Harry Potter

(Warning: I will be discussing all seven books, so if you haven't finished them, don't keep reading.)

I just read all seven Harry Potter books for the second time. (That is to say, I have only read all seven in sequence one other time. I'm sure I've read some of the earlier books more than twice. I'm also sure I have only read 6 & 7 twice, and maybe 5, too.) Gosh, they are good books. Even now, I'm having trouble getting interested in any other books; I just want to read them all over again.

This was the first time I read the books as a parent, and that gave me one new dimension to appreciate - namely, that I really love the values portrayed in the books, and I really want Zoe and any future children to learn them. This may come as a surprise to those ultra-Christian groups who think Harry Potter is the devil, but the moral universe in the Harry Potter books is exactly the one I want for my kids. One of the ideas I like the best is the idea that your choices make you who you are, and make your life; it's not fate or destiny or anything like that. Dumbledore shows Harry over and over again that a) the Sorting Hat placed him in Gryffindor NOT because of some innately Gryffindorian traits he possesses (or at least not only because of them) but because he asks to be placed there as opposed to Slytherin. The asking, the wanting to be in the "good" house rather than the "bad" house is the key, and b) while Voldemort believed the prophecy about a boy who could defeat him, it wasn't the prophecy, but his belief in it, and the actions and reactions he set in motion by believing it, that result in a Harry Potter fully committed to Voldemort's death. Dumbledore emphasizes that Harry gets to choose the part he plays in this prophecy as well; he could easily choose not to pursue the man who murdered his parents. But he won't, and it's his choice, not the prophecy, that makes him the person who will kill Voldemort.

The other is that it all comes down to love. At first I was dismissive of this lesson, because it sounds so gooey. But the way it plays out in the books, love has very real effects, both magical and non-magical. Because Harry's mother died to save him, Harry lived. Because Harry loves his parents (even though he doesn't know them), he is, in the end, determined to vanquish Voldemort. And while Voldemort thinks he can rule through fear, he ends up losing nearly all of his followers to love. Snape leaves him because he loves Harry's mother more than he fears Voldemort. Narcissa Malfoy betrays him because she loves her son more than she fears Voldemort. Regulus Black (and I think I'm reading Kreacher's story right) loves Kreacher more than he fears the Dark Lord, so he betrays him. The only Death Eater we are shown would never betray Voldemort is the one who loves him more than she fears him - Bellatrix LeStrange. And it's not just a sort of "love is all around, all you need is love, what the world needs now is love, sweet love" message. It's that love - genuine love - is a greater motivator than just about anything else, and has more power in people's lives than anything else - and that it should be so. I definitely want my children to be motivated by love more than anything else.

But naturally there are things that are sticking in my craw a bit. The first point, which is small, is, how did Peter Pettigrew get into Gryffindor? Even before he becomes a Death Eater, he displays only Slytherian qualities, if he could be said to display any qualities at all. Until Deathly Hallows, I had written it off as, maybe he was in Slytherin but hung out with the Marauders because they were the most popular boys in school, but one of Snape's memories in DH makes it clear he was in Slytherin. How? Another of Snape's memories has Dumbledore musing that perhaps children are Sorted too early, but I don't know if I buy that, at 11, Pettigrew was more inclined to bravery or loyalty than he was at 15. (Also, a nitpick. In Book 1, Hagrid says that there wasn't a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. At that point, he doesn't know Pettigrew went bad. But he thinks Sirius Black did.)

I also think I would have liked it if J. K. Rowling had done more to make Ginny Harry's equal and counterpart. Not that Ginny is not a strong character, but she continually has to take a back seat, both in terms of presence in the novels and in terms of participation in the action. She's still in the car, if you will, but she never gets to drive the way Ron and Hermione occasionally do. Or even read the map. I would have liked it if she did. Or if she could have been given her own car - if, instead of saying, as all heroes must say in these stories, "No, don't come with me on my quest, because if Bad Dude knows I lurve you, you'll be in danger," Harry had said, "Go to Hogwarts; your mother will flip if four of her children drop out, and anyway, you'll lead the DA there with Snape in charge and me, Ron and Hermione gone." He could have said that, and then J. K. Rowling would not have needed to change the structure of anything, and it would have sat better with me. I mean, I hate the trope of the Hero parting from is Lurve because if the Bad Guy knows . . . Like, come on. The Bad Guy always knows. Also, Ginny is in major danger regardless of her romance with Harry. Every of-age wizard in her family except for Percy is in the Order of the Phoenix, and Percy's in the ministry. She has enough targets drawn on her back; Harry's really doesn't make much of a difference. Also, Harry quite inaccurately states that Voldemort, in the form of his diary, already went after Ginny just for being his best friend's sister. I could be wrong, but I thought Malfoy gave the diary to Arthur Weasley's daughter to trip up Arthur Weasley, not to Harry Potter's best friend's sister to trip up Harry. That Tom Riddle-who-would-become-Voldemort was delighted to have Harry in his sights was incidental; it wasn't WHY Ginny was targeted. Further proving my point that Ginny already had non-Harry-related targets on her back. But I'm not blaming J. K. Rowling for that; I think it's pretty standard genre stuff that the hero has to keep his love away from him.

Finally, I am unsatisfied with the way wizards and Muggles interact. I first started being very bothered by this in Order of the Phoenix. In OP, Harry practices magic at home, even though he is a) underage, and b) in front of a Muggle, thus breaking two statutes - the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy. As he did the spell to get rid of the soul-sucking dementors, thus saving his cousin from their evil kiss, everyone assures him that he'll get off, as there is a provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for extraordinary, life-threatening circumstances. Indeed, because the Decree has "Reasonable" in the title, I'd have to imagine that their are provisions for all sorts of things. But no one mentions any provisions under the International Statute of Secrecy which could let him. And I have to wonder, given that many, many wizards and witches are apparently born to Muggles, and many wizards and witches marry Muggles, isn't there a provision in the Internation Statute of Secrecy for Muggles who obviously already know that magic is real? Like, say, a wizard's cousin, who was there when the owl delivered him his Hogwarts letter? Are we to believe that, had Voldemort not arisen, thus necessitating their departure for Australia, when Hermione came of age, she would not have been allowed to do magic in her parents' house? If a person marries a Muggle, can they not do magic in front of their spouse? That doesn't make any sense. And yet no one mentions it.

But this led me to further speculation about Muggle and wizard interaction. On the one hand, we see adult wizards and witches totally ill-equipped to occupy Muggle space. They don't know how to dress like Muggles; they don't know how to use Muggle money; they can't cope with simple Muggle electronics. Furthermore, the education system for wizards - Hogwarts - does not prepare witches and wizards for jobs or associations outside the wizard world. They don't take Economics or English Literature. They take Charms and Potions. (Well, I'm sure those skilled at Potions could find a market for their skills in the Muggle world. But then they'd be breaking the International Statute of Secrecy.) This would suggest a total break between the Muggle world and the wizard world.

And yet. Hogsmeade is the only all-wizard community in England. Given the behavior suggesting such a total break, wouldn't all wizards want to live in all-wizard communities? This is allegedly addressed by the claim in Deathly Hallows that a lot of towns attract a large number of wizards, like Godric's Hollow. And things happen like wizard homes being concealed from Muggle vision in these areas. But that doesn't really satisfy me. I mean, what do the wizards do if they want to pick up some groceries? And where do they pick up wizarding things like Chocolate frogs and extra eye of newt? Surely they don't travel from all over England to go to Diagon Alley every week? Even with Apparation (which the whole family can't do anyway) that's kind of a pain in the ass.

Furthermore, given how many wizards come from Muggle families or marry Muggles, how can so many of them remain so ignorant of the basics of Muggle life? Don't they have to deal with their in-laws? Like, let's assume that Hermione brought her parents back from Australia after Voldemort was gone and restored their memories and everything. Doesn't Ron therefore hang out with her parents a lot? Don't the senior Weasleys see their in-laws? And doesn't this happen with frequency across the wizarding world? Not all families are the Blacks, blasting people off their family trees for associating with Muggles.

And given that this must happen all the time, how could the adults remain in such a fog about Muggle ways, and Muggle dressing, etc.? It doesn't really fit.

But then taking the near-total separation of wizard and Muggle communities as a given, where do wizards and/or witches even meet Muggles to marry?

