I have not been moved to post for a few reasons. One: Maggie is quiet. Two: I’ve been down, more down than I’ve been in years. But I’m feeling much better and so here I am, back at it.

Maggie has been on my mind lately because we’re (Calvin, Wyatt, and me) watching Quiet on Set, the documentary about Nickelodeon-producer Dan Schneider, and all of the child-abusing that happened on his shows. It’s brought to mind the time Maggie set that trap for Calvin and how genuinely terrifying it was.

It was that first summer she went mad, the summer of 2020. She set multiple CPS (Child Protective Services) investigations onto us. When CPS is called, they must investigate. We had two full-length investigations, back to back, both of which lasted 8 weeks, and both of which ended with no findings.

At the same time Maggie was relentlessly posting that Calvin was a pedophile on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, tagging as many famous people and corporations as she could think of. She loved to tag Calvin’s then-employer, Sesame Workshop, and she included me in an accusation she made to Daisy’s high school (which was also Maggie’s daughter’s high school). The school-related CPS report, which featured me in some way, was the basis of the 2nd investigation.

In kids’ TV, a whiff of child abuse is enough to kill a career, which makes Nickelodeon’s conduct kind of weird. If you can, watch the documentary. It’s really chilling and clearly that network did not care that much about the safety of child actors, and doesn’t seem to care much now. Sesame Workshop does care.

Calvin went to his company’s HR department and disclosed the CPS investigations and the neighbor stuff, and provided lots of back up. He was treated with compassion and kindness. He worked there, altogether, for 22 years and the whole Maggie mess was never an issue. But he was horrified he had to have that meeting.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

That phrase still unnerves me. It ran through my mind dozens of times a day during this period. There was never a tweet or a post that mada me think, “oh, now they will really think Calvin is a pervert,” but it always made me uneasy. I did feel like we were a tainted family. I was embarrassed it was happening to us and I didn’t want to tell people about it. I still don’t, and I wrote this blog to ease that burden. You want to know how it feels to be tortured, to be vulnerable to torture? Oh, read my blog. Enjoy!

I also wrote the blog so I wouldn’t forget what happened, how it felt to have social workers outside the door in the middle of the night, with flashlights, waking Calvin and me up as we slept on the couches in the living room, driven from our bedroom by Maggie’s music blasting through the wall.

A few weeks ago, a frantic text came from Wyatt. “Open the door. Maggie’s on the stoop and I forgot my keys.” He only texted Calvin and me, and I wasn’t home, so I texted Daisy, who was home from college upstairs in her room, and she came down and opened the door. Calvin was all, “Thank god he’s safe, ha ha ha,” which I get. Wyatt is 6 foot 3 and Maggie is crippled, but NO ONE wants to be on the front stoop unable to get in the house as she sits on her stoop, chain smoking and yammering away and probably saying hello to him. She loves Wyatt. He’s her favorite Ditmarston.

What else is up? Well, I go to my psychiatrist’s practice 4 times a week, but I don’t see my psychiatrist, although he is there. I see another guy for another thing that is very helpful but maybe not so interesting to my 2 to 3 readers. I do like the other guy I see, but I pretend I don’t know my psychiatrist because I’ve felt (after many online sessions) that he is a guy I don’t want to meet in real life.

And I’m right. He is very tall, obsessed with fish–the guy has 2 giant fish tanks in his office–and the whole waiting area smells like fish food. He’s also addicted to Air head candies and plays super loud Air Supply songs. Yes, I said Air Supply, like, “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you.” I love Air Supply too, but I’m in my 50s. This guy is in his thirties. During our first appointment, he told me his wedding cost $250,000.