Today (Subtext: Habermas)

This morning I quit a job I just got that was already proving impossible. I'm pretty pleased: I agonized for about a day, S told me I had to quit, and then I just did it, with significant grace and pleasantry on both sides. And then I was glad I'd done it, though it means significant financial loss. Then again, getting the job was a pleasant surprise, so really I'm right back where I was a month ago, before the job suddenly materialized, and back then I was fine.

In other news, all you Mac fans, I so don't buy it. My lemon computer has gone kaput once again, and I have really an unbelievably huge and important deadline tomorrow. Luckily all relevant pieces are accessible in gmail, and S has been a total saint trying to set it up for me to get to everything on the Mac--no Office on the Mac, so he installed OpenOffice, but the documents are not opening correctly, plus I can't find anything on the Mac, which is probably my problem, or perhaps a result of the Mac featuring S's organizational logic (i.e. no logic, though it works for him), but at any rate the whole thing is stressing me out, so I'm giving up and going to my mother's tomorrow to work on her PC, where everything makes sense.

But really I wanted to take up the challenge of Jackie's post today--not the birthday party part, I'm all about outsourcing birthday parties, M's next month will be at the rock-climbing gym, but the recent events about which she had nothing to say...I'm going to try to say something.

Austrian basement incest - I said to my friend M today, "So what do we make of this? Is this pure evil? Can we find a cause?" and he said that it was just so far out there, there was no point in analysis. Which I think is true. I mean, this really is perhaps the most outrageous thing ever, outside of Pol Pot, Hitler, Rwanda, and all that, which is to say, in the private sphere. 24 years? In the basement? Seven children? And how many women have tried to imagine going through labor alone in the basement seven times? Just beggars the imagination.

Texas polygamy - The children should not have been taken from their mothers. Period. Total insanity on the part of the law and social services.

Yale abortion artist - OK, about this, I have nothing to say except YUCK--whether she actually did it or made it up...

Miley Cyrus - First instinct: what the hell is with the power of Disney and branding that she needs to go out and abjectly (and fakely) apologize for something she obviously chose to do that is not really a big deal. Shades of Obama and Reverend Wright (if you can't make the connection, I'm sorry, I'm too stressed out by the Mac to do it for you, but take my word for it, it's there). Second instinct: who are the parents who are so dependent on the media machine that they would either 1) allow their small children to see half-naked pictures of Miley, or 2) not be able to negotiate Miley's half-naked pictures with their older children. Third non-instinct: should I be upset that a fifteen year old is taking half-naked pictures in Vanity Fair? i.e. sexualizing young girls, etc.? Maybe, but I'm just not. I'm really much more disgusted by the post-picture hypocrisy on all sides, except for Annie Leibovitz.

Really, all this--mainly the conjoined media furor over Miley and Reverend Wright, plus the wrongheaded actions of Texas judicial and social services--is making me feel a strong desire to abandon the public sphere altogether and just do my work, read novels, and hang out with my kids. Of course all three of those necessarily engage the public sphere, and clearly today's news shows that the private sphere has its own demons, but, oh, politics and media, I wish I knew how to quit you...

(Sorry about the lack of links...blame the Mac stress.)

Dogwoods, L

Though it's miserably cold and rainy again, last week was so warm and sunny we could watch spring arrive like a time-lapse film, each new bud, flower, and leaf appearing, and then moving right to the next stage, even as we paused to appreciate it. This morning I saw a dogwood tree just opened into flower, the notched petals still curling in, barely greenish. Of course dogwood makes me think of L. It was her favorite flower, her wedding band a circlet of blossoms. And thinking of L made me realize it was 24 years ago that she died, some time in these few weeks, maybe these few days. I remember it was Passover. I was home from college and I went to the hospital to say goodbye, and I told my dad he had to go to the hospital to say goodbye. Then I went back to college, and then she died, and I came back home for the funeral.

L's death is one of the few things in my personal life (let's leave out the war, etc.) about which I can say: if this hadn't happened it would be better. Period. My parent's divorce? Worked out for the best for everyone. Professional choices I've made and regretted? Made me a better person, made other parts of my life possible, and laid the groundwork for better things to come. But L's death? Completely irredeemable. And made everything completely different. Like this weekend. If L were alive, my weekend would have been different. Of course now it's been so long, and so much has unfolded, that to think of L not having died would mean, for instance, to think, probably, of her grandchildren, these particular grandchildren, not having been born, which is, of course, unthinkable, now that they are here and delightful and part of our existence. Still, if I could wish one thing different (again, putting aside the war, etc.) it would be for L not to have died.

Babysitter Ethics

I know there's been much discussion of the ethics of stealing your friend's babysitter (basically bad karma--I had a friend who did it to me, and I was not happy), but what if your babysitter recommends a friend when she can't make it, and then your kids like the friend better than the original babysitter?

There should be some kind of joke that can be produced out of the chiasmus of friend's babysitter and babysitter's friend.

Why I Love British Newspapers

Actually, I love all newspapers, which is quite tragic, given that newspapers will disappear within the very near future, and I will be the one remaining mourner. But British newspapers are particularly excellent, first because there are so many of them and they so thoroughly satisfy all desires, from the lowest of low to the starchiest of starch (OK, went here and here, and I guess none of them are that starchy any more, but the idea of them is starchy), not to mention loony left (S's preferred read, and one of my political go-tos, though I tend toward the liberal upscale--we usually end up buying both, and then reading the tabs on the Tube), but also because their content is so excellently varied, in such an excellently British way (read low/starchy/left/upscale, not to mention...well, let's just get to the example already).

I ended up with a copy of today's Observer and the Food Monthly epitomizes the brilliant olio that is the British newspaper, with articles on whether food is better than sex, what Palestinians and other refugees eat, and stoned hippie traveler food (absolutely right on the banana pancakes: ubiquitous whether you're in Lamu, Goa, or Kathmandu). Can you even imagine one of those articles in the NY Times on Wednesday, let alone all of them?!

Vacations in the Buff

I'm totally down with topless sunbathing, skinnydipping, and wandering around the house or field naked, but nude yoga? I have to say, that has approxiately zero appeal--both the doing and the having it done around me.

Thoughts On Seeing Little Women Again

The Winona Ryder version.

- The unnecessary rearrangement of scenes, addition of superfluous scenes, and intrusion of Jo's first-person narrative are unnecessary.

- As is turning Marmee into Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

- Winona is woefully miscast, Trini Alvarado looks all wrong (was she a miniature Andie MacDowell, or what?), Claire Danes is not what one would expect but really quite plausible, and Kristen Dunst is ideally Amy, to one's somewhat surprise.

- I'd forgotten how much I ADORE Eric Stoltz. I always thought he was just the perfect man for me (sorry, S), in real life and in his movie persona, though of course who knows what he was like in real life, but it was such a powerful movie persona, all those weird indie movies and of course his brilliant turn as Jamie's ex on Mad About You, another of my all-time favorite TV shows, up there with 90210, which might be considered the antithesis of Eric Stoltz, though I could have imagined him on Melrose Place, but at any rate John Brooke is not his best role ever (and what's with the anachronistic make-out scene in the doorway, not to mention the maypole-esque wedding scene--see my first point), but it's nice to see him and remember how much I liked him and wonder whatever happened to him...

Still More on Hillary and Feminist Generations

The commenters here are much more articulate than I am. The bottom line is, as Rebecca Traister said last week, in another intelligent article about which I believe I wrote a blog post which I then deleted, because, well, I don't know, probably because I have been feeling the superfluity of my input into all things blogospherical: It is possible to see very clearly how much sexism Hillary has faced on this campaign trail and still not want to vote for her. And, for god's sake, if she is the nominee, we all will vote for her; we just don't think she's the be-all and end-all of politics, feminist or not.

I do not know why I am so wrought up about all this today. Actually, I do know, and if I would just get on with what I'm supposed to be doing, I would be able to let go.

I should really bite my tongue today

but I just read Linda Hirshman's latest bashing-younger-women screed at Slate (I know, I'm a few days behind the times), and, god, I'm just so tired of all this (see previous post). Lots of older feminists are remarkable, ground-breaking heroines, and yet, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has personal experience of older feminists who seem determined to eat their young, that being us (and my god, I'm not even young!). But I'll bite my tongue on the anecdotal response, and I will just give you Hirshman's mindblowingly obtuse penultimate paragraph:

I've never been much for pop-psychologizing, but perhaps the yo-mamma feminist rebellion is an attempt by young women to similarly free themselves from their identification with the mother. If so, it's a great argument for shared childrearing, but it still makes for lousy politics. Following Chodorow's reasoning, just for argument, men are free to stand on the shoulders of their fathers, who weren't around all that much, without psychological consequence. And so they do. Liberal and conservative. Al Gore and Al Gore, the Bushes, unto the fourth generation, the Harold Ickes, the unbreakable Kristols, Norman and John ("Normanson") Podhoretz. Only women seem to need to separate and destroy in order to start all over again with each generation.

Hello?!?! Have you ever read Harold Bloom? Freud???? Our current war...has it not resulted from our idiot president's determination not to be his father? And the idea that young women today are the first to rebel against their mothers? What was the second wave of the feminist movement but an enormous round of mother bashing? (OK, it was a lot more than that, but surely that was an enormous component.) So you were allowed to reject your mothers, but we are not allowed to question you????

