Who Sparks the Mood More Often, and 20 Other Questions About Love, Life and Family.
Like what our manscape routines are and our advice for couples who are both tops
Watch
The Idea of You/Anyone But You. Two romantic comedies for the price of you! I don’t think it’s a secret that romantic comedies (let’s stop calling them romcoms, please, at the insistence of Nancy Meyers herself) are my favorite genre of movie, and two were just released on streaming recently. The Idea of You was light, fluffy, and so much fun. Based on the book of the same name, it stars Anne Hathaway as Selene, a newly divorced single mom who meets the star of a boyband, Hayes, at Coachella and sets off on a jet setting romance with him. The catch is she is 40 and he’s 24, so the age gap + the fact that he’s a world-famous pop star and she’s dealing with her teenage daughter and cheating ex-husband naturally creates obvious problems for them. Such a cute movie, though, and I think you’re going to love it as much as we did.
Also! Anyone But You finally came to Netflix and we devoured it! It’s one of those rare R-rated romantic comedy that merits its mature rating: Male full frontal! Lots of curse words! Sex! All of it came together to make a rather enjoyable film. After an incident two years ago, Sydney Sweeney’s character Bea despises Glen Powell’s character, Ben, but as fate would have it, her sister is marrying Ben’s best friend’s sister, which means they’re both going to the wedding. It’s a destination wedding in Australia, so the setting is obviously gorgeous, but the drama and hilarity and scandal that ensues is what really elevates this movie. I laughed out loud multiple times and thought the chemistry between the two leads was electric, and all of the supporting characters were charming, too. Overall a great little popcorn flick, as I like to call them, that was such a fun watch.
You can watch The Idea of You on Amazon Prime and Anyone But You on Netflix.
Read
The Tree Paine Fan’s Guide to 'The Tortured Poets Department' Do you follow
’ genius pop culture newsletter, ? I find myself laughing out loud every time I read one of her posts, and this one about Tree Paine, Taylor Swift’s famed publicist, was no exception. “Taylor Swift’s publicist Tree Paine has been of particular fascination to Hung Up3 — and by Hung Up I mean very clearly me — for some time. Hyper-competent people both thrill and terrify me. Have you ever met an event producer with an iPad? Someone whose job requires them to wear a headset? You cannot cross those people. It’s not in your best interest. Tree Paine is like that: God save her, and God save me from her. (As your most annoying friend with a disastrous personal life will tell you: two things can be true at once.)”If you’re not subscribed to Hung Up, you must do so immediately. You can read the whole post here.
Listen
Radical Optimism. Dua Lipa’s third studio album is here and it already feels like a classic. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since Future Nostalgia was released, and that album contained so many great songs that it’s hard to imagine a follow up to it. Radical Optimism is a solid successor, but not as good as FN in my opinion. Still, it brings the same bangers-but-with-good-lyrics as her previous album and I can already imagine how good they’re still going to be in 20 years. The best tracks are “These Walls”, “French Exit”, “Houdini”, and “Happy For You”.
You can listen to Radical Optimism anywhere you get your music.
Happy Tuesday, loves! How was your weekend? First up, we wanted to thank you for taking the Okay McKay survey! Over 300 of you shared thoughtful, honest, and valuable feedback about the kind of content you want to see in this newsletter and it was so helpful! We’ve been doing Okay McKay for eight months now, which is so crazy to say, but during that entire time I had yet to ask you what it is that YOU really want to see here. It motivated and inspired me to share even more going forward, and I can’t wait to see where this goes. Hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are!!
In other news, in between torrential downpours, we spent a good part of the weekend outside and it felt so healing. We got a ton of work accomplished at the farm on Sunday, which is why we didn’t do our weekly Vino & Vent this week.
Last year we got into the routine of PJ going to the farm to work on Holiday House/take care of the animals and I would stay home and do social media work and clean up the house. This weekend, however, as he was about to go to the farm, he asked if I wanted to come with him. I thought about it for a moment, because to be honest, manual labor in the hot sun is not my idea of a good time. But, it is PJ’s absolute ideal way to spend a weekend afternoon, so because he has been making so many cute little efforts to be extra sweet this week by helping with tasks here and there, I thought that it was the least I could do to help him with his.
And you know what, dear reader? It was wonderful. I mowed on our zero-turn lawn mower while he was in the tractor moving mulch around and we were zipping by one another, headphones in and blaring Taylor Swift, of course, and in that moment we just felt like such a team. I loved being there with him and working our farm together, and I felt such a sense of accomplishment by the end of it.
We shoveled so much mulch that I got a blister (my hands aren’t used to this kind of work! haha) but it was so worth it. We came home utterly exhausted but in the best way possible.
Meanwhile, we did something else productive this weekend that we have we have been meaning to do for months: We finally picked out and ordered the countertops for Holiday House!
