PJ

PJ was two years old and his mommy cut his hair. His haircut was shaggy and deliberately canine, it came out of a book she read called "Gingham Concrete: An Urban Translation of Pioneer Living," and she had applied the same skills to PJ's daddy, who honestly benefited from the trial run on his toddler. From the same book mommy was knitting bibs for PJ, although they were never quite finished, like anything knitted. One day, she was sure, PJ would sit in his high chair enjoying organic nanners and cashew butter, proud of his kaleidodelic, one of a kind knit bibs inspired by BAPE and protecting his favorite Velvet Underground t-shirt. PJ's shirts were always sly and clever, VU for banana breakfasts, Wavves for when he watched mommy weed the garden. On rainy afternoons he changed into his favorite stoic, brown flannel.

PJ always had the tightest pants in the sand box. His mommy found one of the unextolled virtues of cloth diapers was the slimmer fit they afforded. She hated the baggy slop-arounds the other kids wore which, lets face it, might as well be JNCOs. Though it would be a few years before he could actually get a pair of true skinny jeans that would make him look like an infant Swedish Mod, it would do in the meantime. PJ was so well behaved he never cried when it was time to put on his neon dunks, and he happily wore his thick, plastic, technicolor sunglasses. The other babies he played with didn't really get irony.

His daddy got PJ a tricycle that he was proud to relate was fixed gear. When he was older he would get the boy into vintage BMX, and may even gift him an authentic 80's supergoose, not that knockoff bullshit everyone tries to pass on craigslist. In many ways PJ inherited the childhood his daddy decided he wanted when he grew up. He wanted to foster a proper nostalgia in his boy the first time around, and not the adopted nostalgia daddy had to settle for. But in other ways PJ was the proto daddy. Outfits, hairstyles, glasses frames and shoes were all tried out on the two year old to see how they fit, like a living Polaroid, before daddy blew them up to adult size and went to PBR night with his wife.

You could take PJ anywhere, he liked the bustle of bars and gastropubs and he grizzled at the sight of a Muppet. He didn't like any of the kids shows that mommy and daddy couldn't stand watching, the nonsense primary color shows. PJ was a sophisticated little guy who liked a good Jack Benny impression or a risque innuendo, he thought The Office was silly. Car trips were fun because no matter whose ipod you plugged in, all three of them were satisfied. They were making a Sunday road trip to a brewery/cupcake bakery that made yeasty, savory treats with bacon frosting. PJ's ipod was plugged in, an appropriate classic style because he would drool on a touch. Mommy and daddy wrinkled there noses like they were driving passed a refinery, a child specific song had come on, something PJ's aunt had exposed the boy to. He clapped his hands to the happy song, mommy turned around pretty in her art deco hair and said "Stop that, you don't like The Wiggles, you like Dr. Dog." Daddy changed the song, it was something off of Pinkerton but PJ didn't know what. The child had a neutral look on his face and mommy seemed placated but daddy shook his head and skipped until he got to some Ariel Pink, but something from one of the cassettes.