the ocean

What a year it was! I think. Some of this stuff may have happened in 2021, or not at all. I drink. (Not right now, though.)

The Jojo Siwa/Candace Cameron-Bure Feud. This list is obviously in order of importance. When the queen of mildly judgmental wholesome entertainment has words with a person I believe to be a youthful YouTube lesbian, it's not to be missed. Bonus points for Jodie Sweetin having an opinion, and thus reminding everyone of her existence.

Rending a Sprinter Van. It's not just for Bravolebrities any more. Tragic that there was not one on offer with a stripper pole, but somewhat made up for by the abundance of Pringles. 

Park City. Not Salt Lake City, that's just where you fly in to. It's cute and fun and the thin air does interesting things to your brain. 

Anne Heche RIP. The Ring doorbell footage of that Mini Cooper tearing down the cul de sac was one of the finest action sequences of all time. Not a great ending, obviously, but at least the woman with the burned down house cleaned up on Gofundme.

Moving a Single Block. I'm trying to make this a trend. So worth it to have a house! I'm currently three floors away from the closest living being. Also, we can just let the dog out on the patio to pee. I may burn all my shoes and coats.

Midterm Elections. Isn't the democratic process great? Especially in that we somehow still have one.

The New LaGuardia. Here's to things being clean and functional. Though obviously one misses the classic elegance of the Auntie Anne's Pretzels.

Twitter Implosion. I always had way too many characters for it, anyway.

The Queen's Passing. I have to say, I saw that one coming. I always thought it would be in a cocaine-fueled brawl, but still. My heart goes out to the British people, especially Madonna in the late '90s.

Watching All of the Oscar Best Picture Nominees. A feat of endurance I hope never to repeat. Still a huge Drive My Car stan, though. Truth is, that lady drove the shit out of that car.

That's it. Nothing else worth talking about happened in 2022 (or whenever). Please act accordingly.

How will 2022 be remembered?  There are some years that immediately conjure up memories for people, like 2001 with the twin tragedies of September 11 and Mariah Carey’s Glitter, or 1995 with the O.J. Simpson trial and my indelible performance in Anything Goes.  2008 was of course the year that a certain skinny junior senator from Illinois started his meteoric rise towards becoming the groundbreaking Netflix producer we all know today.  And 2020 will no doubt always be known for COVID-19, as much as I’m still rooting for those lovable murder hornets to get their due.  But 2022 frankly lacked focus, much like one of J.K. Rowling’s books for adults or Amanda Bynes back in 2013 when she “cabbed it” from New York to Los Angeles and set a stranger’s driveway on fire.  2022 had an Olympics, a war, an election (actually several, if you count other countries, which of course the U.S. does not), and whatever the hell was going on between Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh.  Will no one take pity on the year-end trend piece columnists?  They would very much like to get back to accepting dinner invitations from fascists and publicly shaming plagarists.

I certainly won’t be so bold as to suggest that I can make sense of 2022, because I think the last time a year really made sense to me I was accidentally melting my Transformers in the Easy Bake Oven while caught up in an episode of Snorks.  (This was 2017.)  But I can tell you that I personally will probably remember this year as a wholehearted return to the places and traditions we enjoyed pre-pandemic.  (Also those that we did not so much enjoy, like standing in a stranger’s armpit on packed public transit.)  We visited restaurants and bars as though charcuterie isn’t just $26 cold cuts and toast.  We traded Zooms for actual conference rooms, where we quickly realized we were always cold.  And we returned to the kind of family reunions at Hilton Garden Inns, gender blind productions of Annie, and career-destroying fraternity theme parties that have so long been the backbone of the antidepressant industry.  It was weird, but in a mildly pleasant Tilda Swinton kind of way.

