The Pet Peeves of Editing

The recent “Fragments” post served to reinforce what I’ve known for some time — editing makes writing (and reading) a lot less fun sometimes.

As an editor, I constantly work to prune and shave words so stories read more clearly and succinctly. As a reader, I find myself editing already published work, and if the writer’s style (or lack thereof) bogs me down, I often don’t have the patience to finish the piece.

As a writer, my innate ADD makes staying on task a challenge, and as a result, I’ve been known to go off on tangents (aka this blog). “Fragments” was an attempt to find some closure for the postings that I start and abandon.

Earlier this year, I was asked to present at an Association Media and Publishing session on “The Art and Mechanics of Editing” with a colleague (Erin Pressley) who also is in this line of work. I actually enjoy presenting, although the prep work can be tedious at times.

The best part of this session came in developing a top 10 list of editing pet peeves. Take a look at the ones below and see if you can guess the ones that are mine. And the next time you decide to write something, reference them and see if you are making the same mistakes that we often deal with in our line of work.

#10: Passive voice  — Just plain boring, lacks action. Why was the road crossed by the chicken?

#9: Which vs. that — “That” introduces essential clauses while “which” introduces nonessential clauses. Gems that sparkle often elicit forgiveness. Diamonds, which are expensive, often elicit forgiveness.

#8: Who vs. that — “Who” refers to people. “That” refers to groups or things. Sally is the girl who rescued the bird. Jim is on the team that won first place.

#7: Misplaced modifiers — You modify something you didn't intend to modify. Wrong: I almost failed every grammar class I took. Right: I failed almost every grammar class I took.

#6: “–ing” Words — Unnecessary in many cases. Will be going — “Will go.” Should be doing — “Should do.” Have been driving — “Have driven.” Or better yet: “Are driving” (as in, me crazy)

#5: Absence of a nut graph — Do you have time for long and pointless? We don’t. A nut graph sets the scene for the reader and helps to telegraph where the rest of the story is going.

 

#4: Widespread use of “that” — Not to be “which-y” about it, but we could do with less of that.

#3: Stakeholders — Why do our bosses, sources, and even writers try to label some of our most important constituents as mini-Renfields? Doing so is often the lazy way out.

#2: Acronym-soup — Don’t think of us as SOBs for bringing this up, but we have an incredible reliance on institutional short-hand that often can clutter the story we are trying to tell. If you have to use acronyms, use them judiciously.

#1: And finally… My Pinkie Just Can’t Stop Hitting The Shift Key Because Everything We Write Is So Important That We Just Have To Capitalize It.


What are yours?

Fragments, Part III

Paraphrasing from a recent Facebook post: As an editor, you learn that some pieces are labors of love. Others feel like the writer was going through labor ... and left it for you to deliver.

••••••

I always tell my children: “Don’t tempt karma.” The minute you feel like everything is going great is the same moment fate’s shoe gets ready to drop and step on your head. This week’s example: Just when I started feeling good about the holiday season, the garbage disposal breaks, the plumber comes five hours late, and the replacement is defective — all because I bragged that my daughters got along at the mall a few hours earlier…

••••••

Most of us move through life in relative anonymity. Remember when it used to be that the only public recognition most people received was is in the police blotter (too bad) or the obituaries (too late)? Now, with the rise of social networking and the connections you make through Facebook, Twitter, et al, anonymity is fighting with print to become the “new vinyl.”

••••••

Recently in North Carolina, I rediscovered something that folks there have turned into an art form. Drivers pull out in front of you without hesitation, tires screeching. They travel about 30 feet and signal to turn left. Drives me up a tree (so far only figuratively).

••••••

Despite being a writer and editor for a full 3/5ths of my life, I do believe that print eventually will go the way of the vinyl record. School textbooks already are obsolete thanks to technology and our ability to instantly access information. And the Internet goes a long way toward satisfying our need for instant gratification, which in turn feeds into people having less and less patience to wait for what’s on the printed page. Why should they, when you can have it fed to you through headphones?

••••••

That said, I believe print still has a place because, like the vinyl record, paper provides a rich, full-bodied experience that you can’t get by tapping on a computer screen. Although, after getting one for Christmas, I must say the iPad comes close…

Fragments, Part II

I became a reporter because it combined three things I enjoy: talking to people, learning what makes them tick, and turning their stories into something for posterity (or, in the pre-Internet era, at least the bottom of someone’s bird cage). I became an editor to make a living wage, or something resembling that.

•••••••

Technology has replaced the automobile — and to an extent, the college textbook — as the most expensive disposable in our lives. Remember when it was said that you lost 30 to 50 percent of a new car’s value the moment you drove it off the lot? The same goes for every new device you buy. The moment you pull it out of the box, something newer and better is replacing it on the store shelves.

••••••

With four children having birthdays in the month of December, you could say God’s master plan was for me to emulate Him. Or, you could also say that He just has a wicked sense of humor.

•••••••

Another car/technology analogy: I’ve gotten five to seven years out of the last two desktops we’ve had in our house. By the time each was replaced, the reason was because they each had more than 200,000 miles on them, parts could be found only in junkyards, and the only way you could get them to run was if you slapped the top with your right hand on alternate Tuesdays.

••••••

Ben’s life in New York is, for the most part, confined to a 20-block radius from 34th to 54th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. Rarely a day goes by in which he doesn’t bump into someone he knows. I never thought I would say this, but there are times when Midtown feels like a small town, albeit with a huge amusement park in the middle.

••••••

Another December observation: Between the birthdays and Christmas, I have to wonder what fates I tempted to have 11/12ths of the family’s annual expenses come during a single 2½ week timeframe. (I exaggerate on the expenses part, but only slightly.)

Christmas Miracle, or UFO?

Tales from a wild Christmas week… Or living proof that a UFO has invaded my family,

• Nicholas, Emma, and I walked 7 miles through the streets of New York three days before Christmas — and didn’t buy a single thing except food.

• Ben joined us on the way home for his first trip to Virginia since Labor Day, and played a non-show tune song on his laptop that everyone actually enjoyed (“Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine).

• Donny Osmond judged the door decorating contest at "Billy Elliot" and had a picture taken with the boys, including Ben. Emma decided to wait outside the stage door to meet him — in 20 degree weather with a 30 mph wind chill. After much teen drama trauma, my determined little girl and her slightly frozen oldest brother met Jill's first crush in person — and had him sign a photo that we gave to her at Christmas.

• We DID NOT go to Disney World this year because, fortunately, Frosty Follies “stayed here.”

• All four children bought presents for each other and for us, with their own money.

• The state of Delaware was not under construction at midnight on Christmas Eve.

• Emma, normally the child we can’t manage to please on major event days, hugged me and said it was “the best Christmas ever.” This came two weeks to the day of “the best birthday ever.” I thought all 13-year-olds were supposed to be moody.

• We did not learn that Ben is in a show that’s closing in two weeks.

• Nicholas talked to Donny briefly — he was, after all, getting ready to run down the sidewalk — about the roles they shared in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Donny asked if Nicholas hit the high note in "Close Every Door." My son's "Yup" answer received a thumbs up — a nice gesture from someone who must have felt like he was being stalked.

• The threatened “Snowpocolypse 2” suffered the fate of many sequels — a whole lot of wind signifying nothing (except wind) — and left meteorologists scratching their heads (or other body parts).

• All they had to do, in my opinion, was put a GPS device on Jill. Last year, she was in Virginia for the blizzard. This year, the day after taking Ben back for a Christmas night show, New York was struck by a record one-day snowfall (20 inches). Must have something to do with the fact that she’s from the North Carolina mountains.

