By Josh Gondelman — 13 Jul 2026

#192. Unfamous Wedding Guests and You

Hi everyone,

As I write the intro to this newsletter, there are two very nice guys putting together furniture in our new apartment. I have no idea what to do when people are in my home doing any kind of work. This has been an enormous psychological hurdle for me to clear over the past seven days between movers and Taskrabbits. But it's also true anytime we hire a plumber or a cleaner. I feel like a slug just...sitting around. My natural impulse is to try and be helpful, but one...that's not my job, and two...I would probably do more harm than good in many situations. So right now I am, of course, hiding in our bedroom writing this, which is work, but does not necessarily look like it from the outside.

about seventy pairs of shoes, many in clear plastic boxes on display but several in cardboard shoe boxes, some loose on top — Objectively excessive sneaker situation.

There are still some tasks to do, but we are mostly settled into the new place. It took a truly heroic effort by Maris to organize her books on our newly-installed shelves (I was not allowed to help in this case because she is, to quote her, "too much of a virgo"), and my sneakers have been arranged into tidy piles (by me, to be clear...I did not put that on someone else). We have recycled enough cardboard boxes to build a modest ranch-style home that would disintegrate during the first drizzle. I even assembled a Wayfair kitchen table and set of chairs. I've got the arm and leg bruises to prove it, which I guess doesn't make total sense because for more competent people, minor injuries are not part of the process of furniture assembly. I've got to put our little office futon together and there's still a little storage to navigate, and then we get to figure out where to hang our art in a way that our whole apartment doesn't seem like a tribute to shows I've done in fun locations. And once we do that, we're golden, and presumably my brain will be liberated to think other kinds of thoughts.

I mean, I do live more than one block from a Dunkin' location for the first time in fifteen years, but I will survive.

Aside from one spite-poop and one spite-pee in the new apartment, Maggie has taken things in four-legged stride. She loves snooping on the neighbors through our pug-height windows, and she has been uncharacteristically patient with other dogs in the neighborhood. We are concerned that this might just be because she thinks she's on vacation and has been on her best behavior away from the home which she has sworn for some reason to protect with her life. Time will tell!

maggie the pug looks down on the street from the terrace of our apartment which is covered in fake grass (it was like that when we moved in) — Nosiest pug in Brooklyn surveys her new neighborhood.

Oh! Tickets for my shows in San Diego (10/28) and Chandler, AZ (10/29) are on sale now! My road schedule is filling in for the fall, and I'd love to see you at a show! Come through or tell some friends or both!

This week I'll be on The Bugle (spoiler alert?) and singing a little song as part of Rachel Lichtman's Programme 4 show on Thursday at LPR downtown and telling jokes normal ways at the Greenpoint Comedy Club on Saturday night and otherwise getting my life together and seeing friends. Of course I will be in the audience for the launch of the paperback edition of Maris's essay collection on Wednesday at The Strand, feat. Megan Greenwell and Amanda Hess. Also...Alison called me an idiot in her Grub Street Diet, and she's not wrong.

PEP TALK FOR UNFAMOUS WEDDING GUESTS

Stars, they're not like us at all sometimes! — Gigi Hadid in a pink dress and Bradley Cooper in a pretty normal tuxedo, not in the same frame Credit : Dimitris Giannetos/instagram;TheStewartofNY/GC

Note: If you hear me say some of this on The Bugle this week, mind your business.

Emerging pop star Taylor Swift and her podcaster fiancé Travis Kelce got married over July 4th weekend at Madison Square Garden. Some people said their choice of date and venue were tacky, which is not my place to judge. But I will say as someone who got married in the middle of a holiday weekend in New York…it is kind of a dick move. I want take this time to apologize to everyone I made travel to Brooklyn over Memorial Day Weekend, and especially anyone who had to go BACK to Boston the next day for our mutual friend Barry’s wedding, which I did not make it to. And also…sorry Barry.

We know a few things about the event despite its translucent shroud of semi-secrecy: Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney both performed. And Adam Sandler served as the officiant. Attendees had to sign NDAs which I know were effective because I know roughly half a dozen people who were there, and not ONE of them will answer my texts asking if Sandler did the voice. (“Ooo. Taylor Swift. CongratuLATIONS.”) Comings and goings of the rich and famous were well-chronicled by entertainment journalists, as they tend to be. But what about everyone else?

