Name in the Middle

I was born a third, left the hospital a middle, and have felt like an outsider for much of my life since.

Seventeen days after the Baby Boom era officially ended, I was christened John Glenn Cook III. Named after my father and grandfather, I was driven home from the hospital to the strains of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s inauguration ceremony on an AM radio.

Little did I know then, at three days old, that LBJ’s long, drawn out drawl (along with a couple of his social policies) would be one of the things that would help my parents veer permanently toward the Republican camp. For the longest time, I could not reconcile how my father could have John F. Kennedy’s speeches on album and yet claim to be a Republican.

Of course, I also didn’t realize that being a Democrat in Texas did not mean you were liberal in any way, shape, or form. But I digress…

My parents, married just nine months and 21 days when I was born, were fresh out of college and starting their careers. For my dad’s parents, my birth represented a number of positives — first grandchild, a namesake, and, most important, another reason my father would not go to Vietnam.

My grandfather (John Sr.) was an assistant postmaster in Longview, Texas, and was terrified that his son (John Jr.) would be forced to fight in a conflict that many people did not understand. When my dad’s number came up in an upcoming draft notice, he quickly drafted a plan for my parents to get married, noting a deferral that was granted to males who had recently wed.

So my parents got hitched on a Friday, moved my dad’s stuff 250 miles south over the weekend, and my mom went to work teaching school the following Monday. A few short months later, I came along, not knowing at the time that I already had been part of the first great compromise of my parents’ nascent marriage.

It goes something like this: I could be named after my father and grandfather, under the condition that my name really wasn’t John, but Glenn. Except for dooming me to a life of filling out forms with a name that I didn’t go by, and facing a lifetime of questions about being named after the astronaut, the moniker on my birth certificate has had little impact on my life.

Or so I thought.

Life with ‘The Situation’

“Well, we’re back in our situation again,” my aunt said.

It was Christmas Day — her 72nd birthday — and she had spent it eating alone at an IHOP in Central Texas. Her husband of 42 years was in a psychiatric hospital, and sadly, this was not the first time.

I can count on my hands the number of times I have spoken to my aunt — my father’s older sister — since my grandmother died in the late 1980s. It was around that time that my uncle and I nearly came to blows over the handling of my grandmother’s illness, and at that point I pointedly walked away from two people who had a long-term influence on my childhood.

A bit of background is necessary: My father became ill when I was 8, and for major portions of my childhood, I spent summers and school breaks in Longview, the East Texas town where my parents were raised. My aunt and uncle lived 10 to 15 miles from my dad’s parents, and I spent much of my time going back and forth between the two houses.

Reflecting on that time, memories flash by like 15-second commercials from childhood, with yellowed and sepia tones. I remember sitting in a boat belonging to my aunt and uncle, hands on the steering wheel and making sputtering sounds with my lips as I imagined being in a high speed chase. I remember fending off the dirt dobbers, the flying bugs that nested in the homes they built in the ceiling corners of their carport. I can see my grandfather working in the huge garden he set up in their backyard, his skin leathered and tan in the years before he became tethered to oxygen. I remember the Dallas Cowboys games and my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration at their house, my grandfather dying then.

And I remember the confrontation.

••••••

As I write this, my uncle is in a different hospital. His physical “situation” — my aunt’s word to describe his state at any given time — is not good. He has blood clots in his leg and in his lungs that are life threatening. And then there is the mental illness, about which my aunt is reasonably matter of fact.

“He gets on these kicks,” she said on Christmas Day. “He gets revved up and he starts having fears and hallucinations. He gets paranoid. He can’t slow down. He can’t sleep. He’s all agitated and revved up, and then he starts being belligerent. I had to take him over there because I couldn’t have handled him when he is like this.

“So,” she said with the voice of someone who has been through this countless times, “we’ll get his meds straightened out and then everything will be OK for a while, or at least until he has another one of his episodes.”

My uncle was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2000, but he had shown signs of erratic behavior for at least two decades prior. Anxiety could make him extremely demanding and overbearing. At one point, he took a two to three week leave of absence from his job “due to nerves.” He retired in the mid 1980s, even though he was only in his 40s. No one knew, or spoke of, the exact reason why.

“We were so dumb. I didn’t even have a clue what they were talking about,” my aunt said. “As he got older, it got worse, and when he turned 60 it completely got a hold on him.”

••••••

I abhor violence. I don’t like TV shows or movies that glorify or wallow in it. However, I do understand primal instinct. The two fights I got into at school growing up were with people who said cruel (and not well thought out) things about my parents.

And no one, absolutely no one, could say anything about my grandmother or cast a vote to prolong her suffering. End-of-life decisions are extremely personal, and when my uncle — during an extremely stressful point in time just days before her death — tried to take control and made a number of statements about what my grandmother “had to do” and what we “had to do” for her, I started to snap.

