Joyce Hatto

I know nothing about classical music and even less about music technology, but I am fascinated by the story of the plagiarizing pianist.

Rebecca Traister Nails It Again

This is kind of what I've been thinking about Britney all week, only she says it so much better (and yes, yes, yes on Little Dorrit and Luke and Laura).

The Game

I don't understand why my children spend as much time negotiating the game as actually playing it, but I have come to accept that the negotiation is part of the pleasure of the game. These days, however, part of the negotiation is over who gets to be better ("I'm better at gymnastics, but you're the better dancer." "No, I want to be the better dancer."), and this I simply cannot stand.

Coolest Lunchbox Ever

M lost her lunchbox. A lot of time has been spent searching for a cool new lunch box. She wants metal. Unfortunately, this one is too small. This one is the coolest ever, but, alas, inappropriate for fifth grade in public school (would it be appropriate for fifth grade at private school? I doubt it). We'll probably go with this one, which is pretty darn hip, even if it's not the coolest ever.

Notes on Current Events Including, But Not Limited To, Baseball, Best Actresses, and Boots

I'm not one for fetishizing dead bodies, especially when the body in question figures as a metonym for the money (see: James Brown). But I do think that Anna Nicole should be buried in the Bahamas, because one thing that seems true about her is that she loved her son, and I'm sure that he loved her, so it seems only right that she be buried next to somebody who actually loved her. Although I thus agree with Howard K. Stern's position on the matter, I hold to my formerly-expressed opinion that he is scum. In fact, I'd amend that to total scum (see TMZ for details).

I'm against the war, but I'm even more against the contemporary American way of waging war, which involves elites arguing and poor people fighting. So I say kudos to Prince Harry for going to Iraq.

This morning I was thinking that I am not in love with this Red Sox team like I was with last year's. But that, of course, will change, because the nature of being a Red Sox fan is that you can't help falling in love. And you know, Kevin Youkilis hasn't crossed my mind all winter, but just the thought of him makes me happy. David Ortiz reporting to camp? Great day. Nevertheless, I am happy to go on record saying that if we'd paid Johnny Damon 50 million last year, we would not need to pay J.D. Drew 70 million this year. That's all I'm saying.

Did I ever say anything nice about Dan Shaughnessy? Why, yes I did. Well, I take it back. The boys are right.

Just chill: Manny will show, and he'll hit, and he'll catch, and that's all that matters.

S was home last night! We got a sitter! We went to see Notes on a Scandal! Except the projector was broken in that theater, so we saw Volver instead. Which means I'm still up to four on Best Actress nominees. Liked the movie, didn't love it, am really wanting to LOVE a movie, but it hasn't happened in a while. Penelope Cruz, like Kate Winslet, was great, but no Helen Mirren. Nevertheless, she certainly wins Most Beautiful Actress.

Finally, my great achievement of yesterday, besides another Best Actress and coaching my friend on her contract negotiations, was boots. OK, so they are my fifth pair of black boots, but unlike the battered granny boots, the flat ankle boots, the stiletto calf-high boots, and the suede knee-highs, these are slightly-higher-than-calf-yet-lower-than knee! Pointy-toed! Goretex! Waterproof! On sale for half price! Boots. In my boots and my coat, I am just the most put together bad weather professional woman you know.

Hair Triumph

This morning I gave E a choice of wearing her hair down, with the front ends pulled back in a barrette (sp?), or in braids. She chose braids.

(I am the unsentimental mother who never grew her daughters' hair because it would be too much of a pain. I love the long locks of other little girls from afar--sort of. I mean, they are often pretty, but either those little girls are much more docile than my children, or those mothers are a lot more patient with combs, brushes, snarls, and screams. But, I am also the empowering mother who lets her daughters do what they want, and E now wants long hair, so long it is, along with snarls and screams. Recently, though, I've instituted braids, which are very cute, and apparently they've taken. Thank goodness.)

Little Children

For weeks now, all I've wanted is to see a movie in a movie theater. I'm not quite sure why it hasn't happened. There are tons of movies I want to see, and several of them were playing around the corner. My dad stayed with us for two weeks, which means that theoretically I was free in the evenings. But kids were sick, S was at work, I had work, it was cold, I was tired: somehow my desire was endlessly thwarted, becoming, in the process, as desires do, that much larger, until, truly, all I wanted in the world was to see a movie in a movie theater (world peace would be nice too, but one's vision narrows in the depths of winter).

Last night I finally made it (sorry, Lucy, S got home at the last minute and pushed me out the door). Borat and The Departed are no longer playing around the corner, and I realized that if I could manage to see three movies this week (ha!) I would at least have seen all the Best Actress nominees, so I went to Little Children.

My main reaction at first was that I either need to give up reading, or give up seeing movie adaptations of books I've read (this doesn't bode well for Notes on a Scandal which I am absolutely determined to see by Sunday--don't know if I'll make it to Volver, though). The movie was fine, but knowing exactly what was going to happen made the whole thing a little slow. It's a pretty faithful adaptation, as far as I can recall. The only significant (and unnecessary) addition was the documentary about the kid whose dad died in Iraq; the only significant omission was the paring down of Sarah's back story and her husband's role (though the absence of the back story, at least, may have made Sarah's character not make so much sense, for those who haven't read the book).

Eventually, though, I got into it and, really, I think I liked the movie better than the book (didn't like the book that much, liked the movie a lot more than I thought I would). The book is pretty frothy, but the movie convincingly, if direly, plumbs the dark side of the suburbs, albeit with a conservatively redemptive ending. The acting, from the playground ladies to the child molester, is excellent, and the cinematography appropriately dark and garish (yes, it can be both). The one thing that didn't work, really didn't work, to the point of making the movie significantly less good than it could have been, was the intrusive voiceover. Isn't the point of film to show, rather than tell? Shouldn't the filmmaking be sufficient to reveal how the characters feel and what they think? Isn't that why we go to the movie, instead of reading the novel?

As for the Best Actress issue, Kate Winslet is great. Physically and emotionally, she fully inhabits Sarah, the ill-fitting suburban mom who doesn't like her child and finds herself in the arms of Brad, the Prom King dad. But the part isn't a full-scale unrecognizable transformation, a la The Queen, so I'd still say the conventional wisdom (i.e. Helen Mirren) is right.

(The weirdest thing about watching the movie was that both Sarah and Brad, the Prom King, reminded me acutely of actual people I know--people who don't know each other, and would never have an affair, though the Brad doppelganger may be on his way to an affair with someone else. Even as I watched the characters on the screen, I couldn't stop thinking about the real people.)

Edited to add: The NY Times review is excellently on the mark (not sure whether it's available without Times Select).

Tiny Houses and the Challenge of Visibility

The media has once again discovered tiny houses, but what strikes me this time is how so many of these people claim an environmental motivation for their tiny houses--see "ecologically sensitive," "express purposes of conservation," and "no lasting impact on the land"--yet if you look at the slide show, you'll see that the houses are positioned in the landscape so as to visually blight it for anyone outside of the house. "We live in our view rather than look at it," says one couple, but everyone else has to look at them living in it. A paradox that epitomizes the American way of doing good.

(I actually love the idea of tiny houses, but I like them nestled into trees or against a cliff or something--my favorite is the one with the steps down to the water. Then again, I don't like big houses that just stick out of the ground either. Except, of course, The Glass House, but it's surrounded by trees, not invading the prairie--and, of course, it isn't so big).

Every Night Movie

Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

Grease is in heavy rotation over here. I actually tried it on the girls a year or so ago, but M nixed it pretty quickly. Then Other E got her into the soundtrack. Then she went to a slumber party a few weeks ago where they watched it, and she came home hooked. We rented it the other night as a family movie (our membership allows us three movies at a time, which translates into an E movie, an M movie, and either a Mommy movie or a family movie, depending on how into my book I am). Now E is completely enamoured as well. Plus E has a fever (again), which means all screen time rules go out the window, and we watch Grease over and over.

Summer lovin' had me a blast
Summer lovin', happened so fast
I met a girl crazy for me
I met a boy, cute as can be

E made me print out the lyrics for "Summer Nights," and she walks around reading/singing them. She holds auditions and she gets the part of Sandy; then she has rehearsals (M is currently in two plays; E is suggestible). Both girls are amazed that I know every word to every song.

But now there's nowhere to hide, since you pushed my love aside
I'm not in my head, hopelessly devoted to you
Hopelessly devoted to you, hopelessly devoted to you

I'd forgotten that Grease is about sex. But you know, it's kind of like Asterix: it operates on different, and bizarrely appropriate, levels for each of us. E knows that it's about a boy and girl who like each other, but are really different. M gets that Rizzo thinks she's pregnant and is worried. I know what Rizzo means when she tells Danny to go flog his log, and I appreciate the complexities of American sociosexual dynamics at play in Danny's implied pasts with Rizzo and Cha-Cha, not to mention Sandy's costume shift from virginal white to skin-tight black with red stilettos.

