Diary of a Desperate Househusband*

HealthAngle Launches!

2008-04-22T21:36:00.007-04:00

HealthAngle -- www.healthangle.com -- has launched. The company's mission is to help patients, their families and their friends:

* Decrease stress associated with medical procedures
* Establish stronger connections between themselves and their medical caregivers
* Best navigate the healthcare system and maximize the quality of their results

HealthAngle’s core is a searchable database of first-person, professionally edited and physician-reviewed accounts of medical procedures. Prior to undergoing procedures, patients visit HealthAngle to learn about what to expect, get advice and connect with others who have gone through similar situations. A family member can also access information to share with a loved one to help manage health issues.

Check it out at www.healthangle.com

Act 7, Scene 1: “Magna Cum Loudly”

2008-02-25T15:51:00.002-05:00

TRL comes to a magnificent and overwhelming realization: because the boys turned four, he now has eight years of child-rearing experience. That’s double college time. From his four years of college, TRL’s knowledge gain can be distilled as such: women love sex but you need to be bold to find out, David Letterman while mind altered is as it should be, existentialism sucks, life is balance management, and life after college is indeed a downhill road (dips and rises, to be sure, but the long view shows sloping: kudos to college roommate for pointing this out with smug knowing upon graduation). Oh, and hope does indeed spring eternal.

Eight years of child rearing has yielded: never get in the way of a boy and his desire to pee, child care is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent hyperventilation/indoctrination/salmon-swimming-upstream-in-support-of-the-next-generation/occasional-salvation/staring-at-the-TV-in-dead-tired-can’t-move-disbelief-at-the-depth-of-exhaustion-mental-and-physical-contemplation-of-your-body’s-ruination. Still, those kids are mighty cute, and they say the darndest things.

Act 6, Scene 12: "Little People Drinkies and Droll Conversation"

2008-02-25T13:46:00.004-05:00

C and E celebrated their fourth birthdays over the weekend. A blow out bash for 20 of their closest friends. Superhero Training Camp was the theme (Spiderman (C) and Superman (E) are the boys' alter egos these days (TRL is, predictably, Exhausted Man, with occasional Disgruntled Man making appearances. S is maintaining her Super Woman status)).

The kids filed into the party room, and before the real heart of the party could begin – superhero dancing lead by a party person/dance teacher – the kids had some time to burn. It was like cocktail hour before the host calls dinnertime. S had wisely distributed coloring pages and crayons on tables, and TRL observed some of the kids, including C and E, running around like mad. But a good portion had made right for the crayons, like a partyhound entering a room and making a beeline for the bar. And TRL realized: coloring is cocktails for the preschool set.

Act 6, Scene 11: “The Vagaries of Memory”

2008-02-18T16:25:00.002-05:00

It is said that a woman forgets the pain of childbirth – that the body is wired to not dwell on pain – so that she will get pregnant again. Instead, she has an emotional memory of holding her child for the first time, and lots of times to come. TRL senses that the opposite is true with four-year-olds. Because when people ask him how things are, how are the kids, his brain immediately dredges up C and E screaming and crying in the morning because they both want to sit at the same seat at the breakfast table. Or the “you are a bad daddy” that C shares when he doesn’t get something he wants. Or the timeouts, the timeouts for leaving a timeout, and then a timeout for the exact same infraction 15 minutes later. No wonder the criminal justice system is filled with repeat offenders.

But today TRL catches himself during his morning routine. Shaving, brushing teeth, getting ready for work. Because he is thinking about C & E, and can only focus on their bright smiles when they put on their brand new raincoats for the first time this morning. C has blue, E yellow. The have zippers, but also snaps to keep everything extra dry, and the boys insist on the full protection before walking with S out into the rain to go to daycare. They pose for a picture for S, and wrap their hands into each other’s, and smile proudly. It is that joy of expression, simple joy of ownership, pride at having a functional new thing, a smile for their mommy, holding each other’s hands, TRL stepping back so S could take the picture. This little nuclear family moment and the easy joy inherent in C and E’s happiness that TRL remembers this morning.

Act 6, Scene 10: “Your Little Boy”

2008-02-18T16:22:00.001-05:00

It is pouring out, and C and E and TRL gaze out the upstairs window, watching the thick lines of rain hit the trees and rooftops of neighboring buildings and the pavement below.

C turns to TRL. “Happy birthday,” says TRL. “My little boy is four.”

“Will I be your little boy when I am seven?” asks C.

“Yes.”

“Will I be your little boy when I am 20?”

“Yes, sweetheart. You will always be my little boy, no matter how old you are.”

C pauses. And then, “I love you, Daddy.”

Act 6, Scene 9: “Tastes Like… Ass Chicken”

2008-01-29T23:20:00.000-05:00

"Yum yum, you are so delicious, I need to eat you up," TRL says to C, and then begins to play bite him. C giggles.

"In fact, your butt is so delicious, I need to eat that, too."

"What does my butt taste like?" asks C.

TRL pauses. "Well, like chicken. Everything tastes like chicken. So what we have here..." TRL squeezes C's butt, "is ass chicken. Yum."

"Ass chicken, ass chicken," C gleefully sings.

E joins in, until a chorus of "Ass chicken" fills the living room.

Act 6, Scene 8: “Ouchy”

2008-01-29T23:19:00.001-05:00

E bounces off the bed and lands on his chin on the floor. Bleeding and bruising ensue, but no stitches.

C runs into Andrew J. during gym time at daycare, bleeding ensues. But no lasting harm.

TRL's muscles are tight and his brain is tired. He's only bleeding on the inside.

S falls on her face on the sidewalk between meetings at work, bleeding ensues. She is shaken and stirred, but cognitively understands she is not a martini, so no lasting damage.

Fortune cookie investment machine says: buy Band-Aid stock.

Act 6, Scene 7: “The Little Things Writ Large”

2008-01-16T08:39:00.000-05:00

E and C sit on the couch, reading. TRL finishes cleaning up breakfast.

E kicks C.

And kicks him again. C asks him to stop.

E kicks C.

TRL: “E! Stop kicking your brother.”

TRL returns to washing the dishes. C returns to reading a book.

TRL turns to see E's foot kicking again at his brother.

TRL is not a morning person. He doesn't want to be awake in the morning. If he has to be awake, he doesn't want to talk to anybody. He certainly doesn't want to have his blood pressure climbing as he washes the dishes in preparation to get the guys ready for the day in preparation to march them down the stairs in preparation to load them in the car in preparation to drive them to daycare in preparation to get them out of the car and into daycare and into their classrooms in preparation to driving back home to park the car to get on the T to walk to work to... begin the work day.

So TRL seizes E from over the couch, surprising him and lifting him into the air with one arm. E is then transported to a time-out on the stairs.

“You do not kick your brother, and you need to listen to me,” says TRL. He then walks away to finish the dishes as E wails in sorrow/anger/regret/merely pissed that he has a time-out.

Three minutes later, E is spoken to again about why he received the time-out, and he is repatriated with society.

TRL's morning is that much more unbalanced, but he does feel a small sense of pleasure at being able, still, to strike from on high and bring justice to an almost-four-year-old. Does TRL have a God complex? No, TRL is God.

Act 6, Scene 6: “Next to You”

2007-11-15T14:30:00.000-05:00

S drags TRL to The Police concert in NYC over the summer. Growing up, TRL liked The Police, but he has no great need to see geriatrics forcing themselves together for the sake of money and/or a last gasp at soaking up the glory of playing arena rock. Sting doesn’t hit the high notes, the band is serviceable but not fun, and the audience is TRL’s age, i.e., old. Still, S loved The Police as a teenager. So much so that she also got tickets for a later show in Boston. Her logic: there would be less pressure to have a great time in NYC if she knew she would be seeing The Police again, and thus with less pressure, she would actually have more fun.

TRL bows out of the second concert, and S goes with her mom.

“How was it?” TRL asks when she gets back.

“OK, I guess. Not great,” admits S.

But then S has another concert, and three’s a charm.

S is upstairs sitting in the big leather chair in C & E’s play area. Both boys are just out of the bath and in their pajamas, and they have climbed into S’s lap. In the boom box is a Police CD, and Sting’s crisp voice fills the room. S hugs the boys to her.

“This is the best Police concert,” she purrs.

Act 6, Scene 5: “Medical Dumpster Diving”

2007-11-12T16:02:00.000-05:00

TRL has a doctor’s appointment today. His left elbow has hurt since doing a yoga position two months ago. It has hurt before, on and off, but now it has been consistently on, the elbow and forearm hurting when he holds C or E, picks up a bag, or just opens a door. It is time to bring in the professionals.

C & E bounce around the examination room. They are all waiting for the doctor, and TRL reads them a Clifford story, attempts to test their reflexes with a rubber mallet to engage their interest, and takes their weight (31 and 33 pounds) and height (just shy of four feet). But the doctor is still not here. TRL bounces E on his knee, and turns to find C scurrying up a bright red garbage can marked BIOHAZARD.

“C, off,” TRL barks.

C shimmies down with a smile.

“Guys, let’s read some Maisy!”

TRL sits on the exam table, with C & E once again on his lap, and they read.

Still no doctor.

The boys slide off the exam table and now TRL, too, is fidgety. He turns around the room and there is E on top of the BIOHAZARD garbage can, diving into another, higher garbage can with medical waste – gowns and tissues coated in slimy stuff – poking out.

“Off,” screams TRL, and grabs E.

“Both of you, stand here,” he exclaims.

As C & E line up, TRL pumps a mound of antiseptic gel into his hand and wipes both boys up to the elbow. Some of the gel squirts off. The boys giggle, TRL is flummoxed. And the doctor finally walks in.

Both his boys are standing at attention, their sleeves rolled up to the elbows. There is a mound of antiseptic gel under them all. TRL smiles.

"Hi, doc."

Act 6, Scene 4: “Not Mutually Exclusive”

2007-11-09T17:16:00.001-05:00

TRL asks his friend why C & E pick this week of all weeks to pee in their pants twice (E), pee in their bed (E again), and take a crap in their underpants (C).

“Why, oh why when S is away for the week?” TRL questions.

“Ah, because S is away,” answers his friend.

It’s not the acts that bother him so much as the additional changing and laundry they necessitate. “This is a really bad use of time,” TRL lectures E as he changes his clothes again.

Plus C & E have been monsters the entire week, constantly fighting with each other and screaming and crying. TRL’s nerves are frazzled.

Is the peeing and pooping and overall bitchiness cosmic punishment for him, or merely the kids reacting to S being away? wonders TRL.

Act 6, Scene 3: “Stoned for Breakfast”

2007-11-08T09:51:00.001-05:00

TRL fed his kids peanut butter this morning, and he feels like a criminal.

S is off to Europe on business, and TRL is busy feeding C & E breakfast, packing their lunch for preschool, and doing his best to get his caffeine requirements satisfied. After C & E finish their yogurt and Rice Krispies, he asks if they are still hungry.

“Yes, daddy,” comes the reply.

TRL reaches for two spoons and the jar of Jiffy. A hunk of peanut butter is the perfect breakfast accompaniment: high in protein, tasty, and quickly delivered.

But then TRL feels like a bad man: peanut butter is banned in preschool. And TRL saw some warning signs over the food area: “Andrew can not have nuts: he is highly allergic.”

TRL knows that even a few molecules theoretically have the potential to set off a food allergy.

“Guys, come on over,” he says after C & E finish sucking the peanut butter from the spoons.

TRL washes their mouths and hands carefully, and then wipes off their shirts least any peanut butter has been smeared on it. He then gives them water to drink, to get the peanut butter smell off their breaths. It is now time to go to school.

Is TRL a criminal covering up his misdeeds? Or merely both under-cautious (he gave them peanut butter before preschool!) and over-cautious (he just gave them peanut butter). TRL sees the other parents throwing big rocks at his head, stoning him while chanting “Allergy exposure-er, allergy exposure-er.”

Act 6, Scene 2: “Crappy Copper”

2007-10-29T21:37:00.000-04:00

C or E is turning the toilets into Trevi Fountain.

TRL saw his toilet do something he has never seen a toilet do before: it bubbled. First, it clogged. But then it actually bubbled, large spheres of air rising from the depths like an office water cooler.

And when TRL was finished plunging, he saw in the finally clear bottom something brown and shiny. Normally not one to go after such things in a toilet, he knew what this was; the second copper penny settled onto the porcelain this week.

The main suspect was E, who had a coin obsession at the moment. Though maybe it was his brother taking away E’s treasure. C had been loudly and wildly jealous when E happened upon a penny at the Star Market the previous evening.

TRL tosses the penny in the garbage can: a penny saved is a penny earned, but this toilet penny was earned the hard way and now had to be set free least it spread some intestinal bacteria.

Act 6, Scene 1: “Remembrance of Things Past”

2007-10-21T21:25:00.001-04:00

TRL emails his old neighbor, the one across the street, the only one in the entire neighborhood with whom he had actually struck up a relationship. And the neighbor reports:

“The new neighbors are nice.”

TRL believes this is code for “boring.”

“They spend a ton of time outside with their kids and seem to have befriended the neighbors next to them with kids.”

TRL knows the next-door neighbors. Boring. So boring plus boring.

“They have a pool table”

No doubt for the basement, which they will call the rec room, decides TRL. The suburban cliché has resettled the house.

“and what seems like a lot of stuff...they had delivery pods in the driveway for a couple weeks.”

Over-materialized. And slow to stuff their house. The equivalent of shoving food down a goose to fatten its liver.

TRL grins in his fourth-floor brownstone home office, the sound of the T’s wheels braking below, and cars’ rubber eating the road. He feels like he just escaped the Turkish prison in Midnight Express.

Desperately Seeking Childcare

2007-10-18T13:09:00.000-04:00

The fastest route to child care
Variation on speed dating hooks up parents and sitters in minutes
By Ken Wilan, Globe Correspondent | October 6, 2007, The Boston Globe

(http://www.boston.com/yourlife/family/articles/2007/10/05/the_fastest_route_to_child_care/)

Lauren Kavanaugh, an attorney at Liberty Mutual in Boston, was out of the office and on a mission.

Kavanaugh, 38, had told colleagues, "I'm at a meeting." But what she was really doing at Red Sky Restaurant near Quincy Market, far from her Back Bay office, was meeting at five-minute intervals with a host of mostly younger women, getting to know them as quickly as possible to decide if she would call them later.

"I've had a very difficult time finding baby sitters," said Kavanaugh, who has a 1-year-old son. "It's a huge time suck, and my husband and I work full time."

So Kavanaugh joined 30 other parents and 40 baby sitters in a "Speedsitting" session, where a parent interviews a sitter for five minutes before moving on to the next sitter. The line of sitters and parents stretched along opposite sides of pushed-together tables running the length of the restaurant. During lunch hour, these parents, many with notepads in hand, grilled sitters and took names.

"What is the thing we can't supply parents right now?" asked Genevieve Thiers, CEO and founder of Sittercity .com, an online company that matches parents with baby sitters and was sponsoring the event. "We couldn't supply parents with face-to-face interaction." Speedsitting, she said, is "basically a speed date, but for parents and baby sitters."

Natalia Sarkisian, assistant professor of sociology at Boston College, said it should come as no surprise that such events are taking place. "Speed dating has created a fad - now it is speed-everything," she said.

The number of couples that both work and put a child in child care at an early age is increasing, said Fred Rothbaum, professor of child development at Tufts University and president of the Child & Family WebGuide, which screens parenting resources. The Speedsitting concept, Rothbaum said, is a natural extension of the Internet-fueled trend to deliver more information and goods faster.

"Given the time crunch, parents, and especially mothers, are trying to find top-quality child care and are trying to be more efficient and maximize their options. Parents want to survey as many child-care providers as possible to say, 'I have done my best,' " said Sarkisian. Speedsitting combines technology - the baby sitters are already registered on the sitter city.com database - with the no-tech approach.

"The benefit is face-to-face contact," said Anna Nivala, 31, of Somerville, holding 11-month-old Evie. "It's a first impression, and how do they look at my daughter?" Evie offered up bright smiles to just about everyone in the restaurant - baby sitters, bartenders, and a reporter included.

As the caregivers sipped baby-girl-pink nonalcoholic cocktails topped off with an orange wedge, parents shifted seats in five-minute spurts recalling musical chairs, in this case not wanting to be left out of finding the perfect sitter. Though there were more sitters than parents, competition for the best of the bunch can be stiff.

"It's supply and demand; there's more people looking for child care," and not necessarily a proportional rise in accessible child care out there, said Rothbaum.

"Once you find a good baby sitter, they're a very prized possession," said Scott Shannon, 48, who with his wife, Anne, was looking for a sitter for their 4-year-old son, Shane. "People don't share sitters, they don't want to lose them." And, he reasoned, the sitters at the event were the cream of the crop. Online, he said, sitters "don't always respond, or respond and say 'not interested.' Here, candidates are more mature and a lot more serious about being sitters or nannies. They're taking time out in their day" to be here.

The Shannons, of Dedham, were looking for a sitter because Scott was returning to the workforce as a construction project manager.

"He's currently a stay-at-home mom," said Anne, 45, who had taken the day off from work as director of energy programs at Quincy Community Action Programs to search for a sitter.

"Dad," Scott corrected.

Shannon was one of two fathers in a sea of mothers. The other was Malay Kundu, founder of StopLift Vision Systems in Bedford. He and his wife, who also works full time and had a full day of meetings, have a 4-year-old son and an 8-month-old daughter.

"With my long hours, I certainly contribute to the need for baby sitters," Kundu said.

Did it make him feel awkward that he was one of the few men at the event?

"I don't really care, I just need to get a baby sitter," he replied, echoing the sentiment of most parents at the event. He then darted to an empty seat across from a sitter to begin his next interview before he had to get back to work.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

How to select a caregiver
The Boston Globe, October 6, 2007
(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/10/06/how_to_select_a_caregiver/)

Speedsitting may be "good as a quick screening procedure, but you shouldn't hire someone on the spot based on five minutes," said Thierry Guedj, professor of psychology with a focus on work-life issues at Boston University. After the initial screen, invite a sitter to your house for at least an hour interview with both parents and the child, said Guedj.

