Why I am where I am.

Over the last year, several blogfolk have asked me: Who are you?

Let’s recap.

I’m 37. I’m married. I have three children, two dogs, and three cats. I live in an upper-class neighborhood in a town in Westchester, New York. My family might be the lowest-earning family in town. I am not kidding. I work as the head of a small creative firm in New York City. With one takeover-based exception, I’ve been running my own business since 1996. It’s a very-low seven figure company.

I love people, and I’m pretty sure I love you.

I was raised Jewish. I was active in temple, growing up. In April of 2003, for reasons that would take a whole new post, I converted to Roman Catholicism. During my conversion classes, I said to the Deacon: “I’m pro-choice, pro-Gay, and don’t believe the Pope always has a better connection to God than everyone else. Should I leave?” After he answered, I stayed.

I am a silly person who does silly things for silly reasons.

Growing up, I was fast-tracked to the “smart group.” I did kindergarten and first grade in the same year. In third grade I was put in a class for gifted students, and allowed to make my own schedule. I played Coleco Football for six months straight. It was in that program that I learned to do almost no work yet get good grades. This lasted me pretty much all the way through high school (where I was editor of the literary magazine and captain of the debate team) and college (where, at the school I didn't fail out of, I graduated with honors even though I went to class only on exam days). Now, although I work hard at my job, I'm only just learning to organize my life.

Until I got in trouble at age 15, I was friends with everyone.

I am an alcoholic. I don’t remember too much of the late 80’s. I was thrown out of school twice, but eventually made it to rehab (with the help of my parents) and got sober in 1989 at age 20. In 1996 I thought I was “cured” of alcoholism (I was 20 when I quit, after all), and started drinking again. It took me seven years to get back to Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been sober since September of 2003.

I hope to stay that way forever. (Yeah, yeah: one day at a time.)

Before 1989, my drinking led to many blackouts. I would wake up in my car at dawn, and not know how I got there. I destroyed the side of my car, and have no idea how. I had approximately thirty one-night stands. I only contracted one icky thing, which was curable. When I was fifteen years old, I drank approximately ten shots of alcohol in ten minutes, and went psychotic. I hurt some people very badly. I consider life, as I live it now, to be a constant amends for that day.

When I started drinking again in 1996, it was a little different.

Instead of the explosive, outward-acting drinking of the eighties, I was locked in a viscous one-on-one battle with alcohol. I hid vodka bottles in my office and at home. I would buy two bottles of wine for each bottle I opened publicly, so I could drink more than everyone thought. If I only drank 6 tall-boys an evening, that was considered a success for me. I was yellow, bloated, and I had a constant pain in my side. In 2003, Maggie said: “Is this what Jesus wants for you?” I answered “No,” went to A.A. (where I still go every weekday), and I haven’t had a drink since.

My father has problems. Big problems.

Good people at heart, my parents were very generous with material and financial things. They were affectionate and smart and funny. My father, however, has a history of either (undiagnosed) Borderline Personality Disorder or some intense strain of Paranoia. He decides that someone in the family is evil, harasses them with letters, faxes, and emails (depending on the decade) explaining why they are evil and how they will pay for being evil, and he marshals everyone around him to agree that said person is evil and cut that person out of our lives.

He didn’t talk to his mother for 15(ish) years. His brother for 18(ish). These periods go back to the 1970's.

In 2002, my father decided that, since childbirth, I had been trying to destroy his marriage. After a yearlong barrage of threats, hate mail, hate email, hate faxes, and phone calls, we brought his letters to the local police department. They read them, and promptly offered us the choice of having him arrested, or simply warned. We chose the warning. Six months later, they moved to the west coast without telling me. As far as I know, everything I had since I was a child was thrown away.

If I could, I’d give both my parents enormous hugs. I miss them.