Because, really, Grease is the meta-text of (white) American culture. It's all there. James Dean meets American Graffiti meets Welcome Back Kotter meets Happy Days meets Frankie and Annette meets 90210 (or perhaps 90210 is really the meta-text, for surely Kelly and Dylan's summer idyll when Brenda is in France derives directly from Sandy and Danny on the beach in the opening sequence to Grease, except, of course, that Kelly has sex, because it's the 90s, not the 70s riffing on the 50s). But Grease is even more than that: It's "The Gift of the Magi," except things work out, because, after all, we're talking Hollywood American meta-text, not the gloom and doom of the literary past. It's the romance of the automobile. It's Rogers and Hammerstein, with Ado Annie backing up Laurie. It's homosocial bonding. (And I always liked Rizzo best, and, overall, I'd take Kenickie.)

But, finally, Grease is John Travolta, for whom the word I keep coming up with is sinuous. The things that guy did with the length of his body? The dimple in the chin? The brilliant salvageable-sanitized-bad-boy trio of Vinnie Barbarino, Tony Manero, and Danny Zuko? When he and Olivia Newton-John dance through that fun house, two long lines of sinuously twisting black, they're the ones that I want.

Next rental? Saturday Night Fever, for sure. But not with the kids.

I got chills.
They're multiplyin'.
And I'm losin' control.
'Cause the power
you're supplyin',
it's electrifyin'!

You better shape up,
'cause I need a man
and my heart is set on you.
You better shape up;
you better understand
to my heart I must be true.

Nothin' left, nothin' left for me to do.

You're the one that I want.
(you are the one i want), o,o, oo, honey.
The one that I want.
(you are the one i want want), o,o,oo, honey.
The one that I want
(you are the one i want want), o,o, ooooo
The one I need.
Oh, yes indeed.

Praise

I've been mulling over New York Magazine's piece on the perils of praise all week. If you don't feel like reading it, it can be boiled down into two points:

1) Don't praise kids for who they are; praise them for what they do. As far as I can tell, this is standard teacher/parent advice. Don't say "that's a beautiful picture"; say "I like the way you used lots of colors in your picture"; or, even better, "tell me about your picture."

2) Research shows that kids who are praised for working hard, or who are given the impression that working hard is the reason for their achievement, do better than kids who are praised for being smart, or given the impression that they achieve because they are smart. In other words, the whole self-esteem movement may very well be bunk. Indeed, it may set kids up to fail, because, if they believe their achievement rests on their intelligence, then failing to achieve signals lack of intelligence, and this knowledge (presumably latent) makes them scared to try and fail.

I have to say this resonates for me. I am always worried about not being smart enough, and I definitely fall into the category of people who don't try as hard as they can for fear that their best effort will not be enough and thus will prove that they are not good enough.

Nevertheless, as a parent, I am ambivalent. I already do the politically correct variety of praise, but I hate the idea of not being able to tell my children they are smart, because I think they are, and I want them to know it and believe it. In other words, I want them not to be like me, but this research suggests that the tactic I am taking will turn them into me.

But then there is the fact that they are them, not me.

As I was mulling over this article, E, out of the blue, addressed the issue. "You know how to make yourself good?" she asked me at dinner, in a conversation about school. "Give yourself compliments before you even know if you're good or bad at it." Then she told a story about a boy in her class who said "Oh, I'm so bad at this," before they began a game, and was indeed bad at it, whereas she, E, thought she would be good, and was. Clearly a believer in the power of positive thinking, not to mention self-boosted self-esteem.

That night, I brought the topic up with M. I told her about the article and asked her what she thought. She said the argument doesn't make sense, because you have to work hard to be smart. "Like, some of it is your genes," she said, "but the rest is work." I think her "it" there is achievement, but overall this seems like a more holistic vision of the issues. When I asked her if she thinks she's smart, she said yes. When I asked her if she works hard, she said yes.

Where to go with this? I'm not quite sure. Perhaps I can make a deal with our entwined psyches: I'll work harder AND I'll keep telling them they're smart, and maybe we'll all turn out OK.

Two Words for Today

Spring training!

Chocolate Conundrum

If you have a box of chocolates with quite a lot of chocolates, and they are exceedingly delicious chocolates, do you eat quite a lot of them every day until you are done with the box, because you will eat them all eventually anyway, so you might as well eat them all now, or do you eat one a day, because eating so much chocolate at once can't possibly be good for you, and by stretching the box over time, you will get that much pleasure for that much longer?

Fourth-Grade Slump

I agree with this article that No Child Left Behind deserves blame for what they call the "fourth-grade slump," but I would define the slump more broadly and cast the blame more narrowly. I don't know about other states, but in Blue State, the fourth-grade proficiency tests are the first that really matter. Which means the teachers spend the whole year preparing for the test, because they know they are being judged as much as their kids. Which means the best, most creative teachers avoid fourth grade like the plague. Which means you end up in fourth grade with the worst curriculum and the worst teachers. And everyone slumps. (I'm speaking as the mother of a fifth grader, thank god.)

Leaving Europe

The lore of my father's and grandparent's escape from Germany is so powerful it's like an implanted memory. I feel I was there the day my grandmother took my toddler father to their usual playground in Berlin and found that overnight a sign had sprouted saying "No Dogs or Jews Allowed." I can see her standing there reading the sign, the little boy beside her pulling at her hand so that she will take him to the swings, disappointed when they turn around, and then thrilled when they get on the trolley and go out to the country where he can play freely in the woods. I am on the last train out of Berlin in 1941, or perhaps it's the last ship out of Lisbon. I am in Bermuda with my father, clutching the teddy bear someone has given him, the little Jewish boy escaping the Nazis.

My grandparents were prosperous, assimilated Berliners--my grandfather was a lawyer, my grandmother went to lectures by Adler, not Freud, but you get the picture. The rest of his many siblings had long since immigrated, but my grandfather was sure that things would be fine. His daughter left for Palestine with her boyfriend. His older son went to relatives in New York. But he stayed, and then my father was born.

As my grandmother told it, the sign at the playground was a turning point, but of course it must have been more complicated. Another piece of the story, that doesn't quite fit for me chronologically, is that my grandfather's brothers in New York would not sponsor him because he was a Zionist. Some of the elders in their community (what elders? what community? these were assimilated businessmen and doctors, not yeshiva buchers out of the shtetl) called them out on it.

Somebody must have sponsored them at some point, or perhaps they got out some other way. I need to reread the memoir my grandmother wrote. I need to ask my father, though his memories are cloudy, by virtue of youth and personality. But there must have been letters and cables, back and forth from Berlin to New York, as my grandfather finally realized the seriousness of the situation and tried to get the rest of his family out.

I don't think about this much. I'm not a child of Holocaust survivors. I think perhaps my grandmother's mother, and maybe her aunt, died in a camp, perhaps Teresienstadt, but they were already estranged and it doesn't seem to have affected us much (is this right? did I make it up?). But our mythologies are of escape and upward mobility in the new world: from Washington Heights to the Ivy League.

I think of it, though, when I read about Otto Frank trying to get his family out of Holland.

In Which I Try to Be Slightly Intelligent About the War

I am shamefully bad about following the specifics in Iraq. K and I were talking just recently about how embarassed we are to be among the ignorant Americans who simply can't remember the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite, though we do try (I know Saudi Arabia is Sunni, and then I go from there with the notion that those who oppose Saudi Arabia, i.e. Al Quaeda and Iran, are Shi'ite, but I probably should not be saying this in public, as I am in no way certain it is right). At any rate, I skim the headlines, but I'm generally confused.

Nevertheless, I am quite sure that I saw headlines just the other day saying that the intelligence linking Iran to the insurgency* in Iraq is highly problematic, as is the timing of the release of that intelligence. And now I see that the President is saying, emphatically, that Iran is arming the insurgency, and I'm feeling some serious deja vu all over again, and what the hell is wrong with these people?

*Is that the right word? Should I be saying militants? Militia? Something else? Certainly neither freedom fighters nor terrorists, given my general political bent.

Another Recommendation

Instead of a bunch of second-hand links, I'll just give you a reminder that you should be reading Jenny's blog if you want to read the best things (right now I'm refering to Phil Nugent's tribute to Helen Hill, but there I go with the second-hand links, so I'll leave it at that).

Onion Soup, Old School

S made the onion soup from Sunday's NY Times Magazine last night, and M and I had the leftovers for dinner tonight. Consider this a recommendation. It's super delicious, and so easy I think I'll be making it again myself, though it does take a long time.

