Stay At Home Dad Week 27 - For The Record
(Sunday Paper, Year V, Issue 38)
In the understatement of all time I will start by saying:
This has been a weird year.
This is obviously news to no one, but the relevance to this week is this:
At times over these past six months the days and weeks have seemed to drag on and on, while almost simultaneously the days and weeks have zipped by unbelievably fast.
I’ve written recently that it seems like I blink and it’s already time to write a Sunday Paper again.
That’s just one of the ways I’ve kept track of time and everything that’s happening.
This is the post I’ve been telling you has been on my mind the past few weeks…I’ve been tossing it around in my brain and, like I told you, trying to figure out what picture would go along well with it. I decided to pander to the popularity of a cute dog. (A good picture is important as far as getting people interested in a post - I think last week’s pool picture helped illustrate that. Hence, the dog.)
But the Sunday Paper is one of the ways I keep track of the passing of time - number one, as a small record of what’s been going on in my life at that time, but also just as a week-to-week indicator. Here it is Sunday again.
I do that with the garbage collection on Monday, the Wednesday picture and writing post on the Facebook page, and the compost collection on Friday. (During football season there’s also the Thursday night game as a marker of the week going by.)
But really the Sunday Paper is the biggest indicator of time passing for me. It always has the week of the year at the top - this is the fifth year of the Sunday Paper, and it’s the 38th week - so I’m always kind of back-planning toward the end of the year using that marker. For me, the thinking goes, next Sunday is the last week of September, and then it’s almost time to start writing end-of-year posts like ‘What I’ve Read This Year’ and so on.
But each week as I write the Sunday Paper I’ve thought about the current format where my hand has been forced to drop the regular features - there’s no comedy for me to update you on, which was one of the things I was holding myself accountable to by writing this every week. (There is a little bit of writing, but nothing earth-shattering to share.)
So each week of the Sunday Paper’s current form I update that week number in the title (this week it’s ‘Stay At Home Dad Week 27’) and wonder if I should keep counting the weeks like that.
And I always land on the idea that I should. I feel, not unlike every other Sunday Paper I’ve written, these past 27 weeks especially are an indication of what’s happening in my life…in this case in the midst of a global pandemic.
I don’t know if this exists where you are, but I think a lot of places are doing something like this - I remember hearing the Framingham Historical Society or some such organization is collecting stories of the pandemic and how people were getting through stay-at-home orders and such. I didn’t really think I had anything exciting to contribute, so I didn’t submit anything to them.
But lately I’ve been thinking about the fact that for the past 27 weeks - and for the foreseeable future - I have been building my own historical record of this unique time.
I haven’t detailed every single thing going on in my life since March.
But there’s an overall picture developing that tells you what life has been like here.
As someone who likes studying history, I like the fact that I have that.
Notes
*One point about that picture last week of me holding the pool (you can see last week’s Sunday Paper at this link) - I was going for an old comic book feel…the cover of the Batman comic ‘A Death In The Family’ specifically, which always stuck in my brain. If you’re not familiar with it, this was the cover I had in mind. Maybe I should have been kneeling.)
*The girls started school remotely this week. It went well for them, and Framingham really seems to have its act together with the remote school set-up. Most importantly, the girls are happy, which is really nice to see.
*I hope you’re all well. Man, there is so much dark news and negativity and it’s a really tough time. I hope you’re finding things to distract you from all that. I’m enjoying the start of football, baseball games as the season comes down to the wire (even with the Mets in danger of missing the playoffs), and the fall weather is outstanding. I hope you have things that are bringing you enjoyment too.