Halloween in a monthlong holiday, so I’m going to upload Halloween-themed Ben & Winslow comics throughout October.

Dear Hailee,

I want to congratulate you on your 10-month-and-counting tenure of living in New York City. Based upon the recent life update posted on Facebook, you have experienced many things in the last 300 days and now consider yourself “a true New Yorker” (Marie, 2018a). These 300 days don’t take into account the time your spent at your parents for both Thanksgiving (Marie, 2017a) and Christmas (Marie, 2017b) or the photos of you on a beach in Cabo (Marie, 2018b). That trip lasted eight days, not including flights (Marie, 2018c)(Marie, 2018d) and included a four hour delayed flight on your return trip (Marie, 2018e).

Part of my job as a dad is teaching my kids about humor and sarcasm and jokes and comedic timing. Especially my oldest, who really likes making jokes and comics of his own. If you’ve ever been around a kid trying to make up their own joke, you know how painful this can be!

I first encountered the new barre studio in my neighborhood as I was walking home after meeting my coworkers for drinks. The light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and illuminating the crisp white walls and hardwood floors caught my attention right away. Suddenly I had flashbacks of my high school days as a pink leotard-clad ballet dancer, standing gracefully at the barre as I plied and pirouetted to my heart’s content.

If this wasn’t you at some point in your life, consider yourself lucky.