A Narcissistic Valentine's Post

I don't have issues with Valentine's Day. I quite like chocolates and love notes and pink hearts and oysters and all that, and I have a husband and children, so lonely is not an option. Of course, for the wife of a chef, Valentine's Day is a lot like New Year's Eve: forget romance when your husband is making everyone else's romance possible. But I'm used to that.

This year, though, I'm not really in the mood. I Valentined for the children, because I am a good mother (Valentine-ish socks and pink and red hair ties--yes, we are excessive), but I told S we should skip it. Luckily, he gave the right answer: that's fine, but you'll probably get some chocolate anyway (his pastry chef made chocolate-covered caramels sprinkled with sea salt, I had some on Monday when my mom and I went to the restaurant for lunch, and I'm hoping that's what he means).

Which leaves the blog conundrum. Ignore it and post about my hair (to cut or not to cut)? Post about the hegemony of school Valentines (been there, done that--one of my most popular posts ever--and googling to find it, I came up with this delightful post)? Post about things I love (uh, my kids, my purple hat...BOring)?

Then I came up with an idea: what I love about me.

That one's tough, though, really tough, which of course--never one not to take up a challenge--makes me go for it. There are things I'm proud of--running two marathons, leaving No Longer Red State--but pride and love are different. There are things I love with qualifications--my hair, except when I don't--but that's no good, and neither are the things I don't love, of which I could easily come up with a long list. There are things others love about me--my eyes, for instance, only I never think about my eyes, except to think that they are too small and close together, which obviously means I don't love them.

But enough of this quibbling. Hence and forthwith: a list of things I love about me, with no explanations or qualifiers:

My wrists and ankles.

My (physical) flexibility.

My capacity for friendship.

My instinct for language.

My embrace of Popsugar and George Eliot.

My refusal to embrace jazz.

My lasagna.

Edited to add: There was indeed chocolate, excellent chocolate, though not the caramels, and I relented and sent a bevy of absurdist e-valentines (before the chocolate! I sent them last night, before the chocolate!)

Tales of the Cold

Perhaps due to global warming, I have not found the climate of Blue State that different from the climate of No Longer Red State. Until the last few weeks. And it's a sense memory, as well as the circumstances, that mark the difference. For the last few weeks, since the thermometer dipped below--often far below--freezing and has not risen, the girls have worn tights under their pants. Sometimes I have worn tights under my pants. Which reminds me of how when I was a little girl, we always wore tights under our pants in winter. M concurs with my recollection that they never wore tights under their pants in No Longer Red State, except when we went ice skating.

Speaking of ice skating, yesterday E went to a friend's house after school, so M and I skated without her. M pointed out, tentatively, fearful of being bad, that it was kind of nice to just be able to skate, without having to hang back and wait for E, whose skating capacities increase exponentially each time she's on the ice, yet who is still cursed with the shortest legs in the family, and who is perhaps made even slower by the bulk of tights under leggings under another pair of leggings under snowpants which is her chosen skating garb (the snowpants are forced upon her by parents, but the multiple leggings are her innovation).

I told M that one of my first blog posts (sorry, can't find it) was about how you do some things with your kids because they are fun, and some things because someday you will be glad you did them, and ice skating with a little kid who is learning to skate is something you do because it will be so great when they finally can skate, like M can now.

The wind was fierce when we first got on the pond, and we fought it out to the middle, then turned around, held out our arms, and sailed back to the beach. We did that several times, often holding hands. Then we skated around the cove and looked into the back of my favorite house. Facing the pond, it is all windows. The people in the kitchen waved at us, and we skated away, embarassed (OK, I've typed that five times and still have no idea if I spelled it correctly). Then we skated to the far far side and touched a branch, to prove we'd made it, and on the way back we went around the island, for the first time.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow, but they say it will turn to sleet and rain, and then it's supposed to be cold again. So maybe the skating will continue.

Another Abandoned Book

Heidi Julavits, The Uses of Enchantment (linking to Amazon because I'm relieved to see I'm not the only one).

About 60 pages in, I realized that the characters were unpleasant, the circumstances were unbelievable, the psychiatrist who apparently delivers a significant piece of the narrative was annoying, and the writing was no great shakes either ("abrased"? "wicker-thin"? how thin is a wicker? and woe betide the copy editor who let "Each had a water glass in their laps" slip by).

(Is it possible, after the snark essay, to just say that Heidi Julavits wrote a book I didn't like, and leave it at that?)

Whatever you think about Anna Nicole

there is no question that this guy is scum.

Mrs. Beeton and the Completion Compulsion

The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton has finally returned to the library. Did I finish it? Well, I finished Mrs. Beeton, but I did not finish Mrs. Beeton.

It's a wonderful book, superbly researched and pleasant to read ("pleasant" means that the writing is fine: it does not interfere with the reading or bother the reader in any way, but it also does not provide its own "pleasure"). It's my favorite kind of biography, the kind I've harped on before, like The Peabody Sisters and Claire Tomalin's Pepys biography, that gives you the panorama of life and times and teaches you as much about the times as the life.

But this one also gives you a lot of the book (for those who don't recall, Mrs. Beeton wrote the definitive housekeeping book of Victorian England, sort of Cheryl Mendelson and Betty Crocker combined in one, and, like Betty Crocker, the book has been reprinted and repackaged ever since). Hughes spends entire chapters detailing the texts Isabella Beeton plagiarized from, citing what seems like just about every instance of plagiarism--and since virtually the entire thing was plagiarized, that's a lot.

Then, I must admit, the accumulation of detail begins to oppress, even though I generally adore detail. But when Hughes uses Mrs. Beeton's diaries of trips to France and Ireland to recount everywhere they went and everything they ate, I got--dare I say it?--a little bored. "They spent the next several days climbing mountains in Ireland and drinking copious amounts of beer with each meal" might have sufficed.

So I slowed down. I took breaks for novels and magazines. I felt guilty. There had already been one renewal, and there was not going to be another. Something had to be done. So I took action: first I skimmed the plagiarism and tourism; then I read till Mrs. Beeton's tragic death at a very young age; then I skipped the rest of the book, which was more than 100 pages about the afterlife of Mrs. Beeton and her book that was probably very interesting, but didn't particularly interest me. Then back went Mrs. Beeton and Mrs. Beeton to the library.

I was happy with the book and I was happy to be done with the book, but I did feel a bit guilty, because while I have learned to give up on books that I don't like, choosing to read just part of a book still seems somehow immoral.

My children dance about their books with impunity, skimming and skipping to their hearts' desires. Being particularly sensitive to the "scary," they just skip it: E's first real passion in a chapter book, the first book she has devoured, reading while walking and refusing to get out of the car, she is that engrossed, is Lois Lowry's All About Sam (understandably, as it yokes babies, toddlers, small children, and the oppressiveness of older siblings, all favorite topics), but she skipped the section where Sam becomes enamoured of dropping things in the toilet (actually, she handed the book to me and told me to tell her what happens and show her where that part is over). M doesn't like scary or boring. One of her current favorites is Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees. She read the whole thing once, except some "boring stuff" about Jaffrey's family history; now she reads favorite chapters over and over, which is what she does with all her books.

Is it that they are of the multi-tasking multi-media generation? Where beginning and ending are just postmodern abstractions? Is it that they are as under the influence of their profoundly random father as their strictly linear mother? Are they more in touch with their own desires? Am I psychotically compulsive? Probably yes to all of the above.

But I just took Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel out of the library (I discovered its existence in this review of her new novel, which I haven't decided yet whether I want to read). I had no idea, until I got to the library shelf, how big it was, and I'm not sure I want to read her opinion on every single one of the 100 novels she covers in the second half of the book. But, you know, I don't have to! I can skim and skip. Because I can!

[Can I just say it's a good thing I'm quick with the delete key, because every single time I wrote Mrs. Beeton in this post, I actually typed Mrs. Beetong.]

A Great Invention of the 21st Century

Kleenex with lotion.

Reasons Umpteen and Umpteen +1 That We Live in the Right Place (Ice Edition)

When it's 20 degrees and we go out for ice cream, we are never the only people in the ice cream store.

When we go ice skating, we meet half the neighborhood, whether we're at the rink or the pond (hooray for skating on the pond! the best benefit of cold without snow!).

Fashion Update

Today E is dressed all in M's clothes and M is dressed all in E's clothes. Except for tights. This was accomplished behind closed doors with much giggling and exhortation that I not enter.

