Bad advice for a father trying to do good by his family.
5 Days, 5 Ways to Style the GrandPro Rally—Working From Home Without Most of Your Clothes Edition One hour. That’s all you need, really. One motherfudging hour to get your motherfudging work done. But the kids keep coming, don’t they? Every couple minutes or so, absentmindedly rubbing a stick of butter against the stairwellContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: WEAR AND TEAR / THURSDAY”
This is going to make a lot more sense if you read this first: https://askastraydad.home.blog/2020/04/07/ask-a-stray-dad-wear-and-tear/ 5 Days, 5 Ways to Style the GrandPro Rally: Working From Home Without Most of Your Clothes Edition WEDNESDAY: You know what can bring a little bit of coziness to a cold, gray, unfeeling world? A flannel shirt. You knowContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: WEAR AND TEAR / WEDNESDAY”
How not to dress for success. Q: What is that you’re wearing? Is that a Speedo and a cardigan? A: Four weeks ago, I boarded a flight from New York to San Francisco for a two-day photo shoot with two laptops, a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and anyContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: WEAR AND TEAR”
I didn’t want either of them. So I wrote an acceptance speech for both of them. Q: Why the sad face? A: I’m an Elizabeth Warren stan. Which has made this week particularly hard—though frankly the last few were all pretty big stinkers. Having grown up in Cincinnati and attended to the University of Missouri,Continue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: ACCEPTANCE”
If New York wants to seriously call itself the best city in the world, it needs to fix the washing machine. Q: Where are you going with all that stuff? Are you moving out? A: Hah! I wish! This is seven weeks’ worth of dirty clothes, towels and sheets, tied up in two precariously thinContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: LAUNDRY DAY”
You can’t spell Con Edison without Con. Q: What’s the hardest part about living in NYC so far? A: Well, before today I would’ve said it was laundry. And we’ll get to that some other time. But as of this morning, it’s paying my Con Ed Electric bill. Q: How on earth is the hardestContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: ON BILLS”
When the calendar turned over to my birthday I found myself wide awake, in full-on process mode, like that period of time between when you push “Print” on a document and when the printer finally begins spitting the page out. I’m not normally a person who suffers from insomnia—I’m more like one of those dollsContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD: MIDDLE AGE”
THE 2019 LETTER I’ve been writing a Christmas letter for some version of my family since 1992, when I was 16. The first few were mean-spirited and absurd, a response to another family friend’s detailed list of annual overachievements. The worst happened to be 2008, the year I got divorced. The addition of four peopleContinue reading “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL”
ON WRITING. QUICKLY. Q: You look terrible. A: You should know this by now. We’re pretending this is an advice column. Please phrase whatever you’re trying to say in the form of a question. Q: You look…terrible? A: Thanks. I feel terrible. Q: What happened? Stay up all night drinking? A: Replace “drinking” with “thinking”Continue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD 12:”
ON RUNNING Q: Why are you wearing that ridiculous outfit? You look like a tube of lipstick wearing a knit cap. A: Because I made a bargain that if my friends and family raised over $180 for P’s Run for the Arts fundraiser, I’d run 20 miles—80 laps of a standard track. Only I’ve beenContinue reading “ASK A STRAY DAD 11:”
Ask a Stray Dad 