(And, you know, the ridiculous thing is that I believe I was kind of pro-Linda Hirshman back when all the mommy bloggers were going nuts on her...why yes, so I was, but the rhetoric then and now is a huge problem, and I don't see why someone so smart can't see that.)

This Shit Just Makes Me Tired

How can a new imprint call itself Every Woman's Voice and open with a stable of authors that looks like this?

(No need to answer the question: obviously any imprint that would call itself Every Woman's Voice in this day and age would have a stable of authors that looked like that...)

(Can I tell you how hard it is, sometimes, to defend feminism and all that it has come to stand for?!) (By which really I mean Feminism, the capital letter signalling mainstream middle-class white feminism, i.e. when Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem go nuts on women who don't support Hillary, etc. I still insist that feminism is more capacious than the media and some of its progenitrixes would have it, but, like I said, sometimes it's hard to make the case.)

Does the Thought Count?

Lately I've been dealing with people who have the best intentions in the world but screw up and, you know, I'm kind of over it. At a certain point, results matter.

Except, I'm hoping not in the Passover arena.

We are kind of casually hardcore when it comes to Passover. We put all the chametz in the basement, we drink wine instead of beer, and, within our self-chosen confines (and believe you me we've got rice and coldy peas with us in those confines), we do our best to observe. Of course we give the kids a choice, but basically once they turn five or six, they choose to try. This year M is far away in an exciting place, so she decided not to do it, which is totally fine with us, but E is going for it, which means lots of matza, eggs, and avocado. Fine, fine, fine.

Yesterday, my sister, E, L, and I went on a very fun expedition for which I even prepared: backpack, matza, cheese, apples, water bottle. I knew we'd get snacks, but I wanted to make sure we had food we could eat. So E ate the apple and we ate our matza and cheese. Then we had some French fries. Then we did some more fun stuff. Then we had ice cream. All well and good.

We came home. My sister napped. The girls played. I worked.

My sister got up, came into the living room, and asked, "Are we observing Passover?"

"Well, yeah," I said.

"The cones!" she stage whispered, dramatically.

The cones. The cones in which we had ordered the ice cream, without a second thought.

S says at least they're flat.

We didn't tell the kids.

Cake Postscript

I'm big on separating needs and wants, but I do believe that I NEED an extra bowl for the KitchenAid, because when you have to beat both yolks and whites, and then fold, you end up using both the KitchenAid and the hand mixer, as well as three bowls, though I can't quite explain the three bowls, and it seems like it would make so much sense if there were just two bowls for the KitchenAid, though writing that last post seems to have boggled my mind, and I can't quite explain why.

It's All About the Technique (Not a Blow Job Post)

I don't know why I persist in baking new cakes, despite the accumulation, by now, of a substantive repertoire of chocolate deliciousness for all occasions. Perhaps that persistence is related to my penchant for new projects, new running routes, and new vacation spots. Ironically, the one arena in which I am prone to repetition is food: I could eat nothing but bread and butter for weeks in a row, and at the restaurants I return to again and again, I always order the same thing. Although, come to think of it, I like the same vacation spots as much as I like the new ones, so perhaps there is no determining thread, and I should just get to the cakes.

Passover was approaching, and despite past successes (did you say Chocolate Meringue Truffle Cake?), I was once again poring over the cookbooks I've already read dozens of times. And a good thing too, because I found something new: Joan Nathan's Prince Albert Cake.

My aunt in Israel always bakes the same things. There is cheesecake and N's cake and C's cake. C is my dad, and his cake is a chocolate cake in which you bake part of the batter into cake and then you spread the rest of the batter (unbaked) on top of the cake (baked) and it becomes a mousse-like topping. Yum. Now go click on that link. Yes! It seemed as if Joan Nathan's Prince Albert Cake might be C's cake.

Only it wasn't. I emailed my aunt, and she gave me the recipe for C's cake in indecipherable form (list of ingredients in grams, no instructions) but with sufficient information that I could tell Joan Nathan's Prince Albert Cake was not C's cake (for one thing, C's cake has a lot of flour).

Still, it seemed worth trying. But not without searching the internet. First I googled Prince Albert Cake and discovered little of relevance except the Joan Nathan recipe I'd already discovered, which was not promising. Then I did my usual cruise through AllRecipes.com and Epicurious, generically seeking cakes, and found Chocolatissimo, which, strangely, had basically the same ingredients as Prince Albert Cake, but a different technique. What to do?! Try the Prince Albert Cake, as previously resolved.

In the Prince Albert Cake you beat the butter with half the sugar, add the egg yolks one at a time, fold in the melted chocolate, whip the egg whites with the other half the sugar, fold in the egg whites, bake 2/3 of the batter in two pans (the recipe says one 12 x 18 pan, then cut it in half, but who has a 12 x 18 pan?! I baked it in two 9" circles and skipped the cutting in half), chill the other 1/3, then spread the chilled batter between the layers and on top. OK, easy enough, except something just didn't seem right: the batter was pretty ugly and kind of buttery, as in tiny bits of butter. But with grated chocolate on top it looked good, and the first seder guests were satisfied. It was a pretty hefty slab of fudgeness, with a good taste in the mouth and on the tongue, but so sweet that it almost hurt your teeth. The next morning, though, it was better.

Still, I was not satisfied. A good enough cake is not good enough for me. Then I realized that Chocolate Meringue Truffle Torte, which I was thinking of making for the second seder, needed to chill for a full day or night, and it was already noon on Sunday. So I decided to try the Chocolatissimo, which seemed, instinctually, to make more sense, and would let us see what kind of difference baking technique made with the same ingredients.

In the Chocolatissimo, you melt the chocolate with the butter, beat the egg yolks with the sugar (a little more than half the sugar in the Prince Albert, which made a definite difference), fold the chocolate/butter into the egg yolks, whip the egg whites (no sugar), fold in the egg whites, bake 2/3 the batter in one layer, and chill the rest of the batter and spread it on top. At every moment of the process, this cake made total sense (though I did not make total sense, especially when, separating my 14th egg of the weekend, I broke some yolk into the bowl which already held four whites, and then dumped the contaminated whites down the sink, instead of saving them to combine with the four additional yolks I would create, by separating an extra four eggs for the cake, to make the four eggs we would need for the matza kugel, but that's a different story). And this cake...

This cake was phenomenal! It looked beautiful, it tasted delicious, it drew the desired raves and recipe requests, it's going on the record as the Passover cake to make--except S insists that come next year, I'll be looking for new cakes, because that's what I do, regardless of technique.

Simulacrum of a Summer Evening

Picked up E on way home from work, walking. Both of us in t-shirts. She complaining that it was too hot on the playground. Me limping from wearing my shoes over bare feet.

Went for a nice run with M, despite blisters. Wore shorts and t-shirt (different t-shirt) for first time this year.

Fields filled with kids playing soccer and baseball. Bike path filled with bikes.

Left M at baseball field by pond where we ran into a bunch of her friends.

Went home and made dinner while E, revived from her playground pain by TV, popcorn, and coldy peas (don't worry, we didn't leave her home alone, T was here to refill popcorn and coldy peas), played outside, including hula hooping and tree climbing.

M came home. Ate dinner on front porch. Toddler next door watched us from his window with great fascination and refused to take his bath.

More hula hooping, by M and E.

Girls went to park. Showered.

Waylaid by A and C as I walked through A's backyard on my way to the park to get girls. Sat and chatted as the evening darkened. Girls, with A's M, returned in search of me.

Went to gift-ish store to spend gift certificate. Bought earrings, barrette, lip balm (desperately needed, in a wintry kind of way), mini-reading light for M, little game and bug pins for E.

Italian ice at corner store.

Sox victory.

(It would all be delightful if only--kids finally in bed, cake finally baked, though still in needing of construction--I weren't sitting down to work. Sometimes this consultant thing is just a total drag.)

Patting Your Head and Rubbing Your Tummy

Way back in the day, we used to drink by the river. There were lots of other things to do by the river, and we did most of them, but I have particular physical and visual memories of the drinking, perhaps because I was so bad at it. We drank by the river because it was a nice place to drink, dark and away from things and pretty, in the darkness, but also I suspect, because it was near the liquor store where there was always someone to buy liquor for you. We would walk down the street from the liquor store to the river, and then we would walk along the river, on the dirt path, not the paved sidewalk, till we got to a point where the river was further away from the road, and nobody could see us. But the drinking usually started as soon as we turned away from the street, while we were still walking on the path, and therein the problem lay, because I was utterly incapable of drinking while I walked. Whether it was sips of rum followed by sips of Coke, or slugs of Kahlua (ugh!), if I tried to keep up with my companions, who walked and drank and passed the bottle, I would dribble and spill all over my shirt. If I stopped walking to take a drink, they would tease me, which wasn't a big deal, because I thought it was pretty pathetic too, but still, I was always self-conscious about my incapacities.

This morning I stopped at the corner store to get a Mocha Frappucino--the kind in the bottle--to drink on my way to work. I had to stop walking every time I took a sip. Some deficits do not respond to age and experience.

The Price of Food

You know when they ask the presidential candidate how much a gallon of milk costs and the candidate looks blank and guesses $1.78 and then gets slammed for being out of touch with ordinary people's lives? Hmm, I guess they haven't tried that one in this campaign because they're too busy with Bosnian lies and incendiary preachers. But it used to be a staple, and I always used to think, man, I know I'm an ordinary person, but I have no idea what the price of milk is.