• Nicholas, after a relaxed and relatively peaceful (for us) week, managed to get back to North Carolina with only an hour delay despite a flight cancellation.

• In the course of a single day, my lovely wife helped a new mom — a mutual friend who reached out to us — bring her baby girl home from the hospital, took in two of her stranded cousins off the street, and managed to deliver Ben safely to “Billy Elliot.” And it was all during a blizzard — mostly on foot. Amazing…

• Kate and Emma spent two hours shopping together in a mall while I held court in the food area — and they managed to get along. (Or, to quote Emma, “That actually wasn’t half bad. I sort of enjoyed it.”)

Yes, Virginia meteorolgists (and others), there is a Santa Claus. Of course, this could change tomorrow when I drive with the girls to New York, but for now, things are good.

Father and Son, Vol. 1

“Son, wake up,” my dad said.

It was 3 a.m. on a school night, but the house was not burning down. There was no emergency, nothing that would qualify me for a future made-for-TV movie on Lifetime.

My dad just wanted his third-grade son to watch “Red River.”

In the days before cable, VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray, and video on demand, our local ABC affiliate showed old movies in the middle of the night. My father was nocturnal, especially during that period of my life, and he wanted company. My mother, who woke up as he went to bed so she could get ready to teach all day, would have harmed him — though lovingly — if he rose her out of bed to watch a movie at 3 a.m.

I didn’t know better, so I did as he asked, mumbling the entire way.

••••••


"Dad, why did you and mom get a divorce?"



The question, asked earlier this year en route from the airport to the beach, did not come as a surprise. I've been waiting for it for more than 15 years, ever since the day Nicholas’ mom and I split, just after he turned 2.



"I had become someone I wasn't," I told him.

Today, Dec. 9, my first-born son officially becomes an adult, although he still loves to channel his inner third-grader. It’s appropriate that Nicholas’ 18^th birthday kicks off our familial holiday parade of candles and chaos, a period in which all four of my children have birthdays in an 18-day period.

His upbringing has been very different from my own, which is what I hoped would happen, though not exactly in the way I thought when he was born.

In my case, I feel like I’ve been an adult since I was 8. That’s when things veered dramatically in my family, when my father’s illness consumed everything, sucking most of the oxygen out of the room. In the afternoons, my sister and I walked around on eggshells, worried that we would wake him up from a long (surely prescription-induced) nap.

If you think the mom threat, “Just you wait until your father gets home…” puts chills down your spine, think about this one: “Do you really want me to wake your father up to deal with this?” That definitely struck terror with my 8 to 12-year-old self, but I’ve got to give mom credit, it was also very effective.

At the time, I didn’t know what to think, but it’s safe to say I harbored a great deal of resentment amid my adolescent hormonal confusion. Or, as I told Emma earlier this week: “What you curse me for now, you will apologize to me for when you’re in your 20s, or at least by the time you become a parent.”

Today, as an adult and as a parent, I look back at what my mom and grandparents did for my father and for our family and think of them as heroes.

••••••

Every day, you see bits and pieces of yourself in your children, things that by habit, luck, or genetic predisposition they were bound to replicate.

Emma, in so many ways, reminds me of her mom. She is thoughtful, funny, smart, and beautiful. She and Ben get their blue eyes from me. She has an innate love for learning, which her mom and I share, is loyal to a fault (me, I think), and endlessly curious about things others consider trivial (me). Emma also is not afraid to ask a tough question (me again) but is not naturally assertive (Jill).



Ben can sing, dance, and act (Jill, in spades), but his personality and approach is much closer to my own. I can sit and watch his wheels go ’round and ’round, trying to figure out how to maneuver his way toward the next Nerf gun or Xbox 360 game (definitely me). We love to watch movies together, a trait I’m glad I share with him and with my father. If Ben likes something, he becomes obsessed with it (me again) but he is very good at measuring and planning his time (Jill).

Kate has my stubborn streak and Jill’s kindness, my gift of gab and Jill’s lack of patience when she feels her time is being wasted. She can vacillate dramatically from ambivalent to obsessed (me again) and has to get in the last word (definitely me). At the same time, she has an extremely strong moral code (Jill), great talent at almost anything she tries (Jill), and is extremely beautiful and smart (you guessed it, Jill).

With Nicholas, you would think I had little to no genetic role in his life, but his love for the arts and his alternately introverted/extraverted personality all come from me. It's one of the great ironies of divorce; every time I see him, I see his mom. Every time he appears on stage, she sees me.

••••••

Because each thing we experience is unique, memory is a fascinating quilt, especially where family is concerned. My perspective on my upbringing is different from that of my parents, just as I’m sure the perspective of my children will be different from mine.

Things I remember as fact, childhood memories that struck me as funny or terrifying when I was a kid, are mundane, run-of-the-mill moments to others. I call this phenomenon “familial Rashoman,” or in the case of my wife and kids, “The Magnificent Six.”

Other examples of selective memory are the conversations I had with my father.  
I can count the number of deep talks we had on one hand.  In fact, I really can’t count much past the middle finger, although that’s not his fault. Nor really is it mine.

Without question, when I look back at my dad, I can shake my head at his eccentricities, chafe (ever so slightly) at his political views — how a Kennedy Democrat became a Republican is one of the most vexing questions in my life — and marvel at his kindness and absolute love for my mom.

Of the three or four deep conversations we had, at least two were about those latter topics.

For any one of a number of reasons, 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. It's a disturbing statistic under any circumstance, one made even more so when you are playing in the World Series of life and relationships with a whiffle ball and a tiny plastic bat. Separating from your spouse, no matter whether it’s necessary or not, is one of the toughest decisions anyone can ever make.



My parents were married for 43 years and three years after my dad's death, Mom still wears her wedding ring. They survived all sorts of physical strum and drang and managed to make it work, holding hands and looking at each other until the end.

By contrast, my first go-round was a seven-year relationship that flamed out before we reached our fifth anniversary. My sister took a similar path.

That night in the car with Nicholas, I cited my father’s advice as I tried to explain to him the reasons I left his mom. When I was debating whether to end my first marriage, I asked my father how he and mom had remained together.

“Well,” he said, “when I look at your mom, I still see the same person I fell in love with.”

Dad went on to explain that bodies change, that people change over the decades, that no marriage (obviously) is perfect. The difference, he believed, was that the fundamental reason he fell for her in the first place never changed.

“So many people get married for the right reasons, but at the wrong time to the wrong person,” he said. “It doesn’t mean the other person is a bad human being, but that they are just wrong for you. I got lucky.”

••••••

I am lucky to have had my dad in my life, fortunate to have memories of him waking me up in the middle of the night to watch “Red River,” fortunate to have listened to his advise, fortunate to have my stories (more of which I will share later). I hope that Nicholas, and my other children, feel the same about me when they are my age.

One of my great regrets is that my father and Nicholas did not know each other as well as I wish they could. When I was growing up, I felt surrounded by grandparents, and I know Nicholas would have benefitted so much from getting to know my father.

Sometimes, I wonder if they would have discussed art, a common talent they shared. At others, I wonder how they would have gotten along, because many of their interests are so disparate.  Either way, I know my dad would be proud of his oldest grandchild.

Just as I am tonight… Happy birthday, Nicholas.

OK ... This One is a Little Different

After a couple of days of sentimental postings, thought you might enjoy this...

It’s ironic, in this past year of going back and forth to New York, that two shows — “Next to Normal” and “Wishful Drinking” — have involved women who are bipolar.

Carrie Fisher's one-woman show, "Wishful Drinking," played last year at Studio 54, which is just down the street from our apartment. I never was much for the "Star Wars" phenomenon, but I've long admired her sense of humor and absolute candor in her writing. And "Wishful Drinking," a series of vignettes about her dysfunctional (to use the term lightly) family and her struggles with addiction and bipolar disorder, is extremely candid.