The slabs are cut! The order is placed! They will be installed in under 10 days! This step was really the final piece in completing our little farmhouse, or at least getting it to the point where we can finally stay in it this summer. The plumber came out last week and installed the toilets and shower fixtures, so once the counters are installed in the kitchen and primary bathroom, we’re officially good to go! We can’t wait to spend all summer there. It won’t be long now.
What are your manscape routines as a married couple? We both have a similar routine, and we’re both into the same look: unshaven but still kept. Neither of us are into the hairless look, which, thank goodness because we can spend more time doing literally anything else than worrying about manscaping as much, haha.
When is your anniversary? October 17th, 2015!
What is your advice about finding genuine friends? I’ve struggled recently. Making friends as an adult is not for the faint of heart! It’s tricky and awkward and can be difficult. The way we’ve made the most friends is honestly at the gym. And then they introduce us to their friends and it’s like a ripple effect. We recommend trying to meet people at the gym or church or maybe consider joining a team sport of some kind. It’s not easy, but at some point you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable and put yourself out there, and sometimes it will stick and sometimes it won’t, but the important this is that you at least try. You might surprise yourself.
How do you balance intimacy and raising small children simultaneously? This is one thing we have never stopped doing, even after having kids. When the kids go to bed, we make time for that, whether it’s in the bedroom or on the couch watching TV and a movie. We also both work from home so we have all day while the kids are at school and really get that quality, one on one time with each other.
Is how you handle disagreements different with kids vs before kids? The short answer is yes. On one hand, we’ve just been together even longer now, so little things that we would get upset about before just don’t mean as much, and we also stay angry for such a shorter amount of time. Also, a big thing we do that we learned from Kristen Bell and Dax Shepherd, is to apologize for our arguing in front of the kids. A lot of times the kids will witness us arguing or disagreeing because we’re human and we all live under the same roof, and we also want them to have a realistic view on relationships and know that they will argue with every person in their life that you care about at some point, but what they don’t always see is when we make up behind closed doors. So after we’ve made up from an argument, we will consciously let them see us hug and kiss and apologize to each other so that they know yes, people fight, but they also resolve and apologize.
What term of terms of endearment do you call each other? PJ calls me T-mas, which is his nickname for me and I hope he never stops. I just call him baby or sweetie, which I call our kids, too. When I type it out, it sounds icky, but in the moment when I say it it always just sound natural and sweet, haha.
Would you ever run for (local!) public office? School board? Town council? Why/why not? As I’ve gotten older, I have thought more and more about this. I don’t think this season of our life would be the best time for it, with little ones at home and our business. It just doesn’t feel like good timing, and I don’t think my skills would be best served in public office right now. However, I would never rule it out in the future and could actually see it happening one day when things have calmed down around here.
Where did you guys meet? We met at a mutual friend’s get together back in 2009! Well, it was a friend of a friend for me, and it was PJ’s best friend. I had heard about THEE PJ McKay for years, since our town is tiny, and I had seen his photo on MySpace before. When I heard he was going to be at this little party, my heart started pounding. I’m not sure why, because I wasn’t out so there was no chance of me making a move, and he was also there with his then-boyfriend, so nothing was going to happen. But I remember I couldn’t take my eyes off him the entire night. A year later, when he and his boyfriend broke up, we reconnected on FaceBook and the rest is history!
Who sparks the “mood” more often? Like who flirts, teases, tries to romance etc. more often? I would say PJ does this way more than I do. PJ is a very sexual person in nature, but I am much more flirty with words and touchy-feely, so I would like to think we balance each other out.
How do you know when you’re dating someone who’s emotionally available? This is a feeling that is hard to explain, but one you just know. Like, if they listen to what you’re saying, take it in and give you genuine responses, answer your texts when you send them and the phone when you call, then you know they’re probably pretty emotionally available. If it feels like a struggle to even talk to them, either in person or on the phone, then I don’t know if they’re in it with you. You have to feel a connection that is more than just sexual, it has to be emotional and mental, too. If you have to keep telling yourself, “I like them, but I just wish they showed me more affection/attention/desire/etc” then they are probably not emotionally connecting with you.
Do people still comment on PJ’s weight? They don’t (thankfully)! We talked about it in this vlog, but basically during the pandemic, PJ lost 20 or more pounds because, like most everyone in the entire world, 2020 was a very hard year on him mentally. He was also working on one of our flip houses every day that summer in the blazing heat and was sweating a ton, so that, mixed with his mental health struggles caused him to lose a lot of weight very fast. It’s weird because I barely noticed, since I was with him all day every day while we quarantined, but looking back at that video, it’s clear just how low his weight got to. Ugh. I don’t even like thinking about that time.
When are you both getting short haircuts again? Buzzcuts? I honestly don’t know! I have realized I simply don’t like short hair on me and I always feel most like myself whenever it’s longer, like it is now, so who knows. PJ keeps his pretty short, and actually just got it cut. You will probably never see us with a buzzcut, though!