Partly, of course, that's because I am an ordinary person of sufficient means such that while I do need to think about how much houses and cars cost, I don't need to worry about paying for groceries. But largely it's because I rarely do the grocery shopping.

I am, however, highly aware of the increasing cost of food right this very minute, because it is a huge issue for the restaurant business. Part of the issue is the cost of gas, of course: pretty much everything a restaurant uses is brought to the restaurant by truck, even if it's the dilapidated pick-up of the organic farmer in the next town. So over a year ago, the cost of bread went up because the bakery is an hour away (what can I say, it's the bakery they wanted), and the gas to get the bread from the bakery to the restaurant rose too much for the bakery to absorb the cost. But now it's the food itself that is becoming exorbitant--down at that bakery, the price of flour is skyrocketing. Some restaurants are serving smaller portions; some are raising prices. S is trying to deal as much as he can by substituting--choosing his fish, his cuts of meat, his groceries very carefully, with the idea of sustaining quality via preparation.

But all this is fluff, compared to children eating two spoonfuls of rice a day in Haiti.

Going Meta in a Somewhat Fragmented Way

[Given that I have vowed to eschew blog angst, I want to make it perfectly clear from the start that this is a blog analysis post, not a blog angst post.]

I was searching through my archives the other day, trying to remember which Passover cake was so good, and I realized that a lot of people who used to read my blog appear no longer to do so. I felt kind of bad, but then I realized that I used to read a lot of blogs that I no longer read--some of them written by my apparently former readers. I also realized, once I started poking around in my archives, that I used to be a better blogger--more interesting, more engaged, funnier.

The problem, I think, with a blog like mine, which is basically generated by my thoughts about stuff that happens and stuff I see, is that eventually it gets to the point where the blogger has said most of what she thinks, and there isn't much point in saying it again (or, by extension, reading it again). I mean, am I really going to come up with anything new to say about Passover this year? Doubtful. And over the last couple of days I've thought of blogging about Manny (nice to see you back, dude) and Ellsbury (was that a great catch or what? and he was so casual about it!) (I actually wrote that one, then deleted it), but, really, haven't I said those things a million times? And is anything gained, for me or my readers, by my saying them yet again?

It seems easier, perhaps--I wouldn't know--for bloggers who write about a single topic or who focus more closely on their daily lives. There is always another book to read, another campaign gaffe to analyze, another Sox game to chronicle, and if you expect that of yourself, and your readers expect that of you, there is a difference: this week in Cleveland was a lot like last October in Cleveland, but it was different too, and if you are paying the right kind of attention, you will always have something new to say. But I'm not: I just want to say, again, "Jacoby Ellsbury is the bomb, I want to be his baby's mom."

In turn, if you are sharing the narrative of your daily life, there's always something new, the denouement of yesterday's developments, the beginning seeds of what will come to fruition next week, whether it is toilet training, garden growing, screenplay writing... This is the universal appeal of narrative.

Or sometimes not. Years ago, I read a woman's diary that had been edited and published by her daughter. I'm not sure it matters that the daughter was a friend of a friend, but at the time it did, because I felt even more guilty for finding the diary so unenlightening. Basically, this woman had a rough life, and she kept resolving to make a change...and then not changing. Over and over. So by the time I got to the umpteenth resolution to change, I just rolled my eyes, because I knew exactly what was (not) coming. I can see why this diary might have been revelatory for the daughter, who could come to some understanding of her personal relationship with a difficult mother, but in that case the motivation for meaning was readerly, and I did not bring that motivation, so the book didn't work for me.

This is all, of course, about the nature of time (when I said meta, I meant meta). Time goes forward--2008, 2009, 2010--but it also cycles--spring, summer, winter, fall, spring, 4/16/08, 4/16/09, 4/16/10. That's the beauty of it. Blogs are essentially temporal: the two things that make a blog a blog are the computer and time as the organizing structure of the post. The topical blogger and the narrative blogger can, I think, take better advantage of this nexus of the progressive and the cyclical. But the rambling blogger too often falls prey to the perils of repetition inherent in that nexus (of course I'm talking about myself, but I don't think this only applies to me--I think of the blogs I've stopped reading, and the bloggers who've stopped blogging--at a certain point, so to speak, there is only so far you can go).

In other words, I think I'm saying (and this will sound familiar to a few of you), that, unlike the blogger who tries for a bit and then realizes he or she isn't really into it (i.e. the blog that lasts a few posts or a few months), the ending (or dwindling, or petering out) of the long-time blog is as much a structural effect of the nature of blogging as it is a personal reflection of the blogger.

Sunday Times

Lately the Sunday Times has gone pretty much unread, sitting in a stack on the living room table or the floor next to the bed, only to be recycled on Saturday, to make room for the next day's arrival.

Last night, however, I actually read some of it, and it was actually good!

My recommendations:

Frank Rich--who usually bores me, despite our shared impeccable liberal credentials--is excellent on American shame and the war (but for some reason the column seems to have disappeared from the website--there's a link if you google effectively, but it's empty, and the column is absent from Rich's page, at least as I write this on Tuesday morning...very odd).

A.O. Scott is sweet, if a bit empty (examples of prose and opinions would have been good) on Roger Ebert, though the timing and content of the piece make me fear it is a preemptive eulogy.

A lovely profile of Faith Prince. One of my great spectatorial regrets is not seeing her in Guys and Dolls.

I'm not nuts about the video

but if I still went to clubs, and I was in a club, and this song came on, I would be pretty happy, and if someone gave me a ticket to see Madonna at Roseland, I would be there in a minute, and I'm trying to remember the last time I was at Roseland, and I'm thinking it might have been to see the English Beat DECADES ago, and I'm thinking David Byrne was standing right next to us, but maybe not.

Edited to add: S says it was a very wasted Jerry Harrison.

Wondering Why I'm No Longer Blogging About Elections?

Because it's all become too depressing, both here and in Zimbabwe.

Today's Modern Love

I'd like to be able to say that I'm not the kind of person who would mock someone for naming her kids Locklin and Phelan, especially because such mockery would inevitably imply mockery of the kids themselves, and mocking kids is not OK, unless they are your own kids, but, come on, she named her kids Locklin and Phelan, and she expects us to pay attention to what she has to say? (Of course maybe they are psueudonyms, which might be good, because then we wouldn't have to mock the kids, just her literary capacity, because, come on, who would pretend her kids' names are Locklin and Phelan?)

Maybe I'm feeling a little jaded on the self-consciously sharp and edgy thing because I just saw Juno, or maybe I'm feeling a little jaded because the look-we-have-kids-and-it's-hard-
to-have-sex-and-birthday-parties-are-painful thing is so TOTALLY DONE TO DEATH in the self-consciously sharp and edgy world of contemporary thirty-and-fortysomethings-discover-parenthood literature, or maybe it's just that she named her kids Locklin and Phelan, for god's sake.

But really what I wanted to write about was the chair. Don't know if the link has the picture of the chair, but we used to have that chair! We being the denizens of the group house I lived in right after college, the one with me and B and three guys, five cars, six guitars, a motorcycle, and the wildest parties around, including the one where the porch sank six inches into the ground, and the one where we drank the bottle of Yukon Jack and climbed the crane that had been parked next door for a week. You know, that house.

Anyway, our chair--really, it was a Piece of Furniture--was covered with brown fur and sinuously looped down and then up again, in a kind of chaise-like configuration, except softer and bigger and generally more 70s-like. Only we didn't call it a sex chair, we called it The Womb. And I don't think anyone had sex in it, at least I didn't, and it was in the living room, which really would not have been a good place to have sex in that house, as there was always somebody around, drinking a beer, or playing a guitar, or making some coffee and exploding the espresso machine all over the kitchen ceiling. But we would lie in it, one or two or even three of us, and talk or read or listen to the band practice or take a nap. It was a great chair, and it was worth reading that essay to remember it.

Ayelet, Jenny, and The Explosionist

Although we have one degree of separation several times over, I do not know Ayelet Waldman. And yet, the genesis of her novels is completely clear to me. This isn't just because Ayelet spent a few months baring her soul on Bad Mother; it's because in a primal way that surely hinges upon identification in all its manifestations, I get her source material, her motivations, her plots (if you've only recently tuned in, more on my Ayelet fixation here).

I do know Jenny Davidson. We met several years ago at a wedding (in the Rainbow Room, with calla lilies and a loud wedding band), and then we met again, and then we discovered each other's blogs, and the rest is history, books, running, and lots of late-night motivational and analytical email conversations.

OK, I'll get to the chase, for those of you who can't wait: there is no need to equivocate or dissimulate: I loved The Explosionist, Jenny's soon-to-be-published second novel. It's funny, interesting, gripping, and plotted out the wazoo. It's got a completely loveable schoolgirl heroine and it works genre like you wouldn't believe: boarding school, detective, ghost, alternative history. My only complaint is that the cover, while delightful in the abstract, is completely wrong: Sophie Hunter looks nothing like Nancy Drew. And I do wonder how its target audience will respond to the complexity of its historical premise, but S and Libby were arguing last night (yes, the delightful Libby, in my very own home--perhaps this post should be titled "How Many Real Life Bloggers Can Fit in a Post?") that its target audience is likely to think either that it's fantasy or--yikes--that it's truth, disregarding alternative history altogether, unless they are highly sophisticated and educated, in which case they will delight in it.

