Hot Retired Italian Don in the Garden Summer

Time to sit in the shade

I seem to have accidentally ended up ahead of the trends. Namely, the weird garden clog thing that “Took Over Brooklyn (and Menswear TikTok)” according to a GQ article by Eileen Cartter this past week. The Plasticana Gardana clog, with its “silhouette [that] leans slightly more ballet flat than Croc,” came on my radar a few years ago after I planted a single plant on my roof and thought about how I could get into this life, the whole urban gardener thing. I even had my style inspiration picked out: retired Don Corleone. My goal was to sit in the shade after tending to my plants, a little wine, some fruit, and a nice breeze hitting me. I started searching out things to wear for this endeavor. I got a few pairs of pants and shirts I liked, but it was on a trip to L.A. when I noticed a couple of people wearing these rubber-looking things on their feet that weren’t exactly wellies, and that looked a little more interesting than the Birkenstock Boston clogs I’d seen every other guy in my neighborhood back home wearing. I asked somebody, I think it was at the farmer’s market, some guy who was probably 50, but had his face refreshed to look more like 32. He told me they were some gardening clogs his wife had gotten them, they were French or Italian, but couldn’t recall which, but I had all the info I needed. I went back to where I was staying and found a pair of hunter green Italian gardening clogs. When I got home and finally put them on, I was pretty stoked to find that while I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed the clogs for, they were comfortable.

The one plant on my roof died a few weeks later. I’ve been really bad at doing much of anything on my roof leading up to the baby coming, but I still find myself wearing the clogs and dreaming of that retired don in the garden lifestyle. Two years ago, I wrote for GQ about something I called “Big Earthy Summer,” which I described as “the rich, organic, slightly gross pleasures of all things vegetal, floral, and hot.” My main inspiration was seeing and smelling the Flamingo Estate candle that was supposed to smell like Roma tomatoes almost everywhere I went, and how nice it was to be reminded of the natural world even when I was browsing shirts or smelling a new fragrance. The popularity of the gardening clogs feels like part of that whole idea, and it has me thinking about maybe giving the retired mafia don in the garden thing another shot.

Park Slope Dads talking toilets

Last fall, when Emily Gould wrote about the e-mail list Park Slope Parents turning 21, my wife (who is also an Emily G, which is the only reason I’m simplifying her “my wife” not in the Borat voice) and I were still in the early stages of pregnancy, so I read the article as more of a voyeur. I’ve lived in and around Park Slope for as long as the list that boasts thousands of paying members has been around, so the local parenting culture has always been a source of interest to me. Now that I’m a parent (albeit, a Prospect Park one, which I feel is a bit cooler), and I’ve been on PSP for several months, I’ve got to say that I find some of the talk pretty riveting. For the last month, I’ve woken up, and the first thing that almost always greets me is this one recurring topic in the PSP Dads forum about either how to unclog a toilet yourself, or getting in touch with somebody reliable to do it for you. It’s been pretty refreshing watching this conversation unfold, just a bunch of dudes talking about how to get a toilet to flush again.

That’s generally how I’ve been feeling about being a dad over this last week. Yes, I’m tired. Everybody warned me about that so many times that I hear it in my head in Maria Bamford’s voice as the anxious mosquito from Big Mouth going “You’re never going to sleep ever again!!!!” But the truth is that Emily and I weren’t really what I’d call great sleepers to begin with, so the extra loss of sleep just makes my own personal experience of being a new parent a little more psychedelic. Thankfully, when I’m feeling a little like I’m tripping, it’s when the baby is sleeping or Emily is watching her, so I’m able to just sit there for a bit and zone out or, hopefully, doze off for a bit.

This is all to say that I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been this last week, and I’m looking forward to the next few months of The Melt because I’m taking off as much time freelancing for the next month or two, so I can finally get things in order around here. So stay tuned for some fun stuff, including—finally—the book club for paid subscribers likely being announced next week. I’ve got the titles picked out, it’s just all logistical crap.