And just as quickly, I walked away. Self preservation demanded that I not stay involved with someone who put me in a primal state.

I kept in touch with my aunt and uncle through my parents, who served as intermediaries. We exchanged Christmas cards. Occasionally, and usually at my parents’ behest, I would call to check on them.

This year, after my mom told me about my uncle’s latest meltdown and that my aunt had to eat alone on her birthday because he refused to see her, I decided to reach out and call her at home. After all, it was Christmas, and I had a confession to make.

••••••

The conversation lasted 90 minutes. I asked questions and took notes, writing down parallels between some of my uncle’s episodes and those of my daughter, who also is bipolar. Their situations are different, in part because of age and gender, and in part due to the fact that no mental illness/disorder results in the same experiences.

“It’s the strangest mess,” my aunt said. “Everyone has so many different forms of this.”

She went on to describe how and what happened when my uncle’s “situation” became worse, how she has been on a decade long series of cycles that start with emerging paranoia and isolation, followed by anger and depression, then hospitalization and renewal.

“I don’t know what causes this, but I know that when he becomes anxious about everything, he can’t do anything about it,” she said. “For a while, he just knows that he can do something better than everyone else, and he will drive that point into the ground if he has to, just to get his way.”

What I appreciated most was my aunt’s candor — a trait I had not realized she shares with my grandmother. And what emerged in the conversation was her great strength in the face of mental illness. Why didn’t she leave him?

“He’s a very kind man when he’s not all caught up in this, and it’s not something he can help,” she said, referring to his “crazy episodes” as blackouts. “When you get to know him, you know he’s not like the person he is when he’s in one of those states. I’ve just learned that the meds only hold him for so long, which means when they don’t work that he’s going to have to go to the hospital and stay for a while.”

I told her about my conscious withdrawal from them, explained my reasons for staying away, and said how guilty I felt. “I do understand,” she said. “This is not an easy thing to deal with — for anybody.”

Our relationship felt renewed by the end of our talk. She expressed her concern for Kate and — here’s that word again — our “situation.”

“Fortunately, things are different now,” she said. “It used to be that people who went to a psychiatrist had a bad reputation, but now we know that they’re getting treatment for something they can’t help. It’s not something we expect to have in a child, or in a spouse, but they can’t help it. They just can’t.

“You can help them, though, and others, too, by being open about all this,” she said, not knowing how much she had helped me — on her birthday.

Tell a Story in 100 Words or Less, Part 3

Sixteen years ago, the day after turning 30, I took the first huge risk of my life. I stood next to the front porch on a chilly afternoon and poured out my heart, knowing that in one sense I was destroying the person I had become and reclaiming the person I wanted to be at the same time. For the first time, life’s gray was erased – black pushed to one side, white to the other. In its place was a feeling I knew I’d never replicate, even though the grays of life would return. About this, however, nothing is gray.

The Perils of Creativity

Creativity is elusive, tantalizing, edifying, agonizing, or — with apologies to my English teachers for ending a sentence with a preposition — some combination thereof. Throughout my life, I’ve gone through phases in which I’m extremely productive, and others in which I feel like a barking seal.

The past two to three weeks have felt more like the latter than the former.

January typically is a low-key time. The days are cold and short, the streets are deserted, and my muse usually is in hibernation mode until after my birthday in the middle of the month. Considering the four birthdays and two major holidays that occur in the 30- to 35-day period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I guess that comes as no surprise.

But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

I have four primary hobbies — writing, photography, reading, and listening to music. The first two qualify as active, while the third and fourth vascillate between active and passive. When they work together in groups or in tandem, I am at my best, but recently they haven’t been working at all, even in isolation.

After reading six books in six weeks, I’ve had trouble finishing a long-form magazine article. As for taking pictures, I’ve spent most of my time going through the more than 5,000 I took in 2010 — most of them in an 11-month period. (Last January wasn’t too hot either…)

After writing a variety of blog entries in November and December — so much to process in so little time — this is the first of 2011. I have started and stopped several other essays during this period — another source of frustration — that ended up as part of the Fragments series.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve compensated by engaging in two other enjoyable, though extremely passive pastimes — watching football and going to movies. Fortunately, between the NFL playoffs and the Oscar contenders moving into wide release, January is the month for both.

Slowly, I can feel the muse is getting restless again. On a single train ride from New York to Virginia, I managed to complete two long-overdue entries that I hope you will enjoy in the coming days.

My brain is filling up with things to process, and rather than feeling saturated or spent, I’m starting to feel like I can deliver on them again. My desire to get outside and be creative is back.

In other words, look out, folks…

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.