I understand how these inconsistencies functioned in the story. Placing wizards in non-wizard communities gives that sense of this magical universe existing right within the regular one - it could be your neighbor! It could be you! And it allows J. K. Rowling to create this magical world as part of our world, rather than as a whole separate universe. And then all the adult wizards and witches not knowing how to operate in the Muggle world is funny. It's especially funny given the targeted age range of the books - it's all stuff that the child readers of this series know how to do perfectly well. Nothing is funnier to a certain age group than knowing better than grown-ups. So fine. But it's still bugging me.

I also wish she'd done a little more with the epilogue. What happens to Harry after he defeats Voldemort? Does he become an Auror? Does he ever become Minister of Magic? Does Dolores Umbridge get fired? What happens to the Ministry? Do the laws making life hard for werewolves, etc., get repealed? Is the banking still done with goblins? How does Mrs. Weasley do after losing one son and gaining one back? How does George do? Who raises Teddy? Where do they all live and what do they all do for a living? I want so much more. But I guess she couldn't write a whole extra novel. It just would have been nice to see how some of the themes of the story played out, vis a vis how the Ministry handled the things it handled badly before the return of Voldemort.

Bill Maher

I find this man just infuriating. I think the problem is that I like a good 85% of what he has to say - but the other 15% is just maddening. I Tivo'd one of his comedy specials and I know it's very old news and he's done plenty of other things to make me mad since then, but my goodness did this special infuriate me.

And it does hurt the most that I like most of the stuff he does. For this particular comedy special, he (or his team) created a series of posters that were designed to look like the government posters created around World War II, but which pertain to the current (and my God, it's still the current war seven years after this special) war. Like a poster of a giant SUV sporting American flags with the tag line, "Empty gestures don't win wars!" It's part of his rant about how the government never really asked us to do anything for this war the way they did around WWII, and his rant about how driving these gas guzzlers funds terrorism more than, say, marijuana.

I mean, he's in the middle of this perfectly agreeable rant about why on earth is lying about who gave you a blow job worse than any other lie a president could make, which is obviously very old news and was even in 2003 but with which I heartily agree, but then he has to say, "It just backs up my case that this is a feminized country, because obviously the worst thing anyone can ever do in America is get a blow job!" Excuse me?! Excuse me?! Why does this have to become about "feminized"? And, fuck you very much, major feminist organizations, like NOW, stood by Clinton during the sex scandals. They actually took heat for this from those conservative women who belong to groups that sound like they might be feminist for 30 seconds until you read what they actually believe in. Whereas most of the people screaming for Clinton's resignation were men. Who, as it has turned out, were getting plenty of their own illicit blow jobs.

And then he gets even worse. He blames women for terrorism because women, all of them, insist on diamonds, knowing that a) terrorists use them to launder money, and b) terrible things happen surrounding the mining of diamonds in Africa. He says, and I quote, "I know women hate to hear that because women think about diamonds the way men think about sex, the way leeches think about blood." Nice. Very nice. It is shocking to me that Bill Maher gets women to have sex with him at all. He says he told a woman friend about the atrocities committed in the name of mining diamonds, who he describes as "only about the nicest person I've ever met, but she is a woman." I hope that this woman is no longer friends with him.

He starts talking about how you can say things about men that you can't say about women, like if you go on a daytime talk show, you can say "Women are really smarter than men," and you'll get applause, but you can't say "Men are smarter than women." But he says, "I know it's the national law here in America that women are more evolved than men, but if that's true, then how come they're still so impressed by shiny objects?" Can you imagine saying that about another group in America?

He claims that he realizes that not all women fit his description of feminine, but then goes on to say, "For lack of a better term, I would say that feminine values are now the values of America. Sensitivity is more important than truth. Feelings are more important than facts. Commitment is more important than individuality. Children are more important than people. Safety is more important than fun!" And I'd like to take these items one by one.

When he says "Sensitivity is more important than truth," he's, I believe, referring to "political correctness" and not calling a spade a spade because it's not "polite," and while that was a terrific point to make back in, oh, 1996, I feel that the anti-pcers - him included - have turned into assholes. They don't want to call a spade a spade, they want to call a spade a fucking retarded n-word kyke pussy spade, and then they want to complain that anyone who's offended is too sensitive and is also - while not at all throwing them in jail or in anyway excercising governmental power over them - destroying their freedom of speech. And yes, being sensitive is more worthy a value than being an asshole.

"Feelings are more important than facts." When I think of 2003, and who was making feelings more important than facts, I think of the president and the president's administration, nearly all of whom were men. And their feelings were, FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM, BILL, I'M NOT ANTI-MAN JUST BECAUSE I'M TALKING ABOUT THEM THIS WAY, masculine feelings - revenge, violence, wanting to punch something.

"Commitment is more important than individuality"? Since when? I don't know what the fuck he's talking about here; I think this country could use a good dose of not being quite so obsessed with individuality.

"Children are more important than people" is quite a lot to unpack. First of all, why, in Bill Maher's view, and in many (single, childless) men's views, are children only women's concern? Don't you people have something to do with children? And if you continue to posit that children are only women's concerns, then don't talk to me about a father's right not to have his baby aborted, or whatever the hell else father's rights groups are up in arms about. Until you stop assigning "children" to "women," STFU. Then, I guess a lot of people feel that a lot of American society is designed around children, and unfairly. Look at our movies, look at what can and can't be shown or said on television, blah blah blah. And I believe, in this regard, he's got a point. But when you look at other measures - like that old people can get single-payer, government sponsored health care and social security and children can't - we're not very child-centered at all. And I think paying for health care and keeping people out of poverty is more significant than where and when curses can be said on television.

I have nothing on "Safety is more important than fun!" I aim to be a Free Range Parent; I agree with him on that score. But I hate agreeing with him; it just makes me mad!

And he can't make this distinction between actual women and "feminine values" when he immediately afterwards goes into a rant about wives and women and how awful it is to be a woman. He claims that, as the last unmarried man among his friends, their wives don't want them hanging out with him because he's "like an escaped slave. I bring news of freedom." Like, fuck you very much, being a married MAN is exactly like being a slave. He makes fun of the notion that married men live longer, essentially saying, sure, they live long lives of quiet desperation. But married men don't only live longer than single men, they do better in all realms of physical and mental health. Oddly enough, the same is not true for women; married women only do better than single women healthwise if they describe themselves as happily married. And a lot fewer women describe themselves as happily married than men.

Then he picks up on examples of oppressed men that I think are actually about oppressed women. Like hot, smart women in sitcoms being married to dumb schlubs. Now, I have long wondered why men are not more offended by being depicted as dumb schlubs all the time, and apparently, Bill Maher is, and fine. But what does it say about society that hot, smart women can't do any better than dumb schlubs? Or that hot, smart women still need a marriage so badly, in order to be considered socially acceptable, that they are willing to marry dumb schlubs? Or that schlubby, fat men can work in show business with no problem, they can even get their own sitcoms, but women had better be earth-shatteringly gorgeous if they want to show their faces on any screen anywhere?

Then he has the nerve to suggest that women wouldn't get breast implants if they stopped making men apologize for being men. That makes no sense at all. He says men don't care about big boobs, they just care about new sex partners. He points out that Hugh Grant had Elizabeth Hurley at home but still went to a less attractive prostitute. I think he's missing something. Women aren't looking to be paid $50 to fuck Hugh Grant in the backseat of a car. Women - the kind of women who are likely to get breast implants, anyway - are looking to marry Hugh Grant. But the whole thing is offensive and nonsensical either way.

He makes a big joke of a couples counselor on a daytime talk show suggesting exploring "mutual fantasties." He claims women and men have no mutual fantasies. "Yours bore us, and ours offend you." I begin to suspect that Bill Maher a) doesn't actually know a lot of women, and b) doesn't have very good sex.

But the thing that really kills me is that he conflates "women getting their egos stroked on daytime tv" with "women having actual power." Here's how you know you have actual power - no one needs to pat your back and say you're really the smarter one on daytime television. Sure, it might be a popular, if trite and untrue, statement to say "If women ran the world, there wouldn't be any wars." But if women actually ran the world, you wouldn't need to say that. It's only because women continue to really, really not run the world that there's any call for saying that.

And for those of you who only give a shit when I'm writing about Zoe, I will have you know that she agrees with this entire post, although she does not feel that Bill Maher's other 85% is funny enough to watch, when we could be watching babies dance to "Single Ladies" on You Tube instead.

Just Say "No"?

