Dear Alec Baldwin:

I'm tired of you.

I'm tired of hearing about your phone call to your daughter (although the media is to blame for that)

Although I'm know parental alientation does exist, I'm tired of your "I'm sorry I said it but my ex wife the Bitch drove me to it" story. Although your ex doesn't get off the hook, I'm tired of people blaming others for their problems.

When I saw you on The View, acting like the dad of the year because your daughter forgot her ballet shoes, I rolled my eyes. I did the same when you talked about how you caressed your daughter's hair and then you told the story about how one time your ex woke your daughter by saying "Get the hell up! We have to get going!"

Guess what?

Remembering to bring your daughter's ballet shoes doesn't mean you are Father of the Year.

Caressing your daughter's hair to wake her up is well, I'm sorry, icky.

Also, there have been times when all moms run in their daughter's rooms and yell at them to get up. Myself included.

Then again, I shouldn't talk: When I stayed with my dad around the times my mom had to go out of town to work, I would have to wake him up. "Daddy, I have to get to school by 8:15!" Otherwise I get points taken away!" He would be on the couch, saying "What? Huh?" He is not a morning person, needless to say.

But let me tell you something about my father: God knows he and my mother had their stuff, but they were there for me when it mattered. And when they were there for me, they were a united front.

That is what saddens me about this whole mess. When your daughter graduates from high school, college, or when she gets her heart broken or a bad work experience happens, she will need her parents both to be there and get her though it.

By badmouthing your ex on TV, and revealing certain things about her, I don't know if that united front will ever happen.

So Alec, it's up to you. You are forty something years old. Don't blame anyone else for what you did. Try and do what is right for your daughter.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you...
Mary Tillman, Woman of the Year:





Girls like me have raised presidents. We've raised messiahs and musicians, writers and settlers. Girls like me won't compromise, and we won't fail.

Allison Crews

And now my weird story from the Y yesterday.

I had just finished my body sculpting class, and was in the locker room getting dressed. All of a sudden, a woman yelled: "Get a doctor! Someone who works here! A woman is having a seizure!"

Before I knew it, someone was on the phone calling upstairs, and they rushed to her side. They called 9-1-1, and I stood by the doorframe, not wanting to crowd but wanting to see if I could help. I heard someone asking for wet towels, so I wet some towels in a sink.

While I was doing this, a woman approached me and asked "Excuse me, where is the scale?"

I looked at her and said: "I don't know." Then I rushed over to the hot tub where the woman was laying and I gave another woman a towel. "Do you need another one?" I asked.

"Yes, please."

So while I was rushing to the sink, another YMCA lady was running to get the first aid kit (I guess it had something to do about seizures) Scale Lady said to her: "Oh, excuse me, where are the scales?"

"I can't help you right now," Y Lady said, "we have an emergency."

Well Scale Lady simply looked put out.

I wet another towel and brought it over. I decided to go because the woman was being tended to and while I was leaving Scale Lady said to another woman: "Where in the world are the scales?"

The woman told her, and Scale Lady looked at the woman lying down on the floor and she said: "Did something happen? And where are the scales again?"

Telling this story gives me some comfort that no matter what, I could never be that narcisstic.

Random thoughts today:
1. Rosie O'Donnell leaving. Well, sometimes Rosie does put her foot in the mouth. But I agree with 80 percent with what she says (I don't want Bush impeached because I think he'll get the sympathy card) so I'll miss her from The View. I didn't get why people were so upset with her though; I mean, some of the things she said I've heard from other media personalities. I almost want to say to them: "Hey, if you don't like her, don't watch her!" Since Ann Coulter's remarks about the 9/11 widows, I've stopped listening to her, and when she is on TV, I switch the channel. And if someone else suggests she goes on The View, I'll scream. Um, yeah, I bet Annie girl really wants to cook with Paula Deen and discuss autism with Toni Braxton. Sure.

2. The whole "American Idol Gives Back" deal. Okay, I'm going to sound like a complete slag, but here it goes: Simon Cowell, you didn't know there were hungry people in America?????? I mean, I consider Simon a pretty smart guy, but is he that naive? Look, I'm glad they raised a lot of money for charities, I mean that. But I just find it a bit irritating, that's all.


Okay, that's all. I did find the advance reading copy of Michael Tolliver Lives! by Armistead Maupin. So I am a happy clam.

Also, I dare anyone to be in a bad mood watching Snoopy in leg-warmers, dagnabbit!

Warning! Very girly post today!

