she's every woman Very fucking cool:

Reese Witherspoon broke Julia Roberts's record of $24 million for a movie. Hurdled it at $29 million. How fantastic that it wasn't some twit like Cameron Diaz. It's someone who is a really good actor, for real. The real score for humanity is that Reese Witherspoon is the mother of two.

Katharine Hepburn once said that she never had a family because she wanted to be the greatest actress of her generation. You couldn't be a mother and work in Hollywood. Or at least not do your work well. This might go to show us that yes, mothers can do their work well. The enemy of art is not the pram in the hall.

As a group women do not have very much power in the entertainment industry. (There are certain individual exceptions of billion-dollar divas like Madonna and Oprah, but compare them to women film directors or cinematographers or below-the-title actors and it's evident that women are either exploited or ignored.) Even so, it is heartening to see that among women mothers can do well.

survey says! I dislike transcribing interviews so much that I will waste my time, your time, and bandwidth by procrastinating with a completely pointless survey from the MySpace gutter.

1. How many people have you had sex with in 2006?
I'm guessing one.

2. Weed, coke, crack, heroin, oxy, acid, x, k, peyote, mushrooms, opium, hash....?
Um, do people still do opium? I thought that went the way of laudanum. For me it's more like Serzone, Zoloft, Doxepin, Paxil, Lexapro. Not all at once. And there's no high, except Zoloft made me manic at first.

3. Ever cheated on a GF/BF?
Nope.

4. Ever paid for sex?
Not in the literal sense. I've paid for it later in other ways.

5. Ever been married?
Yeah, there was this time seven years ago when I married this guy, and we're still married.

6. Ever been divorced?
Incredibly, no.

7. If you had to pick one what's your fav sexual position?
I like to be awake.

8. Do you own any guns?
Hot glue. Don't fuck with me or I'll glue your ass.

9. Ever done more than 30 days in jail?
Not yet. It's on my to-do list.

10. Ever been to rehab?
Incredibly, no.

11. Ever do anything gay sexually?
Not for lack of trying.

12. Ever have sex with anyone that you met on myspace?
That's a big no.

13. What size are your breasts/dick?
Am I supposed to have both?

14. Do you think Arnold could beat up Chuck Norris?
Arnold Palmer? Arnold Horshack? Yeah, if they jumped him from behind.

15. What celebrity would you want to have sex with if you had the chance?
Queen Latifah. Anyone who doesn't want to have sex with Queen Latifah should get a comprehensive medical evaluation.

17. How many states have you lived in?
Geographically? Three.

18. How many countries have you lived in?
One.

19. Do you keep a weapon under or next to your bed at night?
I sleep with my hot glue gun and sometimes wake up stuck to the cat.

20. What celebrity would you want to beat up if you had the chance?
I don't roll like that, but I have some words for Dr. Phil.

21. Ever rolled into the harsh ghetto to buy drugs?
No, just to teach.

24. Ever hired a PI to follow someone?
Only in movies.

25. Ever bang your friend's man/woman?
None of my friends has yet dated a man/woman, and I'm pretty sure I'd steer clear, although I'm down with transgender people.

26. What is your IQ?
I have no idea.

27. Do you think Mr. Rogers really was a pervert or do you think he just loved kids?
Loved kids. Don't hate.

28. O.J. Simpson......did he do it?
As surely as I am a drugstore redhead.

29. Fake tits or real tits?
Do what you want with your body, but I don't like aftermarket enhancements.

30. Ever watch someone die?
No.

31. How long has it been since you had sex?
We have a child and a split-shift schedule, and we're both on SSRIs, so your guess is as good as mine.

32. Name your favorite beer.
If you're buying, you can name it.

happy birthday, dear baldo Happy birthday, kid.

never before have I partied so hearty My son's fourth birthday party was a lot like my wedding. Small children ran around screaming. Both sets of grandparents were there. There was cake. People showed up as it was winding down, and our camera didn't work. At least this time we weren't on top of Mount Soledad, and at the end of it I wasn't weeping drunkenly in the parking lot of an Elks' Lodge. Every day not spent weeping drunkenly in the parking lot of an Elks' Lodge is a win.

