Familyhood by Paul Reiser Page A

do. I look at a beautiful mountain and say, “ That is a beautiful mountain.” My job is simply to look at it, take it in, and enjoy it. Nothing else. I don’t have to climb it, fix it, or explain anything to it. I don’t have to report it, sell it, talk to it, expand it, or turn it into a novel. I just have to let it be a mountain. I am very clear about my job and committed to it.
    Just as when I’m working, I commit wholeheartedly to that . I dive in, work constantly, stay up late, and wake up early, preferably working on several things at once, with an equal amount of adrenaline-stoked energy brought to each of them.
    As there are but twenty-four hours in a day, this amount of work necessarily detracts from my personal life.
    I recently made the mistake one night of bringing a script I was working on into bed with me. I was so excited and immersed in the story, so happy with that day’s progress and anxious to continue tinkering, that I just couldn’t help myself.
    My wife looked at me from her side of the bed with that same expression of bewilderment she has when I happily polish off a whole thing of potatoes. This look was a little worse, actually. This was as if I had brought that plate of potatoes into our bed. With a stripper. It was a hybrid look; equal parts amusement, disgust, and confusion, topped off with the slight tilt of the head she does which I have come to recognize as “You’re kidding me, right?”
    I was then made to understand by my lovely bride that either I could stay or the script could, but that she was not prepared to deal with three of us in the bed.
    Point taken, I rolled up my script and headed downstairs to our guest bedroom to spend the night. My reasoning being: as much as I adore my wife—and I do—she would likely still be there tomorrow, whereas the brilliant idea I had for the script might not . (Again—I’m not saying this is good. I’m saying, yes, there’s a problem: I can’t always tell when enough is too much.)
    I STARED AT THE PAGES for a while, but sadly, predictably, the inspiration had passed. I had nothing.
    I tossed the script aside, and having already “made my bed,” so to speak, I shut the lights and finally called it a night.
    But I was still too wired to sleep. So I flipped on the TV we have there in the guest bedroom. It’s from three houses ago. It’s eighteen years old, square, thick, and has no def whatsoever.
    You know what? I’ll be honest with you: it looked fine.

Faith
    I think of myself as a person of faith. Not necessarily religious . It’s not like I’ve even thought these things through particularly well. I just . . . kind of have faith.
    For starters, I have faith in people. I like to believe that people are basically good.
    But in the real world, pressure and circumstance conspire daily to cause even the best of people to behave Not So Good. So I also have faith that I will often be disappointed. I don’t like it, I’m just not that surprised by it anymore. So my faith still pays off.
    As far as the Big Picture goes, I would consider myself a Believer. Is there a God? What do I know? I know it makes me feel better to believe there is, so why not? Plus, how else to explain the splendor, the grandeur? I mean, we’ve had a lot of smart people so far, but I don’t think any of them could have invented rain. Or an apple. Or the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. This comes from something beyond human endeavor. As Mel Brooks’s Two-Thousand-Year-Old Man says, “There’s something bigger than Phil!”
    As to what that something is, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t have the details. I don’t need to know specifically how it works; I’m just happy that it seems to be working. Life is short enough as it is, so I figure it’s better to focus on things I have a chance of figuring out—like why men insist on flushing before