The Year-End Wrap-Up with Pip Paris

Pip Paris sits in a restaurant booth behind a plate of Mexican food, rice, and salsa.

My last scheduled It's My Treat of the year is with Pip Paris! I've had meals with him before, but usually it is with our kid Wren. Tonight, Wren did not feel like joining us, so we got a meal at Dos Reales Champaign IL on our own and took them a take home order with us for Wren. For those of you who don't know, Pip is Wren's other parent. We have known each other for about 18 years. Damn, I'm old. Over the years we have both grown and changed a lot including Pip changing his name a couple of times and changed his gender too.

And usually not a double dipper. Dos has become a family tradition when anyone comes down for a visit, so it was good to go and talk some tonight. Food was good as usual. I had the Pollo Asada Quesadilla and Pip had Pollo Ranchero. And of course, chips and salsa and cheese dip. I love their cheese dip most of all.

Tonight's discussion was mainly focused on Pip's plans for the upcoming year. They are going to grad school to get a Marketing Degree and looking for work while they are in school. That along with taking care of Wren is going to keep them very busy. But he is planning on one big creative project. He is going to do a podcast about masculinity. Going to interview a lot of people about their thoughts on what it means to be a man and all that goes along with it. This goes along with their exploration of his gender identity. Seems like it is going to be a very interesting podcast. I was quickly about to answer a couple of questions for them. Do I care about what other people think of me? No. Do I read instruction manuals? Also no. I claimed that those were going to be the same answers for every man, but I might just be assuming that others are like me. I guess we will find out when the podcast episodes come out.

Brian Paris makes a wide-eyed expression while sitting inside Dos Reales restaurant.

But the discussion wasn't just the easy surface questions. We got into a deeper question about how some men are bad human beings and treat women poorly. I've known many such men over the course of my life, and even been friends with some of them. These are the type of guys who I can hang out with, but I would never allow them to go out with any women that I know. Made me think a lot about how having a friendship with these men and not saying anything about their bad behavior is not the type of thing I should continue to do. Don't know why it is, but I guess there have always been these types of men in life, but they never get called out for those actions by the guys around them. I hope that younger generations are less accepting of this behavior and will call it out if they see it, but I know that it isn't common for guys my age.

A folded quesadilla rests on an orange plate beside a small bowl of red salsa at Dos Reales.

After talking about it and realizing how not saying anything is a tacit form of acceptance, I think I need to change my ways. So, no more holding back if I see men behaving badly even if they are my friends (especially if they are my friends). If I wouldn't want them dating people I know, I think I should let them know. Don't know if it will change their behavior, but it is good to at least let them know that I don't approve.

A yellow plate at Dos Reales holds Mexican rice, refried beans, enchilada sauce, and a crispy tortilla cup.

Other than that, we talked about Wren. They have been down here with me for the last couple of weeks while Pip is recovering from surgery. The original plan was to take them back at the end of January, but it looks like they might have an online class instead of an in-person class, so it is possible that they might be able to spend a longer time down here with me. It is always nice to see them, so I am glad that this might be an extended stay.

As I mentioned, this is the last scheduled meal of the year, so I will probably write up an end of the year look back at some point. It has been a pretty successful year. Around 45 meal write-ups and a few more that I didn't write up for various reasons. The goal was to do one a week, and I came very close to meeting it. So, thank you to everyone who has supported this project for the last year, and thank you to all of those who shared a meal with me. I have not made a definitive decision to continue for another year, but I am leaning that direction at the moment.