A Very Personal and Likely Uninteresting to Anyone But Myself Recap of the 2021-2022 Holiday Break

Among my family and friends, I've been famed since I was a small child for my nearly textbook memory. There used to be an old joke when I was a teenager that I could remember my birth, and I'm not entirely sure that's not true. However, as a 40-year-old, I am now finding it harder and harder to recall certain things, perhaps because now there are just so many more of them. The chaos of the last two years has certainly not helped; date and time have turned to mud. With that said, I've found that I've greatly enjoyed the last month of my life, but that it's already running together in my mind. As such, this post is a public diary entry written for no one but myself. I won't dress these events in flowery prose or give in-depth explanations of who everyone is. This is just a recollection of my life over the last month, written so that I don't forget it happened--with pictures. I'll tag this thing as a "Travelogue," but it is extremely dry and essentially joke free, so if you just want a laugh, go read one of the other travelogues I've written, as they're the inverse of the fact-to-joke ratio of this piece.

12/10/21

My wife goes to New Orleans for a night with the women on my side of the family, mostly to celebrate the birthday of the exchange student staying with my brother's family. My son and I go to Dairy Queen and bring one of our cats, Drax, who has taken to car rides. This is some of the best Dairy Queen the three of us have ever consumed.

12/11/21

For the first time since high school, my mom and I go on a trip together. I've been wanting to run the Beach to Bayou Marathon challenge (running the Biloxi and Baton Rouge Marathons in back-to-back months), and for my impending 40th birthday, my mom has offered to pay for an AirBnb in Long Beach, MS. We make the drive, and talk about my grandfather, and my deceased uncle, and then we get down there (cute little house) and meet up with my sister and my precious three-year-old niece, Lucy. My sister and Lucy are going to stay with us for one night. The four of us then meet Arisa's old friend/my surrogate sister, Becca, her husband, Chris, who is also running the marathon (his first one), and their three young kids, at a McAllister's deli. For some reason we always meet their family at a McAllister's deli. Becca's two boys ran the 1-mile "kid's marathon" that morning. Good times. Then my mom, my sister, and Lucy and I  go to a Christmas light walk-through. 

Festive. My niece is too cute to be real. She helps me pack my medicine bag for the race the next day which is really funny. I keep reminding her that the vast assortment of pills I have to take are not candy.

12/12/21

My mom drops me off at the rural beach race starting point we scouted out the night before. It is cold and windy, but I go shorts and short-sleeve dry-fit only (well, shoes and socks too). Not a huge group of runners for this race, but we all end up waiting in line together at the port-a-potties in the sunrise during the hour before the race. 

The race starts and I take off, listening to 1/2 of the "Top 100 Songs" list I made here at the end of the summer. I start off at an incredible pace (for me), taking in the sights of the entirely beachside run. I was worried I hadn't trained enough for this race, my fourth marathon, but I am absolutely crushing my best time until I suddenly start cramping 17 miles in, lose the ability to use my legs, and then fear I won't even finish the race. 

I am given a ton of water, Powerade, and honey gel from the 17-mile-stop volunteers, stretch, and adopt a simian-like gait that finally gets me to the finish line with an hour to spare, Still, I am disappointed with myself, until Becca's kids and Lucy come over to me as I'm sprawled out on the ground. Becca's kids want to look at my medal to see if it is the same as their dad's, and Lucy just plops down facing me, watching closely with strange admiration at everything I do. I suddenly remember that most people on Earth will never, ever run one marathon, let alone four, and I did finish this one just fine, and I sit up and Facetime my wife and son on my phone with Lucy.

We then all walk to the casino parking garage and tell Becca and her family goodbye, then head back to our AirBnb. Lucy and Arisa pack up and say their goodbyes, my mom leaves to visit Becca's mom and dad (they live nearby), and I attempt to take an epson salt bath, only to find the tub barely holds water. I take a hybrid bath/shower, then pass out in my bed with the Bengals game on my phone. I wake up that night and my mom takes me to the Beau Rivage buffet. I eat three plates--the Beau Rivage buffet still rules. We go back to the AirBnb and I crash again, then we head home the next morning, while discussing more dead relatives.

