I am not all the way okay.

And that's okay.

Are you okay?

It’s a sincere question. Just because you can’t answer me directly, in real time, doesn’t mean I don’t really want to know. At the very least, I want you to ask it of yourself: Am I okay? Maybe you are, maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re somewhere in between. Maybe you’re annoyed that I’ve broken the screen of your commodified attention only to come at you with a personal question that you simply do not have time for today.

Are you okay? Why do I ask, anyway?

It’s a bit selfish, really. I’m asking because I want you to ask me too. Because I, for one, am not all the way okay.

First, disclaimers and gratitude. There’s a lot that’s going well for me. Really well. My family is healthy. Two years ago, I started a mobile cocktail business called In Bar and it’s been steadily growing, especially since the beginning of 2025. My partner, Jenny, is supportive and intelligent and beautiful and patient with me, even when I fail for the 1,406^th time (conservative estimate) to pick my clothes up off the bedroom floor. Our kids, EJ and Juni, are 10 and 7 years old now, and though it often feels as if the older one would rather pick their nose with a chess piece than answer an open-ended question about something they’ve done recently, they’re both brilliant and they love to learn and we’re extremely fortunate to have them in our lives.

Especially when you take an honest look at the world we’re living in right now. The war in Ukraine has been going on for over three years. Israel and Palestine have been at battle from anywhere between 75 and 100 years or more, depending, as always, on who’s narrating the history. And whether we’re talking about the bloodshed in Kiev or Gaza or somewhere else entirely, children have not been spared. Beautiful, innocent kids have died and will continue to die.

Meanwhile, here in America—and this is where I’ll lose some of you, if we haven’t lost each other already—we have a president who doesn’t work for peace, but rather, seeks to inspire conflict both abroad and at home. Here are a few recent bullet points on the resume of He Who Shall Be Blamed, Donald J. Trump:

• spent $45 million in taxpayer dollars to throw himself a birthday parade under the guise of honoring the military;

• gave his tech bro, a drug-addicted tycoon, the power to cut 284,000 government jobs;

• has relentlessly attacked higher education, wasting additional millions of taxpayer dollars in his continued takedown of any type of critical thinking he deems as “woke”;

• deported over 140,000 migrants since January 2025, half of which did not have criminal records, and then on June 12, 2025, abruptly told ICE officials to pause raids and arrests in the agricultural, hotel, and restaurant industries, as if Trump himself suddenly became woke to the obvious financial reality that these industries will crumble without the immigrant labor they’re built upon.

It’s so hard to take the high road when it comes to this dude. Sometimes when I’m reading about Trump’s most recent executive order, looking at a picture of his smugly smiling orangey face, I just want to scream: Would you FUCKING STOP already?! Much like I want to do when one of our kids is being a jerk. Which is another thing that happens more and more often these days; a sweet child of mine turns into a low key asshole, talking obnoxiously rude to me or their mama or their sibling, and as much as I try not to shame them, striving to praise their good behaviors and constructively criticize their bad behaviors, there are times when I’ve used up all my patience and I just lose it.

A few weeks ago, as I was trying to get the kids to eat breakfast so we could leave for school, EJ, our newly minted 10-year-old, simply would not listen to me. And nor would they answer me when I addressed them, but instead kept their nose buried in a book and ignored me. (People who know how much I love to read may find the karmic energy of this quite amusing.) This happened five times in 30 minutes. Then, when we were finally getting out the door, as my hands were full with the recycling I had to take to the garage, EJ asked me what the weather was going to be like in the afternoon. When I didn’t respond within 1.5 seconds, they snarkily repeated their question, at which point I said, “EJ, I’m not sure.”

They rolled their eyes. (This happens with such frequency and intensity lately that Jenny and I are genuinely concerned that EJ will soon sever their optic nerves.) “Dada,” they said, their voice dripping with you’re-an-absolute-idiot sarcasm, “Don’t you know there’s a thing on your phone called a weather app?”

Oh. Snap.

Judge me as you will, Dear Reader, but I wanted to take this child—this child I used to sing to sleep with Sam Cooke and John Lennon songs as an infant; this child who spent countless days strapped to my chest on a baby carrier as we explored the metropolises of Asia together; this child I taught to read at age 4 with paper dog bones and bowls that I cut out to symbolize long and short vowels; this child who used to want to be the first ever Filipino non-binary president in American history—I wanted to take this child and throw them through the wall.

But of course I did no such thing. But damn did I ever raise my voice when we got into that car. Did it do any good though? I doubt it.

Which brings me back to Voldemort/Trump. 1) How do we get the President to change his behavior? and 2) Is it even possible?

1) I don’t know. And 2) I doubt it.

There are, however, reasons to hope. There is our growing community of people who give a damn here in Chicago. People like my friend Eli, just to name one. This past Saturday, on flag day, Eli led a group of a dozen or so runners in a peaceful protest from the West Loop to downtown, representing via the flags on our shoulders primarily the Latinx communities that are a cornerstone of the Chicago hospitality industry in which I’ve worked for years.

Band of Banderas, 06/14/25

Jenny often says that everyone should work in a restaurant or bar at least once in their life, and I agree. Spend a 9-hour shift in the company of diverse coworkers united in their goal to get good food and drinks to people in an efficient and hospitable manner, and I promise you’ll learn a lot about yourself. I promise you’ll be challenged. You’ll find out how you handle pressure, and how you work as part of a team. You’ll see how you respond when someone who’s had a terrible day or a terrible year or even a terrible life takes it all out on you, cussing at you in a crowded room at the top of their lungs. You’ll learn how it feels when a complete stranger looks you in the eye and says, “Thank you, I really needed that,” and it’s obvious that they’re talking less about whatever fancy cocktail you crafted for them and more about how you made them feel seen.

Anger is a secondary emotion. When you look behind anger, you’ll usually find someone who’s been hurt and made afraid. I suppose I talk shit on Trump not only because it’s easy to do so, but because I’m afraid for my kids who are going to inherit the world he’s laying waste to. Plus—and this is an unavoidable fact of life—it hurts that my kids are growing up and growing apart from me. It makes me sad. I miss the way EJ used to talk a mile a minute about every little detail that had happened during their school day. I miss their hand in mine. But again, there is hope: it does happen. They do still reach out to me, just not as much as they used to. More often, they too lead with anger, and I have to work to peel it back and see what they’re really feeling. This is about a million times easier said than done. It takes patience and lot of deep breaths. And sometimes alcohol. And maybe Netflix binges.

So to all the other parents and caregivers out there: I see you, and feel, perhaps, some kindred version of the struggles you’ve had to endure. And whether there are kids in your life or not, whatever you’re going through, just keep going. This is a reminder for me as much as it is for you.

You are not alone.

J.

Father’s Day / June 15, 2025

That was what I’m thinking; this is what I’m drinking…

A Daiquiri made with 1.5 oz. Agricole Rhum, 05. oz. Shochu, 0.75 oz lime juice, and 0.6 oz cane sugar syrup.

For questions about drinks and to learn more about my evolving mobile cocktail business, In Bar, please follow @inbarcocktails on Instagram.

Until next time, thank you, amidst all the noise, for reading!