An update on this week’s newsletter [Like You Know Whatever]

Hi friends,

How are you? I hope you’re doing well. I’m not great, to be honest. My dad had a fuckin’ stroke, man. Last Sunday I got a call from my mom that he’d fallen and was in the hospital with severe nausea and dizziness, and then a few days, many tests, multiple CAT scans, and an MRI later, they diagnosed him as having had a “small” stroke. The positive news is that it only seems to be affecting his balance and not his cognition or any other physical symptoms, and with some physical therapy, he should be able to recover to about 90% of where he was at before. My mom said he still has his sense of humor and was yukking it up with the other patients. But still: my dad had a fuckin’ stroke. And he is all the way on the other side of the country, in New Jersey.

I’m trying to figure out when it makes the most sense for me to fly out there. I keep asking everyone what I should do and they keep saying, “There’s no right answer,” which is beyond frustrating. I just want to do the right thing. My mom and brother both told me not to come this or next weekend. When my dad is stable enough to leave the hospital, he will be moving to an inpatient physical rehab facility for a week or more. My mom said she would prefer I come out once he’s back home so I can help out when he doesn’t have around-the-clock care, which will probably be in a few weeks.

My husband Ross and I also had plans to go to Vegas for our friend’s bachelor party next weekend but that all seems absurdly frivolous now. And frankly, I don’t love the optics of me partying in Vegas while my dad is recovering from a stroke in New Jersey. That kind of seems unbelievably callous. At the same time, if there’s nothing I can do, there’s nothing I can do. How does it help my dad for me to sit at home and be stoic? And to be totally honest, the selfish, immature part of me was secretly really excited to see Magic Mike Live. Plus, I just bought some cute new swimsuits to wear at the pool. That’s probably what jinxed me. Damn you, flattering high-waisted bikinis!!

In all seriousness, I love the dude and I am very, very worried about him. I can’t picture my life without his stubbornness and corny sense of humor and heated rants about how there should be more women in politics while also never making his own dinner plate. It is scary when your parents get old and vulnerable. They were just out here in L.A. on a multi-state cross-country trip that they managed to do by themselves. I thought I had a few more years before this kind of thing would happen, but I guess you never really see it coming. The mean voice inside my head says that maybe this all happened BECAUSE he came to visit me, and the trip was just too much for him, but that voice is also a crazy fucking bitch and I’m trying not to listen to it.

Oh gosh, this is a long way of saying that there will not be a new newsletter this week. It just feels way too flippant to be writing about anything other than my personal family crisis right now. Maybe next week we can get back to our regularly scheduled nonsense? In the meantime, if you want extra content (four premium newsletters so far + an original story) feel free to upgrade to a paid subscription now:

Until next time–call your parents, if you can.

Love you guys,LizXOXO