It's also hysterically funny, and provides anyone with a great deal of intelligent insight into the struggles a person faces when they have this terrible disorder. (More irony in timing: A taped version of “Wishful Drinking” airs on HBO next month, just as the national tour of "Next to Normal" begins and the Broadway version gets ready to close in January.)

I'm not someone who writes fan letters (my only previous one was to Richard Nixon, when I was 8, nonpartisan, and learning the presidents, but he was a little busy in 1973). So I'm not sure why I decided to write one to Fisher, except that I felt a sense of kinship after seeing the show.

Here's an excerpt from what I posted to her blog:

"Hooray, I’m #326! It’s a spot in life I’m familiar with.

"Not sure if you’ll get this far down the list, but thought it was worth a shot. I’m not your run-of-the-mill, average, never-been-on-a-date “Star Wars” stalker; in fact, I’m a married father of four and writer who happens to be a huge fan of your non-acting career. I’m also the parent of a 12-year-old girl who is bipolar."

I then went on to explain more about our situation and the roller coaster ride we live and breathe as parents and as a family. I didn't expect anything, really, but a response of some kind would have been nice.

Nothing.

Heck, even Nixon sent me a picture of the White House, even though he had a worse PR problem than Fisher does, if you think about it.

I guess if I had seen my likeness on a Pez dispenser and been chased by the founders of Comic Con, I wouldn't bother to respond either.

So much for fan mail.

The Opposites of Parenting

A year ago, Ben made his Broadway debut in "Ragtime." Tonight, he is on stage again, marking his 158th consecutive performance in “Billy Elliot.”

At home in Virginia, Kate is sitting downstairs drawing and painting, finally calm after an operatic outburst, an outburst that’s sad in large part because it was so predictable.

If Latin were not a dead language, this would be called “parentis extremis.”

I didn’t expect to be writing this on Saturday afternoon. I thought I’d be running errands that need to be complete. But I can’t. Emotionally and physically spent, all I can do is sit here and type — a RSS feed of pride and hurt, joyful emotion and deflating sadness.

I am super proud of my children, and do my best not to disappoint them. All I want is for them to do their best and be kind to others in the process. Much of the time we are successful, but sometimes we’re not, especially when a mental disorder lurks in the background — never dormant, always waiting.

••••••

You really don’t realize how hard stage actors work until you are around them. Ben has done eight shows a week, six days a week, since July 7. It's something that would test anyone's stamina, let alone that of a 12-year-old.

Sometimes, we get asked why he's doing this, why we do it. Certainly this has tested our entire family’s stamina. At the same time, Ben wants this and works on it tirelessly. He sings in the shower, dances in the living room, and does his homework between scenes. He remains a kid at heart, and a good one at that.

Some people wonder why we would “push” our child into this. I have met and gotten to know people who live vicariously through their children and I can tell you with certainty that’s not us. Life would be much less complicated if we didn’t go back and forth to New York every week.

The thing is this: You do what you can for your children, whether it’s Broadway or travel soccer. And as long as they hold up their end of the bargain, you do it as long as you can.

••••••

Is it wrong to admit that sometimes I don’t enjoy being a parent? Or that I get tired of all the requisite b.s. that goes along with the job?

Yes, parenting is a job — some days with benefits, some days without. According to life’s HMO, you have to be in network to enjoy it.

Many days that network includes your fellow parents, people with whom you bond while waiting in the parking lot at dance, or over a baseball practice. Something changes once you welcome another person — one completely dependent on you — into your life. Friendships that meant everything to you fade and sometimes disappear, replaced by diapers, then carpools in messy vans, then middle school football games on Thursday (not Friday) nights.

The people you meet and are social with rarely are the same friends from college, the ones who could discuss obscure literature or music with you until 4 a.m., drunk on cheap beer or tequila (everyone has a bad cheap tequila story). Life’s great mysteries always seemed solved by a simple night of semi-lucid conversation on the couch. That is, until the next morning, when a new set of mysteries popped up again.

Nostalgically, we say we miss those times, when in fact what we miss is the freedom they offered. Some crave that freedom like a drug, believing it is better to be on parole from daily responsibility. Others embrace the new reality that parenting and family brings.

It took me a long time, well into my 30s, to embrace that reality. If anything, being a single parent for much of the past year has turned that embrace into a bear hug, reminding me how lucky I am to have Jill and these four talented children.

But occasionally, the embrace feels like a chokehold.

••••••

Life with teenagers is not easy, as my fellow parents will attest. Kate’s doctor says teens lose 10 years of maturity from the moment they become prepubescent and don’t get it back until the hormone surges slow down several years later.

I can’t wait for that to happen.

The bipolar/puberty combination has turned our daughter with a mood disorder into someone I don’t understand. She can be so sweet one minute, showing the kind, lovely, talented girl we know exists in there. Then on a dime, she becomes “Toxic Teenager,” host of her own pity party, and believer that she is the monosyllabic snark mistress of the universe.

All the while screaming and crying at the top of her lungs.

The verbal warfare during these times is intense, and it’s only gotten worse as her shape has changed and she’s gotten taller. The Chinese ping-pong team could learn serve and volley from us. Aaron Sorkin could write our scripts.

The adrenaline that surges through her body during these fits and episodes dissipates almost as quickly, leaving her drained and remorseful. I try to remind myself, and her siblings, that the verbal venom we have to fend off is just as filled with self loathing.

I started writing this piece yesterday, but couldn’t finish it, too tired and exhausted from the afternoon battle to continue while Kate continued her painting. Today, I returned to it, drained and suffering from the post-traumatic stress disorder that another round brought.

Right now, at this moment, I take comfort in four things:

• That Kate finds comfort in art and ballet.
• That Ben is doing so well.
• That Nicholas and Emma are such good people and such good siblings.
• That Jill is coming home tonight so we can be together for two nights before the Thanksgiving round robin begins, another week of adventures for our family.

That’s enough right now.

The Day I Kidnapped My Grandmother

Note: Sunday marks a year since Ben’s Broadway debut in “Ragtime.” This week, Ben’s grandmother saw him in “Billy Elliot,” which made me wonder again how my beloved grandmother would have reacted to the craziness of our lives. I looked for the following essay and realized I had posted it to Facebook before starting the blog, so I’m putting it up here. If you didn’t get the chance to read it the first time around, give it a look. It’s a true story, with more than a little irony.

My grandmother sat in the dark auditorium and dozed to the ragtime music.

I ate my popcorn and glanced at her. Occasionally she would wake and look at the screen.

The movie was long, so she had a good long doze. She didn’t drink the Coke I had bought her with money she had given me earlier in the day, so the ice melted and left it flat.

I wished I knew what she was thinking.

Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was sorrow. Maybe grief. I really wasn’t sure. After all, he had been her husband for more than 50 years, the last five in and out of hospitals. They argued and fought. They kissed and made up. He was cantankerous, a do-it-my-way man’s man who really wasn’t.

She was an independent sort, a flapper in Louisiana who told stories — true ones at that — of getting rides to work with Huey Long. She was married eight years before her first child was born. Her second, my father, came two years later. She listened to music and cooked in the kitchen. She would slice raw tomatoes she bought from the nigra woman with the big garden down the street.

The lights came up. Now she would have to go back and visit the mourners.

“Thanks,” she said, as we walked to the parking lot. I drove, back then it was an adventure because I was only 16 and they had a big Buick that was almost impossible to park. As we walked out of the theatre she squeezed my hand, nearly cutting me with her wedding band. I knew her thank you was genuine.

