Sometimes it's the little things

I've been using my summer vacation to catch up on television; namely, on Project Runway. I'm in the middle of season 8 so I'm way behind, but no spoilers please! Sometimes parents do amazing huge things for their kids, but sometimes it's the smallest gestures that make a kid feel loved and safe and okay with the world. A TV show about snarky designers and fashion-forward aesthetic and backbiting models makes me miss my dad.

My fascination with Project Runway started in New York. I'd never watched a reality show before, but I got hooked thanks to some of my fashionable friends. Every Wednesday night, we would pick up pizza and beer, throw together a salad, and sprawl out on somebody's bed or couch or futon to watch that week's episode and talk with our mouths full and rail against the judges. It was one of the most fun communal television experiences that I've had.

When Cesar and I moved back to CA from New York, we didn't have a television and I didn't have many friends, so I dvr'd Project Runway at my parents' house to keep up with the current season. There I was, flopped pathetically on the couch about to watch another episode solo even though I'd long since figured out it's less fun to make catty comments and laugh hysterically with no one there to hear you. In strolled Greg, cupcakes and pink milk in hand, and he simply said, "Are we ready to watch Project Runway?"

Even though Greg felt that reality television was the bane of an acting existence, and even though Greg thought that Heidi Klum talked suspiciously like Elmer Fudd, and even though Greg didn't know his taffeta from his chiffon, we bonded over PR. (It helped that he absolutely loved Tim Gunn, who reminded him of a beloved theatre colleague.) He gamely critiqued designs and argued with the judges, because he knew that I needed a fashionable pal.

It takes a certain kind of father to watch a show with his daughter about which he personally doesn't give a shit, and it takes a certain kind of father to know that some teenage girls really need to see Breakfast at Tiffany's, and it takes a certain kind of father to know his kid well enough to appreciate her interests, even when they aren't his own. I'm lucky to have that kind of father.

So, Greg: isn't Gretchen the biggest bitch ever? And wasn't that one dress totally atrocious? And do you really think Casanova deserved to win that challenge, or was it a pity prize from the judges?

Thanks for keeping company with me, Pop. Love you......