This got me thinking this week. (Warning: Rambling to follow.) Now, I'm not saying I'm in favor of high heels for babies, partially because, ew, wrong, and partially because, knowing I have roughly the same coordination as a toddler, and knowing how well I walk in heels, I foresee disaster. But I feel like there's this attitude in the media I consume which responds to just about all of this nonsense with, "But where are the parents? Why can't they just say no?" And I notice that, for the most part, the people writing these posts are not themselves parents.

Now, I don't want to come across as one of those, "Say no to my precious princess? Never!" parents (although she's nearly 18 months old, still breastfeeding, and still sleeping in my f-ing bed, so I clearly do have a problem saying no to my precious princess). But I don't think these writers appreciate just how difficult saying no all the time is.

There are thousands of things that reasonable parents don't want their kids to have that are being marketed, aggressively, to children. Baby high heels. Makeovers for seven-year-olds. Thongs in size 2T. "Breakfast" "cereals" that are basically globs of high-fructose corn syrup held together with sawdust. Staying tuned for the next 22-minute advertisement for a line of licensed-character products. BRATZ dolls. Video games the point of which is killing women dressed like BRATZ dolls. Disney princesses.* $130 blue jeans as worn by Taylor Swift or some such person. And on and on and on. And the people marketing these things have spent billions of dollars insuring that your precious princes and princesses will not shut up about these products for more than 20 seconds a day. They call it the "Nag Factor"; it's been a wildly successful marketing ploy.

You, as a parent, do not have billions of dollars to promote your agenda of steamed broccoli and nice, non-gender-specific, developementally oriented wooden toys from Sweden. You also don't want your entire relationship with your kids to be defined by the word "No." That may sound self-serving, but all of the parenting stuff I've been reading recently suggests that this is true for all ages. At the toddler stage, you are advised to design your home environment so that you don't have to say "No" all the time, because your child will tune it out if it's all they ever hear, and also to try to only say "No" if the thing they're doing is actually dangerous, as opposed to just annoying or messy. With older children, the advise to pick your battles and respect your kids' choices to the extent possible is pretty prevalent right now. Furthermore, it's more than just self-serving to not have a constant litany of "No" and "But Mo-om!" in your house. It develops trust and it means your kids are more likely to listen to you when you really, really need them to. Also, it's one thing to say, "No, I won't be buying you the toy you want above all others" on an average Tuesday, but every parent wants to see that look of joy and delight on Christmas morning, a Chanukah evening, or a birthday that they can produce by getting their child what they wanted most in their dearest, deepest heart.

So you might, as a parent, decide that high heels are fine for your three-year-old, just to keep the peace, even though you think it's atrocious that a three-year-old should be taught to strive for that particular image. But one of the posters said that this is one area where the government should not shoulder the responsibilities that fairly belong to the parents, and I think that's not necessarily the right way to think about this. I mean, yes, if toddler high heels were the only objectionable thing being advertised, then fine, leave the burden on the parents. But it's not, not by a long shot, and there are things governments can do to ease the burden of saying "No" all the time on parents. Like not allowing for the kind of aggressive marketing aimed at children. They got rid of Joe Camel; can't they get rid of other stuff, as well? Lucky Charms aren't much better for your children than cigarettes. And there's a lot more that I'm sure can be done to control the kinds of messages and products being marketed to children, and that the government can do, and indeed, only the government can do.

It might not be a bad idea for parents to do something, too, but I have a feeling that their would be too much to hope that any parents' group wouldn't fracture for lack of agreement about what, exactly, is bad for children. Like, there's a parents' group that evidently got a warning label put on the original Sesame Street DVDs stating that these were not for children because it depicted children, like, biking around their neighborhoods unsupervised and such. I would clearly not agree with that. Or I'm sure there would be parents' groups that frowned on frank discussions of sex in media aimed at the tween set. I wouldn't. But plenty of parents I'm sure would be fine with Lucky Charms, and I sometimes feel like a wingnut with my objection to Grand Theft Auto. You'd have to have several associations of parents, each with their own set of problems with children's stuff, giving their various certifications and boycotts. I don't know how that would work, really. But it's a thought.

Okay, here's where I'm going to ramble a bit, so if you prefer more coherent posts, stop reading now. First of all, with the sexualization of kids at younger and younger ages. I buy some of Zoe's clothes at Gymboree, which makes pretty high-quality and cute stuff for children.** But I've had a big problem with how very gendered their clothing is, even the stuff for newborns. And it's one thing to have, you know, a monkey for the boys and a monkey with a PINK BOW for girls even for the 0-3 month set because gosh, don't you know, girls just like pink, it's nothing to do with socialization at all, but then I noticed something that really bugged me. Zoe already had a pair of shorts from the girl side, and they were pretty short, but I didn't care, I mean, she was a baby, what difference does it make? But then, we had a bit of a clothing emergency at the mall - namely, she peed all over her clothes while I was changing her. So we ran - nakey - into the Gymboree and over to their sales racks. Well, I already had most of the stuff on the girl side so I went to the boy side and got her an adorable t-shirt with an elephant on it and blue shorts. When I put the shorts on her, I realized that the boy shorts were about three inches longer than the girl shorts. And then that just struck me as wrong. Why do girls who are not even a year old yet need to show off their legs more than boys? Why can't they produce basically the same shape shorts for the same shape bodies - baby-shaped bodies? That's just weird, I'm sorry, but it is.

Second, not for nothing, but every time I read posts about the discipline parents ought to be giving children and aren't, I notice a theme. I notice that most of the people writing do not have children. And I notice that there are a lot of stories along the lines of, "If I ever behaved like that, my mother would put a stop to it so fast it would make your head spin." But I don't hear, "When my child behaved like that, I put a stop to it immediately; you never saw my children behave like that." It's easy to think of your mom as whatever it is you think moms are supposed to be, but until and unless you have children (and sometimes not even then), you don't realize that your mom had to put effort into that stance, and may remember the incidences in question in a far different light. You may remember that, that time you screamed for a cookie in the supermarket, your mother took you right out of the supermarket and sent you to your room, but what you don't remember is that she was very frustrated and upset and embarrassed by the first fifteen minutes of you shouting for that cookie, and that because she had to take you out of the store, all she had to give you for lunch the next day was a weeks-old pear and some crackers. You may not remember that, in fact, you screamed for cookies EVERY TIME you went to the supermarket, which resulted in her having to rearrange her life to go to the supermarket without you, which was enormously trying and difficult. You know, The Daily Show had a great routine recently where they were trying to figure out what Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly were talking about when they kept on about a purer, simpler time in America and eventually realized that these men were referring to their own childhoods. And one's own childhood is always experienced differently than the adults who are experiencing the exact same time, because duh. That is all.

Finally- and I'll keep this short because God knows it touches on everything - why are we so willing in this country to absolve the government of responsibility for everything? Oh, that's not for the government, that's for parents (and a lot falls into that category, including figuring out affordable education and health care). Oh, that's not for government, that's for corporations to police themselves on (and they do such a good job of policing themselves). Oh, that's not for the federal government, that's for the state governments, who aren't going to deal with it either. Excuse me, but what do we have a government for? The United States is not exactly fending off invasions every moment of the day; we can let the government spend money and time on something other than the military. And if the government is not there in order to use its resources - resources it has because of the very collectivity of its nature - to make the lives of its citizens better and easier, and to police the organizations (like corporations) who don't have its citizens' best interest at heart, then what exactly is government for? To give 24-hour news channels something to do?

Okay, I'll stop. God knows I could go on. And on. But I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to do so in other posts.

*My mother-in-law found a Disney-princess-themed kitchen set at a garage sale which I find hilarious because if you turn the pages in the "cookbook," you hear things like "Ariel, why don't you make that delicious apple pie the prince likes so much!" I'm serious. All else aside, why are princesses baking their own pies?

**Actually, as I was linking this, I saw their new Daisies collection and omg so cute. Clearly Zoe will be sporting some of those pieces this spring.

Rainbow Fish

Zoe has the book Rainbow Fish, by Mark Pfister. It's a very popular book. I think it came out when my brother was young because I remember him having it, although I have no memory of reading it to him, possibly because I was expected to read The Lorax full time. But Zoe loves fish (just like her namesake Grandma Sally (sniff)) so she sometimes asks that it be read to her. I have to say, I sort of hate it. It's one of those Important Message books, which I don't object to on principle, although they do tend to be less fun to read than books without Important Messages. But I'm not sure I like the Message. The book has Rainbow Fish, with very shiny, pretty scales, feeling superior to the other fish and unable to make friends. When another fish asks Rainbow Fish for one of his pretty, shiny scales, Rainbow Fish says no. So no one wants to be his friend. Then he goes to the magical octopus or whoever and the magical octopus tells him to share his scales and then he'll have friends. So he gives all his scales away and then people want to be friends with him.

