Excerpts from The Holiday Email Chains of American Families

by: Renata Belushi, contributor

“…and Jake killed it at the Dawson High School football game yesterday!

Samantha couldn’t be here for Chanukah this year. We all miss her, but she’s very busy excelling over at Oberlin. She just got an A on her midterm for ‘Dire Straights: Heterosexual Anxiety in Climate Apocalypse Fiction’, so now her professor is writing her a recommendation for her internship application to the San Francisco Post-Contemporary Film Archive Coalition. Anyways, I’m not even sure they’d let her through the airport with all that hardware! I didn’t even know that people could get pierced there. Isn’t it amazing what even the most sensitive and unsightly parts of the body can handle? 

Sammy’s always into something new. Right now it’s the word “hegemony” and this writer, Michael Fucko or something. But more than anything else, she can not stop gushing about her new boyfriend that she met at the co-op. I just sent the picture to the family groupchat. Don’t they look so in love? They have the same haircut and everything! 

Speaking of, I think I might be getting highlights. It’s a compromise with Marcus, who’s just dying for me to go blonde. Marcus is the new man in my life. He’s my homosexual hairstylist. He just bought the most incredible pair of gladiator sandals…”

“Did you guys see Jamie’s new post on LinkedIn? Proud of him for coming out as bicurious. And I guess he declared his major in politics, which was amazing to hear, because I didn’t even think he voted. 

Last night on the phone he told me he wants to become a community organizer, but honestly, I think he needs to focus first on repairing his relationship with his Ultimate team. Christ, that kid’s a superstar on the turf. Remember his totally scurvied Callahan on that bidding wing from The Denison Bangles in May of ‘21? Ludicrous. You could see he was in full control the whole time, a real puppet master. I swear, he gets on the green and he just goes completely cold. He looked like he was just doing Tai Chi or something. It genuinely overwhelms me to think about it. 

Everyone knows Jamie and the Horsecows go together like bread and butter. It’s devastating to see them treat him like this now. I told him he should have never done that Simon and Garfunkel cover band with the captain. He has too much vocal presence, he’s no choir boy. Someone was bound to get burned.

Just devastating.”