I think it was successful.

At one point in the festivities, four guests were sitting in my lap pretending to be bears. I've had a rich and varied life in my own way, but that experience was entirely new to me. Three of the bears became ill with nonspecific pretend symptoms, and the fourth bear brought a bucket of magical curative blueberries (his idea). None of these children were my own; the birthday boy was mastering the art of emptying our Roomba, which earlier in the day had vacuumed the cat hair and playdough crumbs from our living room, onto his bed and collapsing with laughter.

I am so tired.

Hold me closer, Tiny Scarecrow I write to you from the bottom of a pile of screeners, paperwork, dirty laundry, and other crap. February is the month from hell, as we gear up for SXSW, celebrate Baldo's birthday, endure miserable and confusing weather that strands us all inside, and please don't even get me started on South Dakota, shrine attacks, mudslides, and drunken Olympians. My mom is having radiation and she's started to feel like shit. A friend is going home to New Orleans to look at what might or might not be left of her house for the first time since Katrina.

It all sent me scurrying back to the Good Doctor in search of Lexapro. I brought Baldo with me, and he capered around the exam room while the Good Doctor read through my chart and the note I had written explaining my symptoms (GAD, the crazies, SSRI withdrawal).

"Do you need anything else?" he asked.

I have a history as a Pill Queen, and this is a dangerous question. I reason that it makes me stronger, a better person.

"No," I said.

This morning as I was scrambling around in search of a tampon I found a bottle of Hydrocodone in the medicine cabinet. I flushed it.

I have a better addiction, and his name is Tiny Scarecrow.

If you know the Biscuit Brothers you know Tiny Scarecrow as the dyspeptic puppet with allergies and an apparent panic disorder. I related to him instantly. I think about Tiny Scarecrow the way some people think about sex or food. I think my feelings about Tiny Scarecrow are starting to push the boundaries between human and puppet. I know he isn't real, but I love Tiny Scarecrow anyway. And maybe having the ability to love something imaginary is a necessary survival mechanism for us all.

Is it really so, really so strange? The only thing unusual about this guy is that he put it in writing. Oh, and he's a kidnapper and a pederast. Otherwise? A lot more typical than I'd like to think.

dad!

books for NOLA Seeking Book Donations
The New Orleans Public Library

The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fundraising. Please send your books to:

Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112

the myth of the ideal worker There's another, better article about the Cornell study that found discrimination against mothers in the hiring practices among business managers (male and female alike) in "an undisclosed Northeastern city." In other words, if you are applying for a job and you are a woman with a child or children, do not mention them. Regardless of your qualifications and work history, you are significantly less likely to be offered a job, and if you are, your starting salary could be as much as $11,000 less annually.

This article correctly ascribes the phenomenon of the "motherhood penalty" to the culture of the "ideal worker" (which my colleague Miriam Peskowitz describes so aptly in her book) and concludes that everyone--not just working mothers--is ultimately harmed by this culture. Melissa Hart, an associate law professor at the University of Colorado who specializes in employment discrimination, correctly points out that while workers without children are concerned about the "special breaks" parents get on the job (such as time off with a sick child--because you know we get limitless amounts of that), we're all getting fucked over together when our employer feels (and is largely entitled by law) to our time, effort, energy, and labor around-the-clock.

Baldo's Best Friend I can tell my son is growing up because he has a best friend. I like this kid. He's a little outlaw; you can see it in his eyes. But he loves Baldo. He cares for him. We went to an indoor kids' birthday party yesterday at Radijazz (a.k.a. Rotavirus Island, where families go even though we'll all be violently ill days later--it's just that good), and instead of clinging to my side and exhorting me through the giant tubular playscape, my son ran off with his best friend to play.

Everything was good until my kid ran full-tilt into another, bigger kid and got laid out on the floor like a rashy four-year-old throw rug. Then he was reminded that the world is a dangerous place and we are all sometimes dealt injury. And Baldo's Best Friend was right there with a hug, even before I was there (I still get there pretty quickly). My son is becoming comfortable with his peer group. It's lovely and amazing.