I understand, it's bad to feel superior to other people, especially when your only claim to superiority is not really your fault (like your looks). And I understand it's good to have friends, and it's good to share. But I feel like the underlying messages here are also, "People will only want to be your friends if you give them stuff," and, "In order to make friends, you have to give away what makes you unique." I don't really like either of those messages.

Maybe I'm nuts. This is a very popular book, and so far the only other person I know who doesn't like it is Jason, who thinks it's perfectly fine to feel superior to other people.

Clarification

I just want to clarify what I said to my sister-in-law regarding same-sex marriage and the state. I do want them to get married without the approval of the government, and mainly it is for, yes, selfish and superficial reasons, like, I want to celebrate their commitment to each other now, and I want to be able to refer to her fiancee as her wife or her spouse or whatever they are going to use now instead of whenever either California or Illinois gets off its ass.

But also, I do not believe that what the state grants is the "true" marriage. She said she thinks sometimes about having a "fake" wedding, but, in my opinion, the commitment you make in front of your family, and your friends, and your God or god(s) if you believe in them, and to each other in a ceremony with meaning to you is the real marriage. The state merely agrees to register you as married for their own purposes. I am sure there are many, many human beings in the world who have signed a state marriage license whose relationship is not anywhere near as real as the one my sister-in-law and her fiancee share. In fact, I think the same-sex marriage movement should change its rhetoric from "The state won't let us get married" to "The state refuses to recognize our marriage."

I do realize that I get to feel that way - that the marriage is the "real" part and the state license is the "fake" part - because I have the extraordinary privilege of having both. I really do get that and I don't expect my sister-in-law to accept the state's lack of recognition for her relationship lying down. I also don't expect her to have a wedding ceremony because I have a different opinion than she does on this topic. I just wanted to clarify that my position is not, "Fuck marriage," and "I want to see my daughter in a twirly dress." Or at least it's not entirely that.

More Stuff I Forgot

The other word she says that isn't a real word is "Yoo-wah!" which she seems to employ as a sort of war cry. I also forgot splish-splash and choo-choo on the original list. She also identifies Noddy, a British children's book character, by name.

Things Zoe Does That Are Cute

First of all, I think we can add "Don't touch!" and "Thank you!" to the list. And I think we may have successfully changed "Shit" to "Shoot." Which could be a whole post in and of itself, about how I don't want to be the kind of mother who cares if my daughter uses curse words, but I also don't want to be the kind of mother that gets a reputation in the kindergarten for teaching her daughter to curse. But that's neither here nor there.

And now, for posterity . . .

Zoe makes out with me. I'm serious. She puts her mouth on mine for several seconds at a time, and sometimes moves her head back and forth. It's pretty funny.

Zoe plays "Mine!" It seemed that it would be foolish of me, when I noticed that during a play date she was grabbing things out of the other children's hands and saying, "Me!" to first teach her that it's "Mine," not "Me," and second, to engage her in a game wherein she grabs a book or something of mine and says, "Mine!" so I grab it back and say "Mine!" and we do this for a little while. But I think it was not foolish. For one thing, I did not encourage her to do this with her friends here; at that point, I instructed her to share. For another, she now almost exclusively does this as a game with me, and means to do it as a game. She sort of wants the book, but mostly she wants to grab it back and forth with me. How do I know? Because she keeps doing it - once she has the book, she again declares "Mine," and then holds it so that I can easily grab it back. And she's almost entirely stopped doing this with objects we genuinely don't want her to have, like the remote, because it doesn't produce the game - if she grabs it and says, "Mine!" we grab it back and say, "No, it isn't," and put it out of her reach.

Zoe loves her sleeping Daddy. When Daddy is asleep, Zoe climbs on top of him and gives him lots of kisses. Sometimes, she gives his arm or back or head long, gentle pats and says "Nice!" Sometimes she cuddles up into his arm and rests her head on her shoulder. Okay, so sometimes she starts smacking him and pulling at the hair on his head, arms, and legs. But the other stuff is pretty adorable.

Zoe reads like we do. She'll take a book, either one of hers or one of mine, and sit on the chair or couch, not on our laps, like a big girl, open it, and start "reading" - babbling and pointing to the words like she knows. Or she'll just silently examine the pages and flip through them carefully - even if it's one of my books, with no pictures. If she does this in bed, she'll also pull the covers up over her legs and make herself extra-comfy against the pillows.

Zoe blows raspberries on our bellies. She's been doing this for a long time now, maybe eight or nine months. It's even cuter now because she says "Belly!" and then does it.

Zoe announces when she's going to hurt me. You may have read in my previous post that she says "Oof" and "Ow." It should be noted that she does not say these things when she is hurt. She does these things when she's about to hurt me. She says "Ow!" when she's about to pinch me or pull my hair, and "Oof" when she's about to jump on top of me. Let it never be said the girl doesn't understand context.

Zoe likes to help. As I said before, she likes to wipe up her messes. She also likes to sweep and swiffer (but not vacuum, understandably). And she likes to do things for us that we ordinarily do for her. Like brush our teeth or our hair. Or feed us. I can barely get through a meal these days without her grabbing my fork and directing my food into my mouth. Oh, and she also helps make the bed by tucking the sheets in. And, as many of you know, she helped me cook for Thanksgiving by throwing spinach in the pot and then stirring it with the wooden spoon. She also helpfully shouts "No!" and "Down!" at Beaches.

Zoe likes to call her "Uh Mo." This whole week, she's been picking up the phone, handing it to us, and demanding "Uh Mo." Today when we called him, she then snatched the phone from me and walked around with it up to her ear, telling him very important things that, sadly, only she understands.

Zoe remembers. Yesterday when we went to the doctor's office, she started screaming the minute we entered the room. Then again when Jay (the guy who gives the shots) entered the room. It was awful. But, less awfully and more adorably, last week at Hebrew School, we went outside to say hello to Dr. Levin, who is the mother of one of my kids. While we were out there, a doggie passed by and Zoe got very excited and made many comments about the presence of a doggie. Later, when we went out to walk to our car, we passed by the same spot, where there was no longer a doggie, but she pointed to the spot and said "Doggie!" and went through her usual panting and woofing routine.

Well, that's just a smattering of adorable things she does. I'll try to keep updating this.

And Another!

I forgot the fake-sleeping sound she makes that I can't possibly transcribe but you all know what I mean - the fake light snoring you make to "pretend" you're asleep.

Already an Addenda!

I forgot about "Whee!" and "A-Boom!"

Also, I think she says "Swish!" which is what I say when I successfully throw her diaper into the garbage can in the garage, and "Catch!" I'm not positive about "Catch!" because I don't recall that either Jason or I say it to her much, but she is using it in the appropriate context. That is, she says it when she's about to throw something at one of us. So that counts, right?

Does it count if she makes the same sound in the same context, even it it's not a word we recognize? Like, she hands me a book and says, "En." It's always very clear, but I don't know what it means, except that clearly it means, "Read me this book now." But none of those words sound like "En," and she knows the word "book."

Words Zoe says (as of 1/18)

Words Zoe says (1/16/2010)

Family:

Mama

Daddy

Grandma

Papa

Beaches

Uncle Mark (Uh Mo)

Miscellaneous:

No

Yes

Peekaboo

booboo

Hi/Hey

Bye

Uh-oh

Uppie

Wow/Whoa

Yay

Ow

Oof

Ta-da!

(sniff) (for a flower)

Mis! (Kiss)

One-two

Animal/Sounds:

Doggie

(pant)

Woof-woof

Millie (cat)

Meow

Sssnake

Hoppy (What a bunny does)

quack-quack

neigh

Mouse

Owl

Whoo (sound an owl makes)

Moo (sound a cow makes)

Hippo

Bear

ooh-ooh ah-ah (monkey)

Fish

Other:

Baby

Oh! (cuddling a baby)

Nice

Light

Shit

Empty

Book

More

Down (dog command)

What’s/Who’s this?

Mine

See?

Manny

Body Parts/Clothes:

Shoe

Hat

Belly

Eye

Nose

Mouth

Elbow

Toe

Ear

Watch

Elbow

Toe

Breast

Food:

Eggs

Juice

Apple

Banana

A Date (with a restaurant and a movie review)

Jason and I went on a date yesterday! Hooray!