Do you guys ever miss the life you had before you were parents? We have the unique privilege of always being reminded what our life was like before kids because of all the YouTube videos and Instagram posts that pop up to say, “Hey, remember this?” But as far as missing our life before our children came into the picture, no, not really. There are aspects of it that are fun to remember, like when we would take trips with just the two of us and not worry about leaving the kids with someone, but we’re so in the thick of parenting right now that whatever feelings of nostalgia that may pop up are overpowered by the love we have for our life now.
How was it “explaining” or bringing awareness to your kids about you both being dads? Because they were so young when we started fostering them, our kids never questioned why there were two men raising them. Once school started and they were around other kids who questioned it, they began to ask more and more. As with pretty much everything in our life and family dynamic, we’ve been open with them from the very beginning about the fact that they were in foster care and then adopted by us because we’ve always wanted kids and fell in love with them the moment we first saw them. They’re surrounded by gay couples in their life, from us to our best friends to my sister and her wife, so they’re used to seeing that normalized. We want it to feel as natural to them as seeing a heterosexual couple raise kids. Children are extremely smart and resilient, and it’s almost always the adults in their lives who either screw things up or teach them about love and acceptance. I’d like to think our kids are learning the latter.
Did you think about surrogacy? We did! We did a ton of research, spoke to other gay couples who had done it, and even did Zoom calls with doctors in other states to set us up on that path. In the end, though, our hearts kept coming back to foster care because of the strong need for it in this country.
Have you ever filmed an HGTV-type show? Once upon a time (2017), in a land far, far away (the town we live in), we filmed a pilot episode for HGTV called, wait for it: Down to the Studs. We filmed it at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, and it aired twice on HGTV in the summer of 2017. It didn’t get picked up for a series, which at the time felt like such a crushing blow because we had poured our blood, sweat, and tears into the filming and renovation of our home for six months, but now it feels like another life ago. Not getting a show allowed us to really dive into social media, travel all over, and meet some amazing people. I don’t know if everything necessarily happens for a reason, but this time, it really did work out for the best.
What was your experience like when shopping for engagement/wedding rings? It was very simple and straight forward. I wanted a gold band for our rings, but I was 24 and on a very strict budget, meaning I could only afford tungsten carbide ones, which we still wear today. I went into Kay Jewelers and looked at a bunch of different ones one evening with my cousin to surprise PJ, and the sales person said these didn’t show any scratches and were basically indestructible. All these years later, she was right because there isn’t a scratch on them. We’ve talked about upgrading to gold for our 10th wedding anniversary, which is next year (!).
What are some of the “little things” you both have been enjoying most lately? What a thoughtful question. Going to the farm, doing yard work both there and at our house in town now that it’s spring, listening to our daughter’s new lisp she’s developed since losing her front tooth (so cute), hanging out with new friends, grilling chicken outside, watching our oldest become more mature and sassier at the same time, and going to the gym Monday through Friday.
How do you discipline the kids? Do you ground them, take devices away? When it comes to discipline, we’re definitely very strict parents. They don’t have devices (except for on road trips), but they do have video games and TV (which, okay I guess those count as devices), so those do get taken away as consequences sometimes, along with toys and games. We do our best for the consequence to match the offense, which can be tricky at times. Who knew parenting would be so complicated (said everyone, ever)?!
Advice for a couple that are both tops? I would recommend one (or both) of you practice on being a bottom if you both want to top one another. There is so much helpful content about it all now that you can consume and educate yourself on. It can be hard to envision yourself bottoming if you’re a top, but go slow and understand there will be discomfort at first, but you never know, you may really get into it. We have a friend who didn’t enjoy bottoming for years and suddenly this year he tried it again and has fallen in love with it. You just might surprise yourself!
What is one or two things that gets under your skin that the other does? I have this awful thing where I clear my throat what seems like every few minutes (I know, I know!) and it drives PJ absolutely bonkers. Meanwhile, PJ like to scare me at random times during the day, even though (or especially because) he knows I hate jump scares. He’s a stinker.
All the cute ways my husband lets me know he’s here
After 7 years, we finally found the perfect chandelier for our dining room!
I feel so high school when I look at you
Do you follow the Met Gala coverage? It’s always on the first Monday in May, which was last night, and I keep reading how confusing the theme was this year, so much so that Anna Wintour literally apologized for it, but I still found myself enamored with all the fashion.
Check out all the best, worst, and wackiest menswear looks here, and to see all the looks, click here (Zendaya!).
That’s all for this week, dear readers!! Hope you enjoyed, thank you for subscribing, and we will see you next week!! Also, feel free to join us on our weekly live chat show, Vino & Vent, on Sundays at 8p ET on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube!
xoxoxo,
PJ & Thomas
Always look forward to the newsletter! Thank you for being fantastic role models to someone like me, who felt isolated and alone for so long in my queerness! Now I have a wonderful fiancé, and seeing the two of you gives me hope! 🥰
Loved your answers to our questions, my husband read the newsletter to me how romantic.