I like Baldo's Best Friend because he is a sweet kid and because he is a good friend to my favorite person. He's also hilarious, and his hair sticks up in a funny way, and he is beautiful in the rambunctious, silly way that small boys are. He likes to fill up the wagon at school with pebbles and pretend that he is grinding and brewing coffee. That's my kind of kid.

Snowcross! Cross-country snowboarders of the world:

I'm very glad everyone I know and read has become so taken with your sport. I think it's ripping, and I am not really a Sports Watching person: I don't go out of my way to watch sports, and when people are clamoring for me to do so (e.g., the Superbowl) I become purposefully resistant. But sometimes I am taken with a sports-watching mood, and in those moments I can appreciate watching hockey or baseball, and to a lesser extent basketball (but that's because it seemed to me at my moment of birth that I was statistically unlikely to play or understand basketball as a small white woman). If you make me watch football with you, I will comment on the cinematography and make a nuisance of myself. People don't like to have Thanksgiving with me.

But I'm digressing. I don't usually like sports, and I really don't like snow sports because while the Inuit have fifteen words for snow we Texans have none. Except in Amarillo. In Houston we call snow flurries "what the shit is that?" Even so I like your snow sport. So I'm not messing around here.

Now you have to change the name.

Snowboard Cross? That sounds like a ballroom dance step. With all this momentum you don't need a marketing problem. So get ready. Your new name is Snowcross. Snowcross! I guess the skiers like to point out that they too are crossing snow, and in fact I suppose every winter athlete is in some sense crossing snow or ice or perhaps a variegated slush. (Remember: I don't really know what snow is, despite having lived for two years in Boston, which I did, and I fell down a lot.) But you guys are doing SNOWCROSS! Motocross isn't "motorcycle cross." Because that sounds like a ballroom dance step!

All I ask is that you consider my suggestion. I think it's The Sexy.

Respectfully.

and now for something mostly different Battle of the Planets at the Drafthouse!!!

But like everything good in this town, it starts at 9:45 pm. People, you cannot watch Battle of the Planets at 9:45 pm. You have to watch Battle of the Planets on a Saturday morning at 7:30 am eating some kind of General Mills cereal. Ideally you should have a sibling sitting next to you trying to watch something else. I'm sorry if that's not "cool." This is Battle of the Planets. It is not cool. It is very, very square, and these things must be respected.

Google. Yahoo. Cisco. Microsoft. China. While we were on our way to school this morning, B-dog and I semi-heard an interesting report on NPR (yes, Dad, we were listening to NPR) about high-tech companies and official censorship in the People's Republic. When I am not coring apples and making a tent under the kitchen table with my kid, I sometimes teach and write about Chinese filmmaking. It's a schizophrenic life. Anyhow, I'm fascinated by the concessions Western companies make to attract the Chinese dollar. Some guy was explaining how Cisco's routers are waggingly dubbed "the great firewall of China" because they have built-in access restrictions. One of the Google executives was really out on a limb trying to reconcile the company's values with its Chinese business practices. There are ways around censorship, and billions of people chafing under a repressive political system will find them; technology can help.

Baldo's take: "Firewall! You saw that movie!"

Yes, son. Yes I did. Had it been halfway as interesting as Chinese people hacking routers to disseminate information about religious and intellectual freedom, I would have liked it a lot more than I did.

das bebe! Welcome to the world, Oliver Malcolm Pumarega Miller. You are my newest friend.

revenge of the mommyblogger My new column launched today at Austinmama.com. I am happy to be there.

MI III Despite the absence of John Woo, I'd be tickled pink to watch Mission: Impossible III. I like that J.J. Abrams and I think he'll do fine with a big first feature. (Lost is cheesy but it's also really, really subversive thriller entertainment: the Iraqi guy is good and honorable and kicks ass; the criminals are permanently bent human beings but we acknowledge their intelligence and survival skills; we see the drug addict struggling with his own human frailties.) I'm not even terribly bothered by the departure of David Fincher, though I think he's too dark for the project anyway.