Here are interviewing tips from Guedj:

During an interview, observe how a baby sitter or nanny watches your children. Some nannies are more concerned with days off than interacting with your child.
Listen for tone of voice, see how she reacts to your child: Is she reactive or nurturing? "Some are quick to raise their voice or quick to anger, or someone may be completely passive and don't see themselves as having a role in child care. You need somebody assertive and nurturing. Somebody who can help explain to your child what good behavior is. A good nanny, like a good parent, is able to reason with a child, explain things."
Don't worry so much about the caregiver's education. "I am skeptical about whether degrees are a good thing. Basic nurturing of children has less to do with education than with the way the kids are raised. If you are raised nurturing, you will tend to pass that on, and this is more important than degrees."
How to win over a sitter

"I'm not just going to sit for any family," said Jessica Bennett, 22, of Boston. "If I'm going to take on a job, chemistry is important. In a sense, you're screening parents," too.
Some suggestions from sitters for making a good impression:

"Ask questions in a more casual way, not an analyzing, non-trusting way," said Mona Simmons, 40, of Belmont.
Don't just ask questions, but also share information about yourself and your family, said Hillary Richard, 21, of Boston.
Look the sitter in the eyes. "Some moms treat you like a thing, not like a person," said Giane Marques, 37, of Malden. "They don't look you in the eyes."
Share your value system. A good sitter is assessing "if their care is in line with what you think," said Bennett. "Everyone has different philosophies for rewards and punishments, timeouts or taking toys away," she said, and it's important to know if the sitter and parent can support each other's values.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Special Bulletin: We Moved!

2007-10-18T13:03:00.001-04:00

Desperate Househusband has escaped the suburbs!

Stop.

No more car culture.

Stop.

Lots of excitement.

Stop.

Kids and wife loving apartment-living, public transportation, fire engine sirens and semi-urban grit.

But not to worry. ... Desperate Househusband still desperate.

Act 5, Scene 8: “And We Really Liked the Ice Cream”

2007-07-16T14:33:00.000-04:00

TRL and S take the boys to Vermont to their friend’s farm. They visit the chicken coop to see where eggs (and the evening dinner) come from, look at the turkeys, walk right up to cows, feed the rainbow trout in the pond, pick strawberries from the garden, pet Jr. the black-nosed sheep, and go wading in the nearby lake. That’s all on the first day. TRL and S also take them to a farm museum, where they see old farm implements and visit milk cows in their milk pens, say hi to prize-winning horses, and see ice cream being made the old-fashioned way: vanilla, cream and sugar are dumped into a metal tub, it is sealed and covered with ice and salt and hand-cranked for 20 minutes in the shade of a 200-year-old maple tree next to the old ice house. The boys get to sample the result.

Back in the burbs, TRL asks: “Guys, what was your favorite part of the whole weekend?”

“Eating the ice cream,” they announce in unison.

Tepidly flavored marginally cold too-soft ice cream wins out over the Real Farm Experience.

“We should have just spread some manure on the driveway and then gone to Friendly’s,” TRL grunts to S.

Act 5, Scene 7: “An Act of Illusion”

2007-07-08T20:49:00.000-04:00

TRL walks into the kitchen. E is on the floor, pushing around some fallen Cheerios.

“Hey,” says TRL.

E looks up and smiles. Then picks up a Cheerio and slowly brings it towards his mouth.

“No,” says TRL firmly. “We don’t eat food off the floor. You know that.”

E looks up at TRL and then pops the cereal into his mouth.

TRL picks him up. “Spit it out,” he says. He inspects E’s mouth but the Cheerio is nowhere to be found.

“Did you just eat that after I said not to?”

“No.”

“I just saw you put the cereal in your mouth. I told you not to. Did you just put it in your mouth?”

“No,” insists E. And for a second, TRL believes him. He doubts himself, even though he saw E put it in his mouth. TRL learns something about magic right then, the power of suggestion, that insisting upon something both parties know is not true can sometimes, at least momentarily, make it true.

E learns a little something, too. About the consequences of lying.

“You have just earned a time out,” says TRL.

Act 5, Scene 6: “Lost”

2007-07-05T19:41:00.001-04:00

TRL wakes up, looks around and doesn’t know where he is. He is in a bed, but doesn’t know where. It is dark. Where is he?

He starts sweating and panicking. He lunges for a window and lifts the blinds. He still doesn’t know where he is. He sees another window and opens the blinds. It is dark outside. He is in a room. He grunts, terrified. He can’t seem to wake up, and he still is lost.

S opens her eyes. “What are you doing?”

TRL stumbles for a door, goes out into a hall. But what hall? He moves into a bathroom and flips on the light. He sees himself in a mirror. He is covered in sweat. He knows that it is himself staring back. But where is he?

In his bathroom, he slowly realizes. But then the realization flickers away and he panics again.

In his bathroom, he comes to realize once more. This time the understanding stays. He sweats profusely. He is shaking. What is wrong with him? Is this how someone with Alzheimer’s feels?

S walks in to go to the bathroom. “Are you OK?”

TRL grunts, now embarrassed that he was so confused. He feels vulnerable and frightened.

S goes back into their bedroom and TRL throws water onto his face. This was the first night back in their house since coming back from five days at the beach. It must have confused him, he tells himself. And while they were away, they had an offer on their house; they were moving. And the next day he had a job interview, an attempt to set his career straight.

All in all, TRL feels lost.

Act 5, Scene 5: “Tough Love”

2007-07-03T15:12:00.000-04:00

TRL and C get into a little fight. TRL has constructed a really cool fort out of pillows and a sheet. E crawls inside and happily reads in the Cave of Excitement and Solitude. And then C comes in, stands up and twirls around, ripping the sheet off in the process.

“C,” whines TRL. “You ruined it.”

E happily reads on.

TRL repositions the pillows and puts the sheet back over the fort.

And C darts in, stands up and ruins it.

“Not nice,” growls TRL. C just looks up, smiles, and twirls around. E continues to read happily. TRL stomps away in a huff. He then busies himself by making a snack for the boys.

“Guys, snack,” he calls, and they clatter into their seats. TRL kisses C on the forehead. “Can we be friends?” he asks.

C levels a thoughtful gaze at TRL.

“Be my Daddy,” he responds.

Act 5, Scene 4: “And It’s Cold, Too”

2007-07-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

The TRL family is at the beach, and C and E polish off ice cream cones after the long and sweaty work of building sand trenches, pits and mounds. To C and E, it is joyous beach fun. To TRL, who is the main earth mover and chief designer, it is the building of civilizations, the blooming of a grand vision of a better world, as well as the exercising of his suppressed-by-life God complex which held its full promise in his twenties. Plus it’s a damn fine work-out.

They are heading back to the house to shower, when C, who has finished his cone, turns to E, presenting him with an imaginary ice cream treat: “Would you like to try my ice cream? There’s no glass in it,” says C.

The ultimate product, guaranteeing something that everybody wants while implying that the competition may just have some unpleasantness waiting as a nasty surprise. It is the perfect product pitch.

Bloody tongues? Glass shards sticking out from your gums? Ben and Jerry’s, Haagen-Dazs, Ciao Bella. Fine ice cream, but no guarantees. C’s Ice Cream - There’s No Glass In It. Because it says so right in the name.

Act 5, Scene 3: “Death by Kid Party (Plus a Business Opportunity)”

2007-06-25T14:25:00.000-04:00

It’s time for more of the birthday party circuit, a trip to Noodle Noggin’ ‘N Bean. TRL leans against the birthday room wall, where every hour on the hour another joyous celebration cycles through. Fifteen minutes of arts and crafts which forces TRL to bend down to help C & E, TRL’s knees cracking and back hurting, glue rubbed on every garment and ultimately what is produced is a disfigured paper bag animal puppet that will last another 22 minutes before it is destroyed or forgotten. Then comes the cake, an over-the-top photo-realistic sugar bomb that will wire the kids for an hour-and-a-half and leave them angry sleepless shells by the time they are back home. Today’s cake eaters, tomorrow’s homeless junkies. After the cake, the ice cream and juice, because there just isn’t enough sugar in their systems yet.

TRL knows this is all well and good for C & E. They like the arts and crafts, and the cake, and the ice cream and juice. And they love running around like, well, the wired three-and-a-half year olds that they are, going from room to room riding the bikes and fishing in the wet room and playing doctor in the nursery and playing store clerk in the grocery room. It’s a rave for the young set. It’s just that it bores the hell out of TRL, and inevitably gives him a headache. Other men, mostly with paunches, also lean against the wall, looking glum.

“I hate this stuff, there’s nobody for me to talk to, it’s boring, and it’s a beautiful sunny day out today and we are cooped into a windowless box,” TRL moans to S.

“Then leave,” says S. “The kids really love it.”

Which is true. TRL leans deeper against the wall and imagines the party as he would like to see it.

Alterna-party One: Au Natural
No cake. No ice cream. And no bending over sticks and glue for TRL. A farmer comes in and brings out carrots, passing them around to the kiddies and adults. These are sweet and crunchy, beautifully orange-yellow, smooth and delicious. The farmer tells the kids how they were planted and cared for and harvested on the organic farm. Corn comes next. And then cherry tomatoes. Apples, pears and honeydew melon follow. Lunch has been addressed, as has an educational component. A donkey ride follows out back, along with lessons in animal husbandry. The kids have a good time, the adults are engaged, everybody has good food in their bellies, and TRL doesn’t hate life.

Alterna-party Two: It’s All About the Parents
The kids get the arts and crafts and the high-sucrose speedball delight in the guise of a cute-clever cake and frozen and liquid sugar-delivery devices. But the kids also get two high-school helpers to walk them through the arts and crafts project and serve them their snacks and play delightedly with them afterwards. And TRL gets a barcalounger, a Hooters-moonlighting waitress to serve up hot wings and a cocktail, and in-party video monitor at the chair (think first-class on Singapore Airlines). A massage follows and everybody leaves feeling very happy indeed.

Alterna-party Three: The Business Opportunity
The kids love parties at the party factories, but what about the oldster set, parents of adult children? The baby boomer is not getting any younger, and soon these imminently diapered and drooling martini swilling movers and shakers will be moving in their pants and shaking from Parkinson’s, sure, but they still need a place to party. Which has TRL believing they need their own Chuck E. Cheese’s. Something a bit more sophisticated, of course. More of a Charles F. Gouda, or a Charlie S. Brie. Perhaps a Charlemagne Le Chevrot Blanc for the sophisticated set. But a place where adults can drop off their parents, let them rock and roll for an hour or two, have a great time and meet with friends, celebrate those octogenarian birthdays, and get all tuckered out for nap time. Sweet, sweet nap time. TRL considers this his business plan. Interested investors please send checks.

Act 5, Scene 2: “Fudged Again”

2007-06-21T11:19:00.000-04:00

C and E bounce around their room, flinging stuffed animals.

“Guys, how about a book? How about the alligator book?” suggests TRL.

E stops for a moment and turns to TRL. “The alligator? The fucking alligator.”

TRL stares, at a temporary loss for words. His brain does a quick search for appropriate parental responses. He knows you want to discourage the use of the word, but by forbidding the use or registering heightened emotion the kid will be drawn to it like forbidding sex or liquor to teens.

‘Ding’ - TRL’s brain comes up with a response: “Ah, we don't say that word, we say ‘oh shucks’ instead,” says TRL. “Or ‘shoot.’”

“Oh shoot, the fucking alligator,” responds E.

Act 5, Scene 1: “Nice Aim! And Sorry About the Baby.”

2007-06-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

C nails a mom holding a baby. Picks up a basketball (mini-sized) at Gymboree, and lets it rip. The mother is not happy. Extremely not happy.

“C, you need to apologize,” says TRL.

“No.”

“C.”

“No.”

TRL sighs. The mother glares.

TRL tries a different tact. “C, why did you throw the ball?”

“I don’t want the baby here.”

TRL is secretly thrilled. It confirms that C was trying to hit the mom: C has great aim!

Both C and E have a thing about babies. E promises to put one in the oven should the opportunity arise.

“C, we don’t throw balls at people, especially babies.”

The mother stands glaring. TRL looks up. He is not happy that C threw the ball, but hey, they are at a place that encourages kids to throw balls. Basically the mother had walked into a war zone with a baby. Maybe she’s the one who’s been bad.

Act 4, Scene 20: “Lessons in Being a Man”

2007-04-27T17:57:00.001-04:00

Fried salami, strippers, and a marathon TV session of Cops and The Family Guy…

It's boys' night!

S is away on business, and it's time for TRL to let loose and begin teaching C and E the gentle arts of manly sloth. And what says lazy man better than parking in front of the TV with a mound of crispy meat? The meat has already been slaughtered, prepared and packaged. It just needs a little heat. And the TV practically drives itself.

For exercise, there is the promise of college-age strippers knocking on the front door. The boys love meeting new people, and so does TRL. A short walk to let them in, and dessert is here, boys.

TRL believes parenting is not only about the easy things – loving and playing with your child – but also about teaching. If we don’t educate the next generation, who will?

Act 4, Scene 19: “Perfectly Happy”

2007-04-12T17:59:00.000-04:00

C and E sit at the table, enjoying their macaroni and cheese lunch. E turns to TRL. “Daddy, I want to be just like you.”
Finally, after three years, after sleepless nights, near-constant clean-up mode, the illnesses, the arguing, the fits, the loading in cars and taking out, the food preparation, the incalculable energy expenditure, finally, finally, finally… the pay off. The kid wants to be just like his old man.

A warm feeling suffuses TRL. He is in love with his son, in love with parenthood, in love, let’s face it, with himself.

“Daddy, I want to be just like you.” TRL is on cloud nine. He has clearly done something right. Nobody before has ever wanted to be like him.

Certainly not ex girlfriends. In fact, many didn’t even want TRL to be like TRL.

Certainly not S, who loves TRL but certainly sees room for modification and improvement.

Even TRL has his doubts about himself.

Perhaps TRL’s mommy, who is a big fan of TRL, but TRL doesn’t feel like he earned that admiration. More like something he was born into.

But here was a little being who had his heart set on being just like TRL. Because TRL was perfect in his eyes. Physically, emotionally, intellectually. The whole package was there for E. And for this moment in time, at least, it made TRL feel perfect.

Act 4, Scene 18: “Coxsackie Anyone?”

2007-04-11T11:32:00.000-04:00

TRL walks into daycare with C & E.

“Good morning C and E,” says their teacher Miss Betty.

And to TRL: “There has been a Coxsackie virus exposure.”

“Huh?” says TRL, who has not yet had his coffee and who has been driving behind school buses for the last 30 minutes. Has he just entered the Hot Zone?

“Coxsackie,” she repeats. “Hand and foot disease.”

Now TRL feels like a missionary entering some remote jungle station.

“They may get a fever, and white patches on their tongue and hands.”

“What?” exclaims TRL, hanging up C and E’s jackets as they run off to play with paints.

And then he sees a handwritten note above the sign-in sheet: “There has been a Coxsackie Virus exposure.”

“Who’s started this?” TRL peppers the teacher. He wants the dirty disease vector identified. And an explanation as to why his or her parents' could be so unclean and inconsiderate as to expose the whole school.

“Well, ahh,” she stammers, “once symptoms start it’s not contagious. So we don’t know, but it’s going around. But it only lasts for a few days.”

“Going around,” simmers TRL, who picks up a container of Purell he notices on a shelf and gives it a good squeeze to cover his hands.

“They may get a slight fever,” adds the teacher.

TRL growls. “What dirty little bugger has infested us all. Errrrrr.”

“Where’s Maya?” asks C. Maya is the boys' best friend at school.

“Yes, where is Maya?” says TRL.

“She’s out,” mutters the teacher.

TRL kisses and hugs the boys. Maya, dirty little Typhoid Maya, he mutters as he swings through the doors into the sunshine. “Grrrrr.”

Act 4, Scene 17: “Putting Doggy Daddy to Sleep”

2007-04-10T15:29:00.000-04:00

Doggy Daddy licks the boys’ faces and gently bites at their soft lovely flesh. He rolls around with the boys and yelps with joy. But E nipped C on his hand yesterday, and today E bites C on the cheek, not drawing blood but leaving thick teeth marks and the beginning of a big bruise. For E has learned from Doggy Daddy that we bite when we are excited. But E’s control over bite depth is not as refined as Doggy Daddy’s. Puppy see, puppy do. So to Doggy Daddy’s sadness, it is time to be sent to the pound, never to nip, roll, lick and yelp with the boys, least they get the wrong message and continue to use each other as chew toys. Bark bark yelp yelp mrrrr mrrrrr Womp.

Act 4, Scene 16: “Your True Quest for Zen Starts Here”

2007-03-30T11:54:00.000-04:00

In search of ultimate self knowledge? Pure peace and being? Stillness in a fast-moving world, patience in the middle of insanity? Forget a trek to the Dali Lama. Leave behind the notion of Japanese Zen monasteries. Bypass Shangri-La, and instead come to TRL’s house. Here, if you devote yourself to pure being with a pure heart, you will find the path to peace, your very own Himalaya Hilton in the very heart of a major metropolitan area easily reached by all transportation hubs. And close to a McDonalds and a Walmart.

C and E will throw obstacles of all kinds into your quest for peace. Don’t let them destroy your will in your journey to true balance.

Need to leave the house early? C will crap his pants, E will have a meltdown because his “chocolate” shirt is in the laundry, C will insist that it is not Cheerios that he has been eating every morning for the past year but in fact Rice Krispies, which TRL happens to be out of. It is now Rice Krispies, in fact, that are C’s life’s work, not unlike your quest for peace. His soul nourisher, the only thing on the planet that will appease him. Surround sound screaming will test your nerves, fire volleys of pain into your being and soul. But stay strong and focused, keep your eye on that nirvana prize of peace and understanding, equanimity in the face of hideous mental and emotional assault.

Need to do some domestic chores around the house, catch up on some work, and get to bed early after the boys are tucked in for the night? E will scream, and scream, and scream. Why? Because he wants the night light off. And then C will scream, and scream, and scream. Why? Because he wants the night light on. And once that discussion has played itself out, and has miraculously been dispersed with via logical contortions, appeals to pure emotion, and lots of deep breaths on your part, the boys will discover a thirst for cold water like no other, two parched desert wanders who need water, must have it from the orange cup sitting dirty at the bottom of the kitchen sink. And they NEED IT NOW. And once their whistles are wet, their throats moisturized, why they are not tired anymore. A book, a book, one more book before bed!

You see, India is for pussies. You want true Zen, come on over to TRL’s house. And if you make it through, peace will be yours. And if you don’t, you will be a destroyed shell that previous had cradled your hopes and ambitions, a mere husk now devoid of any balance or self worth, waiting to dry up, blow away and disappear for ever.

Call for reservations. TRL will pick you up at the airport.

Act 4, Scene 15: “Poo Are You?”

