Left of the Dial

the lament of the young and belovéd

"I am so strong and capable and if my parents cared about me less I could show it off sometimes." — our poor self-sufficient daughter, suffering under the unbearable weight of helpful parents

 

the best medicine, or just what big pharma WANTS you to think

So Top Management mentioned that she'd read a study which indicated that how often a couple laughs together is an excellent predictor of how long they'll stay together. 

"Well, dammit, there's our problem right there," I say. "So all we have to do is..." 

We look at each other. And burst out laughing. 

"Great," she says. "There's another week." 

Now whenever we laugh at something, one of us says, "Great. Now we have to stay together one more week." 

feeling not so much seen as read

I send this tweet to my good lady wife:

She laughs. "That's funny," she says. 

"Is it?" I ask. "Is it though? Or does being with such a person simply make it impossible for the, say, husband to ever win an argument against, say, his good lady wife? I'm asking for a friend." 

(Editor's note: he has no friends.) 

She smiles. "Oh, I'm sorry. I meant that's fun." 

character identification

So The Brawn and I have been making our way, slowly, through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of several projects the various spawn and I have started as a way to get through the pandemic. We're now up to the greatly underrated Doctor Strange and, as if more proof of his intelligence were needed, The Brawn absolutely loved it, justly reveling in its visual sumptuousness. 

But that wasn't the only thing that resonated with him. During a scene during which the magnificent Chiwetel Ejiofor questions another character's morality, the titular hero argues, "She was complicated."

Beside me, from the darkness, I hear a voice quietly respond, "Aren't we all." 

one of these things is not like the others

I am luckier than most parents in that most of my kids are pretty unpicky when it comes to foods. The problem is that there are so many of them, so that some will love a given meal, some are okay with it and at least one dislikes it. And because I am the most sensitive of souls, I try to avoid making my children unhappy. I fail. I fail every single day, many times. But I try. (I just hide that I try.) 

Which inevitably leads to scenes such as this:

I like to think it's a bonding moment. Because what brings kids together like sneering at a sibling who's being good? 

when in Rome

Top Management and I step outside the house for our daily walk, or our Daily Staff Meeting, as we refer to it. (And which it kinda is.) It's a lovely day, mid-50s, cloudy, only the tiniest hint of a breeze. 

Suddenly, the clouds disappear and we find ourselves in blazing full-strength sunlight, not a shadow in sight. 

"What the hell's with the sun?" I say, shocked. 

Top Management laughs. "That's the most Portland thing I've ever heard." 

so THAT's where she got it

Top Management sighs the sigh of the deeply and justifiably exhausted. 

"Man," she says. "I ate so many frogs today. I ate all the frogs today." 

I look over at her. "What?!" I say, not unreasonably. 

She looks surprised that I'm surprised. "You know, the Mark Twain thing." 

"What?!" I again say, still not unreasonably. 

"You know, his thing about how if you're served a plate full of things you have to eat and you like all of them except there's also a frog there and you have to eat it, you should eat it first?" 

I start laughing. "This explains so much," I say. 

made for her

Top Management and I are watching the second season of a very good show. It's near the end of the first episode and so far it's good, maybe even very good. We're both intrigued and up for continuing. 

Until the end of the episode. When there's a twist and Top Management suddenly sits up straight. 

"Wait a second," she breathes. "Is this...is that place...a cult?!" 

And suddenly "intriguing" just morphed into Must See TV.

Sometimes I wonder about the various Roads Not Taken. And sometimes I'm very, very glad they weren't took. 

guilty as charged

It's a weekend morn and we've been lazing in bed, reading. And for an hour, we've been going back and forth, saying we need to get up, it's time to get up, we're hungry, we're starving, we should really get up. 

Finally, after an hour my very deep need for coffee gets the better of me and I roll out of bed and shamble towards the door. 

I catch a glimpse of my good lady wife and there's a look of utter betrayal on her face. 

"Traitor," she says in disbelief. 

perfectly imbalanced

It's something they never tell you ahead of time. Or maybe they do and you just can't really understand it until you experience it for yourself. How sometimes you'll be looking at your kids and your heart will physically hurt from how much you love them, how lucky you feel you are, how undeserving. 

And then other times they'll do or say something—or many somethings—and you think, yeah, that guy had a point. 

busted

I've finished reading the bedtime story to the three youngest—my fourth, I think, and final time through The Lord of the Rings, he said sadly—and I finish with the family ritual my late, great brother John introduced me to, which is asking each of the kids to say something good about their day; Johnny had his boys list three things each, I believe, but I've got way more kids, and their lives are apparently exponentially less rich, because they sometimes struggle to come up with a single good thing about their day. (To be fair, if I allowed The Brawn to list video game-related stuff, he'd never have any problem listing a dozen good things about his day.) 