I also knew no one would understand what I had done. Kidnapping my grandmother, to anyone on the outside, was not a great idea. Taking her to a movie I wanted to see was a selfish act.

We held hands as we went out to the parking lot on that drizzly December day. I steeled myself for the drive home and hoped I could back out of the parking lot in the big silver Buick without hitting someone. It was a 50-50 shot at best.

Grandmama had never driven a car. She was 76 now and not about to start, so asking her was out of the question. But as she looked at me with her eyes so tired, a washed out look that took me back to the first time my grandfather was in the hospital, she smiled and squeezed my hand again.

The wipers streaked the windshield; they hadn’t been changed. All I could be was critical, because I didn’t know how to change them. Still wouldn’t, if forced. I’m not mechanical.

She didn’t care. I was her only grandson, and she knew how to spoil me. It was the same technique she had used with my father and it worked. She came from an era that “respected” men for being “men,” even if it meant muttering the word “bastard” under her breath.

We drove in absolute silence for a mile, which was odd because we were both talkers. Some say I got it from her; my mom has got it, too, even though the two weren’t blood. Grandmama was one of the ones I could talk to about anything and not be scared.

The wipers muddied the windshield. They weren’t much help at all. We drove across town, probably too fast if my mom had been in the car. But my grandmother didn’t care.

“It was a good movie,” she said.

We got home and the family was there. No one said a word. They didn’t know what to say. My aunt (dad’s sister) and uncle scowled at me and shook their heads. I knew I would get a talking to later.

Soon I could smell the food. My grandmother was doing what she did best, cooking for the family. It was December, so there were no tomatoes this time. She served a thin flank steak, deep fried and battered. Coffee from that morning remained on the stove.

She didn’t talk much that week or next. It was the Christmas season 1981, and she didn’t think it was appropriate to ruin the holiday season for others. She didn’t cry, at least not in front of me. The only time I saw her do that was when she missed me leading a youth prayer at church because she got there too late.

I got my talking to from the people who didn’t understand my motive behind the kidnapping. They didn’t really care what I thought.

Over the passing months, as she dwindled in size and moved slowly toward the plot next to her husband, my grandmother never brought up that day. Six years later, in the middle of the night, I sat on the floor next to her as she lay on the couch. My father was calling for an ambulance.

I held her hand again. The wedding ring cut into it some more.

“Do you remember ‘Ragtime’?” I asked.

She nodded. I could barely see her in the dim light.

“Yes, it was a good movie.”

Fragments

Here are some more things from the “random observations” file. I’ve wanted to write on some of these topics (and probably will) but this will have to do for now. So here goes…

• Insomnia is something I’ve dealt with periodically since childhood, and it only has gotten worse since I became a parent. Something about having three kids in a year will do that to you.

• Some days the struggle to get something done is like herding cats. Others, it’s like giving a cat a bath. At best, all you can hope for is a pissed off look.

• Self-publishing your own book is akin to being on the home school honor roll. You’ve gotten the grade, and it’s a good one, but look at who is doing the grading.

• My mom says I learned to read while potty training. And I haven’t stopped since. Newspapers, magazines, books (fiction and non), e-mail and the previously mentioned status updates — you name it and it draws my attention for at least a few fleeting seconds. Anything, that is, except for an instruction manual, science textbook, or the work of E.M. Forester, whose novels have the effect of an elephant tranquilizer. Need a cure for that insomnia? Try “A Passage to India.”

• You want your children to do their best. Even if they fail, as long as they’re doing their best, everything will be fine. One problem with this platitude: No one wants to see their children fail.

The Status Update

Status updates on Facebook are endlessly fascinating, stretching from the mundane and ridiculous to the witty and profound. The genius is the connection it helps you make to others.

I guess — no big surprise here — that’s why they call it “social” networking.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of what people are cooking for dinner, unless they are willing to share or — at the very least — provide the recipe. I’m genuinely not interested in someone’s obsessive chronicles about walking the dog, or how drunk they are (unless pictures are included, and they never should be, if you think about it). Status updates that take the form of a sermon or are overtly political also are a turnoff.

However, there are times when you bond with a person after years or hear about someone’s achievement or tragedy that affects you in ways you never would have realized without the almost instant, real-time connection. Sometimes I have laughed out loud; others have left me with tears in my eyes.

Most of the time, I look at status updates as a fun writing challenge, a way to push out a one or two-line description of the day, the punch line without the long-winded set up, or life’s simplest truths in just a few words.

Here are some of my favorites from the past few months:

• Favorite line of the day (paraphrased): "Your lives are a reality show. The sad thing is nothing gets eliminated."

• Since when did customer service become an oxymoron?

• For every drop of rain that falls, another Northern Virginia driver loses an IQ point.

Of course, because your name is at the beginning of each update, you really should start your sentence with a verb. That presents a challenge as well, if you think about it.

On that front, here are some more favorites that started with my name first and then moved quickly toward the punch line. So you say, “Glenn Cook…”

• Is in NYC with four kids by himself. To quote the father of our country at the start of the war: Gulp.

• Has a stuffed up nose and the back of my throat feeling like an all-you-can-eat raw bar buffet.

• Was reminded again tonight that the only thing getting thinner on me is on the top of my head.

• Is happy that I don't have to dress up tonight. Any more weeks like this, and I will officially pull the dry cleaning business out of the recession.

• Is waiting at the Z Pizza in Lorton to pick up dinner. An hour ago I was told it would be 25 minutes. Should have picked the Over instead of the Under on 2-for-1 night.

• Needs to reintroduce his daughters to each other: Oil, meet water.

• Can't believe it's been three years since my father died. He's gone from having a ringside seat to a spot in the upper balcony, but I'm sure he can see just fine.

Have you ever given this any thought?

No answers

Sometimes you ask “Why” and there are no answers. Sometimes you say it with a question mark, or an exclamation point, or both, and still the answers don’t come.

Sometimes there is just no answer.

Four days ago, a 29-year-old woman who apparently had everything committed suicide. I didn’t know her well, hadn’t seen her since she graduated from high school, only mentioned her occasionally in conversation. Her parents, for different reasons, had a great impact on our lives and, ultimately, on the places where we are today.

Why does this affect me so? Why has it had such an impact on Jill?

Because this was not supposed to happen. It was the last thing anyone would have — could have — anticipated. No one would have thought, or could have imagined, why someone with so much would end everything.

No one ever can.

••••••

I grew up in a small town, or at least I thought it was small. Compared to Houston, 35 miles to the north, Texas City was — and is — a small town.

And with around 40,000 residents, it is 2½ times larger than Reidsville, N.C.

From 1993 to 2001, I lived in Reidsville, moving there as the managing editor of a small newspaper and leaving there to be the managing editor of a national education magazine. I’ve said often that leaving the Houston area to move to a small community where tobacco and textiles were the prime industry felt like going from fifth to first without hitting the clutch.

And yet, during those eight-plus years, my life changed in ways I can’t imagine. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe I didn’t leave with a permanent case of whiplash.

To sum up, while living in Reidsville, I:

• Turned 30.

• Got a divorce, rediscovered my love for theater, remarried, changed careers, bought a house, and had Kate, all within an 18-month period.

• Discovered shortly after Kate was born that we were having twins.

• Found a series of surrogate families — and my children at least one additional grandma — that we’ve stayed in touch with over the years.

When we left to move to Northern Virginia, it was time. The many things that Reidsville offered, the hooks and lures that held us there, had their allure. We could have stayed.

Something told us — both of us — that we needed to move on. And I’m glad we did, for our sakes, and for the sake of our children.