12/15/21

Jordan Courtney and I record a podcast episode centered on one of my favorite 90's movies, Batman Returns. The recording is glorious insanity, as I am fixated on the film's themes of identity, and Jordan is fixated on how horny the movie is, both valid perspectives. The episode releases eight days later, after I am done editing it, and has the best opening week listening numbers of any episode in our nearing three-year history.

12/16/21

I had told my wife and son to promise not to throw me a 40th birthday party--I had one for my 30th and it made me feel narcissistic and weird. Thankfully, they comply. My wife has to work this birthday night of mine, so I order myself a Papa John's Bacon Extreme Pizza and watch a Community marathon with my son, mostly for "Remedial Chaos Theory," to see Britta's deranged, inebriated pizza dance. My wife gets home and we watch more Community together. It was just the birthday I wanted.

12/17/21

My wife and I reach our 15th Wedding Anniversary. I surprise her that morning with tickets to see a band we like in New York in the spring of 2022. We have been talking about going there as a family since I went in the summer of 2015. The surprise goes over well. 12/17/21 is also the night of my 12-year-old, sixth grader son's first school dance. My wife and I decide to celebrate our anniversary the next night, drop my son off with a group of kids at his friend Leah's house, and use a gift certificate at a "healthy" local Mexican restaurant called Mestizo. Then we pick him up and hear all the hilariously non-gory details.

12/18/21

We send my son off to my parents' house and go to see Nightmare Alley, which I think is brilliant. My wife agrees, but also thinks it is too depressing. We go to World Market, then we go to our old anniversary standby, Tsunami, for the first time since the pandemic started, and it is as great as it always was.

12/19/21

We go to a church play my nieces, A.J. and Phoebe, are in at St. Francisville. Our second cousin, Corrie, is in the play, and my sister-in-law put it on, as well. The play is hilarious, especially because of one girl who drones all the song lyrics. We then go to The Francis restaurant with my immediate family and my Aunt Kerrie and her husband Will and my cousin Ashleigh and Corrie (her daughter). The food is hit and miss, but it's a fun time. We go home, and then I run 18-miles to stay in shape for the Louisiana Marathon in January. It is a haunting and lonely run, Christmas lights and decorations in the empty, pitch dark night, not a soul to be seen, as if I am running out of time in that Christmas nightmare I always had when I was a kid. I listen to Dredg's El Cielo to purposely make it worse. Probably should have skipped that run.

12/20/21

Regular work day, and then my wife and son and I drive around and look at Christmas lights around the city, including places I ran by the night before, which sort of redeems that run. We bring Drax. It is a wild and crazy time. Then we get home and watch Bob's Burgers and I pig out on birthday candy and snacks I've received over the past week.

12/21/21

When I get off of work that evening, my son and I meet my family at the McDonalds in Port Allen and drive to a Cajun Christmas festival/carnival thing in Lafayette. I ride with my mom and siblings, and we make fun of my mom for giving me a hard time about not returning a mask I borrowed from her in Biloxi because we find out she bought it on clearance for 30 cents. The festival is fun, and I force my sister to ride an insane twisty roller-coastery thing with my son, which is hilarious. We get home really late.

12/22/21

After work, my wife and son and I go see Spiderman: No Way Home and my son and I think it is pretty good, but my wife has some classic contrarian opinions that we make fun of her for. The Cinemark Movie Club phone app is a great investment.

12/23/21

I get off mid-day for the rest of the year, go for a run, then that night meet up with my cousin, Rhett, who is in from Seattle, Adrian, in from Houston, my brother, and our friend Jon, to see The Matrix: Resurrections. We don't quite hate it, but find it extremely underwhelming. Charlie goes home, and the rest of us go to The Bulldog for drinks and hang time. After that, Rhett and I listen to music in my car, and I don't get to bed till three.

