Cool Mum knocked her casting video out of the park, yes? Well, Project Mom posted that they’re accepting submissions from dads, too, and I remembered that I’m a dad. A cool one, as a matter of fact. So, I’m contributing to the “Put the Cool Fam on TV” cause.
WHO I AM
I’m Eric Corpus, better known as Cool Dad around these parts. I blog because I want to move people, often to move them to laugh, but also to move them to think or even move them to move, as in take their lives to a completely new place.
OUR STORY
CM elegantly summarized our New York story in her video. It’s been a rollercoaster. (Here’s a fun slideshow of our first year.) The miraculous way that I got a job, living in a 200 sq ft studio apartment for six months, moving between six different apartments in the first year, quite possibly being the shortest man on any given subway car. In our brief time here, we’ve been touched by birth and death. The inconvenience and discomfort of the city makes the two years seem much longer, but we are far from done.
MY SIDE OF THE STORY
Long ago, I earned a degree in engineering, but I chose to chase my dreams and played in a rock band for 10 years instead. Now, with a wife and two kids to support, I have to figure out what I want to do for, oh… the rest of my life.
The opportunities of New York are unparalleled, but so is the competition. The city is exhilarating and exhausting. These are the questions that I live with:
How do I:
- Keep up with the fast-paced working world of NYC?
- Find quality time with my two sons?
- Devote time and energy to Cool Mum?
- Support CM in maintaining the household?
- Find time for myself, especially when our family is squished into one bedroom?
AND can I still be cool in the process?
BUT IT’S ALL GOOD
These are deep life issues, and I love it. The conflicts are heavily outnumbered by the moments of love and community and laughter and silliness. When you look at videos like this and this and this or read posts like this and this, you can tell that we’re having a good time. We want a fun life, and we thank God that we have it.
LAS MADRES
I’m proud to feel welcomed by the moms who follow our site. They’ve been sources of encouragement and help. And it’s been fun finding kindred spirits through Facebook and Twitter.
We hope that our story will inspire anyone leaning forward to take some leap of faith. At the very least, we hope that we’ll get an LOL out of you. That would be cool.
A kinda cool picture of Cool Dad (aka Eric Corpus) that was required by Project Mom.
A TV production company is looking for mom bloggers to be part of a reality show. Cool Dad thinks I might have a chance because what other mom is foolish enough to willingly live the way we live, right? If they like my video, they’ll call me in to interview at the big BlogHer conference here in NYC in a few weeks. Yikes. I always enjoy seeing CD step into the cameraman/director/editor role, so I agreed to all this. Here’s the final product!
Oh yeah, and some of you might notice that we taped this right after I cut off (by myself) about 8 inches of hair for some upcoming video posts. Check back later this week to watch me butcher my hair for the sake of frugality!
Did anyone else do this? If so, please post a link in the comments. And in general, would you be willing to be part of a reality show?
For as long as I’ve known Cool Mum, she’s enjoyed figuring out who people look like. Once in a while, it makes for an awkward exchange when she asks someone, “Do you know who you look like?” That’s as loaded a question to be asked as any. The response could damage a friendship, especially if it involved a cartoon character. Well, Jessica Rabbit being an exception, I would think.
The other day, CM proclaimed that she knew who the new baby looked like. I cringed a little.
“The guy from the Dharma videos!”
She’s talking about the TV show Lost and its enigmatic doctor of Asian origin who appeared in several 1970s training videos. Me being a Lost nerd, immediately provided a name: “Pierre Chang?”
“Yeah!”
Whatcha think – do you see a little Pierre Chang in the new Cool Baby? (Dr. Chang is the bottom if you’re not familiar with Lost. Or human infants in general.)
Last year, we talked about the ChicoBags (reusable nylon shopping bags) for the environmental non-profit that we founded, Take Care Now. Well, we finally brought a stash of them up from Florida, and we want to give some away in honor of Earth Day!
There are two ways to enter the contest:
1. Tweet this:
@arewestillcool is giving away free ChicoBags! Visit http://arewestillcool.com to enter!
2. Leave a comment about any way that you act as a steward of the environment.
It can be something as simple as “I recycle cans” to something like “I give people piggyback rides to work to reduce their carbon footprint.” It would be nice if it were true, I guess.
A tweet and a comment count as two entries, so be sure to do both! You have until Saturday, 11:59pm EST to enter, and we’ll announce the winners on Monday. Happy Earth Day!
Hapless Cool Dad heartily needs your help with his hair!
I’m having a bad hair month. Since I started paying for my haircuts again (I’m giving Cool Mum a break from her styling duties), I’ve had less frequent haircuts. It’s been a couple of months since my last one, and the hair is the longest that it’s been in a while.
I feel like I should take this opportunity to try to do something with it, and I need your help. Check out this video:
So, if you could comment with links to hairstyles, like on celebrities or whoever, that might look good on me, I would really appreciate it! My hair is costing me cool points like it’s going out of style… because it is!