Angels We Have Heard On High

Another day, another over-the-top Victorian Christmas tea party for three year-olds at a billion-dollar loft in SoHo.

And as a point of interest, Vicodin isn't so much a party drug as a birthday party drug.

I kid. Sipping Veuve Cliquot beside an artificial, twenty-foot Christmas tree while my daughter decorated four (4) pink cupcakes with Santa Claus faces and tiny, edible reindeer was quite enough to nudge my entire world into the Surreal. Did I mention that all of the toilet seats in this home were heated? I'm assuming all, but Edie & I only tried out two of them. We discovered the first after Edie ran into the living room completely bare-assed - her tights down around her knees - exclaiming, "Mommy! Mommy! I need to go to the bathroom but the seat is hot!"

Just Wondering

An email exchange between me & Jeff Sharlet at KillingtheBuddha.com:

(Me) Can we talk about what we talk about when we talk about Christmas to our children? Much obliged.

On Nov 8, 2009, Jeff Sharlet wrote:
I'm the only active KtB editor with a kid, and my daughter is seven months old, so we really don't know the answer to this question. What do you talk about when you talk about Christmas to your children?

On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 8:14 PM, NYCAlice wrote:
I suppose it's just part of the bigger question: how will I talk to my daughter, who's now three, about God? I got religion through total immersion. I went to Catholic school and stuck dried palms behind the crucifix over my bed until I left home to go to a Jesuit university. The Father, Son & Holy Spirit were family, the fabric of my every day.

On the one hand, bringing my daughter up in the Catholic tradition is unthinkable. Yet as damaging as I believe it was for me, I feel uncomfortable keeping her ignorant of its undeniable richness. Trotting out God for Christmas and possibly Easter just feels icky to me. And then there is faith ... and belief ... by ignoring religion now, am I denying her the roots of something more profound? Obviously she'll find spirituality without me. But I think I might feel almost superstitious about closing the door on what was absolutely a way of life for the generations that came before me.

Growing up, my brothers and I were required to attend mass every Sunday (or Saturday night) and Holy Day of Obligation. When I was 18, on the Feast of the Assumption I was badly, tragically hung over. There was no way I was going to make it through that mass without throwing up. So I took a stand and refused to go. It was the worst fight my mother and I ever had. I was seething; my relationship with god was my business, not hers. She said looked me dead in the eye and said, "Don't turn your back on your faith. It's the only thing you ever really have."

What I want to know is, how can I give my daughter the foundations of faith without fucking her up with religion?

On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Jeff Sharlet wrote:

Dear Alice,

The only thing I think I can contribute is the idea that "religion," so widely despised these days -- even the fundamentalists I mainly write about say they are not religious -- is what's worth remembering, if not necessarily holding on to. I don't think you can give anyone faith; anyone who took it unquestioningly would be dangerously gullible. But "religion" is simply history, not faith but facts. And not facts about the afterlife or virgin births, but facts about human institutions, organizations, ideas, convictions, and arguments. Faith denies doubt; religion is nothing but doubt, not least because so much of it is plainly horseshit. At KtB, we're more interested in religion -- the things people do or don't do because they believe or don't believe or give loyalty or refuse it -- than the vast vagueness sheltered from questioning by the term faith. I'll go one step further, though I'm not speaking for KtB here: I think faith may be the opposite of stories. But the great story you tell so perfectly below? That's some true religion.

Best,
Jeff

- - - -

Fearless

I recently went shadow shopping. That is not a metaphor. I felt I had to have new eye shadow, so I shopped for it. I do have some; good Bobbi Brown product that I bought for the wedding. Four years ago. But it's all neutrals: the dark shade for my eye crease, the shimmery light shade for my brow bone, and a middle-of-the-road for the lid. I don't have much in the way of an eyelid, by the way. There's just not much acreage there. Which is why I have almost never bothered with shadow. It always makes me look like the urchin in the poster for "Les Miserables." And now, more accurately, that same urchin at seventy. Oh I do envy a good eyelid. Ms. Winslet, I'm talking to you.