2007-03-28T09:26:00.000-04:00

TRL’s dad begins to report his “BMs” to TRL. Granted, it is a big deal for TRL Senior because he just had surgery and a first crap is a milestone indicating that the body is getting back to normal. But somehow, hearing the word “BM” out of his dad’s mouth both catapulted TRL back to his youth, making him feel uncomfortably like a little boy again, and also sending him forward when he would be taking care of his old dad. The timing seemed cosmically inauspicious: the boys had just emerged from diapers and could take their own craps in the toilet. Why couldn’t TRL Senior have said “Just took a crap, all systems go,” or even “Pinched one off, no stopping me now.” But “BM” – gross. And not even acknowledging the nature of the event, assuming it was known that it was a big deal after the operation. Not couching it as an after effect of the surgery made it even more intimate. TRL felt both very young and very old. And, well, gross.

Act 4, Scene 14: “Thought Possession”

2007-03-26T19:52:00.000-04:00

TRL struggles to clean up the yogurt spilled on the kitchen counter, scrap up the soggy Cheerios dispersed like minilife preservers under the kitchen table, dump laundry detergent over C’s underwear where he slid back into pretoilet-training days, get iron supplements and the follow-up prune (to kill the taste of the nasty iron supplement) into C and E’s mouths, brush his own teeth, and then get C and E cleaned up, in jackets and in the car to daycare. But there is screaming at the train table. Horrible, anguished, banshee yelling alerting TRL that though his headache, irregular breathing through his clogged nose, exhaustion from staying up late watching the pretty bad (but evidently not bad enough) movie Let’s Go to Prison while cleaning up his office, and his general disdain for life right now would indicate ignoring the issue, he just can’t. Making the noise stop is an imperative for calming his jangled nerves.

“What is going on,” TRL pronounces clearly and steadily.

All at once, C and E respond on their separate voice tracks. Track 1:

“E took my train.”

Track 2:

“My train. My train.”

Justice isn’t about truth, TRL knows by this time in his life. It is about making the noise go away.

TRL sees that C has the train car in question. “Did you have this?” he asks. C stops crying and nods.

“What’s your story?” TRL says, turning to E. “Did you have the car?”

There is a pause, and in that pause TRL knows the answer.

“I wanted the car,” E finally answers.

TRL is amused to recognize a new way of thinking about an old situation: in kiddie justice, thinking about possession is 9/10ths of the law.

“It’s nice that you want it,” says TRL, “but C was playing with it. You can have it later on.”

He levels a severe stare at E, who seems to have intellectually moved on to greener pastures. E picks up the trains in front of him, C inserts the train car in question into his train line-up, and TRL goes upstairs for his morning cocktail: three rust-colored Advils with a white Tylenol chaser. The aspirin will be a little something for later on.

Act 4, Scene 13: “Gravity’s Rainbow, of Pain”

2007-03-21T13:17:00.000-04:00

TRL wants to abolish stairs. TRL needs to abolish stairs.

His knees hurt from going up the stairs because he is getting old.

He is bored by the stairs. Up/down, up/down, ten, fifteen times a day. With nothing to look at or engage him, only his brain generally remembering to signal his neck to bend least it crack the head against the ceiling on the descent. Otherwise, there is no stimulation going on in the stairwell. Nothing to look at, a passage too vertical for any meaningful interaction with anything that might be on the walls. No chance of bumping into anyone. The staircase is boring.

And the usual is not helped by C and E’s increasingly urgent need to transport their gaggle of animals, their very own roadies and hangers-on, from their upstairs bedroom to the kitchen/dining room/living room downstairs, and vice versa. C and E can’t do it alone, won’t do it alone. Which leaves TRL going up and down to avoid their increasingly shrill declarations of desire.

“I need minipuppy down here,” insists E.

“Moo Cow has to be on the chair,” bellows C.

Or Strawberry Doggie, Gussy the doll baby, Saul the (slightly older) doll baby, Hippo Puppet, Elephant Puppet, Monkey Puppet, Big Snoopy, Girl (aka Mommy’s) Snoopy, Muffy (the dog), Bunny Rabbit, Pigbear … TRL knows what he really needs is a shuttle service for these stuffed animals, and he also knows he is the shuttle service.

Other solutions would be impractical. A fire pole would be an accident waiting to happen. A gravity gun would wake the neighbors. A dumbwaiter too small and prone to breakdowns. An escalator with jazzy color fluorescent underlights an indulgence S would never permit.

So TRL dreams of an apartment. All horizontal, no stairs. The urban presenting a different interaction with gravity.

He also dreams of making all of C and E’s animals disappear.

Act 4, Scene 12: “Lose Weight, No Exercise, Guaranteed”

2007-03-19T17:41:00.000-04:00

TRL has discovered the ultimate weight loss program for busy parents. Begin with twin three-year-olds (or substitute any combination of young children). Add the usual life pressures over money, work, home management. Now ratchet up the activity of the kids. Add a combination cold/flu you caught from your wife via your kids. And now the killer app (or more appropriately, app killer): a sinus infection.

You are smacking yourself on the head thinking “why didn’t I think of that?” Well, you didn’t. TRL did, when he realizes he lost three pounds over three days as he contemplates sawing his head off as the adorable and musically-inclined E insists on blow-screaming into his lovely plastic flute. And C, not to be outdone, keeps perfect beat with his plastic drum stick on the wood floor while shaking his big green maraca (special note to the in-laws: thanks for the musical instuments).

TRL croaks a “please stop” from his perch on the big chair. But S is making dinner and doesn’t hear. And to C and E, that is just audience appreciation.

TRL moans and holds his head in his arms. Tylenol, azithromycin, Afrin, and pseudoephedrine onboard. And still the pain. But, he realizes, he has eaten nothing but a saltine or two and a few scoops of Jell-O over the previous few days. And has lost weight. No exercise, no appetite, no effort, no problem.

He is calling his new diet book the South Beach Sinus Infection Diet. If you don’t have a sinus infection, he will send you one. And if you don’t have kids of your own, he will send you two.

Call now for your copy. Operators are standing by.

Act 4, Scene 11: “The American Dream Updated: A Chicken in Every Pot, a Sweatpant for Every Occasion”

2007-03-16T16:27:00.000-04:00

TRL has fully integrated into suburbia. It’s not that he wears sweatpants everywhere, it’s that he now has different sweatpants for different occasions. Like Mister Rogers changing his shoes, TRL wakes up and takes off his sleeping sweatpants to put on his ‘driving the kids to daycare’ sweatpants: A subtle but important change from basic blue gym sweats to white-stripped adidas work-out pants. And later, he just may change into his black REI ‘working at the computer and about the house’ mid-weight fleece pants. These are his favorites, and S has banned them from her sight.

“I am so sick of these,” she exclaims. “I’m taking you shopping for a different pair.”

Which may be the most disturbing part. S is TRL’s enabler. The suburbs, he knows, are killing them both.

Act 4, Scene 10: “Desperately Clichéd”

2007-03-14T12:31:00.000-04:00

TRL is feeling like he is living Icarus and Daedalus. Only he is the one that is falling. For C and E have clear open skies ahead. TRL, however, has tried to touch the sun, and at 40, feels like a failure. And utlimately, in doing so, he has also failed his sons.

TRL is stunned about what is happening to him, that his life is subject to the same clichés as everyone else’s. Stunned like the first bad break up with a girlfriend that left him an emotional cripple; this was supposed to happen to other people, but not him. Stunned that after working so hard, he still hasn’t achieved his goals, like his parents promised him he would. He was the Sun Prince in their eyes, and he is now suffering from a bad burn. For TRL has flown towards his dreams but forgot to put on life’s sunblock: a steady job, a growing 401K, a grip on finances and concern for the future, and some semblance of measuring career success and happiness that he can emotionally invest in.

In a word, TRL is suffering a mid-life crisis. And sadly, a red Miata, an affair, or a hair transplant hold no attraction for him, no balm for his life burn. What is frustrating, perhaps even more than the crisis itself, is that there is no clear path out. Which probably defines a mid-life crisis, and thus makes him even more clichéd than he realizes. He needs something radical. A neuticle implant to give him balls the size of beach balls to hypermasculinize his torn and wounded self. Or an investment in a condo high atop Miami Beach, a hot tub perched on the balcony, bimbos and beer littered about, a flunky to yell at. Or maybe he needs a trek to the Himalayas to seek enlightenment, to do good deeds. A rest cure with Richard Gere.

TRL toys with pressing the reset button, to start working in a pizzeria, be a park ranger, or doing something where he gets to shoot alligators. He needs a change.

Act 4, Scene 9: “200 Baht”

2007-03-12T17:48:00.000-04:00

TRL is wrestling with E, trying to get him into his socks and pants at 7:30 a.m. as E’s elephant puppet Ely bites at TRL’s legs.

“You know guys, I had a very big elephant try and eat me when I was riding him in Thailand.”

C pauses climbing up TRL’s back and Ely stops nipping for a moment.

“I was in the jungle of Thailand, riding on the neck of an elephant.”

“Why you ride on an elephant?” asks C.

“Well, because we were traveling through the jungle, and the elephants provided our transportation. And this one elephant kept thinking my legs were bamboo, which was his favorite food. He would grab a bamboo stick on the trail with his trunk, curl it into his mouth, and crack it in two while chewing it.”

TRL grabs E’s leg. “Like this.” E screams.

“He thought my leg was his food, and I kept having to pull my leg out of his trunk before he shoved it into his mouth.”

TRL grabs at C and E’s legs and they squeal with laughter.

“When you guys are older, I’ll tell you about other things Daddy rode in Thailand.”

Act 4, Scene 8: “I Slept with Sarah Silverman”

2007-03-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

S goes to New York City for the week to frolic with friends, leaving TRL alone with C and E. Or, perhaps more frighteningly, C and E alone with TRL.

“No baths, no making beds, no crying, no fighting,” TRL announces to C and E after S has left. “Pizza, Steak-Ums and French fries, boys, every night for dinner.” TRL rubs his hands together. “OK, let’s party.”

S needs a vacation. She was between jobs, had been running at 110 percent working her job, looking for a new job, and keeping the household purring along. And now, before she starts her new job, she needs a release. And for TRL, S being away meant a reversion back to Lord of the Flies. Mommy had left, and he was in charge.

Well, one thing led to another, and he ended up in bed with Sarah Silverman.

Who, to TRL’s annoyance, S says looks like a monkey.

“Well, maybe, but a hot, nasty-talking, cute, horny, Jewish girl monkey,” says TRL. But TRL knew he would not be able to get S to understand Sarah’s draw on men. Basically, she was a guy. Crude-talking, annoying, focused on poo and piss and sex, but in the body of a hot chick. Which made her perfect.

TRL gets the boys in their pajamas – the same pajamas they have been wearing all week. S insists on giving them new pajamas every two days, if not daily. That just meant more laundry, knows TRL. But he was in charge now.

They also had the same socks. It wasn’t like a little smell was going to rot their feet. And they didn’t mind.

And having their beds unmade just made it ready for the boys to climb right back in and resume sleep. Which was how TRL felt about his own bed: an unmade bed was an invitation. An acknowledgement that life – the work and drudgery – was merely a pause in climbing back under the sheets, sighing and relaxing. Plus not making the bed meant less work.

The boys were asleep, some of the dishes were clean, and TRL is ready. He grabs his iPod, jumps into bed, pulls the covers over his body, wiggles his neck and head around the pillow to get comfortable, and props the iPod onto another pillow sitting on his chest. He hits “play” and there is Sarah Silverman, the horny little Jewish monkey, dancing around on his chest, introducing her big gay friends, her tasty cute sister, the dumb mustached boyfriend cop. Sarah in all her tasty-thigh, swaying breasts, ultra cute relaxed-look boy clothes, vagina and poo words spewing from her adorable simian mouth. Life is good.

Act 4, Scene 7: “Daddy of the Year”

2007-03-05T17:02:00.000-05:00

TRL is looking to cut costs because he quit his staff job and now money is tight. So finally, after S has been urging him for months, he gets a gmail account so he can cancel his old email which comes attached to a service provider charging a monthly fee. But TRL has been reluctant: the email address fits like an old slipper. But faced with the prospect of needing to save money as he does freelance writing, he makes the move.

“Why give $12 a month to pay for an email address when the money could be going in my pocket for tequila and pills,” he says to his friend G.

He pauses.

“Oh yeah, and milk for the kids,” he adds.

“Father of the Year,” says G. “And you already have a slogan for your campaign.”

Act 4, Scene 6: “An Old Friend”

2007-03-01T13:51:00.000-05:00

The boys are watching Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And suddenly TRL sees someone he knows. Or at least he thinks he knows. He hits pause and walks closer to the screen.

“Can’t see,” scream the boys.

“In a minute,” says TRL, who is studying the picture. “It is her,” he mutters. Younger than when he knew her, a mere girl, but there’s no mistaking it. It’s Cindy Louwho. Or Cindy Louhot, as the guys called her. Funny he never made the connection, although he had known she came from a far-away town, Whosville or something. TRL had gone out with her for a month in college. She was a heroin addict and coke whore. She was very fun, recalls TRL, but messed up. Into bondage, had a goth phase. Smart and wild, but emotionally fucked up.

“Can’t see, daddy,” the boys scream again. TRL hits play.

A little digging from friends and TRL finds Cindy has cleaned herself up, is an editor with a small avant-garde Soho publisher. Or possibly married, two kids, living in San Francisco. Who knew?

Act 4, Scene 5: “Anthro-poo- morphic”

2007-02-23T16:42:00.000-05:00

“I made a poo,” screams C.

Like volunteer firemen hearing the fire whistle, E and TRL drop everything and run into the bathroom to share in the glory.

“Excellent poo,” praises TRL.

“It’s a gold fish,” says E.

TRL looks a bit closer at the blondish dark poo sitting in the toilet; it does indeed look like a goldfish, it’s head aiming for the drain, it’s tail pointing up and swaying in the water.

“Nice poo fish,” says TRL. He knows he is supposed to praise the boys during this key juncture in their toilet training and Freudian development of control issues. Having poo animals adds a nice bit of creativity to the entire self-toileting/socialization process.

C leans on the flusher and the poo fish begins its long journey to the ocean.

“Bye bye,” says TRL.

“Bye bye,” chorus C and E.

“God’s speed to you, Goldie.”

Act 4, Scene 4: “William Wants a Doll ”

2007-02-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

“C really likes his doll,” S tells TRL. S has been going through old boxes and found her Saul and Gusie dolls from her youth. The one with curly blonde string hair has been taken in by E, while C gravitates to the younger bald one, which E promptly denounced as a “bowling ball.”

“That’s nice,” replies TRL, happy that C is enjoying a doll.

The tune from Free To Be You and Me flashes through his head: “A doll, a doll, William wants a doll. A doll for William to love and hold... ” TRL loved that record as a kid, and seeing it on video with his kids has only reinforced that love. Still, was it normal for a little boy to be so into playing with a doll?

“But he started banging it against the wall,” continues S. “I asked him what he was doing. He said he was ‘giving it boo boos.”

TRL laughs, relieved. Sensitive, but not too sensitive. Everything was alright.

Act 4, Scene 3: “The Cycle of Life”

2007-02-19T10:40:00.000-05:00

TRL and S take the boys to the Children’s Museum. And in the first room, you get to learn about animals. Cats and dogs, mainly. There are benches and cages and stuffed animals and tweezers and stethoscopes and animal adoption pages and little white coats with VET stitched over the front pocket in natty blue.

C puts on the white coat and proceeds to diligently fill out an animal adoption form, making random marks and circles where he sees fit. He then gets down to the serious business of stuffing a plush doggy into a cage better suited for a mouse. TRL sits on one of the benches, swinging his legs, and starts talking with the husband of a friend of S’s. The husband has the couple’s gurgling 5-month-old daughter bound to his chest.

“He really is going at it,” the man remarks as C leans into the puppy to get its head into the cage.

“Are you a doctor?” TRL calls to C.

“ No. A doctor for animules,” says C. “A vetnarian.”

“Excellent,” says TRL.

“They really have quite a set up,” says New Dad, taking in the real cat X-rays and play cages, the white coats and long tweezers.

“They should have the kids learn to put down the animals, too,” says TRL.

New Dad looks puzzled.

“Really teach them the cycle of life,” adds TRL helpfully.

New Dad smiles and nods. And wraps his arms protectively across his daughter. He starts backing away.

TRL continues to swing his feet, happy to be sitting down, happy that C is engaged in an activity which is safe, will keep him within sight of TRL, and will likely last for at least ten minutes. For TRL is finally beginning to understand the cycle of life himself. That he is a salmon who has reproduced, and is now swimming upstream, to die. When he can find a cool relaxing place from which to perch, like now, he is happy.

Act 4, Scene 2: “Genie is Not Magic”

2007-02-12T12:02:00.000-05:00

A statuesque piece of plastic sits majestically in TRL’s garage. Long and tapered at the end, shiny white, waiting for transportation to the dump. Which is ironic. And not like rain on your wedding day.

It is TRL’s arch nemesis: the Diaper Genie. Repository for all things stinky, broken five weeks into C&E’s lives, necessitating an extra twist and the use of scissors to detach its shit-stained inner plastic from the container. The boys are now in underpants, and the Diaper Genie has served its usefulness. But unlike the changing table, pack-and-plays, cribs, and even the number 4 Huggies, all fine tools forging a partnership with TRL to keep C and E happy and dry, the Diaper Genie was always at odds with its mission. First, it broke. Then it stank. And it had to be constantly emptied. A function of its service, you might say, but if Genie is in a name, TRL wants to see magic. As in stinky diaper goes in, and disappears. Forever. No cutting, no prying, no brown-smeared plastic to wrestle with. TRL wants David Crapperfield. Harry Poo-dini. Now you see (and smell) it, now you don’t. But the Genie was all name, no magic. So it is with great excitement that TRL banishes it to the garage. And next stop, the dump. The last one for this Genie.

Act 4, Scene 1: “Missed Ya”

2007-02-09T13:37:00.000-05:00

Well, TRL fell into the Parent Crevice. That deep seemingly bottomless pit of “to do” lists, doctor appointments, grocery shopping, cooking, feeding, bathing, and working. He lay dazed and confused at the near bottom, scrapped and demoralized, cut-up and lonely. But he took out his Parenting Ice Ax – beer, wine, valium, obsessive exercise, Snickers and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, whatever gets you by – and inched his way up, and back into the light. Back into domestic near-balance. Time probably also helped, because C and E are now almost 3 years-old and are in “big boy underwear” and “big boy beds.” Gone are the diapers (“not diapers, these are pull-ups” says C) and gone are the cribs (“cribs are for babies,” says E). So maybe things have gotten easier, or maybe TRL has just pulled himself out of one crevice only to slide around in the open for a while before skidding into a brand new drop.

