a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. left field

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. logic

it was 6:27 in the morning. i was sitting at my desk writing (for you, for this). i heard marty's alarm go off twelve minutes earlier and then heard her shuffle to the bathroom. then at 6:31 i felt her hands on my shoulders. they slid down my chest as she leaned down to hug me from behind, my desk chair mildly in the way. i then turned and took my wife in, standing in nothing but a pair of cotton underwear and looking amazingly young and fit with her flat stomach (after 3 kids !!!) and tan skin. i stood up and stepped in to hug her.

TROY
you look amazing.

MARTY
you're not going to want to get fresh here.

TROY
what? me? ok. why not?

MARTY
i've got to go try to find the baby bunny we buried in the back yard last year.

TROY
uhh, like now?

MARTY
yes. i need it for school.

TROY
is that why there is a sheet of paper on the kitchen that says BUNNY BONES?

MARTY
yes. what did you think it was?

TROY
another one of your mother's recipes.

MARTY
nope. for real bunny. hopefully fully decomposed somewhere in the back yard.

ladies, for the record, there are few things, and i do mean few, that can de-rail the male libido in the early morning, but i can now attest, images of your potential partner digging holes in search of a tiny rabbit carcass definitely lives somewhere on the list.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. sobbing

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. humiliated

in the middle of one of my hourly updates in the family's second day of travel, the following exchange took place between alex and i.

ALEX
we're doing great here dad. we just got into the mountains and should be there in another three hours.

TROY
ok. great. tell mom to be extra careful on those small, twisty roads.

ALEX
ok. is everything going good for you?

TROY
yep. tell mom her ant guy just got done.

ALEX
mom. your aunt just died.

TROY
WHAT? NO! ALEX! that's not what i said!

ALEX
what dad? i can't hear you.

TROY
mom's aunt didn't die. the ant-guy just finished his work.

ALEX
oh. mom. your aunt didn't die someone else just did something.

TROY
the ant-killing guy was just ... oh never mind ... i'll tell her later.

ALEX
sorry about that dad. your words got a little blurry there when you were talking.

on saturday marty left for a six day trip with the kids. some happenings at work prevented me from joining them (this obviously was the core reason for getting the phone as they couldn't take my work-issued one with them). as they piled into the packed car i gave each one an enormous feet-off-the-ground hug and told them to be amazing listeners and helpers to their mother. i told alex to be extra frosty as co-pilot because he and his mother hadn't logged the hours behind the wheel together that he and i had. at the end of my embrace with marty i gave her an extra squeeze and said:

TROY
be careful.

MARTY
i will. i've done this before.

TROY
i know. it's just that you have my whole world barreling down the highway at 70 miles an hour in that van.

MARTY
got it. enjoy your peace and quiet.

TROY
peace and quiet? with all the parties i have planned. ain't gonna be much peace and quiet around here.

MARTY
well, i thank you for having your parade of women wait until we left before getting started.

TROY
of course. but i hope they don't wait too long. i feel a nap coming on.

they left. forty minutes later the phone rang. i answered it.

TROY
hello.

ALEX
hey dad. this is alex.

TROY
hey aleo. you ok?

ALEX
yeah, i just wanted to call you and let you know we got out of the city ok.

TROY
ok. i'm glad to hear that. thanks for the update.

ALEX
it's ok. and i'm going to call you every hour and let you know how it's going.

TROY
hourly updates. ok. that would be awesome.

and while they weren't consistently on the hour they did come. part of me was thankful for these drips of insight that my family was ok and sound. another part of me was wondering when my parade of women were gonna start showing up.

on june 5th at 12:55pm in an exchange that took a total of 35 seconds, marty walter made her very first phone call from her very first cell phone.

while marty was examining the cheapest flip-phone models the store had to offer, bella kept drifting towards the sexier, smart-phone options. seeing bella's longing glances, the young salesman sidled up next to her.

SALESMAN
you want a smartphone?

BELLA
oh my god. yes. they are so awesome.

SALESMAN
what is it specifically you need it for?

BELLA (stammering)
uhhh. well. uhhh.

SALESMAN (turning to marty)
that's what they all say to that question.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. jack, you're in

to give a further taste to the challenge that is raising/educating anthony (referring to), i share the following story which happened just yesterday.

last weekend anthony lost a tooth. sunday night marty helped anthony place the tooth under his pillow. then after he was asleep marty came to my office looking for a dollar bill. she plucked one from my wallet and made the trade. the next morning when anthony woke up, marty asked him if anything had happened. remembering the tooth, anthony looked under his pillow and found the dollar. he held the unfolded bill in his hands, studying it, then cried foul.

ANTHONY
hey. this is one of dad's dollars.

MARTY
uhh. what?

ANTHONY
this dollar. it's dads.

MARTY
what do you mean it's dads? why do you say that?

ANTHONY
because it has this notch right here. all of dad's money has a notch right here because of that clip he keeps it in.

MARTY
uhhh. well. maybe the tooth fairy has a wallet like dads.

ANTHONY
really mom.

we were at a theatrical production of les miserables in salt lake city. our family sat in the last row of the hale's intimate circular auditorium. this would be my third show at the hale and my family's second. during one particular scene, the necessary prop was lowered from the ceiling. it stood in the center of the round stage as one of the most scant arrangements used through the night containing only a metal gate supported on either side by two stone pillars. in the scene two star-struck lovers stood on either side of the locked gate longing for one another through their drippy sentiments exchanged between the gate's bars. in the middle of the heated scene my seven year old leaned into me for the following whispered conversation:

ANTHONY
dad.