I was going to an event, and I was determined to attend with a dramatic eye. It was imperative: I was going to finally break out the black strapless dress that's been hanging unworn, tags and all, in my various closets for the past twenty years (locations include: Blair Road (Washington, DC); South Maple Avenue (Westport, Connecticut); West 46th Street (NY, NY); East 64th Street (NY, NY); West 20th Street (NY, NY); Gold Street (Brooklyn); Butler Street (Brooklyn); East 3rd Street (NY, NY); East 6th Street (NY, NY); Court Street (Brooklyn); Third Street (Brooklyn); West 11th Street (Manhattan). Plus various sojourns at Chelsea Mini-Storage on the West Side Highway. Yes, I do move a lot. It runs in the family.).

The black strapless. It's velvet, it's to the ankle, and it's slim. Very slim, with a daringly long slit up the back. I must have been drunk when I bought it. It's rather like Saran Wrap but merciful. You see, it has bones; bones are essential. I bought it, yes, over twenty years ago and never wore it, not once. The lesser reason is that I don't get invited to black strapless events all that often. The more substantial reason is that I never felt comfortable in it. I have mentioned before that I'm the type who melts down when my bra strap is exposed. How could I show up at a dignified event such as this, all shoulders and decollete, flashing miles of pale, freckled skin? The thought was alarming.

More alarming, however, was the idea of buying a new dress. Shopping for it, fretting over it, spending money I do not have. So I snuck the black strapless out of the pitch black recesses of the closet. I dimmed the lights and slipped it on. I would turn the lights back up if in the dark it seemed like people might not suppress giggles or throw up a little in their mouths when they saw me in it. And so it seemed. And I turned up the lights. Still not offensive. So I tried it on again the next night, and the next. Then let Peter see me in it. He liked it. He insisted I wear it. I decided to grow up and wear the f'ing thing. There was a reason I hadn't dropped it at the Salvation Army.

And henceforth I made an appointment with myself to go to the Mac Store (not the Apple Store. Totally different store.). I would go early on a Tuesday morning, when they first opened, when there would be no one there. I imagined entrusting myself to a sympathetic, delicate-boned boy who looked like a more-androgynous Robert Pattinson in pale pancake. He would listen with a sympathetic ear to the travails of a girl with a diminutive eyelid. Then we'd discuss my deepest anxieties about being seen. How could I be both dramatic and subtle at the same time? Both a diva and a supernumerary? Could he integrate my splintered psyche for me? If so, I'd probably buy a lip gloss, too.

But alas, I was met with a young lady who wanted me to make all the decisions. The shade, the shimmer level, the density of application. It was a disappointment. I'd have ride the rails on my own. Such are the laws of self-transformation.

And so I did. I wore the black strapless. I wore a deep, dusty blue on my lids. I wore jewelry. I wore red lipstick. And left my anxiety with the babysitter. It was just for the night.

Very Bad Mommy

So today I get an urgent message from Peter: we're down to two diapers. I make haste to the Whole Foods where they sell the environmentally correctest of all the disposable diapers in size 6. And when I get up to check-out girl #21 she examines the squishy package, grins and says, "How old is your baby?" I blush with pride. "She's three." Thud. Her jaw drops. Her eyes go hollow and cold. She whispers, "She's still in diapers?!" My shame floweth out like a river. I cast my gaze downward. "We're starting tomorrow. I swear. We've tried to potty train her, but it's never worked. She likes her diapers. I really did try! It's not my fault! It's her fault! She won't use the potty!"

After which I listen to a potty-training lecture from Checkout Girl #21, nodding obediently, thanking profusely. She makes me promise to come back and inform her when I've found success. I can't fault her. I have been lazy, and I am indeed a horrible mother. Checkout Girl #21 cared enough to call me out. She cared enough to shame me. She cared enough to double-bag me. I am grateful.

From there I swung out onto 14th Street and let my shame fall off of me like a damp blanket. Some would say I'm a lazy mother. But I read the Michel Cohen book. I heartily agree with and adore his terribly French approach to child-rearing. Laissez-faire! Que sera, sera! Mais oui. When it comes to things like reading and using the potty, I believe she'll just get to the point where she'll be so humiliated for being the only illiterate eight year old in diapers, she'll figure it out. She will teach herself. I'm taking the organic approach. Edie is a smart kid. She knows all the dialogue to the last six scenes of "The Little Mermaid." She's got brains. She'll teach herself the potty and how to read, just like she'll learn how to make the perfect martini and light my cigarette. She'll learn the things she needs to know to survive. For the love of god, it's Darwinian.

