And Then There Were ... More?

First and foremost, thanks to everyone that emailed, texted, and even called over the two weeks. I’m really okay. Really! Sometimes, a dude just needs to vent and I don’t have a podcast and I’ve ditched Twitter, so here it is. Also, many of you are feeling the same way about your own writing, parenting, jobs, and so forth, and I know that might seem obvious, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to be heard and acknowledged. I appreciate you, friends.

Also, I realized that I hadn’t sent a brand spankin’ new missive in a while, and there are two big topics we need to get to you might not be aware of, and I’m going to spread that out over two drops. So here is the first one, though if we are IG pals, you are already aware of the second one.

Liz is pregnant with our second child, a baby boy, who is due in mid-July. She’s healthy and happy and even found time to start a new job before the lil’ dude arrives. This pregnancy has been harder than the first: she’s often nauseous (a LOT) and is absolutely wiped out by 5 pm every day. Which is no bueno, but what makes that particularly challenging is that our daughter still wants Liz’s full attention. The cognitive load of being a parent while pregnant is just woof.

Recently at the gym, I asked my friend Sara is she knew Liz was pregnant. Sara and I don’t usually work out at the same time, and she recently did another of her excellent globetrotting trips, so I wasn’t sure. She said, yeah I think I knew that. You’re like a Kardashian, she teased, the way you let out information.

I guess we are all used to announcing things by putting it on the socials. Telling someone your wife is pregnant is NOT a fifteen second conversation. That’s a “hey, that’s great, let’s talk about family!” twenty minute conversation, and so sometimes, I just keep that to myself.

At work, once Liz passed twelve weeks, I let my manager know that Liz was due in July. She was thrilled for us and said, okay let the team know when you’re ready just know that nothing stays quiet here! I said, sure. And, every single week, as recently as last week, I would tell a colleague about baby #2 and hear, I don’t know you were having a second kid! When I was out in Los Angeles for the AWP conference, I probably told everyone, before they even introduced themselves, something like “I’m great, thanks for asking! My wife is having our second kid in July!”

So, I’m not shy about talking about my family. I am, however, a bit reluctant to share a ton on the internet in general.

It is not you. Really! I don’t believe that you, dear reader, are working for DOGE and will take my history and feed it into that Death Star operating outside of Memphis to turn in me into a tragic American Winston Smith. I do not, however, trust these platforms. I don’t trust X, Meta, Alphabet, or frankly, internet companies in general, even though I still have and use (some) of these platforms. We aren’t luddites: Liz makes videos for the internet; I work in corporate communications. We just try to limit our exposure.

You may or may not have noticed that I don’t put my daughter’s image on social media. That’s a choice that Liz and I made that, frankly, involved little discussion. I’m not even sure if I have used her name – I think I have? – or maybe I have just called her S. I really don’t wear a tinfoil hat (*removes his tinfoil hat*)

I also don’t really know how I can or should prepare my children for the internet. We watch TV, but my daughter doesn’t have a tablet; she considers all phone calls to be video calls, but doesn’t play any games or whatnot on a device. And after several drafts of this newsletter, all of which are now scrapped, I’m still not sure how to talk about this without feeling like I am judging and hectoring other parents, or congratulating myself on being super enlightened as a parent without feeling like a fraud.

For nearly three weeks now, I have been trying to figure out what to say about my family other than Hooray! But, after deleting lots of paragraphs that went on a few spectacular rabbit hole tangents, I think I have decided that Hooray! is more than good enough. This newsletter was never created to be a series of perfectly polished essays. This can just be one of those Ross Gay small joys.

Can’t it?

Three Better Things to Read

1. “We are missing a massive opportunity to give people lives they would like”

2. There’s actually a really simple way to give a trillion dollars back to American citizens. Perhaps you are not shocked to discover this isn’t on the table with the current budget bill.

3. There was a zine out of Chicago back in late 80’s/early 90’s called THING that was a bit before my time, but as a lit mag today, there’s a lot to learn and celebrate here.

Until the next time,

Michael

Share Until We Have Faces