Left of the Dial

mean girl

I'm heading downstairs when Top Management says, "you're going to be so mad at me when you get to your computer." 

I am, obviously, highly dubious. We've been together for [quickly does math and comes up with either 21 or 37 years and either seems plausible] some time now and I've not once been less than overjoyed with every single aspect of her (with the obvious exception of her bank account which is not nearly as overflowing with doubloons as I'd anticipated one belonging to a poetry major would be). 

And then I get downstairs. And she was right, as usual. 

I'd sorta kinda expected to see some delicious yet terrible for me treat to be awaiting me. 

Instead, I saw these photos in my inbox. 

I remember when I once loved my wife, five minutes ago, before she reached into my chest, ripped out my heart and slapped it onto the floor, cackling madly as she danced in its gory remains. 

(It's possible I do not care for the passage of time, in general.) 

Samson and Delightful

I walk into Top Management's studio just as she's singing, "Romeo and Juliet..." She stops when she sees me. 

I'm gobsmacked that she'd leave hanging like that. "Well?! What's the next line? Is it 'they never felt this way' or 'Samson and Delilah'?" 

She smiles and hugs me. "They never felt this way, I bet," she croons in my favorite voice in the world. 

I melt, overwhelmed by love. 

Then she sneers, "because they took the easy way out." 

And people think I'm the cynic. 

excellent suggestion

TOP MANAGEMENT: Hmm...what should I watch while I eat? Current affairs are just depressing me.

ME: Ooh, there's a new video on how to play double stroke rolls on the snare more cleanly!

TOP MANAGEMENT: Oh, planner videos! Yes! Great idea!

never heard the word impossible

This is what Top Management sang as she got up this morning.  

In case you were still wondering if I were really married to a Disney character who grew up in the real world 1970s. 

Mother's Day: an appreciation

For the guy who made the whole damn thing possible. 

I think that's what makes Top Management so very special: she knows who should really be celebrated today (and every day). 

It's Friday

I'm in love. 

(She'd just been taking a picture of that amazing tree—since she hadn't photographed anything blooming in nearly two and a half minutes—and caught me taking a photo of her taking a photo. You can see how irate she immediately was.) 

(I am the world's worst damn photographer. But when she's the subject, even I can take a good one once in a while. Or a series of good ones.) 

I have no idea why she's still with me. But I'm approaching the point where I also don't care why. I'm just so glad she is. 

my home, now and forever

So today is the 29th anniversary of the first date Top Management and I ever went on. We've always considered it more of a real anniversary than our wedding, since that just made legal what we'd already known, at that point, for five years. 

Oddly, the song that best encapsulates how I feel about her, I realized a while back, is from an artist I've always liked but very much never loved. But with this one, he said what I never could, not being good with words and all. 

Home could be the Pennsylvania turnpike

Indiana's early morning dew

High up in the hills of California

Home is just another word for you

Truer words. 

time passages

Top Management posted this photo on her Facebook page today. And looking at it, I was struck not so much by how goddamn thin and attractively hirsute I was, as by the fact that I was insane about her then, I positively adored her, and I am easily a thousand times more head over heels in love with her today, and I'll be even more so tomorrow. 

our juvenile delinquency of the day

I just walked in to tell Top Management dinner was ready. She slowly turned to look at me and there was absolutely no one at home. 

It was incredibly disconcerting, until I realized she was listening to Hamilton. 

I feel like that preacher from back in the day, trying to stem the tide, all King Canute-like. "The beat, the beat, the beat!" 

 

(I love that the preacher accidentally admits that he loves that demon rock and roll. Give in, preacher man: resistance is futile.) 

the answer to one of life's mysteries

Top Management sidles up to me. She looks troubled—an expression markedly different from her usual cheerful demeanor. 

"I...I need to ask you something," she says softly. 

I am trepidatious. "...okay..." 

Her brow furrows. "This is something I think I'm really supposed to have known a long time ago." 

"All right." I brace myself. 

She pauses, then mumbles, "Can you explain the Kardashians?" 

(No. No, I can't. No one can.) 

what I learned today

It is very hard to seriously reprimand a small child for something if his mother cannot contain her laughter over the transgression.

"Dude. What are you doing? Don't spit."

"He wasn't."

"He was. Were you spitting?"

Pause.

"Were you spitting? ...into the fan?"

Pause. Tiny nod from a small boy. Followed by a pathetic attempt at holding back surprised laughter from the small boy's amused-past-reason mother. 

Way to show a united front, lady. 

"I love boys," she gasps as I can do nothing but shake my head, thinking about the lesson he just walked away from this with. (Probably, correctly, that his mother is simply the damn best.)