Baking Pies with Kendrick Lamar

On a day when so many Americans will be rooting for either the Eagles or the Chiefs, I am rooting for Kendrick Lamar. Let me tell you why:

A couple of weeks ago, I had a very convoluted dream in which my father asked me to use a house-sized tractor to mow half of the orchard that had once belonged to my grandparents. The riding mower that he asked me use — which was legitimately the size of a house — was a complicated monstrosity that neither started easily nor maneuvered with ease. But, being resourceful, I got the thing going and set about completing what I believed to be an idiotic and unnecessary task. Hello? The grass wasn’t even long!

I hadn’t been at my task for more than ten minutes when my friend Annie and her friend Chrissy showed up. “Hey!” they said, waving their arms around to get my attention. “You need to get cleaned up right away. Kendrick Lamar is in town and he wants you to bake pies with him at his grandma’s house!”

What an invitation!

In my dream, I immediately abandoned the house-sized mower and booked it over to Kendrick Lamar’s grandmother’s house, where we made a blackberry pie approximately two feet in diameter and a much smaller blueberry pie. Both had the most buttery, delicious crust you can possibly imagine. 

Anyway… since spending time with Kendrick Lamar in my dreams, I’ve felt a real connection to him, and when my fifth-period students asked who I was rooting for in the Super Bowl, I explained that the only person I care about seeing is Kendrick Lamar. I feel like we’re friends now, you know? We baked pies together. (I am forty-three years old, folks. Do you know how many pies I’ve baked with my friends over the years? None that I can remember. Obviously, what Kendrick Lamar and I shared was special.)

Fifth period asked if I liked Kendrick Lamar’s music and I had no idea how to answer this question because I’d never before experienced Kendrick Lamar’s music. This, not surprisingly, resulted in us listening to a clean version of “Not Like Us” at the end of class, and even though several of my students predicted that I wouldn’t like Kendrick Lamar’s art at all… I actually like his music very much! 

In doing further research about my buddy Kendrick, I’ve found that I support what he stands for. He’s for women, he’s for LGBTQ rights, and he’s for democracy. 

So I’m for him.