And holy potato, would I love to see my babydoll Philip Seymour Hoffman as an action-movie villain.

But you and I know what watching it would mean: I'd have to look at Tom Cruise's face for at least 90 minutes. As a PPD survivor and a film critic, I am not in the slightest bit positioned to approach Tom Cruise fairly. He's a Virginia ham, and he tells people what to do with their mental illnesses. I can't get behind that. I just can't.

I love teachers. They hate me. If you are a friend of public education in Texas, you may have received a petition generated by Kathleen Heldt of Queen City. The petition calls upon President Bush to help change change the current laws regarding Social Security benefits for Texas teachers and support personnel. Currently, staff benefits from the Teachers Retirement System count against an employee's claim to Social Security benefits. No matter how you feel about Social Security, the petition correctly identifies school employees as subject to a special penalty in claiming their benefits. It is legal discrimination against teachers, in other words. Are private employees who receive a pension or other public employees (such as military and local and state government workers) subject to this penalty?

But please don't sign it.

Here's why. In order to make her point, Ms. Heldt sticks it to mothers, proving that no matter how far down the pecking order you are, there are always mothers to stand on.

She writes, "A woman who has NEVER worked is entitled to full benefits under her husband's social security."

Many of these women who have "NEVER worked" are raising the children teachers educate. Many of these women who have "NEVER worked" are married to teachers and support their spouses with child-rearing, domestic work, and other unpaid labor. When my husband the teacher works an eleven-hour day, so do I. I work flexibly and freelance, mostly so I can perform the work of raising our preschool-age child, but partly so I can keep the household together while my husband goes to enrollment fairs, professional development, and other places outside school hours to perform his work functions. When there are no working copiers on campus (except in the administrators' offices) and he goes to Kinko's to xerox reproducibles for his elective classes, I am the one who watches our child and washes the dishes and does laundry. I don't draw a wage, and I don't pay Social Security taxes. But is it work? Yeah buddy, it's work.

Yes, the teachers' retirement penalty is unfair. But if you alienate parents in order to make your point, you are forfeiting our support and alliance. President Bush doesn't give a flying fuck about you. But your students' parents might. Please don't piss us off. I have said it before and I'll say it again: We. Have. To. Work. Together. Or. Else. They'll. Win.

If we are to accept teaching as a lifelong career and retain young teachers into middle age and beyond--as I believe we should--we have to accept that it is not a family-friendly occupation. Teachers' families, like the families of soldiers and police officers, work hard too. So please. Let's fight the real enemy.

petroleum addiction Americans want bigger trucks!

I can't even understand the concept of a "luxury pickup." I grew up around road and bridge construction, and people used their trucks for, you know, work. Now people seem to want a house on wheels, and they'll pay $69,000 as the base price. They'll get 8 mpg. What's wrong with this picture?

I don't like to yell at people for wanting what they want, however. I like to ask why. We spend so much time in our cars. Work is in one place, and home is in another, and for some people it's an hour apart. Our public transportation operates within a city but not outside of it, where the vanishing middle class lives so they have a crack at decent public schools. This is not a problem to be solved by telling the American consumer he or she is addicted to oil. Of course we're addicted to oil, and our government likes that just fine. When a Wal-Mart moves onto a small-town highway and closes down the local businesses and is only accessible by car, our government likes that just fine. (I recently watched Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, which is a completely inept documentary film but makes a pretty good argument in spite of itself.)

At the risk of sounding like an enemy of the free market--which I probably am, but I'm not happy about that--I'd like International Truck to know that they are total dumbasses. You guys are dumbasses. Apparently you have the right to build and market a big rig for consumers, all joyously heedless of emissions standards and fuel efficiency. I'm not necessarily arguing with that. But you're dumbasses, and you suck cock in hell. I think people should throw things at you. You took a working-class vehicle and made it incredibly dangerous, incredibly wasteful, and incredibly expensive, and you should not be celebrated for your innovation or your profits. You should be castigated for making and marketing the world's most idiotic product. Hooray for you.

filmmakers on parade And now for the understatement of the year: Strange things are afoot in Los Angeles.