They each cough up a good thing about their day, and then Max—who's taken to sitting in on our evening's reads–adds hers. I call into the blue room (which isn't blue) to ask Bean for her good thing about the day, as usual, and she chimes in. I don't bother asking the Rose, because although I can't see her, she's always got headphones on at this time of night and can't hear us anyway. 

As we're wrapping up, the Brawn does something that annoys the Golden Weasel. "Please don't," she says, the words polite, the tone sharp, and although I didn't see what happened, I saw her twist her body in a way that would indicate he'd probably poked her in the back with a toe. 

It's late, I don't feel like getting into it, since I'm heading downstairs and he's about to sleep and she's going to sweep the first floor, so I push the parental guidance off for a future date, another day, hopefully when his mother's on duty. But without even really thinking about it, I find myself humming the bassline to MC Hammer's best-known song (said bassline, of course, having been...let's say "borrowed" from Rick James). 

Suddenly, from the blue comes a surprising voice yelling "Can't touch this!" 

There's a stunned silence as we process what just happened. 

Then I yell at the Rose, "You can hear us?!" 

There's another pause, briefer this time, then she bursts laughing. "Four years of pretending I couldn't hear you so I didn't have to come up with a good thing of the day down the drain! 'Can't Touch This' is just too powerful!"

for the record, she was eating the chips I'd just bought

ME: Why are you smiling like that? 

THE ROSE: Because you're being mean to me. 

ME: How'm I being mean to you? 

THE ROSE: You just said I was terrible!

ME: That's not being mean. That's just stating a fact. 

to blaeve

To the love of my life who, after nearly 17 years together, is still the best girlfriend. 

the heart of the matter

"Hey," I ask, as I occasionally do about assorted things, "can I buy [this wicked expensive thing I really want but absolutely do not need in the slightest]?" 

"Of course," Top Management replies, as she always does. Perhaps because she knows I virtually never actually do buy the thing in question, no matter what the thing is this time. (Although it's pretty much always musical gear.) 

I shake my head. "You're an enabler." 

She shrugs. "You're more realistic and sensible with money than I am, so I figure, if you think it's a good idea, then it probably is." 

We look at each other for a long moment. 

"Seriously?" 

"Yeah. Why?" 

"Because I thought you were the one who was realistic and sensible with money." 

We stare at each other in mounting horror. 

"Well, the good news is, I think I just figured out where we've been going wrong all these years." 

needs no fixing

So we're sitting around the dining and living room, listening to baroque brass music, as is our family's tradition on Sunday mornings, thanks to a book I read in college called Who's Afraid of Classical Music, by Michael Walsh, which stated definitively that the only time one would wish to hear a baroque trumpet concerto—from which it naturally followed that one would nearly always wish to hear baroque brass during Sunday mornings. So for years we've been listening to various baroque (and classical, an era on which I am otherwise am somewhat lukewarm) horn and trumpet concerti. 

But sometimes I'll switch it up slightly. So last week we listened to a brass arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's magnificent Art of the Fugue. And this week I first put on Jason Vieaux playing lute works by Bach, arranged for classical guitar.

Then, when I switched to trumpet pieces, also by Bach

I heard someone behind me actually say, "whoo hoo!"

I looked over and saw The Bean sitting on the couch, reading on her phone, and asked if she'd really just "whoo hoo'd" the trumpet.

She gave me a puzzled look and said, "well, yeah."

innocent bysitter

So it's all fun and games when you're working in your basement studio shortly before midnight and your 22-year-old comes down with a question and the two of you find yourselves watching a cool video and laughing until the next video autostarts and this one is a giant spider and you instinctively and frankly quite reasonably yell "no!" and apparently wake your good lady wife out of a deep sleep and it's clearly all the kid's fault as usual. 

December 17th

It's such a strange thing. Thanks to FB—one of the few things that truly evil entity does which is not, as far as I can tell, actively attempting to institute fascism—I know that I have at least six friends who all have birthdays on December 17th: three colleagues from the world of comics, one from homeschooling circles, one of my best friend's little brothers, and, oh, yes, my good lady wife. Not to mention post-punk musicians Bob Stinson and Mike Mills. As well as Bill Pullman, Eugene Levy, Pope Frankie, Sarah Paulson and, of course, Bob Guccione. 