So today was mostly errands; my mother told me out of the blue she was having her mammorgram today, so I volunteered to go with her. Starting this year I have to have my breasts checked out, so I wanted to see what the process is like. I ended up singing in the car this song I heard once on the old Rosie O'Donnell show: "Bam, bam, bam! Go get your mammogram!" until my mother pleaded with me to stop.

When we got there it turned out my mother got the time wrong and we were half an hour late, so she had to reschedule. We then got the printer cartridges refilled and listened to KQED do a hour on meth.

I'm still surprised I'm old enough to have a mammography. I've always had my breasts checked out when I had my annual exam and usually I check them right after my period.
But now I'm in that group. That group that says "After age 35, you should get a mammogram" group. It just kind of surprises me, that's all.

Ack! I sound like every thirty-something woman. But it's the truth.

David Halberstram died Monday--his car was broadsided by another car in Menlo Park, which is an hour away from where I live. This saddens me-with DH gone and Kurt Vonnegut's death two weeks ago, it feels like the old guard is slowly disappearing.

I only read one of Halberstram's books called Firehouse. It was a small book but extraordinary in its power, about focusing on one firehouse in NYC and how Sept.11th changed everything. Half the men never came back. I had to put the book down for a while when a woman saw her son helping people out of the building, so she was relieved he was okay. What she didn't know was when he ran back to rescue more people, the tower collapsed.

Eeek. I'm really depressing. I had to skip Sopranos because of what happened last week.

Anyway, when I think of DH I think of this series Garry Trudeau did on him years ago on Doonsbury when DH was trying to interview Rick Redfern. Rick's girlfriend Joannie answers the phone and she asks him what he writes. "Tomes. I write tomes, Joan."

Who will write the tomes now?

Sigh.

I'm trying to lighten up; I'm taping Dancing With The Stars, I'm reading The Fortune Quilt by Lani Diane Rich, I saw Marie Antroinette this weekend on DVD and I really think Sofia Coppola did a good job with the film. I loved the pastel look of the film and how beautiful it looked. Next I'm getting Stranger than Fiction and Keeping Mum, both of them are comedies so hopefully they will make me laugh.

The Guardian just published a great Jodi Picoult interview.

I started reading JP right after Sept. 11th and her books always blow me away--even when I'm not crazy about a certain part of the story or such, her books are the type that you spend all night reading, then you are go grateful for the ride.

Apparently her forums have been shut down after what happened in Virginia Tech. It's enough to make someone bang their head on a wall.

From Lunch Weekly:
UK Children's
Singer and UN Goodwill Ambassador Geri Halliwell's UGENIA LAVENDER
series, about a girl who leaps into adventures that are not only full of
fun, but which also have a great message: that every child is
extra-special and capable of amazing things, to Emma Hopkin at Macmillan
Children's, for monthly publication of six titles from May to October
2008.


Okay.

Should I be incredibly bitter that GINGER SPICE has a YA book deal before me???
I mean, yeah it is a great message. But guess what?
Almost all of children/YA books have the same message.
Yeah, I am bitter.
Although I never hated Spice Girls; compared to those Pussycat Dolls, seeing old Spice Girls videos is like seeing a production of Nunsense! And yeah, I saw Spice World, mostly because they filmed in London. I lived in London for a while when I was twenty, so I have an affection for all things British.
I'll be bitter just for today. Then I'll move on.

I finally saw Charlotte's Web over the weekend. They really did do a good job, and Dakota Fanning was perfect as Fern. However, I still prefer the 1972 version. Is it Paul Lynde as Templeton? Debbie Reynolds singing? Henry Gibson getting Wilbur's voice just right? Or maybe when everyone sang "Zuckerman's famous pig?" I'm not sure. I was the same way when Willie Wonka came out with Johnny Depp. He just made the character too weird, if that is possible. I know it's more faithful to the book, but I prefer Gene Wilder's kinder gentler Willie W.
One of the best ending lines ever: "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

About the last you write nothing. There are no words for this. Your typewriter hums. You can find no words.

Lorrie Moore


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18142265/

http://www.solis.lib.or.us/

Last week, fifteen libraries in Jefferson county in Oregon closed.

Except for the Internet, I have heard nothing about this on television or radio.

This is what I've heard:

1. Larry Birkhead is a dad.
2. Marcia Cross is the mother of twins.
3. Rosie O'Donnell should be fired from The View.
4. And two words: Don Imus

So here's what I want to know:

Where's the outrage?