But there is something about living in a small town, or growing up in a small town, that never leaves you. It’s an extended family you can’t leave behind.

••••••

I just don’t get it.

I don’t think anyone else does either.

Separating the intellectual from the emotional is difficult most, if not all the time.

Retrospect helps you point to signs, like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. But, ultimately, it doesn’t answer the central question: Why?

Jill and I had not seen Lindsay in years. We heard about the different things in her life from friends and acquaintances with whom we still maintain contact, but like all too many people we encounter, she was another person from a place we lived in a decade ago that we assumed was going to be OK.

Her parents are extraordinarily kind people, who’ve done nothing but help us — and others — over the years. Our lives intersected with theirs at various moments; the memories we share of each other are good ones, lasting ones, or at least I’d like to think so.

But as happens all too often in this life, people you care about drift away. You don’t mean for that to happen, but life intervenes and it does.

And then something like this happens, and abruptly, without warning, you are slung back into memories of a time you had left behind.

•••••••

First and foremost, I’m a chronicler. I would like to be someone who can develop scenarios and turn them into classic fiction, but my writing at heart comes from everyday life. Why create something out of nothing when there is so much around you to chronicle?

That said, although I love biographies, I’m not a person who typically follows others’ blogs, just as I don’t expect you and others to follow mine. I hope what I have to say is something that is of interest to others — at the very least my children — but if not I can say without question that writing has provided me with an outlet that otherwise I would not have.

Earlier this week, I happened to find Lindsay’s blog (http://applebloggingjeans.tumblr.com) and could not stop reading it. It’s a fascinating chronicle of a young, caring, witty, and extremely intelligent woman facing life in her 20s. Naturally, I found myself looking for clues, hoping something would answer my central question, knowing that nothing would.

Somewhere in my reading, I happened on this paragraph that I can’t seem to shake:

“I am, at my core, a person who fights everyday with who I am at my core— both an open book, ready and willing to share all that I am with the world, and a person who deals with many of my own demons, triumphs, blessings INTERNALLY and without desire to share those things even with those closest to me.  I have been, for as long as I can remember, a walking contradiction.”

••••••

We encourage our children to be open about their struggles. We try to be open about ours.

Of course, bookstores are chock full of memoirs from people whose families did an incessant data dump on the author, who suffered so much in the process that they managed to get an autobiography and an Oprah/VH1 episode out of it.

That’s not what we’re trying to do, in our dealings with our kids or even in this chronicle I’m putting out there for them — and you. What we want them to know is that they can come to us — no matter what.

I think they do know that. And I pray, every moment of every day, that they feel like they have someone to share their thoughts with.

No matter what.

A PSA for Parenting

Dear Children of Mine:

I am blessed to have four wonderful kids, all with individual talents and strengths. But, as your parent, I also feel compelled to remind you of one single, simple fact: You don’t know everything.

Sorry about that. I realize it comes as a shock.

Before you get, well, um, “unhappy” with me about this statement, I hope you will understand that it comes from experience. Every person goes through a phase in which their parents know absolutely nothing. Zip-eh-dee-doo-dah.

I hope that by your junior or senior year of high school that you will think differently, and that you’ll follow in my footsteps by apologizing to your parents for the phase in your life that featured monosyllabic grunts, shrugs, and that all-too-familiar eye roll.

Just in case you’re wondering, I’ve developed a little translation manual that I use on a semi-regular basis to break through the communications barrier. It goes something like this:

Part I: “I don’t know” is the tween/teen equivalent of, “I refuse to incriminate myself under rights granted by the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

Part II: “I forgot” is code for “I ignored you.”

Part III: “Whatever” is code for “I’m not ignoring you. I’m just not listening to what you have to say.”

Part IV: “I’m sorry” is code — especially when directed at a sibling — for “Not really, but I had to say something to get Mom/Dad off my case.”

So, you see, we actually do know something. And we love you in spite of it.

Truly, we do…

Sincerely, Your Dad

A Belated Gift

Our life together is so precious together.
We have grown. We have grown.
Although our love is still special,
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere alone...

My father and John Lennon were born 12 days apart. They had a mutual love for Elvis and married early, as adults from that generation did. Tragedy helped shape their lives — Lennon’s in his childhood, my father’s after he became an adult.

This year, both would have turned 70 -- Lennon this past weekend and my dad on October 20. Neither made it.

The similarities stop there. We all know Lennon’s story, which is endlessly retold and reshaped every few months or years. My father’s story is more mundane, but no less important, at least to me and to other members of my family.

This past weekend, en route on another traffic-infested trip from Northern Virginia to New York with my girls, I stuck in the “new” CD, “Double Fantasy — Stripped Down.”

Lennon’s first album in five years, “Double Fantasy” was a long-awaited rebirth for the former Beatle, who emerged from a self-imposed period of domesticity that followed the breakup of one of the best — if not the singular — rock bands of all time. In between, he suffered through an attempted (and finally thwarted) deportation by the Nixon Administration, dealt with fans’ lingering (and, for many, ongoing) anger toward Yoko Ono, separated from her, dove into the wilderness of drugs and drink, and finally emerged, a mature man. And within two months after hitting 40, he was dead.

While I liked “Double Fantasy,” I wasn’t thrilled by it, in part because I didn’t understand the place Lennon was at then. (And, to be honest, I was never much of a Yoko fan.)

“Stripped Down” intrigued me, however, and as the boredom of the New Jersey Turnpike wafted past, I found myself listening in a new way to Lennon’s valedictory effort. I flashed back to the night we all found out, watching a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets when Howard Cosell broke the news. For a moment I was 15 again, a place no one in their right mind should want to revisit.

My dad was not much of a Lennon fan; he preferred McCartney. He didn’t understand or appreciate Lennon’s politics, which were out there for someone living on the Texas Gulf Coast. In fact, if you came right down to it, he was happy to ditch the Beatles for Elvis any day of the week. Our entire family was affected far more by Elvis’ death than by Lennon’s.

Still, on the Tuesday after we found out, I came home after school and rummaged through my dad’s records, where I found the first three Beatles albums. He skipped the psychedelic stuff but returned for “Abbey Road” — “Come Together” played over and over in our house — and he loved “Imagine” (except for the no God part).

It's been too long since we took the time.
No one's to blame.
I know time flies so quickly.

I thought about going to Central Park and visiting Strawberry Fields on the birthday anniversary, although I knew it would be filled with people playing guitars, singing, weeping, and flailing their way through the Beatles/Lennon catalogue. That I couldn’t take, especially when there were more important things to tend to: my children.

So, I spent the weekend with my girls and Ben, running them to various things that mean something to their lives (Ben to an audition, Emma to the Cake Boss bakery in Hoboken, and Kate to every kiosk and trinket she saw). I never made the turn right to go to Central Park.

Driving back to Virginia last night, I put the CD in again briefly and listened, thinking of my dad and the weekend. As the songs played — even Yoko sounds a little better in the “Stripped Down” incarnation — I regretted briefly not making the walk on the beautiful fall day. Then I looked at my daughters — Emma napping on the passenger’s side, Kate sitting in the back looking at the laptop — and realized I had been where I needed to be all along.

Nobody told me there’d be days like these.
Nobody told me there’d be days like these.
Strange days, indeed.

STOP!!!

This sort of crap has to stop.

For the past week, I have been immersed in discussions and debates about how to improve public education. So immersed, in fact, that I didn’t take the time to watch and read the stories surrounding the recent deaths of five teens that were subjected to anti-gay bullying.

Today, I finally saw the heart wrenching video posted by Ellen DeGeneres and read the stories about the deaths of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi and four others who took their own lives over the past month. With each story I read, my jaw dropped further and my heart bled a little more.