E: striped pink and white collar short-sleeve shirt over black long-sleeve shirt and black brocade skirt over pale blue trousers (capris on M)

M: openwork cream cardigan over blue t-shirt (big on E) and purple fleece skirt (knee-length on E; mini on M) over brown leggings (leggings seem to fit anyone)

[Whenceforth the copious blogging? I have been working on my computer since seven--OK, kind of on and off since nine--and as life goes on around me--laptop in living room--it has seemed eminently bloggable. But now we're off to the dentist.]

21st-Century Child Encounters 20th-Century Technology

M: Do I put the side of the record that I want to listen to face down?

It's Only Just Begun

After many years of (gently, lovingly) mocking my mother and her friends, then K, then Lucy for holding the menu at arm's length, I am just in the last few weeks finding myself squinting at labels--even holding them at arm's length. Bifocals, here I come.

My Little Future Self

E: Mama, I'm not going to talk to you any more. From now on I'm going to communicate with you by email.

[This one's for you, K.]

Poor Little Rich Orphan Girls

(left behind by troubled mothers)

Is anyone else thinking Athina Onassis with regard to Dannielynn Smith? But at least she had a real father.

Prime

I took Jenny's advice and read Prime, the second book in Poppy Z. Brite's Rickey and G-Man New Orleans chef series. She was right: the characters are pretty irresistible, and I think I might have enjoyed this one more than the first.

EXCEPT for the mystery thing. I figured out the plot twist on p. 190 (of 283), and the denouement was, simply, absurd. Way too contorted and coincidental. In fact, it kind of made me want to read some more mysteries, to see if I could find any that aren't too contorted and coincidental, except that I don't like mysteries because they are contorted and coincidental, so that seems a little masochistic. (And don't even talk to me about nineteenth-century novels: they are SUPPOSED to be contorted and coincidental: it's a generic imperative.)

[If you're expecting the definitive Anna Nicole post, I'm afraid it's not going to happen, at least for now. I had some vague and contorted thoughts about the ethics of regarding other people's lives as narratives for your entertainment, and I thought about just noting how sad and pathetic, not to mention alien, it all is, but, really, I don't think either thought adds much to the discourse. The other cheerful topic on my mind is child abuse, which is on the front page around here and elsewhere, but maybe I'll spare you that one as well.]

A Hypothetical Situation

Say you had a ten-year-old daughter who was really into fashion. Say she liked high fashion in magazines, but was cultivating a kind of boho punk aesthetic for herself. Think miniskirts over jeans, tank tops over long-sleeved shirts, mis-matched socks, red patent leather ballet flats, and wacky hairstyles.

Say most of the time she was pretty cute, and she was also amenable to reasonable suggestion, which you took as the opportunity for fashion lessons (not that you were qualified for such, but you do have a little more experience). For instance, you could tell her that a tiny t-shirt over a huge long-sleeved shirt looked too bunchy and weird, but a small t-shirt over a large long-sleeved shirt is fine, and she would get the point that proportion matters.

Say your opinion was really important to her, and you knew that and respected it, and were determined to be supportive of her fashion choices, even when you would never choose them yourself (which would be totally reasonable if you were, say, a fortysomething mom).

Say one day your daughter came up with an outfit that you hated. Like, it made your skin crawl. But there was no rational reason for your hatred, just that she looked like a scarecrow. (Say the outfit was a long flounced denim skirt over jeans, and one of her dad's shirts that was 2/3 as long and twice as wide as she was, belted with a crocheted scarf, over a long-sleeved shirt.) Say just looking at her put you in a bad mood.

What would you do?

Britney and Lindsay and Paris, Oh My!

I went into this article in my usual contrarian mood. Here we go again, I thought, with the terrible plight of American girls. Their idols are baring their bikini waxes and partying themselves into rehab, and we're all going to hell in a handbasket.

Only it didn't turn out that way. Sure there's a weird detour into the history of American "bad girls," which certainly does seem to imply (that is, to accept the idea) that if you have sex, you're a bad girl. But overall, Kathleen Deveny (should I know who that is?) makes a lot of the same kinds of points I would make: we like celebrity gossip and were naughty in high school, and we still turned out to be sensible high-achieving women; even as girls are barraged by sex-and-the-media, they are going wild on the soccer field and doing well in school; girls have always been obsessed with their idols, and then they grow out of it; the messages they receive at home matter more, and lots of them are receiving good messages.

She even goes farther than I could--which one would hope, given that she is the reporter with the time to research this stuff--and points out that statistics on sexual activity and drug and alcohol use among teens are the lowest they've been in a long time.

So points to Deveny for showing some sense, but serious demerits to Newsweek for the revenue-seeking cover and the sensationalist title and header.

Is Clapotis Doomed?

I know, it's been months. But I'd made such progress: I've dropped like eight stitches (remember, this is Clapotis: dropping stitches = progress). I have at least two feet of Clapotis. But I seem to have lost a needle. Which is to say: the Clapotis is on one needle, and I can't find the other. It must have been at the restaurant. At the Super Bowl party. I know: who knits Clapotis at the restaurant's Super Bowl party? Me. But apparently it was a mistake.

The Cultural Construction of Pre-Adolescence

When I used to read stories of children in dire situations (which, of course, I am obsessively drawn to), I would think that M and E would not be able to handle it. Now, for some reason--age? their demonstrated capacity for so much?--I think they could. If, by circumstances of history, geography, or economy, I had to work and we had no childcare, they would be able to care for themselves, and even for younger children. If, god forbid, by similar circumstances, they were orphaned with nobody to care for them, they would care for each other and manage, however horrifically. (Even my sick imagination refuses to take me any farther than that.)

M has started having tantrums again. Not as bad as last year, and I'm not even sure whether they are actual tantrums. We call them fits. Something will set her off, and there will be wails and tears and stomping and door-slamming and much screaming of "NO!" and "You hate me!" and the like (interesting, I suppose, that she rarely, if ever, says "I hate you!"; rather she triangulates, in what might be a somewhat ominous way--any child psychiatrists out there?).

I was thinking, last night, as her fit went on and on--and, unfortunately, there were many comical moments, so S and I were not doing a very good job of hiding our amusement, which surely did not help matters--that if she were responsible for five younger sisters, or if she had to pick garbage to make money for food for herself and E, she probably would not have such fits.

It was just an observation--no judgement, no analysis--but it was kind of interesting. And I suppose, perversely, it makes me happy that she has the kind of life where she can have fits.

A Few Cultural Notes

I had no idea we owned Tacky the Penguin until E pulled it out of the bookshelf a few weeks ago. In fact, I'd never even heard of it. But I am now quite certain that it is the origin of Happy Feet: the oddball penguin saves the good penguins from the evil humans--and the penguins sing!

Call me a self-hating Jew, or just call me a Jewish mother who sits in the dark, but I think this is hilarious. [link from Phantom]

Come on, admit it, you're loving the astronaut love triangle story.

A Party in the Key of Life

We went to a great party this weekend. It was a party with lots of old friends, and it was the kind of party where anyone who wasn't your old friend felt like she was by the end of the evening (and the end of the evening arrived long after the beginning: the invitation said 3-6, we ordered Chinese for everyone at 7, and the last guests left at 10!).

One notable thing about this party was that the guests included seven decades of girls and women: a seven month old, a six year old (E), two ten year olds (including M), a high school student, a few college students, some twentysomethings, a thirtysomething newlywed and another newly pregnant, moms from the late 30s to early 50s (that was me in the 40s), and two 60ish grandmothers.

The only person who didn't have such a great time was the sad recent college graduate. She was quite forthright about her plight. She graduated in June from a precious liberal arts college where she had been told for years that she was the best. Then she set out for the big city to make her fortune (OK, given her artistic aspirations, fortune is not likely, so perhaps I should say fame), discovered that she was a dime a dozen, and ended up in a menial service job that I can't name because it is just too bizarre and specific, but suffice to say it is something out of a Douglas Coupland novel. Now, of course, she is depressed (tears in her eyes when she talks to you kind of depressed), trying to figure out what to do with her life, and disbelieving that things will ever get better.

Well, of course things will get better. We took turns giving her pep talks, the twentysomethings from their own recent experience, me transposing my own not-so-recent experience with the dozens--nay hundreds--of recent college graduates I have known, all of whom at some point in that first year after graduation believed they would never have a life, all of whom ended up with quite satisfactory lives. The recent college graduate listened to us and nodded, but the tears stayed in her eyes, and you could tell she didn't quite believe us.

It made me think about how we see our own lives as individual, our own crises as insurmountable, when so often it's all just developmental. And it made me think about how much easier it is to see someone else's life clearly than it is to cast a clear eye upon one's own.

Well, Duh (Yoga)

I unlatched the door to the dog's crate. It sprang open. The dog stretched her paws out in front of her and lifted her rump into the air. Of course: downward facing dog.

