I <BLOG> NJ

After an afternoon of sand castles & wave jumping at the beach the other day, I explained to my daughter Margo that I thought I had slathered enough sunscreen on my very Eastern European skin, but despite all that SPF sour cream, my pieorgi cheeks now felt a little charred.

“How’s my face look?” I naively inquired. Margo squinted, looked me up and down and then took a deep breath before shaking her head as she earnestly diagnosed, “…Not great Daddy.”

The instant I attempted this group selfie, Margo broke out in a full-speed sprint to the bow of the boat!

Every day with a spunky 2.5 year old is sprinkled with hilarious & sweet moments you swear you’ll never forget, but this summer I somehow found myself entering my late thirties and while I’m not living in a shotgun shack, I do live in another part of the world, and I sometimes ask myself, “Well, how did I get here?”

The Next Generation of “I Blank NJ”

I actually started this website four years ago to sell parody T-shirts as a late-pandemic joke and an ode to the state I was preparing to move to. I thought it was insane Newark airport was filled with “I Heart NY” shirts with no swag for tourists to brag about their time in the actual state they were currently standing in. I also thought it’d be hilarious to replace New York’s heart with the notorious artery-clogging breakfast meat that can pretty much only be found in New Jersey. The only problem was the wrong half of the state calls that delicacy Pork Roll and the correct half calls it Taylor Ham. I had no interest in wading into the debate, so I settled on calling my design & site “I Blank NJ” (fill in the blank with whatever verb, noun, or adjective you want.)

I’m lucky that my career allows me to flex my creative muscles regularly, but for the past 20 years or so, I’ve had the urge to do more writing in my own voice. The desire to memorialize the funniest and sweetest moments I have as a dad has finally convinced me to end my multi-decade procrastination, and since I spend so much time filling in blanks for Margo — and increasingly as I look at the state of the world, filling in blanks for myself too, like what the blank is going on?! — I realized repurposing this site is a perfect way for me to try to make sense of being a Midwestern dad living in New Jersey during the 21st century’s bizarro version of the roaring twenties.

Back when she couldn’t tell me what she was thinking, so I just made it up.

Like any truly loving millennial dad, early in Margo’s life I made “Seinfeld: The Day of Nothing” a part of our regular bedtime book rotation. It’s been fascinating to watch her become more aware of different details as she gets older. During our most recent reading, she stopped me when Kid Jerry and Kid Newman run into each other and exchange cold, curt greetings, “why they no like each other daddy?”

Perfectly normal reading material for toddlers.

No matter who is in the room, Margo’s the type of kid who runs into her daycare with a big friendly hello (or occasionally an equal parts enthusiastic and inaccurate statement like, “I have a fever!!!”)  So when she asked me that question, it hit me that she doesn’t know yet that some times people just don’t like each other for no good reason at all. I didn’t want to get too deep on human nature or why mail carriers and stand-up comics can’t live in harmony, so I replied with an accurate but unsatisfactory, “I’m not sure exactly.”

She scrunched her face up for a second in perplexed thought and then offered back her best guess, “maybe it’s their shoes?”

I’m not sure how much longer we have until life starts filling in the blanks on things like bullying, cliques, and cynicism for Margo, but I’m glad there’s now a record of the time she was this innocent and sweet (though ever since that night, I swear I’ve been catching her shooting judgmental looks at my footwear. Nothing stings more than a kid saying “…Not great daddy” with their big toddler eyes, but I guess I better get used to it.)

The look I fully expect to get regularly for the next several decades.

My Song of the Day: “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads

My Favorite Show That I Just Finished Binging: “Poker Face” on Peacock

My Favorite Clip of the Summer: Bob Odenkirk & Mike Birbiglia talk Fatherhood