not live in the woods because I have been saying that they live in the woods since I met them. So far, they are just continuing to prove my point.
I’ll say it I’m not afraid to say it: New England can be very cute. All of these old-ass colonial homes and ghosts wandering all over the place — that is chic. The most important part of this trip, though, was when we figured out that we were driving right by the house from Hocus Pocus. So you know we pulled over a got that photo:
Don’t act like this photo isn’t the most important photo you’ve ever seen. Do you know who’s been in that house? Kathy Najimy. Penny Marshall, probably. Bette Midler. Sarah Jessica Parker. And me. On the outside.
It has been so nice to be here, though. New York moves so fast all the time. And while I can keep right up with it, usually, it’s nice to not have to keep up with anything for four days. Just relaxing. Going to the beach. Going to the pool. Going to the hot tub. Going candlestick bowling. Oh, you don’t know what candlestick bowling is? Neither do I. We should all probably look it up before we go as a Circle Back family.
Lots of little crystal shops in this neck of the woods. They’re really loving the wE aRe ThE gRaNdAuGhTeRs Of ThE wItChEs YoU cOuLdN’t BuRn vibe. But they’re allowed to. They are literally witch central. Did I give into them? Do you mean did I buy a Pisces zodiac necklace? That’s a really specific question for you to ask me.
Alright, now for the main event: today is Father’s Day. It is a day, according to my father, created specifically for my father. I find days like today to be pretty unnecessary. Choosing one day to celebrate your dad is like choosing one day to celebrate your daughter: you should be celebrating them e v e r y d a y. If you have a good father —one that has taught you how to parallel park, or how practice doesn’t always make perfect, or how to be confident in your abilities, and you are proving that you learned all of these things to the best of your abilities — then you are celebrating him through these things every single day. Stephen King has this quote that I can’t fully remember about how a father teaches you that if you wanna be in charge of your life, you have to be in charge of your problems. And I completely believe that. My dad has taught me to take ownership of my mistakes and my emotions, through watching him take ownership and not take ownership. What I mean by that is that I have learned to understand that my dad (and my mom and any adult in my life) is not just a dad; he’s a person who had a dad and had problems and made mistakes and learned skills that he would later teach my brother and me. And he’s still learning. I think we forget that about our parents. Just because they have kids doesn’t mean they know everything. Only daughters know everything. That’s a proven fact; my dad told me.
But there are so many things to celebrate on Father’s Day — and I mentioned this in the Mother’s Day newsletter — that have to do with fathers but are not just about the fathers. This is a day to celebrate yourself and the things you learned from him. This is a day to celebrate the people who raised him, whether it be because they were bad or good at it because he learned from it, either way. This is a day to celebrate all of the dad jokes your dad has made because you have learned from them to never make those. This is a day to tell your dad that you’re not giving him a gift because You Are His Gift. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.
Anyway, thank you, Dad, for teaching me to parallel park, and thank you for reading my newsletter every week.