Act 3, Scene 16: “Stop and Smell the Flowers”

2006-06-30T11:43:00.000-04:00

And stop and pick up a rock.

And stop and watch an ant.

And stop and scoop up pebbles.

And stop and tug at a blade of grass.

TRL takes a walk with C and E before dinner. A nice saunter down the block. C and E insist on holding TRL’s hands, and the entire unit moves at a reasonable pace. TRL is loving it. A nice walk outside with his boys. Maybe the boys have finally gotten to an age where TRL can share some of his pleasures with them. Maybe this marks the beginning of the Father-Son(s) thing.

But then the boys decide that they don’t want to hold dad’s hands.

OK, no problem.

They get to the end of the block and turn around. Let’s go home for dinner, announces TRL.

Dinner, repeat the boys.

And then E becomes enchanted with his shadow, the falling early summer sun stretching his body image along the sidewalk.

Shadow!

Yes, shadow, says TRL.

Shadow!

Yes.

And C sits down and begins scratching at the edges of the sidewalk at the grass line for really good pebbles.

Guys, mommy is coming home, and it’s dinner time, TRL announces. Guys, come on, please get up. Walk.

And they do. A whole five feet before a dandelion captivates them.

And then a bird sitting on a front lawn.

Guys, either you walk or I carry you.

No carry, walk, E responds.

Then walk, says TRL.

Another five feet. And another fascinating must-see event unfolding before them. The sharp needles on a pine tree. A smushed bug on a tree stump. Another rock.

TRL’s predinner constitutional has turned into The Never Ending Journey. And he has gone from happy-go-lucky dad sharing a special time with his sons to a drill sergeant barking instructions every 20 seconds: Walk. Walk.

After another ten minutes and 20 feet, TRL can see their house.

Look guys, home.

C and E’s house, they respond in unison.

Mom will be home soon, and it’s dinner time, says TRL. Come on guys, let’s go.

But like the mathematical construct of choosing two points along a line, and by continually halving the distance between them, you never actually arrive at the farther point, home gets closer but to TRL it seems they will never actually arrive.

Act 3, Scene 15: “Chef School”

2006-06-27T11:26:00.000-04:00

TRL has always been a good cook. He remembers proudly making a crepe for his mom a few days after learning the craft in seventh grade home economics class. He loves taking an hour to extra-virgin-olive-oil sauté garlic and begin his base of homemade tomato sauce, layering on the anchovy paste, canned plum tomatoes, canned chopped tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, Italian parsley, and miscellaneous other ingredients, and then stir occasionally over a three-hour period as it reduces. Or make elaborately flavored chicken dishes out of simple ingredients like chicken breast, white wine, balsamic vinegar, and spices. Or pan frying steaks. Or making elaborate fresh salads. He loves food porn: TRL dreams of a Viking stove, Sub-Zero refrigerator, long marble container tops and built in cutting boards.

He has the ingredients and cooking and intuition parts down, and also the most important part: the pride of making and serving food to people he cares about. He has come to understand why his grandma fluttered between the kitchen and the table during family gatherings, cooking and serving but rarely sitting: you are the cook, you are in the zone, people are hungry and food must be prepared. But TRL never really got the timing down. People would wait for the first course, or wait too long between courses. TRL romanticizes going to cooking school to learn how to be a pro. And he and S did take various cooking classes in the hills of Chianti, Oaxaca, Mexico, and New York City. But TRL still hadn’t worked out the timing issues. Until recently, when he unwittingly enrolled in the toughest restaurant school there is: Le Cordon Twins.

When C and E are hungry, they want their food. Not in ten minutes, or two minutes, or even thirty seconds. Because C and E have no concept of time. They know only NOW. And that is when they want food on their plates. And if they don’t get it NOW, you can not send a drink out to placate them, or offer them a free dessert, or send apologies from the chef. Because They Don’t Care. They Want Their Food NOW.

They won’t smear you in a restaurant review. Or tell their friends not to go to you for dinner. Or refuse to pay the check. Worse. Much worse. They will whine. For maybe 20 seconds. And then they will scream, shout and cry. Les enfants terribles d’cuisine.

Which will raise TRL’s blood pressure as he scrambles to get dinner ready.

And piss S off, who is hungry after a long day at work. She will make some unwelcome comment. Which will further raise TRL’s blood pressure.

Focus, steam, grill, plate, TRL repeats to himself.

But the screaming continues. And the temperature rises. And no matter how good the food is, if it is delayed, it is worth nothing.

After several months of this, TRL feels something happening. His movements between sink and cutting board and stove became more fluid. He learns to cut the number of steps in a preparation and remove unnecessary equipment from the process. He values preparation: getting everything cut, chopped, diced and measured ahead of time. He coordinates the pasta boiling and the sauce making, the steak grilling and the asparagus blanching. He understands timing. Forced by a pair of screaming two-and-a-half-year olds, the world’s harshest critics of food service, TRL finally graduates from cook to chef.

Act 3, Scene 14: “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

2006-06-23T10:07:00.000-04:00

It tolls for TRL. That sweet, sweet jingle-jingle-jingle announcing the ice cream truck is here. The boys are too small, and S and TRL don't encourage them eating ice cream anyway (that's what the grandparents are for). But the excitement of the music, a sing-song tinkling breaking into TRL's consciousness as he labors away at the computer upstairs, is a real treat. TRL's ears perk up and his heart accelerates, priming his body for the run to the truck even before TRL is fully aware of the truck. It is a vestigial response from his youth.

Out of the corner of his eye through the window he sees the Insane Clown Posse Truck slowly winding its way towards him. He runs to the front window and reads "Juniper Farms" on the side of the white truck, just above the window where the treats are dispensed. Red, white and blue rocket pops, eclairs stuffed with a chocolate bar, Italian ices, creamsicles, they are all there, and more. But TRL, petting his stomach, knows he cannot chase this dream, not right now, anyway. He would look ridiculous chasing the truck, a grown man in sweat shorts and cheap clogs tearing across the lawn and barreling down the sidewalk in an attempt to flag down the ice cream man. The neighbors would be disturbed. But just to have it reappear in his life is something unexpected and refreshing.

Act 3, Scene 13: “Drive Through”

2006-06-07T10:56:00.000-04:00

S’s friend Ami just had a little baby girl, and S, mindful of all the help TRL and S got from friends after they took C&E home from the hospital, told Ami they would be delivering dinner to her, her husband, mother, and their 2-year old daughter. In San Francisco, TRL and S initially had their families helping them as they adjusted to life with two tiny howling bundles of children. But the families soon left back for the East Coast, and that is when the friends stepped in, organizing different days when different friends would deliver food to the house. They wouldn’t stay long, just a hi, some words of encouragement, and the meal. After TRL and S had been up for hours and hours performing all the duties of new parenthood – the diapers and feeding and bathing and holding and rocking and soothing and cleaning up, with little or no time for their own feeding or showering or sleeping – these meals from friends were emotional life savers. So S, being S, wanted to do the same for her friends.

Let’s just go to Trader Joe’s and pick something up, suggests TRL, because they needed to go to Trader Joe’s anyway to do their own shopping.

Pick something up, like a frozen pizza or something, S responds acidly. Come on. That’s not dinner. I’ll call Bertucci’s.

Thirty minutes later, TRL pulls the Volvo wagon into Bertucci’s, an upscalish Italian chain.

They said to park in the marked spots, says S, as she points TRL into a parking spot marked “For Pick-up Only.”

They said they’ll come out to us, she adds.

TRL puts the car in park and immediately puts his hand above the horn, ready to pounce.

No, says S. They said they will be able to see us.

Yeah, right, says TRL, his hand perched over the horn, itching to press into it. But 10 seconds later a smiling teenager in a black waiter outfit comes outside and walks up to the car. TRL rolls down the window.

Order for S?

Yes, says TRL, shocked at the apparent efficiency.

The teenager smiles again and hands over a check. S offers a credit card and the waiter goes back inside.

See, says S.

Hmmm, mutters TRL, thrilled but also still cynical. He slides down in the seat, getting ready to enjoy the down time waiting for the food to come out. The boys in the back are quiet, and the sun is out. But almost immediately the waiter comes out again holding two bags and that smile. TRL sits up.

Ahhh, we should put it in the back, TRL says as the waiter comes to the car. S prepares to hop out but stops at the waiter’s insistence. He then pops open the rear door and slides in the food. He comes around to the front and through the open window hands in the credit card and check. S signs, the waiter smiles and walks back inside, and then stillness. In two minutes, the entire transaction has been completed. And TRL didn’t have to leave his seat. He wonders if for a further service charge the restaurant might chew the food for them as well as drop it down their throats. This was the car hop in the 21st century. Brutally efficient, one didn’t have to leave the comfort of one’s car or have any social or physical interaction with the world beyond the environmentally-controlled auto bubble. TRL had already decided to come back on his own to order dinner. Maybe he would bring a portable DVD player and he could have a little drive-in experience. He wondered if the management might get pissy if he sat in the “For Pick-up Only” parking spot for two hours.

Act 3, Scene 12: “End of Innocence”

2006-06-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

How do we know we like something unless we try it? The only way to judge if something works is to try it yourself. Chefs know this as they experiment with the ratios and ingredients of a new dish, artists understand this as they try different mediums and style in pursuit of something they can call their own, and E knows this. In fact, perhaps E knows this better than anyone. He is willing to sample everything life offers because he has no preconceptions of what things he should and should not like, or even what maybe he should take on faith as not working. With experience comes the ability to guess at wrong combinations. Any chef worth his salt would instinctively understand that putting a big scoop of chopped liver on top of vanilla ice cream is a no-no. And even the most brash experimentalist who might just try this out of curiosity would forgo a fish sauce to top it off. With a loss of innocence – the unmitigated enthusiasm to try literally anything – comes also the wisdom to avoid mistakes as well as the knowledge to focus on potentially successful ideas. You leave the Garden of Eden, but at least you have learned to avoid snakes.

E lost his innocence. And it is TRL’s fault.

E lies on the changing pad, feet in the air, his monumentally messy poo in the process of being cleaned up. TRL tosses a wipe in the garbage bag when he sees E do a fast swipe of his hand into his bottom. And just as fast the hand enters the mouth. Things then move in slow motion for TRL. He sees the little hand with the brown smudge perched at the entrance to the open mouth. And he screams “Nooo” while lunging for the hand. TRL grabs it and extracts it before the brown makes contact with the soft pink insides. E stares at TRL, wide-eyed and confused and scared. The pause, and then E starts crying, tears pouring down his cheeks.

It’s OK, says TRL, but you can’t eat your poo. It’s not good for you.

He then whisks E to the sink and washes his hands thoroughly with soap and water, and for good measure flushes his mouth with water.

You didn’t need to wash him down so forcefully, exclaims S after watching and then hearing what happened. He didn’t get any in his mouth. He was just trying something new.

Generally speaking, eating poo is bad, says TRL. Feces is bad for you. E coli.

But he would have learned this on his on, retorts S.

TRL shakes with disgust. He answers: It was a visceral reaction to watching him scoop his ass and about to chomp down on his poo. I never ate my crap, he adds, making a mental note never to ask his parents if this was true.

Act 3, Scene 11: “Squish”

2006-05-25T23:43:00.000-04:00

TRL and C & E are playing in the front yard.

Guys, don’t play in the dirt, TRL cautions, not wanting to give them a bath later on.

S waves from the front porch where she is sweeping the pollen, leaves and other drippy and dry things which the trees have been exuding constantly all over the lawn.

Guys, look! TRL exclaims, spotting a large toad trying to hop into the crevice of a tree. TRL scoops up the toad, which promptly lets loose a black liquid all over his hands. Ewwwww, screams TRL dropping the toad. It pooed on me.

The boys stare at the toad, which sits in the grass, catching its breath.

Cool, huh guys, says TRL. It’s a toad.

And then C raises his knee and with the bottom of his foot stomps on the animal.

Nooooo, cries TRL, but too late. When C brings his foot up, the toad is mushed. It has deflated and it is still.

S, screams TRL, S! S, take the boys away.

S comes off the porch. What?

Take the boys away, he says. C stepped on the toad. It’s not good.

E wanders up the lawn and S grabs C to take him away. Ewwww, says S, catching a glimpse of the flattened toad.

TRL feels terrible. He pokes the toad with a stick. He should turn it over, and then dispose of it, he thinks. And suddenly it reinflates and starts breathing. And begins hopping away.

It’s OK, it’s OK shouts TRL, immensely relieved. He turns to C. You gave the toad a booboo, he explains. C immediately begins bawling.

It’s OK, says TRL, but we don’t step on toads. Or any other animals.

TRL stands up, the toad goo all over his hands and the residual horror of watching an animal gets mushed and seemingly killed filling his body. C continues to cry.

It’s OK, S soothes. Toad is alright.

Act 3, Scene 10: “Seemingly Magically Delicious”

2006-05-10T11:10:00.000-04:00

Kids are a gateway drug to Cheerios.

C&E leave with S to go to daycare. TRL is left in a quiet kitchen. He pours himself a big bowl of Cheerios, drowns it in milk, and gobbles it down. Delicious! He goes back to the industrial-sized package of the cereal that they keep atop the refrigerator (many more boxes are stored in the basement: running out, with the prospect of fits by C&E, is not an option.). He pours more into his bowl. And he realizes how excited he is. How he is looking forward to eating these Cheerios. How hungry he is for them. How much he loves them. Where had they been all his life? Until C&E began eating them, TRL had never been a cereal eater.

And then he pauses. He takes a step back. He is getting excited about a bowl of circular oats. More than excited, lustful. And then he knew: he was addicted. A Cheerios addict. And he had been turned on by his kids.

What would it take to wean himself from these bobbing-in-milk beauties? What was the methadone equivalent here? Some no-sugar crappy-tasting healthful cereal? Or would TRL go the other way, turning to harder core cereals: Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms, Count Chocula?

TRL realizes he needs help. But first another bowl of Cheerios. You know, just to help him think. One more bowl. Just one more…

Act 3, Scene 9: “Mine’s from Tahiti”

2006-05-08T10:37:00.000-04:00

The in-laws get the kids a water table for their birthday. A water table allows them to play God. There is a section of the plastic table which holds, well, water. And there is a system of chutes and channels and boats to bring this water world to rich life. Throw in Kevin Costner and you have some serious fun on your hands.

The other side of the table is partitioned off to hold sand. It’s the beach part of the whole water tableau. Now, this table does not come with sand, so S sends TRL to Lowe’s to get sand. And for efficiencies sake he takes the propane gas barbeque canisters with him for a refill. Well, TRL learns two things on his trip: people get panicky when propane gas canisters are brought inside a store, and the cement bags, in his opinion, should never, ever, be right next to the bags of sand.

When TRL wheels his cart filled with propane canisters to the information desk, the person behind the counter tells him he needs to go to the garden section. Fair enough.

TRL pushes the cart past a long line at the garden section cash register and goes to ask the cashier what to do next.

“Whoa, no, no,” she says, bugged eyed, staring back and forth between TRL and his canisters. “No, no, no. Those can’t be in here. It’s illegal.”

“OK,” responds TRL. “But what should I do with them?”

“Take them outside to the front, and then go inside and ask for an exchange.”

“Right,” TRL mutters, having already come from the front entrance. He wheels his cart around to the front, but after years of living in a city, he just can’t leave his property sitting outside for someone to walk off with. So he wheels it back to the information desk.

“Hi, I need to exchange these gas canisters,” TRL repeats, an edge to his voice.

“Oh, those can’t be in here,” the woman says.

“Well,” begins TRL.

“Those can’t be in here,” the woman repeats, more urgency to her voice.

“OK, what should I do? I need new canisters. I also need sand,” he adds.

The woman rushes from around the desk and points to the end of the warehouse. “Sand is down there. I’ll take these outside. Just tell the cashier you have two canisters to exchange, and you pick them up outside.”

“Check,” replies TRL, happy to be relieved of the canisters.

“Sand, sand, sand,” TRL mutters to himself as he makes his way down a cavernous isle, surveying the hundreds of same-looking bags.

“Grout, grout, grout mixture, filler, gravel, gravel, cement, quick hardening cement, sand,” chimes TRL.

He looks back and forth between the 50 pound bags of sand and the 50 pound bags of quick hardening cement. ‘Just add water, hardens instantly’ it reads.

There was no appreciable difference between the bags except, of course, the small-print written description. TRL imagines getting the wrong bags, solidify C&E’s hands instantly the first time they have a go at their water table. They would have to be brought to the emergency room with the table attached to their little bodies. TRL wonders how they would fit them and the table in the car. S would not be happy.

TRL loads up on three bags, the act of paying for sand somehow sticking in his throat. He had spent summers trying to keep sand from following him off beaches and into shoes, bags, cars and houses. And now he was paying $3.95 a bag for the stuff. And then he wonders where it comes from. Some exotic beach? Deal, NJ? Perhaps the middle of a desert? TRL decides he would pay a premium for premium sand. Some from Tahiti or the French Riviera. Or maybe Santorini. Then, when other parents came over with their kids, he could say “C&E’s sand is imported from Fiji. It’s soft and lovely and the same stuff Gwyneth Paltrow’s little Moses thrusts his hands in at his water table. Costs a little more, sure, but my kids are worth it. What’s in your water table?”

Act 3, Scene 8: “A New Magazine for Suburban Living, continued”

2006-05-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

More magazine names, contributed by friends of TRL:
Life in BFE [if you have to ask, you’re not cool enough to read it]
Sidewalk Talk [snappy, if a bit pedestrian]
Da Burbz [white hip-hoppy]
Bennigan’s [copyright issues]
Sprawl [sounds vaguely dirty, in a good way]
Would You Like Fries With That? [too long]
WYLFWT?
Club Suburbia
A Road Runs Through It [too literary]
Mosquitoes, Grass, and Garages
Peyton Place
Cup of Sugar [too sweet?]
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood [negotiations sought]

Act 3, Scene 6: “Suburban Surcharge”

2006-05-03T09:37:00.000-04:00

In the city, TRL gave to the homeless. Small change every so often. It was hush money for his subconscious guilt. The price of living in a city. A street-dispensed city tax. In SB, TRL gets hit up not by smelly men with a menacing look in their eyes, but by fresh scrubbed youths looking for hand outs. And these end up costing TRL much more than money for the homeless. Yesterday it was Ben the Boy Scout hitting TRL up for $17, the cheapest selection on his sheet of flowers for Mother’s Day.

“Where is the money going?” asks TRL.

“Well, the profit, I mean the donation, is going to the Boy Scouts,” Ben responds, popping a small blue retainer out of his mouth, sniffling in the slight rain, apologizing sweetly for inexplicably popping out the retainer and sticking it back into his mouth. His electric scooter was parked out front, getting wet in the drizzle.