Yoga Loca

So the other day I made time for my favorite yoga class at The Shala. I rarely practice anywhere else; my favorite teachers are there and it's the kind of place where you walk in and they don't try to sell you a t-shirt before you've even signed in for the class. In fact, they do sell things, but they keep them on a rack out of sight - in the spirit of, like, hey, if you were in a humongous rush this morning and forgot pack a pair of yoga pants, you could borrow from the lost and found, but if you'd prefer a pair that have never been touched by a human crotch, here's a brand new pair you could buy for (we're dreadfully sorry and slightly embarrassed) sixty dollars.

Apparently everyone but me knew our teacher would be away, because hardly anyone showed up. Anyway, the class was small and the substitute was ... odd. He seriously kept making pig jokes. I don't know, in my opinion the swine flu isn't funny. Not yet. When people are still dying from it, it's not a joke quite yet, not even when a yoga teacher is making it. But I digress. Morbidly inappropriate jokes notwithstanding, the class wasn't bad, and I even got a smidge closer to clinching Scorpion pose.

At one point during class, I flashed on a room - a lot like the room I was in, but populated with yogis performing the most far-out poses and defying all kinds of physical laws. They were both super-intense and very at ease in every posture. This was not just the next level. It was another realm entirely. And I wondered if I mightn't have been one of those yogis if I had made one small, different choice in my youth. Come to think of it, though, it would have had to be an exceptionally aggressive and bold choice, because in those days yoga was all icky-New Agey and weirdo-smelly-hippie and absolutely NOT in the spirit of the Reagan Decade, even if Nancy did hold seances at the White House or whatever. Anyway, I so wanted to be in that somewhere room, with those awesome yogis, doing those crazy poses with absolute ease. I wanted to be on that level. I wanted to transcend this sparse classroom with the ripe-smelling bald man making pig jokes. I wanted to transcend.

The very NEXT day I found myself going back to The Shala for a class with someone named David. Little did I know that this was the very David who created a style called "Multi-Intenso." And guess what? David regularly packs the house with yogis who rock all those crazy poses I had envisioned just the day before. So there I was, in that room with all those intense, gifted folks who glide from handstand into Eka Pada Galavasana like it's nothing, a light breeze, a chocolate chip cookie. I, on the other hand, was Ed Grimley. Bounding around, sweat-drenched, like a hyperactive geek. But you know, pretending to keep up has its own rewards. And I did manage to keep from collapsing or screaming or throwing up. All in all, I'd say I was a success, given the circumstances.

Here's what I want to know: did I manifest my Multi-Intenso experience? I mean, do we manifest? Or is that "manifestation" closer to memory? Or, to say it better, is it basically time collapsing in on itself, showing itself a (in my case) a day early? How does it work? Do we have free will or do we not?** Moreover, does it really matter? I kind of think the important thing was that I threw myself - unwittingly - into the deep end and I survived. And as I take on anything out of my comfort zone, let that be a lesson.

**Duh, of course we do. But the more we know about the power of genetics, the more we have to admit that free will has its limits. As they say, DNA is destiny: it defines our possibilities and our limitations. And I believe the nature of our DNA evolves or regresses depending on how we live and the choices we make. And we pass our slightly altered - evolved or devolved - set of circumstances on to our children.

Consider this: A dream may not be realized during the dreamer’s lifespan. But it may be carried out in the generations to follow.

Upset at the Oscars

Because the blogosphere needs more Oscar predictions, I'm doing my bloggerish duties and throwing mine in the ring.

This week I was starting to get the nagging feeling that Juno was going to sweep it. Best picture, best original screenplay. What an upset! A little movie with a big heart (and no stars!), killing There Will Be Blood, pummeling No Country For Old Men. There would be a TWBB blacklash (well-deserved) and rumination over whether we even liked NCFOM. Noirish movies about evil, step aside. After a long, depressing Hollywood Writers strike, audiences want to like Hollywood again. They want to laugh. And what's funnier than teen pregnancy? Certainly not Javier Bardem stalking the American Southwest in a bowl cut.