Don't worry, I have not forgotten the Ayelet hook. As I was saying, I know (or feel that I know, in the nexus of the cultural and the literary) where Ayelet's books come from. And in many places I know where Jenny's book comes from. There are passages, for instance, that are pure Jenny Davidson herself. Like these:

There was something undignified about packing rather than simply storming out, but she retained just enough self-command to know that it would be a disaster to leave without her homework.

The trouble with waiting for someone was that it was like not being able to go to sleep. It gave one altogether too much time to think about things.

Referring back to Jenny's professional life (scroll down), there is eighteenth-century literature and culture galore, down to the powerful woman doctor named after the woman novelist. Her penchant for genre fiction is self-evident, and even in passages like the extended description of how dynamite is made (luckily followed up by Sophie--standing in for the reader--wondering why on earth she is being told this) I can see Jenny's love of research and the obscure fact.

And yet, the exuberant intricacy of the novel's plot boggles me (I must confess, I occasionally lost track of what was really happening--it didn't matter, because the book was so enjoyable, but I'm still not sure who was funding the terrorists and why). I try to imagine Jenny, the Jenny I know, coming up with this complex machination, and even though I see so much of the source material, I just have no idea how and why she synthesized it, and I am deeply amazed and impressed.

(One more point that didn't find its way into the complete extended thought above: The novel is also intensely political, in an allegorical manner I didn't expect at all, because I don't think Jenny ever mentioned it, and which definitely surprised me, because I do not think I have ever heard Jenny talk about politics.)

Doppelganger

My name is pretty unique--if you google me, you find me. For a long time there wasn't another, but now there is. She's 24, blond, and British, a little artsy and definitely a party girl. I don't feel much of a connection with her, though I'm unduly pleased, in a slight and pretentious way, by the artsiness. I wonder if my much larger internet presence bothers her.

It's (obviously) the last name that makes my name unusual. When I was growing up, we were the only ones in the phone book, and we really pretty much assumed that everyone who had the name was related to us. Then another one, Lucy, appeared, and we figured there must be a few more (is it normal behavior to look for your name in the phone book? it seemed so to me, but perhaps it is of a piece with encyclopedia reading and self-googling: a compulsive need to affirm one's reality).

I discovered the chess champion in Amsterdam where we introduced ourselves to a guy who turned out to be on his way home from a chess tournament and asked if we were related to the champion. I think there's a musician, and there's definitely an Israeli MP. Now I see on LinkedIn that there are lots of us, and I do wonder who they are.

Is this what it's like to be a Smith, or a Rachel Cohen? I think not, because if you are a Smith or a Rachel Cohen, you discover your ubiquity early. This feels more destabilizing: we have been allowed, for longer, to believe in the myth of our uniqueness, and now technology has taken that myth away.

Do We Even Need to Read the Article?

Possible Nazi Theme of Grand Prix Boss's Orgy Draws Calls to Quit

Edited to add: Oh wait, you must read the article! He's Oswald Mosley's younger son! And check it out: Oswald Mosley clearly has revisionist fans!

Edited again to add: Actually, I do think this is his private life, but, man, what a great story, in a sick and twisted media junkie kind of way! (Remind me not to post before I finish reading the article...)

Me and My Phone

In Berkeley, my bus was the Crazy Bus (all you current and former East Bay folk, is not the 51 the bus most likely to contain a crazy person of all the buses you know?). Now three or four times a week, I take the Drama Bus. The Drama Bus runs from downtown along the edge of gentrification to not gentrified, a route that could alternatively be classified in terms of race or use, in predictable ways. It passes a major hospital, several schools, and some wasteland.

The Drama Bus is probably one of the most diverse entities in East Coast Big City. You've got your white and Black yuppies, your mostly black and Latino students , your Chinese grandparents, your bums of all races, your young moms and their kids, your business people: pretty much everyone. Then you have always, and I mean always, your person on her cell phone--it's pretty much always a woman--loudly sharing her drama with the world. There's some serious drama on the Drama Bus: abusive boyfriends, illness, homelessness, truancy, addiction. All broadcast loud and clear to the rest of the bus. I suppose when things are that bad, you don't care who hears it.

My drama is not that bad, and regularly riding the Drama Bus is a great way to appreciate your life. But I have to say, I have become that obnoxious person who is always on her phone, sharing the details of her personal and work life with the world. I'm that person who looks at her phone when it rings while she's talking to you. The person who texts in meetings and at the circus. It's hideous, I hate that person, but right now there doesn't seem to be any way out of it: it's me and my phone, taking on the world.

Three Ring Circus

We went to the country for a party. We arrived in the country with two children. Within five minutes, there were five children. Within half an hour, I was the only adult and there were seven children. That's what happens to me in the country.

Luckily, the babysitter arrived soon thereafter (hiking up the mountain on her snowshoes--we were at the top of the mountain, and there is still snow in the country). I bestowed all the children upon her and went off to join the adults at the party. It was a delightful party, delightful babysitter, delightful mountain, delightful snow.

In the morning the children were like a herd of elephants way too early, and then party guests started arriving for the morning after. There were pancakes and bacon, but the bacon took a long time as the children clamored for it, refusing to do anything else because they were waiting for bacon. We decided that should be a movie: Waiting for Bacon. Finally the children had bacon and went back out into the snow to perform their tricks. C and I walked part way down the mountain and back up. We are too old and whiny for tricks. Though I did do a bit of yoga in the kitchen while everyone waited for bacon.

When we got home, we went to the circus. It was a one-ring circus. The year before we left No Longer Red State we went to the three-ring circus and loved it. But when you go to a one-ring circus, you wonder why anyone would want a three-ring circus. I have been to four one-ring circuses that I can remember: the one with the sinuous dancers and high end music, the one at the county fairgrounds with the mangy animals, the one where all the performers are kids, and this one, which is probably the best old school circus around. At a one ring circus, you can concentrate, and you feel like part of it, not just a spectator.

There were dogs and ponies, and M said, "Look at the ponies' tails--oh! that's why they're called ponytails!" The clowns were so basic, so stupid, and so funny. There was a trapeze, and a guy on a slack-rope tightrope with a unicycle, and strong people gilded in gold, and craziness of bouncing off seesaws in stilts which had the entire tent (there was a tent) screeching in terror and excitement. It was quite a circus. I love the circus. Especially when no elephants are being mistreated.

Parsing Hair Color for Girls

My position on the matter is made obvious by the fact that E had slowly-fading pink hair for about five months last year (we were amazed that it lasted so long), and M currently sports a subtle shade of purple. Our biggest problem is how to get color to show on M's dark brown locks. This is a problem because I refuse to let her bleach it (I do, occasionally, draw lines), but I'm sure that by high school, if not eighth grade, she'll be doing it herself.

This NY Times article on the subject typically confuses the issues: there is coloring hair, there is paying lots of money to color hair at a salon, there is the sociocultural landscape of hair color (which they barely touch upon).

We color hair pink and purple (next up: blue) at home on the cheap because my kids want to be punk/hip/pretty/different, which is a spot on the cultural landscape that they can inhabit but I certainly couldn't. But am I really any different from the moms who take their daughters to Frederic Fekkai for $400 caramel highlights because the girls want it and it will make them feel good about themselves? I like to think I am--in my DIY/boho self-righteousness--but maybe not.

The Sox are back

and it's time to read Soxaholix with a relaxed smile on your face (only don't get too relaxed, all this "best team in baseball/will win the division" stuff does not sit well with this old school fan--see third strip).

More News

Not quite Man Bites Dog, but close.

The Best News Story of the Day

Don't miss the part about the cocktail dress.

Books I Have Not Yet Read

The real reason Matt and Ben are so cool is their moms. Seriously. Check out Matt's mom's new book. I know I usually take the pro-pop-culture/it's-really-not-so-bad-out-there position, but she's not just bashing, she's analyzing and then making practical suggestions for how to deal (how do I know all this if I haven't read the book? I read the article) (don't you want to look as good as her when you're a grandmother? of course, it probably helps to be Matt's mom) (yeah, I don't know what that meant either).

And then there's the 70s-white-girl-singer book, about which I know nothing, except that it Must. Be. Read.

Billie Jean, Evita, and Milkshakes

From Sandra who no longer blogs and thus cannot be linked to: this, which confused me for a moment and then made me laugh, hard, out loud.

For the Record

I am having an excellent hair day.

Zimbabwe

Keep up with developments at the Guardian (counter to blog conventions, most recent updates are at the bottom).

Whenceforth the Zimbabwe obsession, when there is just as much happening in Tibet and Iraq, when the Koreas are threatening to obliterate each other and who knows what's up in Iran, not to mention the ongoing horror of Israel and Palestine?

No-brainer: I've been to Zimbabwe, so I can see it in my head, I know from experience what it was like (I'm sure I've written about this before--that people are starving in Zimbabwe is appalling, given richness of land and resources) (hmm, looks like maybe I haven't written about it in depth, but no time right now, so just take my word for it: Zimbabwe in 1989 was a vista of possibility, albeit a complicated vista, and Mugabe has run the entire country into the ground on selfishness, corruption, and misguided pseudo-populist-anti-colonialism).

Is there a takeaway about American interest in foreign countries? Travel is good? It's easier when there's a clear bad guy? Crisis draws more attention than ongoing conflict? Yes, yes, yes, I suppose, but mainly I just want to see that man gone, and hope that what comes next is better.