12/24/21

I have a gnarly hangover. My son and I run to GameStop for one last second gift and he somehow finds Squishmallows there. I try to nap off the night before, but can't fall asleep or get rid of the hangover. Then we go to my sister-in-law's for Christmas Eve. Fun times. 

12/25/21

Christmas morning is fun and we enjoy our gifts under the real tree I fought for us to get that smells so good. Then our friend Brandon comes over and we eat a huge breakfast my wife cooked and play some Mario Party Superstars then tell Brandon goodbye and head to Glynn to see my family. We open gifts there and my nieces are all the cutest, and then my wife goes home and my son and I and a just arrived Rhett and a few others go to a bonfire at my brother's. My brother is a little rusty on his fire-building, but eventually some tractor diesel makes it burn so intensely, all of the kids are terrified. My Aunt Brenda shows up, and continuing the conversation I had on the way to Biloxi with my mom, I ask some questions about my uncle's death (55 years before) and how it affected my grandfather and our whole family, and she eventually starts crying, which I feel bad about, but then she says it's good cuz no one ever talks about it.

12/26/21

My wife and son spend most of the day with my mother-in-law while I run and do some random things around the house.

12/27/21

My wife goes back to work, but I am off all week. I Skype with my good friend Robker in Germany, and he and my son and I play SNES Mario Kart and Mario 3D World online. My son and I then watch college football bowl games (which we do throughout the break), then go out for a walk and to toss the football. Then his stupid Nintendo Switch Lite breaks and I spend the rest of the day negotiating with Nintendo to no avail.

12/28/21

Robker and I Skype again, and this time our good friend Dave in Vancouver joins the fun. My son's friend, Nathan, comes over and they stay up way too late, and also turn our Elves on the Shelf into murderers. 

12/29/21

Nathan was supposed to come with my son and I to Lafayette, but Nathan sleeps too late and has to do something that night, so his mom comes to pick him up, and my son and I go on a Lafayette trip that turns, expectedly, into a Squishmallow Hunt. We go to Play-n-Trade for me, and they have like a million Nintendo 64 games I don't have, but I'm saving money for New York now, so I only let myself buy one of them, Mario Tennis. My son has zero luck finding Squishmallows at our regular places, but eventually he finds one at a Target, and then we go to a Cracker Barrel in the middle of nowhere thinking it is the country store/restaurant that sells Squishmallows only to find it is a gas station that does not. We eventually go to the real Cracker Barrel by the interstate and hit the Squishmallow jackpot, and I buy and drink a Mojo Cola. Then, in one of the few religious experiences I have had in 2021, I pray we can find somewhere good to eat at 8 pm on a Wednesday in Lafayette, take a wrong turn that looks like it's onto a rural road, and we end up at some incredible restaurant called Mandez's that is so good, incredible cheeseburgers, great homemade chips (potato chips!) and queso. We watch bowl games and LSU basketball, then hit the Target on the way out of town, and my sun hits the Squishmallow jackpot again (he racked up a bunch of spending cash over the holidays) and also finds some Teenymates, an NFL collectible...he collects. We play the Mario 3D World demo way too late and then finally head home. I've also started collecting these Alien blind bags and I had bought them at a few places that night. They're cool.

12/30/21

My son and I go hiking (in record December heat) at our old favorite, Port Hudson State Historic Site, and eat an early dinner on the watchtower before leaving in the sunset just as it closes. Then we play Mario Tennis for the 64, and my wife comes home and hangs out with us, but makes my son laugh so hard he throws up, which sets up a series of events that keeps me awake until 2 am, and also involves my wife and I trying to investigate whether an old acquaintance is now in a sister-wife situation.