And speaking of weird, the Schleppingtons’ big event of 2022 was moving a single block to a new house in Old Town; as it turns out, moving companies generally do not offer a proximity discount, although they will laugh at you.  The new place has gorgeous outdoor spaces for entertaining in the roughly four months that Chicago’s climate is habitable each year and a huge kitchen perfect for realizing you forgot that you had a Blue Apron coming again.  We are excited to gradually furnish it for the rest of our lives before it becomes our tomb.  In other news, we had a great trip to Park City with friends, although we did not ski or suck up to Robert Redford, and a fun winter weekend in Tampa, which we agreed to refer to as Clearwater to give it slightly more cachet.  Ian went to Ireland for work while I spent months drafting a massive investigation report that I was repeatedly cautioned not to style as a Choose Your Own Adventure.  I wrote and performed a cabaret show despite having not a single reality television credit to my name.  And Aubrey, our sassy beagle mix, graduated with a Ph.D. in history from Brown.  The good news is that now she is fully qualified to lie on the couch all day and lick herself.

So that was 2022.  We’re looking forward to spending quiet holidays with our families, although that will almost certainly not come to pass with four and seven year olds around getting hopped up on Fruit by the Foot and jamming those Operation tweezers into the funny bone cavity repeatedly.  But that’s okay, because quiet we already had during the pandemic.  Now is the time to live out loud like the early days of the Oxygen network.  So let that be your vibe for joyous holidays and an amazing 2023!

I can't drink for three months because of a new medication I started. According to my doctor and certain corners of the internet, this is not the kind of don't drink "wink wink" that you get with antidepressants and stuff, but more of a "drink and your liver might fall out" kind of thing. So I'm really paying attention to it. It's been surprisingly okay so far. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not like when people say they quit drinking and their IQ jumps thirty points and their skin clears up and their penis gets larger; it's just that it's not entirely terrible. Upsides are that I can drive us to social events and that I have more calories I can devote to cheese fries and such. Downsides are that I that I'm not drinking.

Yesterday we went to my niece and nephew's dance recital in the suburbs. Because of the pandemic, we haven't had this experience before, although we have seen cell phone video footage of prior performances, including one involving a tiger outfit. This particular show was billed as a version of the Nutcracker, despite the fact that ultimately Tchaikovsky got about as much play as Sia. It was about as you would expect: much longer on cuteness than, say, technical precision. I especially enjoyed the way many of the children looked slightly to stage right throughout the production so they could see their teachers performing the moves in the wings. It provided a sort of Brechtian alienation that was otherwise sorely absent from the proceedings.

The point, of course, was that everyone seemed to have a great time. Except perhaps the child who sat down in the middle of the stage with his back to the audience and had to be carried off crying mid performance. People will be telling that story when he is forty. Unless he ends up dealing meth or something; it would probably seem less cute then. But Jack and Maggie both seemed thrilled. Maggie loved her costume, which looked something like what Christina Aguilera wore in the Lady Marmalade video but, you know, slightly more age appropriate. And Jack was genuinely chuffed (yes, chuffed) by his group's placement last on the program, which he characterized as "the grand finale." It was both grand and, more importantly in these circumstances, truly final.

This is why it is so important to introduce children to the arts at an early age. You want them to associate them with dinner at McDonald's afterwards as opposed to with, say, Patti LuPone. 

It's been a busy few weeks. I had a total of four Thanksgivings, including one at the office, two with friends, and one at one of your finer buffet restaurants with family. And yes, I am fat now, thank you for asking. But it was lovely being back amongst people, if only as a reminder of how truly terrible some of them are. And that was before Kanye.

I also spent the past week in New York for work. What I was working on there is incredibly secret, such that I could be fired if I even hinted at it, although rest assured that it is also very boring and no one would ever actually want to know about it. And no, I am not filming a docuseries about Randy Jackson. 

I did not get much downtime at all while I was on the trip, but I did sneak away to the MOMA for a few hours one day. I had not been there since college and it does appear that things can change a bit in 20 years. I'm pretty sure it's three times the size it was with about double the number of uncomfortable nudes. Although people do still seem to love walking into each others' photos of The Starry Night. That, friends, is what we call culture.

I was also out in Brooklyn for part of the trip, which is not customary for me. I did not see much of it aside from conference rooms, but I can verify that it smells like pot and there seem to be some youths there. For a minute I thought I saw Lena Dunham, but it was just a bag of sand.

Oh, and the New LaGuardia! This was my first experience of it and I honestly thought for a minute I might have landed in the wrong place. It was so clean and full of places to eat that are not Auntie Anne's Pretzels! Next trip I might just stay there the whole time.