A few weeks before that it was the high school band selling M&Ms and other candy, which come to think of it, TRL realizes has never been delivered. (Is it uncool to rat out the high school band to the Better Business Bureau?) And before that, it was the smiley ten year-old girl with her even younger brother – with mom waiting on the sidewalk – selling more candy for some school group. The thing is, TRL has to buy. First, because these people know where he lives. And because he can see the name of his neighbors clearly on the sign-up sheet: he would look like a real heel to the neighbors should he not act like a good neighbor.

So he shells out for this hidden suburban tax.

But where, wonders TRL, as he pulls out a crumble of dollars, is the high school cheerleading squad’s car wash he has seen so much about in teen fantasy movies? Now that’s a tax he wouldn’t mind paying.

Act 3, Scene 5: “A New Magazine for Suburban Living”

2006-04-24T01:16:00.000-04:00

Essentially all magazines take their cue from the city. Suburbia needs its own magazine. Sure, there’s the 10,000 titles on the Home Depot magazine rack: How to Stain Wood, How to Super Stain Wood, Celebrity Wood Staining, etc., but these are essentially trade magazines. TRL’s talking a consumer publication with a suburban viewpoint. New York magazine, but taking its cue from the suburbs that surround the city rather then the other way around. And with any new publication, whatever the quality of the content, for sales you need a really kick-ass title. The candidates in the running:

Sexy Suburban [it has sex in it, but sounds too much like a fetish car magazine]

Suburban Sexy [that’s it! well, no, but better]

town and Country [OK, damn similar to something already out there, but the difference is all in the capitalization. And it’s so ee you-know-who meets Paper]

Suck This [gratuitous. But it is eye catching. Maybe right name, wrong publication? Hey, there are no bad ideas during brainstorming.]

23 Smith Street [homey and simple. Evocative. TRL likes it. This one’s a keeper!]

Reverse Commute [commuting has negative connotations. Nix this one]

Applebee’s [copyright problems?]

Neighbors [this one has legs, though may attract just nice people, and nice people buy less alcohol, mink coats, fancy outdoor barbeques and calves leather driving gloves. So this name is already upsetting potential advertisers.]

Desperate [too dark?]

Gasoline Alley [too negative?]

Fences [too dividing?]

Soft Lights, Little Town [too 80s?]

Town [hmmmm, very simple and approachable. TRL likes it]

Towne [maybe even better]

Lawnmower Love [way too fetish]

TRL takes a break.

Act 3, Scene 4: “How to Choose the Perfect Furniture for Your Child-friendly Suburban Home”

2006-04-22T12:36:00.000-04:00

In a word, plastics.

To wit: TRL lies in bed, the sing-song chipper and Disney squirrel voices of C&E cascading from their room; they are deep into a conversation both passionate and light-hearted. S is gone for the day, having left at 7 am for a work conference in Boston. TRL finally rises, goes downstairs to get the boys milk, opens the door and greets the day with a hearty “Morning fellas.” Squeaks and bouncing ensues.

TRL takes a sniff: all seems fresh. The previous morning it wasn’t: C had a stomach bug. TRL, responding to C’s cries, had walked into a major biohazard: exploding diarrhea, stink like a frat bathroom in a vinegar factory. But today, all seems well. He dresses C&E as they drink their milk, C in particular guzzling down the cold white stuff. They go downstairs and begin their breakfast: more milk, some bread, some yogurt.

And then C makes a gurgling sound, and suddenly it’s the Fountains of Wayne out his mouth, a Bellagio water show thick and white. TRL grabs C and holds him, bringing him over the sink. When C is finished and TRL has cleaned his face and mouth and comforted him, he turns to survey the damage. E sits staring at the scene. Little white chunks and liquid are spread over the table and chair and floor. And sink and counter. And on C’s shirt and pants and socks. And TRL’s pants. It’s a massacre, the White Album version. TRL stripes C and himself and throws everything in the wash. He takes C&E upstairs, puts a fresh set of clothes on C and they head downstairs.

“Stay on the carpet, please,” TRL instructs as he begins the cleanup. But in a trip to the sink, TRL turns around: E has walked to the table, going through the vomit, which now trails him in little footprints on the floor. TRL sighs and picks up E, takes off his pants and socks, and once again they all head upstairs to change.

Finally, with C&E all clean, and with the sink and table and floor cleaned up, TRL turns his attention to the chair. A black plastic one with little square holes in the seat. TRL and S had bought it for their apartment in NYC, and it had followed them out to San Francisco and now outside Boston. After scrubbing and poking in the holes, white vomit still clung. So TRL did the only logical thing: he put the entire chair in the bathtub and gave it a good hot shower. Something which TRL had not found the time to do for two days. Under the strong stream of water, the chair comes clean. If it had been wood or had a cloth cushion, the chair would have taken half-an-hour to clean. But because of the smooth attractive lines and overall durability of plastics, it is a 30-second affair. Finally, with the chair in the shower drying, the boys dry and good-smelling, the kitchen once again clean, it was time to start all over again.

“Breakfast time,” TRL announces to the boys. “Only bread and water for you, C.”

Act 3, Scene 3: “You Know It’s Spring in the Suburbs When…”

2006-04-20T15:16:00.000-04:00

1. The Lawn Care Experts mail TRL brochures and call him, and the local teenagers stuff flyers about their lawnmowing services into the mailbox.
2. TRL’s neighbor, in a bid to be the first one on the block to mow his lawn, fires up his lawnmower before the grass even considers starting to grow again.
3. Yellow and pink tulips peak from deep green emerging stalks, lovely white blooms blanket the dogwood tree, purple flowers drip from the neighbors bushes, i.e., TRL’s allergies begin to pound out a constant overwhelming headache, nasal congestion, and fuzzy-headedness.
4. S knows it’s spring when TRL’s allergy meds are lined up on the bathroom counter.
5. When TRL goes outside he feels the emotional stirrings of spring on the college campus. The warmth, the smells, the expectation. It is made all the more bittersweet the farther away TRL gets from college.
6. The neighbor’s three boys ride up and down the block on their bicycles, shouting and jumping the curb and not wearing their helmets.
7. Spider babies hatch and clamber up the window glass.
8. S screams and tells TRL to kill the spiders.
9. The ritual and time of putting on the boys’ winter jackets and hats are replaced with the ritual and time of putting on the boys’ sunscreen and insect repellant.
10. S starts writing lists of things to fix around the house, and TRL starts writing lists to avoid doing those things.

Act 3, Scene 2: “How I Learned to be Happy or All I Really Need To Know I Learned from My Two-year-old Twins”

2006-04-17T14:29:00.000-04:00

1. Bored in life? Make like C&E in their crib: Take off your clothes and bounce, bounce, bounce.

2. Love something so much you just don’t know how to channel your emotions? Make like C with his beloved Maisy book: rip it up and scatter it about (use actual or metaphorical tearing, depending upon the object of your intense emotion).

3. Then piss on it. Just like C from his crib onto the floor strewn with Maisy bits. And then like E, have a friend join in. Because, let’s face it, urinating rarely is the wrong thing to do, and almost always results in relief if not outright pleasure.

4. Cheerfully take responsibility for your actions. Did I rip that up and piss on it? Why yes, I did, Daddy! Smile, smile, smile and bounce up and down. It’s good to take ownership and feel good about your actions.

Chicken Tallulah

2006-04-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

Invite Tallulah Chicken over for afternoon tea. Offer her a butter massage. After she is nice and relaxed, he muscles well kneaded, invite her to the woodshed.
"Oh, Tallulah, is that a pretty bracelet on the chopping block?"
"Oh, you might be right."
"Shiny. Pretty. Have a closer look."
As T bends over the chopping block, pick up the hatchet, raise it over your head. Aim for the skin just above the collar of her pretty polka dot dress. Feeds family of four.

Chicken Breasts
Olive Oil
Spices (hot paprika, pepper, thyme)
White Wine
Salt
Butter
Parsley

Heat olive oil in frying pan.
Add chicken to brown.
Season top with spices. Flip when underside brown.
Season top with spices as underside browns.
Once both sides browned, add white wine, nearly covering chicken.
Cover pan with top and allow to cook for 3 minutes. Remove cover, turn chicken over.
Add a bit of salt. Add fresh chopped Italian parsley. Add several slivers of butter.
Keep top off, adjust heat to allow simmer but do not let chicken burn, allow to reduce.
Once juices reduced but enough remains for sauce, sprinkle chicken with good quality aged parmesan cheese. Let melt, and mix into sauce to thicken.
Taste chicken, adjust salt to taste.
Remove chicken, plate, scrap pan and drizzle pan bits and juice over chicken, top with sprig or two of fresh parsley. Serve.

Act 3, Scene 1: “Real Estate Envy”

2006-04-05T21:45:00.000-04:00

TRL and S go off to the big city with the boys to see the INLAWS. The INLAWS get capitals because they have the gravity of real people. They have had real important jobs, they have owned real fancy homes, and they now live in a real fancy apartment. They are real in the way that TRL and S feel like they are unreal: struggling along in their careers, unsure of where they want to live and taking the child rearing thing day by day (the fact that they have children is sur-real). C&E practically squeal when they see Mother-in-Law, and in fact E charges off towards her and promptly falls onto his hands and stomach on the sidewalk. Lesson number one: beware of smiling women; they can cause pain. But Granny does not cause pain. Granny brings books and smiles.

So TRL and S deposit C&E with the INLAWS and go off to meet J, a high-school buddy of S’s, and his live-in girlfriend. TRL is along for the sentimental ride, knowing he will hear recycled stories that may or may not have been interesting the first or second or third time around, so he votes heartily for the Mexican restaurant: margaritas.

It’s a night out with free people, for TRL and S are in parent prison. Additionally, S’s friend and girlfriend have the freedom granted to the got-in-early-on-the-real-estate boom set. It drives TRL nuts. Because he rarely gets anywhere early, and definitely not real estate. At the end of the night S’s friend and his girlfriend are on their way out for more drinks and TRL and S head back to the INLAWS’ to change little bodies into shark and truck pajamas and cross fingers that they’ll sleep on the car ride home to their snug little house in the suburbs, spring with its chirping birds too early in the morning, hatching mosquitoes, growing blades of grass screaming for the lawnmower, and days of warmth and sun descending. Not an unpleasant way to spend the Sunday.

Letting Go... continued

2006-03-13T12:03:00.000-05:00

Elmo is a Replicon
At first I thought Elmo had gone out on the town and met a new friend. I saw him with a little girl at the mall, and in the book store with another little boy when I was with Daddy. I called out to Elmo but he ignored me, wouldn’t come to me. It was like I didn’t exist to him. Then I thought, wait a minute crazy, it must be his cousin. His identical cousin, if that is possible. Because he looked like my Elmo. And then I discovered the truth. I was ripping up The New York Times one morning and I saw a story in the business section. “Elmo Readied for Retail Push: One Million Ready for Shipping.” He was reproducing himself! The ego, the audacity, the affront to individuality and true souls connecting. Elmo was all ego and fur. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t eat my oat meal that morning, instead spreading it around the table in an angry and desolate mood. My parents were not happy with this behavior, but clearly they didn’t care about what I was going through. No soothing words or heartfelt outreaches. They just said “Stop That.” If I could, I would. But how do you stop feelings! Elmo I love hate you.

Letting Go... continued

2006-03-02T08:39:00.000-05:00

What Would Doctor Phil Say?
I don’t know, my parents don’t let me watch TV. But that bald teddy bear-like father figure would no doubt have kind words to say laced with the harsh notes of reality. “He is no good for you, there is no future with him, there are other furry creature soul mates out there for you, addiction and a one-sided conversation is not the basis for a healthy relationship.” Well, Dr. P, sure, but do you remember what it’s like to love the love of a two-year old? To make the best friend you could imagine and then find out he is two timing and three timing and what ever number comes after that timing on you? It hurts to the quick, doctor.

Elmo is a Whore
It’s true. At first, there was me and Elmo. We would play for hours. He would always be there for me, ready to talk after my nap, back from day care, after dinner and before breakfast. But at the playgroup at my house he started flirting with Sally, the trollop from down the street. And Becky from my Music and Me class. And that slut Cynthia. And even Bobby, Max and Chris. It seems that Elmo liked to talk to everyone, to gesticulate and wiggle and act like the slut that he is. Not a fun lesson, but one that I was willing to overlook, if only it had ended there.

Letting Go: When You Have Loved Elmo Too Hard for Too Long

2006-02-27T18:33:00.000-05:00

By J . A. Wilan, a two year-old

I see him everywhere. On the TV, on the play piano, in the large plastic beach ball, on my shirts and at the ends of my sneakers. And I hear him, at odd times of the day, while lounging with a dinosaur book or stacking blocks or pulling along the wood trains. Elmo’s voice explodes out of nowhere from the plastic electronic fun toy, laughing robustly and doing his best to explain to me that a nose is for smelling. But it is over between me and Elmo. The love is real but ultimately not nourishing. It is too one-way. He is there for me, but doesn’t really listen to me. He craves attention but doesn’t know how to give back. So I have decided to end it. Not for another furry character, not for Oscar the Grouch or Barney or Sulley from Monsters, Inc. No, I am ending it for myself. And here is my story.

Step One
It is better to love and lost than never to have loved at all.

I am not so sure about that.

What I had with that furry red fella and now don’t is tearing me apart. I am going doubles and triples on my juice boxes, overindulging in Yo Baby peach yogurt, Aquadoodling till my fingers are raw with moisture, putting my stickers on every imaginable surface, and yet nothing is helping. No distraction is enough to make me forget about my Elmo, my dear sweet buoyantly lovely fun-loving pal. I am trying to forget, to move on, but I am finding there was life with Elmo and then there is just, well, life.

Elmo = Addiction
My therapist says it is not my fault, that the tug of Elmo is as powerful as any devised by the cigarette companies, the lure of heroin, the sweet pull off a bottle of ice cold Stoli. I am addicted to Elmo, to his voice and friendly manner, his come hither laugh, his presence and always-game-for fun attitude. And now I am must kick this habit, only there is no nicorette gum or methadone or AA meetings for me. There is only my will and belief in a better world without him. Sometimes I shake with what has happened to me, stamp off and cry in a corner. But I am trying to be strong.

Act 2, Scene 41: “Give and Take”

2005-12-28T11:40:00.000-05:00

E kicks a body blow to TRL’s soft belly. And then giggles.

Nice one, answers TRL as he struggles to keep E on the changing table while hoisting his diaper up.

E lets loose another kick, and another one, giggling all the while.

Oh, damn, that one hurt, announces TRL.

S, on the floor reading to C, looks over.

It’s only fair, she announces, he kicked me from the inside. Now he’s getting you from the outside.

TRL pauses, receives another kick, and nods. The logic was irrefutable.

Act 2, Scene 40: “Sweatpant Nation”

2005-12-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

TRL has taken to only wearing sweatpants. A pair of black fleece REI midweights. Why? Because of the suburbs and his children, he tells himself.

More specifically, because he’s growing fat, not having to walk anywhere anymore. There is nothing more comfortable for the fatty than a nice soft waist-stretchable pair of sweatpants!

And because anything he wears gets gooed by C&E. Breakfast, drool, crayons, apple sauce, milk, etc., so TRL reasons it is best to limit the damage to one garment.

And because outside TRL and S’s front door, there is no one to see him. Just a quiet empty street. No foot traffic, no cafes to walk to.

And even when TRL gets in the car to run an errand – going to the bank, CVS, Stop & Shop, the local coffee shop to get more ground coffee – there is nobody he knows to see him, and an entire population also wearing sweatpants. Now, this isn’t Boulder, CO. We're not talking sleek athletes in sexy gym attire. This is the suburban dwellers - the seniors, the middle aged, the car bound, the paunchy. And TRL has joined their ranks.

Act 2, Scene 39: “Doh!”

2005-12-21T10:13:00.000-05:00

During the gift game at the neighborhood holiday party, TRL wins big: a Homer Simpson T-shirt:

Panel 1: “D’OH” says Homer.
Panel 2: “NUTS!” he exclaims.
Panel 3: “DONUTS, Mmmm” he drools.

TRL loves this shirt; it speaks to his heart. He cradles it protectively during the evening least someone try and swap for it. S walks away with two used paperback books and a 5 pound Fire Starter log which TRL is made to carry on the walk home.

Two days later, with all the anticipation of Christmas morning, picking up a new puppy, or the first day of school, TRL showers and puts on his new shirt. Exxxxxcelent.

He trots downstairs to pour his morning iced coffee. C & E are sitting on the kitchen floor, enjoying elaborately created turkey and cheese wraps made by the nanny A.

C looks up, points to TRL’s T-shirt, smiles, and exclaims “Da-da.”

“Da-da?” says TRL, and then looks at his T-shirt.

Da-da, repeats C and points.

Da-da, laughs TRL. He had finally become, at least in the eyes of C, his favorite cartoon character anti-hero.

Act 2, Scene 38: “I Hate Oak Trees”

2005-12-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

It’s holiday party time and S and TRL are invited over to a neighbor’s for a cocktail party. Amid the wine, vodka, gin, cheeseballs, olives, nuts, while trying his best to be sociable and suppressing the constant thought ‘I am in an Updike Rabbit novel,” TRL makes small talk with George the accountant from down the block. Amid recent snow, George inquires about TRL’s gutters.

Icicles are hanging all over them, answers TRL.

Oh, that could be a sign of blockage. Did you clear the gutters this fall?

Clear the gutters, muses TRL. How would you do that?

Get up there and clear ‘em off.

Oh, OK. How would I get up there?

With a ladder.

It’s pretty high up.

You need a long ladder.

OK, says TRL.

It’s the trees, says George.

The trees?

Yup, they clog the gutters. Especially the oaks. I hate oaks.

Hate oaks?

I like trees but hate oaks. We have them all over our yard. They drip sap all summer. I’m now allergic to them.

Oh.

They make me wheeze. And they drop leaves all over the place, especially onto the roof.

Not good, says TRL.

Not good, verifies George. Those oaks really drop’em. In the summer you have the sap. In the fall you have the leaves. Then late fall the acorns come down.

Yes they do, confirms TRL.

Which means the squirrels come out and bury the acorns to get ‘em soft.

So that’s how you get acorns soft, thinks TRL. Who knew?

And then the squirrels dig up the yard all winter to get at the acorns. George shakes his head. I hate those damn oaks.

TRL nods. Damn oaks, he says neighborly.

I wouldn’t have bought the house if I knew about the oaks, George says, looking down at his feet and shaking his head in resignation.

