Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad (26 page)

The kids and I hop into the car after the service. I can’t help looking at them in the rearview mirror. Stay in the moment. Right now it’s just about us, driving in this car, enjoying this gorgeous day. We’re on our way to meet Don for breakfast. We’re going to get pancakes. It doesn’t get better than this.

We get to a stoplight and a homeless woman walks up to the car, holding a sign that says PLEASE HELP. NEED FOOD. Eliza notices her first.

“That woman doesn’t have a home or a car, right, Daddy?”

“That’s right, sweetie. That’s called ‘homeless,’ remember?” We’ve discussed this many times before. I’m acutely aware of the opportunity to turn this into a “teaching moment.”

“We have a house and a car,” Jonah adds, straining his neck for a peek at the homeless lady.

“That’s right, Jonah. What do you think about that?” I ask. They don’t answer. “You think it’s fair?”

“Where did she get the cardboard and the marker to make her sign?” Eliza asks. I stifle a laugh. It’s a good question.

“She probably borrowed them from someone who was willing to help,” I say.

“Or she stole it,” Eliza says. There is a lot of sibling toy stealing in our household, and a lot of lectures about its evil.

“Maybe,” I say, “but if you had cardboard and a marker and she needed one, wouldn’t you lend them to her?”

“Yes,” Eliza says. The moment seems to be over. The kids are now looking out the other window.

“Can you think of different ways a person could help another person who wasn’t as fortunate as you?” Beat. Beat. The light turns green. We start moving. It’s still quiet. “What do you think, kids?” Still nothing. “How would you help that woman, Eliza?”

Innocently, her blue eyes peeking out from under her blond Dutch-boy bangs, she speaks.

“Why are we still talking about her?” she asks.

I burst out laughing.

“What?” she asks, puzzled. “Can you just turn on the music?”

“What’s so funny?” she asks again. Jonah starts laughing too.

I laugh and laugh, tears rolling down my cheeks. Eliza is telling me we didn’t need to make a “moment” out of a stoplight
and to let things just be. In the words of Anaïs Nin, “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as
we
are.”

Maybe Eliza is more of a Jew than me, and anyone else in my family, for that matter. Not only is she Jewish, she’s a little blond fifty-pound rabbi! Like Ecclesiastes, she knows there is a time to talk and a time to listen, a time to teach and a time to learn. A time to stop thinking and a time to play music. “Just turn on the music,” she says again. And I do.

I
never set out to write a book. Not originally. Until now, I’ve always been a writer of made-up worlds, with made-up characters who do a bunch of things in between a lot of commercials. But then I had kids and my life expanded. And I was encouraged to write something truthful by Beth Lapides to perform at her show
Say the Word
. After that, I had the good fortune of meeting Dani Klein Modisett, who created a platform for other writer/performers and authors and comedians called
Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine
. I will forever be grateful to Dani for the opportunity, the inspiration, the encouragement, the guidance, the collaboration, and the friendship.

A word of gratitude to Matthew Benjamin, my editor at Touchstone Books, without whose steady, levelheaded, and patient manner (I know, that’s three adjectives, bad habit) I couldn’t have written this book; and to everyone at Touchstone and Simon & Schuster for giving me this opportunity of a lifetime. Thanks to my attorney, Bob Myman, my agent, Kathy White, and my whole team at CAA for the constant support and encouragement for anything and everything I dream of doing; and to my literary agent and Vassar classmate, Simon Green, who
always had his eye on the bigger picture and saw a book in all these stories.

And speaking of my Vassar connection, I am forever grateful to my business partner and friend of more than ten years, Lisa Kudrow. I could never have taken on the challenges of a book like this without her support, enthusiasm, thoughtful feedback, and sense of humor. Thanks to my assistant, Kyle McNally, for his limitless support, patience, and intelligence and for never letting me forget he went to Yale.

I want to thank Dan Savage. For paving the way. For inspiring us to have kids. And then teaching us all it’s okay to talk about it. All of it. With humor.

To Ivone Del Cid, the fifth member of our family from the very beginning and forever more. Eternal thanks to Dr. Stephen Gordon for, well, saving our daughter’s life. And David Radis. And Dr. Stephen Rabin and Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services. And Shandiz Zandi, my safety net.

