REID #65

Dec 28, 2021

feel free to sell photos of my feet online/ add to wikifeet

SHORT:

I have 17 cousins.

I am the oldest of all them.

Whenever one of them starts being all quiet in his teens I’m like aw I hope this is closeted gay quiet and not school shooter quiet.

MEDIUM:

After losing an hour-long phone conversation with my mother, I ended up putting on two masks and getting on a plane to Tampa for The Pope Family’s Annual “Last Christmas In Florida”, an event that has been happening for the last 11 years and is single-handedly making Miriam Webster herself question the dictionary definition of the word “last”.

When I got to Newark airpot, the woman at the counter asked me “if my bag was a smart bag” and I said “what’s that” and she said “never mind” so I guess I’ll never know.

I spent the entire plane ride to Tampon, FL thinking about how if I tested positive for COVID upon landing, I was going to throw myself into the Atlantic ocean.

When I arrived, my 20-year-old brother Seth (who for some reason this trip kept saying he was a “genius” and “basically Timothee Chalamet”) set up my Binax rapid test on a half-cut-open pole outside Avis rental car place.

I took it and it was negative and I watched my parents celebrate my clinical negativity for the first time.

Then we drove off to see my 17 cousins including the one who one who one time won his elementary school talent show by dribbling a basketball while two geckos hanged from his ears like earrings.

He’s still really into animals and has the same shark-tracking-app on his phone that my girlfriend has.

We looked at the app, and it’s a good thing I didn’t throw myself into the Atlantic because there’ve been a lotta sharks in the area by their house.

I told him that there are a lot of dead bodies in the water by my house (Hudson River).

LONG:

While in Florida, I got to talk to my sister about her new cryptocurrency obsession.

As I have mentioned in previous newsletters, she’s recently out of nowhere gotten really into something something feminist blockchain.

You either die young or live long enough to see your sister tweet exclusively about crypto covens.

She says I “should really turn my art into NFT”, so I guess I’ll do that to my incredible t-shirt I made 4 years ago where I drew two Chex Mix pieces holding hands in front of skyscrapers and wrote “Chex And The City”.

After talking to my sister, I watched my mom pace the condo and try to figure out how long it would take her to make 100 hot dogs for Christmas Eve.

She kept counting out loud like she was doing one of those SAT “if the train is leaving the station at ‘x’ hour, and the car is leaving the parking lot at ‘x’ how long will it take me to make 100 hot dogs by 5pm and still have time to blow-dry my hair?” math problems.

The answer ended up being: the oven was broken so my brother and I had to take the hot dogs over to a different cousin’s house and bake the wieners there while my mom frantically showered in about 12 minutes.

While the dogs baked, we played ping pong with my 10 year old cousin who calls himself “Hiwarious”. He is Hiwarious aka hilarious. He wears ties to school every Tuesday when nobody else does or asks him to and calls it “tie Tuesday”. When we took a family photo this Christmas, he randomly screamed “Marijuana” right before the flash went off. I mean, that’s just classic comedy.

Anyhow. Back to my mother. She had a few classic moments this trip, one of which was showing up to Christmas Morning in an “Oxford Comma Appreciation Society Shirt” when everyone else was in festive red and white. She explained that the company that makes the t-shirt also has a very funny newsletter so “somebody over there is doing good work”.

This morning, she had me watch a YouTube video supercut of the new Progressive Insurance commercials because “they’re really hilarious and I’m not just saying that the last time I laughed so hard I collapsed and the only other time I did that was when I was watching that comedian named Fluffy on TV”.

I played the video out loud on my phone and, turns out, they are actually very hilarious and I spit out my oatmeal and my mom laughed until she cried when the man in the commercial confidently pronounced Quinoa as “Joaquin”.

Life’s about watching supercuts of new Progressive insurance commercials that ur mom says r hilarious out loud on phone then turns out they really are and u and mom laugh until u cry.

Put that on a t-shirt. I’ll do the newsletter.

All in all, Christmas was solid. We were the only Jews as always. Nobody fell and broke anything this year. Nobody ran their scooter into a white wall resulting in a bloody crime scene. Nobody tripped and ate shit on the presents under the tree.

I did offer my dad a bundt cake and he did say “I don’t do bundt”. Which 1. He should’ve said “I don’t do bundt stuff” – much funnier. And 2. BUNDT IS A SHAPE NOT A FLAVOR. How can you not like a shape?

Whatever.

There was Carvel Cake at the gathering so you KNOW my mom was going off about how she “wants Carvel crunchies sprinkled on her tomb”.

I asked my grandpa if he’s reading anything good and he said “just thrillers”. He doesn’t do nonfiction or historical books because “I was alive during all of that”. He also told his sister that she “will probably live til at least 100 because only the good die young”.

My brother told me that I should keep “working the equity and inclusion angle of the entertainment industry no offense”. And I said, “I will!” (he means keep being publicly gay and wielding it like a weapon/ personality, because it’s the only chance I have at like doing anything).

He also keeps telling me that Jojo Siwa is going to his college next year and if he’s fucking with me I’m never talking to him again.

Just kidding, I love him.

He knows this.

We stayed up and watched Emily In Paris every night this week and I almost cried when he asked me to help him pick out a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.

He continues to tolerate me even though I do things like scream and beg on my hands and knees for him to take a queer theory class next semester "as a bit"

(the full class is called Queer Theory & The Bible and my mom said, “what, do you just read the one line in the bible over and over again that says don’t b gay?” If so, all the more reason for my brother to take the class. He can be an ally and only have to read one sentence the whole semester).

By the way, his girlfriend told me that, based on seeing his monologue in the mandatory movement for actors (& others) class that they had to take last semester (they were the others), he “doesn’t quiiiiite have the chops of Timothee Chalamet”.

Sorry, Seth. You were betrayed by your lover. Maybe you can make a Call Me By Your Name-esque film about it someday. Unfortunately, because you are straight, you will not be able to “work the equity and inclusion angle”.

I’m currently writing this in the security line on the way back home to New York. Every time I go through security with no tits all the TSA people are like “what am I looking at”.

I should’ve bought every single piece of “it’s wine o’clock” apparel that I saw in Florida and worn it on the plane.

I firmly believe that we will get to a place as a society (perhaps soon) where runway models will walk down the catwalk in head-to-toe “it’s wine o’clock” hats and shirts and pants and socks and shoes and everyone will be like THAT is true fashion! It SOooo IS wine o’clock!

Speaking of wine, in case anyone cares, the Jewish country club that they shoot Curb at is not the same country club that they took the exterior shot at! I know this because my cousin had her bat mitzvah at the exterior shot one and the inside doesn’t look at ALL like the Curb inside. Does that make sense? Should I send this crucial information to Deuxmoi?

I love Curb I wish there was a new episode out every day. I already said that in a previous newsletter, but guess what? People say the same shit over and over again all the time! So I’m allowed! Think about “hi how are you” – people say that SO MUCH. And nobody complains!

A man just walked by and called me “Little Mommee”. They should have air traffic control at airports for the words that come out of people’s mouths.

I feel it is time to wrap things up. I hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter and however you spent Jesus’s birthday. He is the world’s most famous Jew (for now, but I am catching up).

C u next Tuesday.