Are We Still Cool? » awsc?

Are we still cool with ‘Are We Still Cool?’

Cool Dad — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:36:08 +0000

On Saturday, we hosted friends who happen to work in the blogging industry. Inevitably, the conversation turned toward this here blog, which happens with friends who work in about any industry. They blessed us with so much useful and encouraging advice that we should’ve given them a consulting fee. We gave ‘em lemon cupcakes instead.

That night, I wondered whether the name Are We Still Cool? still fit what we’re doing here. We started this blog as a tongue-in-cheek look at whether we were still cool after having a baby. From our sleepy house in Gainesville, FL, we posted silliness with the occasional deep thoughts.

Then we moved to New York City and bounced around 8 apartments. We got a job and then lost a job. Cool Mum had extreme morning sickness, got gestational diabetes, and had a baby. We established ourselves in a neighborhood with friends who were like family and then had to move away.

The last year of our lives (and this blog) hasn’t been as happy-go-lucky as we’re used to. We’re growing up and the story is real, which is great, but are we still wondering whether we’re still cool?

CM proposed that we are still wondering, and the way she explained it, I have to agree.

Our initial, fuzzy definition of ‘cool’ was more along the lines of society’s version of cool: going to rock shows, wearing clothes that we didn’t own in high school, and not letting our life get taken over by baby products and minivans, etc. We still kind of aspire to this, of course.

Now, we’ve realized that ‘cool’ is also knowing your values – the things that are important to you and what you want to live your life by – and living them out, even at the expense of what’s considered normal and what others think. To reduce it to cliché, it’s being true to who you are. We most definitely aspire to this kind of ‘cool.’

As we go through these big life issues, like raising a 3-year-old while raising a 7-month-old while living in a 2-bedroom while paying rent in one of the most expensive cities in America while looking for a job, we constantly wonder if we’re living out our values.

After CM’s insight, I felt much better about the mission of this blog. Plus, I don’t have to stop writing as Cool Dad, which would have been the uncoolest thing of all.

Cool Review, Awarding Points: A pee-pee Saturday

Cool Dad — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:48:49 +0000

SATURDAY, JULY 31

A wonderful day. It was so good that I’ll go ahead and give it [+4 cool points] and submit it to Mommy Poppins for the Awesome Days of Summer contest.

Up until now, our weekends have been spent sequestered in the apartment (we have an infant and a toddler), or at most, going on short trips out. But on this mild and sunny Saturday, we made downtown ours. The whole Cool Fam took a bus down to the East Village. Cool Mum and I debated over a suspicious drink bottle in the back of the bus.

We ate at my favorite breakfast spot where Cool Baby and I can usually be found for Daddy-Buddy Breakfast on most weekends. We left and CB had to go pee-pee (after he denied having to go at the restaurant), so we hit a Starbucks only to find a line of 5 guys ahead of us for the restroom. There was also a kinda crazy lady behind us lamenting that she was “going to go #2 all over herself.” I wrestled with letting her go ahead of us or letting CB go #1 all over himself. Fortunately, CM found a bathroom at a swanky boutique shop (Mart of K).

"Do I look like I have to go pee-pee?"

We walked to Washington Square Park and indulged in what was touted as The World’s Best Brownie at a street fair. It was good, though I am not experienced enough to know what The World’s Best Brownie should taste like (but I’m working on it). Cool Baby played on the playground while us old farts rested our feet.

We walked back east and Cool Mum bought a cheap nifty dress. We had a falafel salad and grape leaves at Mamoun’s and red velvet frozen yogurt (uh-mazing) at the self-serve fro-yo joint next door. Then I really took a leap of faith and bought a hat (more on that later).

We took the bus back north, the same one with the sketchy bottle, and hosted our friends for a BBQ. They brought over Nathan’s cheese-stuffed hot dogs. Whoa.

We need more Saturdays like this. We plan on getting them.

We were pleased with the happenings of the day.

Cool Review, Awarding Points: A swell quiet night

Cool Dad — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:33:04 +0000

Yeah, it’s time to once again check our weekend and assess our coolness. As if Mondays weren’t bad enough. Instead of making this a long post, I’ll split it up accordingly.

FRIDAY, JULY 30

Friday afternoon, I found out that Irish folk rock duo The Swell Season was playing for free in Prospect Park, a large park in Brooklyn, as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn! concert series. Cool Mum and I have been fans of the group after seeing the movie Once, that starred the duo, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.

I was pumped to find out about the free show, but reality set in about 0.47 sec later, when I realized that it would be impossible for us to go. There was just no way for us to get the two boys (3 y/o Cool Baby and 7 week-old Cool Newbie) down there. The reasons:

It was a 45-min subway ride to get down there.
CN is too young to get on a crowded subway car.
CN would probably cry during the tender moments of the piano and acoustic act, enraging our fellow concertgoers and leading them to believe that we were Manhattanite members the Desecrate Brooklyn! movement.
It was way past CB’s bedtime.

So, we missed out on the super-cool thing to do in NYC that night, but we were actually fine with it. Instead, we spent a quiet evening at home, talking to each other in relative peace. This is something that we rarely get to do with a crying baby and constant flow of friends hanging out (which we love). So, while talking at home on a Friday night might cost us [-4 cool points], it was totally worth it.