We'll All Be Here Forever

My name’s Andrew, and it’s been 3 months since my last Substack post.

No real explanation for why it’s been so long, other than I haven’t felt like writing. It’s all good. I’m still here. Still listening to Noah Kahan on repeat. So, come to think of it, probably not all good, but good enough.

School is out. Summer is in full swing. I’m sweating a lot. I spent the first couple of weeks driving the kids around to band camp, cheer camp, and basketball camp. This past week was a little slower; I didn’t have to spend 3 to 4 hours in the car each day. That was nice. It gave me the chance to reflect a bit more. Try to figure out what else I should be doing. Didn’t come up with anything, but at least I got to sit on the couch more and look at the dogs.

Dogs, plural. We got a second dog since the last time I wrote. I don’t expect you to be locked in on the number of dogs that reside at my house at any given moment, but in case you are, I don’t want there to be any confusion. The new dog is a labradoodle puppy named Perseus (Percy), who is the biological brother of our 2-year-old dog, Hades. They have the same parents, a poodle and a labradoodle who live around the corner from us. You probably could figure out the dogs had the same parents because I said biological brother, but for some reason, I always feel the need to clarify when I drop this fun fact on people. Pretty crazy, right? Two dogs with the same parents!

Having a puppy is a nightmare. Over a month into this, and I still sleep on the couch to keep the dogs entertained. Perseus still manages to pee on the floor in the middle of the night because I’m a deep sleeper. The exact purpose of my sleeping on the couch remains a bit of a mystery, but I persist. Pretty relatable, I know. Why do any of us do anything, really?

Many mornings, if we don’t have camps or other activities, my two younger kids make me drive them around to various stores to look for squishy toys (e.g., Needohs and Sunny Days Squeezies). These toys are apparently so popular with elementary and early middle school age kids that, when they do have any in stock, most stores keep them hidden behind the customer service desk to prevent hoarding and riots. As an anti-capitalist, am I happy about my kids being addicted to such a ridiculously consumerist pursuit? No. As a person with social anxiety, am I happy that we have to go up to the desk and humiliate ourselves by asking for squishy toys over and over again? Also, no. Is it at least a little bit fun? Sadly, yes.

The thrill of the chase is real. On one recent outing, there was a stockpile of squishy ducks, bears with hats, butters, chicken legs, and… you won’t believe this one… bomb pops behind the desk and my kids literally gasped. What a day that was. We’re bankrupt now.

On a somewhat related note, I obsessively refreshed Ticketmaster for weeks until I lucked into Noah Kahan tickets for the first stop on his The Great Divide Tour, which happened right here in Orlando this week. I paid way too much. I regret it like I do most things. I feel like a very wasteful person whether it’s squishy toys or concert tickets or time. But seeing my 12-year-old’s joy at the concert? Priceless. (The price still hurts.)

Nobody will be interested in this bit, but I’m going to talk about it quickly because it’s on my mind. After Noah Kahan’s first concert, the one we attended, people online complained about the setlist and some of the songs that were left out. I won’t get into the details because it’s boring, but Kahan, who is chronically online and reportedly very much of a people pleaser, changed up his set for night two in Orlando. He added four songs and dropped two. The whole thing kind of made me sad.

The show we went to was amazing. It was perfectly planned out and you could sense the care that was put into the set design and order of the songs. The storylines from his most recent two albums were clearly intertwined in an intentional way. The visual elements were otherworldly, as were the vocals. But whether the show was perfect or not is irrelevant. As a creator myself (on a very minuscule and mostly invisible scale) and a person who, like Noah Kahan, struggles with mental health, and in particular, an obsession with being liked and accepted, I can deeply relate to how devastating it can be to feel like you’ve failed people. Like you’ve disappointed them. Whether that failure is real or imagined, it hurts either way.

The parasocial relationships that fans develop with artists can be toxic. For the artists and the fans. I know because I’m prone to falling into that type of fandom that becomes a little too all-consuming. Online life allows us to exist outside of reality and existing outside of reality is often appealing. Until it isn’t. Until it has real consequences and real people get their feelings hurt.

Anyway, I’m trying my best not to be so parasocial. It’s not that big of a deal and the celebrities will be fine. The world probably won’t be, but that’s a whole other issue. That’s why we buy squeezy toys and order takeout for dinner and go to concerts and read about people we don’t know online. To distract us from the real planet that is crumbling around us. It’s nice to feel frivolous and invulnerable for a few minutes.

During our less-busy summer week, my kids and their neighborhood friends made a lemonade stand. They set up at the end of our street with a table, two big pitchers of pink and traditional lemonade, and a hand-drawn sign with prices (exorbitant, but inflation is real). I’m just grateful they didn’t make one of those hideous AI flyers that all look the same.

My son hurried in the door at one point and asked me to come down to the stand because someone had asked if they offered any digital payment options and he didn’t want to miss out on any other potential sales. I quickly printed out a QR code for my Zelle account and sent him on his way. You hear a lot about developing passive income streams and apparently lemonade is now mine. Still waiting for that first payment notification, but they’re back at it now as I type, so I remain hopeful.

I guess it’s kind of nice that the kids are out there in the real world learning to be less scared of people. I mean, people are inherently scary, in my opinion, but maybe my kids’ lives will be marginally better if they learn to overcome the fear that I never fully overcame. Maybe.

This newsletter is a mess. That’s probably another reason I haven’t posted in 3 months. I’ve never treated this (gestures vaguely) as something informal or trivial. I have this quixotic belief that everything I publish is important to other people, not just me. I don’t love writing unstructured, stream-of-consciousness missives, no matter the platform. I want things to be meaningful, well-crafted… perfect?

And since perfection is unachievable, pretty much for anyone but particularly for me with my medium level of skill and imagination, I tend to give up easily. I fall back into Noah Kahan-like apathy (“It’s better to die numb than feel it all,” a lyric from the song“Growing Sideways”…I’m still trying not to be parasocial, but it’s clearly not going great).

So, for now, we’ll all be here forever. Sweeping porches, letting dogs out, making lemonade, hunting for squishy toys, maybe writing, and most importantly, hoping nobody is mad at me.

Words by me, Andrew Knott. Best known for duck… and Baby-sitters Club.

My books:

Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, mini-golf, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.

Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey