64 Comments
Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Okay so my real answers: My fiancé and I just moved into our own house after 2.5 years of living in a 2-bedroom condo with my only sister (aka my favorite sister). Okay, we did but the condo two doors down. Okay, my parents do live 8 miles away as the crow flies and an actual 1.5 hours in human time (riddle me this). We def at least text everyday.

Diet Coke is the juice of the Mormons. My aforementioned mother is a big fan of having one cracked open in every room in the house.

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Stink Inc is a great idea tho

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

I'm fascinated by their aversion to tap water – why is that?

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

love a casual Alik reference!!

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Healthy choice!!!

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

fack I need to drink more water

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Nov 9, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Your dad is yet to discover that water hits different at midnight :D

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I loved this, Alex! And I especially loved all the medical research you did about water and DC! If it helps, I quit DC by switching to real coke, found it way too sweet, switched to club soda, found it way too boring, then filled the void with water and the occasional iced tea. I miss the DC life, but I don’t miss it so much that I can’t go on living. Unless, you count DC plus movie popcorn. That is life’s greatest pleasure.

On a more serious note, your questions about calling parents really got to me. My mother lives in Las Vegas. We talk once a week, but we’re the opposite of the cliche about the son who never calls his mom. I call on the regular, sometimes she answers, but my mom rarely initiates the call. She says she doesn’t want to bother me, but also she wants to hear from me. It’s a typical Jewish guilt dynamic. My father and I spoke on the phone everyday. He traveled a lot, but he always called. Then when I went away to college and lived in New York after that, he made a point of calling daily, even if there wasn’t much to say. When I moved back to LA we talked on the phone everyday too. I’m sure we must’ve missed a day here or there, but I really can’t think of one. Now that he’s gone I really miss our calls, especially the ones where we didn’t really say anything meaningful. Those quick “hey, how are you” calls were the best. Funny thing, but not haha funny thing, is that seven years after his death I still have my dad’s number stored in my phone. I can’t bring myself to delete it. And if I did, I still know the number by heart. Like I said I miss those calls, and I hope you treasure every call you get with your dad.

Again, thank you for this piece! When I get back home to more reliable internet, I’m going to start paying for Both Are True. As I said before, it’s hard to explain but easy to love.

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Your dad’s business idea reminds me of the iSmell, a very real device that aimed to bring scent to the Internet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISmell

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Nov 9, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Why are you drinking DIET COKE when you can drink COKE ZERO? Both will kill you but Coke Zero tastes so much better! Plus it's got the word "ZERO" in it.

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Diet Coke is an as yet undiscovered vitamin. Tell your dad.

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I used to do the DC or CZ thing, which was a huge improvement over the full octane stuff I did before that. But nowadays I’m all about the Z, Zevia. It didn’t even take that long to get used to the slightly different taste and now I—and I know this will be controversial—actually prefer the taste of Z. When I drink DC or CZ, it feels like I can literally feel it rotting my tooth enamel away. More recently, I’ve even taken the drastic step to move fully over to caffeine free Z, or CFZ, in an attempt to reduce my migraines. Feel free to manually unsubscribe me.

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Nov 9, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

I’ve got low bp and drinking water def helps! (You can tell him this comes from an expert in note taking 😂)

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> Do you live far from family? What’s that like?

My sister and I both live in different states from our retired, elderly mother. We're, uh, learning very rapidly how to caretake remotely. It's difficult.

> What’s your relationship like w your parents? Do y’all talk every day on the phone or are you normal??

My wife talks to her family multiple times a day and thinks it's super weird that I don't, so this falls squarely under mileage may vary, probably with major cultural differences. In fact, I once had an Indian roommate who also found it appalling how infrequently I contacted my family.

You know, the United States is actually super unusual in its belief that the child should just pack up and move out at 18, to an entire one-family standalone house to boot. We see article after article about how many young people are 'living with their parents' when multigenerational families in single households is the global and historical norm.

I call my mother once per week.

> Do your kids and grandkids live far away? What’s that like?

Don't have any. Don't have any grandparents either.

> Why do you also agree that Diet Coke is great and healthy for you?

True facts and sorry to say it, but I've never been able to stand the flavor of Diet Coke, nor any of those various attempts at doing it a different way (Coke Zero, whatever).

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

I grew up in the western part of NY. Went to college in the eastern part. Shortly after college, my parents moved to NC and then FL. They lived in FL while I stayed in NY, but had a summer cabin in western NY. This is getting complicated. I met my now-husband and we settled in eastern NY, while my parents stayed in FL but came up to western NY every May-October. I got married and my son was born in this time. When my son was going into kindergarten, my Mom was in really poor health and they couldn't keep up the cabin and sold it, which is one of the hugest regrets of my life, that I wasn't in a place to buy it then. My Mom passed away a couple years later and a couple years after that my Dad made the move back to NY.... western NY.

SO since you got lost somewhere back there.... I haven't lived within 200 miles of my parents since about 2003. Not to mention my sisters, cousins, nephews & niece, best friend.... and I HATE that. Do I hate where I live? Not at all; in fact, I love it and feel extremely lucky to be in a place where I can hike up a teeny mountain over a lake before lunch. And theoretically see a moose sometimes although I have never seen one in person not that I'm bitter about that. But I wish so hard that I could have all this and also have my kids grow up with their lives interwoven with their cousins and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, and friends who are family to me.

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love! as always.

specific things i love:

-- drinking enough water!

-- "Family Trees Need Water Too"

-- "the truth finally came POURING out." (it's about water! you are fun!)

-- "Actual photo of the first time people drank Diet Coke." (HOW DID YOU GET THIS PHOTO)

-- "the Goodfather"

-- "my agent on the inside who I’m realizing is without a doubt compromised" (funny that your mom is your agent on the inside when once YOU were on the inside of HER!)

-- "THEORETICALLY COULD AUDITION IF ANYONE WOULD JUST ASK ME TO" (will you audition? that's me asking you to)

-- "They will drink the water if we don’t drink the Diet Coke. Or maybe they won’t." (VERY WISE)

thanks as always for sharing, friend!

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