Dear Abigail

I am a thirty-seven-year-old mother of twins with another on the way. After deciding with my husband that we would be spending Christmas this year with my family in Tallahassee, he said he would inform his parents before our Fourth of July celebration. However, while he was at the grill with my father-in-law, my mother-in-law all but cornered me by the sliced watermelon asking where we would be spending the holiday and subsequently demanding I explain why I insisted upon breaking up “her family” (the only other time she posed such a question was upon the announcement of our engagement). I love my husband dearly. Was it wrong of me to tell his mother to shove off, and that I am his only family now?

PREGNANT AND PONDERING

Hi P&P,

The coordination of holiday plans are always a delicate matter, particularly when a partner’s family is involved. However, your question leaves me wondering what you have done in past years that had not led to such a conflict. Have you simply followed your mother-in-law’s orders in fear of ridicule? If so, such fears seem well-warranted.

Before addressing the exchange with your mother-in-law, I must say that your husband bears significant burden for not honoring your agreement for him to address this with his parents ahead of time. As much as your mother-in-law is in the wrong here for her spontaneous reaction, your husband is also at fault for not following through on a mutually agreed upon plan. Be sure to speak with him to locate either his forgetfulness or anxieties about representing your shared wishes.

You asked whether you were “wrong” for telling his mother to “shove off.” You also indicated that she accused you of sabotage immediately upon getting engaged to her son. Such a moment would have been ripe to address what has now become a lingering resentment. However, you seem to have made a bed in which you must now learn to lay. I would reevaluate your holiday plans and mend this fence. After all, few places are worse than Tallahassee.

A Day in My Life

My eyes flutter open to the sound of cartoon bluebirds singing outside my window. The smell of fresh cinnamon buns fill the air as I saunter to the open concept kitchen that has been thoughtfully designed in neutral tones. The day’s New York Times is sitting on the island with headlines highlighting recent milestones in social progress and a multi-page story about the absurdity of the housing market that reassures me that I did, in fact, purchase at the right time.

After a few hours of playing on my phone with the paper sitting next to me, I decide to take a walk through the garden and dive into my oversized plunge pool that is lined with historic mosaic tile yet is also somehow brand new. The temperature is perfect. After a few brief moments of conscious gratitude (gratitude really is the key to everything), I decide an outdoor shower is warranted before donning linen apparel for the warm summer day.

Friends come over and we have Negronis and they praise me for my generosity. I keep emphasizing that giving is simply who I am, and that with the right mindset, they, too can enjoy a life of abundance.

My alarm jolts me awake, and I begin my day.

More Perfect

You know what they say, two steps forward, fifty years of precedent steps back.

The United States is having a peculiar birthday this year, one something like either the terrible twos or the self-destructive teen years depending on how far along in history we are. In either case, there’s a clear rebellion against the progress that’s been made toward making this country a place of ideals enacted rather than oppression reproduced.

While I know it gauche to talk about the past in times like this, I really think it important to acknowledge that we all should have been more excited about Hillary. I was. Granted, I didn’t think I needed to be as excited as I am dumbfounded now. But people in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania really needed to take this whole elected officials thing more seriously. No one voted for 45 with a straight face.

The long game of politics is precisely that. I hope that in another fifty years, I can be in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere, so grateful that this all got sorted out.

Beach Read

This one is so short and easy to read it’s perfect.

Ways You Can Support Me During Pride Month

1. Money

2. Holding doors for me

3. Telling me how beautiful I am physically

4. Telling me you told your friends about me

5. Telling me you saw a famous celebrity in person and it reminded you of me because of the poise with which I carry myself

6. Be in awe of my humility

7. Encourage me to not be so humble

8. Fruity, chewy candy

Thank You For Your Interest

Your application has been submitted. Thank you for your interest. Please note that we will carefully and thoroughly review your application materials along with those of each applicant to determine if your qualifications meet the demands of the role. However, due to the volume of applications we receive, we are only able to contact those few whose skills we deem best align with the position responsibilities at this time. We are happy to keep your information on file and notify you in the future if a position becomes available for which your skills and experience may be a more appropriate fit. Note that this message, in all of its vagueness and empty promises, is actually quite generous in the context of other minuscule courtesy messages deployed to prospective applicants at actual institutions.

Please also note that we hope to have this position filled somewhere between late June to early Christmastime.

All Best, Warmly, Sincerely, and Forever,

Job Place

Things That Are Good

1. Frosted sugar cookies

2. Sleeping in

3. Sunsets

4. 70°F

5. Stretching

6. Wine

7. Confirmation emails

8. Glassy water

9. Nonstop flights

10. Air conditioning

Bad Dog

This is one of those Fridays when I am stunted for thoughts. There’s not much room for playful commentary when incomprehensible inaction has created a nation in which mass child homicide is not longer shocking. I think now would be a great time for a Republican lawmaker to take a trip to Cancún or share a Christmas card photo with their whole family holding guns. Anything would suffice except the empty sorrow and performative surprise of yet another tragedy they enabled, their tails tucked between their legs as they stand in the middle of the mangled living room of this country.

Dear Diary

I have never been a fan of writing in a journal. I feel like if I’ve made it to the end of the day, the last thing I need to do is write it all down again. A mumbled Hail Mary suffices.

