Life Hacks and Road Trips
6. Bribes are more than okay. I’ve trained my kids to think that tic-tacs are the holiest of grails in terms of possible rewards for good behavior.
Releasing Your Hounds
Seeing them encounter the world at large while still protecting them from the worst of it is a balance of restraint on my part as much as it is on theirs.
Status Update
I’m carrying around the symbol of someone’s desire to be with me the rest of his life. That’s awkward, especially since there’s no protocol for me reciprocating the gesture.
Baby Groot
I can buy many cookies with $250. So when I shelled it out, my tummy ached with the loss of thousands of cookies I was hypothetically never going to eat.
Longing for Roots
So what do I have? I have my ancestors. I can’t visit them, anyway—most are long dead—so distance doesn’t matter. Still, though, this litany of names acts as a sort of symbolic rootedness.
Toilets, an Autoethnography
My fondness for toilets began in first grade when I staged a protest in the Jackson Elementary School girls’ bathroom. I objected to recess, of all things.
What’s In A Name?
You can hyphenate your last name and your husband’s last name. You can take two last names. You can combine your last names into a new last name (for real, people do this).
That’s Where We Want to Go
I knew it as soon as I saw it on the map with all the little pins. This was the worst. Kokomo, Indiana. It’s basically Pawnee without Leslie Knope there to keep it afloat.
Make Your Move
We’re moving to New York on the 18th. My parents are helping us with the move, because what guy wouldn’t want to spend the week after his wedding on a road trip with his in-laws?
Ode to Rainy Mornings
And then, finally, it came: a few days above freezing, and then a glorious morning when I wake slowly from a deep, sound sleep to a dull, grey morning.