A Few Minutes with the NY Times Before I Collapse

Is anyone else out there on tenterhooks waiting for the official results in Zimbabwe?

When my kids are gone, I am so totally never cooking again.

Oh dear, did we make a mistake?

Think I can get in a real cake, before I need to start baking for seders?

OK, now I must collapse. Mondays are always long, but this one has been really long.

Updates

Bat Mitzvah Chronicles
Not really an update from our end, but progress toward the great destination. The sixth grade had their service on Friday night: in twos and threes they led every song and prayer, from up on the bimah. M was the only one who went solo: she introduced the evening. She also led a prayer with I think two other kids and talked about her class's mitzvah projects. I can report with confidence that she was a total star, not just on the basis of my own bias, but on the number of compliments I got from other parents, and even grandparents (not just hers--I ran into a grandparent at the gym yesterday who asked if I was M's mom and said that they'd been commenting on how fabulous she was, and her daughter had pointed me out as M's mother!).

On the other hand, they all looked so young up there. It's really hard to believe that in a year, give or take, they'll be like those giant seventh graders, confidently parading through their very own services.

Renovation Chronicles
We have put down a deposit. Estimated start of construction: beginning of May.

Three contractors, all highly recommended, came to meet with us. The first was enormously knowledgeable, asked tons of great questions which prepped us for the others, had great ideas, gave us a ballpark figure half again as much as the top of what we'd been prepared to spend, and then told us that he'd met with the Town building inspection dudes and it was impossible to do what we want (Town has some wacko zoning laws that serious circumscribe our project) (in case you've forgotten, or never knew, the project is turning the third floor, currently a small under-used room and a large attic, into three bedrooms and a bathroom).

The second came in, looked around, asked a lot of dumb questions, made some bad suggestions (if you've got floorspace issues, why would you put in an extra piece of hallway?), left, and was never heard from again, as we predicted. I'm sure he's great at what he does, but this project was clearly too much for him.

The third came in, looked around, and said he could do it. Did he have questions? No. Was he worried about permitting? No. Then he came in with a bid that was significantly less than the minimum we expected to spend. Too good to be true? Good friends of ours swear by him, and say they know many people he's worked for and everyone loves him. One of his clients who lives in our neighborhood called us, at his behest, and invited us over to see her third floor, where he did basically what we want for our third floor. Beautiful work, legally permitted, and she loves him too.

We are waiting for the shoe to drop, but we've put down a deposit (the contract is on the dining room table, waiting for S to review--it looked fine to me, but he, probably with good reason, wanted to see for himself).

Work
In the last two weeks I have turned down two temporary job offers and withdrawn from a search after a finalist interview. I've also gotten one new piece of work and am almost certainly about to get another long-term contract. My two current long-term contracts want me to stay on. The job I withdrew from was a job job, not a consulting position, and a job I thought I wanted. But the interview was unpleasant and I thought, why give up all this work I'm doing that I like, with great people, and lots of flexibility, just to have a job? So I think I have just made a conceptual shift from "I am consulting until I get a job," to "I am a consultant," though of course I wouldn't turn down the perfect job.

Horton Hears a Who
Tedious. I fell asleep.

Crisis
Moderately in check at the moment. One thing I will say for this crisis is that it has revealed new levels of awesomeness in my husband. I'm not one to go around praising my husband in this blog (for that, see Dawn). Usually he's either not around, or I'm annoyed by him (please take that with the light sprinkling of salt with which it was intended). But I totally dragged him into this crisis without even asking, and he has risen to the occasion, and beyond, to the point that he is now even more committed to doing the right thing than I am.

Spring
There are some crocuses. There are some green shoots. Yesterday the air was bitter. Today it is soft.

Yoga
The terrible substitute teacher of the bad yoga class? She redeemed herself the next week with an absolutely delightful class. This morning I was supposed to go with C and Neighborhood K to some special spring yoga class that P's husband was playing guitar for, but of course I didn't sign up in time (uh, try last night) and it was full. So I went to my regular yoga class and the up-and-down sub is gone and the regular teacher is back and it was again delightful, lots of shoulder and hip openers and crazy semi-lotus poses (there was a name for it, but I forget--one knee bent and shin going back alongside thigh with top of foot on floor, and then the other leg does all sorts of bending and lifting and stretching--very nice, as Jenny would say). So I'm feeling all open and stretched and relaxed.

I think that's it, for now.

Books and Love

Does taste in books signal relationship compatibility? Maybe yes, maybe no, according to this typically on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand essay in the NY Times Book Review. From my self-absorbed location in the relationship/reading trenches, it's the fact of reading that matters. I can't imagine being with someone who didn't care about books; it would be like marrying a Republican! It matters to me that S cares about and knows books the way I do, that his most important packing question for any vacation is what books to bring, that he gets my T.S. Eliot references. On the other hand (hey, why don't they hire me to write those essays?!), our reading tastes are pretty much non-overlapping. Basically he's a boy book/serious literature kind of guy (Auster, DeLillo, and most recently Tolstoy), and I'm a girl book/contemporary fiction kind of gal (saving most recent reads for a near-future post, but let's just say Austen, Brontes, Messud, Miller [that would be Sue]...eh, if you read this blog, you know what I read). Occasionally we do read the same book, and it's a big event--I know there's something fabulous we've both loved that tells you what cool people we both are, but right now the only shared reads I can think of recently are Poppy Z. Brite's restaurant novels. No big takeaway here, just chiming in about me...

Looking Ahead

Dear T.S.,

The last few months have been pretty cruel. I know you were just describing, not creating (I mean you were creating and all, though you had your derivative moments, but you weren't making it happen), but now that you're up there with the big guy, if there is one, and if you're up there, which you might not be, given the anti-semitism thing and the mistreatment of the first wife thing, but, anyways, if there's anything you can do, could we please have an April that's a little less cruel?

Thanks,
Becca


Dear Chaucer,

You know the shoures soote thing? Well, we've had an awful lot of 'em already, so maybe April could keep his to himself? (And if you buy me a drink, I'll give you the first 18 lines.)

Much appreciated,
Becca


Dear Mr. Browning,

I would love to be in England once April's there, but, alas, M is going without me. However, I'd take Paris. So I'm wondering, between you and Liz, there must still be some serious royalties rolling in. Could you spot me a loan for April vacation?

Anxiously awaiting your reply,
Becca

Health Insurance Chronicles, # Umpteen

S's sous chef is probably the most important person in my life whom I never see. When S has a good sous chef, life rocks. The restaurant runs smoothly, S works five days a week and is calm and happy, my family has a (relatively) present, calm, happy father, and thus has a calmer, happier mother (that would be me). When S does not have a sous chef, or has a bad sous chef, the consequences similarly trickle down to the rest of us: he has to work more, he has to worry about the restaurant even when he is home, there are more crises, more tension, more grumpiness, and we all suffer in kind.

Right now S has a great sous chef. He is a good cook AND a good manager, he has fabulous attitude, everyone likes him, he's a Red Sox/Dropkick Murphys fan, he has awesome tattoos and no girlfriend (we want him to have a girlfriend because we want him to be happy, but we're secretly kind of glad he doesn't, because no girlfriend=more flexibility to work). He is a huge improvement over the last sous chef, and life has improved concomitantly.

Only he told S today that he might have to leave. Why? Because he has a heart problem and needs health insurance.

Yes, it's true, the restaurant does not provide health insurance. S has never worked for a restaurant that offered health insurance (because he works for small hip restaurants, not big chains or hotel restaurants). This is why, now that I am a consultant, we are paying for bad health insurance out of pocket. Which we have to because of kids and which we are lucky to be able to afford because between us we make enough money (for bad health insurance).

Why doesn't the restaurant provide health insurance? When I'm feeling cranky and need a real person to blame (like this afternoon, when I learned that the sous chef might have to leave and ruin my life), I rail about the restaurant's owner who does provide health insurance at his other restaurant and could obviously provide it at this one too, as I vociferously pointed out to S this afternoon, underscoring the fact that if he did it would make a tangible difference in our life as well. But when I'm feeling thoughtful and economical, I acknowledge that providing health insurance, even sucky health insurance with a big employee premium, can be the difference between profit and not for a small business, and thus can be the difference between a small business barely hanging on and a small business folding, and thus the difference between my husband (and a bunch of other people) having a job and not.

So what's the answer? Government health insurance that does not depend on your job. Duh.

The Dinner Solution

E was at a play rehearsal, S was home, and M had a friend over for dinner. I don't know if it was an age issue (substituting another 11 year old for the seven year old) or a sibling issue (i.e. there weren't any), but we had the most pleasant dinner I can remember. No squabbling, sulking, warring over Mommy's attention; no need to tell anyone to stay in their chair; no second meal. Just two big girls cheerfully setting and clearing the table, thoroughly pleasant conversation, relaxed sitting around the table after eating. We thought about trading E for M's friend, but I guess we'd miss her. Except maybe at dinner.

And What Were You Doing at 6:30 This Morning?

Did I really just say "Big Papi, and then you're gone?" Because M has to go to school, not to bed? Yup, it's morning baseball in Tokyo. Go Sox.

Edited to add: Brandon Moss? Brandon Moss???

Edited again to add: Wow. Wow. I really did think they were going to lose, before the game even started, just because of the narrative inevitability. But that was the same team we saw last year, pulling it out in the clutch. Wow. (And, no, I have not been watching baseball all morning, but I have my ways...)

