Having a child is sowing the seeds of your own obsolescence: birth is the fuse that leads to that other thing. You appear, you replace yourself, you die.
The reason so many intelligent and creative people suffer from depression is that when you take the risk of being fully conscious, you open Pandora's box, and you can't close it again.
Sufferers of depression have 'episodes' the same way those who suffer from multiple sclerosis do. It comes, wipes the floor with you, and then somehow returns you to the world. But it comes back.
I've always loved Houdini, not just because of what he did, but also because of what he stood for. He was a self-made man in a time when the idea of celebrity was still new, and he used his celebrity for good.
I wasn't against becoming a dad: I'd had a good childhood, as childhoods go, and as role models, my imperfect parents were as good as or better than most.
The idea of a pseudonym had been flitting around my brain for a long time, along with its cognate, disappearance. In the 1980s, I published some poems under a pen name in a literary magazine to see what it would feel like. It was fun. It was even a little thrilling.