Why is this happening? Are our heads buried so deeply in our own navels that we can’t look around and see the damage that bullying causes? When are we going to wake up and accept the fact that tolerance is something we need to instill in our children? Or that our so-called morals should not be a mask for intolerance toward others?

For some reason, adolescence and the onset of puberty only seem to heighten the cruelty gene. Trash talk becomes a form of bonding for kids who want to be edgy and cool but aren’t mature enough to have an actual conversation about the confusion they live through every day. And the environment is ripe for bullies who find power in the vulnerability of others, whether its sexuality, ethnicity, disability, or religion.

As a kid, I was bullied and harassed over my appearance, my nerdiness, my inability to connect to my peers. Why?

Because I was — God forbid — “different.” I loved theater and movies as much as football — just like my dad did. I did not go cruising, to the roller rink, or get to make out with girls in cars on the Texas City levee. I did not get invited to parties; to this day, even though people think I’m an extrovert, in a crowd I still look for the one-on-one conversation. People perceived me as arrogant, but being a smart ass was a mask for my fears. I could not beat you with my fists, but I could with my words.

Looking back, the smartest thing my parents ever said to me was, “We don’t want you to grow up with our prejudices.” They recognized that they grew up in another era and a different time, and they were smart enough to encourage me, with their guidance, to develop my own set of values and sense of judgment. Even though we disagreed on politics, they taught me that respecting others’ views is just as important as having my own.

Several years ago, I spoke on a panel in Columbia, South Carolina, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. (The first of five cases that were combined into the Brown ruling occurred in Summerton, a small town about two hours away.) During the Q&A session, a woman asked me why I thought bigotry still exists in our schools.

My answer was simple: “First graders aren’t bigots. They’re parrots.”

Somehow, I managed to not succumb to the pressures and taunting I still remember, and today, I’m the proud parent of four very “different” children. But I didn’t grow up in a world where bullies lurked behind video cameras and computer screens, hiding behind a new and very dangerous layer of invincibility.

I begrudgingly became part of “The Social Network” when my children started showing an interest in it. Now, I love Facebook and the opportunities it provides to connect to far-flung friends and acquaintances, but a primary reason I’m on it is to monitor their pages and accounts vigilantly.

My kids are in four schools in three states, but fortunately, I think they’re in the places that suit their personalities. We are trying to raise them as individuals, without the prejudices we have.

That’s why, tonight, I let Kate go to a church lock-in wearing a borrowed Halloween costume. She called it her “Lady Gaga Taco.” Yes, I cringed and wondered about the social repercussions she would face, but then I realized it was her expressing her personality. I admire her bravery.

Before we left, she showed me a piece of art she is working on as part of her community service project. On a canvas marked with x’s and o’s, she had written: “Live with Love in Your Heart. And Mend a Broken One.”

My heart breaks for the families of the boys who committed suicide, feeling there was no other way out of the lives they led. The anger I feel toward their perpetrators is at a boil.

This bigotry and hatred has got to stop — now. We must start mending broken hearts.

Not "Waiting for Superman"

My dad was a fan of superheroes — Batman, Green Hornet, the Flash, and, yes, Superman — for his entire life. He drew pictures, collected comic books and action figures, and saw the art that was brought to life within the pages of a comic book.

He also was a teacher, someone who taught art and history for more than 30 years and a person who affected the lives of thousands of students. When he retired, three years before his death, he questioned whether he had made a difference — even though those who were in his classes knew he had.

I looked up to my father — and to my mom, whose career also was spent in classrooms — and respected his opinions, even though they differed greatly from my own at times. Today, watching the opening of “Waiting for Superman,” I wondered what he would have thought.

Davis Guggenheim’s new film has ramped up the debate about our nation’s public schools in a way that the best films do. He hitches the narrative to sympathetic, interesting characters and draws them into a sort of good vs. evil battle with the highest stakes of all — the education of our children. But in doing so, he also misses the mark.

“Superman” does not feature the staple of what makes superhero stories interesting — a great villain. By casting teachers and, more specifically, teachers unions in this film’s role, Guggenheim opts for a convenient target. (Examples of school boards and traditional administrators are shown in films made in the 1950s and ’60s — another cynical slap at traditional public schools.)

And while the brush is not quite broad enough to paint charter schools as the be-all, end-all for public education — more than 80 percent underperform their traditional counterparts, by the way — the only success stories shown in the film are charters. I know, having covered education for a number of years, that you can find many traditional public schools that are doing great jobs as well.

Guggenheim’s case is boosted by five adorable children — all with loving, sincere parents who are seeking admission to high-performing charter schools via a lottery. Innovative, charismatic reformers — Geoffrey Canada, who provides the source of the title, and Michelle Rhee, the controversial Washington, D.C., chancellor — are without question upheld as the heroes.

You can’t help but feel for these families as the lottery balls drop, and knowing the outcome in advance — I won’t spoil it for you here, but needless to say it’s not a fairy tale — makes the inevitable ending all the more heartbreaking.

As the credits roll, Guggenheim notes that, “The problem is complex but the steps are simple.” By failing to properly outline the complexities found in our public schools, he has done a disservice to viewers who are being called into action. In the end, nuance is all but lost in the interest of drama.

Make no mistake, as a drama, “Waiting for Superman” works. But the more I think about the film, I keep coming back to a problem with its central thesis. By casting unions as the central villain, and noting that some people scam the system (and ultimately, the kids) for their own self-interest, Guggenheim takes the simplest path to make his point. This uneasy mix of cynicism and naïveté, while it works in telling his story, also feels somewhat contradictory and disingenuous to someone who knows how complex schools are to operate.

I can’t help but think my father, who was no fan of unions, would have felt the same. He knew the superheroes he loved were characters from a comic book, and that real-life heroes could be found in traditional public schools every day. I just wish Guggenheim and those who are so quick to bash would look for those heroes, too.

"Joseph": Coming around again

One of our family’s favorite phrases is “What goes around, comes around.”

As parents, we try to teach this lesson to our kids, but I was reminded again tonight that it applies to theatre as well. And I’m not just talking about the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows that continue to be performed — often badly — year after year.

In this case, what goes around has come around not once but twice. Nicholas has been cast as the lead in his high school production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” the catchy/kitschy Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical that is based on the story of Joseph in Genesis.

This is a huge accomplishment for Nick, who has been involved in theater for his entire four years of high school and plans to major in it in college. It’s a wonderful opportunity for him to develop and showcase his talents in a role he’s wanted to play for a long time.

It’s also an opportunity to revisit a show that has played a significant role at key points in our lives as a family.

In 1996, Jill performed in the “Joseph” ensemble for the Community Theatre of Greensboro and I volunteered to work one of the spotlights. Early on, we found out she was pregnant with Katharine, and wondered how we would break the news to our parents. I will never forget how Jill’s mother Betty found out.

We ate lunch with Betty before the matinee. Exhausted from tech week (and in Jill’s case, the first trimester), my lovely bride turned down an opportunity for a cup of coffee and my mother-in-law knew. She just knew.

Betty was a deeply spiritual woman who also was, ultimately, a realist. Sitting upstairs at the Carolina Theatre, she merged the two by mixing the word “holy” with her default choice when picking through the profanity dictionary. Little did she know what the next few years would bring.

Cut to 2007. We are living in Virginia. Kate, Emma, and Ben are dancing at Metropolitan Fine Arts Center, which had formed a new nonprofit company, Metropolitan Performing Arts Theatre. MPAT’s second show was — you guessed it — “Joseph.”

All three children auditioned — Ben was cast in his first big role (as Benjamin, the youngest of the brothers). The girls were in the ensemble with Jill, who had not performed on stage in several years. I was slated to be the stage manager and do the program. It was, for all of us, an opportunity to participate in something together as a family.