I Am So Very Tired

Yes, because it's late, and once again I meant to be in bed so early, but then the person with whom I'm coordinating a project at E's school came over, and our meeting stretched, and then I had to deal with my email, and now it's now.

But really I am tired because, well, because it's been a long, cold, lonely winter, except that it hasn't been particularly lonely, except when I was depressed and isolated in February. It has been long and cold, though, and grueling. I have had a boatload of work, but the kicker, I realized today, was that I went from an enormous project I'd been working on for two months and finally finished, straight into dealing with a non-work crisis. Like: straight. Like: I finished the project on March 12, at around noon, made a phone call, and 45 minutes later was enmeshed in a crisis from which we did not emerge until this weekend. So I'd spent two months thinking constantly about work, and then went into ten days of thinking constantly about the crisis--at least in this thinking I was joined by S--and then the crisis started lifting on Friday, and lifted on Saturday, and, well, now I understand why all I wanted to do this weekend was sleep.

You know how in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People they have that grid with urgent/not urgent on one axis and important/not important on the other? (Truly this is the only thing I know about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, so I assume everyone knows it, but maybe you don't, but you get the picture, don't you?) To be effective, you're supposed to spend the majority of your time in not urgent/important. I feel like I've spent the last three months in urgent/important. Today I spent the day at work puttering around in not urgent/not important. I think I'd like to stay there for a while. And get some sleep.

First the Bees, Now the Bats

Like any red-blooded American woman, I'm not so crazy about bats, but this is horrifying.

We're Just Loving David Patterson Over Here

I mean, how can you not love a politician who just comes out and admits it all?! Tax problems, affairs, and now cocaine and marijuana. Hey, whaddaya know, he's a real adult of the 21st century. We say: David Patterson for President!

On Prowess, Praise, and Bragging

When E says she's the smartest kid in her class, M rolls her eyes and tells her not to brag. I say she is very smart and is one of the kids in her grade who is really good at school, but other kids are good at lots of other things too.

Despite the equalizing attempts of well-meaning adults, kids know what's what and who's best. This is especially true in kindergarten and first grade where the difference between best and not is often simply the ability to do whatever is being assessed. E was the only kid in her kindergarten class who could read, ergo she was the best reader. M (different M) was the only kid on E's t-ball team who could hit the ball into the outfield, ergo he was the best t-ball player. Everyone knew it, and there was no point in denying it.

It gets more complicated as kids get older and other issues besides basic skills come into play. Someone may have enormous capacity but not enough time to practice. Someone else may be playing dumb to be cool. Still, it's clear to M that she understands the math and her friend A doesn't (so she helps A). On the other hand, it's clear that M is the slowest swimmer in her age group in her league, and yet she still would be one of the first five kids any coach worth his salt would choose for his team: you'd want the fastest swimmers in free, back, breast, and fly, and then you'd want M, because she has fabulous attitude, she's serious about practice, she gets along with everyone, and she cheers her friends like a maniac--they cheer her too, and the team goes wild when she doesn't lose her heat. In other words, there are lots of ways to be great and lots of skills that matter.

I think we do kids a disservice when we tell them they're great at everything, because they know when we're bullshitting. I told E the other day that she'd written a great story and she said, "You have to say that, you're my mom, you think everything I do is great." I said, "No, I don't. I don't think it's that great when you divide a piece of paper into three sections and color each section a different color," which she does just about every day and which is fine, but doesn't excite me much.

My kids are great at a lot of things and not so great at a lot of other things. Every kid I've ever met, and I've met a lot of kids, is great at something. I know a teenager who can't do school for shit, but knows everything there is to know about rebuilding Hondas for racing. I mean, you can't even believe it when you hear this kid talking about engines and titanium axles and stuff I never even heard of, let alone evaluating used cars on craigslist in seconds flat. So what this kid needs is to be told that he's amazing on the car front and has to improve on the school front. And then you need to look at how his car skills and knowledge can be put to use in service of school.

Hmm, I've covered prowess and praise, but somehow I've digressed and bragging has slipped out of the mix. I'm way down on bragging, to the point that I think I've made my kids overly self-conscious about it--and conscious of it in others. M used to be really good friends with a boy in her class who now spends an inordinate amount of time declaring that he is the best--at music, math, spelling. He's pretty good, but the egotism is insufferable. What I want is for kids--and grownups--to be able to accurately assess themselves, to be proud of what they're good at, to acknowledge what they're not so great at, but try hard anyways, and, especially, to be able to see and honor the good in others, and to accept, understand, and where possible support others where they struggle.

Blog as Advertisement

My new passion: Adora.

I am terrible about calcium. I occasionally think "oh, calcium," and drink a glass of milk, but that's about it. I hate taking pills, and I think Tums are disgusting. I didn't even do calcium while I was pregnant! I comfort myself with the idea that my excellent exercise habits will prevent me from shrinking several inches like my grandmother did, but obviously that's delusional.

Enter Adora. Local J, who is the purveyor of all things excellent, handed them out at her house the other day, and I was immediately hooked. Dark chocolate calcium? Two = RDA? 30 calories apiece? I am so becoming a calcium junkie.

How Did I Miss This?

The president called fighting in Afghanistan "romantic"??!?

E's Amour

For several weeks now, E has been madly in love with me. Telling me she loves me the best of anyone, not to mention more than I love her, she squeezes as close to me as she can, showering me with kisses, or delivering endless smooches to the lips. It's very sweet, if occasionally tedious.

Lately there has been some drama around here which is going to remain unblogged. The four of us are fine, but there is concern over how the situation is affecting M and E.

M, at eleven, has long held a strongly-developed capacity for self-protection. She absorbs the information she needs, and calmly ignores whatever has the potential to disturb her (she honed this capacity in the face of the media--she still closes her eyes and covers her ears when an ad for CSI comes on). She is also old enough to understand what is happening, not to mention deeply involved in her own life, which is great and as it should be. We check in with her regularly, but, truly, I think she is OK, if a bit disgruntled.

Seven-year-old E, on the other hand, is definitely showing the strain. She is at the high end of her psycho tantrum scale*, and she is madly beating on her sister, which is about as transparent a case of transference as I've ever seen. She also squeezes next to me, tells me repeatedly how much she loves me, and pounds me with kisses.

[E, as I'm writing this: "Mommy, did I ever tell you how much I love you?"]

If she hadn't been doing the loving mommy thing for the last several weeks, it would definitely register as another sign of stress, but on this one I am going to grasp at the straws of maternal optimism and declare it developmental.


*The psycho tantrums have diminished in the last few days, which I'm also taking as a positive sign.

Today's Horoscope

It's best to stay focused on one endeavor at a time.

Yeah, right.

Best Line I've Seen About McCartney Divorce

How much does it take to get rid of a crazy, one-legged wife? 48.6 million dollars.

She truly is crazy. Really.

Do These People Have Any Tether to Reality?

Paul McCartney and Heather Mills finally have a divorce agreement:

The judge calculated Mill's annual income needs at about $1.2 million and included a sum of $5 million for her to buy a property in London.

A provision for daughter Beatrice consisting of periodical $70,000 payments was included, and McCartney has agreed to pay for her nanny and school fees. Of the provision, Mills said, "Beatrice only gets $70,000 a year so she is obviously meant to travel B class while her father travels A class. But obviously I will pay for that."

$5 million for a London house actually makes sense. If she needs $1.2 million, she needs $1.2 million, but kvetching about a three year old getting $70,000 a year? For what, teddy bears? If B class is a metaphor, I'm not getting it. If it's literal, uh, where does a three year old need to go?

Whoever said golddigger? They were right.

On the other hand, if his assets total $800 million, I'm not sure why he's kvetching either.

Finishing Up With the Sunday Times

Despite the slightly mocking tone that is the raison d'etre of the Style section, the organic farmers article definitely tracks a reality I'm seeing. Of course my connection to the restaurant business and all the time I've spent in the country give me a slightly broader farmer acquaintance than most, but just last month I found out about another friend who's started a farm--leaving behind filmmaking, which may say more about her adherence to the zeitgeist than her devotion to farming, but that's another story.

Walter Kirn is more incoherent than ever in his front-page review of Richard Price's new novel in the Book Review. I'm tempted to parse the incoherence, but a blog with more than one close reading a day seems problematic, and Flanagan got there first.

As for transmen at women's colleges, we already canvassed this one in the local paper's Sunday magazine several months ago. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't see why you would want to be at a woman's college if you're a man. Become a man; give up being a woman; the women's college goes. By the same token, I'm A-OK with MTFs at Michigan.

Oh God, must I

take on Caitlin Flanagan yet again? Please, I'd rather not, I have better things to do, like meet my deadline. But I think I can take care of this quickly.

1) Data??? It is...where? One hypothetical anecdote and one statistic do not evidence make. Could it be that 16 year olds, the only group cited, no longer have licenses (and a drop of one half to one third is not exactly elimination...) because driving license rules have changed? If you gave me stats for 17, 18, 19 year olds, I might feel better, but to only give stats for 16 year olds makes me suspect you're covering up the rest.

2) My own anecdotes? Teenagers in Town and Next Town drive as soon as they can--I was just having a conversation on Friday about the pressure for teenagers to have their own car. And URBAN teenagers? POOR teenagers? They're not home with mom and dad; they're taking the bus.