I guess I figured that if Werner Herzog ever encountered twisted auto wreckage, he'd stop and make a movie about it (Werner Herzog and the Twisted Auto Wreckage), running the injured people through a few rehearsals to create sublime, true drama. Fortunately this did not happen. Herzog pulled accident victim Joaquin Phoenix from the car and disappeared.

Elsewhere in the city Lee Tamahori, whom you may recall from the outstanding Once Were Warriors, solicited an undercover police officer while dressed as a woman. I didn't see that coming.

An open letter to the people of Iran We know your government is run by bloodthirsty wackjobs. We are sorry. Our government is run by bloodthirsty wackjobs also. We have tried to depose them, but we don't really have democracy here. We're actually ruled by GlaxoSmithKline and Nike. We're still trying, though.

I really hope we don't invade you. Sometimes our president finds it politically expedient to invade a particular country, and while we initially make a fuss we've just come to expect being in a constant foreign war. We really like martial metaphors, and sometimes we get a particularly literal president, one who does not or chooses not to understand figurative language. I swear, I really tried to keep our current one out of office this time around. I had a letter-writing party. I put a sign in my yard. I voted while my kid was shoving something up his nose. For an American that's a lot of attention devoted to one thing.

So hang in there, okay? I know you're not all down with your government either, but I bet you'd rather not be bombed into hell and civil war. Maybe we'll ask you which you'd prefer. That would be awfully democratic of us.

P.S. I really like your national cinema. Perhaps we could arrange a diplomatic visit from an envoy of film critics.

blog/flog One of the benefits of being a marginal journalist and a mommyblogger is that sometimes people give you their stuff to check out. I am reading and very much enjoying the Literary Mama anthology, "Reading for the Maternally Inclined." It's pretty good. Full disclosure: I haven't read it all the way through yet (thus I am not wearing my Official Reviewer Hat) because I keep getting distracted by Life and Family and a child who got up this morning at 3:30, but what of it I've read I like. I absolutely adored Heidi Raykeil's "Johnny," about the son she lost. I also really liked the fiction I've read so far--"Gan" by Suzanne Kamata is about a mother-in-law's struggle with cancer, and Liz Abrams-Morley's "Mitzraim" is about losing a parent to dementia.

I'm always cheered when a book by mothers about mothering comes out and does well without being silly or fluffy. I still believe we need real stories from real people--about painful things, about the caregiving squeeze, about finding and losing ourselves (which can happen several times a day, I think). I also like to see writers really apply their craft in talking about motherhood and private life. And have I mentioned the part about not lying today? I always love to grind that ax. Lookit the sparks!

United we stand. All in all, we're gonna win. It's so easy to feel powerless on a day like today. We got Samuel Alito confirmed. We're probably going to get the federal abortion ban upheld and Roe v. Wade challenged. We got a State of the Union address that tells us we're addicted to oil when what we really are is dependent by design. Exxon posts record profits--$10 billion--this quarter, and our elected officials cash in. (We'll have those zero-emission hydrogen cars just as soon as the power elite figures out how to exploit that technology on the stock market.) We're continuing to expend our service people (and, it seems, our journalists) on American realpolitik. We will never surrender to evil, which assumes that we are ourselves not evil, when in fact we're very capable of being the World's Biggest Assholes. Wendy Wasserstein and Coretta Scott King are dead. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are going to skate.

Meanwhile, my son has an important announcement. There is an eighth day of the week now. It is named "Charon," like Pluto's moon and the ferryman of the dead. Now that we have one more day a week, we can start fighting back against all this crap.

I know a lot of good, honest people who are feeling very cynical and disempowered right now. I know a lot of good, honest people who are depressed as a result of that feeling. Just get out of bed and fight it. Sometimes just getting through the day is a major act of rebellion.