The opportunity was bittersweet, however, when life intervened again. My dad’s blood disorder had turned into an aggressive form of leukemia. I went to Texas 13 times that year and just five weeks before the show went up, he died on July 29.

The diversion of doing “Joseph” — the little show with the big themes — was good for all of us, although I missed most of the rehearsals due to the back and forth and we were gone to Texas for a week for Dad’s funeral. Everyone involved — from cast to crew — was extremely understanding.

On Sept. 8, “Joseph” premiered for the first of its two weekends. It was an aggressive and expensive undertaking for a small theatre company, but overall it was a success and a huge step forward for MPAT.

Three days later, on Sept. 11 and before the second weekend of shows, my second “mom,” Fran, passed away. We waited until the second weekend was done before returning again to Texas for our second funeral in two months.

Much of that period, understandably, is a blur. But what I remember most vividly is how wonderful it was to have my family — biological and since extended — together for much of that time.

Only one of my children did not get to participate in the show: Nicholas. When he was with us in Virginia, he came to the rehearsals. Sponge that he is, he learned all of the colors in order in “Joseph's Coat" — one of the show’s signature songs. He also memorized much of Joseph’s big solo, “Close Every Door.”

Since he’s been in high school, Nicholas has tirelessly lobbied for “Joseph,” which despite its loving but slightly irreverent look at a religious story is perfect for his Catholic high school to perform. Now, as he starts his senior year and looks ahead to college and beyond, he gets to play the title role.

As we circle back, we move ahead. And we are reminded again that, at least in theater, thankfully what goes around comes around.

Break a leg, son.

Tell Me About Your Child

For the past few days, Kate has been rapid cycling. For those of you who are fortunate enough not to know what this means, think about a light switch run by a small person who thinks it's cute to turn on and off the lights in rapid succession.

Except in this case, "On" is manic, with thoughts racing a mile a minute and exaggeration flowing at all times. "Off" is horrifically sad and angry — adolescence on steroids.

It's exhausting, not just for us and for Emma, but for Kate as well.

So, in our ongoing search for life's little ironies, we discovered one tonight. Digging through our daughter's book bag, Jill found a letter from Kate's creative writing teacher: "In a Million Words or Less … Tell Me About Your Child!"

The assignment was handed out last week; the due date, of course, is tomorrow.

Below is what I came up with and attached, along with the essay I posted earlier this evening.I hope each provides you with some insight into parenting a bipolar child.

Kate’s highlight reel reads like this:

Born two days after Christmas. Always restless and difficult to soothe as an infant and toddler. Walked at nine months. Twin siblings born before she turns a year. Diagnosed with ADHD at 5. Accepted into GT program between 2nd and 3rd grade. Diagnosed as bipolar at age 10. Hits an academic wall in 5th grade. Mood disorder never goes away. Sixth grade hits a major wall and pulls out of GT. Enters middle school and has to be in basic skills.

Starting over. Struggling to find letters B through Y in the alphabet; prefers to go straight from A to Z instead. Always has enjoyed art. Finds comfort in drawing and sketching. Wants to be a fashion designer, but has no patience to sew. Loves to run and does so like a gazelle. Loves to dance; ironically ballet calms her. Has many ideas racing through her mind at all times; the mind never shuts down. Never. Until it overloads.

Wants to have and make friends. Doesn’t know what the give and take of friendship really means. Anything can be solved by giving someone a present, usually used and/or created. Doesn’t matter what it is; it’s the thought that counts.

Has anxiety. Sometimes so severe that it’s almost crippling; other times it’s like sending the space shuttle into orbit.

Like any adolescent, both loves and loathes her siblings. When she’s rapid cycling, the two emotions overlap, causing confusion.

It’s hard, this life. No one understands me. And no one tries, even though that’s what we’ve spent her entire lifetime trying to do.

From an intelligence standpoint, she should not be in special ed. She — and her parents — are alternately saddened and proud that she has the label. This year, she knows that she’s been labeled, and she — like all teens — is both ambivalent and cares too much. Kate’s dual exceptionalities represent a conundrum that school systems are ill-equipped to face, and we say this both having worked as educators in various capacities.

Kate is someone who is almost incapacitated in her search for emotional equalibrium. She is beautiful and talented and so incredibly creative. She just hasn’t found the true outlet that she can hold on to that allows her to express her thoughts and emotions adequately.

Now she’s trying creative writing, something that should — and can — be a natural outlet for her, especially given her parents’ backgrounds. The struggle will be in harnessing her innate creativity and not allowing herself to get bogged down and overwhelmed by the mechanics.

Here's what I didn't tell the teacher: I love my daughter with all of my heart and soul, but her illness doesn't make it easy. My wife and I desperately want to do everything we can to make a difference in her life, and we're trying as hard as we can without getting bogged down and overwhelmed as well.

Wish us luck. We need it.

Kate: The Early Years

Editor's note: I wrote this essay when Kate was 18 months old. She's now 13. Interesting how we knew something was up even then, isn't it?

She walked at nine months. She had twin siblings before she turned a year.

It’s no wonder my daughter Katharine made it to the “terrible twos” several months early.

We are now in that period of parenthood that my seasoned, been-there-done-that friends refer to as the “teenage preview.” They shake their heads and say, “Just wait ‘til she turns 13.”

At times, I wonder if my wife and I can make it until she turns two. Little did we know that parenting a pair of infants would be a breeze compared to chasing a toddler with an attitude any high school sophomore would be proud to possess.

Part of it is the circumstance. With three children under age 2, life around my house is never less than interesting. Going to the bathroom can require an act of Congress and a signed letter from the president. And with Katharine in her present phase, you never know what you’ll find when you get there.

I’m more convinced than ever that the “terrible twos” are a simple way of identifying “toddler schitzophrenia,” the developmental stage all parents must endure. I just wish they had “toddler Prozac” to help the parents cope.

One minute, she’s wonderful, working the room like a career politician.

“Hi, I’m Katharine Cook, candidate for leader of the toddler party. My platform is more beanie weenies, less Spam for all. Glad to meet you.”

The next is like listening to an air raid siren, battle lines having been drawn when I tried to take something out of her hands.

“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. For the next 60 seconds, I’m going to let out a scream that will make you think the entire area is under nuclear attack. Please stand by.”

And so it goes.

For her parents, moments of quiet have resulted in near “I wonder what she’s gotten into now” paranoia.

And yet there are moments when I wouldn’t trade this time for anything.

With the insanity around my house, it is easy to forget Katharine is only 16 months old. She’s had to change rooms, move from a crib into a bed, and share the attention with twins who — by virtue of their unique nature — naturally snatch a spotlight that once was exclusively hers.

Partially because of all the changes, Katharine is remarkably self-sufficient for her age. She’s at the phase where she absorbs words and actions like a large sponge sitting at the bottom of a vast ocean. And yet, as much as it makes us cringe, it’s also easy to understand why she occasionally enjoys sitting on her sister’s head. She’s still a baby herself.

In those rare quiet times, however, all it takes is a certain look to make you forget all of the bad stuff. Her eyes, which are as expressive as her mother’s, alternately make me swell with pride and reach to my face to feel the tears roll down my cheeks.

Recently Katharine has started waking up in the middle of the night. And even though it usually takes her mother to get her back to sleep, I have made several half-groggy attempts to soothe my daughter.

In the small rays of dim light provided by the blinds in the bedroom window, I start to rub my little girl’s back, much like I do with her mother. As I watch her eyes move slowly, alternately opening and shutting, I flash forward to those teenage years my friends talk about.

