You’re not imagining things, we’re back two weeks in a row. My secret? The local library. It smells like books mixed with the waiting room at a car dealership, and it seems to have this otherworldly ability to make you knock things off your To-Do List.

Now, my To-Do List is only writing this newsletter, but you get the point. (But actually, there was a time when I thought being an adult meant running errands, because that’s what my parents always seem to be doing—even now—but I’ve never had to run an errand? Or spend a Saturday going to more than one store. Is that a sign of the times? We just order stuff and our parents still pay by check? I dunno, but like the closet thing I have to running errands is getting myself lunch when there’s perfectly good deli turkey in the fridge.)

Perhaps the reason chores are on my mind is I’m preparing for a trip to Mexico next week for a work retreat. As an employee at a remote company (THANK G*D), once a year we all get together and hang out and, supposedly, work. My last solo trip was probably over five years ago, so this feels both like a return-to-normalcy and also a huge deal.

I am a homebody, no bones about it. As Covid-19 raged through the world, and especially NYC, I was terrified but also relieved because all of my dinner plans were canceled effective immediately. In fact, the last time I took the subway before everything shut down, I was on my way to my therapist’s office (the only place I went other than work with any regularity). How quaint! A seismic shift to society was taking place before my eyes and all I could think was, “At least I don’t have to go sit on that couch anymore.” Spoiler Alert: I’m still in therapy.

So now going anywhere by myself for longer than a couple of hours feels odd. My brain knows this is something we did all the time, but despite what we know about brain development, there’s no way that the weird sack of goo inside my head is the same as it was in 2019.

This trip is the start of our “Summer of Travel,” in which there will be trips to Texas, Canada, Alaska, Sweden, possibly Denmark, and that’s just the next few months. It’s a good thing. A GREAT thing. But will I ever stop thinking, “Is this too soon? Things only fell apart 5 years ago!” I could easily see myself saying this 10, 15, 20 years down the line. e

Michael Bolton - “How Can We Be Lovers?” (1989)

I am a terrible music writer. Like, honestly, one of the worst. 90% of the reviews I spent my youth writing for AbsolutePunk are now gone, because the ding-dong who ran it made some truly stupid business decisions and years of hard work went up in digital smoke. Everyone says once it’s on the Internet, it’s on there forever, but this dumb-dumb managed to permanently delete like 15 years of content. So, call him, I guess, if you liked your ex’s Insta from 12 years ago and need the proof removed.

Anyways, that stuff being erased was mostly a blessing, because I never wrote about music. I always just wrote about myself and there was music playing in the background. Whenever I’d try to “analyze” something, it’d always be sort of the same. I’d pretend to take meaning from the lyrics, would make a half-assed comparison to another band, and hope that a couple of jokes would cover up my sins.

So this format works better for me.

Nobody’s here to see what I truly think about the Michael Bolton song “How Can We Be Lovers?” 36 years after it came out. I’m much better when I’m writing about circumstances, not stanzas. So.

My wife has worked for SiriusXM for nearly a decade. It’s always something that made me proud, because it is a company everyone knows and it doesn’t take any explanation and they have good healthcare. My jobs, however, no comment. So due to this very annoying but personally lucrative job for our family, it’s meant we get free satellite radio—something I only use when driving our “secondary” car.

This past week, I needed to use that car and put on the John Mayer channel and he was in the middle of a monologue about this song. Now, as a person who often can talk about their obsessions for hours at a time, you might find it ironic that when other people do this exact same thing I get annoyed. Mostly because I can’t talk about my thing until they shut up.

But John was discussing something I agree with deeply: there are no such things as guilty pleasures. Michael Bolton had silly hair and got a bad rap for singing songs that belong in the pages of romance novels, but as with everything else about the 80s, we have oversimplified and under-appreciated him.

John spent a good deal of time discussing how he has played this song for musician friends and had to set the song up before being allowed to play it. “It’s got a wicked key change!” “It’s got a full backing chorus!” “It’s a song about the real complexities of relationships!”

But even before The Lonely Island turned him into a meme, Michael Bolton was Fabio-a la-Kenny G and that’s just, ya know, lame. Yet what John said was right! All of those things are true and awesome. And this song RIPS. And right now it’s also meaningful because of…LIFE.

Reagan and I are far from perfect, but we go together perfectly. We fight (just had one, in fact), and we spend all of our time together in a way that no other generation of parents or couples have. But she’s my best friend, bar none. Not just because we live together, but because she’s the best person in the whole history of the world. She’s artistic, patient, a wonderful mother, a hot piece of pottery clay, and the only person who understands why I am the way that I am.

She was there for me when I had a major depressive episode, hung on for dear life when I waited until the actual LAST second to ask her to marry me, stood by me during multiple career challenges, and gives me the space to learn how to be a dad to a kid who is already 50% smarter than me.

So I can relate to this song, because we fight! We say mean things to each other (well, mostly I say mean things because I’m inconsiderate and impatient), but despite living like 10 different lives in the last 5 years, we are like, mostly chill. I spend a lot of time apologizing and working on myself, and I’m making some strides, and she’s being understanding, but I see how in the moment it can feel like what we are best at is disagreeing.

But when we look at all of the big decisions we have ever needed to make, we have always been on the same page. As someone who has been a contrarian for his entire life, you can’t imagine how wild it is to agree with someone 99% of the time. It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever been given, and it’s on me to do a better job of recognizing that.

Reagan hates when I call us a team—I think it conjures up memories of mean coaches and ill-fitting uniforms for both of us—but we are a team. Raising a child, building a life, dealing with four different global existential crises. Together! So even though I left the house while we were both snarling at each other, I know it’s because I’m an idiot AND because we love each other. We’re trying our best. And you know what, we’re DOING our best.

And yeah, just to reiterate, this song is GOOD.

Is It A JackJam?

Nope! Although this morning he did say, “I like it a little.” But hey, we’re not here to force 80s music on anyone. Oddly, he didn’t care about the key change nearly as much as I did. But the whole point of this newsletter (i think?), is that Jack gets to make his own decisions. I am but a waiter, bringing him the day’s special. Sometimes you want it, and sometimes you’re too scared to ask what “market price” actually means.

So while this is going on my playlist because it is an absolute banger, we can skip it when the little man is in the car. Also, I sort of like how random me finding this song was, because I think it’s probably a very similar feeling that Jack has when I shove something new in his face. “Where the heck did this come from?” we both said this week—although with different results.

Excited to see what a week in Mexico has in store for me as a person and as a part-time music newsletter writer.

Next time,

BLAKE