Now I'm changing my mind. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that No Country For Old Men will take top honors. Best picture, best director(s). And not just because the Coen Brothers deserve a break. But this spectacular meditation on evil in America is the perfect way to usher out the Bush years. Really. Joel and Ethan, I salute you for bringing this muscular tribute to a decade of depraved villainy in this country (yes, ten years - because of the absurdist spectacle of the Clinton impeachment) to the screen at exactly the right time.

My theory is that Javier Bardem's character (Anton Chigurh) is Laura Bush. Think about it: Reticent. Mexican. Black hair blown into a flyaway sort of Hamel Camel. How can I not support this movie for best picture? But what really chills me is that in the movie, Laura Bush would not die. And so it has been with the Bush Administration. Two heinous terms of boundless corruption, preposterous greed, and unmitigated disregard for human life. These eight years have felt like twenty-five. It's so hard to believe that it's actually going to happen, that this time of great calamity is drawing to a close. I'm exhausted and full of rage. But I digress. This post is supposed to be about the Oscars, Hollywood's happiest night!

No offense, then, to Juno, which I have not seen. I know it's supposed to make people feel good. But maybe feel-good endings are not what we're supposed to get right now. Maybe we're supposed to be reminded how grueling these years have been. So that in our blinding Obamania we don't forget how much it has sucked and still sucks because it ain't over yet. And because Obama may be a "change", but he's not exactly Dennis Kucinich. Maybe now is the time for those meditations on evil in America. We can always laugh at pregnant fifteen year olds.

Before I close, let me say that my favorite movie this year, hands down, was Into The Wild. I am passionate about it, as are many people I know. Its absence from the Oscar ballot only confirms that the "Academy" (does that make its members Academics?) probably won't do what's right. Probably, they'll ignore the existential stuff (like they did last year by voting for Inconvenient Truth instead of any of the docs about Iraq) and go for Juno. Which it's kind of supposed to, right? It is Hollywood, after all.

Today there was a story in the New York Times about a screenwriter whose movie is coming out soon. She grew up in Minnesota and was living what reads as a fairly conservative, advertising-copywriter life when she decided to bust out and take a job as a stripper. She stripped and wrote a blog about it. The blog got some attention and someone encouraged her to write a screenplay. She wrote a screenplay and her movie got made and now she is the hottest new/young screenwriter in Hollywood.

By the way, she changed her name to "Diablo Cody."

Peter was fascinated by the story but I must say, for a young, bourgeois Gen Y female like herself, the stripper thing isn't such a big wow. The choice of names elicits at most an eye-roll from me, but I guess "Diablo Cody" is way more palatable than simply "Diablo." Screenplay by Diablo. No. So it's good, I guess, that she took a second name. Though if it were me, and I insisted on calling myself Diablo, I'd go with Kowalski as a surname. But that's just me.

The story put me in mind of an episode from my life as a young actress trying to make it in New York. This was fifteen years ago. I was doing a god-awful play called The Web of Night. As you may have guessed from the title, it was a play about incest. I think incest plays always work best as comedies - but there wasn't a single joke in the whole excruciating three hours. I was rehearsing in the evenings, after my day job as an assistant research librarian at a law firm in Newark. I was living on the Upper East Side with a roommate and her nine cats and commuting to Newark every day. A girl has to make a living, and it was the early nineties and jobs were scarce and at waiting tables I was abysmal at best. So I had this job in Newark, New Jersey - an hour's commute - at which I made $13 an hour. Even though my rent was relatively low, after taxes and everything I made so little money that I had to think twice about buying a magazine.

Anyway there were two girls in the cast who were a few years younger than myself. I think they were both named Jen. They were both cute with rockin' bods and long blonde extensions. Walking out with them one night, we got on the subject of day jobs. They said, you should work where we work. I said, where's that? And they said, Stringfellow's. What's that? I asked, naive as I was at the time. And they said, oh, it's a high-end strip club on 22nd Street. They went on to tell me how they only worked about five hours a night and brought home around three thousand dollars a week in cash. No sex, they said - this was a classy place. All they had to do was dance, and the bouncers protected them from the weirdos. The Jens were like, come on! It's a great job, we can totally get you in.