Chips Off the Old Bookcase

M, E, and I are going on a plane this afternoon. Along with Teddy, Samantha, colored pencils, journals, Sudoku books, math workbooks, gameboy, and iPods (M has Cousin T's handmedown Shuffle, and E doesn't know I'm bringing S's along for her), M has four books (a Childhood of Famous Americans biography of Mary Todd Lincoln, two volumes of Royal Ballet School Diaries, and Calvin Trillin's The Tummy Trilogy) and E has three (Winter Days in the Big Woods, By The Shores of Plum Creek, and Three-Minute Stories: Fairy Tales). I have two: Prime and The Inheritance of Love.

I would love my kids just as much if they were vastly different from me; in fact, it would probably be kind of exciting. But I do love the ways they are like me.

I'll be back when we're back.

[Note: Those aren't just supplies for the plane! They're for the weekend in a house that no longer has much in the way of toys, though it does have lots of games and a very devoted teenager. Still, it's always good to be prepared.]

London Maps

If I were going to be in London this month, I would be heading straight to this exhibit. (I'm almost certain I discovered this in the TLS, but for the second time this week I am stymied by a print publication's website.)

It Was a Joke, Stupid

Am I the only one who thinks the Boston terrorist scare/marketing prank is ridiculous? Why would terrorists place bombs so visibly, and mark them with cartoon figures in lights? Yes, it was a dumb prank, as pranks go, but it seems to me that the Boston brass should also be feeling a little dumb, for shutting down the city when bloggers and college students immediately knew what was up.

My favorite quote:

Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards "bomblike" devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged infrastructure and transportation in the city.

Yeah, but they weren't explosive, and maybe you could have figured that out a little more quickly?

Alternative comeback: Just because subway trains and buses are transportation-like devices, do you want to claim that if the T was transporting nuclear weapons, Boston could be annihilated?

How to End the War

Every day, on the front page of every newspaper, at the top of every news site homepage, and at the head of every newscast, place the obituary of one American soldier and one Iraqi civilian.

This week I read an article about the nineteen-year-old pregnant widow of a soldier. He called on Tuesday to tell her how excited he was to receive pictures of her, pregnant. He was looking forward to coming home in April for the birth. He died on Saturday.

I read the obituary of a 23-year-old veteran. He was resuscitated after an accident. He told his sister he was at peace in those few moments when his heart stopped. He was blinded in one eye and plates were put in his head. When he came home, he started getting migraines. The doctors told him the migraines were only going to get worse, and there was nothing they could do. He committed suicide.

For a start, pay attention to them. Then bring them home.

For Molly Ivins.

Trying to Figure Out the Impenetrable Mystery That Is Me

There are parts of my life with which I am always satisfied: my children, for instance, and living in Town.

There are parts of my life with which I am permanently dissatisfied: my nonexistent sense of smell, and the fact that K lives six hours away.

Then there are things about my life that sometimes seem fine but sometimes seem terrible. I've thought, for a long time, that when those things seem terrible, I am miserable. But I've realized, lately, that it might be the other way around: when I am miserable, those things seem terrible. So lately I've been trying, when I feel miserable, not to obsess about how terrible things are, but rather to simply note that I feel miserable and try not to think about anything meaningful until I feel better. Yesterday, at least, it worked.

Note: I am not talking about truly terrible things. Truly terrible things are self-evidently terrible, and they make you miserable, and you deal with them, if you can, or suffer, if you can't.

Note 2: Thinking more about the things with which I am not satisfied: I actually don't spend a lot of time dwelling on them, that is, on things like my nonexistent sense of smell, or K's absence, or even S's work schedule, which always shocks people, and then they say things like "I don't know how you do it," or "Doesn't that make you crazy?" and I say, "No, it's just the way it is." I think I have a strong sense of my own agency: if something is not working, I should be able to do something about it. But if I can't do something about it, I am good at just letting go and not letting it bother me. Hmm, is that really true? I am incapable of letting go of so many things, which makes this statement seem very uncharacteristic, but it also seems true: I just don't spend a lot of time worrying about my anosmia or S's work schedule. Maybe, though, that's why the things about which I vacillate (sorry, I'm not being specific on purpose, but if you know me, you can probably guess what I'm talking about) are so hard for me: because I can't seem to get to the point where I can let go, but neither do I feel capable of doing something about it.

Edited to add:

Note 3: I struggled with the wording on the first two paragraphs, going back and forth between "satisfied" and "happy with," neither of which were exactly right. Now I'm thinking, perhaps, "like" would be the best way to phrase it.

Note 4: That sense of agency I mention in Note 2 is the thing that most significantly marks me as middle class.

A Few Tuesday Morning Thoughts Before Work

(Try and guess my mood!)

Another reason why I am not a very nice person: When my husband gets sick, although I feign sympathy, really I'm mad.

Two things I'm tired of: foodie kids and rocker kids. Or maybe I'm just tired of their braggy (M's word) parents. And no, I'm not interested in delving into the autophobic implications of those statements coming from the mouth (keyboard) of the mother of a foodie kid and two rocker kids.

I'm not sure which of these principles the other people in my household operate on: wherever you put something, there it should stay, OR things put themselves away, so I don't need to worry about it.

Were we to meet in real life, I'm quite certain that Hugh Grant would find me at best uninteresting, at worst appalling. I probably wouldn't like him much either. But the allure of the fantasized persona is nevertheless powerful. [This should link to the Vogue profile of Hugh Grant, but the Vogue website is absolutely incomprehensible, so it doesn't.]

Sasaki Colorstone, or How a Problem Begins

When S and I got married, we did a lot of traditional wedding stuff: white dress, huppah, first dance, Hawaii honeymoon. We also did some untraditional wedding stuff: chocolate cheesecake wedding cake, a bevy of girl ushers. And we didn't do some traditional wedding stuff: throwing the bouquet (I gave it to N, K's daughter, who was six at the time), garter (god forbid), NY Times announcement (I think I've blogged about that before), and registering for dishes.

We did register for kitchen equipment, and those pots, pans, and knives remain crucial to our daily life. But I remember thinking that registering for dishes seemed like a total pain. What if you got six of something, or one, or all the plates and none of the bowls? Then you'd just have to buy the rest of it yourself anyway. And besides, we didn't really care if we had fancy plates or expensive glass that would only break, but we did want good pots and pans. The clincher was falling in love with a relatively inexpensive set of dishes at a hip home store on 4th Street in Berkeley. I wish wish wish I could remember the name, but I can't. This was right at the beginning of 4th Street, and right at the beginning of hip home stores, and I visited the dishes several times, and then we decided it was ridiculous to register for them, since they were so inexpensive, but we would buy them for ourselves, and still get to be grown-ups with matching dishes for the first time ever.

Fast forward almost fifteen years (almost fifteen years!) and we still have those dishes, and I still love them. Well, we still have most of the dishes: eight dinner plates, eight salad plates, eight cups and saucers that I believe we have not used more than half a dozen times, if that, and four--no, make that three, as of yesterday--soup bowls. The soup bowls are a problem. I don't know if it's the shape or our misuse or what, but they break. We were down to one or two several years ago, and somehow I ended up at Marshall Fields with my dad and he ordered us a replacement set. But now we are back down and, alas, my beloved dishes have been discontinued.

What are these dishes of which I speak? Why, funny you should ask, they are Sasaki Colorstone Sapphire (and when I bought mine they had a cup and saucer instead of mug, and they were much much cheaper). But you know what? They are all over eBay! Or rather, Sasaki Colorstone is all over eBay, in all colors, as I discovered yesterday morning when, annoyed at the latest bowl to break (which it seemed hopeless to fix, as the two pieces had already been glued together twice, and in such a state it had persisted for quite a while, but now it seemed clearly determined no longer to be part of our kitchen), I started googling.

Well, you can imagine where this went. I--who have only bought one thing ever on eBay: a brown glass doorknob that no one else wanted, but we thought we needed for our old house's old door, though it turned out we didn't--bid on a package of two blue bowls and one hunter green bowl. There were eight hours left. I was outbid. I bid again. My bid held. I refreshed the page again and again as the last minutes ticked down. I won: two blue bowls and one hunter green bowl!

But wait, a hunter green bowl? What am I going to do with that? Aha! I could start buying bowls of all different colors. Plum, for instance. And maybe some more plates, because while we do have some handmedown white dinner plates, they are not Sasaki Colorstone, and wouldn't it be nice to have enough related plates for a dozen people, which happens often enough in this house, and wouldn't it be pretty to have an array of colors? I stopped myself for now, but I can tell there will soon be more Sasaki Colorstone in this house: at least three more soup bowls, and who knows what else. eBay and me: we could be friends.

(And if you're wondering about the no shopping in January resolution? Oh well...)