Jason found it odd and disconcerting to be out without Zoe. I found it delightful. I of course love her to death and enjoy every moment we spend together, yadda yadda yadda. But it was nice to eat at a restaurant without picking up forks off of the floor one dozen times, or begging her to stay in her high chair and then relenting and eating most of my meal with her on my lap, while Jason shovels down his food so that he can take her. And it was nice to sit and watch a whole movie, beginning to end, in the dark, cuddling with Jason and no one else.

We ate at a new restaurant called The Lucky Monk, the concept of which is home-brewed Trappist-monk-style beers and burgers. I thought it was pretty good. You can choose a lot of different toppings for your burgers. I myself enjoy a fried egg on top of my burger. And we got white truffle-parmesan fries. Delicious. The "thin pour" was very reasonably priced and quite a lot of beer for the price and name.

Avatar was exactly what I expected. It looked absolutely breathtaking. The plot was utterly forgetable. The one pleasant surprise was that I though Giovanni Ribisi did a really excellent job with his corporate asshole role. But I mainly remember him as Phoebe's brother on Friends; maybe his performance wasn't a surprise to people who have seen a lot more of his movies.

I wish I had more to say on these topics but it was just a very pleasant time. Burgers, beer, big-budget movie. A good date!

A Little of This, A Little of That

First of all, I have made a comprehensive list of all the books Zoe already has. As soon as I figure out how to make that widely available, either through here or through our Mobile Me gallery, I will.

Second of all, I want to reassure the none of you who read my last post about not being an adequate girl that I feel a little better now. The hairdresser I went to the other day said she can't blow out her own hair either. So I feel better about my girl skills, although not so confident in her hairdressing skills.

And finally, while I was doing some cleaning up, I saw that I had started a blog when I started trying to get pregnant and there were some interesting posts in there, at least to me, so I'm republishing them here:

December 7, 2007:

I'm trying to get pregnant. I feel like that should start a blog wherein I am 46, not 26, and there's something more to "trying" than "having sex with my husband." But none of that is true. At this point, there's no reason to suspect that the traditional method of trying to get pregnant won't work. Ptooie. (For those of you who are not Jewish, I just spit on my hand to ward off the evil eye.)

This is my second month of trying. Last month, I was absolutely convinced that I'd get pregnant right away. I woke up every morning for a week feeling very hot and slightly nauseous. It meant nothing. In fact, I was probably getting excited about non-existent symptoms. My period was due the day before Thanksgiving, which seemed so exciting to me, to be able to tell my family over Thanksgiving weekend. When it didn't happen, I was more upset than I really should have been. Most people don't get pregnant their first month. So I'm trying not to get all excited this month.

This is also the end of my first quarter of my last year as a grad student. I attend UChicago's Divinity School, and I'll be finishing my MA in June. And then I'm done. I'm not applying to the Ph.d program. I'm simultaneously massively relieved by this, and a little bit edgy.

Not applying for the Ph.d program means that this year, I can be supremely relaxed. No begging for professors' affection. No writing sample to worry about. And I can just enjoy my classes without really being concerned about the grade I'm going to get for them. It's blissful.

On the other hand, I feel like kind of a sellout. And this, of course, speaks to my ambiguity on the staying-at-home-to-raise-kids thing. Plus, I know I can't be a stay-at-home-mom forever, and I'm afraid I won't be good at anything. I was going to say, "anything else," but that's assuming I'm a good graduate student, which I'm evidently not.

So these are the themes this blog will be exploring! Hooray!

December 8, 2007:

I am feeling terribly nauseous again this morning.

It doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean anything.

December 20, 2007:

I don't have my period yet. It was due Wednesday.

But guys, it doesn't mean anything. I know that. I'm regular like clockwork, but one day is hardly . . .

I'm not excited.

I'm not excited.

I'm not anticipating sly hints and winks at my grandparents this weekend.

Or taking the pregnancy test Sunday morning when my friends are all there.

Because it doesn't mean anything. My period will probably come while I'm out this afternoon.

December 28, 2007:

I took a pregnancy test last week. It came up positive. I'm going to see the doctor today.

Well, that's not true. I'm going to see a lab technician, who will do a more sophisticated (I hope) version of the pee-on-a-stick drugstore test, and probably charge me out the ears for it, and then my insurance probably won't cover it for one reason or another.

But who cares? I (maybe) am pregnant!

So that's interesting. For those of you a little slow on the uptake, or reading this many years in the future, I was, in fact, pregnant, and that pregnancy became Zoe.

Fail

Sometime, somewhere, they gave classes on being a girl. And I was absent. Like the day they taught right and left.

I can't do my hair. Both of my sisters are excellent at hair. I can't seem to manage it. How do I get to the back of my head, and how do I do it without burning my hand on the curling iron? What do I do with the pieces I've already "done"? What product should I use, how much, and at what point in the process? And where are all my hair products, anyway? I swear I used to have some hairspray somewhere.

I have always been a bit of a failure at being a girl. Growing up, it was the thing my stepmother and stepsister were good at, not me. I was good at school. When I was in college, I got a job at Aveda, and my family kind of laughed at me. "You?" was the general consensus. "What are you doing working at Aveda?"

I think working there helped me a little. I learned how to apply eye shadow. I started washing, moisturizing, toning, and exfoliating my face regularly. I kept my nails polished and neat instead of biting them because customers would see my hands when I showed them our products. I used to marvel when I got ready to go to work that I could go from looking like me to looking like a girl who wouldn't have talked to me in high school in the space of about ten minutes.

But I never mastered hair styling. Even when I was working there, if a customer needed help with hair products that went beyond the hair product descriptions printed on little cards on the shelf, I went and found another salesgirl. And I remain totally hopeless now.

It's the new year, and so I'm feeling a little reflective. I've always been sort of nerdy, scruffy. And, in high school at least, that meant scorning the other kind of girl, the kind of girl who blow-dried her hair to perfection even when she was just putting it up in a ponytail. And I went to college with a bunch of other nerds. That meant that, while I was not nearly the most fashionable person in the room at any point, I was also rarely the scruffiest. But I'm a grown-up now, and I'm feeling a bit torn about the whole thing.

On the practical level, I can't really look like a fashion plate every day. I have a 16-month-old. If I don't have someone else in the house to watch her, in some other location, I can't turn on the blow-dryer, because it'll scare her, or the curling iron, because she'll find a way to burn herself on it. My clothes will be covered in drool, snot, or spilled food ten minutes after I put them on.

But on another level, I'm feeling a little low due to my scruffiness (which is part and parcel with my weight). Growing up, it was okay with me that I wasn't good at the girl stuff, because I was good at the school stuff. But I'm not in school, and I only have a small, part-time job. So the scruffiness is both worse than it usually is and more bothersome to me because I have little else to feel like I'm doing well.

That sounds too depressing. Let's reframe it. Maybe it's just the only thing I feel I'm not doing well. I do my job (pretty) well and I like it. My house looks pretty nice. It needs a lot more decor, but I'm fine with taking that slowly. I may not be in school, but I read an awful lot. I am a good cook and I'm getting better. My daughter is doing just great. I try to keep myself from resting too much of my self-esteem on how she's doing. It's dangerous for me and for her. But for now, I suppose I can take a little bit of maternal pride in the fact that I have the most wonderful, adorable, beautiful, smart, curious, and capable child in the whole wide world. :-) It's just my hair. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to manage it in the next few months.

Happy New Year!

The Experts

Zoe mainly drinks from sippy cups or her thermos (when she isn't drinking from me). The sippy cups are hard to spill; the thermos is easy to spill. So she spends a lot of time upending her thermos and deliberately spilling all over the place. The general consensus among the parenting experts I read is that, at Zoe's age, it's no good telling her not to spill or putting her in time-out for spilling or something, but it is important to teach her that her actions have consequences and that she should bear at least some of the responsibility for those consequences - i.e., have her help clean up. So I get out a rag and show her (while doing most of it my self) how to wipe up the spill. Zoe is very enthused about helping and takes up the cloth and swipes it all over the place. She likes this activity so much that she immediately spills more milk so that she can clean it up again.

I wonder if the experts have children.

I'm Back

I've decided to start blogging again, and hopefully I'll have the time to do so regularly.

Most of the time I will be blogging about Zoe things, since that comprises 99% of my time and energy, but today, just for fun, I will blog about something else.