All of which leads one to wonder: what the hell is in the air/water every year nine months earlier? 

And then I did the math. And I realized that what all those parents clearly had in common was an absolute refusal to beware the Ides of March. (Either that or a rather satyric carpe diem attitude.) 

the secrets to and of mawwiage

Interviewer: You've been happily married for 26 years. How do you keep the romance alive?

Me: We forward political tweets to each other all day long

— Melissa Wiley's NERVIEST GIRL has hit the shelves (@melissawiley) November 6, 2020

Me and @melissawiley trying to figure out what to watch next.
ME: Well, we've been meaning to try...uh...what's it called...Mr...Mr...
HER: Oh, right! Ted Lasso!
ME: Yes!
[...]
ME: How did you get that?
HER: I have no idea.

— Scott Peterson (@petersonscott) November 6, 2020

timing is everything

Watching the vice presidential debate, Top Management is getting angrier and angrier. 

Finally, she turns to me and growls, "thank you for not being one of those men who interrupt women when they're mid-sent--" 

"You're welcome," I say. 

announcing my presence with authority

So the Golden Weasel sent me this the other day: 

I could be wrong, but I feel like she's trying to tell me something.

Look, if you sneeze and every single person in your quite populous household isn't aware of it, did you even sneeze? And if you didn't, do you even exist? 

winning!

So the Golden Weasel and the Brawn have been on a gaming kick lately. Today they were playing Star Munchkin when I got back from the store. 

I lean over the Brawn's shoulder and loudly whisper, "don't let her see that you got that third ace." 

The Weasel gives me A Look...but not before glancing at her brother's cards, just to make sure he didn't have that third ace. 

a nutter in a haystack

"I'm still hungry," Top Management says. 

She's just finished breakfast, a typically light affair. Which means despite having just consumed a whopping 150 entire calories, she's somehow not sated. Especially since by now it's noon. 

"I could make you an everything bagel with cream cheese and ham," I suggest. 

She demurs. 

"How about an everything bagel with salami and provolone?" 

She again passes. 

"Carrots and hummus?" 

She sighs. 

And then the truth comes out. 

"These are all such good ideas," she admits. "But none of them are Nutter Butters and milk." 

Message [eventually] received. 

o grant thy faithful hedgehog's boon

I am not a smart man. But even I, after nearly 50 years with the same person, learn a thing or two. Such as the insanely vital importance of never ever keeping secrets from your significant other.

Unless the secret in question is what you discovered, as you went to grab a beer sometime after midnight so you could get to work on the script you're writing, crawling up the wall next to the stairs, is your good lady wife's second-least favorite thing in the entire known universe. 

works like a (snake) charm

So when I went freelance, one of my trusted colleagues—himself a long-time freelance writer— warned me that transitioning into being home all the time would likely be extremely difficult at first, that it was nobody's fault, it was just a fact that too much proximity to another adult would be difficult, especially since we were living in a small New York City apartment, and the other adult in question (Top Management) was used to having said apartment all to herself. 

We never found that to be the case. We were delighted to have an extra 50 hours a week together and, if anything, hated having to stop talking to each other so one could leave the room to go work. And 22 or so years later, that's still the case. When it's time for me to leave Lissa's studio to go make dinner or watch Doctor Who with the kids or whatever, my good lady wife will often break into an awesomely accurate Veruca Salt impersonation, expressing her displeasure with my impending departure. 

Fortunately, I have finally, after all these years, found a solution: I begin an interpretive dance which aims to illustrate how I personally feel about leaving her, the anguish I'm experiencing, the deep love I have for her and the conflicting emotion of paternal responsibility. Occasionally I'll throw in a small aside about current events or perhaps a recap of a recent television episode, just for contrast. 

I say I begin an interpretive dance, because I rarely get more than three seconds in before she says, "Okay, you can go now." 

Sure, she sounds eager for me to leave. But she's crying on the inside. I can tell. 

Love in the Time of COVID

It's late. Well, it's not really—it's only a bit after 11pm. But Top Management likes to get up around 6 in the damn morning so she can write before The Brawn gets up—for some reason, even after 25 years of practice, she apparently finds it difficult to write creatively once a small dervish begins whirling around in close proximity. (Yeah, he's still at the age—or perhaps just One of Those—who wakes up early and is immediately Ready and a-Rarin' to Go.) 

I notice she's on her phone, so I do as I've been repeatedly instructed by her, and I point out the time. "Get off Twitter," I say, gently, lovingly, sweetly, with only her best intentions in my heart, as always. 

