A Dump With No Name

Each night after work, I contemplate pounding out a few hundred words en route to completing a dump. There was a period in college when I had a notecard stuck to my law-school library lamp that said: WRITE 250 Words.

Anything.

I just thought that if I got going, I could keep going. All the way to writing the great American novel about a boy who fell in love with a girl who had a boyfriend. That novel never came to be, and the days I aspired to draft the great American novel are probably also past.

Instead, if I can dump quarterly, keep you updated about the general comings and goings at House Hasler, and generate a dialogue with five or six of you, my work here is done. But it starts with just sitting down and getting going. And here we are.

On the way to 250.

Let’s go member by member to see if I can hit the highs and lows of the last few months for all of us.

I’ll go first because it’s the easiest, though probably the least exciting.

Sam

High: I started corralling the boys in the morning, making breakfast, getting them dressed, out the door, and to daycare (we call this school) by 8:15.

In the last few months, I’ve started wearing a crossbody bag. It holds my wallet, keys, headphones, and chapstick. One day I rushed out of the house, got the boys loaded in the car, and realized I didn’t have a phone. Worse, the low air pressure indicator came on, and I spent a good twenty minutes trying to decide what I would do if I got a flat. Yes, I can change a tire. No, I do not know where the magical key to unlock my magic lug nut is. Never again. This crossbody bag has been a real game-changer. Pro tip: If you see that your spouse has a purse that you like, take it and then buy her a new one.

The cross body bag is really helpful in the morning on the way out the door with Roman ready to sprint down the stairs and Eliot alternating between really excited about leaving and really anxious about leaving, often within seconds of each other.

Low: Been really sore lately. This is def because Eliot has been doing some WILD-ass sleeping things. Story to come. Typically I sleep in our bed until like 3:30 am, and then I lie in wait on the floor outside his door. Then when he tries to come out, bam! I am ready. It feels less invasive when you choose to sleep on the floor versus when you are required to sleep on the floor. Anyway, I’ve been so sore that I got one of those ads for something called like STRETCH ZONE on Instagram, and you better believe I clicked that.

So I drove 20 minutes West of Minneapolis, went into the strip mall, and let a guy named Connor or Carter or Clovis pull on my legs and yank my arms a bit. It essentially offered the benefits of yoga without any strengthening or relaxation. I passed on the monthly membership option because it seemed a waste. Plus, if I accepted, it meant I would have to spend a lot of time with wispy-mustache Carter and the StetchZone qualifications he earned in Boca Raton.

Leen

High: Got a job teaching!

Low: Got a job teaching.

The nice thing about this sentence is that it is a case study of the power of punctuation. I encourage you to reach out to Leen to hear her version of how things are going, but let’s just say that some things are great about ‘getting back in the classroom.’ But, unfortunately, some things are exactly as bad as you’ve heard about why teaching sucks.

I’ve said for years that teaching in America is a lot less fun than teaching abroad and before one of you gets smart and says something like: Well, if you hate it so much, then why don’t you quit? Let me remind you 1) I did. And 2) have you ever tried to pay for two kids in daycare as a one-income family? Baby’s gotta work. (Baby in this scenario is Leen. I don’t think I’ve ever called her baby, but there’s a first for everything.)

Again, if you want the deets on her new school (the mascot is a Dragon, which is pretty cool on account of the House of the Dragons thing going on right now), either reach out to her or reach out to me. As we discuss book deals or potential TikTok channel creation, I’ll happily be Leen’s PR agent.

Aside from the lows of education and getting back to work, there are some highs too. Happy to talk to you about whichever whenever you like.

Roman

My brother told me he doesn’t like how ‘meme-ified’ language has become. I get it. The example he shared with me was a reporter (podcaster) tweeting a video of a quarterback doing something distinctly NOT normal, but the tweet said: ‘This is normal.’

And an NFL player saw it and sent him a message to say: Hey man, this is, in fact, not normal. What that guy just did is insane. Please don’t trivialize the remarkable.

How does that relate to Roman?

If I told you that Roman both ‘has that dog in him’ and ‘is him,’ I’d hope that paints a picture of the type of all-gas-no-breaks lifestyle Roman provides for us round-the-clock. I feel like the last time I checked in, he was just starting to walk and talk, and now we’re three months later in that experiment called developmental milestones. He’s taken to being ready to do the one thing you know will cause the most disarray in any scenario. He’s not naughty. He’s just an agent of chaos. If Eliot is the type to cry when someone tells him ‘No,’ Roman is the type to laugh and do it again.

High: He learned how to hug and sprint at anyone full speed to give them a hug, but then wants to give like 47 hugs, so be prepared to get hugged a lot.