Tough break, says TRL. You should kill ‘me. Cut ‘em all down.

George looks up, a twinkle in his eye. I should get rid of them, he answers.

Trees are the enemies of the home owner, decides TRL. Maybe they were angry, he thinks, and trying to get back for all the trees cut down to make room for the houses.

Act 2, Scene 37: “Taking Milk from Babies”

2005-12-15T12:51:00.000-05:00

TRL needs his coffee. The brain doesn’t spin unless caffeine is powering the gray matter. Caffeine is the hamster and TRL’s brain the wheel.

TRL comes down to grab his coffee, which he likes in a tall glass with lots of ice and a touch of milk. No matter the season, he needs his iced coffee.

He pours his glass full of Tanzanian Peaberry, and then goes for the milk. The milk is ritual as well as a key ingredient. He likes to shake it up to get it frothy and pour it over the coffee. The milk slowly runs down the insides of the glass in multiple tendrils, beautiful white threads cutting through the black and tanning the beverage from the bottom up. It’s like a white and tan lava lamp.

To TRL’s horror, the milk carton is empty. But C&E’s unfinished cups of milk are sitting on the refrigerator shelf. TRL hesitates for a moment, rationalizes that he would be taking just a little bit from each cup, and starts pouring. The nanny watches him as C&E run back and forth over the kitchen floor.

They won’t miss it, TRL answers her stare. I’ll get more later, he adds.

Operation coffee complete. And perhaps this is the first salvo in the inevitable tug-of-war over food once C&E move into their teens and eat everything in sight. For a little while, at least, TRL retains the upper hand.

Act 2, Scene 36: “Daddy Date”

2005-12-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

S was off to try out for the local SB players production of The Wizard of Oz. Her and 50 other fine denizens of SB. High school drama geeks, senior citizen thespians, and everybody in-between. S was gunning for the wicked witch.

The tryouts were at night, so TRL was watching the kids. Which is nothing exceptional. But S insisted that the boys get a bath. Well, TRL doesn't bathe the kids. S does. Because TRL hates it and S likes it. TRL does not like bending over the bathtub to scrub the kids. He doesn't like the 50 percent possibility that one of the boys will refuse to get in the water and thus have to get a sponge bath. He doesn't like getting soaked and he doesn't like the screaming protests when the boys are told the bath is over. TRL doesn't like the entire process of the bath. Too many variables, too much mess.

But S was adamant. If they weren't bathed tonight, then because of travel, they wouldn't have the opportunity to be bathed for three more days.

So? questions TRL.

So they need to be bathed, says S.

But why? whines TRL. They don't mind. Nobody cares.

I do, seethes S, already in the role of the wicked witch.

With that, she makes her dramatic exit.

Boys, TRL says to C&E, wha'da'ya say we just wash your faces and tell mommy you took a bath. Are you guys with me?

Yes, says E, smiling.

No, says C, smiling.

No, E changes his vote.

TRL considers bribes. An evening with Elmo? A sanctioned food fight? An extended bed time? The problem, he knew, was that the boys wouldn’t connect the action with the bribe. And more to the point, S would know that they hadn’t bathed. How? She would just know.

So up to the bath. But first, the boys do laps around the dining room table. Twelve circuits. The better to tire them out, thinks TRL.

And C and E are excited about getting in the bathtub. And offer only the meagerest resistance to coming out. Bedtime milk goes down without a fight, and clean-up and brushing teeth goes swimmingly. By the time TRL is ready to utter those wonderful words ‘Bed time, boys,’ the boys are ready to hear them. Once in their cribs, each dives for the mattress, head down, butt in the air. TRL covers them in blankets, whispers good night, and steals out of the room.

It was now the golden hour, the time when the boys were asleep and TRL wasn’t at work. Normally, this meant dinner, maybe some TV, probably some household chores. But tonight was special. Tonight was all TRL’s. It was just TRL, dinner, and the TV. IE, it was daddy date night. He had full control over what he wanted to do, a sense of a job well done with the boys and stretching before him uninterrupted entertainment and snacks. No call to tasks normally initiated by S, no negotiating what to watch on TV. It was like being a bachelor again, only without the desire to find the right woman and eventually start a family. TRL was in the sweet spot.

Act 2, Scene 35: “Mommy Is Refreshing with Zero Calories”

2005-12-07T09:27:00.000-05:00

TRL is making dinner, an event not unlike a diner which suddenly gets swamped with a big group. In this case, the big group is two 22-pound demanding customers.

More, more, calls out C.

More what? replies TRL as he microwaves broccoli, cools the macaroni and cheese, puts peanut butter on toast, cooks steak in the broiler and honors the free refills policy by keeping apple cider in C and E’s cups.

More, answers C and points at the counter, where a thousand ingredients crowd the small space.

Finally, after a process of elimination, TRL comes to the rice cakes. These? he asks.

Yes!

Great, mutters TRL, relieved.

He delivers the rice cakes, pronouncing it for C and E in the hopes that they will adopt language rather than pointing to tell him what they want. He tops off their cups and then reaches for the hundredth dish he has used this evening.

Mommmmaaama, E happily calls out in his sing-song little voice. Mommmmmaa.

Momma? Wonders TRL. In the cabinet?

But then he sees it. A lone Diet Coke can sits at the top. And S is a Diet Coke junkie.

TRL pulls down the can.

Momma? He asks E.

Mommmaaa, calls out E and gives a big smile. Mommmmmaa!

Life for a 21 month-old is pure association, a Freudian psychoanalyst’s dream. And in this family, Momma is a can of Diet Coke.

Act 2, Scene 34: “Driving Down Property Values”

2005-12-05T10:59:00.000-05:00

TRL’s neighbor turned his driveway into a runway.

The first snowfall of the season blankets SB in three inches of fluffy white stuff. The leaves have barely been taken care of and now it’s time to shovel snow. TRL and S find the whole nature maintenance thing annoying.

We have better things to do with our time than rake and shovel, she tells a friend over the phone.

TRL normally agrees, but he actually looks forward to shoveling. It is the only exercise he gets anymore, and there is something extremely satisfying about doing the job and surveying your work. And it doesn’t involve the major annoyance of raking, which is bagging the leaves after raking them up and then taking them to the dump. With shoveling, in time the snow disappears all by itself.

TRL heads out into the dark night and begins shoveling.

Across the street he spies N.

Hey, he calls out.

Hi, responds N.

N has his car hatch open. TRL goes over to chat, one man out in the cold night making his driveway safe for his wife and kids to another.

What are those poles? He asks N.

To shove in the ground along the driveway so the plow stays on the pavement, he responds.

The guy who is plowing our driveways? TRL asks, referring to the double deal N had made with a local kid to plow both of their driveways in heavy snowfall.

Yup.

Are you really going to put them in, kind of trailer trashy, don’t you think?

A plow isn’t very friendly to grass, responds N.

TRL shrugs and goes back to his side of the street.

The next morning, bringing C & E downstairs, TRL catches a glimpse of N’s driveway. Sure enough, bright orange poles surround it, ending in a single pole with a large red reflector like an artificial flower in front of the garage.

Great, mutters TRL, he won’t have the plow carve up his lawn but small planes may start to land in his driveway. And, TRL can’t help think, that if S and TRL decide to move and sell the house they would have to do it in the spring time, when the poles get pulled up. The garish markers probably bring property values down.

Act 2, Scene 33: “Oh, It’s Really Not That Hard, Don’t You Think?”

2005-12-02T10:29:00.000-05:00

S volunteers to man the sign-in desk for the SB Newcomers Club Bake and Crafts Fundraiser. This bears repeating: the SB Newcomers Club Bake and Crafts Fundraiser. TRL realizes he is now deep into a life he would never have imagined for himself.

The fund raiser is at the SB high school. S drops off her brownies and goes to sit at the sign-in desk. TRL brings C&E down to the gym where they bounce up and down on the mats and toss a ball around. C shows real aptitude for kicking around a soccer ball and E shows an inclination to being the cool kid lounging on the mats, watching the other kids do all the running around. TRL feels like he is somewhere in-between, though the truth is probably more towards being the uncool kid watching from the sidelines, hatching plans of revenge and world domination.

After the boys are sufficiently exercised, thus increasing the possibility that nap time will be taken up with naps rather than screaming and protests, they go back upstairs to visit S.

Momma, the boys call out, extending the M in their signature sing-song.

Boys! S gushes.

At that moment, a mom and her two blonde boys, around 8 years old, approach the sign-in desk.

Hi, says S. Are they twins?

Yup, says the mom, handing over her $3 admission fee.

There’s our twins, S says, gesturing to C & E, and smiles.

It’s a lot of work, huh, S offers, one mother of twins to another.

Oh, it’s really not that hard, don’t you think? the other mom casually responds, and saunters off.

S and TRL look at each other and start laughing.

This mother of twins is either pathologically competitive, in deep denial and doesn’t remember the early years, is on lots of Valium or is a complete idiot, speculates TRL.

Or a combination, agrees S.

Oh, it’s really not that hard, don’t you think? becomes the phrase of the day.

Act 2, Scene 32: “The Long, Brown Slide”

2005-11-30T10:16:00.000-05:00

In SB, you haul your own garbage. Mostly, anyway. You can pay $25 a month to have a private garbage company – Tidy Town - come around and empty your garbage bin once a week. And that’s what TRL and S elected to do. They were not going to drive to the town dump every week with a trunk full of rotting garbage. It just did not seem like a good use of time.

But they did pay their $25 to the town to use the town dump to dump everything that Tidy Town would not haul away. Which includes leaves, grass clippings, boxes, bottles, anything recyclable, in fact. And anything else that a household would need to get rid of. Old lights the electrician has pulled down from the ceiling. Lumber falling off the back porch. Oddly shaped pieces of metal found in the basement. The evil hose that leaked everywhere.

TRL had started raking the seven tons of leaves that had blanketed his yard, suffocating the green grass and, according to his friend G who has been a homeowner for years and years, would render the lawn a mud bowl if not soon removed. So TRL started raking. And raking. And raking.

He made a small dent in the front yard and had 14 bags of leaves to prove it. And now he needed to get rid of these leaves. In the back, as he had done at his house growing up, was not an option for there was no forest in the back of TRL and S’s house. Just the neighbor’s backyard. And TRL felt sure the neighbor would notice.

So he stuffs the bags into the back of the Volvo and aims for the dump, a vast wasteland of waste. This was an industrial dump – trucks from all over the region hauled garbage of every make and model here – but SB had a little section for itself. It was on a slight hill, with a great view of the undulating mounds of land fill, the huge metal crushing machines, the scary corrugated metal warehouses where refuse went in one form and came out in a totally new form. There were things here that could hurt a man.

The SB elevated section also afforded a perfect olfactory platform to sample the day’s offerings. Animal, vegetable and mineral all vied for rotting attention. It also offered an anthropological look into the lives of the inhabitants. Old mattresses, lawnmowers, chairs and sofas sat around. As did an abundance of discarded plastic childrens’ toys. And tons of magazines and newspapers. TVs, fans, air conditioners. Tennis rackets and enough beer bottles for a good spring break weekend. This was a town living high on the hog.

The day was cold, below freezing for the first time this year, and TRL brings the car next to a giant mountain of leaves. He plucks the bags from the car, rips them open and adds his small contribution of dried tree cover to the mound. On his way to put the plastic bags in their own receptacle, TRL begins to slide. A long, long slide on something frozen and brown. He waves his arms and weaves, but manages to stay upright. Which is a good thing because he sees the brown was leaking liquefied garbage which had made its way from the bottom of a rancid-smelling dumpster to where TRL now stood. It was tundra garbage, barren and frozen. And TRL had almost gone over head first and licked it like a popsicle no company would ever market. In the city you don’t have to go to dumps. Every 10 years there is a garbage strike and the dumps come to you. Out here in SB, every other week was an occasion to make the journey to the land of refuse.

Act 2, Scene 31: “Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That”

2005-11-28T08:12:00.000-05:00

At some point, all fathers of sons face the same question in reaction to a child’s behavior: does it indicate that he is gay? Now if the father is gay, then perhaps it is asked with hope and pride. And if the father isn’t gay, no matter how liberal and open and unrepressed he is, he will not be thrilled with the prospect. Not because there is anything wrong with it. But because a father wants his son to be like him: to share in his interests, which extend to sports, or hobbies, or world viewpoint, and girls. To be able to get to the age when he can share a beer with his son at a bar, he can put his arm over his shoulders and he can say Look at the hooters on that one. It’s a heterosexual guy thing.

Now C has worried TRL a bit. He is so sweet and really takes care of E. When E is thirsty, C will share his water. When E falls, C will come up and hug E. These are wonderful things, and TRL is proud of C for being like that. But is C being too sweet? Too, well, maternal? TRL is aware that it is his own bias and neurosis and projections that he is dealing with, but the emotions are real nonetheless.

So when TRL and S go over to a friends house and E plays merrily with their 4 year-old daughter but C takes no interest in her, this worries TRL. But what really scares him is bath time. TRL walks into the bathroom as S is bathing C and E. E is on his belly, fake swimming. C is sitting on top of the drain, a big smile on his face.

He likes having his butt over the drain, says S.

Fuck, mutters TRL. Does this indicate that he is gay?

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Act 2, Scene 30: “Turkeylurky Day”

2005-11-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

The boys arrive home after an invigorating day at daycare. And what do they have to show for their little labors? Why, Handprint Turkeys! The images of C and E’s little hands with a few strokes of magic marker turned into lovely four-feathered wild turkeys.

Beautiful, gushes TRL.

But there is more. A printed message comes with each little gobbler, signed by the artists themselves, or if not by their actual hand (which would still have been wet from the paint), then at least by a teacher.

This isn’t just a turkey
As anyone can see.
I made it with my hand,
Which is a part of me!
It comes with lots of love
Especially to say –
I hope you have
A very happy Thanksgiving Day!

Love, C&E,
and S & TRL

Act 2, Scene 29: “The Deal”

2005-11-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

S regularly sifts through the deals on Craigslist looking for things that might be useful or fun for the boys. She missed out on a killer indoor/outdoor jungle gym: by the time she showed it to TRL, it had already been spoken for. So when she found a plastic play tunnel/slide that looked perfect for the basement play area, she had TRL send an email immediately. They were the first to respond, and for $50 it could be theirs.

S and TRL had been sprucing up the finished basement, getting it ready for the guys to play in, especially during the long, cold winter. It now had a couch, posters, lots of toys, a clean rug and bright lighting, and even a 25 year-old vintage table top video game – Time Pilot – that TRL had swiped from his college house senior year. Now C & E would presumably have little interest in the Time Pilot game, and when they were of the age to have an interest they would want an Xbox or the like, no doubt, but for TRL this piece of nostalgia made the basement his, also. And this was important. The hallmark of living in suburbia was having a finished basement. Nobody in the city had a finished basement. A city basement was a dark spider-ridden place for boilers, garbage, and occasionally laundry machines. But in suburbia it was an extension of the manly instinct to occupy a den, to embrace the safety of one’s cave. To have a second refrigerator, store additional food, create closets for extra boxes, make a work space. And, at some point, create a safe haven for one’s teenagers to play loud music, drink Jack Daniels, do bong hits and watch videos. At least that’s the teenage dream. TRL did not know how he would feel in 15 years, but for now the basement would be a safe and warm place for C & E to run around, ride their miniature bikes, do art projects, dance to music, and soon, slither through a tunnel and whip down a slide. And at night, it would be a place for TRL to come down, maybe play a game of Time Pilot, and reminisce. It would be his man cave.

The exchange was set: Saturday morning, 10 am, at a sporting goods store where the husband worked. Ask for Arthur.

TRL set out with directions and after some false turns found the strip mall with the laundry, Chinese restaurant, hair salon, deli, and the sports store. He walks in and scans the place for Arthur. He pictured him as 40, fat, with graying hair and an avuncular way about him. TRL didn’t know why, maybe he was looking for his own Uncle named Arthur, the 20 years-ago version.

A pimply kid with bad posture approaches.

Can I help you?

I’m looking for Arthur, replies TRL. He felt like a cop, a private eye, or a mobster.

The kid nods to a 30-something year-old wiry black-haired guy explaining how to choose a hockey stick to a mom and her three sons.

I’m TRL, he says. Here for the thing.

Right, replies Arthur. Why don’t you meet me out back, at the white Tahoe.

TRL nods knowingly. The deal was on.

He brings the Volvo around the back of the strip mall and pulls in-between the Tahoe and a dumpster. He gets out and waits. And then starts worrying.

Maybe he was going to be knocked off. Maybe this was some weird game these people played. Perhaps he was going to be kidnapped.

He looks in the back of the Tahoe and sure enough, there is the plastic tunnel/slide. It is smaller than in the photos.

TRL goes back and leans against his car. It is cold outside. He wishes he had a cigarette even though he doesn’t smoke: it just seemed like the thing to do.

Finally the back door opens and out comes Arthur. He pulls the tunnel/slide from his car.

It’s missing some of the things, Arthur says, pointing out where a play phone and blocks had been. We couldn’t find them.

How about I give you $40 then, TRL says, sensing an opportunity to prove to S that he could bargain with the best of them.

Arthur shrugs. That seems fair, he says.

They put the tunnel/slide into TRL's car and exchange the money. It felt like a drug deal. Which was thrilling for TRL. Which told him a lot about the level of excitement in his life.

He thanked Arthur and headed for home, excited about the prospect of putting the tunnel/slide into the basement as the crowning object to a fun space for the kids.

$40, OK, that’s OK, says S once she sees the tunnel/side. But without the other stuff, I would have talked him down to $25. I mean who knows how much this thing cost new, maybe less than $40 she says. It’s smaller than I expected.

All day, S makes fun of TRL for paying as much as he did. I would have talked him down to $25, she repeats on several occasions.

TRL goes from feeling like a player and mensch to a shmuck. Did he get ripped off? Was it a deal gone bad? Did he wind up with oregano instead of Thai Stick? Such are the emotional ups and downs on the baby toy buying circuit.

Act 2, Scene 28: "Evil Neighbor II"

2005-11-18T12:09:00.000-05:00

The neighbor across the street is a nutty, neurotic, work-at-home web developer, and a stand-up guy. He and his wife R have a 4 month-old boy. Next door, to the right, is the new now Evil Neighbor. The one who blows leaves onto TRL’s lawn. He will be dealt with. Next door, on the other side of the house, is Retired Baby Boomer neighbor. A husband and wife team who keep their house up nicely, get visits from the kids and grandkids, are living the good golden years before they become the not-so-good brown years (nursing home life) prior to descending into the black years (eternity).