TROY
yes.

ANTHONY
why are they talking through the gate?

TROY
because she is locked in her house and he is on the street.

ANTHONY
but why doesn't he just walk around?

TROY
(muffled laughter)

ANTHONY
i mean, can't they see the fence doesn't go very far and they could just walk around that stone part?

TROY
well, because ...

ANTHONY
then they wouldn't have to talk through those bars.

later in the show when they brought out a grown up and highly decorated Cossette, anthony quietly asked why little bo peep was in the show. this one caused laughter by a small circle of seats surrounding him.

so, if you ever want to make a high-brow show more entertaining, i reckon for the right price (some sweets from the intermission stand) you could have anthony accompany you and ask the questions that need to be asked.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. how does this work

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. rat-fink

i am not a texter.

i have a text-able phone but it is pretty exclusively reserved for work matters. when people outside of the office ask me for my number my pat response is "you'd have better luck getting minka kelly's number than mine." and even with work, i use the texting feature namely as a pager, meaning you can send me a text but i would not suggest depriving yourself of any gulps ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. olden days

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. me-minus

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. house rules

in the third year of the everyman, to thank my judges, i decided to host a dinner for them. early on i only had five judges and could fit my entire judging panel (and their spouses) around my dinner table. so marty and i (mostly marty for sure) prepared a scrumptious home style dinner and we had a dinner party.

now, the thing i hadn't considered in all this (as there always has to be that one pesky unseen) was something about how i chose my judges. early on i didn't want any overlap in the interest or approach of my judging panel. thus, i carefully hand-picked people who were distinct from my other judges, the only commonality between them being a genuine love for photography. it wasn't until they all stood in the same room looking at one another that the flaw in my dinner-party math came to light. aside from this joint interest in photography, these people did not share a single interest in common.

i had a school teacher, an accountant, a graphic designer, an IT manager, and a guy who sold 50's toys on ebay for a living. these people sat in the living room where the long silences were broken only by short one-word answers to desperate attempts at conversation. when dinner was served the awkward stillness persisted but just played out in the dining room. when we all sat and dishes were politely passed i frantically—in my mind at least—tried to get something started but as i scanned the room any question asked of one was not of interest to their neighbor. someone actually commented about the weather. this is the point i physically felt the desperation of the moment. i couldn't believe a dinner party hosted by marty and i resorted, minutes into the meal, to a mention of weather. fingers slipping from the last handhold, i flailed for something.

TROY
so, what did folks think about the photo that won landscape?

JUDGE A
oh, i thought it was lovely. such a unique take on an often-shot subject.

JUDGE B
lovely? unique? it was trash. i can't believe it placed let alone won.

JUDGE C
i wouldn't call it trash but i thought it maybe shouldn't have placed as high as it did. the clear winner of the event for me was macro/abstract.

JUDGE B
for me it was black and white.

JUDGE D
finally. something i can agree with.

and here or shortly after here the table broke out into the most vigorous discussion our dining room has ever seen. the din from multiple heated and excited conversations that involved various combinations of people moved about energetically and held through the rest of the evening. i was astonished both at how powerful this one shared experience between these greatly varied people could be and how sad it was i didn't anticipate the potential sooner. i'm a dolt.

since that initial dinner, the everyman 'wrap' party has taken place every year, save one given a puke-illness my kids brought home from school. i've had judges skype from italy and i've had judges drive in from tennessee (where i paid for their lodging at a fancy nearby hotel, thus making them feel like a for-real celebrity). the annual wrap parties stand as one of our yearly highlights and one of my more favorite parts of the everyman.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. motivation

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. confidence

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. player

part one

some months after buying my house, i stopped at a friend's place to pick him up. after being let in, he asked me to wait a few moments while he finished getting ready. we talked, loudly between the rooms we were in. during the several minutes we did this, i walked around the living room taking in the books and baubles in the space. after scanning the bookshelves and walls, a snapshot on the coffee table caught my eye. it showed a close-up shot of a guy taking a large bite out of a plum. much of what would usually be captured in such a composition was tightly cropped, removing most of the extraneous details. but the unusual photo possessed a surprising amount of mood and emotion. i envisioned it blown up, fifteen feet tall, thirty feet wide in an urban art gallery framed by a stark expanse of concrete wall, people with wine glasses milling before it, discussing the merits and gestalt of the photo.

TROY
hey. this is a great picture.

CHRIS
what? which one.

TROY
the one on the coffee table.

CHRIS
what?

TROY
the guy eating the plum.

CHRIS
oh. that's a goof. we pulled it from the set to throw it out.

TROY
what?! you're throwing this out?

CHRIS
yes. it was an accident.

TROY
but it's a great shot.

CHRIS
you think so?

TROY
yeah i do.

CHRIS
well, you can have it. like i said we are just going to throw it out.

TROY
really? i can i have it?

this marks the moment the first two neurons joined and with help from complementary neurons sitting in the wings giving it mass is when the everyman truly first came into being. after this chance moment, the act of studying photography anywhere i went, whether properly framed, magneted to the fridge or messily strewn about a desk became an official pastime of mine. in little time i came to realize that great, or interesting at least, photography quietly existed everywhere, but was being seen virtually nowhere.

part 3. the early years

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. vcr

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. cool and sophisticated

over the summer marty found herself catching up with an old girlfriend for a few days. during their visit our dishwasher saga got shared. the moment marty concluded the roller coaster of woe the girlfriend, anne, said, "it's your refrigerator". i wasn't there but in my mind i heard marty correct her saying "no, not my refrigerator, my dishwas...