Why aren't people ticked about this?

I've visited Oregon several times and I love the state. If I could find a job, I would leave California for Oregon. But to live in a town without a library? No way.

I worked for my local library system for ten years. Most of the time I loved my job. I stopped loving my job when politics played a part in it.

Our county has defeated several times measures that would've helped with keeping the library open longer, more money for books, jobs, etc. It doesn't go through because people don't want to pay for "entertainment."

Um, yeah. A kid wanting to do a report on the Hopi Indians? Entertainment.

A senior citizen reading his westerns (which is what my grandfather did for years) Just shake your finger in his face and say "Old man, I'm not paying for your entertainment!"

Now I know that people are reading this and thinking "But Pleasant Hill Girl! What about the Internet?" Well guess what folks: Not every person has a computer at home. Sometimes a library is the only chance they get to access internet or get information for a project.

I left my job because I was tired of the politics, tired of the fact that it felt like I was never going to get a full time job. I was just plain out tired.

Now in my county, there are self-check machines everywhere. I'm not going to lie, I use them. But where is the human interaction?

I don't get it. I don't get the fact that this happened. I don't get the fact that we have a ex-librarian for a First Lady and this happened.

Okay, rant over. Maybe Phoebe Snow and Linda Ronstandt can make me feel better:

Attention! Attention! Breaking news...
Larry Birkhead is the father of Dannielynn Hope!!!
Believe it or not, news was interupted for this.

I'm not going to get on my high horse and say that this is what's wrong with America today, but it does make me scratch my head.

Congrats to Sarah Dessen! Today on her Live Journal she announced she's preganant and is due in the fall. I read Sarah's book years ago and she was the one who inspired me to write for young adults.

http://writergrl.livejournal.com/

And Ariel Gore is pregant too!

http://www.arielgore.com

I'm not pregnant! But if it ever happens, I'll let you all know!

This is it! This is life, the one you get...

So Valerie Bertenelli has been on People magazine talking about how she is-get ready-a size fourteen.
A size fourteen.
Yes. I know this is shocking to so many people out there. Because heck, almost everyone is a size 8, right? Size six?

Um, that's right. A lot of women are size 14. So Valerie might be considered, normal.

But she's going to lose weight. And honestly, good for her. I really mean that. I've been working on losing weight for two months and so far I've lost five pounds. I'm pretty proud of myself. But years ago, I would be so mad at myself that it was only five pounds.

Right out of college I did the "Freshman 15" even though I didn't go away. To be honest, I started gaining during my last year of high school. I wasn't in PE that final year because as a senior, I wasn't required to take it anymore. So I said: "So long, volleyball! Good-bye, exercising to Lyle Alzedo! I'm through!"

But I felt FAT. Huge. I would look at myself and think: My God, I'm so fat. I'm like Delta Burke or someone like that. Now I look at pictures of Delta Burke back then and she was still lovely. But this is what happens: You forget everything except how you look at yourself. And I felt fat.

I did aerobics at school; a smelly room with a teacher who looked like Hillary Clinton who was also the cheerleading coach. She openly made fun of a woman who didn't understand some things she was saying, and people laughed along with her. Looking back now I wonder-why did I put up with that crap? But I kept on doing the exercises.

I kept my weight steady for years, then gained a lot after Sept. 11th. I think my attitude was: "Well, anthrax might be mailed to me, what does it matter if I eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut?"

I lost weight again a year later, then kept it off for two years. Then I went away to college and let's say this: Freshman fifteen meets the Junior whatever.

My weight is something I struggle with. One day I like not to struggle with it, that we can become friends. Someday.

Scrotum! Say it loud! Say it proud! Scrotum!

I write YA fiction, so I was interested who was going to win the Newberry this year. I'll be honest, I was rooting for either Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen, Just Listen by Sarah Dessen, or NBA winner M.T. Anerson's The Pox Party. But it was The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron that won the golden medal on the cover.

When I was a kid and I read a Newberry or Newberry honor, I would touch the medal against the library plastic cover. It felt so lovely, so elegant. It was proof that characters like Gilly Hopkins, Ramona Quimby, etc would always be there, never to go out of print.

So I never heard of Susan Patron, but when I heard she won, I checked my library. They just bought the book, so I put a request for it and was looking forward to reading the book.

And then the S scandal came.

The scrotum scandal, to be exact.