And then there is the mystery house. Next to N, diagonally across the street from TRL, these people are the Ghost Neighbors. The drive incredibly fast into their driveway and hurry into the house. They turn off all the lights on Halloween (making them the Antisocial Very Bad Indeed Neighbors). They never came over to introduce themselves when N moved in, and didn’t congratulate him on the birth of his son.

One day, S and TRL are pushing the boys in the jogging stroller and go by the house as a car comes in. TRL and S wait for the car door to open to say hi and introduce themselves. But the guy picks up his cell phone and sits talking, or at least, thinks TRL, pretends to talk. He then slithers out of the car with the phone glued to his ear and heads straight for the front door. He doesn’t make any indication that S or TRL or their absolutely adorable children exist. These people suck.

And TRL now has a theory. He is taking a short walk in the early evening, going past the Ghost Neighbors house when a car flies in. TRL stands at the head of the driveway, forcing a hello. A man, or maybe a woman,– it is dark and happens so fast – emerges from the car and runs to the front door, quickly opening it and sliding in. This person is avoiding TRL. The lights in the house oddly remain off. What is going on, thinks TRL?

And then he decides: these people are in the witness protection program. It is the only reasonable explanation for their ugly antisocial behavior. For while there were many, many neighbors TRL never met while living in various apartment buildings in NYC, that was to be expected. When one is living stacked in small boxes one on top of the other, a certain privacy is necessary. It is urban decorum. But out here in the suburbs, people are supposed to be friendly. It is a selling point. And neighbors are supposed to be helpful. Neighborly. It’s where the word comes from. And yet these people were anything but. So they must be in the witness protection program.

Or, thinks TRL, maybe they are ghosts.

Act 2, Scene 27: “They Grow Up So Fast”

2005-11-16T08:55:00.000-05:00

Gorging on boxes of PediaSure? QVC teddy bears showing up on the doorstep? A thousand red bibs with the fire engines print arriving in the mail? What will he choose?

All are for the taking if C activates his Platinum Power Capital One Visa offer which came in the mail for him.

He will have 0% APR on his purchases for one full year. Free online account services. Sixteen card designs to choose from.

A very nice opportunity for a 20 month-old. A complete lifestyle upgrade. Major baby bling.

All within his reach. If he can only learn to read. In one month, when the offer expires.

Act 2, Scene 26: “Mommy and Mean Class”

2005-11-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

TRL hauls C & E to the weekly morning music Mommy and Me class. But they are a few minutes late because C refuses to put on his jacket and E refuses to take off his pajamas. It is their Zen yin/yang program to drive TRL nuts.

TRL walks into the hallway to the class. The gym door is closed. TRL puts down C & E, takes off the diaper bag strapped to his back, takes his shoes off and begins to remove C & E’s shoes, hats and jackets. C now refuses to take his jacket off. He starts screaming his displeasure.

TRL opens the gym door. 14 mommies and their kids are in a circle, singing as they raise and lower a colorful parachute. TRL hears the teacher call out Hi C & E as he tries one more time to coax C into letting him take off his jacket. As he is doing this E walks towards the door to the gym and trips headfirst into the doorframe. TRL hears the sudden intake of the collective breath of 14 mommies, and then E starts wailing. TRL rises and picks E up to comfort him. He stands facing the lynch mob of angry moms. He is holding a screaming E in his arms and trying to hold the hand of a squirming crying C attempting to wriggle back into the sleeve of his jacket. Bad man, bad man, TRL sees in the mothers’ eyes. Mommy and Mean class for TRL.

Act 2, Scene 25: “Blow Back”

2005-11-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

The new neighbors move in. And no Dodge Magnum stationwagon appears. Only a minivan and Buick. All is well.

S delivers homemade Toll House cookies to welcome the newbies to the neighborhood. TRL and S meet the 5 year-old boy and 2 year-old twin girls. Together with C & E and the three month-old across the street, they now have their own neighborhood daycare center.

TRL shakes hands with Al. They good naturedly check each other out. Al works from home. So does TRL! So does N from across the street, TRL informs Al. The men now have their own little office park. A real neighborhood infrastructure is being created.

And then several days later, sabotage. TRL is working in his office upstairs. He hears the high whine of a leaf blower. He looks out the window. Al’s head is bobbing behind the tall green fence that separates the properties. And then TRL sees leaves being kicked up and over the fence. Onto TRL’s property. Can’t be helped, decides TRL. He is a kind man, after all, and wants to give his new neighbor the benefit of the doubt.

But the leaves are now coming from under the fence. Al is blowing the leaves off his property and onto TRL’s lawn.

TRL seethes. This is a declaration of war. An undercover war, like the US funding of the contras.

TRL muses over payback. Throwing weed seeds over the fence to take root in the Evil Neighbor’s lawn? Erecting an addition to the fence to raise it 20 feet high? Channeling the chipmunk tunnels toward the neighbor’s backyard, rendering it the Vietnamese Cuchi tunnels of suburban living? This violation of suburban etiquette demands a response. This shall not stand, mutters TRL.

Act 2, Scene 24: "Door-to-door Extortionists"

2005-11-09T09:51:00.000-05:00

It finally happened. The Boy Scouts came a knockin'. TRL was working upstairs when the Nanny calls from outside.

There’s some people to see you, she says.

It sounds ominous. Was it religious people trying to sell him on their God? Was it the IRS? The FBI? The Elks?

TRL goes downstairs and opens the front door. It is a neighbor with her three sons.

Want to buy chocolate bars? She smiles.

TRL looks down at the youngest boy, a shy 8 year-old in a cub scout uniform.

What are you selling? TRK asks.

The boy mumbles something.

You can tell him, the mother says.

Candy bar, he answers.

For what? TRL asks.

Outs, he says.

Outs? TRL repeats, wondering if the scouts are outing potentially gay members and taking up a collection to do this, or perhaps, in a decidedly more liberal bent, are deciding to come out as a group.

Scouts, the boy clarifies.

Oh, scouts, says TRL. Kind of odd timing, selling candy a week after Halloween, he tells the mom as he forks over five dollars for five chocolate bars. He will add them to the collection of ten pounds of Hershey minis still lying around the house from the anticipated trick-or-treater deluge that never occurred.

As he takes possession of the bars, he can feel his belly growing larger.

We’ll be selling through January, answers the mom. We’ll be back in a month, she adds, and waves goodbye.

TRL has been hooked, tacitly committed to buying more chocolates from the Scouts. And who knew what was around the corner. The Girl Scouts? Indian Guides? The High School Marching Band? Bad submarine sandwiches? Poor car washes? More unwanted candy?

In the city, you were hit up by the homeless, whom you could choose to ignore or toss some spare change to. Out here, organized kids were doing the hard sell, and TRL was sure they kept a list of who was naughty to them and who was nice.

Act 2, Scene 23: "The Season of the Rake"

2005-11-07T09:33:00.000-05:00

And you will have lots and lots of leaves, it will be measured in feet, so proclaimed Jeff the Tree Guy.

And thus is came about.

The grass is no longer visible. Instead, TRL has a brown and yellow leaf carpet surrounding the house.

And acorns, also. By the bushel, raining down from the Heavens. TRL is considering importing squirrels to do the gathering job that the domestic squirrels obviously weren’t keeping up with. American squirrels have grown fat and lazy.

So have, it seems, the American people. Nobody rakes anymore. Everybody straps on a gas-powered leaf blower to their back. It sounds like the Indianapolis 500 in the neighborhoods of SB.

And kids can’t even be induced to rake the lawn for extra spending money. The kid who cuts the lawn wants $100 to rake the lawn. $60 if TRL does it himself: he would then suck up the piles of leaves using a vacuum attachment to his huge industrial lawn mower. The problem is that any kid interested in raking the lawn is interested because he started a business doing it. No longer are there youths interested in some manual labor for an extra few bucks. They rather virtual rake on some Internet game, or study up so they can get the grades to land the summer internship at John Deere.

So TRL and S head out to the lawn to rake. TRL knows the deal. He used to rake the lawn as a kid. It takes a long time. And lots of effort. And the leaves just cover things up again the next day.

But S hasn’t raked before. She starts off with enthusiasm and glee.

And then she gets a blister.

And then after an hour’s work she looks up and realizes most of the lawn is still covered in leaves.

And then the wind kicks up, scattering leaves back onto the grass from the mighty piles that have built up. It is Sisyphus blowing leaves up the hill. And S finally cries: We have to move back to the city.

To the land of infinite pavement. To where leaves are regarded as colorful displays for trips up to New England. Or quant pictures in children’s books. Or something you press into paper during a Mommy and Me educational arts and crafts project. But never a chore.

Act 2, Scene 22: "Daddy Break"

2005-11-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

TRL takes C & E to a music Mommy and Me class. He looks around and sees he is the only daddy. And he sees lots of single moms. Sure, they probably have husbands, but they are alone here, and for TRL the entire toddler gym room is one big pick-up joint, a very cute theme bar. He can’t help this, it is entwined in his DNA. He feels wolfish. As the music starts and the teacher tells everyone to put their hands in the air and shake it all around, TRL is looking around and wants to desperately do the hokey pokey with all these lovely mommies.

Do they moms know this about him? Is he being obvious? He is providing encouragement to C & E, complimenting them on their dance moves, but he is also eyeing the cute women, looking at their shaking, bending bodies. Is he actually drooling, he wonders? He wipes his mouth. Mommy and me, indeed.

Act 2, Scene 21: "Night Shift"

2005-11-02T09:28:00.000-05:00

TRL watches as the leaves build up around the yard. But he doesn’t care. Not yet, anyway, because he knows more will fall. Lots more. But S feels differently.

Are you going to rake today? She prods.

Too busy today, replies TRL.

So a few hours later, S asks again. It is her style. And her feature that most closely resembles TRL’s mother’s personality. Which doesn’t sit very well with TRL. So he ignores the nagging.

S comes home from work: can you rake tonight?

Tonight? TRL replies incredulously.

You’re busy?

Ahh, it’s kind of dark out, he points out.

Use a flashlight. What about the headlamps we have for camping, S suggests, referring to the miner-style flashlights that strap around one’s head.

I’ll rake later this week, responds TRL.

OK, fine, I’ll go out tonight and rake, says S.

She had used the nuclear option: threatening to take it upon herself to do something outrageous because TRL wouldn’t do it in a reasonable time.

OK, OK, fine, screams TRL. He goes around the house, throwing on all outside lights to illuminate the lawn. He storms into the garage, pulls out his very fine recently purchased ergonomically-designed leaf rake, and commences dragging it across the grass at 11pm at night. Little piles of leaves begin to form over the dark lawn. He feels like the protagonist in Close Encounters of the Third Kind crazily driven to build a dirt mountain.

And he also finds it strangely cathartic.

Act 2, Scene 20: “Househusband Freed! Temporarily. Destination: Barcelona”

2005-10-31T14:03:00.000-05:00

TRL and S venture overseas for their first vacation in years. Escape from the kids, escape from the burbs, escape from their jobs. Escape!

TRL and S’s parents provide childcare for C and E, who are already well acquainted with their grandparents. It’s a win-win-win for all. C and E get total attention, grandparents get the joy of hanging with the newest generation, and TRL and S get some sleep and adventure in beautiful Barcelona. The house is perhaps the only possible loser in all this. And the lawn. TRL will not be around to take care of things. But something has to give.

TRL calls up the pediatrician to check that no long-term mental damage - abandonment issues - will be experienced by C & E. For TRL remembers, or at least remembers the story, of when he was first left with his grandparents as a two year-old so his parents could take their first no-TRL vacation. TRL refused to greet them when they came home, instead holding on to grandma’s leg in a big Fuck You to his parents. TRL is still not sure if 13 years of analysis has dislodged this trauma. And he doesn’t want it repeated with his sons.

But the nurse practitioner, not an MD, granted, but someone with experience, says Go Go Go. Apparently, little kids don’t have a real good lock on the concept of time (S would argue that this applies to TRL as well): one day away and one week are experienced as similar things for the little ones. So away they go.

After a lovely flight (it was delayed, but so what: TRL and S were free of responsibility, no children to watch. So it was all good. Lots of reading, some movies, some sleep. A little minivacation on the way to the vacation), TRL and S take a train to mountains outside Barcelona. They stay in a near-empty mountain inn, sleeping late, taking long hikes, eating leisurely meals, sipping beer and eating olives on the terrace as they kick back, read, and do nothing. Sweet, sweet nothing.

TRL and S then head into Barcelona for tapas, wine, prowling the winding stone streets at midnight (jet lag is a real help in embracing the late-night party atmosphere), trips to Gaudi architecture, and most importantly, long meals, lots of sleep, and complete and utter leisure. Sure, TRL thought about C & E. But it was nice to mostly think just about where the next restaurant would be, what type of tapas to order, and which street to turn down.

At some point, reembracing city living (No car! No grounds upkeep! No plumbing/heating responsibilities! No problems!), TRL did think about all the time he had put into his lawn. The watering, pruning of bushes, arranging (and paying) to have it mowed, thinking about getting trees cut down. And also dealing with the garbage every Monday night, wheeling the huge plastic garbage can down to the curb, throwing his body over the top of the can at 11 at night to tamp down all the garbage bags so they wouldn’t be charged extra for additional bags poking over the top. And chasing down and dealing with the crazy schedule of the electrician to get lights installed and electrical upgrades made ($$$). And the plumber and oil man to make sure the house continued to function. TRL’s conclusion: they need a super. Someone to deal with all of it for him.

It was a time/value issue in his judgment. Less time dealing with the lawn and house upkeep means more time to make money and doing things he would rather be doing. He would be leveraging the services of a super to get ahead in his career and spend more time with his family. TRL concludes he needs a Suburban Super.

Someone to call when the heat went off, when the lights flickered, when they needed a new refrigerator.

Someone to make sure the lawn was perfect, the house leak proof, the trees around it safe.

TRL supposes this is what the rich would call a caretaker. But he and S were not rich. So he wanted what apartments in the city had. Someone to deal with lots of families. There were certainly a lot of families in SB. Did other families feel the same way? Was there someone who would be their super?

Act 2, Scene 19: "Terrible Twos"

2005-10-21T07:59:00.000-04:00

TRL goes downstairs into the kitchen. He says hi to the nanny, who is chasing after E.

C is crayoning the floor.

No, C, no, says TRL, and puts newspaper under him so he can express himself without redoing the color scheme of the kitchen.

Later, though, TRL comes down and C is using the refrigerator as a giant coloring book. TRL rubs and rubs but the crayon won’t come off. Now he and S have a Jackson Pollock Signature Frig.

In the middle of the day, TRL realizes he hasn’t gotten any phone calls. He grabs the receiver and there is no dial tone. He goes into the kitchen and sees that the line has been pulled out of the socket. Later, when he is with the boys for the afternoon, he watches as E grabs the phone line (not easy as TRL had tucked it out of the way) and yanks. Mystery solved.

C, don’t jump on the recliner, says TRL. C, sit down when you’re on the chair.

A puzzle piece whizzes past TRL’s ear. He turns towards the origin of the trajectory: E smiles and begins to jump up and down and screeches like a very happy monkey.

The boys are only 20 months old. TRL realizes the terrible twos, in this case, refer to the number of sons as opposed to any particular age. And they will only get stronger and faster, he recognizes.

TRL pulls a Red Bull from the refrigerator and vows to start doing sit ups and push ups. He needs to stay one step ahead of them.

Act 2, Scene 18: “Town and Country”

2005-10-19T11:41:00.000-04:00

S’s parents watch the kids as TRL and S go to NYC for the weekend for a wedding. TRL and S stay with friends, jog around Chelsea Pier, walk around their old haunts in the West Village, meet friends in Soho for dinner. They come back refreshed. And poor.

Town: A Day In NYC:
Breakfast, Murray’s Bagels: $24
S’s Haircut, West Village: $60
Subway: $4
Cute T-shirts for C & E: $30
Shiatsu Massage, West Village: $42
Union Square Green Market, apples and pretzels: $15
S’s Manicure: $12
Ice Tea: $3.25
Cappuccino: $4
Lunch, Ino, West Village: $32
Dinner, Savoy, Soho: $130
TOTAL: $356.25

Country: A Day in SB:
TRL stays home all day. Cost is $0.
Though he does eat meals which are bought at Stop & Shop, so a typical day may cost him $20.
S drives to work, so gas on average costs about $3 per day. And she eats breakfast and dinner at home, and brings lunch to work, so that is another $20.
TOTAL: $43

Conclusion:
The city has now become The Big City, a cost prohibitive place, an extravagant trip rather than an every day occurrence. TRL and S are officially yokels.

Act 2, Scene 17: “Under Attack”

2005-10-13T22:51:00.000-04:00

Ping… ping…ping TRL hears through the curtain of sleep.

PING!

TRL’s eyes shoot open. The alarm clock reads 3:00 am, the green glow of the numbers throwing a sickly illumination over the room. S is still sleeping soundly.

PING! Something ricochets off the aluminum siding of the house.

Acorns, realizes TRL. Fall was here and with seeming randomness the acorns had been falling from the trees throughout the day. And the night, TRL is now forced to acknowledge.

PING.

It’s like living in a tin hut on a fucking driving range, TRL curses to himself.

How long was acorn-falling season? he wonders.

PING!

The trees were exacting their revenge for TRLs thoughts of cutting some of them down. They were launching giant acorn torpedoes at his home.

Ping. Roll, roll, roll. PING.

TRL rolls over, reaches his arms across S’s warm body and tries to go back to sleep.

PING!

Act 2, Scene 16: “Competitive Child Reading”

2005-10-11T11:20:00.000-04:00

S sends TRL on a mission: get C & E signed up for the reading session at the SB library. Apparently these 45-minute toddler book reading series are the hot thing in town, and to avoid getting closed out one had to arrive at 10 am on the designated Friday in order to sign up in person.

TRL pulls in front of the library and in disbelief he sees a line of women and strollers snaking out the library door, along the sidewalk and out to the corner. It was like U2 tickets had just gone on sale.

Fuck, he curses himself. It was one minute to ten and he was still late it seemed.

He noses the car into a spot at the side of the library and marches out to join the line. By the time TRL steps behind the last person the stroller conga line had already retreated back inside the library, a good sign: it was moving. But he realizes it still stretches down a long hallway and around a curve, disappearing and possible snaking for miles and miles around the library’s book shelves, reference desks and old people reading newspapers with magnifying glasses.

He shakes his head. It was like a fucking rock concert, and he would never even wait this long for tickets to a concert. Instead, he would use contacts. But he had no inside people who could line him up with toddler reading club tickets, and he didn’t see any scalpers hanging around the library.