I turned on the Rachel Maddow show last night, which I Tivo and try to watch every day, although I am not frequently successful at it. The first thing I heard was that Senate Democrats have decided not to extend Medicare to people under 55 after all. The tiny, miniscule nothing of a move they were going to make toward a public option, they've decided not push through. And folks, I think I have fucking had it.

Democrats have a supermajority in the Senate, right? Barack Obama got elected with elevendy trillion percent of the vote? He brought in huge Democrat majorities to federal and state governments? This all happened, right? Then why the fuck can the Democrats not get shit done? The extreme right wing of the Republican party held the government for eight years, and even without the enormous popularity and huge majorities, even with the fact that nobody even liked them, they managed to get shit done all the time!

So I'm done. I'm starting a new party. It will be called the Get Shit Done Party. Okay, maybe not. Maybe it will be called the Backbone Party. And we will support things that are actually quite popular in Real America, as opposed to the America that exists in the heads of politicians and television news outlets, like single-payer government health care, pouring money into schools, public spaces and infrastructure projects, and opting not to go to war whenever such an option is available.

And when we SWEEP the 2012 election, it will because we will promise this: to GET SHIT DONE. Here's how it will work. We will announce three policy initiatives a month. Congress then has that month to get all three things DONE. At the end of the month, if Congress is still quibbling about corporations want this and abortion that and for godsakes look out for the scary scary socialism, then we will issue an Executive Order and that's all.

Who's with me?

Update - More Fashion Designers Going Low Rent

And now a bunch of big names are designing for the GAP
.

The Problem with Project Runway

I'm a Project Runway fan. I think it was the first reality show I ever watched. The rest of the world was nuts over American Idol, but I’m tone-deaf, and musically challenged, so I didn’t care. (Apparently, those traits also make me the perfect contestant for American Idol. But that is neither here nor there.) But I do like fashion. I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was a kid. (I say this, it should be noted, in a Gap hoodie I got on clearance, gray sweatpants from Old Navy, and a $7 cotton tank top. If I were not in front of my computer, but instead actually leaving my house, the sweatpants would be replaced by jeans, also from Old Navy.) Unfortunately for the credibility of this show, and for my own personal enjoyment of it, thus far, none of the winners have really . . . done anything. Perhaps that isn’t fair. Chloe Dao, the season 2 winner, has apparently expanded her Houston-based business. Jay McCarroll showed a collection at the spring 07 New York Fashion Week, and has allegedly sold some of those pieces to Urban Outfitters, though I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them, AND I’VE BEEN LOOKING, JAY. I’VE BEEN LOOKING! And Jeffrey Sebelia, the one who arguably had the most sophisticated fashion aesthetic of the three, is . . . designing costumes for the Bratz movies. I guess all of these would be considered successes in the world of fashion. But the show seemed to promise something more. They say that they’re looking for America’s next great fashion designer. The final contest is a show at New York’s Fashion Week. Those are the designers they’re supposed to be able to compete against at the end of all this; that is the fashion world to which they are supposed to belong. None of them seem to be going in that direction.

The problem is not with the designers. They are all – the losers as well as the winners – using this show for their own ends to the best of their ability. The problem is with the design and premise of the show. They seem to be selling this show on the idea that they will uncover genuine, but undiscovered, talents in the fashion industry, who, given this exposure and money will rise to the top. It’s a similar premise to American Idol – find ordinary people with talent but not yet fame, and give them the latter. And however badly American Idol discovers talent, it does seem to give fame effectively, and to give the kind of fame that is effective. Kelly Clarkson is doing great. Clay Aiken is doing okay, too. I’m sure there are other American Idol people selling records, but since I am the uncoolest kid in the world, so much so that I wouldn’t hear of hot new musical talent unless it came to my house and downloaded it onto my iPod, I don’t know the famous American Idol people, either. Be that as it may, Kelly Clarkson can make money off of her American Idol fame because the demographic for her music and the demographic for the show are one and the same. The problem with Project Runway is that the demographic for the show is totally different from the demographic for high fashion.

I don’t say this because I believe the very wealthy and/or already famous don’t watch TV. They might. But they’re not the ones who text in their votes for fan favorite; they’re not the ones who blog obsessively about it, and they are not the ones who would squeal with girlish delight if they saw Tim Gunn on the streets. (Not that I would! Don’t run away, Tim! I just want to touch you!) The target demographic for high fashion includes those to whom earning one’s fame from a reality show on a cable TV channel would be a descent, not an ascent. In fact, for a lot of purchasers of high fashion, being required to work for a living at all, even if it did entail $11 million per movie, would be a descent, not an ascent. So buying something designed by that guy on the tee-vee isn’t going to be exciting, and might even be embarrassing, to the target demographic for high fashion, whereas buying something designed by that guy on the tee-vee would be thrilling for Bravo’s target demographic. (Which includes me! Jay! Where the f@#* are the clothes I want?)

Jay McCarroll is actually responding to this well, by selling to Urban Outfitters, assuming that his clothing arrives sometime soon. But it’s a little too little, a little too late. He won two years ago. We’re over it. (Well, not me. But I take a long time to get over things.) Plus, his man-of-the-people, fashion-is-for-everyone schtick rings less maverick now that Stella McCartney did a collection for H&M andProenza Schouler is designing for Target.

Chloe Dao is also doing the best thing she can. She already had a pretty good business in Houston, catering to the elite and semi-elite of Texas, who are sufficiently removed from New York and L.A. that they might get a little thrill out of buying from that girl on the tee-vee, but whether they do or not, she already had a following and has used her prize money to expand the business she already had.

Jeffrey Sebelia is probably the most hurt by this. His demographic, before the show, was the same as the demographic for high fashion, or at least the subset of it that included rock stars and those who wanted to spend a whole lot of money to look bad-ass. Being a winner on this show has probably hurt him more than it has helped him, because his demographic is precisely the demographic that might sneer at buying clothing from the winner of a contest sponsored by Macy’s. He could pull a Jay if he wanted, but despite his punk aesthetic, I think he is too committed to some level of luxury in his clothing to go that route. It’s really a shame.

There are two solutions to this problem. One is to go the high-fashion route. Stop holding open auditions. Instead, approach the designers that are already on their way up, those who, if they won, would be best able to benefit and to benefit the way you want them to benefit, by funding fashion lines that would show at major fashion weeks and sell to the ultra elite. Go after the kids who were #1 in their class at Parson's or FIT, or the designers who already have labels that are winning acclaim but haven't exploded yet, or the designers working for major labels, and considered rising stars at their current workplaces, who are looking to break out on their own, or the designers who have sold to places like 30 Vandam, a store featured in episode 2, season 1, which finds fledgling talent and gives them a little exposure, just like Project Runway says it wants to do. Then restructure the show. Make it feel more like a behind-the-scenes documentary at a fashion boot-camp school than an episodic competitive reality show. Emphasize the challenges that focus a designer's energy, that inspire, or that respond to real high-fashion situations. A party dress for a Hilton? Fine. Taking photos around New York? Great. Doing mini-collections? Awesome. What about assigning an inspiration, sort of like you did with "envy"? That can work. But drop the garbage, and the dogs, and of course, the "What? Macy's IS high fashion" nonsense.

Or (and this is more likely), go more populist. Forget New York’s Fashion Week; have the final show be at the corporate sponsor’s venue. I may not like Macy’s or consider it a fashion haven, but I can afford it, and if I could get that skirt Jay McCarroll showed in his final collection (the deep olive one, with the polka dots – Jay, just call me! Please!) there, that’d be awesome. Keep the dogs, the garbage, the pageant queens and figure skaters, and go even kookier than that if you want. Also, have one of the final prizes be the production of the final collection, so that viewers can directly get what they like so much and Bravo can make cash of off it. If you go the populist route, then the format of the show can remain more or less the same. In fact, you can dispense with the pretensions to high fashion. More Barbies, less couture.

And if you, Bravo, use any of these ideas, you need to pay me. And get me that skirt.

Defending Weight Watchers

I will confess now that I have not read Susie Orbach’s Fat is a Feminist Issue. But I came upon an interview with Susie Orbach in Marie Claire last week. And now that I have confessed that while I have not read a seminal book in body-issue feminism, I have read the latest Marie Claire, let me defend myself by saying that I read the Marie Claire at the hairdresser’s, and not even my hairdresser’s, but my husband’s hairdresser’s. The fact that I went with him to his hairdresser’s for the specific purpose of reading women’s magazines I forbid myself from buying at the grocery store is neither here nor there.