In the first page, the word scrotum is used. This, needless to say, ticked off a lot of people, and people said that it was a poor choice for the Newberry, it wasn't approriate for children. According to one teacher who said: "This book included what I call a Howard Stern-type shock treatment just to see how far they could push the envelope, but they didn’t have the children in mind,” Dana Nilsson, a teacher and librarian in Durango, Colo said on a listserv (Thanks to the NY Times for the quote)

So I finally got the book from the library. I opened it up. I was expecting Howard Stern raunchy stuff. I was expecting girls wrestling in whipped cream, or maybe Stuttering John as a uncle.

I didn't find any of that.

What I found was a charming, lovely child named Lucky. When Lucky's mom died two years ago, Lucky finds a unlikely guardian in Brigette a French woman who comes to America to take care of her, as a favor to Lucky's dad (Brigette was married to him once) Brigette and Lucky live in a trailer and just barely get by with money Lucky's dad sends and goverment surplus food.

Lucky's biggest fear is that Brigette will go back to France, and Lucky will be sent to a foster home, away from her best friend Lincoln, away from her dog HMS Beagle, away from everyone she loves.

So there was no girl on girl action. No swearing Howard Stern, no Robin Quivers, nothing. What the book is about is a girl trying to figure out what she would do if the worst happens again (and it happened once, with the death of her mother) and how she has to be prepared for it.

Now. I'm trying to figure it out. Scrotum does appear in the book, and there is an explanation for it later on. It is done in a honest, clear way.

What upset me is this: How many children like Lucky are scared to death that in an instant, their lives can change. Lucky was true to her name; she found someone like Brigette. And I know that those children might want to read about someone who, like them, are curious about the world, have survived the worst yet manage to go on with their lives, and manage to live with the wonder that is life. The fact that people are trying to keep this book away from kids, I'm sorry, I don't get it. I don't. I read Judy Blume's Deenie and when Deenie touched her special place, I had a feeling what she was talking about but I just wanted to know if she was going to wear a brace or not for her spine. When Gilly Hopkins swore, I felt she had every right to because of everything she went through. And I was ten, eleven when I read those books.

Sometimes it scares me that we are too PC or too scared or too something that something so little becomes so big. The only good thing about it is more people will be reading HP of Lucky, and that's a good thing. And when I was done, I touched the medal on the cover, and I thought: Ramona, Gilly, there's a new girl in town. I think you're going to like her.

Opening Day!!!

Today is the opening day for the SF Giants. My father called and left a message telling me about it.

Here's the thing: I have mixed feelings about baseball. Part of it is I HATED playing softball when I was a kid. Just hated it. I was always chosen last, I threw like a total girl... Oh, I know I sound bitter, but it's the truth. I once got a black eye because I got hit with a softball. This made several people wonder if I was a victim of child abuse. Not fun.

I swore at fifteen after a game I would never play another game of softball. And I haven't.

But I love how people get so excited about the game. Like in the show Brooklyn Bridge when Jackie Robinson was traded, we saw grown men crying. In Bull Durham, when all the players were on the pitcher's mound, discussing what to get a player for a wedding present. Or A League of Their Own, when a African American woman, with a bittersweet look on her face, threw a fast one to Geena Davis when it went foul.

I go to a game with my dad every year. He complains about the PacBell park; it's so commerical, with sponsor's names everywhere. But there's such an excitement in the crowd when the Giants score a home run, or when a child catches a flyball.

And I just love this song by Fogerty-it symbolizes America to me.

John Inman also known as Mr. Humphries

Mr. Humpries died. Oh, Mr. Humphries!

Fifteen years ago, I startd to watch Are You Being Served? I was getting ready to go to London to spend a semester there. Every night my mother and I would watch the comings and goings of Grace Brothers. There was Miss Brauns, who was very 70's, Captain Peacock the prim and proper gentleman, Mrs. Slocombe with her different shades of hair, and Mr. Humphries.

Mr. Humphries was someone you wanted to help you, because he knew what he was going. But also he was funny and just him saying "I'm free" could bring the house down. The characters were so familar to me, I was relieved when I arrived in London that the spin off Grace and Favour was on, it made me feel less alone.

Adieu, John Inman, aka Mr. Humphries. May you be in heaven and you say to St. Peter: "I'm free!"

Rufus!

Happy April Fool's Day!

I heard this song on a now gone NPR show called Anthem, where Rufus sang this song. I found myself singing along, even though it was the first time I heard the song. Then I found out he's gay. Major bummed.
Ah, well. Enjoy the delight of Rufus Wainright! (And I so did not mean to rhyme)