I hope this is the weirdest, randomest reply you get today.

I enjoyed this piece. It’s a topic I’ve written about a good bit and worked on by (here comes the weird and random part) something called MABA — Make American Burpee Again — an annual challenge in which participants complete 100 burpees a day every day in January.

While it started as a lark in January of 2021, it became very obvious right away that via the burpees we were bonding, just like you and your friends bond over books.

I leaned into the MABA motto — Fall down. Get back up. Together — and framed MABA as an intentional way to fight loneliness because it’s impossible to be lonely if you’re doing 100 burpees outside every day with your friends (The vast majority of participants are members of F3, a free outdoor men’s workout group.) This year, the sixth, 1,500 people are on pace for 4 million burpees.

I have often written something like, “it’s not the burpees that matter. It’s the time together. It could be a book club or a baking club …” and today you made exactly that same point.

Anyway (more weird and random coming) the reason I’m writing is because of shirtless burpees in the snow. Whenever it snows, someone (usually me) starts a slack thread of videos of shirtless burpees in the snow. Usually our wives are in the background mocking us, and our kids, if they’re not doing the burpees with us, are giggling like doofuses.

The jackassery runs for hours with massive engagement. Yesterday a slack thread that continued for days culminated with a guy doing FIFTY! shirtless burpees in front of the fountain at the Bellagio (and nobody in Vegas so much as gave him a second look.)

And this is finally where I come to the point, assuming I actually have one. I wrestle against the face to face versus digital mess we find ourselves in and I’ve learned it’s not quite as binary as I once thought.

At first it annoyed me that we obsessively used Slack in a challenge meant to fight loneliness because I blame Slack (and the rest) for our loneliness.

I don’t know what to make of any of this. If nothing else I hope I have indeed written the weirdest and randomest reply you get today.