Bless the Sudden Flood that Teaches Us to Swim

Progress not perfection. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon together again. Stephen Dunn on deadness. Hey Siri play Amyl and the Sniffers.

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The first flurry of text messages arrived last weekend, the real ominous ones that don't give any context but simply say, "Are you ok?" For the better part of, oh, almost 7 years now, I've received these—and most of them are usually about something Gawker-related that popped up in the news cycle: a new movie, a new tribute, another online funeral for a site that got subsumed by a robot factory, an unkind article, a behind-the-scandal documentary—something. I don't respond as frequently as I used to.

Another less recent batch of concerned messages happened about three weeks ago. A few texts and DMs inquired earnestly: "Are you watching the RNC?" I was not. I caught some of the highlights a couple of days later. I watched with bewilderment as Hulk Hogan pounced on stage and ripped his shirt off as he'd done thousands of times before to introduce former President Trump—he called him "Myyyyyy former president," almost in a pirate voice.

The only thing this made me think of was a couple of weeks before the RNC, my seven-year-old was playing this quiz game on Roku, which is kind of a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? knock-off, and I heard him reading a question aloud. "Which former WWE superstar…" I scanned the answers and helped him select the right one. "It's John Cena," I said. (It was “The Rock,” though, duh.)

He's almost old enough to Google. I wonder how he'll react the day he reads about his Dad and one of the other former WWE superstars, who are listed  as possible answers: "a.) Hulk Hogan." Part of me is dreading that in the same way I'm dreading the day he asks me, "Dad, what's a rim job?" or "Dad, have you ever tried meth?" 

But I don't see myself backing away from anything he'll read about that time of my life, though. I certainly don’t want to lie about it. If I had to do it tomorrow, this is where I'd start: "I was a different person then. And if some of those tough moments didn't happen, there would probably be no you." 

But last week's most recent headline news that caused people to check in on me was about a movie called "Killing Gawker," which might star Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as either Hogan or Peter Thiel or maybe none of those people. "Gus Van Sant to helm," other reports said. 

"Are you ok?"

"How are you holding up?"

"You good?"

One of Julieanne's friends was curious how I felt about a movie like this, especially one that seemingly had some real momentum and star power behind it. "Tell her: Imagine a pretty traumatic moment that happened to you publicly, and then it's made into a movie, and chances are you will be portrayed as a real asshole." I should have clarified—I used to feel that way.