I spent that entire night entertaining it, wrestling with it, breaking it down. Me? A stripper? Me? I have nervous breakdown if my bra strap is showing. However, I reasoned, if that's the case, maybe it would be good for me. Maybe stripping is just what I need to bust through my inhibitions. Maybe it would be the best thing that ever happened to me! Think of what it would do for my acting. Confronting my shame in such an aggressive way. I started getting excited. I could solve some of my deepest issues and pull down $3000 tax-free dollars a week doing it. It was the obvious answer. My poverty, my shame - I could solve it all by simply taking this job. Not to mention that dancing naked would force me to the gym like nothing else ever had. It was a win-win-win. I was decided.

So I called my boyfriend Eric and told him my plan. He freaked out. I complained about my job. My body shame. My sexual inhibitions. I spun it so that he might get past his initial shock and subsequent rage and see the long-term benefits my stripping would have for our relationship. But I don't know, he just never got it and we hung up angry.

That night I went to sleep knowing I would never even have the nerve to go in and apply, much less take my clothes off and audition. Much less shimmy around naked five nights a week for bachelor-party douchebags from Long Island. For one thing, my thighs were too big. They don't like that. For another thing, the cost might be too high: I'd be putting my relationship in danger, and possibly my acting career (I was, after all, a serious actress), and possibly my life (wasn't there something in Flashdance....?). And for what? For the money. The money was the reason why I was so intrigued in the first place and tempted enough to actually consider doing it.
It's hard to be a girl in New York with a dream, and fucking expensive.

I made the moral decision: it's wrong to risk your life, your love - and, finally, your dignity - for money.

So that's what almost happened to me fifteen years ago. That's something I almost did. I know that people don't like movies where the hero wimps out - but for me, at the time, even considering becoming a stripper was a dangerous journey unto itself.

The Kind They Serve at McDonald's

I woke up remembering the french fry incident, and then I couldn't get back to sleep.

Last night Peter and I met Aliza and our group of friends for a celebration. We were celebrating my birthday, Justine's birthday, Peter's and my wedding anniversary and Justine and Florian's wedding anniversary. Also Rosh Hashana, because, why not? We went to Cafe Cluny which I love, partly because the people who work there are uncharacteristically human for a bistro of its ilk, and partly because it's right around the corner from me. I put on makeup and my high-heeled boots. I was very excited.

I love this particular group of friends because they're hilarious and smart and they love you no matter how stupid, boring or juvenile you become after tippling one too many. I mean, I hope they still love me. After last night.

There's a moment when you sort of peak under the influence. In that moment, your razor wit clocks lightning speed and you can carry on three conversations at one time, which you want to do because you love each and every person at this table with all your heart.

I think I started sliding over to the dark side in the middle of my entree. I may be giving myself too much credit, it may have happened before that. But I guess I'd had two glasses of Malbec at that point. Someone observed that my salmon was mashed all over my plate into a kind of stew with the braised vegetables. I explained an innate guiding principle I have when it comes to eating, and of course, life: work first, enjoy later. So I habitually cut up all the food on my plate before eating any of it. I went on to tell a very dull story about my brother Luke and myself at the breakfast table in 1977, cutting up our pancakes all at one time, and how appalled my father was, etc., etc.

Yes, so I told the whole numbing story while my polite friends politely listened and politely reacted and changed the subject. It wasn't long before I was going on at length about a book written by some friends of mine, which is about your astrological sign and how it affects your sexual preferences and behaviors. By trying to remember what the book said about the different signs, I think I managed to insult everyone at the table at least once.

I also managed to slip in at least one horrific exaggeration about Peter, while he was sitting right there, listening. It's something I do all the time. Last night, it was something about his upcoming colonoscopy and how he won't shut up about the arduous and potentially vile day of preparation involved. In reality, he has only mentioned it a handful of times. Actually, he has hardly talked about it at all. But then I realized that I was doing it as I was doing it, and called myself on it to the whole table. I apologized to Peter and to them, and, so that I might keep digging my hole deeper, I explained that I was given to exaggeration as a way of making myself seem more interesting. I have a fear of not being interesting, I told them, to which they were obliged to say, "don't be ridiculous, of course you're interesting."

