Free It's Okay to Laugh by Nora McInerny Purmort Page B

on the edge of Graham’s roof, my head turned to watch the traffic lurching down Manhattan Avenue while he packed a bowl. When I turn to him, he laughs with his big smile, and it is my turn to get high. New York and Graham were fun to love, until loving them wasn’t fun anymore, when I was tired of being broke and exhausted and having men jam their boners into me on crowded L trains. But I owe them both a big thank-you. For all the fun, for all the pot, for giving me the time and space to be who I was, even when I was kind of a shithead.
    And then, for making it easy to leave. In Minnesota, I wasn’t running toward or away from anything. I was just another good Midwestern girl with a savings account and a full-size sedan, spending her Sundays running around lakes and doing my own laundry. I was finding my own way through my new life, in the city that raised me. And I was on my way to Aaron.

Chapter 11
How I Met Your Father
    Hi, Ralphie.
    Right now you are only two, and you are incredibly selfish. You are always asking me to hold you or give you some grapes, and when I ask if you would prefer to perhaps poop in a toilet instead of having your grape-filled feces mashed against your nuts, you just tell me “no thanks,” and hand me the butt wipes. You do show signs of promise, though. You have recently begun telling me that I am beautiful, most likely because I’ve started asking you to call me Beautiful Mother instead of mommymommymommymommy. You offer me your leftover milk after you’ve backwashed nearly half a peanut butter sandwich into it, and you let me know when you think I look tired (really appreciate that). In the mornings, you tell me you love me “SO MUCH!” and squeeze my face in your little palms.
    While I’m not banking on your ever not pooping your pants, I’m assuming that someday, you will be interested in me as aperson, and you will want to know how I met your father, the guy who is responsible for your oversize head, your sharp canine teeth, and your jolly disposition.
    I’m hoping this is the case because I love “how we met” stories, and I want you to love all the things I love: R. Kelly, Real Housewives , and HGTV included. As a kid, I loved hearing how my own parents met: Grumpy was home from Vietnam, and Madame was invited by a mutual friend to his welcome home party at some ramshackle house near the University of Minnesota.
    She’d heard of Steve McInerny before, but she’d never seen him, not until he came stumbling drunk down the stairs, six feet tall, 130 pounds, and deeply tanned from the Vietnam sun. That, she thought, is the man I’m going to marry. I made Madame tell me that story over and over, in great detail. Like all men who eventually become conservative old white guys, your grandfather was a dirty hippie when he was young. He had long hair, and reminded Madame of her favorite Beatle, George Harrison. When she first laid eyes on him, Grumpy was shirtless, wearing high-water bell bottoms because he’d gone shopping without trying on any of the clothes he bought.
    I wanted a “how we met” story like Madame and Grumpy’s: one my kids would want to hear over and over again.
    I remember meeting your father at the art gallery that used to be your great-uncle Mike’s photo studio. Uncle Mike’s space always doubled as a site for family gatherings, from sweet sixteen parties to funerals and Thanksgivings, but when he retired, he handed the keys to his studio to a new generation of young creatives, who transformed it into an art gallery and invited what seemed like the entire city of Minneapolis to the opening.
    I was there for the first time since my own grandma’s funeral, standing in a space that used to belong to just our tribe, now swamped with hundreds of strangers. I’d thought your dad may be there, since we’d recently begun a Twitter flirtation, but I wasn’t really sure what he