A Good Trade

For days, and I do mean days, I had "Jack and Diane"--yes, John Cougar Mellencamp--stuck in my head. It was grisly. Finally "Jack and Diane" has been replaced by "Fourth of July," Dave Alvin version, though I'll take X too. Life is better when you like the song that's stuck in your head. Let's just hope that in writing this down, I haven't undone it.

Bagels and Michael Pollan

Why on earth would whitefish salad need corn syrup?

Liquor

Not the stuff you drink (I wish); the book.

I was so looking forward to starting Poppy Z. Brite's noirish series about two New Orleans boys who open a restaurant. It came highly recommended by an impeccable source, and, come on, it's about a restaurant and New Orleans. In my devious desire, I bought both Liquor and its sequel, Prime, for S for Hanukkah, which of course was not totally selfish, but pretty much so.

I wish this could be a rave. I wish I could say I loved the first book and went on to devour the series.

Alas, not so much.

This time, though, I'm quite certain it's me. Love the characters, Rickey and G-Man, who grew up together in the Ninth Ward, worked restaurants all their lives, drink and smoke with the best of them, and are lovers to boot. Love the over-the-top Emeril character. Love New Orleans, not that I have much knowledge of or relation to the place.

But here's the thing: Restaurants? I live them. And they're not such a thrill any more. Getting behind the scenes? I'm behind the scenes every day. I know what 86 means. I know what "in the weeds" means. I know managers and line cooks and prep lists. In fact, a lot of the time I just wish restaurants would go away. So reading about one? Not so much fun.

And then there's the mystery part. I thought this was a mystery going in, but it's not so much. There are devious deeds, but they're pretty up front, and I pretty much knew where things were going, even though the denouement was still surprising. Still, here's the other thing: I don't really like mysteries, even when they're not quite mysteries. I read Agatha Christies as a kid, and I liked Jane Langton's mysteries back in the day, and Robert Parker's Spenser (maybe you can connect the dots on those two), but that was a long time ago. More recently, I've enjoyed a handful of historical novel cum mysteries, and I read most of Ayelet Waldman's Mommy-Track mysteries, but with both of those it was the non-mystery parts that compelled me. Indeed, I found Ayelet's plots boring and predictable--I couldn't figure them out, because I didn't care enough, but I wasn't surprised. What I liked was Juliet and her life.

I enjoyed reading Liquor but, engaged neither by the mystery aspects nor the restaurant background, I did not fall in love with it as I expected. And I'm kind of sad about that.

A Good Time

It's been a long time since I was the girl dancing right in front of the stage, sucking up every guitar lick and toe tap, a long time since I was the girl the bass player flirted with. And, you know what? It's still great to be that girl.

(Especially when the bass player is as middle-aged as you are, and the club is tiny and divey, and the band is the best bar band around, and they are as smoking on fire as the night outside is cold.)

Resolving Not To

I used to make the same New Year's resolutions every year: to lose weight and not say mean things about people. Then I stopped making them, because it seemed silly to make the same resolutions, and because I no longer particularly wanted to lose weight, and because trying not to say mean things about people has become part of my regular life practice (emphasis on trying). Then for a while I didn't make New Year's resolutions.

This year I surprised myself by making two resolutions: not to get on a scale for a year, and not to buy anything for a month.

I haven't owned a scale in maybe 15 years, and that's been good. But it does mean that whenever I encounter a scale, I get on it. Which has led to my parroting kids getting on every scale they see--though for them the impetus, I think, is somewhat different, in that we never know how much they weigh, except for the day they go to the pediatrician, so it is a matter of curiosity, not concern, but they are American females heading for adolescence, so I'm not so thrilled with this habit in any of us.

The main place I get on the scale is the gym, and if I'm going to the gym a lot, I get on the scale a lot, and I get distressed if the number stays the same (because, after all, I'm going to the gym a lot), and I get distressed if the number is above a certain point, even if I feel fine, and I'd rather not get distressed about numbers. Hence the resolution not to get on a scale for a year.

I did a lot of shopping in December. There were boatloads of gifts (two birthdays and the endless extravaganza of Hanukkah), and then for some reason I decided it was time to deal with some shopping that really needed to be dealt with: like lamps for the living room so that we would no longer live in a cave, and socks, and such. In the first week of January, as I walked out of Target for the second time in a week, I was suddenly totally sick of shopping. So I decided I just wouldn't. Nothing but necessities: groceries, soap, etc.

So far I've kept my resolutions, except that I did buy a music stand on-line, because with three musicians in the family now (E is taking guitar lessons), I was getting a little sick of the music everywhere, and the chairs being lugged around the living room, and music being propped on the chairs, and the chairs abandoned where they were holding the music, even when the music is long gone. So I think we can call that something of a necessity.

E does keep saying, whenever I say I am not going to buy something, that it was my decision, so I can change it, but I don't want to. The other day I walked by a clothing store that I always think I should like but don't so much once I get in there. It's going out of business and having a sale. I almost went in, but then I remembered that I'm not buying anything, so I saved myself spending money I don't need to spend on clothes I don't need, and probably wouldn't end up liking.

Maybe I'll become a zealot and write a book. Oh yeah, that's been done (actually, that is the kind of book I have no interest in reading, plus my sister says it's not very good). Or maybe I'll just wait till February 1, and then go buy some new tights.

Thank Goodness

Looks like Kerry is out. Honestly, at this point I'm leaning toward Edwards. I like his focus on poverty and class. I voted for him last time too. I wish Obama would wait. The JFK comparison is not apt: Kennedy had been in the House for many years before he was elected to the Senate. State legislature and then two years in the Senate does not seem like sufficient experience. I think I could get pretty excited if Al Gore ran, though I wasn't excited about him last time. Now that he has relaxed into himself and returned to his passions, he seems like a real person, not an automaton, and a real person who is very smart and has good ideas. I'll vote for Hillary if I have to. She seems to be a great senator, and she's been a big hit in New York. I wish she'd be satisfied with that.

All sentiments subject to change.

Except for my complete and utter loathing of Mitt Romney.

Trying to Be More Serious

If you are expecting a comment on the State of the Union address, here you go:

It was thrilling to see Nancy Pelosi introduce the president. History with a capital H. Then I left the room.

Perhaps the Most Superficial Post Ever

I have this ridiculous Popsugar addiction. I don't even care about the celebrities they track, or know who half of them are (Rachel Bilson?), and there is way too much Paris, but they have lots of pictures, and they do good Kate and Pete, and I swear I'm not going to click on the bookmark, and then I always do. (Get rid of the bookmark? Perish the thought!)

Recently, though, even as I kept clicking at least daily (why? I don't know! I wish I knew, so I could stop! but I don't, so I don't!), I was getting quite disgusted. For one thing, they do way too much product placement, especially posts about stupid parties thrown by stupid companies attended by starlets you've never heard of. For another thing, they are way too sycophantic, going on and on about how cute Katie and Reese are and blah blah blah. I decided they must be getting paid off by publicists. Not that there's anything wrong with that (god knows, I have no illusions about the purity of celebrity gossip), but it makes for boring copy. Then again, I'm not so crazy about the straight nastiness of, say, Dlisted.

But then the craziest thing happened. Popsugar went and hired Molly from Mollygood. Molly is not sweet and sycophantic; she's pretty acidic. The tone shift is obvious--Molly; Popsugar--and being the addict I am, I noticed it right away. It makes for some surreal serial reading.

Does Popsugar know they were veering too close to the saccharine? Are they trying to purchase some street cred? Do they want to hold onto readers like me, who were starting to see through them? Inquiring minds want to know, but not enough to try and find out. Whatever the intention, it's working.

Oscar Nominations

BEST PICTURE

“Babel,” “The Departed,” “Letters From Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Queen.”

I've seen the last two, don't think either is best picture worthy. Would like to see Babel and The Departed. Not interested in WWII movies.

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio, “Blood Diamond”; Ryan Gosling, “Half Nelson”; Peter O'Toole, “Venus”; Will Smith, “The Pursuit of Happyness”; Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland.”

Haven't seen any of them; doubt I will (I saw the preview of Venus and it looked like another cheesy Brit pic, and then I found out it was a Hanif Kureishi film and I was shocked! My beloved Ty Burr gave it a pretty good review, but I'm still not particularly interested).

BEST ACTRESS

Penelope Cruz, “Volver”; Judi Dench, “Notes on a Scandal”; Helen Mirren, “The Queen”; Meryl Streep, “The Devil Wears Prada”; Kate Winslet, “Little Children.”

I saw The Queen and The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep should have been nominated (and won) for best supporting. Helen Mirren is excellent and deserving. I actually want to see all these movies. Are my gender preferences showing?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jackie Earle Haley, “Little Children”; Djimon Hounsou, “Blood Diamond”; Eddie Murphy, “Dreamgirls”; Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed.”

