I went to Costco last night with my father-in-law. Turkeys in there are 99 cents a pound and we picked a twenty-pounder. We’re in Norfolk, Virginia, where it’s been a tough year. My wife lost her mother in July — to pancreatic cancer, which I would say is not a death that I would choose, even if I were given the list of nastier options — and my wife has spent the week going through the house, sorting through stuff, with her dad. It’s hard work both logistically and emotionally and I’m doing my best to be supportive. In other words, I’m being a bit crap, but I’m trying. Honest. My wife reads these newsletters sometimes, so I’m hopeful she’ll appreciate my self-assessment there and thank me for it, but who knows. There’s not a lot of spare bandwidth, right now. Let’s put it that way.
Meanwhile, I’ve been running the strategic communications business: meeting with clients, writing opinion pieces and newsletters, preparing for a major press push, rounding up a year’s worth of press hits for an annual client review, and of course, arguing with Bluehost about their web-hosting prices, which seem to skyrocket once you’ve been running your website through them for five years (argue, and you get a 50% discount, incidentally, or you do if you’re as good at arguing as I am). There’s a YMCA down here where I like to go to CrossFit classes, and I’m on hugging terms with the instructors and a couple of the regulars. I’ll be off down there shortly for the 12:15 class. I’m really looking forward to it as I do every day.
I’m grateful for my family and for my son, Freddy, who continues to impress us with his language acquisition and general cheekiness. He discovered his granddad’s golf clubs on Saturday and was teeing up balls for me to hit on the practice mat. The TV down here is enormous, and the boy has watched about 300 episodes of Bluey on it since last Friday. He loves Bluey and would give his own special thanks for it, I think, if he had the expressive capacity.
I’m reading a book by TV writer David Milch called Life’s Work. My friend Lee Gaul recommended it, and I’ve plowed through it. Lee is an amazing salesman and an AI expert, and in the market for a job, amazingly, if you know of anybody who might be hiring. Please. Just let me know, and I’ll connect you.
David Milch wrote NYPD Blue and Deadwood and a show about gambling called Luck produced by Michael Mann and starring Dustin Hoffman. He was abused as a kid, became a heroin addict, was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and subsequently, Alzheimer’s disease, which he’s suffering with as he writes the memoir. My mum has it, so I’m especially touched by writing in and around the subject of dementia. David Milch’s life is hardly mundane, and he describes the chaos in these kinds of terms:
“They told her I had spent about twenty-three million at the track in the last ten years, and a lot of that in the last two, and between that, five million in unpaid taxes, a few mortgages she didn’t know about, and the business managers’ own fees, we were seventeen million dollars in debt.”
Perhaps surprisingly, reading about this writer’s tortured and remarkable life is a soothing and inspiring balm. There have been times in my life where I couldn’t connect the dots and there are times, like this year’s Thanksgiving, when the dots might be farther apart than usual, stress-wise, but I still have no problem whatsoever making sense of everything.
Donald Trump got elected earlier this month which is its own unique elephant f__k to humanity, too, of course. But I don’t know about you — I’m still in denial. I’m doing my best to do four years of it, as a matter of fact. Although when people talk to me about suicidal trans kids, I worry I might lose my sh_t completely. A squash buddy of mine said they were crying over it last week. They’re getting good at compartmentalizing. I was glad to see this piece in the Times of London about overcoming elitism in New York’s squash community. I’ve also been enjoying Matt Gross’s new Substack, Trying, which is, essentially, his Sisyphean effort to start writing again after having stopped. Today he wrote about Charles Bukowski and being 20. Matt edits my daily newsletter at Cheddar, which has half a million subscribers, now, across various platforms, if you’d like to join them. I can honestly say that working with him is a daily joy in a world where they’re scant. Joys.
So, I’m grateful for the whole shebang, basically. Despite the horrors. And I hope you are, too. If you’re one of the millions of Americans who get depressed over the holidays feel free to drop me a line. I’ll send you something back that will cheer you up. Promise. I’m always good in a crisis.
—Matt Davis is a communications consultant and writer for a wide variety of clients. He also teaches yoga and lives with his wife and son in New York.