She puts her phone down with a literal hmph and picks up her Kindle. 

"I can’t believe how many hot takes I’m missing right now," she grumbles. 

toasted

The 21-year-old comes downstairs at the crack of 10:15am and scratches my back. "Am...am I old enough that...I can just make myself cinnamon toast? Even though I'm not sick?" 

I am not a good father. You know those fathers you see on TV—or even in real life!—who are great about teaching their kids how to change their oil and take them to all their hockey practices while it's still dark and go on cross-country vacations to camp in the Grand Canyon and do their homework with them and make sure they're not eaten by rabid badgers and all that? Yeah, that ain't me. 

But there is precisely one thing I do really well as a father, and that's make cinnamon toast. Generally, yes, I only do it for each kid a few times a year, when they don't feel well, but since I have 4732879 children, that still means I end up making quite a bit, even if it doesn't seem that way to, say, Kid #7397 (what, like I can remember all their names). 

I try to glare at her but my heart is too shattered. The one and only fatherly thing at which I'm even moderately proficient and she wants to rip that single thing away from me. 

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she says. "You can make it if you want! I just didn't want to be a hassle." 

I get up in a snit (a very manly snit) and go make what is not my finest cinnamon toast ever but is still probably in the top 10% of all cinnamon toasts I've ever created. I keep it in the toaster the exact right amount of time, down to the millisecond. I pretend to hand it to her baby sister, which outrages and horrifies the 21-year-old, before she snatches the plate away, chirps "thank you, Daddy!" and goes into the dining room to eat it. 

I sulk down to my office and sit down and that's when it hits me how thoroughly I had just been played. 

She's definitely her mother's daughter. 

the facts of life

So I've been showing the two youngest—the Golden Weasel and the Brawn—an episode or two of M*A*S*H most weekdays. We started with the very first episode and have watched all but a few episodes per season—there are over 250 episodes, so skipping a few of the relatively weaker or more purely prurient or those which have not aged terribly well (and hoo boy do some of even the finest episodes have bits that have not aged well) doesn't seem like too great a crime. In this way, they're getting quite an education: they're learning some history (about the Korean War, which they'd never heard), and basic concepts such as triage, and military rank, and even some basic medical terminology. (Who knew that this was where I became familiar with the term "plasma"?)

They're also learning—or have now learned—how to watch a long-form episodic series which, to the surprise of me and Top Management, is actually something one learns to do, and is not necessarily innate; we grew up watching sitcoms from the time we were aware, pretty much, and perhaps even the occasional soap opera, so learned without realizing it. (The only time I ever watched soaps was when I was home sick from school, with the result that the sight or sound or even mention of a soap opera will sometimes make me feel slightly ill—yes, really.) 

That this is a learned thing is something we'd discovered with our oldest kids, but it was really driven home just how powerful long-form narratives can be—not exactly a revelation to either of us—when we watched the end of the third season, which as all should know, features one of the most shocking deaths in television history. We expected it to take them by surprise. We were not prepared for the fact that they were absolutely devastated. The Brawn was nearly inconsolable—"how could they do that?!" he said. "He was a main character!"—while the Weasel just went up to her room and laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling without speaking for half an hour. 

So we recently began the fifth season, a two-parter that has the unit bugging out. Colonel Potter finds what he believes is a suitable new location—there's only one small problem, and that's the house of ill repute which is smack dab in the middle, packed to the gills with ladies of the night and a madam who runs the place. 

"And that," I said to Top Management, as soon as it was over, "is how your two youngest became acquainted with the term and concept of a brothel." 

She just looked at me for a moment, then nodded. "You're really doing a great job with this homeschooling thing," she said. 

truer words

So I'm talking to Top Management about something, who knows what, but undoubtedly vitally important. What we were going to watch that night, perhaps, or the relative merits of Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs v their regular Cups. Anyhow, it was something imperative like that, something utterly central to the health of our relationship, and when it was clear we were at an impasse, we recognized that our marriage was, apparently over. (Yet again—it tends to end every few days; fortunately, it hasn't been permanent so far.) 

"Well," I said. "I guess that's that. It's been a good run." 

"Has it?" Top Management replied. "Has it, though? I mean...it's been a run." 

idée fixe

 

Idée fixe, (French: “fixed idea”) in music and literature, a recurring theme or character trait that serves as the structural foundation of a work. The term was later used in psychology to refer to an irrational obsession that so dominates an individual’s thoughts as to determine his or her actions. An outgrowth of Romanticism, the concept enjoyed its widest circulation during the 19th and the early 20th century.