3) Oops, that was really a third point: the continuing focus on middle and upper-middle class teenagers, which at least Flanagan acknowledges, severely limits the use-value of this kind of observation, except, of course, to readers of the New York Times.

4) And this one is maybe a critique of the Times, not Flanagan: there is absolutely nothing in this article that hasn't been said a million times over the last ten years (try Judith Warner archives, to start). Yes, we live in the era of helicopter parents. Yes, teen rebellion is no longer a given (though believe you me, it sure does still exist--of this I know). Yes, parents know about their teenagers' lives. AND WE KNOW THIS. Why are you telling us yet again, with a dollop of unverified driving information?

You know, the irony is that I actually agree with her overall assessment here. But her writing, my God, it makes me crazy. (As, of course, does her prominence.)

March Madness

I don't have a lot of time for blogs these days, except when I have urgent deadlines, like today. But I do have my own Mini-Me to keep me up on what's happening out there, mainly in the Red Sox, celebrity, and fashion realms. So thanks to M, I can do my three loyal readers (I'm looking at you, Postacademic) the favor of informing you that Go Fug Yourself has its own version of March Madness going, and those brackets are pretty impressive. We'll rely on M to keep us informed.

Notes on Last Night

Have you ever seen a punk band, a green-robed choir, a children's Irish step dance troupe, a conservatory string section, a bagpipe police band, and a mad violinist assembled on one stage? It's an awesome sight.

The stages of woman: tween dresses with enormous care, wears a coat because she is forced to, is warm, looks cute when coat comes off; teen dresses with enormous care, refuses to wear a coat, is cold, looks cute throughout; adult dresses with no care, chooses to wear coat, is warm, looks like a mom, doesn't care.

Local identity has its drawbacks, bigotry and xenophobia among them. But I'm still glad my kids have one, especially when they are expressing it loudly in song.

I'm guessing the music I've recently thought about going to see and didn't--Magnetic Fields, Steve Earle, Jonathan Richman, Elton John--would have made life better. The music I finally did see definitely made life better.

Is it worth asking why mosh pits and crowd surfing persist in 2008, over 30 years after "Anarchy in the UK"? I mean, sure they're fun, but doesn't this generation want its own cultural manifestations?

There's an annual show that we and the Lucy family try to go to every year, and every year there's a problem. Someone is sick, someone has to work, someone is in crisis. Even in the car on the way there, I was sure it wasn't going to happen, that we were going to get in an accident, or my phone would ring and we would have to turn around. But we made it, for the first time ever, which I am determined to take as a good omen. Unfortunately, the Lucy family did not make it, as per unfortunate tradition, but next year...next year we'll all be there.

Volunteering

When I read articles about Big Brother/Big Sister programs and neighborhood associations, I always think I am colluding in the deterioration of the American social fabric by not volunteering. Then I think again and realize that's insane, I totally volunteer. I am on a board, and I just finished five years on a major committee; I run a big event at E's school; I bake for just about every bake sale and duly take my shift at ticket tables and cake walks; I organized community service activities for both E and M's religious school classes...made my point?

Part of the reason my volunteering doesn't feel like volunteering is because a lot of it uses the same skills I use in my work (uh, not the baking). So I can start my day (call it, oh, yesterday) with coffee with another board member (half gossip, half strategy), segue into a phone call with another mom working on the school event, and then meet with my boss--and it kind of feels like I'm always doing the same thing (I don't mean that in a complaining boring way, but in a descriptive way) (uh, I guess I'm revealing the fact that I'm not a dentist).

I'm also very strategic about my volunteering. I bake, because it's easy and needed, but aside from that, I choose things where I, me, Becca, with my specific skill set and experience, can make a difference. And I'm good at saying no--or ignoring requests for help, as the case may be. Now, S might disagree on that last claim, but truly, the requests pour in, especially from the school, some generic, some to me, but once I've got my volunteer agenda for the moment set, that's it.

And of course the goal of this post is to complain, because I wouldn't be me if I weren't complaining. When I volunteer, I figure out what I can do, and then I do it. I am meticulous, perhaps even punctilious (you know I just wanted a chance to say punctilious) about meeting my obligations--and this is another place of overlap between work and volunteering. But I know a lot of people who just say yes yes yes, who volunteer for everything, and then drive themselves into the ground and/or do a for shit job. And I fail to see the value in that. Aside from the food/shelter/health/education basics, if something doesn't get done, it doesn't get done, and it's usually better to not do it than to do it badly, or to make yourself crazy doing it. So if this year there's no barbecue...well, whatever (the barbecue is probably not endangered, just pulled it off the top of my head to make my point).

And don't even get me started about volunteer martyrdom...

(Hmm, this post also provides the opportunity to use the word sanctimonious.) (That would be applied to myself, not the volunteer martyrs.) (Or perhaps that should be martyr volunteers. Only I like volunteer martyrs better.)

The Times Columnist We Love to Hate

No, not Judith Warner, she's on book leave. It's Brooks waxing sanctimonious on Spitzer without mentioning his name. GAG ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And can we briefly comment, without links that would support the phenomenon even while condemning it, that the group media attack on the prostitute is APPALLING. Making fun of her MySpace page? Come on, she's 22. I sense, perhaps, jealousy of her youth, beauty, and hourly rate...)

There Is No Joy in Mudville

You should have heard the piercing shriek emitted by M at this sad news. S, more prosaic, or perhaps realistic, said, "He'll be back." I mean, what's going to happen to that knuckleball?

Meme Reflection

I would say that the #1 thing my meme reveals is class privilege. I count at least nine markers. Can you spot them? Are there more?

Let's Talk Money

So Emperor's Club charges $1,000 to $5,000 an hour (we'll bracket the question of how anyone could pay $5,000 an hour for sex) (though, really, how could anyone pay $5,000 an hour for sex?). Let's just go for the top. Say the john pays $5,000 an hour. What do you think the woman makes? I'm thinking maybe $2,500? Or should we be conservative and say $1,000? Eh, since we're going for the top, let's say $2,500. And of course, given that this is all illegal, that's tax-free. So four hours work nets you $10,000. Even if we're being conservative, ten hours work nets you $10,000. I'm thinking $10,000 is a pretty good monthly salary. I'm thinking this could be a pretty good gig.

Trying to Be Thoughtful About Spitzer

I've just spent about 20 minutes trying to find something about Spitzer worth reading, and there's pretty much nothing, except for the NY Times facts of the matter. I've also been trying, all afternoon, to figure out what I think about this.

I don't really have much of an impression of Spitzer. I know he was a crusader, and he was elected by a landslide (at least I think I know that), and then has screwed up a lot this first year in Albany. I know people who worship him, but I also know that a lot of people think he's an arrogant bastard. I don't really have an opinion.

But here are some opinions I do have:

People's personal lives shouldn't matter.

Unless they say one thing and do another.

Prosecuting prostitution rings and then patronizing prostitutes? Not so cool.

Big-time crusaders against vice all too often have complicated relationships with said vice.

It's not right that prostitutes get arrested and johns don't.

Laws are laws, and governors and former attorney generals should obey them, unless there's a good reason not to (i.e. I'm down with civil disobedience).

Prostitution...well, I'm a little stumped on this one. I think women should be able to support themselves however they want, and for lots of women sex work is empowering. But for lots of other women sex work is an exploitative last resort and, often, a reiteration of earlier abuse. Generalizations are a problem. On the other hand, high end escorts can have it pretty good.

I wouldn't want to find out that my husband was a) spending large chunks of money, b) on prostitutes.

When you are screwing around with cash, you know you're doing something wrong.

When the Republicans let David Vitter and Larry Craig stick around but call for Spitzer's head, something's wrong.

So where do all these opinions leave me? Thinking Spitzer probably has to go...

What Was He Thinking?

You're ELIOT SPITZER. You're the GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK. If you need something on the side, find an old girlfriend you can trust. DON'T HIRE A PROSTITUTE. I mean, come on, shouldn't this be obvious?

(Has anyone noticed that WOMEN POLITICIANS tend not to do shit like this? Hmm...)

(The really sad thing is that all we're doing over here is laughing about it...)

In Which I Do a Meme, For The First and Last Time

I know, I never do memes, but Dawn said please, so just this once...

1. Who was your first prom date? Didn't have a prom.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? Yup. Many times a day.

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? Not a clue. Actually, probably a gin and tonic, because that's what my parents drank, so that's what I knew. Back in the day I was partial to Kahlua and rum and coke (not together). I still like Kahlua, but just the thought of rum and coke makes me cringe.

4. What was your first job? Stock kid in a fancy fruit and vegetable store. I filled the bins and packed grocery bags and cleaned up after we closed. Once I got to go to the flower market at four in the morning with the flower lady, who was the owner's girlfriend. Her name was Faith, and we drove through red lights, because it was four in the morning. The pockets of all the aprons in the store were filled with banana chips, which had just come on the market and which we all loved to eat. It was also the first place I ever saw star fruit and jicama.

5. What was your first car? 1982 Toyota Starlet. I loved that car.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? Nobody has texted me today, but M got 45 texts yesterday from a sixth grader who shall remain nameless. I think the last person to text me was...oh, duh, I can check. T, with whom one can only communicate by text.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? Well, if we count super-early morning, E, who came in the bed and lay half on top of me. Ugh.

