well, C. and B. made these really cool lyres at camp this week.

Claudia tends to put a totemic all-seeing brown eye into many of her projects. Often it has a freckle in it, as does one of her own eyes.

Béla chose to string his instrument a little differently, and he’s missing a bridge. This sounds like a metaphor for the way Béla accomplishes many successful and original projects. I also appreciate that the word “Death” appears inside the instrument.

We have begun making plans for Béla’s birthday. I have been incredibly honored that he has been talking to me openly about his feelings of otherness in relation to being Asian (and, sometimes, specifically Korean.) When Eugene Lee Yang released his “I’m Gay” video during Pride, Béla was in bed; I got him up. He has loved Eugene for years and always admired his queerness but certainly understood that this video was a much bigger step.

Béla has had Eugene as his phone wallpaper for a lot of the summer, to remind himself that the things he had in common with Eugene were really cool. “Now I don’t think this was such a great idea,” he said after one of his many afternoons in the soccer field across from our house. He refused to tell me what was specifically said, but I assured him the kids in the field in our South Philly playground really didn’t hold a candle to Eugene. He agreed, but still.

One night at one of our favorite South St. stores I showed him a poster for BTS on the wall and mentioned how popular K-pop was now and what a great time it was to be a handsome Korean-American boy. My voice has to potency of an unplugged bug-zapper at these moments.

Then he realized that kids at School of Rock were listening to K-pop too. Suddenly, his own playlists changed.

Gee.

However… I DO always pride myself on finding the Absolute Coolest Things and look what Béla and Claudia are doing (approved by them) ON Béla’s actual birthday — thank you K-pop for knowing there was money to be made here:

This is so cool, as B. misses his b-boy classes and was surprised to see this choreographer had worked with K-pop bands Béla knew. The event is sponsored y a social group that loves popular Korean culture. They were super nice and are so excited the kids are coming.

But NOTHING was better than this. That grey text box without a single spelling error or texting abbreviation… THAT IS MY SON TALKING TO ME.

let Mom throw in a “Pose” GIF tho:

Just for extra fun, your moment with Marble: