I. A Second Act for Our Lives

I've had a circuitous journey, professionally, having gone from acting to lawyering to agenting to writing. I've spent the longest time agenting (almost 10 years), so this particular switch indeed feels like a "second act" after a long, calm period -- the beginning of another phase, or passage, in which I'll get to explore another avenue within myself. Each time I've switched there's been some upheaval, but each change was necessary at the time and required me to walk through fear. Revisiting an old dream (writing) in early middle age is very exciting, and I believe, exactly when it was supposed to happen. Everything that's gone before in my life has been necessary to get me where I am now. It may seem easy to say this in hindsight, but I've had to trust that that was so as I strove on.

** Many memoirs are written because people find a "second act" in their lives (think Frances Mayes' "Under the Tuscan Sun," for example). Is this a distinctly or predominantly American phenomenon?

** Have I been able to change my career path so many times because I'm gay and have no children? (Note the irony: it wasn't until I took in a "child" that my true vocation was revealed!) Is it much harder for those with families and more responsibilities to do so?

** Are there perhaps smaller ways that you can invite change -- change that might lead you to discover an "untapped" side of yourself? Are there ways that you can inspire yourself to live more creatively? Probably like many of you, I always thought creative lives were the province of others, but I've proved myself wrong. Do you assume that "it can't happen to me" because it's easier to do that than to actively seek out what really "rocks your world"?

II. The Role of the Gay Man in the Family

With all the talk about gay marriage and gays being able to legally adopt children (whether each other's children or as a couple), it's as though people have forgotten that gay men and lesbians come from families! We are members of millions of families in this country and often play very specific and important roles in them. We are often godparents to a troop of children. As aunts and uncles, we often help our siblings, nieces, and nephews financially, and, as in my book, occasionally step in to help with parenting. We are often the most likely candidates to help care for our aging parents, both physically and financially. Maybe the conservative right selfishly doesn't want us to be able to create families of our own in order to keep us in our current positions! Another related theme is that gay people often form a very close network, or family, of several friends who also don't have children and therefore have the time and energy to give each other the emotional support needed.

** Is this topic relevant to the discussion of gay marriage and civil unions?

** Does it put children at an automatic disadvantage to have two mommies or two daddies, or a single gay parent for that matter?

III. Parenting a Teenager

This is the most obvious theme of the book, and can perhaps be broken down as follows:

(a) What are the best ways to discuss sex and drugs with kids? During the year in which the book takes place, I struggle again and again with how to approach these subjects, how to not seem like I'm lecturing, how to not embarrass Tiffany, and how to be taken seriously when discussing them. Is there a right way? Did the conversations I had with Tiffany have any effect on her? Was there something more I could have done?

(b) Adults today are dealing more than ever with the issue of telling their children not to do things they themselves did. Parents who grew up in the '40s and '50s really couldn't imagine what their kids were getting up to in the '60s and '70s. But now those children have teenagers of their own and can certainly imagine what their children are doing. Is it hypocritical to forbid a teenager to do things you did? What if they ask you outright whether or not you did them yourself? Do you admit to it or lie to your child's face? If you tell them you smoked a lot of pot or got in trouble with the law, and that you regret it, will it really give them pause or rather make it more okay for them to "party" and live riskily?

(c) This begs the question: People always seem to say, "Things are so much worse now" or "kids grow up so young today," but have things really changed much since our teenage years of the late '70s and early '80s? Due to technological advances, there is certainly more information potentially available to a child these days, but has this actually lowered the age that kids start doing the things that we associate with teenage "rebellion"?

(d) I often felt like Tiffany had a logic to her arguments that seemed sound within itself. What is the best way for a parent or guardian to deal with teenage logic? For example, when a teen says,"I don't respect you because you don't respect me. If you respected me, you'd trust me and give me the freedom I'm asking for." In a teenager's head, he or she makes perfect sense, and it may be impossible to ever get them to see things an adult's way. Is there a way to work within a teen's framework and still get through somehow? Or does it just have to be that they will "hate" you for a few years and think that your mission in life is to make them miserable?

(e) Is it possible for someone, a non-professional, to help a teen like Tiffany, who's been through so much and has already had a certain way of life (with its own set of rules, or lack of them) imprinted upon them? Is it even possible for professionals to help them? Tiffany has had a decent amount of counseling, but like most teenagers, she thinks she has it all figured out already. Do you know of success stories where teens made a turnaround through therapy or counseling?

IV. Breaking the Chain or Repeating Our Parents' Lives

This theme recurs throughout the book in several manifestations. I mention my perception that my father failed to find fulfillment in life, as well as my varied attempts to find it.

** Does encouraging our children to go beyond us or to try different things give them a better chance of finding fulfillment, or do we inevitably push them into things or try to control them too much?

** Having been an actor who never "made it" in the profession, I mention my fantasies of Tiffany becoming a successful performer. Do adults live vicariously through their children, and to what degree is it healthy to do so?

** Are we all doomed to repeat our parents' lives anyway? For example, Tiffany has had quite a different life from her mother, and yet she seems destined to repeat many negative aspects of her mother's life. On the other hand, my father never explored the many sides of himself and yet I'm doing so and thus breaking free of that mold. Or am I? In the book, it's clear that I have trouble controlling my anger, like my father, and also that I may be expecting too much of Tiffany, which can only result in a child feeling like they're coming up short. Thus, am I inadvertently passing on my low self esteem, which was imprinted on me (at least partially) by my upbringing? How can one NOT do that to their child?

V. Surviving Depression and Other Major Life Struggles

Hopefully readers will see my book as a "peeling away" of my layers, a slow laying bare that happens organically and in relation to issues that arise with Tiffany during the story. My battle with depression is revealed about halfway into the book, and my battle with something even more threatening about three-fourths. I've had to reconfigure my attitude again and again throughout the process of living my life and taking its attendant "knocks." I strongly believe that if I did not find ways to alter my perspective on many things (e.g. spirituality, physical appearance, financial success), and thus shift my values, I would either not have survived or would be completely miserable in my life. I hope it comes through to readers that, though I may have become a bit of a cynical and snobby New Yorker over the years, I am at heart a corny old softie who remains engaged by life, in all its crazy and fascinating forms.

** Looking back, what are the ways that you've had to adjust your attitude, or your expectations, to bring them more in line with the path your life has taken? Have you adjusted them too much, leading you to forget who you originally thought you were?

** Have you managed to retain a child-like wonderment of the world, or has the adult you become less engaged with life? Have you gotten cynical in your adulthood, and if so, are there ways that you can alter that and rediscover that old feeling?