you can't be serious
Dear Irene
Today is the first day of this year's #The100DayProject. I have set up this Instagram account to track it. I have so many photos to scan, and just learned that there is a character limit on Instagram comments. My first post is a version of the below:
When I was 7 years old, I was very different from you. I was shy and quiet, and I didn’t have many friends. Your dad was only 3 then. I didn’t want to play with him. He was basically a baby, and he was annoying. Or maybe I was just mad at how much attention he got from everyone else because he was a cute baby with bright orange hair. When I came home from school I only wanted to read books and watch General Hospital with your dad's babysitter.
When I was 8 or 9, Grandma Maureen started sending me to summer camp. I think she wanted me to make friends and also stop watching TV while she was at work. I remember hating the swimming lessons because the locker rooms smelled so bad. Arts and crafts was OK. We made these rubbery bracelets, and also key chains where we stamped pieces of leather with letters or flowers and then painted over the indentations. If I made a key chain for Grandpa Bob for Father’s Day, he probably still has it. One thing you probably don’t know about your grandfather: He saves things you give him. Like, forever. That includes the empty jam jar that I painted “Daddy’s pens and pencils” on when I was about your age.
Anyway, it was at camp that I started playing tennis. And I actually liked it! I know that sounds crazy because I was not athletic and I hated being outside. But something about tennis was fun, even when it was 100 degrees. Maybe it was because all the other kids were learning at the same time as I was. If it’s still there, I can drive you over to the St. Alban’s tennis courts and show you the water fountain that made me sick the summer after sixth grade. We were playing tennis all afternoon in the August heat, and the water that came out of that fountain was SO COLD. I decided it would be a good idea to fill up a cup with that ice cold water and dump it on my head. Over and over. Like at least 20 times. Please never, ever do that, no matter how hot you are. The shock of all that cold water made me so sick. I was in bed with a fever for days afterwards.
Back to tennis. At some point I made friends with the girl who lived next door to us. We liked to spend afternoons hitting a tennis ball back and forth in the middle of the street. We didn’t have a net. We didn’t play with rules. We just hit the ball to each other, and stopped when cars were coming, and ran after the balls that got away. I remember the muscle in my forearm hurt a lot the first week. I didn’t care.
When my neighbor wasn’t around to play with, I liked to hit a tennis ball against the side of our house after dinner, until it got dark. Sometimes I broke the storm windows. Your grandparents would hear a cracking sound and come outside to yell at me. What’s weird is that they never made me stop. I think they were happy that I was doing something — anything — besides picking fights with your dad.
So that’s three things I hope you never do: Make yourself sick with cold water when it’s really hot out, play in the middle of the street, and break the windows of your house. Or anyone else’s house. You are smart so I bet you already know this.
The summer after eighth grade, when I was 13, I went to overnight camp. I played a lot of tennis there. I had a big crush on the very cute tennis teacher, who was 19 and seemed all grown up. So I spent as much time as I could on the tennis courts. And I got really good at playing.
Then I forgot all about tennis, because high school, then college, and then work took up all my time and energy.
There was one time, though, in San Francisco 20 years ago, when your uncle E.* and I went to the thrift store and bought janky old warped wooden tennis rackets. We tried to play on a court in Dolores Park and it was a disaster. In the first ten minutes we hit all the balls over the fence and into a really busy street. We laughed at ourselves and went home.
The next time I thought about tennis was during the first summer of the pandemic. I did not want to exercise at the gym because I was afraid I would catch Covid from the other people there. This was before they had made the vaccines. Tennis outside seemed safer, because I would be far away from the other person. I did a few private lessons, but then the wildfires started and the air got really bad because of all the smoke, so tennis was always canceled.
I did not think about tennis again until last spring, when I signed up for group tennis lessons at Rock Creek Tennis Center and started over. Like, from the very beginning.
It will be a long time before I get as good as I was that summer after eighth grade. And you know what? I don’t even care, because it’s still so much fun to try to hit the ball, even when you mess it up. I have a really good teacher now, and he also teaches classes for kids that look like they are a lot of fun. Your mom and I have talked about signing you and your brother up for classes soon.
How awesome would it be if we could play tennis together? Let’s call our team You Can’t Be Serious. (YouTube) We will have matching outfits and a theme song. Maybe this one. (YouTube) We can change the lyrics to "Irene and Margaret A Go Play.”
Let me know what you think. We can talk about it more this weekend when we have our sleepover. Are we still gonna dye our hair pink?
* You haven’t met him yet. I am calling him your uncle because, even though he and I are not related, I consider him family.
Links
Some good news: A fifth person has been cured of HIV. (ABC)
Meet me at Metro: 40 years of Chicago’s most iconic indie venue. May it last at least another 40. (Spin)
Missy Elliot and Skrillex. No really. And it's good! (Pitchfork)
Sometime in the early 1990s, when I was still in college, UK ska band Bad Manners came through on tour. They had no hotel budget, so they stayed at this big weird house in Evanston that my boyfriend's friend was house-sitting or something. I have vivid memories of Fatty playing with a chess set where the pieces were 18" tall. And how we were laughing hysterically at some weird bootleg video of Ronald and Nancy Reagan that had been edited to look like they were encouraging drug use. I have been looking for that footage ever since, with no luck until a couple days ago. Behold. I can finally close that loop and move on with my life. (Boing Boing)
At the all-girls Catholic school where I spent grades 7-12, our headmistress was a Sacred Heart nun who wore sassy suits, stiletto heels, and bright red lipstick. I was catching up with a high school friend a few days ago, and asked about her. Turns out she's still alive and was on Antiques Roadshow with a pretty great story. Starts around the 46:30 mark. (KQED)
How to stop hiccups. It's buried so let me save you some time: "First, exhale completely, then inhale a deep breath. Wait 10 seconds, then—without exhaling—inhale a little more. Wait another five seconds, then top up the breath again. Finally, exhale." (Atlantic)
Great (long) podcast interview with SF's Mike Monteiro. (YouTube)
I didn't know Food52 bought Dansk. Why haven't they released more of the old designs??? (New Yorker)
People's Rihanna expectations. (TikTok)
New favorite comedian. (TikTok)
Grudge match
Vox ran this whole piece on how you can and should get over your grudges. This line made me bust out laughing: "To truly forgive someone, you have to decide to do some emotional work, like digging deep into the psyche of the person who hurt you." When I think about all the grudges I've held, I realize that I have forgiven or gotten over 99% of the friends-and-family ones. I cannot, however, forgive several of the truly evil and/or incompetent people I've had to work for over my so-called career. What about you? Have you noticed any patterns around who you've forgiven and who you haven't? I'm not asking for details about what these people did to you (unless you want to share). I'm more interested in what helped you get over those grudges. Time? Maturity? Better bosses? As always, you can reply to this email and anything I share will be anonymous.