I'd like to see Dreamgirls. Alan Arkin was pretty funny, though I liked the uncle too.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Adriana Barraza, “Babel”; Cate Blanchett, “Notes on a Scandal”; Abigail Breslin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”; Rinko Kikuchi, “Babel.”

No real opinions here. I've only seen Little Miss Sunshine. Would like to see the others (surprise).

Matchmaking in the 21st Century

I set up two friends yesterday. I've known them both forever and it's never occurred to me to set them up, but I saw one of them this weekend and suddenly it struck me that they had sufficient similarities to make it worth trying: they are essentially the same age, they have the same profession, they share some interests, and (I didn't realize this one until I was almost done with the set-up, but I think it was at the heart of it) they are both very cool people and I am a very uncool person, and they both like me, which suggests some kind of shared sensibility (no need to tell me that I'm cool, because 1) I'm not, and 2) if you met the three of us, you would know exactly what I mean) (let's just say tattoos, to start).

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about them, because at least one of them is reading this, and maybe both, but what was interesting to me was HOW I set them up. I emailed her blog URL to him, with the subject line "Does she have any appeal?" and I emailed his blog URL, professional webpage, and Friendster page to her, with the subject line "Does this guy interest you at all?" (why the different subject lines? I have no idea). They both responded with interest but trepidation, I quelled the trepidation with much "I don't know if this will work" honesty, they both did some googling, they both said they were interested, I sent an email to the two of them that said "X meet Y. Y meet X. You're on your own, kids. Love, Becca" and that was that.

I know internet dating and googling prospective dates and all that is totally old news, but this was such a different way of setting people up (though, now that I think of it, I'm not sure I've done very much matchmaking at all, which is just crazy, because I am such the matchmaking type, am I not? I mean, I know tons of people, I am a hopeless networker [hopeless in that I can't not network, not in that I'm bad at it--I'm very good at it], and people always tell me their stories and woes and interests, which all seems to make me a prime candidate for matchmaker...but it's just not something I've done--the only one I can even think of is when K and I set up M and A a million years ago, and that one was totally old school: we sat them next to each other at a seder and then asked each if they liked the other [they did, but it only lasted a month or so, for the best of everyone]).

Anyway, I don't have anything creative or persuasive or conclusive to say about this; I just found it interesting.

Rise and Shine

I'm a late night person. I stay up late reading, working, wasting time on the computer. Then I have trouble falling asleep, not always, but often, and especially when I stay up late. There's also the problem of waking up in the night and being unable to fall back asleep. This problem waxes and wanes; alas, at the moment it seems to be waxing. I've probably blogged about all this before, but the point of this litany today is to explain why I loathe the idea of getting up early.

Last night I was exhausted. I got into bed soon after 9, turned off the light soon after 10, and fell asleep relatively quickly, I think. So far so good. Then I awoke at 3:30: wide awake, worrying about things, trying to relax and fall back asleep, using all my positions and techniques and...nothing. Finally, just before 5, I got up, figuring that even if I did fall asleep, having to wake up at 7 on an hour or two of sleep would be more painful than just powering through.

I caught up on my email (people must have been shocked by that 5:29 AM timestamp), paid the bills, put together a package, emptied the dishwasher, made lunches, took a shower, and was a cheerful adept mother by the time I woke up the girls at 7:10.

Maybe they're right, those people who get up at 5 every day to have time to themselves, or to work, or to work out. I could get into bed at 9 every night, read for an hour, get seven hours of sleep, and then get something done before the hubbub of the day begins.

I'm sure I've written a post like this before, because one of my schticks is about how beautiful the sunrise is--and how its beauty is enhanced by the fact that I see it so rarely. But now I'm wondering if I might convince myself to try the early morning thing. Because I could definitely use a difference around here.

Tolstoy Lied

This one is my mother's fault. She asked if I'd read it, said she thought it was the kind of book I would read, maybe even know the author (I don't). I saw it in the bookstore, read a few pages, and it seemed fine. I saw it on the shelf during a ten-minute dash to the library and grabbed it.

Big mistake.

This is a romance/academia novel. Both the romance (Tracy has sworn off men, meets perfect man, loses perfect man after discovering he's not perfect, gets back together with perfect man resolving to work on imperfection issues, and sets off to live happily ever after) and the academia (will Tracy get tenure? why is her mean colleague so mean? what about the crazy graduate student? how many bon mots can her urbane gay colleague toss off) are completely predictable (OK, not completely: I wasn't sure what would happen with the mean colleague and the crazy graduate student, which is why I skimmed to the end instead of quitting, but what happened was both predictable and inadequate). Literary observations are sprinkled throughout, and the romance and academia are sutured together with a thesis about the value of literature about happiness (i.e. "Tolstoy lied"), but that's not so convincing either.

The Washington Post characterizes Tolstoy Lied as, essentially, chick lit with a veneer of big ideas. The San Francisco Chronicle thought it was a beautifully-written contemporary love story. I'm afraid I have to align myself with the Post. The worst part? This book was just boring.

Friday Night Movies

E: Pollyworld. The Polly Pocket movie. M found it for E in the movie store and then was disdainful of it and then was as mesmerized as E. I thought I had nothing to say about it, except then I caught the last few minutes, and the one thing I have to say is Josie and the Pussycats.

M and I: Groundhog Day. When we picked my dad up last night, there was nowhere to pull up, so we drove around the block three times before he came out. The third time around, as we came up to the side of the building, M squealed: "Mom! See those people coming out of the building? They came out the exact same door last time we drove by!" We both found this hilarious, and I immediately thought of Groundhog Day. "M," I said, "there's a movie about that! Let's rent it!" (I am quick to the draw when it comes to my long-term project of expanding M's cinematic horizons.)

How great is Groundhog Day? So great. All I remembered was him stepping in the puddle, and that eventually he became good and made it to the next day. So I was discovering the movie again too. E vacillated between totally into it and "this is boring," M loved it except for when he kept killing himself, and they both thought the puddle was hilarious. I completely enjoyed it, especially the Bill Murrayness of Bill Murray. I thought about 50 Great Dates and It's a Wonderful Life. I noticed how back in the 90s, movies had a lot less product placement. But mainly I enjoyed it. And I so enjoyed enjoying a real movie with my kids!

Some Thoughts on Parenting That Might Connect

Katrina came up in conversation recently, and now E is worried about hurricanes again. The worry surfaces at bedtime, when she can't stop thinking about bad things. I say she needs to tell me about the bad things. She says she is thinking about Katrina, and she is worried there will be a hurricane here. I say there won't be a hurricane here, because, remember, M learned that hurricanes are worst where there is warm water, and here the water is cold. Plus, Katrina flooded New Orleans because New Orleans is low, and we are not low, so there would not be such a flood.

I am confident in what I tell her, because it is largely true (I don't lie to my kids, though I sometimes soften). Then I think of the kids from New Orleans and Mississippi, and how their parents cannot tell them there won't be a hurricane.

Lately, I've been having lots of conversations with parents who are worried about their kids: they are thinking about switching to private school because their kid already knows how to read and isn't learning enough in kindergarten; their kid isn't progressing in school music lessons; there are so many things the school doesn't provide and they have to supplement. They are very anxious and concerned, and they want to talk to me at great length about how much the schools aren't doing, and how much their kids need.

Town strikes me as an ideal place to raise children (that's a big reason we moved here). It is leafy and safe, there is lots to do, kids can go off on their own to the park or the corner store, you can reach urban civilization by public transportation so teenagers do not have to languish in parking lots and malls. Our schools? Our schools are fine. Beleaguered urban districts hail us as an example of a school system that has no problems. We don't have all the resources of wealthy suburbs, but neither do we have the pressure and competition. My kids have art and music weekly. They love their gym teacher. Their teachers know their strengths and weaknesses and help them to learn. Our superintendent's motto is "Going from good to great." That seems right to me.

I am so tired of the phrase "I know my kid." As a friend of mine whose son was just hospitalized for several weeks with depression says, parents of kids who have real problems do not broadcast it. "I know my kid" almost always prefaces a long disquisition about how conventional circumstances are not adequate to the needs of said kid. And almost always, I don't buy it. Kids are a lot more resilient and adaptable than most of their parents seem to think--at least, they are if their parents let them be.

Not ten miles from Town, three middle school kids have been shot and killed in the last three weeks.

I don't think my kids need to clear their plates because children are starving in Afghanistan. I don't believe in guilt. I know that in nice towns like Town, there are children who are hungry and abused and depressed and disabled. I know that everyone has their own troubles, and a hierarchy of troubles is not useful. But it does seem to me that there are situations in which it is much easier to be a parent, and sometimes I wish some of the parents around me would keep that in mind.

