Good morning, Hank.
It's Tuesday.
As this is my last Vlogbrothers video
of the decade,
I wanted to share with you some of
my favorite days of the 2010s,
although I am leaving out
some personal stuff.
Like, the two best days of my decade and also
of my life were the two days my kids were born,
but I’m not going to talk about that here,
because you have to draw the privacy line somewhere
and that’s where I draw it.
But other than that, my very favorite day
of the decade was January 15th, 2013,
when you and I played a sold-out show at
Carnegie Hall while wearing rented tuxedoes.
That Evening of Awesome included
my favorite band the Mountain Goats
and Kimya Dawson and Neil Gaiman
and so many friends,
and Sarah and Katherine
and our parents were all with us.
And then at the end of the night, I found out
my best friend Chris had flown in to surprise me,
and I cried with happiness
and the whole thing was just magical!
Plus, Hank, I’ll probably never again see you in a tuxedo
so I am glad I took the opportunity when it came,
and the Mountain Goats played one of my favorite
songs, “You Were Cool,” which includes the lyrics:
It's good to be young, but let's not kid ourselves
It's better to pass on through those years
and come out the other side
With our hearts still beating
Having stared down demons
Come back breathing
Next day, May 30th, 2016. The world’s favorite
fourth-tier English football team AFC Wimbledon,
who wear DFTBA on their shorts,
play at Wembley Stadium in a playoff final
for the chance to become the world’s favorite
third-tier English football team.
Everything about that day was perfect—from singing
with AFC Wimbledon fans at a pub before the game
to being at Wembley with my dad
and Rosianna and my friend Stuart
and Wimbly Womblies co-founder Meredith.
And then Montserratian international superstar Lyle
Taylor scored to put AFC Wimbledon into the third tier,
and we partied all night with fans and friends
and players and my dad, and it was just awesome!
A best day that wasn’t videotaped: December 29th,
2016. I’d reached a point with Turtles All the Way Down
where I just wasn’t sure if it was ever
going to be a worthwhile or useful thing,
and I was staying alone at a small cabin in
Michigan with nothing but a loaf of bread,
some peanut butter, and an obscene quantity
of Diet Dr Pepper.
I’d been awake all night the night before,
and I just couldn’t find my way through
to a better ending for the novel,
and so finally in desperation, I called Sarah
and I was crying
and she was like,
“It sounds like you just
need to do a time jump.”
And then I hung up and wrote the last fifteen
page of Turtles All the Way Down all in one go,
and it was roaringly, wondrously joyful to
finally see a way through—
both for Aza and for me.
So thank you, Sarah.
Okay, my final best day: Hank, for so long,
you have supported my writing—
like in 2008 when Paper Towns came out, you
and Katherine drove around the country with me
in a rented minivan and played libraries and
bookstores and anyone else who would have us.
And you were always there—singing your guts out every
time, transforming yourself into a Turtle Professor
or a Sock Puppet to make those readings
something more than readings,
to turn them into events
that would matter to people.
And then on September 25th, 2018, your brilliant first
novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing was published,
and I finally got to support you a little bit
at the launch event at Town Hall in New York City.
To see you surrounded by copies of your book
was one of the great joys of my life.
So I hope you’ll share some of your best memories
of the decade in the comments section below.
I kind of need that positivity, and I feel
like the rest of the world might, too.
But for me, while those are some of the days
that stand out,
a lot of my favorite moments in the decade
were little moments.
Going to a Joan Mitchell show with Sarah.
Rosianna and I sprawled out across a lounge
at VidCon, exhausted and exhilarated.
Hank and I eating hamburgers
in the hot Southern California day.
Seeing the Pettibon spiral for the first time
and being stopped dead by it.
My mom showing me her painting of the La-Z-Boy
where I’ve written all my books.
Filming Crash Course with Stan,
wasting card space
because we couldn’t stop laughing
at each other’s jokes.
It’s good to be young, but let’s not kid
ourselves: here’s to the next ten years.
Hank, I’ll see you on Friday.