Low: He is a terrible teether. Inconsolable at night, and unsilenceable in a car. Hates diaper changes.

Eliot

MY GUY IS TURNING 3 on the 14th. I wrote an entire dump two years ago and sent it to his inbox. Maybe I’ll write him another email this year, but I won’t get all mushy-gushy on him in this one. He brings a totally different energy to the party than Roman does. After listening to me talk for 3 years, he has picked up some of my Sam-isms, which is really entertaining. “Eliot, would you like to go downstairs?” “Oh sure, I would love to do that, papa.”

Sometime in the summer, we had a local, nice, but unreliable man build him what’s called a Montessori-style bed. Nominally this was so that, if needed, we could sleep near him, but he’s a thrasher, and I just decided I was more comfortable on the floor. He transitioned into preschool at the same time, and Leen went back to work. These three things all hit at once, and I don’t know if you have ever heard about how bad transitions are for kids, but it was ROUGH. There were a lot of crying nights, fussy mornings, and sad afternoons. Sure he can tantrum, but more commonly, he will use words to depict how utterly miserable he is. One day on the way to school, he asked where Leen was, and when I told him that she was at work, he took a deep breath, paused, and said: That is very, very sad. I miss mama. When asked how school was later that week, he said: Not good. No toys. No friends. Eliot misses his toddler friends. Want to go back to Toddler room with friends.

There’s a whole debate about Gentle parenting v other parenting. I’d happily talk to you about how we ended up doing what we do. Still, with Eliot, I can’t imagine any other way. Frankly, this way works, assuming we have the patience at the moment to let him just sort of being sad and work through that.

High: We threw Eliot a birthday party on the 1st of October. With Mid-October birthday, it can be hit or miss with Minnesota weather, and we just didn’t want to risk a park party during a blizzard. I planned it (which may actually be my high), and while there have been a few people who were like: WHAT WAS THE THEME, my answer has been steady: the theme was have fun and go down slides. And you know what? It was great. Kids came. They ate pizza, and they had cupcakes. Some fell down a flight of stairs that maybe shouldn’t be used to go down, and lessons were learned. Eliot is really into hot wheels now, so he got a lot of hot wheels, and we’re pumped about it.

Low: The two months of transitions. Here’s hoping nothing changes for, like, five years. Keep the change, Obama, you know what I mean?

And now the Dumps!

– Is anyone curious about the word count now? ^ that was all written in one sitting, save for the few moments I took to make Leen tea and turn off a light in the garage.

1587!

It’s almost like if you don’t check in from time to time, I really have some things I just wanted to get pen to paper on, huh?

Okay, now, for real, the dumps.

Brown Noise is Named after… a guy named Brown?

The summer we moved to Minnesota, we had our realtor and his wife over after he helped us navigate the pains of buying a house but before we moved in. We were still in the apartment we rented near George Floyd Square, and the hallway was, to put it nicely: Loud and Squeaky.

Eliot was a light sleeper — and we were first-time parents — terrified of him waking, so we did what everyone suggested. We blasted white noise in his room to drown out the sounds of life in the city. But because of the squeaky hallway and the propensity for people to head to the park across the street and light off fireworks, sometimes white noise in the room wasn’t enough. No, for this, we enlisted the help of a second white noise machine, blasting down the hallway, drowning out any superfluous noise that could come from anywhere. When my realtor returned from the bathroom, he looked at me and said: why does your house sound like a jet engine?

It was a fair point and a valid critique.

I’ve been a big fan of Dr. Harvey Karp’s work on sleep science since before Eliot was born. So I will explain to everyone why I sleep better in the hallway on the floor with just a blanket versus the bedroom upstairs, complete with bed, blanket, and pillow. The answer is, of course: I like the white noises undulating out, enveloping me in sleep.

Listening to too much color noise can be discombobulating. You may end up hearing phantom cries or feel driven to think of a reason it needs to come off, but for me, it’s a salve to the stresses of every day. The NYT covers all the colors here and does a bit of an expose highlighting whether or not there is any research to support the Karp theory that noise therapy works. Maybe you sleep in silence, or perhaps you need to add some noise. Either way, maybe this will help.

Americans who eat like the rest of the world: Late

I was at a friend’s house late last week. This was after Eliot had done his nighttime dance of 6 rounds of iSpy, two bedtime stories — typically about a rainbow bus or the drive to school — and then a ‘last-minute’ trip to the potty. So we’re talking like: 8:30. I pop in, and they’re blasting music, and the kitchen is ablaze with vegetable frying.

They were making dinner.

