Jordan Weeks:

“Hey Manders, Your post yesterday really affected me, even shook me up a bit. In a good way. It started so clean and sharp, and ended with the thing that I come back to your work over and over for: a voice ringing out my kind of open-eyed, clenched-fist hope. They’re rare. Life is very hard, and I’m serious – I NEED those voices, to regain my sense of balance and to touch base with sanity. I’m very sorry to hear about your breakup. I was rooting for you two, man. Now I’ll be rooting only for you next time, I guess.”

I emailed Jordan back:

“[Redacted: a detailing of my own failings in contributing to the breakup.] So obviously I wish that I could be held up as the Virgin Mary of writing and comedy and truth in this situation — but somehow I really don’t think she would have handled it this way.”

And Jordan replied, quite spectacularly:

“The Virgin Mary thing reminds me of a joke a priest told at my ex-in-laws’, one Sunday dinner about 10 years ago (that I thought was funny, but everyone else gave sideways glances to):

A mob brought a woman to Jesus, ready to stone her. Jesus replies, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ Everyone is silent. Suddenly, a rock sails out from the crowd and bonks the woman on the head. Jesus stands up and yells, ‘Goddammit, mom, sometimes you really piss me off!’ “

And that is why I love my friends.