There must have been SOME people there in attendance who weren't famous. Old friends of Taylor or Travis's. Donna Kelce's book club or a pal she met on the set of The Traitors. The caterers, even. When you are Modern Family star Eric Stonestreet, people take you at your word that the picture of you in formalwear was actually snapped as you got ready to witness The Travaylor Kwift nuptials. But how in the world can a normal person prove it without violating their own sacred vows (the NDA). You aren't allowed to talk about what happened there, and even if you could, how would anyone know that you had the inside scoop? There aren't yet any pictures to verify.

Sometimes a secret is more fun than a brag. Having been to the Taylor/Travis wedding feels like the nice version of I Know What You Did Last Summer. It's something you can only discuss with the friends who were there with you. Only in this case, a ghastly figure with a hook for a hand isn't going to hunt you down and kill you one by one. Eventually (whether that's in six weeks when the inevitable Disney+ wedding special drops or decades from now when you've got nothing to lose) you'll be able to share some details about your experience, much like people are doing online after Lindsey Graham's death. But for now, comfort yourself with the ability to smugly smile and tell your even-less-famous friends and family: "I'm sorry but I really can't talk about that."

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I've done some little edits on this sweet and thoughtful request. I also added the nickname, as is my custom.

My husband and I have a pep talk request. Our 16th anniversary is coming up on July 25th, and he is stuck in bed healing from back surgery. It's a slog and it hurts and I know he worries that at 43, he's just never going to be the same. I know that's not true, but I'm not the one stuck with the injury.

I can't really plan a trip or even a dinner out, given the back limitations, to celebrate. He adores your pep talks and it would be a great anniversary flourish (with no physical requirements!) if you could fit him in for pepping. He's a whip smart former math professor turned actuary, father of two, annoying winner of every game he touches, cricket fan (?), excellent baker, and lately, gardener.
- Not-So-Sweet 16th

Having been together for over a decade and a half already, you and your husband have certainly experienced some ups and downs already. If you haven't, congratulations on your unprecedented run of joy and prosperity up until this point. I don't mean "ups and downs" in the sense of an Instagram anniversary post that includes the phrase "we've had our challenges..." and makes everyone who knows you start up a group chat to speculate about an impending separation.

Quick aside: To anyone experiencing the impulse to include such a caveat in your own Happy Anniversary instagram post. You don't actually have to do that. Even if you and your partner have spent the past year stockpiling literal nuclear weapons to use against one another, you do not have to allude to it publicly. You can just say: "I love you so much, babe." Any vague whiff of trials and/or tribulations without a clear reference point ("Even though our adult son drunk-drove his Ford F-350 into the side of our house...") everyone in your life will assume one or both of you were cheating on the other.

That doesn't seem to be the case with you all! You are in a down period that results from the normal ebbs and flows of a life together. Sometimes a bad thing happens to you. Sometimes a bad thing happens to someone you love. Like you said up top, a misfortune befalling someone you care about deeply also happens to you, but less. And while you haven't exactly been here, before, you've almost definitely been somewhere proximate.

I have gone on the record many times as believing that when something bad has happened to you, an additional bad thing shouldn't be allowed to transpire. It's not sporting, frankly. I also believe that nothing bad should be allowed to happen during a moment of celebration because what the hell!

However! You two love each other very much, and even though you can't embark on a traditional (citation needed) 16th anniversary bungee jump or amateur karate tournament, your care for one another is not diminished. Instead of conceptualizing this situation as "an unfortunately-timed surgery impeded our celebration," maybe consider that a creative and low-impact anniversary observance could mitigate some of the dreariness of recovery. That's for your husband, not you, by the way. Imagine if I was like: "Stop letting your spouse's busted spine ruin your good time!"

Also for your husband: You are a high achiever with a diverse set of skills and interests. You are probably right that things won't be quite the same after your recovery, but that's largely because nothing is the same after anything else. Over sixteen years of marriage, things have changed in ways you realize and ways you haven't thought to pinpoint. They were going to keep changing no matter what happened to your back. But there's a great chance that one of the ways circumstances will keep shifting is that they'll get better than they are now. You'll come back up from the down you're in even though that future is hard to see.

And when you're back on top, remember to provide explicit context in your Instagram post about it next year, or else your friends will think you've been having an affair with your physical therapist.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Sad13 - "Friend of the P"

Sonically, we're in some heavy/dreamy territory with this one, but starting off a song with the lyric "my contribution to the discourse is to shut the fuck up" is a perfect way to set things in motion. "Friend of the P" comes from the new project by Sad13 (the great Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz), a collection of very short and very good songs called 1331.

Sadie is the best, and I am always excited to hear her new music! I love the metacommentary of a song about burnout and being undervalued taking up so little time. "This is all you get." Etc. And in that spirit, that's all I have to say about that. See you next week!