I was there to help them move a bed, but I ended up having my first taste of seitan in the process. For what it’s worth, the seitan was fine. Had I not had my friend look up what seitan was ( a mildly flavored, high-protein meat substitute made of wheat gluten), I probably wouldn’t have known it wasn’t meat. Alas, we are not here to discuss meat substitutes but instead to debate what time you eat dinner.

Bon Appétit went in search of subjects for this story, and a few outliers does not a trend make.

Still, it does raise the question: when do you eat dinner, and how does that time differ from when do you want to eat dinner?

This story delves into the historical nature of “family dinner” and the reality that the rest of the world eats later because their day has more free time.

Less beholden to the mythos of the 9-5, it’s common for a Spaniard to sit down for dinner with friends at 10.

For us, we basically build our entire days around making sure that dinner is basically plated as we return from daycare, around 5. Roman is insatiable at this time and is typically too hungry to eat. Did you know that that is a thing? He works himself into such a lather in anticipation of food that he cannot control himself to actually eat it, making himself even madder.

I have a spouse who gets hangry, so I believe this is hereditary. But with Leen, you can do the Snickers thing, and it holds him over until more food. This is less the case with toddlers.

It’s cool.

Eliot, on the other hand, typically doesn’t eat dinner anymore. We’ve moved into the toddler phase of life where he’s content to eat like two bites of an apple, take a sip of water, dip a finger in ketchup and then look at me and say: I’m done.

Take today, for example. I made fajitas for Leen and me, and then deconstructed fajitas + quesadillas for the boys. We came in the door. Roman melted down. Eliot left the eating space and went to read a book.

I sat at the table, ate two, and drank some tequila. I bet Leen had one. Unfortunately, I don’t know if either child ate any of it.

Suit Yourself, boys.

MORE FOR ME.

So what about your family? Have you ever sat down to eat dinner at 7 AM after a whole night in the studio? Have you ever decided to walk in Brooklyn for three hours after work and then make dinner at 9:30 PM?

3. Does My Son Know Your Name

This is probably the most poignant piece of writing I’ve ever dumped. An NBA writer I’ve followed for years received an unfortunate cancer diagnosis recently. Over the last few months, his health devolved until, sadly, in September, he passed away at 35, leaving behind a young son and wife.

Before he passed, he wrote this piece about fatherhood, cancer, loss, and being there for those who need it when they need it most.

I know it’s become a running joke about how no one clicks the links here, but if you click only ONE link in your entire Dump tenure, make it this one. And then take the 8 minutes it’ll take you to read this.

4. Where are my Glen-heads at?

When we lived in Qatar, I used to keep a few books stacked on our bedside table. Then, aspirationally, I’d read an actual book before bed. Still, more often than not, I’d open my copy of David Mamet’s award-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross and just read lines of dialogue to Leen.

More like, ‘at’ Leen, if I am being honest with a Mamet play.

Why?

Mostly because he makes swearing just so enjoyable. He had a real zest for a well-timed F word. I dreamed of teaching this play to a group of 11th graders at some point, but the swearing stood as a barrier. So me reading it to Leen before she fell asleep was as good as I could hope for.

We’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of when Glengarry Glen Ross made its debut as a film following a successful run on the stage. The film is perhaps most well known for an early scene where Alec Baldwin berates the entire office with the famed “Coffee is for closers” monologue.

The wild thing about the speech?

It’s not in the play! Mamet added it just for the movie! So Baldwin, coming off playing Jack Ryan in Hunt for the Red October, waltzes on to set and delivers this one-of-one performance. This Vanity Fair piece is an oral history of the scene, offers some incredible details about how it happened, and just really brings the whole thing home. In fact, as I was typing this, I just made Leen watch the scene again.

Next time someone asks you your name, I think you know what you have to say.

And if you need an idea, check it out here!

5. Oooh, Stunning.

I was going to share a very long story about the sleep training debate raging on TikTok (depending on the algorithms you’re victim to). But since I already covered sleep in story one, I decided to go in another direction with my new media content and TikTok/Meme phenomenon.

Maybe it matters if you’re watching the House of the Dragon, or perhaps it doesn’t. Regardless, two actors on the show recently made internet sensation headlines when they got together to talk about who knows what. Somehow they ended up discussing cocktails, and along the way, one says, “Negroni.”

The other responds: “Sbagliato... with prosecco in it.”

And the first one says, “Ooooh, stunning.”

Truly one of those interviews that launched a thousand memes.

You probably need to see it to understand.

Here is your explainer.

I was already planning to buy some vermouth anyway, but this interaction settled it for me.

Maybe it’s a Sbagliato weekend for me.

Will it be one for you too?