Corporate Control of the Supermarket Shelves

Am I fantasizing a lost Eden that never existed, or did supermarkets once place all the chocolate chip cookies together, the oatmeal cookies together, the crackers together, etc.? So, you know, if you, like, wanted some chocolate chip cookies, you could look at all the chocolate chip cookies at once and decide which kind you wanted?

Instead of having to look at all the Keebler cookies and crackers jumbled together, then all the Nabisco cookies and crackers, then all the Pepperidge Farm cookies and crackers (and if you've got a downscale supermarket, like our closest one, that's about it--we're probably lucky to have Pepperidge Farm)? And if you want Mallomars, and have no idea what brand they are, you have to walk back and forth in front of the shelves, with not a clue as to where you should even begin to look? And if all you want is some generic ginger snaps for a crust, forget it?

I know it's because the Big Food Corporations pay Big Bucks to get their product on the shelves, and they want their product all together so that we'll just go straight from their cookies to their crackers, because we're so tired of shopping already.

Still, it's annoying.

Bad Company, Not

Often, when I get in the car in a bad mood, I turn on Songs You Grew Up With, one of our local classic hits stations, and five times out of six, some song I grew up with comes on and makes me happy. Yesterday when I got in the car in a bad mood, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was playing, and though I did grow up with it, it did nothing for me. Then I heard that familiar "duh duh DUH duh duh DUH," and felt that surge of I-love-this-song feeling, and turned it up.

Yes, it was Bad Company, "Feel Like Makin' Love," and I drove along, basking in that I-love-this-song feeling. But then I realized that it wasn't Bad Company I loved; it was a cover, an indie cover, an indie medley cover, and I lost that loving-the-song feeling and shifted into a racking-my-brains feeling that wasn't quite as pleasurable, but was still kind of exciting, because I knew that once I remembered, I would be even happier.

Does anybody out there know where this is going?

On the way home (I was picking up M from religious school), I remembered. Two Nice Girls! Two Nice Girls were four dykes from Austin, perhaps most famous for the memorable lines:

I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer
Life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer
But the love of a strong hairy man has turned my head I fear
And made me spend my last ten bucks on birth control and beer

They recorded a medley of "Feel Like Makin' Love" and "Love to Love You Baby" (yes, Donna Summers) that is just a great thing.

Right before I got married, in June 1992, I freaked out, as people about to get married tend to do. I ran away to LA--we were living in Berkeley--and went to Disneyland with an old friend from India (oh my god, I just cannot escape Disney), and I came back and went to see Two Nice Girls in San Francisco, I think perhaps at the Great American Music Hall, and decided that if I could still go see dyke bar bands from Texas, I could get married, and then I got married.

Down-Home Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake with Mocha Butter Cream

Returning to blogging is kind of like getting back on a bicycle, and pretty soon I felt the urge to make a chocolate cake. But there were no birthdays, no dinner parties, no occasions of any kind (it is JANUARY after all). Then yesterday we were home, and it was cold and raining, and that seemed reason enough. By the time Lucy called and it was decided that she and the young 'un would come over, a cake for a tea party seemed inevitable.

So I hit the cookbooks to come up with something simple that I could make without leaving the house (i.e. for which I had all the ingredients) and settled upon Rose Beranbaum's (who knew she was K's husband's best friend's aunt?!) Down-Home Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (who knew recipes could be plagiarized so easily over the internet? actually, I did, because I frequently look for recipes on the internet and find the same ones over and over, with no attribution) (I'm a bit bogged down in Mrs. Beeton these days, as Hughes just spent an entire chapter detailing instance after instance of Mrs. Beeton's plagiarism, with much quotation and long summaries of every book she plagiarized from--but I think we're about to get back to syphilis, which should be more exciting).

The cake was very easy: eight ingredients: mix the wet, mix the dry, add the wet to the dry, mix some more, bake. I love Beranbaum's recipes because she is so specific and explanatory: "beat for one minute to aerate and develop cake's structure."

Then I had to go and make things complicated and decide to ice it with a mocha buttercream. A real buttercream. The kind I've always been scared to make and thus avoided. But this cake was so easy, that I guess I figured I might as well challenge myself. Real buttercream involves sugar syrup and a candy thermometer and an awful lot of eggs and butter. Waiting for the sugar syrup to get to the right temperature (238--soft ball stage) involves patience. It actually turned out fine, with no problems except the anxiety that the candy thermometer had broken because it took about two minutes to hit 200 and then 10 more minutes to inch past 200. And then there's the problem that I realized I don't particularly like buttercream. My god, that stuff is sweet. But the cake shore did look purty.

And how did it taste? Well, there was some divergence in opinion on that one. I thought it was delicious. S and Lucy's daughter liked it. Lucy thought it tasted odd, but ate quite a lot of it in her quest to figure out why it tasted odd, and it seemed to me that she ultimately came around to liking it. M hated it. She said it tasted "rotten." This was not a high point of mother-daughter relations.

To get objective: it has an absolutely perfect texture: moist, light, soft. And it was deliciously chocolatey. And then there was this...taste. You can call it bitterness; you can call it harshness; I suppose, if you are M, you can call it "rotten." Beranbaum says "The extra baking soda also creates the slightly dipped center and the coarse, dark reddish crumb with a deliciously bitter edge," and I guess some people just don't like the bitter edge. But I do.

I Have a Dream

I asked the girls if they wanted to read Martin Luther Kings* "I Have a Dream" speech. E said we should read it and write our own "I Have a Dream" speeches. We found this site, where you can both read and watch it. E read the first three "I have a dream" paragraphs to me, and then we watched the beginning of the video and the end. Don't think this story is too idyllic: she thought it was boring, though she did listen intently when freedom started ringing. Then she wrote her speech. I think I'll leave it at that.


*Something is screwed up in my Blogger and I cant make an apostophe--every time I hit apostrophe, I get Quick Find--anyone know what I should do?

Money and Marriage

The levels on which I cannot relate to this paragraph (from an article in today's Style Section) are so myriad that I cannot even begin to detail them:

Other husbands adopt a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. A 40-year-old money manager at a hedge fund in the New York area said he travels to Atlantic City with buddies a few times a year and drops up to $10,000 on blackjack, which he never discusses with his wife. The man, the sole earner in the family, suspects that his wife regularly pays cash at SoHo boutiques. “She’ll have six pairs of new shoes, which won’t show up on the credit card bill,” he said. “I don’t discuss it with her because we don’t have an affordability issue. It’s the cost of marriage, and auditing my wife doesn’t make sense as long as it’s under control.”

Entering the Future

E is away on her first sleepover. I am verklempt.

(For those who are not keeping track, E turned six a few weeks ago. M went on her first sleepover at nine. E and her best friend Other E [not to be confused with M's best friend Other E] have been asking for a sleepover for months. Other E's mom is as lame as I am, so it hasn't happened. This evening we were over at Other E's house and as we were getting ready to leave, E asked once again when they could have a sleepover. One thing led to another, and now they're having a sleepover. I actually think this was a good way to do it, since she didn't have time to get anxious in advance, though I'm not convinced we won't see her till tomorrow. But now I have to adjust so quickly!)

Edited to add: She made it!

One Last Thing About Jump In

I don't think this one is going to be as successful as High School Musical. Eh, sure, it will be a huge success, because the power of the Disney juggernaut is unstoppable, and it will inevitably not be as successful, because of its derivative nature. But there's something else, and it has to do with #4 below, that narrative intrusiveness that I can't quite put my finger on.

The thing about High School Musical is that even though it's inspirational, even though it's platitudinal, even though it's obvious, it's also self-consciously ridiculous. I mean, it's a musical, for goodness sake. Boys break into song on the basketball court. And it's got the whole internal satire on theater kids going on. It's fun and it's funny, and I think that's part of the appeal for kids, and I know that's part of what makes it bearable for parents--this parent, at least.

Jump In is darker, and I'm not just talking about the black people. The lighting of the film is darker, Izzy and Mary meet on their fire escapes at night, the boxing gym is cave-like, and the double dutch finals take place on a darkened stage. There are serious issues--dead parents, poverty. And there are no song-and-dance numbers.

Which is all fine: nothing wrong with dark, and some people go for it, though it's neither my preferred mode for kids nor my kids' preferred mode. But the problem is that this is Disney, and Disney can only cross dark with earnest obviousness, which, despite the double dutch, just isn't as much harebrained fun.

And now, I promise, I am done with Disney and will get back to more appropriate topics like Edna St. Vincent Millay and nuclear proliferation ASAP.

(Then again, E says she likes Jump In as much as High School Musical because she likes to jump rope, so maybe I'm all wrong.)