— each post is a letter to his now almost 2yo son and they are all, to be frank and honest with you all, bangers.
Seeing that comment reminded me, in 2025, to reach back out to Marc and see if he’d wanna be on my show Both Are True Live, so I did:
He responded.
This past Tue, we spoke.
Today, on May 2, 2025, I am sharing it with you all.
What we talked about
1. Moving, loneliness, and finding new “dad friends” after 30
“In the beginning, it was incredibly lonely and depressing... meeting people as you're older, new people, everyone has their good friends already. So it was really, really hard to meet new people.”
2. The wild journey to parenthood (NYC subway meet-cute, Ethiopia detour, pandemic marriage)
“Long story short, I met her in New York City on the subway platform... We get married during the pandemic. We try having a baby and it's really hard... So we go to Ethiopia. We work at this amazing school... and two months into two year contract, we get pregnant.”
3. The messy realities of parenting—guilt, exhaustion, “equity”
“I feel guilty because he's at daycare from like 8 to 3:30. Then we're exhausted. And I'm like, can you just go to sleep?... I want it to be equitable. But I feel like I realize that it's something I feel like I'm constantly working on and asking about.”
4. The power and awkwardness of vulnerability—writing honestly, sharing family stories, and asking for help
“I call the vulnerability, like... a superpower, you know? Especially for, like, men... Sometimes I'm too vulnerable and I have to ask my wife, like, is this okay to share?”
5. Marc’s faith and “writing as legacy”
“One reason I started writing is because I was afraid that I will die before I see my son grow up... I think writing is legacy work, you know?”
6. Raising Black sons, public judgment, and the fears and hopes that come with it
“That's the part that kind of scares me about being a father of a black boy, especially. It really scares me. I don't know what to do about that when that time comes because it's inevitable... Like getting stopped by the police, feeling someone is going to like, you know, feeling threatened by you just for existing.”
If I haven’t made it clear yet, EVERYONE GO SUBSCRIBE TO MARC’s NEWSLETTER:
At one point Marc casually mentions that he and his wife met on a NYC subway platform. I wanted to get more deets but forgot to ask. Luckily, he wrote all about that meet-so-dang-cute here - how i met your mother.
Here’s a nibble of it for you:
How do you approach a woman to ask her for her time? To let her know that, even though, outwardly, you matched every other man who approached her that day, that inside you possessed something worth knowing?
How do you express interest without being too forward, or crossing boundaries, or avoiding the risk of her pulling out mace or slapping you with a really sizable green and pink tote bag? Showcasing intelligence without sounding pretentious – what’s the right balance?
What words do you choose for a woman emanating a vibe distant from the concrete jungles of Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights? How do you communicate that, although deeply rooted here, you stand apart - you’re more like a weed that broke through the concrete – Brooklyn tried to rid you, but still, you rose.
Clearly, I had internalized some issues related to where I grew up. Yet, when you encounter someone like your mother, and a train is about to come, and you're sweating profusely like a large pastor in a church with no AC, your critical consciousness around all the isms you ever learned goes away.
I don’t know what possessed me, but finally, I walked over and said, “Hey, are you an AKA?”
She looked down at the siding of her bag, as if she was wearing another bag that wasn’t obvious enough, and said, “Uh, yeah.”
Great, now she thinks I can’t read.
“Are you Greek?” she asked.
“Yeah, but not D9,” I responded.
Ok, now she knows I know my letters and, at the very least, went to college, or at a minimum, saw Spike Lee’s School Daze. From there, I learned she was born and raised in Birmingham, AL, and left there to come to NYC to pursue acting. I was in a trance—she spoke as beautifully as she looked.
In case you somehow missed all the other emails…
🦇 BATCAVE LIVE IS NOW OPEN 🦇
The deets, as per the below, are:
WHO: you, silly
WHAT: a home for the weirdos who want to write more honestly.
WHEN: often, past and future:
This past Wednesday, we had our first BATCAVE LIVE #001 with guest
Note: I made a google calendar that you should be able to subscribe to also by clicking here.
Another note: I will be sharing all recordings with paying subscribers.
WHERE: As of now Substack Live tho based on feedback during the first event, people want an ‘in the round’ zoom style, so if anyone has a pro zoom account we can use that’d be tight.
WHY: I write to help people feel less alone. The BATCAVE is a way to offer a more, ugh, “intentional” way to do that, hang out and write cool stuff and just vibe idk!
Also I like talking about this stuff! I won’t say ‘teaching’ bc I don’t think of myself as a teacher bc that implies I somehow know more than others, more I just feel alive jamming on these ideas with cool people is that so wrong????
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