Okay. So Jen and I were sharing an order of fries. They were the divine McDonald's kind of fries. I think we were just about at the bottom when I turned away, no doubt hurling some inappropriate comment at someone, and when I turned back, the fries were gone. Horrified, I said to Jen, "were we finished with those?" She wasn't sure, she thought there were some left, at the very least five or six stubby ones bathed in salt. We were outraged. How could a busboy just swoop in and remove them? There were more and we weren't finished. Just then our lovely Waitress appeared - she was already silently hating us - and feigning humility, I whined about the premature confiscation. She responded by coming back with an entire new order of fries. I scarfed like half of them, and had four or five hanging out of my mouth as the profiteroles were served.

I mean, where is the dignity? Where is the dignity?

And it really went downhill from there. I can't think of anything too specific because apparently I was in quite a muddle. All I know is that there was profiterole on my blouse when I got home.

Her Name Rhymed With Mimberly

To go back to a subject I touched on in an earlier posting, I am increasingly aware of this Mommy Crush phenomenon. Okay, maybe it's just me and it's not a phenomenon at all. But I meet these women in the playground, and they're so ... pretty. And cool. And good, natural moms. With charming, natural laughs. And I think, gee, I'd like to throw back a few tequila shots with this woman. Then when I go back to the playground I look for them, and try to remember their kids' names, (Ryan? Dylan? Tristan? Justin? Max?). I usually never remember to ask adults their names.

Back in July, one of my playground crushes seemed as though it was about to go to the next level: the playdate. I was invited - I mean, Eden was invited - to the home of a little girl whose name I won't reveal, but suffice it to say it's the first name of a famous screen actress from the 1930s and rhymes with Maloollah. I'd had a bit of a crush on the mommy, she being so energetic and smart-seeming. And the little girl whose name rhymes with Maloollah is so sweet and cheerful, so I was really looking forward to this get-together.

The 90 minutes Eden and I spent at their sprawling Perry Street loft flew by like hours. I sat cross-legged on the floor near the girls at play and asked the mommy the kinds of innocuous questions you ask people at parties and things, the kinds of questions that could lead to more personal dialogue if the askee is willing to open up a bit. But I don't know, this mommy just wouldn't go there, and that was fine, except that she didn't ask me one bloody question about myself, not one, not even a bland impersonal one just to kill some time. So it was up to me to keep the conversation alive by lobbing out openers with potential, questions that might lead somewhere - though as time went by it became increasingly clear that, once we had exhausted the endlessly fascinating topic of nap time, the only place this conversation was going was to my private hell of polite desperation, in which I frantically searched for things to talk about with this stranger, whose daughter was ignoring my daughter while my daughter ignored her, the one with the name that rhymes with Maloollah, right back.

Once again, I overinvested in the imagined potential of a relationship and was disappointed when I actually got to know the person, then had to spend time and energy shaking it off. This is the danger of the mommy crush - or any kind of crush at all.

Another Day of Inadequate Parenting

Recently I decided that enough is enough. We would put a stop to our passive complicity with the oil companies and shop for locally grown produce. We would eat locally, be insufferably righteous globally. So today I dragged my daughter and my husband to the Union Square Greenmarket for as much overpriced, politically correct produce as we could afford.

If you have never seen smug vegetables before, here's the mother lode. The tomatoes are total divas. How many New York Times Eating In articles, how many wistful paeans on All Things Considered, how photo ops with Nigella Lawson holding them up in front of her bodacious ta-tas? Those tomatoes are so obvious. Give me a shallot. Peel me a grape. But enough with the showboaty heirlooms. I'm so over it.

We sampled, we pored over, we purchased fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, juice and jam. By the time we reached the $10 pheasant sausage, I started to wonder: who the hell have I become? I used to own and occasionally wear a "Die Yuppie Scum" t-shirt. I used to vote Communist. Am I now the enemy? Because there I was, sampling an Upstate New York Pinot Grigio, pushing my Lucky Wang-clad daughter in her Maclaren, wearing my Marc Jacobs-by-way-of-Audrey-Hepburn shades and my John Varvatos laceless Converse All-Stars. And I thought, Oh. My. God.

