Diary (Exercises in Style #25)
Setting records, in a sense.
Getting a bit retrospective with this one. The truth is that I don’t remember exactly when the Sunday rituals described in the “Exercises in Style” began—Dad and I did the crossword weekly in person for a while, and logic tells me anything to do with Zoom had to start no earlier than 2020. I remember discussing pandemic realities with Ali on our regular calls, so they must’ve started sometime before then—2019 feels right, but I can’t quite be sure! The one thing I am sure of, for obvious reasons, is the day I took five-year-old Ali to the voting booth. That was a good time.
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Tuesday, November 6, 2012
This kid. I swear. She’s got so much energy…I mean, I thought I was in reasonably good shape, but I’m straining just to keep Ali out of traffic. Sometimes literally. Took her to the voting booth today while her mother was at work. It’s the least I can do as her godfather while I’m in town. She had a bunch of questions, and having a bright five-year-old around seemed to cheer up everybody else.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Well, this pandemic is starting to shape up to last a lot longer than the two months they promised at first, so I’ve asked Dad to start getting together with me on Zoom and make our semi-regular crossword-solving thing back into a weekly thing. (I’ve missed doing it weekly since moving up here with Janice.) We could both stand to stay sharp, and it’ll give us an excuse to talk like family should. The right kind of family, anyway.
We’ll have to start at 11, though, because I’m still doing the phone calls with Ali every Sunday at 10. When her mom first asked me to do this, I figured Ali would get tired of talking to a boring ol’ adult after a few months. But so far, so good, and I won’t be the one to flake out on that commitment. She needs a voice she can rely on.
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Checked in with Ali as usual. She’s settling into college life, more or less, though one of her roommates seems determined to make “settling in” a bit more complicated than it needs to be. A new boyfriend, and with him, a flood of unsolicited details about their relationship that nobody in that apartment signed up for. Ali handled it well, as she always does. I made her laugh with a joke about people who act like they’ve personally discovered something the rest of humanity has somehow missed. She gave me a “yeah, TMI” and moved on.
After we hung up, Dad and I did the crossword over Zoom. ETHENE came up. “Compound that ripens bananas,” Suddenly, we were off talking about his ad agency days, some campaign he’d worked on years ago. I love how the puzzle does that. One word and you’re somewhere else entirely, some memory neither of you expected to visit.
Then I read out the next clue: Letters called out in embarrassment. Three letters, starting with T. Before I could even finish the sentence, Janice called it from the kitchen. “TMI, isn’t it?”
I laughed, and I was about to explain the coincidence with Ali when Diana and Belle launched themselves onto the sofa and started wrestling on top of the crossword sheet. At the same time, Graham walked in on Dad’s side of the screen with little Lucy, who made a beeline for Dad’s cane as always. Mom appeared for a hug. Belle turned her destructive energies toward the clue paper. A scrap floated to the floor and Diana pounced on it.
The moment passed. I let it go.
There’s something I keep coming back to tonight. Life didn’t arrange itself into a tidy little story today. The threads didn’t all connect, the funny coincidence went unexplained, the kittens made a mess. And somehow it was one of the better Sundays I can remember. The people I love were present. The noise was good noise. That’s about as close to perfect as any of it gets, and I think I’m old enough now to know that’s not a consolation. It’s the point.