I was a bit bothered by this interview. It seems that Susie Orbach is on the verge of a class-action suit against Weight Watchers. I think her reasoning is a little bit unfair.

I should note that I started the Weight Watchers program about two and a half months ago, and while I have my complaints, I am happy overall, especially since I just hit my 10% goal (losing 10% of your original weight) this week. (I got a keychain. It’s very exciting. But the pro-Weight Watchers feelings in this column are not because of the keychain. I read this interview before that.)

In the interview, she claims that dieting is bad for people because it assigns an emotional force towards certain “forbidden” foods, whose appeal is then enhanced. She also claims that we need to reclaim our ability to tell when we are “hungry” and what we are hungry for, and to eat that. And to stop when we’re done.

It’s not so much that I think she’s wrong. I do think that, in general, when a specific thing is forbidden, it becomes more appealing. I also think it would be lovely if one could simply eat when one feels this primal thing called “hunger,” and could identify what the body wants to eat at that moment, and then . . . stop. But I think that, in her first point, she’s not really researching how Weight Watchers itself works, nor is she acknowledging that the foods that are forbidden by a lot of diets are in fact responsible for making us gain more weight than we ought to, nor that their deliciousness might make them just as if not more appealing than their forbiddenness. And the whole "eat when you're hungry and then stop" thing? A pipe dream rivalled in ridiculousness only by my plans to become dictator of this country and set everything to rights (See my forthcoming column, "America Once I've Taken Over").

Weight Watchers, for those of you who don’t know, has two plans, the flex plan and the core plan. The flex plan – or “points” plan, is the most widely known and commonly used. It’s the one in which one has a daily budget of food points one is permitted – and required – to use, based on one’s height, weight, age, and general daily activity. Every food item in the world (ideally, though in practice this is still a work in progress) has a points value. So you can eat any food at all, but only as much as you have points that day. Weight Watchers does stress that you should eat lots of fruits, veggies, and lean proteins, but it doesn’t tell you that you must. For instance, before I was on this diet, I used to make this great homemade macaroni and cheese. It turns out that one serving of it is 22 points. I get 27 points a day right now, and I’m pretty big. So the point is, I can have the mac and cheese. I just can only have five more points that day. An apple, a yogurt, and 10 carrot sticks with 1 tbsp of hummus, for instance. (I’ve been forbidding myself this mac and cheese, but now that I look at it, I could survive the day on an apple, yogurt, and 10 carrot sticks with 1 tbsp of hummus, if I got macaroni and cheese at the end of that day. Hmm . . .) In addition to the daily allowance – which, remember, is both permitted and required – you get 35 extra points a week, to use at your discretion. Like, let’s say, you want that macaroni and cheese, but you can’t survive the rest of the day on an apple, yogurt, and 10 carrot sticks with 1 tbsp of hummus. You then dip in to that extra 35.

The core plan I don’t know much about. Basically, it’s a list of foods you can have, and you can have any amount, but you have to assess how hungry you are and try to only eat when you’re a 2 or 3 on a scale of 10 in terms of fullness. And you, too, have 35 flex points, for the weeks you can’t live without something not on the list.*

In any even, it sounds like Weight Watchers is precisely trying to address some of the issues Susie Orbach raises about diets. One plan focuses on not forbidding any given food as such, and the other plan focuses on teaching you when you’re hungry and when you’re full, and while being on either plan is sort of mutually exclusive, using the strategies from each plan is not, and you can switch between them at will.

She claims that diet companies depend upon recidivism for their clientele, and that companies should take social responsibility for their products. Certainly, diet companies do make scads of money because people go off of them only to gain weight again. But it seems unfair to accuse a product of no longer working if one is no longer using it. If I complained that my Dove soap was not bringing out my Real Beauty, and it turned out my Dove soap had been sitting under my sink for weeks, unused, would the company really be responsible for that? But Susie Orbach claims that diets do promise to make you the size you want to be, the effects of which ought to last.

I also agree with urging corporations to be socially responsible. But I think diet companies do not currently need to use underhanded tricks to get us to gain weight again, and I think the corporations that need to take responsibility for their this are the food-producing companies, not the diet companies. Once we stop getting trans fats and hydrogenated corn syrup and various other hidden, bad-for-you things in our typical and common foods, perhaps then Weight Watchers and their ilk will be forced to look for strategies that do make people lose and gain, lose and gain in an endless cycle. But for now, the food companies have got that covered.

Evolution seems to have that covered, too. From everything I’ve read, one of the biggest problems with food and diet is that we do not live the way our bodies are designed to live. We (we first-worlders, we middle- and upper-class Americans and Brits and the like, I mean) live in a world of abundance and extreme variety, but we were designed for cyclical abundance and then scarcity. We are designed to crave fat and sugar, because those will store in our bodies so nicely, when we’ll need them for the coming scarce period. And our bodies simply will not acknowledge that the "scarce" period has not arrived for many a year, and is not likely to do so tomorrow. (For all we know, our bodies are smarter than we are. It’s best not to get me started on the apocalypse that is clearly pending once we hit peak oil. But perhaps I've discovered the subliminal source of my urge to pack on as many extra pounds as possible., but that may be my subliminal reason for packing on so much extra food.)

That’s why it seems flip for her to claim that a healthy woman should eat like a healthy woman should pee – when her body tells her it’s time. For one thing, it’s quite physically impossible to pee if you don’t have to pee. It is not impossible to stuff your face if you’re not hungry, more’s the pity. On an evolutionary basis, apparently, our bodies do not want to believe we’re full if there’s sugar or fat to be had – we might need it later! Furthermore, it’s virtually impossible to weed out all of the feelings that seem to signal to us, “Eat something!” It’s impossible to separate out the ones that are “true” hunger and the ones that are “just in case there’s no food later,” or, “this will make me feel better about not getting that job,” or, “this day would be more exciting with some cheese in it,” or even, “mmm, that smells delicious.”

But my point is, we’re not really so good, we humans, at distinguishing what we want from why we want it. Even with peeing. How many people have had the following exchange with their mothers?

Mom: We’re getting in the car now. It’s a two-hour drive, so go to the bathroom now.
You: I don’t have to go.
Mom: Just go.
You: But I don’t have to go!
Mom: Just go!
You: But, Mom! I don’t have to go! Don’t you think I would know if I had to go?
Mom: Just GO!
You: But, MOOOOM!
Mom: GO NOW OR WE ARE LEAVING WITHOUT YOU.
You: Fine! But I don’t have to go!
. . .
Mom: Did you go?
You: Yes.

I know. All of you have. So if we can’t separate rebelling against Mom from not having to pee, how can we be expected to separate “mmm, delicious,” from, “I’m hungry”? It can’t be done. Or it can, but it would take so much willpower and discipline, you might as well go on Weight Watchers.

Finally, she claims that one should only have to diet once, and then you should be at your best weight forever, and the fact that people are constantly on and off diets is evidence that they don’t work. Isn’t it precisely the attitude that you should only have to do it once that ruins so many diets? Well, that’s why Weight Watchers encourages you not to think of this as a diet, but as a change in your approach to eating (incidentally, exactly what Susie Orbach recommends), and encourages you to be a lifetime member once you’ve hit your goal weight by offering free membership to those who keep themselves at that goal weight.

I don’t mean to sound like a Weight Watchers cheerleader. Perhaps I’ll get into my complaints about them some other time. I simply don’t think that Weight Watchers in particular is guilty of the crimes Susie Orbach accuses it of committing.

*Please at all times keep in mind that I’m not employed by Weight Watchers in any capacity. I’m just a lay person trying to explain it all to the best of my ability. For actual information on the Weight Watchers plan, please consult their website.

I Just Learned . . .

. . . from a two-year-old episode of The West Wing, that a pregnant woman is not allowed to have soft cheeses. Like, say, Brie, or Camembert. No sushi, no fish of any kind, no soft cheeses . . . I'm not sure I'm willing to have children, after all.

A Plea to Aaron Sorkin

I should be doing homework right now (and didn't I tell you I'd start out posts like this?) but I just want to pause for a moment to discuss Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Apparently, NBC has put in a full-season order. I find myself relieved, but, admittedly, a bit confused. If the basis for ordering more episodes is the quality of the last eight, NBC must be seeing something I'm not. (I realize that the basis for such a decision is not usually quality but ratings, but from what I understood of the ratings, that wouldn't be the reason, either.)

