I Had a Really Good Sunday

Last Sunday as November 19 and though nothing was out of the ordinary, everything was spectacular. We started off with an extra house guest because our 6 year old daughter had her first sleepover. This is a big deal. The big deal is realizing is that I’m sleepover Dad now. I’m no longer sleepover kid. 42 years old. I think the first sleepover was at David Rice’s house in second grade. He was a redhead and a huge fan of the recently created Minnesota Timberwolves. I didn’t live in Minnesota at the time, and I don’t know if maybe David’s extended family did. But he had Timberwolves shit all over the wall, I don’t think they had even played their first game as a franchise yet. But I loved sleepovers. I loved the questions. I loved the vulnerability. I loved the late night stuff. I remember some legendary sleepovers with John Roy and a couple older boys. Those were the sleepovers where if you actually fell asleep everyone made fun of you. It was just a drive to stay awake the whole night, keep the energy going, keep on watching another thing. Listen to the Beastie Boys again. Wrestle. Watch the one funny part of the movie. Wrestle again. It was amazing to see the sleepover culture start for S. I know she is going to have a me approach to sleepovers which is to say positive and enthusiastic and proposing sleepovers all the time with friends way too early in the friendship cycle. My wife is more reserved, loves her friends more than almost anything in the world, but one of the things she does love more is a nice long sleep in her own bed. But I think Sadie thinks of companionship and friendship through more my lens than my wife’s.

I frequently enjoy a cup of coffee and an hour and half of conversation on a Sunday morning. The default is me and Martin Devaney at JS Coffee in St. Paul. The last couple weeks have involved some different configurations and some welcome variety like hanging out with our other dear friend Kevin Hunt. But on Sunday at JS I had a bit of that recharge feeling I really like to get from these Sundays where it’s Martin and it’s JS and it starts at 10:45 and the medium coffee tastes just right and the cup feels perfect in my hand. We are hashing out problems, joys, jokes, memories, reflections. We had some big larger things to talk about, but ultimately we crawled from topic to topic with many a sidebar explored. During the conversation I felt almost out of my own body reflecting on it thinking: “this is good for you, this will bring you back to your family stronger and more ready for a week”. I also got to put up a poster for the Heiruspecs show coming up on December 16. When I am putting up a poster for one of my shows at a coffee shop I am living MY LIFE fantastically on my terms. It’s a good feeling. Not it’s a great feeling.

Me and Rachel do the handoff in the afternoon. She’s been with the kids in the morning and I take them in the afternoon so she can do something that recharges her or gets some schoolwork done. My engineer neighbor Aaron comes over and “helps” me put up hooks in the garage. Aaron basically does it, but gives me a little bit of knowledge about how to get these things hung up. He cares about me developing, as do I, but we are both on a semi-time crunch and he basically just announces all the steps he’s doing and then does them. I also was informed that some super serious folks wax their nails before they drill for best results. I just googled that and all I’m seeing is paraffin wax treatments so maybe he’s fucking with me. But I doubt it. Like always Aaron helps me get some stuff fixed up around my house. Now that that project is completed it’s time for a neighbor to come pick up 6 year old S for a birthday party. That leaves me with three year old N who will always remind me that she would rather be with her momma. N is still deep in momma love. Always wants momma, always wants to be with momma, wants to sit with momma, directly, immediately. When momma isn’t around, she wants to be around S. When S. isn’t around she wants to see some videos. BUT, when all those options are exhausted she does very much love the shit out of me. We spent the afternoon buying Thanksgiving groceries at Kowalski’s, getting some hardwood to give to Aaron who lets us use his sauna sometimes. The whole afternoon is laughs and jokes and HELP! N just wants to help. Grab things, organize things. Ask about things. The world is her oyster and I’m the dude with those little things that crack open the oysters.

Dinner is uneventful while also being awesome but the beautiful coda is getting invited to use the sauna over at the neighbors. It’s becoming a Sunday thing and it’s deep. I hit the sauna in the Y often. Often like twice a week. But this sauna on my block is both hotter and more of an event. It’s frequently with other people but tonight the people of the house had retired so after a quick check in it was me back there. Sauna is very much a mind body experience. And when I put on Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert I know I’m heading in the right direction. The music washes over me, the heat washes over me. The sauna slows my brain down, I feel more connected.I spend about an hour in there on and off and it just gives me what I need. I waltzed into hosting Thanksgiving with a winning attitude cause I got that big recharge on Sunday night. Sundays used to be my most dreaded day of the week, and then I did trivia for 15 years on Sundays and felt great. But there’s some understanding that Sundays can bring some blues. Not today, it was a magical day and the minute we got home from the park I knew this was one for sharing. Legendary.