I am the world's worst photographer. By every measure, I am simply terrible. Technically, I screw up the lighting, the composition, the focus, even with a self-focusing camera. I can't adjust the color later in a way that's aesthetically pleasing, and my cropping is haphazard at best. 

And yet there's one subject I'm drawn to again and again and which somehow gives me decent results, despite my complete ineptitude in all other areas. 

I call this series Portrait of an Artist at Work. 

venus v mars

I feel like this true story sums up the yin-yang of our dynamic fairly succinctly. 

 

Me: I think I'm going to hang a TODAY IS GOING TO BE AWESOME sign where it's the first thing we'll see every day @petersonscott: Funny you should say that. I set a daily Slack reminder that says REMEMBER YOU'RE GOING TO DIE

— Melissa Wiley (@melissawiley) February 8, 2020

haunted by taters of turkey day past

So I casually mention some foodstuff, and Top Management's eyes grow misty. "Oh, Marge and I used to get that all the time," she says, referring to her college roommate and eventual maid of honor. "It was her absolute favorite." 

"Really? I thought her favorite was your leftover mashed potatoes," I say, showing off my encyclopedic knowledge of her culinary history by referring to the one and only tiff they'd ever had, when Top Management had returned to their dorm room, famished, only to discover the Thanksgiving leftovers she'd brought back to school had been finished while she was in her Men's Images in Literature class. (Yes, really.) 

Eyes which had been misty only milliseconds before grow suddenly hard as diamond at the mention of that tuberous betrayal from [does some quick math] literally 32 years ago. "Too soon," she whispers menacingly. "Too soon." 

For Once in My Death

So I'm drinking my first morning cuppa, chatting with the Bean and the Golden Weasel, the morning playlist brightening up another rainy winter day here in the Pacific Northwest. 

"For Once in My Life," by the impossibly great Stevie Wonder comes on, and I realize that whenever someone asks me what my favorite song is—something that, I recently realized, doesn't happen nearly as often once you're out of school—this masterpiece never occurs to me, and yet when it's playing, it just may be my all-time fave. 

(I mean. Right?) 

A few minutes later, I mention this revelation to Top Management. She gets a look on her face. I mean, she's always got a look on her face, but this one...this one's different. 

"What?" I ask. "I've told you that before? I've told you that before, probably, haven't I?" 

She starts laughing. "Since 1989," she says slowly, "That's the song I've been planning to play at your memorial." 

the pause that refreshes

It's a slightly unusual day. The Boy is home on a weekday, on account of a school holiday, which alters the day's rhythm for his two younger siblings, as well as his parents. I was up until after 3 a.m., finishing up a script, and since I didn't need to get up before dawn to make The Boy's lunch, I slept in. A bit after 9:30 I pinged Top Management, who's been up for hours, to let her know I was awake. 

She comes in and flops down next to me. "Ah, bed," she sighs. "Bed is so good. My back likes bed."

She looks at her phone. "All right. I have so much I have to get done today. I'm going to be so productive. Let's see: it's 9:45. I'm going to play Minecraft until 10." 

There's a pause. Then she adds, through gritted teeth, "Thirty." 

Archimedes in San Diego with a Sponge

File this one under: an old story I'd never heard before. 

Some years back, Top Management and a young Rose were washing dishes together. This is because for at least a few years, our dishwasher was broken, so the two of them would wash the breakfast and lunch dishes (and then, if I remember correctly, I'd wash the dinner dishes). On the particular night in question, apparently Top Management filled a cup all the way up with soapy water and, deep in conversation and without thinking about it, plunged her hand, holding a sponge, into said cup in order to scrub it. Naturally, soapy water squirted out everywhere. 

Conversation stopped. 

The Rose stared at Top Management. 

Top Management stared at the water which had gone everywhere. 

Then she looked at the Rose and said, "and that's called displacement." 

Even when the glass is almost entirely empty, it's half-full with her. 

spite management

So Top Management is telling me this story about a guy who bought a spite cow. That's right: a spite cow. Which, in addition to being the name of my new Donny and Marie cover band, is a great tale of why it's rarely a good idea to get really petty with your next-door neighbor. That it would almost never turn out well for the initial instigator, and almost certainly worse. 

"I would be so good at that," Top Management says softly. 

A pause, and then she repeats. "I would be so good at that." 

A longer pause, and then a whispered, "I would." 

I suspect up and down our block, our (very nice!) neighbors felt a chill run up their spines.