Up in the Air

Note: “Up in the Air” was my favorite movie of 2009. Unfortunately, as the following essay attests, I have issues when I’m up there…

This is a helluva way to start a story. I'm sitting on a plane buried deep in coach, putting all of this down on a Blackberry. I tried to start it on my laptop, but that would require the gentleman (and I use that word loosely) to "push his seat into the upright position" instead of putting it into the current spot 6 inches from my face. I'm sure I won't finish here: after all, the flight is only 3 hours and I'll be lucky to get 15 paragraphs done by then.

Funny thing, air travel. Unless you can enjoy the comforts of first class, the phrase "Sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight" means nothing, especially when the airlines still allow people to crank their seats back so far that they can examine your nasal hair.

I digress, which is something you shouldn’t do on a Blackberry. Of course, given the level of interruptions on any given flight, I shouldn’t be surprised. As long as the pilot doesn't digress and we make it down safely, things should be OK.

Back to the present: "Watch your feet," the attendant said just a minute ago as she and a co-worker moved through the aisle with their large metal cart, forcing me to compress my body further into my already cramped quarters. The man whose seat is in my lap just extended a gnarled hand to grab a 6 ounce plastic cup of carbonation and some "stadium style" peanuts in a 1/2 ounce plastic bag, the shells conveniently removed for the comfort and safety of the airline's customers.

I want to shout: "You're not asleep, dammit! Scoot up your f'ing seat!" But that would be impolite, and as much as I would like to blame situational Tourette's for my profanity-laced outburst, I just can't do it.

Did I say this was a helluva way to start a story? I think I did, but I don't exactly remember how to get to the top of the document on the Blackberry and I'm having too much fun watching the device look for ways to auto-correct itself to scroll through the millions of options on the clickwheel. These things are so damn smart that they'll add apostrophes and caps where necessary, and they'll correct atrocious spelling, even mine.

If they could fix bad handwriting, we wouldn't have this problem. But after 20-plus years of working on computers, my penmanship has been downgraded from awful to worse. And so, in the interest of salvaging at least portions of this beginning to what I hope will be an enjoyable journey for us both, I am required to type it all out. Its a long way from the IBM Selectrics and my nasal typing teacher who snorted "asdf, jkl-semi" at me in the ninth grade, but it will have to do.

Another digression: Portable devices are 21st century crack. The ability to have 24-7 access to all aspects of your professional life is just too tempting for companies to resist, and for kids raised on generations of video games, it's yet another way to bring adolescence into the workplace. Before long, we all will have carpal tunnel of the thumbs. Some prescription drug company is lining up scriptwriters now to exhault the virtues of "a new treatment for thumb pain."

"Ask your doctor about (fill in the blank). Side effects may include constipation, impotence, and the inability to eat with a fork."

Speaking of which, my thumbs are getting tired, plus I've got to try and salvage some space while I still can. The woman sitting beside me started involuntarily playing a game of footsie in between loud snores, and I've got to put a stop to it. After all, I do have my standards.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Glenn Cook (via Blackberry)

Welcome home...

For the next several weeks, Ben is back in Northern Virginia, performing as the page in Terrence McNally's "Golden Age." The play has a short three-week run at the Kennedy Center — thank God for those circle backs — and gives us a chance to be together as a family for just over a month.

More on the play later, but I thought you might want to know how Ben's siblings greeted him upon his return. Emma, sweet Cook that she is, made him a cake. Kate, whose ADHD/bipolar inspired ditziness masks a wicked sense of humor, contributed this:

Gotta love big sisters, don't you?

Parenthood, not the show

"How would you describe parenthood so far? And I don't mean the show."

Emma, in case you haven’t noticed, cuts to the chase.

We were watching “Parenthood,” the new show that premiered tonight on NBC. I loved the movie on which it was based, the cast is terrific, and the show runner is the same guy who is in charge of “Friday Night Lights,” my favorite show of the past decade. Plus, it has the added advantage of coming on at 10 p.m. thanks to the network’s decision to shun Jay Leno and his yuk-yuk humor to late night again.

Normally, 10 p.m. is Emma’s bedtime, but she has her father’s nocturnal nature. Contrast that to Katharine’s ability to be shot out of a cannon between 5:30 and 7 every day and you now know why I never sleep. I decided to let her watch the show, and while I lay on the floor, she snuggled under the covers of my bed amid the pile of unfolded laundry.

“So,” she said during a commercial, then asked her fateful question.

I decided to go for the complex answer, something such a perceptive comment deserves.

“Challenging,” I said. “It’s the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced.”

“Is that it?”

“Rewarding,” I said. “I’ve learned so much from being a parent.”

“Uh huh … And?”

Nothing like being put on the spot. I hoped that the limited commercial interruption would end soon.

“Fun sometimes. Hard, too. But it’s always worth it.”

She nodded, letting me off the hook. The commercial ended and we were quiet through the rest of the show.

When it ended, she leaned down and said, “That was pretty good. Not bad." Then, "I love you, Daddy.”

She kissed me on the head, leaned on my arm and said her prayer — the same one we’ve done for the last nine years — and walked toward her bed.

At that moment, parenthood was great.