But for documentation’s sake, I want to note that the past two weeks have shaken the snow globe of my professional, residential, and educational life. It has been a whirlwind, and some flakes are still finding their resting place.

Turning from one chapter to the next is exciting, even when the pages are turning too fast. This summer, I hope I can slow them down a bit. I look forward to enjoying cold drinks with family and friends I adore, and central air conditioning with the man I love.

Commence

Tomorrow I will graduate with a master’s degree (you can watch it here at Noon CT), but instead of focusing on a cap and gown I am more fixated on the large gas station hazelnut coffee and generic juju fish candy I am having as I grade the last many student papers. The final nights of graduate school, come to find out, taste just like the final nights of undergrad.

Charitable Giving

Yesterday morning, for the last day of class, I purchased two boxes of coffee from Starbucks complete with cups, cream, sugar, stirrers, and lids I had to ask for separately. My students were largely grateful but did not partake at the level I would have hoped. I was left with a full box of coffee after my two sections, and so I carried it up the hill to Behavioral Economics. I finished setting up the display a sensible six minutes before class began, and announced to my peers (are they my peers if I’m only auditing?) that they were welcome to help themselves. Alas, even after the final undergraduate left the room, a sizable amount of coffee remained. I could not find it in my heart to throw away the liquid gold that left a $37.87 plus $3 cash dent in my wallet (is that a good tip or a bad tip?). I walked the lukewarm remnants to the library’s graduate student lounge. I broke the studious silence with a friendly yet authoritative, “If anyone wants coffee, there’s some over here that needs to be had.” Their muted responses seemed to indicate that they knew this was, in fact, leftover coffee. Nevertheless, when I returned a mere hour later, the cups were gone and I poured the last drops into the mug I had been sipping all morning. I disposed of the scene without fanfare.

But that’s just who I am, always conducting my charitable work quietly, never asking for recognition, never shouting it as loud as I can from every mountaintop, for all to hear.

Ahead of Schedule

This could be a record in New Essay from Dan history for the earliest drafting. It is currently the Friday before the Friday it is for you now, and I am checking things off my to-do list before falling asleep and waking early to go to the airport. I hope that by this time I do not have a sunburn, I am well into my second book, and that my mind is moving a little slower. Sending my love to you in the present from me in the distant week’s past.

Vacation Fridge

The best kind of fridge is the one you’re emptying out before going on a long vacation.

Mine is barren, and I am so full.

Madtown

If you are reading this, then I am tracking two flights carrying four of my favorite people on their way to Madison. I defended my thesis on Wednesday and I am now a Master of Arts. But with all the love around me, I feel more like a Queen of Hearts.

Showtime

As I write this, the late afternoon sun is streaming through my windows after a cold and rainy day. Later tonight I perform on a stage for the first time in over two years, but in many ways it feels like no time has gone by at all. The theatre has a way of making itself a bubble in life’s timeline.

I’m excited to try something out again, and nervous about how it will be received. But I believe strongly in throwing things against a wall and seeing what sticks…or at least appreciating the spectacle of watching it slowly drip down to the floor.

Spring Forward

April is the month of renewal: No more snow, no more excuses for not exercising, no more slapping the presenter right before you accept an award…we’ve all got our own areas for improvement.

Ketanji

Most jarring for me was the display of such breathtaking expertise juxtaposed with such shameless disregard. It was like watching a superintendent of schools be grilled by the prom committee.

Could you imagine a job interview in which the panel of interviewers talked about themselves ad nauseam, got visibly upset, and walked out of the room? What would that say about the employer?

The fact that Judge Jackson had the generosity of mind and spirit to endure those three days so that we might be the beneficiaries of her work is a testament to her, not our country. May she get as comfortable sitting in her Supreme Court seat as those senators were in their high chairs.

The Elephant in the Room

I have received a lot feedback from my last essay that my tone was a bit subdued, to which I say, yes it was! I would also like to say, by “a lot of feedback” I mean I received extremely brief messages from only two of you, and to the tens of other people reading this, where were you?!

I am just kidding. I have many people whom I trust and to whom I know I can reach out, which makes me more fortunate than most. That said, any spontaneous sending of money, soft sugar cookies, fresh flowers, love notes, gift certificates to locally owned restaurants in my area, or expensive candles (anything expensive, really) is always appreciated and accepted on a rolling basis.

Year 2

Well folks, it’s been just about two years since we first marked The End of Days. It’s funny how my brain was filled with just as many worries back then, but worries that didn’t incorporate a continuous risk assessment about airborne illness.

The offloading of adult responsibility throughout the last two years has been breathtaking. From a fractured government response to bizarre arguments about “personal freedom,” I am left wondering how bursting at the ethical seams we already were.

This new age of personal risk assessment is as daunting as it is ambiguous. On one hand I can’t wait to sit in a common area with a cup of coffee, and on the other I feel like genuine relief will continue to prove elusive.

If there’s been one transformative thing I have learned in the past two years, I would appreciate it if someone could tell me. Otherwise, I suppose there’s little to do but just keep swimming, and swimming, and swimming, and swimming.

To My Beloved Colleagues

If I were in charge of the world, I would immediately turn in my two weeks notice, but definitely be open to helping the team transition in any way that I can.