On some nights, I project even farther into the future. College graduation. The day she has my grandchild. I wonder briefly if her daughter will be as beautiful as she is.

But that is a lifetime away. A lifetime that will pass much too fast. Ahead is a childhood that I hope we both can enjoy.

If we survive it, that is.

Next to Normal

I stood on the corner of 8th Avenue and 48th Street in Manhattan this week and my son said goodbye.

“See ya, Dad,” Ben said, his backpack filled with school supplies. “Gotta go. I’m good.”

The “I’m good” was 7th grade code for “You don’t need to walk me to the front door of school anymore” — a transitional moment that makes me vaguely uncomfortable as a parent and proud at the same time.

The day before, in Virginia, Jill saw Kate and Emma off on their respective buses — they’re going to different middle schools — and said she felt the same set of conflicting emotions.

This is “normal,” I guess. A normal moment in what feels like, at times, an abnormal life.

As a child, I went to the same elementary school for five years, the same middle school for three, and the same high school for four. I was raised in the same house that my parents lived in until my father died.

Today, I’m a parent with four kids in four schools in three states. Nicholas is a senior — gulp — driving himself to school in North Carolina. Kate and Emma are in 8th and 7th grade, respectively, still jumping on the bus. And then there’s Ben.

Last year at this time, he was our “Little Boy,” having moved to New York to play that role in “Ragtime.” This year, he’s “Tall Boy” in “Billy Elliott,” having booked his second Broadway show in just nine months.

While he’s still small for his age, the image of me standing on that street corner watching him walk the last 100 yards to school is a vivid reminder that he is growing up.

And fortunately for us, when he says “I’m good,” I know what he means.

12 Random Thoughts

Random thoughts and observations from the past month:

• When asked to describe Kate, I have said, “Kate is 13. She’s bipolar.” Heads nod. Then I say, “She’s 13 … and she’s bipolar.” That’s when the looks of sympathy begin.

• We went to the beach recently with the kids, which provided another opportunity for me to clarify a key definition. Some, naively, call family outings like this a “vacation.” I call them a “trip.” Vacation, for me, is an opportunity to do things on my schedule. I can sleep when I want, wake up when I want, read when I want, and talk without fear of being interrupted by someone who is not yet of legal status. Everything else is just a “trip,” often in more ways than one.

• I can’t help but feel sorry for Nicholas. It must be tough (and confusing) to be anal-retentive and ADD at the same time. Or you could just call it being a teenager.

• Two things I’ve always wanted to do: draw and sing. The talent fates intervened, however. I can’t draw a stick figure and I lip-synch “Happy Birthday” even (or especially) in large crowds. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by a family of singers and artists who allow me to live with and through them somewhat vicariously.

• The maturity and creativity of my kids — and conversely, the lack thereof — astounds us daily. This is especially true when Nicholas is here. I never know what project, poster, performance (or mess) is lurking when I walk through the door.

• Emma and Kate remind me of the sisters in Jennifer Weiner’s book, In Her Shoes. The only thing they will end up having in common is shoe size. Right now, their theme song should be “Cat Scratch Fever”; parents of teen girls are old enough and have the experience necessary to understand that Ted Nugent reference.

• Speaking of which, I never thought I would include Ted Nugent in anything I ever wrote. Of course, I never thought I would come close to agreeing with Glenn Beck on anything either. But the other day, I found myself nodding at his recent non-confrontational stand on gay marriage. Further proof that it’s a strange world we live in, folks.

• I still can’t get over the fact that I have four kids in four schools in three states, or that the baby of the family (by a minute, as Emma proudly notes) is living, thriving and holding a steady job in Manhattan at the ripe old age of 12. Go, Ben!

• As a child, I was always frustrated by the things I couldn’t do (see the previously mentioned drawing and singing). And, believe it or not, I hated to write. Then I found a keyboard and realized that I finally had a tool that could match the speed at which my brain works (plus the value-add of spell check). Recently, I decided to take up non-kid related photography and started snapping just the things that catch my eye. Finally, I’ve found another outlet for artistic expression.

• Kate has a new theme song, and it’s a mash-up of two pieces you might be familiar with: “It’s just another Manic Monday … Tuesday, Wednesday — Happy Days!! Thursday, Friday…”

• I may have said this before, but just in case: Emma is the Marilyn to our Herman, Lily, Grandpa and Eddie. And, with all due apologies for mixing my 1960s sitcoms, I’m sure there’s a Cousin It thrown in there somewhere for show.

• A work discussion about the merits of cloth vs. disposable diapers led to this epiphany: I now know why I have certain reading habits.

(Editor’s note/Public Service Announcement: The following statement is not necessarily for the squeamish and may qualify as TMI.)

The aforementioned habit is the result of my mom — a teacher through and through — putting a calendar in front of my face while I potty trained. Little did she know that by teaching me numbers — “Mommy, what is 2 and 1…?” — she was planting a seed while I sat on the plastic bowl.

The less said here, the better.

Apologies

To the few of you who follow this, my apologies for not posting recently…

To those of you who don’t, read below and see what you have missed…

Parenting amid the holidays

For this year’s Fourth of July, I took three of the four to New York, where we met up with Ben. Within a few minutes, the familiar patterns emerged:

• Nicholas: Developed a specific list of things he wanted, wanted to accomplish, and just plain wanted, with a variety of opinions on things he did not like/appreciate/enjoy.

• Kate: SHOPPING!!!! NOW!!!! (All caps, with minimum of four exclamation points required at the end of every sentence, unless it’s a question that starts with, “Can we go to…?”)

• Emma: Channeled her inner Eeyore and added a Dead Sea Scroll of “don’t likes,” starting with the fact that New York is busy, dirty, and, well on the rest she would just have to reserve judgment before liking the experience.

• Ben: New York is where I’d rather stay. I get allergic smelling hay. I just adore a penthouse view. Darlings I love you but give me Park Avenue.

I guess that’s why they call it parenting.

From Closing to Closure

Just after Ragtime’s stirring opening number, Father says something to Mother as he leaves on his year-long journey: Nothing much happens in a year.

Hogwash.

In many ways, this is a typical Saturday morning. I’m writing this and procrastinating. On the agenda is grocery shopping, doing laundry, running a few errands, cleaning up the apartment, and muddling through some leftover work tasks. Ben is sound asleep on the couch, not yet stirring, and anxious to go to his dance classes. Tonight, Jill will arrive, and we will have a rare weekend together in New York.

But this weekend, like much of this past year, also is atypical. Tomorrow, we head to a brunch that will have the feel of an extended family reunion, and then we will go to (eek!) the Tony Awards.

It’s something I never dreamed would happen in my lifetime, and only fantasized about in the broadest terms a year ago. But in a rare moment of wisdom, the nominating committee recognized Ragtime with six nominations — an amazing feat for a show that closed five months ago.

In many ways, the nominations bring a bittersweet sense of closure to a show that many feel should still be running. They represent long-deserved acknowledgement for people who have toiled in the business for decades, an affirmation of some whose careers are just starting to explode, and recognition of a production that forever changed the lives of everyone involved with it.

And a year ago, it had only just begun.

Ben was the last person from the original DC cast to perform, and his debut was on Broadway. Closing for him, and for everyone involved, represented a huge transition into the unknown.

Journalists are trained to work with the 5Ws and an H. The lasting lesson from my college training is to ask two more questions: “So what?” and “What’s next?”

In this case, the answer to the “So what?” is obvious. This experience has changed our lives for good. And fortunately, after months of uncertainty, we now know what’s next.

But for one last weekend, we can remember, recognize and reflect.

From closing to closure, we have a chance to celebrate.

And we will.