12/31/21 

We wake up and leave for Metarie at the crack of dawn to go to Learning Express for a Squishmallow drop, but there's a mile long line, and only the first five or six out of 50 people get the good ones, even with the store limits. Then we drive across the lake to the Mandeville Learning Express and I get obsessed with these things called Plus Plus's. Then we tiredly go to IHOP and pig out, then go home. 

We put the college football playoffs on and my wife naps, but I fail to. I publish my top albums list here. It's a great, very selective list. Then we go pick up my sister-in-law's Corgi, Angus, so it can meet my brother's in-heat Corgi, Tulip (my brother's family is in Colorado and left the dog), head out to my parents' house in Glynn to meet up with Arisa's family and Ashleigh and Corrie, and me and my dad watch football and then we all do fireworks, and Lucy is too cute again, and then we drive home while I play New Year's Eve songs and we drop off Angus. 

We spend the final moments of 2021 watching the countdown, and then

1/1/22

The next day my son and I go to Quarters, which we did on New Year's before the pandemic started in 2020, but now all the arcade machines are in disrepair and I get our money back. We eat at Outback (the chain of chains) and then go bowling. I come within four points of my high score and my son beats his by a large margin and even beats me a few games. Then we go to Five Below and Target, where my son finds the Squishmallow we stood in line for the day before just sitting there by the Valentine's candy.

1/2/22 

I go for an extremely satisfying run that morning, then clean out my bedside table while watching the Chiefs vs. Bengals game while my wife marathons Queer Eye in the next room. The temperature outside drops precipitously and it finally feels like winter. This is a glorious, do-nothing day. My brother-in-law comes over to give my wife sandpaper so she can restore this giant all in one stereo/LP player furniture piece from the late 70's she found a few weeks ago by the side of the road. I win the brother-in-law/nephew/my son fantasy football league thanks to Ja'Marr Chase, and demand everyone pay up. My wife and son eat shrimp and pasta, but I use the rewards on my Taco Bell phone app to make a run for the border. Then I beat Star Fox Zero (I play through a new Wii U game every year for the winter break) and my son and I watch a thousand Bob's Burgers and I go to bed but he stays up til five.

1/3/22

This Monday is the last day of the break for my son and I. I buy our plane tickets for New York (we've already booked a place there). I start writing this piece. My son and I chill and watch Bob's Burgers and play Mario Kart on our phones. We get some Starbucks and take a walk in the park. It is very cold, and we run home.

I start working on a Friends puzzle I bought from Five Below during one of my son's Squishmallow hunts. My wife gets home, and we watch a new show called Abbott Elementary and laugh a lot. I hope it gets renewed. 

1/4/22

My son goes back to school and I go back to work, but we consider this the actual last day of break, since we are going to the LSU basketball game immediately after he gets out and I get off of work, then to Pluckers to watch LSU's football game (the Texas Bowl, the final game of the season). The basketball game against #16 Kentucky is a thrilling upset by our #21 ranked Tigers, and LSU dedicate the court to legendary 80's-90's LSU coach, Dale Brown, at halftime, with a multitude of his ex-players on court with him. Pretty cool. We run out of the PMAC to the car and drive straight to Pluckers, where the ailing Tigers, down to only 38!!! scholarship players, take on Kansas State's first stringers. We don't even have a scholarship QB on the roster at this point, and have to start a wide receiver, Jontre Kirklin, at the position. I just joined the Pluckers club, as I've apparently gotten obsessed with phone app clubs that save me money. I'm old. I guess people in their 40's just love coupons.

Apparently, first string Division 1 athletes are better than a team of mostly backups and walk-ons, and we don't do great on the football scoreboard, but in the game of life, the squad that took the field in the purple-and-gold are champions. That team forever made the fans and alumni proud. Fox and I go home, exhausted. By now, my wife and I have taken down all our Christmas decorations. We put my son to bed. We ourselves go to bed. The next morning, it's back to business as usual. Of course, if there's one thing I've learned in 40 plus years of living: there ain't no such thing as business as usual. But life is good.