I’d like to acknowledge Amy, Lorin, Grayson and Gus Flemming, Robert and Ellen—for being the family I feel so lucky to have so close . . . and across the country: the Migler family and Norm and Marilou Roos, who continue to be such wonderful grandparents to our kids.

To our dear friends Mary McCormack and Michael Morris, who raise their kids (our godchildren) with ours (their godchildren) and in doing so redefine the boundaries of friendship and family. I want to thank Susan Gauthier and Linda Wallem, our beloved “tier one,” for thinking Don and I might make a nice couple twenty years ago and Jodi Binstock for joining the efforts. Ann Donahue, whom I met
that same fateful night, and Anne McGrail—writers and parents with whom I’m so lucky to experience parenthood and Christmas Eve!

Amy Poux, who’s inspired me the longest—since I played Lysander to her Helena in the first grade. Terrence and Tom. Our dear friends who continue to set an example of true commitment not just to love and marriage but to the power of the written word. I also want to thank friends and colleagues from whom I’ve derived so much guidance and reassurance for so many years: Thea Mann, the very definition of family. And Nicole Tocantins, Tim Bagley, Tony Phelan, and Joan Rater; Suzi Dietz, Caroline Aaron, Krista Smith, and John Hafter; Andrea Martin, Victor Garber, Rainer Andreeson, and Deb Monk; Linda Lowy and Jeff Perry; David and Bob Schneiderman; Eric Mathre and Peter Levine; Joe Fay and Matt Shay; Devin Keudell and Audrey Wells. And Lisa Melamed, for all her expertise, gossip, and—the title! Thanks to Ayelet Waldman and Craig Chester, who’ve done it all before and talked me off ledges and encouraged me to trust in the truth.

To my parental inspirations: Steve and Sylvie Rabineau. Like a brother and sister on the West Coast, you have a way of just making me feel like everything’s going to be okay and, along with Julia and Brad Hall, made us realize what’s possible, and doing it with such patience, class, and humor.

I want to thank my dad. For coaching all who knew him how to truly savor life. I miss you more than you’ll ever know. I want to thank my sister, my best friend, my role model and reality check, and my cheerleader (Varsity
and
JV). And my mother, Myriam. Thanks for being relieved when I
came out of the closet. And for the tears of joy when we said we wanted to adopt. And for the years since—as a devoted “abuela” to our kids without letting us forget the spirit of Abuelo.

And I want to thank my husband, Don Roos. For twenty years you’ve put up with my particular brand of crazy. You laughed at my jokes. You made me feel young-er than you. Since I am. By ten years. And taught me the difference between working hard and working smart: You’ve made me a better writer; a better partner, friend, and husband; and now a better dad. And Eliza and Jonah: you are my life. I can’t wait to see you every single morning when I wake up. Of course without you there’d be no book. You’ve changed me. Deeply. And you keep teaching me new and deeper meanings for the word “love.” Yes. Even more than pad Thai.

Dan Bucatinsky wrote, produced, and starred in the indie romantic comedy
All Over the Guy
(Lionsgate). In 2003 he and partner Lisa Kudrow founded Is Or Isn’t Entertainment, which produced the cult HBO comedy
The Comeback
, costarring Bucatinsky as publicist Billy Stanton. Their acclaimed docuseries
Who Do You Think You Are?
recently completed its third successful season on NBC. The pair have also garnered critical and audience attention for the groundbreaking web-to-TV series
Web Therapy
on Showtime, in which Bucatinsky also stars. Is Or Isn’t Entertainment also joined with film producer Marc Platt to produce the 2010 independent feature
The Other Woman
, starring Natalie Portman and Kudrow, directed by Don Roos. As a writer/producer Bucatinsky co-executive produced the NBC dramedy
Lipstick Jungle
. As an actor, Dan appears on the new Shonda Rhimes series,
Scandal
, and returns as well to the USA series
In Plain Sight
. Television audiences will also remember him from
Grey’s Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm
, and
Weeds
. Film roles include
I Love Your Work, Under the Tuscan Sun
, and
The Opposite of Sex
.

One of the 2011 recipients of Power Up’s Ten Amazing Gay Men awards, and the Out 100, Dan lives in Los Angeles with his husband, filmmaker Don Roos, and their two kids. He can be followed on Twitter:
@danbucatinsky
.

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