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Mrs. Wexler. She was dreamy and had black curls. Her husband was Dr. Wexler, who was lots of people's pediatrician, but not mine.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? No clue, but I'd guess New York.

10. Who was your first best friend, and are you still friends with him/her? D in nursery school. She lived around the corner for a year, and then she came back in fourth grade for another year, but we weren't such good friends then. I very occasionally hear tell of her family through the mom grapevine. On the other hand, I have known C since we were eight, and we still talk several times a month. (You know, I might be wrong about this, I might have been best friends with S in preschool...Mom?)

11. What was your first sport played? Didn't really play sports, except a little soccer because I had to.

12. Where was your first sleepover? Maybe J's house (a J who has never been mentioned here). I probably had to come home.

13. Who was the first person you talked to today? M. I told her her outfit was nice.

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time? Aunt M! I wore an Indian print dress and high heeled sandals that sank into the grass as I walked in front of her.

15. What was the first thing you did this morning? Tried really hard for quite a while to wake up.

16. What was the first concert you ever went to? Bob Marley, Patti LaBelle, and a bunch of other people in a big outdoor stadium, raising money for something. It was probably the best concert I ever went to too.

17. What was your first tattoo or piercing? Got my ears pierced for my 11th birthday in a mall with my mom's friend P (my mom was there too, but P and I were the ones getting pierced). Added two more holes on the left and one on the right myself, with ice and needles. No tattoos--in the early 90s, when I was about to get a tattoo, S put his foot down and said no. He never puts his foot down and says no, so when he does, I usually obey, especially because he usually has a good reason--in this case he thought that, given my appalling skin allergies, it seemed highly likely that I would be allergic to my own tattoo, and he was probably right.

18. What was the first foreign country you went to? Mmmm, when I was two I went to Israel, but we may have gone somewhere else on the way, we usually did. I think that time it was maybe Greece...Mom? I've been to a lot of foreign countries.

19. What was your first run-in with the law? Arrested for sitting in at shanties to prevent the cops from pulling them down (can you guess when I graduated from college?).

20. When was your first detention? Never.

21. What was the first state you lived in? The one I live in now.

22. Who was the first person to break your heart? The son of a famous feminist, only he didn't know it. If you mean the first person I actually was in a relationship with who broke my heart, the answer would be the same as #2.

23. Who was your first roommate? My first actual roommate in the room was an anorexic theology/astrophysics joint major who was the scariest person in the facebook. She tried to kill herself in October, left school, and was never heard from again. However, she was made up for by A, who lived in the other room of the suite, who I lived with for four years and have talked to three times this week.

24. Where did you go on your first limo ride? I’ve never been in a limo.

Bad Yoga

Worst yoga class ever this morning? And I know it wasn't me, because about ten minutes into it, I started visualizing northern California in the spring, and my friend A who is in India, and since those are both happy places, as it were, I thought it boded well for a good class. Not.

This teacher (whom I've never had), she was just pretty much not so good. First of all, she kept referring to a little piece of paper on which she had apparently written out her plan. Have you ever seen such a thing? I haven't. Now, I have often marveled at how these yoga teachers just lead us through their elaborate patterns of poses, apparently straight out of their heads, and I have wondered whether they plan ahead or just kind of go improv, but it has always been a given that that is what yoga teachers do, however it is they do it. The cheat sheet? Not so much.

And then the poses were just kind of weird and pointless. Lots of pushing your elbows together for no good reason, and moving over to the side, and she kept using weird language (put your fingers in a basket? never did that before in a yoga class). She also didn't really have the beat down. Now, I always have problems keeping up with other people's expectations for breathing, like the whole inhale/exhale thing, but I am confident enough in my yoga at this point to go with my breathing rather than the instructions, once it's clear that the teacher has a different rhythm than I do. Only this chick didn't really have a rhythm. She'd tell us to inhale and do something, then she'd get distracted, and then like three breaths later she'd tell us to exhale, and what the hell?

Finally--yes, there's more--this studio--which generally I quite like--always has a pose of the month. This month it's lotus, which is fine with me because I've always been able to do lotus, no problem. So she said we were doing a lot of hip openers and shoulder openers because the pose of the month is lotus (which has what to do with shoulder openers? nothing, as far as I can tell) and then WE NEVER DID LOTUS! What's up with that?

So I just got itchier and more irritated, and then the true proof of my irritation was when all of a sudden, with no rhyme or reason, she said "Now lie down for shivasana." Now I don't know about your yoga classes, but most of the yoga classes I go to start however they start (usually either standing or on the floor), then do standing poses, sitting poses, floor poses, back bends, and inversions (though sometimes they leave out back bends and inversions), and then shivasana, so you're not usually SURPRISED by shivasana. But this was kneeling poses, then wacko standing poses, then a bit of sitting, then BANG shivasana. And for the first time in my life, I couldn't do shivasana. I mean, the whole point of yoga class is to be rewarded with shivasana! But I was just like, this was ridiculous, this class didn't even happen, how does she expect me to do shivasana? Plus she was clumping around and whispering with someone in the back (really, she just sucked). So I sat up and did lotus. And watched her put on her socks. And noticed that lots of people do shivasana however the hell they want, like with ankles crossed and what-have-you, and the person in front of me was doing shoulder stand (oh yeah, I forgot that when she said we should get into position for shivasana, she also said that if we wanted to do another pose, we should--talk about abdicating responsibility!). And then I didn't om when she told us to at the end. So there!

And that is the story of the worst yoga class ever. Luckily, she was a sub.

Lisa Marie Presley: Harassed Into Revealing Pregnancy

Dear Lisa Marie,

I must confess that I have not done any research into your contention that you have been so harassed about your "expanding physique" that you had to reveal that you were pregnant, but I have to say I'm not impressed. Do you really not have sufficient self-esteem to ignore people who don't know what they're talking about when they say that you're fat and you know that you're pregnant? I mean, the media has been around for your whole life--I would hope that you would have control of your own reality by now. And what about Angelina Jolie and J. Lo? Both got bigger, both were the subject of immense speculation, both stayed quiet. But wait, both are real stars, and you...um, maybe not. Could it be that the problem is your own anxiety about your celebrity status and your relationship to the media?

Oh well, best of luck with the baby and all that.

Take care,
Becca

I Had a Nice Day Today!

Was not looking forward to it, due to host of obligations, but it turned out to be the best day I've had in a while.

Much fun and socializing at the festival at E's school. I feel that between work and illness, I have not seen anyone in a very long time, but Thursday I had coffee with Local K, and Friday morning I rode the bus with T, inadvertently but quite delightfully, and had breakfast with P, purposefully and equally delightfully, and then at the festival I saw several of the friend/acquaintances one never plans to see but always enjoys when circumstances bring you together. Also I volunteered for an hour, because that is what one does at our school, and that made the time pass much more quickly, productively, and unboringly.

Then I took the girls to work, which actually did not go very well in terms of what needed to be accomplished, but was quite fun and full of hilarity, and the girls were absolutely angelic, though it is not hard to be angelic at this workplace, because it has all sorts of things to make you happy, if you are one of my daughters.

Then we went out to dinner, all four of us, for the first time since I can remember (usually it is only three of us going out to dinner, because one of us is cooking dinner for other people going out to dinner), at the no-longer-so-new Brazilian restaurant, which was very good. They brought around skewers of meat, and M and S ate them, and I marveled at them.

And then--yes, it's not even over--I went to a movie! OK, so it wasn't the best movie ever (I am refraining from the narrative/structural critique in light of the conventions of romantic comedy, oh yes I am), but it was a movie! and I went with M who wanted to go and did not need to be dragged! and we laughed! and she liked it!

But there's still more! You know the cake, the one I baked last night for the cake walk? Well, my lovely children were convinced that it would be the first cake to go, but you would not even believe how many cakes there were. And which went first? The ones with the peeps. Yes, there were cakes decorated with peeps. Then the ones with the gummy worms. And the ones with the oreos. And the green ones. So by the times M and E made it to the cake walk (where I was collecting tickets), our cake, with the boring M and Ms, was still there. And E won it! (Somewhat nefariously, as there was one space open in the cake walk, and she was sitting on the sidelines, so I told her she could walk, even though she didn't have a ticket, and then of course she won, somewhat to my embarassment, so when I was done with my shift, I went and bought her a ticket and put it in the can...)

So now I must say a little more about the cake. It's Devil's Food from Mom's Big Book of Baking with Chocolate Satin Frosting (scroll down about 2/3) from Joy of Cooking (1997 edition). It did indeed have little lumps of cocoa (see yesterday's post), but it's fine, tasty enough. Only, the thing is, I think I've decided that Devil's Food Cake just isn't that interesting. It always turns out kind of dry and moderately chocolatey and, well, it's the 21st century now, and we can do better than that. Yes we can!

And now I get to what is perhaps the most exciting thing of the day. Alas, I can't share the details, but I can tell you that I am now, to my enormous surprise, in possession of an ARC of The Explosionist (I can't believe Amazon doesn't have a picture of the cover, and I can't find Jenny's post with the cover). Of course I immediately emailed Jenny with this fabulous news, and we were equally thrilled, but now I am in that awkward position where she knows I am about to read it and what if I don't like it? Well, we won't worry about that, and yes, Libby, I'll send it to you when I'm done. Only maybe I shouldn't because if we just pass around this ARC, then Jenny won't make any money, and that wouldn't be very good at all...