I say this as someone who really, really wants to like this show. I love Aaron Sorkin's past work. I love shows-about-show-business. Comedy is my favorite sub-section of show business, and sketch comedy my favorite sub-section of comedy. I love Matthew Perry, Sarah Paulson, Bradley Whitford, D.L. Hughley, Steven Weber, any and all Corddrys and Timothy Busfield. I watch this show because I am desperately in love with its potential. I'm sure that its potential is why NBC ordered the first thirteen episodes. But that doesn't explain why they ordered the second thirteen (if, in fact, a full year is twenty-six episodes. I have no idea if that's true).

In the spirit of belief in the potential of this show, I herewith offer the following suggestions for having it live up to its potential.

1. Hire some sketch comedy writers. If you already have them, hire new ones. The sketches aren't that funny. Admittedly, the same complaint could be made about actual professional sketch comedy writers. SNL is widely considered to be not funny anymore. I just saw a show at Second City in Chicago and it was probably only about 30% hilarious. But it was over an hour and a half of material. You only need a couple of minutes or so per show. And the whole problem with most mediocre sketches in sketch comedy is that they go on too damn long, because they need to fill time. The structure of this show is that you can basically present the premise and one or two punchlines within it and you're out! It shouldn't be that hard.
And no whining that comedy is subjective, or anything. You set it up. You a) chose to show the viewers sketches, which you didn't have to do, and b) convinced us that Matt Albie and Harriet Hayes were so funny that they could overlook character traits and beliefs in each other that would have otherwise been reprehensible because they were so dazzled by the other's talent. Not only that, but the rest of the world is apparently similarly dazzled, handing Matthew awards and flailing television shows, etc. If you didn't set the bar so high, we'd expect sketches at the level of mediocre SNL. But you did, so now you have to jump over it.

2. Stay away from Matt-and-Harriet-sitting-in-a-tree plotlines until, at minimum, May sweeps. Seriously, they're irritating. When I saw the pilot, I thought that their love would be treated by the love plotlines in The West Wing, i.e., minimally. Entire episodes - months, really - could go on with nothing happening between C.J. and Danny, Josh and Donna, Sam and Mallory. Not nothing like no kissing. Nothing like absolutely no indication in the show that a romance was brewing at all.
Now, I get that Matt and Harriet are different from those couples on The West Wing. (And I'm not using The West Wing in a way that implies that you should be doing the same beloved show over again. I just mean that you've done this before and you know why it works, so why not do it again?) For one, C.J. and Danny and Mallory and Sam didn't work together in the same way. Yes, C.J. probably saw Danny every day, as part of the press gaggle, but had other stuff to do besides interact with him one-on-one all the time. And Mallory rarely had a reason to be around Sam without planning for it. Josh and Donna are the closest to Matt and Harriet, in that they did work together all the time, and one of them was the other's boss. But Josh had stuff to do that did not directly involve mooning over Donna, stuff that was more interesting than writing to film. And if we focused on the other stuff Harriet was doing all day, we'd need more sketches, which, see above.
So maybe Matt and Harriet will need more screen time together.
One thing that could really mitigate the irritating factor is if the rest of the characters did not treat their love with such respect. If they could roll their eyes with us, it might help. Another thing would be to actively engage them in entirely separate storylines. Harriet could be shown to be more involved with the cast. Matt could be more tied to an NBS plotline, or something more directly with Danny. For all the chemistry Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford had together in the pilot, we barely ever see them together for long stretches anymore. Do that. Do whatever. Just keep them from staring wistfully at each other for a while. I mean, it's a damn comedy show, not a melodramatic romance.

3. Get off the damn soapbox before someone pushes you off of it. When the show began, I was willing to give it a pass for being very self-important about TV. TV is important. Stories shape the way people think. Stories are culture. Stories are society. And people get their stories these days overwhelmingly from TV. This is not the beginning of an anti-TV rant. There's nothing inherently better or worse about TV as a media than novels or fireside storytelling. But it is important to understand the forces that shape the stories that are so pervasive and influential in our culture. Sure, it's not White-House-level important. But it's important.
But that should not translate to every single episode being about "the culture wars." It should especially not translate to every episode being a smashing of the Christian right. I thought you made Harriet Hayes a Christian to humanize the other side (because apparently I wasn't watching your other shows that closely) but all you do every week is show how wrong she is, and how not particularly articulate she is about defending her side. Aaron, baby, no one watching your show is on that side. But if you keep showing our side to be such arrogant, hypocritical dickwads, we may rethink things.
And also, the importance of TV as a medium should not be the sole focus of every single show. It can always be there, humming in the backdrop, or it can take up major story time for one episode, but not the next, but it can't always be the only thing front and center. Show us some cast plotlines. Show us some Matt-and-Danny-working-together plotlines. Maybe show some writing-sketch-comedy-is-hard plotlines.

4. Straw men are not acceptable characters. Middle-aged people from Columbus, Ohio, know the "Who's on First?" routine. It'd be more likely that someone Tom's age, who was very smart and very liberal but didn't happen to be in on the comedy scene, wouldn't know the routine, than it would that Tom's conservative, midwestern parents didn't know the routine. That's just ridiculous.
Also ridiculous is ridiculing the audience for thinking that, when a rural Nevadan judge who has been called off a fishing boat strolls into a scene, he'll be a racist, ignorant hick who doesn't even know what NBS is, when just last week you had a middle-aged man from Ohio not know what "Who's on First?" is. Again, you set the bar (this time, very low). No fair making us responsible for it.

5. Figure out Harriet's deal. At this point, she's coming across as one of the straw men; just a very confused one. Why does she get to have a debate about the sinful nature of gay marriage one week, when only a few weeks before she said something to the effect of premarital sex being the only kind she's likely to have? It feels like she has whichever Christian beliefs are convenient to the plot. I'm not saying all people are logical and coherent in her beliefs. But it feels like the incoherence is coming from the writing, not the character. Fix that. And also, she's been on the show for six years? I think that's your timeline. So she doesn't get to get pissy about material that conflicts with her personal beliefs anymore. Especially since she's got a burgeoning Christian music career and could walk away from the show if she wanted to.

(Actually, there's a plotline for you that, if done right, could be interesting. Have Harriet threaten to walk. But here's what you have to do. 1) It should be over a particular sketch. 2) She should not be bitchy or hysterical about it (which she is all too often for a woman you want us to like). It could come out of some thinking about her faith, which we need to see to sort out her many sides, and could also come out of practicality - she doesn't need to do this to get work anymore. 3) Matt and Danny should be a team in confronting this, and they should be confronting this as head writer and executive producer, to circumvent Matt using this as another "But I looooove her" moment. 4) Obviously, she should decide in the end that doing comedy (not Matt!) means more to her, but that she wants a bigger role developing sketches that are not based on bashing the right wing. This serves as character development and a means not to allow bashing the religious right to be the center of every goddamn episode.)

6. Use D.L. Hughley. Why isn't this man being used as a comedic actor in a show about comedy? He's really funny! I heart him! Yes, I can see he has potential as a dramatic actor, and that's great. But let's see him in more sketches, or maybe helping to write some! He's great! And he's sitting right there!

7. Get over whatever your deal is with women. You have this very particular variety of misogyny common in left-wing wealthy white males. It's hard to describe. You go out of your way to show us powerful women - the network head, one of the Big Three cast members - but then you undermine them by making them hysterical or drunk or what have you. And then you treat that hysteria as a form of feminine power or something. It's not as blatant as the way the Sex and the City leads were written, but it's close. Cut it out.

8. Leave your personal life out of it. So apparently you had a tumultuous relationship with Kristen Chenoweth, who is Christian and right-wing? And you've had trouble getting your oh-so-smart shows on TV because network execs want to put on shameful reality shows instead? And the internet, that monolithic source of all bad things, says mean things about your shows? You know why I know all of this? Because you put it in your show. Stop doing that. Unless you're going to mine your life for some decent plotlines, just cut it out. I am not your therapist.
That last bit is good advice for all show creators, by the way. Know why I stopped watching Desperate Housewives, Mr. Cherry? Because all of Bree's storylines started to feel like you working out your anger with your mom.

I think I've said my piece. I'm sure I'd have more suggestions if I could sort them all out. But just keep in mind, Mr. Sorkin, that some of the things you're getting criticism for on this show are things you've gotten away with before. Misogyny? Check. Pedanticism? Check. Over-inflated self-importance? Check. You just have to do them better and we'll love you again.