So he takes a breath and waits. He smiles at the woman dressed in polyester blue pants and a polyester-cotton green top pushing a stroller and two year-old in front of her. He smiles at the two women chatting together who line up in back of him - at least he wasn’t the last person now. But no one engages him in conversation.

In ten minutes, at least 15 other people join the line. Aside from an exceptionally fat man who has a manic smile pinned on his face as he pushes a stroller bearing a little boy, everybody in the line were women, and everybody seems to know one another, or at least share some secret quality that allows them to talk together. But nobody wanted to talk to TRL. Was it because he was a man, and one without a child in tow? Were people wondering why he was in line? Was he creepy?

Or was it the way he was dressed, New York City-hip shoes, San Francisco-relaxed jeans and T-shirt, rather than corporate dry cleaned or suburban casual (blue jeans taking the “blue” part much too literally, and sneakers with too much white)?

Not even the fat man who he smiles at and gives a head nod to, a time honored man-hi, will engage him in conversation.

He is finally the next person for sign-up, only two feet away from the sign-up desk, and he feels a rush of excitement and accomplishment.

Hi. Two 19-month olds, C & E, he tells the librarian.

She looks him over. TRL finds it ironic that she actually has a string connected to her glasses to hold them when she takes them off. It is so stereotype. She smiles at him, prints “C” and “E” in two available slots on her sign-up sheet and looks back up. That was it, realizes TRL. No tickets, no balloons dropping from the ceiling, just the names on a sign-up sheet. He wonders why he couldn’t just do this online.

TRL turns and as he leaves, walking down the line, he smiles at the people still waiting, hoping that the reading sessions will be full soon. He needs the list to be closed out to make this a true triumph. It wasn’t his fault if these people hadn’t arrived on line early enough. This was war. He who got a place for his children wins. And if everybody got a place, there would be no true winners.

Next year he aims to bring a cooler, chaise lounge and sleeping bag to camp out the night before.

Act 2, Scene 15: “Right Place, Wrong Surface”

2005-10-06T09:11:00.000-04:00

E took his second crap on the bathroom floor today. TRL knew immediately once S yelled from the bathroom: TRL, come quick! We’ve got a problem.

It was like the announcements in grocery stores: Clean up, aisle 10.

So TRL cames up with paper towels and first sees C & E happily playing in the bath, which is what was supposed to be happening. And then he sees the squeeze. A lovely cylinder of brownish-yellow poop sitting on the tile floor. Without the mash of the diaper, which rendered most poo a squish by the time TRL or S got to it, this one looked like a real adult poo, only smaller.

Look, a little boy poo, remarks TRL.

He squatted, it came out, and then he was ready for his bath, announces S.

Efficient, says TRL as he bends over and collects what part of the poo he can scoop up with a piece of toilet paper, and then wipes the rest off the tile with alcohol and paper towels. This must be love, or at least the expression of it, he thinks as he tosses the poo present with the toilet paper wrapping in the toilet. It’s not that he is doing the clean-up, that is inevitable, it is that he doesn’t mind it so much.

Act 2, Scene 14: "Relative Visit"

2005-10-03T16:58:00.000-04:00

S, your brother is going to Cape Cod with his girlfriend, right? says TRL.

Yup.

I have an idea. You think he could visit my grandma in the nursing home? He could pretend he’s me, that his girlfriend is you, and he could put on two sock puppets and call them C & E. My grandma wouldn’t know the difference, she would enjoy the visit and it would protect my inheritance.

Two sock puppets for C & E?

They’d be cute sock puppets, answers TRL. Very cute.

S walks away.

What? he says. Must be the sock puppets, TRL decides. He would have to come up with a better plan for representing C & E. Cups with styrofoam heads? Midget actors? Photos cut outs?

Act 2, Scene 13: "A Tree Grows in SB, But for How Much Longer?"

2005-09-29T15:15:00.000-04:00

The tree guy was out today. TRL summoned him for an estimate to get rid of dead branches and boughs on the trees scattered about his princely .45 acres. This dead wood was threatening his children every time a breeze was raised, to say nothing of summer squalls or the far off by very real possibility of ice storms. Plus a lovely little tree amidst the great towering oaks was now attracting bees, or hornets, or yellow jackets. TRL did not know what they were except they had begun to swarm over the tree during the daylight hours, making the area around it dangerous for C and E. And over the last few days unsightly white nodules had begun to form on the underside of this tree’s branches. A fungus? Miniature bee hives? A rare and deadly tree infection or home to new breed of disgusting hairy spider, TRL did not know though he was sure he wanted it away. So he called a tree pruner.

Jeff, the tree guy, walked the property and pointed up. Dead, dead, dead, he says, pointing out the obvious and not so obvious. TRL shows him the bee tree.

The tree is dripping sap, it must be sweet, attracts the bees, he says. That white stuff, I don’t know what that is.

Could it be little bee homes?

Tree guy laughs. No. Might be a fungus, or blight. I would take down the whole tree. You see what it is doing to the gutters and the wood over here, tree guys says, pointing to the steps leading to the sun porch. Rot. Leaves. Moisture. Too much shade. It could also introduce ants and bugs into the home with it being so close.

TRL immediately wants the tree gone, severed at its roots. Which was odd, he realizes, because he loves trees and likes looking out on this one from the second-floor office. But it was threatening his home, and attracting the wrong kind of creature – stinging bugs – to the backyard. And with it gone there would be more sunshine, and better access to the outside water facet, and another option for a patio and place to put the barbeque, he thought. He now saw the attraction of the deforested McMansion plots, great big houses and wide green lawns with all trees having been removed. Yes, napalm the entire backyard, TRL thinks to tell tree guy, exterminate the arboreal brutes.

Even as he had these thoughts, TRL knew that his brain was now thinking like a homeowner, and a suburban homeowner at that. He was no longer the city guy angry if a dog crapped near a tree, threatening its roots. An urban citizen raising hell should an old tree on a block be threatened by a developer, snow plows and salt trucks or careless city construction workers. He felt like a pod person, aware of a change, a transmogrification, but not really caring about the change. He was being anesthetized with the sweet drug of landownership.

$1000 to remove all the dead branches, says Jeff the tree guy. $200 more to take out the tree with the bees and grind the stump down.

Right price, exciting idea, thinks TRL. Do it, he almost says, but knows he must talk to S before authorizing the betrunking of the tree: it stood just outside the guest room that S used as an office, and she had grown attached to the lovely tree at the window.

Act 2, Scene 12: “Dry Cleaning the Family Pet”

2005-09-15T14:17:00.000-04:00

TRL pushes C & E around a parking lot in an SB strip mall. They had just been in a kids store hunting for sun glasses, caps and socks. The store only had the socks in C & E’s size. It had been pouring all day, and right now there was a clearing, the gray skies rolling back to offer if not sunshine, at least not fat raindrops. So TRL was taking advantage and wheeling the boys around, giving everybody some fresh air.

This is my life, rolling around a suburban parking lot with a double stroller, he muses. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. In this case, professional suburban semi-weekly stay-at-home dad.

He spots a cleaners among the toy store, rental shop and Italian restaurant in this low level brick retail enclave. He wheels in the boys.

Do you dry-clean stuffed animals? TRL asks the proprietor, a middle-aged Asian man. Bryan the Bear, a five foot long white furry bear stuffed animal present from TRL’s friend Bryan upon the boys’ birth, was in desperate need of a cleaning. After having C & E spill PediaSure and wipe cheese, plums, crackers and various other food on him, not to mention stamping on his every part, Bryan stunk. A sickly unpleasantly sweet and garbagy stink.

A long stuffed animal, TRL adds, spreading his arms out.

Dry-clean? Repeats the man.

Yes, would you dry-clean the stuffed animal?

That is very big, replies the man, looking at the space between TRL’s hands. I don’t think so. Is it a pet?

A pet? thinks TRL. What is worse, he wonders, that this man thinks TRL wants to dry clean a pet, or that this man would entertain the idea of dry-cleaning the family pet?

It’s a stuffed animal, says TRL, not a pet.

Can’t do it, the mans says, shaking his head. We can’t clean stuffed animals.

TRL thanks him and backs out. Looks like the family was facing plan B: Bryan gets a bath.

Act 2, Scene 11: “Cool Town”

2005-09-13T15:13:00.000-04:00

It was D, the nanny’s, last day, and C was up from his nap, sitting in his highchair drinking some weight-giving PediaSure vanilla flavor (tastes like a milk shake with 10 scoops of additional sweetener). He was watching D while she browned the meat for a shepard’s pie she was making in the attempt to use up various ingredients in the refrigerator and insure that they boys did not starve at least for the first several days of her absence. She is going back to college and the boys start day care next week. TRL will have them an additional day, for a total of two days of father-sons extreme bonding.

Watching the cooking channel, I see, TRL says to C. He grabs a RedBull from the refrigerator, clinks with C’s PediaSure, and has a sip. Need the energy, he tells D.

C starts pointing to the counter and starts whining.

If you could verbalize, you would get what you want faster, TRL tells C, though immediately recognizing the fallacy of his words. He has been vocalizing his desires for years.

C whines more insistently.

Chillage in the Village, D says, and hands C a box of crackers. He immediately chillages.

TRL giggles. Chillage in the Village, he repeats. I like it.

Later that night: Chillage in the Village, S.

Where did you get that?

It’s what all the hip college set kids are saying. D said it.

Five minutes later: Chillage in the Village.

S: If this is a theme, get it out of your system now because it is going to grow tiresome. I will have to call D up and yell at her.

TRL: Hey S, Pillage in the Village.

S smiles faintly.

The next day: C and E fuss and cry as TRL and S change their diapers in the morning. Guys, Chillage in the Village.

OK, that’s one, says S. You have two more today, and that’s it.

Oh S, you need a village chillage.

TRL pauses a beat.

That one doesn’t count. It’s different.

S ignores him.

TRL begins to say the phrase quietly, so only he can hear, though S knows what he is up to. He is banned the whole day from whispering to himself .

Act 2, Scene 10: "Suburban Swag"

2005-09-12T09:24:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning, TRL is out on the front lawn raking up clippings from trimming the bushes against the house. He hadn’t noticed they were, well, bushy, until N across the street mentioned that he had just cut his bushes with his brand new deluxe power cuter, and then his wife S put in: Looks like your bushes could use a trim.

Suppressing the obvious juvenile comeback, TRL merely nodded.

So the next day, TRL walks out the door in the morning to salvage his reputation in the neighborhood, thinking it was a 20 minute job. The boys are having breakfast, S is reading the paper.

An hour later, while raking up the last of the clippings, he spies next door neighbor R marching towards him. This was unusual.

Hi.

Hi, responds R.

When do you move? TRL asks.

Two weeks from yesterday.

Soon, says TRL. Ah, do you know when the new people are moving in?

End of the month, replies R.

They have kids?

Don’t know.

Do you know what they do?

Blackbox. Never met them. The realtors kept us away. Don’t know if they were amplifying or distorting any information.

Ahah, TRL nods, remembering the day the ugly-ass Dodge Magnum stationwagon had pulled in front of R’s house, the buyer exiting the car and surveying the house.

Do you want a trundle bed? asks R.

What is that?

It’s a double bed, one on top of the other.

Oh. Sure, says TRL, thinking it could go in the basement for guests.

Great. I’ll bring it over. Interested in a snow blower? I’m selling it.

TRL wipes his arm across his forehead to remove the sweat. It was 80 degrees. Who wants to think about snow? But still.

How much? he asks.

I got it new for $1200. I’m selling it for $500.

Wow. Ah, I’ll wait. Maybe it will be a dry winter.

R gives a laugh indicating he knows better, and leaves to get the trundle bed. TRL follows to help.

The trundle bed in the garage, TRL finishes raking and heads inside, finally.

Twenty minutes? S says.

It took a bit longer. We have a trundle bed.

What?

R gave it to us. It’s in the garage. We can put it in the basement. For guests.

That’s great, S says.

A knock on the door. It is R holding a lantern looking thing.

You guys want this bug zapper? he asks.

What does it do? S asks. But TRL quickly reaches for it.

Yes, thank you, we’d love it.

It kills bugs, TRL explains to S as he embraces the free bug executioner.

Infrared, adds R. Drops em without a sound and they fall straight down.

Excellent, says TRL, relishing his new weapon against Nature.

Act 2, Scene 9: "Special Things are Possible Today"

2005-09-09T08:26:00.000-04:00

TRL is on the floor stretching. C & E are in their high chairs, covering themselves in Cheerios, yogurt and milk, their daily breakfast ritual. TRL extends his arms and legs, trying to stretch his entire body out to counteract the tightening and muscle shortening that has taken place over the night. He turns his head to the left to stretch out his neck, then the right but before he turns completely a long dark shadow passes over the room through the window.

TRL sits up and stares. A hot air balloon is gliding over his neighbor’s house across the street. It is just clearing the roof and trees. TRL jumps up and shouts for S.

Busy, she yells from upstairs.

TRL runs to the front door window.

You’ve got to see this, he screams up to her.

S comes down the stairs buttoning her pants. What, she huffs. I’m late for work. What are they doing?

TRL points outside.

Oh, exclaims S.

They both walk out to the front stairs. The balloon is the color of the rainbow and you can hear the hot air jets hissing in the ballooner's attempts to lift the balloon beyond the roofs and trees of the neighborhood. They watch as it drifts north and over the next street, and then, because of the trees and angle, TRL and S lose sight of it. They go back inside.

The morning now had a very Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Willy Wonka feel to it, realizes TRL. Special things are possible today.

Act 2, Scene 8: “Car Cramming”

2005-09-07T08:55:00.000-04:00

TRL has an article due to an editor. So he starts printing out photos of the family. Cute photos of C & E and S playing and hugging and mugging for the camera. Of C & E in the baby pool with naked cousins G (age 4) and T (aged 2.5). C by himself lounging on a mini plastic chair looking oh so cool (C is instinctively cool, proving that one is either born cool or merely posing), E reading a book intently (upside down).

TRL takes the black and white print outs and tapes some to doors, others to the hutch desk in the guest room, and goes downstairs to stick some on the fridge.

Nanny D: You must have something to do, because you’re procrastinating.

TRL is both amazed that she knows him so well and that he is so obvious, and also pleased that she has taken an interest in him.

Very observant. I have an article to write. About space. Who cares about space, it’s so far away.

D nods.

I mean the guys might like space eventually, planets on their pajamas and stuff, but black holes and dwarf stars and giant vacuums, they just leave me cold. We’ve got enough going on right here and right now to keep me from looking elsewhere for more things to do.

D nods again and scoops up E, who is about to throw a large truck at the refrigerator.

What are you doing over the weekend? TRL asks.

We’re going to the drive-in.

The drive-in, wow, I’ve never been to a drive in. There’s one around here?

Yup. Twenty minutes away. There used to be one closer but that one closed.

What do you do at a drive-in?

D giggles. See a movie.

But how? Where does the sound come from?

The radio.

How much does it cost?

Well, that’s the thing. It’s only $20 so you bring as many people as can cram into your car.

$20 per car?

Yup.

TRL envisions seven 20-year-old college girls in cut-off shorts and half shirts crammed against each other in the darkened car, a movie playing on the big screen. This is the kind of vision that can sustain him for weeks.

Time to get back to work, says TRL.

Act 2, Scene 7: “Fungal Invasion”

2005-09-05T11:03:00.000-04:00

TRL hates mushrooms. He had never thought about them before, except in the occasional context of psychedelia or the merits of using portabellas as a main course. But bouquets of mushrooms are sprouting up in his green, green lawn, invading the conformity of the grass like a cancer or an ugly growth emerging on the scalp and growing above an otherwise beautiful head of hair. Mushrooms are evil, TRL decides, and he must kill them all. So he kicks at the brown musky-smelling clusters when he walks his lawn to move the sprinkler or just take in the measure of his property. He once, in a fit of anger, grabbed a hoeing tool from the garage to scrape deep at the mushrooms’ roots, evicting the fungal bloom but also taking out a circle of grass.

TRL knows mushrooms are not to be feared, that they are part of the natural order of things, that outside is outside, but there is an aesthetic standard that the lawn must meet, for TRL’s burgeoning homeowner satisfaction and not to scare the neighbors. Plus he doesn’t want his boys touching these growths. Maybe they’re poisonous. So he kicks at them and knocks their caps off and with it some stem. It is a meager triumph, but a necessary one. The mushrooms can not stand.

Act 2, Scene 6: “Date Night”

2005-09-02T09:19:00.000-04:00

TRL and S have entered a new chapter in their lives. They went on a date to Stop & Shop. Well, Super Stop & Shop, which may give it a higher degree of cache, at least linguistically speaking, but a grocery store none-the-less. This was not some exciting themed date, or even a nod to a bygone college alcohol and drug-induced dash to the grocery store to hunt for Haagen-Dazs while cruising in shopping carts and making relentless fun of products while giggling through the frozen foods isle. No, this was the realization after a dinner at a high-end chain restaurant that they needed bananas and yogurt for the kids, probably some milk, too, and fresh fruit wouldn’t hurt. Plus those crackers they enjoy so much. And more baby soap for their baths, and toddler toothpaste. In a word, after an exhausting weekend at a family reunion, and then long days at work, tired but finally unwinding on a first date in months, they realized they would now have to be paying $13 an hour to the babysitter for the privilege of extending their date to include shopping. What is next: dates looking for tile at the hardware store? Taking advantage of late hours at the DMV to renew licenses? Late night meetings with insurance agents and financial planners to discuss annuities, college funds and 401Ks? Probably.

Act 2, Scene 5: "Fashion Victim"

2005-08-31T09:35:00.000-04:00

TRL has taken to leaving the house with as few complicating actions as possible. This generally means walking out in gym shorts and a T-shirt, and most egregiously, in socks and sandals. He looks like a German tourist.

S has chastised him for this look. And he himself recognizes that sandals – in this case rubber-soled velcro-strapped Nevados he got at Costco for $15 – should never ever be worn with socks, in this case white athletic socks TRL bought in bulk recently from BJs. He knows he looks ridiculous, but it is the curious fact that he doesn’t care that bothers him most. TRL would never wear sandals in New York City, where he lived for 11 years. And while he did adapt to living in San Francisco by purchasing the sandals, he only wore them around the apartment, and then certainly without socks. But now, he goes out and greets the neighbors in his socks and sandals. And goes to the bank. And the coffee shop. TRL has decided that the part of his psyche that cares how his looks are perceived is on siesta in SB. Who is here that he cares what they think? And maybe, suspects TRL, the deeper truth is that nobody in town cares, anyway.