Lamest Adoption Story of the 90s

I recently spent a week­end vis­it­ing my grandma, my son, and his adop­tive fam­ily. Won­der­ful. In liv­ing this open adop­tion, we’ve also all adopted one another, becom­ing a multi-​​​​tendriled, mega-​​​​family. Then I went and watched another episode in Sea­son 5 of the X-​​​​Men: Ani­mated can­non. Mis­take. Holy shit, how did I never real­ize this show’s take on adop­tion amounts to “You want to meet your birth mother? She ditched you!”? This show was a shame machine. When you train your eye on it, the adop­tion sub­text is actu­ally really clear: the team is everyone’s (adop­tive, only) fam­ily; no one knows, or knows but was explic­itly aban­doned by, their birth par­ents. Some don’t even know the…

X-Men: The Anim… oh, nevermind

I’ve been indulging the hell out of my mostly-​​quiet inner 9-​​year-​​old with a 2-​​week marathon of that clas­sic 90s Sat­ur­day morn­ing toon. This is only sort of like my Star Trek: TNG Obses­sion of 2010; I watched TNG reli­giously, with my fam­ily, every Sat­ur­day night. For seven years. But X-​​Men was mine and mine alone.

One eye on the road

If I’ve been elu­sive here, it’s not because I don’t care. Tra­di­tion­ally, I’ve used this space to talk about (and some­times process) the ques­tions that emerge writ­ing this end­less book. Some­how I’ve painted myself into an academic-​​colored cor­ner. That’s chang­ing. In fact, a lot of things are gonna change round these parts.

Small Rubicon

I’ve landed in New Mex­ico. Tonight my team launches An Under­ground Guide to Albur­querque #6. This week­end I unpack some, try not to unspool. I’m just eager to get on to the next phase. This year has demol­ished and rebuilt me.

Home to home

By the power of Greyskull, here’s the update. At least, the first of the updates I thought would hap­pen. This trip’s been a litany of better-​​than-​​no-​​time-​​at-​​all con­ver­sa­tions and dri­ving, brain­mush and dri­ving, unsea­son­able weather and driving.

Fare well, old friend

I knew this day was com­ing. I’ve known it would come for years now. But, con­trary to the last ten months’ wait­ing for a few moments, I haven’t thought much about today. I’ve been cry­ing a lot about leav­ing, which I think alone rep­re­sents some huge per­sonal growth. I’ve also been cry­ing about my son, my ex, my cur­rent rela­tion­ship that’s now end­ing, and the enor­mity of what’s not in my hands as I return. In Burque I have love, sec­ond fam­ily, chile, pseudo-​​​​jobs and my beloved writ­ing posts wait­ing, as I leave behind my first fam­ily, my lover, and one of my clos­est friends. More than any trip I’ve ever started on, today truly feels…

Something We Can Get Behind

My friend Jamie’s a remark­able clas­si­cal gui­tarist. He’s in two-​​man band, in fact, called Duo Orfeo. Not a self-​​professed lover of clas­si­cal, I lis­ten to their first album all the time. And they’re try­ing to do some­thing that may never have been done before, if you can look past that Ralph Macchio/​Ry Cooder thing in the 80s.

This Strange Collapse

Tell you about lately: a strange blend of depres­sion, after­shocks from The Self­ish Gene, and a deep­en­ing cer­tainty that though my son and I made it out of this crazy débâ­cle in the best out­come for the cir­cum­stances, there are an end­less num­ber of us who didn’t.

To Clarify

About ten months ago, my girl­friend at the time and I very unex­pect­edly became a preg­nant cou­ple. We broke up in March. This week, my son was born. His name is James Andrew, and nat­u­rally, he’s gor­geous. He’s healthy, smiles and wrin­kles his brow much, and came to us at a stag­ger­ing 8 lbs, 15 oz.

So, ah, it's my birthday