Can I Tell You a Story?

What if I wrote something and you read it every once in a while?

Alexa, play the oft-forgotten, but always enjoyable Dolly Parton hit, “Take Me Back to the Country.”

Social media makes me so anxious these days. In between pictures of nice vacations and my friends’ children, I see posts about how vaccines make you magnetic and how bacon gives you cancer. I own too many magnets and love bacon far too much for this. And that’s just on Facebook. I’ve heard people get sexual on Snapchat. Sexual! Can you imagine?

But beyond having my faith in bacon tested, something that concerns me even more is that I find myself thinking in social media. I’m always checking my phone for notifications. Missing whole ass movies while scrolling through the day’s spoils. Sometimes, I talk in tweet and status speak. That’s got to be a sickness, right? Someone get Dr. Phil McGraw on the phone.

The reason I once loved Facebook is because I could tell little stories that made people laugh. Or made people think. Made people do something other than argue. And then writing little stories became my job, so I started posting those Esquire articles on social media, and I love my work, but it got to the point that the stories just stopped. And as the years have gone on, all I want to do is delete every bit of social media—except I can’t because my dad asks me to get on and look at pictures of food he’s uploaded. In fairness, his biscuit and gravy is unmatched. It photographs terribly, but I get why he’s proud of it.

Long story short, it’s the telling of the stories that mattered to me most—not stories about the world’s scariest things, but stories about things I’ve seen and people I’ve met. People some of you may know and then some people who are absolutely random. But the whole idea is that these are stories that hopefully help you see the world differently, but aren’t terrifying. And for those who say, “If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention!” I’d like to say, 1) great Grey’s Anatomy reference, and 2) this is not intended to ignore what’s happening (turns around and grimaces) out there. What I’d like to do, if you’d be so gracious to sign up, is to, once a week, give you a song to listen to. Then I’d like to tell you a brief story—might take you, say, five minutes to read. We’ll learn and laugh together, here. And then at the bottom, I’ll link to some stuff I’ve written over the week that you might want to save for later. Or not. I don’t know. I’m not going to peer pressure you.

If you’re wondering why I titled this “Justin is a Single Christian Mother,” it’s because I’ve discovered saying it out loud is the easiest way to make a room full of people laugh. It is also the personality I most closely identify with. I’m going to write about the South and being Southern in New York City. I’m going to write about my past dating life (sorry, Andrew) and being a Christian. I might write a little bit about current events, but not much, because there are other people who likely know more about what’s going on in the world than I do. But above all, I’m going to tell you stories, because sometimes at the end of the day, after I’ve cooked dinner, put the kids to sleep, finished my once-daily 15 minute kegel workout, cleaned the dishes, prayed, and finished two bottles of Barefoot Chardonnay, all I have the energy left to do is tell you a story that’s only meant to entertain you.