My father did some strange and brutal things. If he was angry at us and couldn’t sleep, he would sometimes stand at the bottom of the stairs and start counting. We were supposed to be standing at attention at the top of the stairs by the time he got to a three-count. It wasn’t frequent, but it had a pretty big impact. When, in grade school, I was having, um, issues with peeing in my underwear, he forced me to wear a huge diaper around the house, and hung my underwear from the mailbox in the street, for the neighbors to see. I would have daily underwear inspections, which made me very nervous to pee, lest I drip. He had unusual academic rules: straight A’s, or grounding. I was grounded a lot. In middle school, he made me get behavioral reports signed by each teacher, each period, every day. The teachers didn't really understand it. And trust me, I was a pretty well-behaved kid in school. But the most important thing to understand about my father is this: he lived in black and white. The birthday cards he wrote were like Devotionals, and would praise God for giving him a son like me. The next day he would tell me that I was evil, a horrible thing constructed from a formless black mass of hate. I believed the bad things he said about me, and I have a long and undistinguished history of suicide attempts, starting at 8 years old:

I put one hand in a bowl of water, the other in a light socket. Ouch.

Normal kid behavior wasn’t considered “naughty,” it was considered evil: an affront to him, an attack on my mother. This was a big one for him... he used "protecting his angel," i.e. my Mom, as an excuse to do almost anything. In retrospect, it's sad and weak and pathetic.I'll stop talking about him now, but:

When I look at my kids and think of these things, I want to punch my Dad dead in the face.

I am married to a genuinely nice woman. Maggie is a little bit older than me, which is cool, because she’ll hit forty first. I love her a lot, and worry that all the time we spend on kids and work will eventually drive us apart through simple lack of familiarity. She's got gorgeous blue eyes, and great curves. She's as smart as I am. Maybe smarter. Maybe. She's definitely more educated. She doesn’t read this blog… a deal we made together after she discovered (and asked me to delete) an entry on lust. I love her, and want to be a better husband.

Maggie doesn’t believe that I am as attracted to her as I am. But I am.

I developed two primary defense mechanisms/outlets, growing up: alcohol and hyperactivity. Alcohol created static in my head, and static is what I wanted. I also developed an off-the-scale ability to do dozens of things at the same time, for a few seconds each, without really paying attention to any of them. I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing or conversation for longer than a few seconds. This has slowed down a little as I got older, but after 2.66 years of being sober, I realized it was time to address this.

I’ve been on ADHD medication for 5 days now. By the length of this post (and I promise not to do this again for a long, long time), it's working.

My children have changed everything for me. My oldest is just like I was, and it’s been incredible for me to see how what he does, both good and bad, is normal. Things that my father termed evil are laughably not. And when he tries (often successfully) to compete with me for his Mom’s attention, it’s not because he’s trying to rip my marriage apart. He just loves his mom. My daughter is the single greatest thing to happen to me. Just looking at her causes my heart to turn cartwheels. She’s also the most difficult kid we’ve got. Maggie says she’s a lot like her. Maggie's parents find some humor in this. My youngest is coming into his own. He’s funny, gorgeous, smart, and intense. We've gotten much closer since I quit drinking.

I’ve got a lot on my plate.

I’m a soccer coach. I’m on my Church’s music committee. I’m active in Alcoholics Anonymous. In 2004, I started to run a lot. Since May, I’ve run 9 half marathons, 1 marathon, and a whole lot of shorter races. I'm running the New York City Marathon this November.

Wish me luck.

For the last three months, I've had consistently trimmed hair and a beard. This has never happened before. I used to change my look every three weeks. I've had long hair, sumo hair, box braids, blonde hair, purple hair, and multi-colored hair. My facial hair shifted constantly with the sole exception of always having hair on my chin.

I've got a weak chin.

I'm a drummer. My old band put out a couple of singles in the mid-90's that broke a couple dozen CMJ charts Top 50. Now, I play drums in Church, and whale away on a Roland electronic kit in my basement.

My life is an adventure, and I'm lucky to be alive.

Love to all.