But what do I do now? Where do I go from here? Have I always been a lightweight? Have I always been so easily undone by vanity? Do I really like all these things I dress myself in, or am I a slave to something else, like my insecurities about what other people see when they look at me? And then I think, no, I really do want that tartan jacket that's in the window at Intermix ($259.) I like it. I want it. I like it.

The point is. Am I yuppie scum? Do I deserve to die? Am I setting a horribly shallow example for my golden child to follow? Is it so horrible to eat well, to dress well? Aren't these sensual pleasures also the privileges of being human? For this lifetime, anyway, I was given a human brain and a human encasing. So why not fully be human? Why be ashamed of these qualities that are so much a part of the human experience?

And why do I default to shame? Well, that's another posting entirely.

And why am I not kinder, more generous with my time, more invested in this planet's state of affairs? Perhaps what I have become is not selfish or vain but lazily self-involved - so accustomed to tending to my own problems that my passion for justice has drifted to a drafty corner somewhere in the recesses of my heart.

One Family's Urban Nightmare

Last night our friends from the suburbs came to dinner. They brought their two daughters, eight and six. Before they came, I warned my friends - both former city-dwellers - that our apartment is no place for children. We don't have a TV or central air, I told them. And if they got really desperate, I said, we don't even have a yard to play in.

He said not to worry about it, they'd be fine. In his voice I could detect a trace malicious pleasure. His spoiled suburban spawn would be roughing it in our old, steamy, low-tech West Village apartment, and it would be good for them.

And so it was that yesterday was the very hottest day of the year, and the most humid. Almost as hot and humid as the first and last time I ran in a 5K race, but that's another story.

Greg and his family arrive at five. The girls are already pissed. They know about the situation and hate me before I even open the door. They're quiet girls but brimming with contempt. They take a slight interest in Eden - they give her her a present, some books - but they have no use for me in my little white summer dress and sweaty face.

I put out carrots, celery and dill sauce, grapes, crackers and cheese. They tolerate this pathetic display for five minutes. Then Colette, the six-year old, tells Greg she needs to talk to him alone. He excuses himself and goes out into the hallway with her. He reports back that she wanted to know when they were going to leave. He reaches into his wife's purse and pulls out three DVDs, including Uncle Buck, and sends them upstairs to watch. (Even though we don't have television, we do have a monitor on which to watch DVDs. It's in our bedroom, along with the air conditioning.) I imagine them sitting stiffly on our bed, half-watching the movie, looking all around them in horror, cringing at our dreary, book-lined bedroom and wondering how in god's name people live like this, and vowing never, ever, to leave Long Island again.

Meanwhile, the adults are downstairs swilling wine and getting ready to eat. For reasons I only vaguely understand, I had decided to make steak. It was a bizarre choice, especially because I had invited my friend Aliza as well, and she doesn't eat red meat at all (I had gotten some chicken for her, though, and there was salad and corn). We don't have a grill, so I had to broil the steaks, making the kitchen and dining room ten degrees hotter than it was outside, and twenty percent more humid. We're well into our corn and wine when the doorbell rings; it's our guests' Danish exchange student and her American friend. More bodies, more heat, more irritability.

We make requisite small talk with the 17-year old exchange student: what is it like in your country? Does it get this hot there? Do you know Bjork? Oh, she isn't? She's from Iceland? Oh. What's the difference again? You speak English very well!

Then the little girls come downstairs. Already, they're bored, bored, bored with Uncle Buck and they want to go home. They're sullen. They're hungry. They don't want steak and they definitely don't want salad, but one of them deigns to gnaw on half an ear of corn, beaucoups butter. Greg and Barbara promise them McDonald's for the way home. They already had pizza today so McDonald's it will be. I rummage around in cupboards and the fridge and offer them all kinds of stuff: watermelon, NO. Peanut butter chocolate chip protein bar, NO. Crackers, NO. Cheese sticks, NO. Finally, I find half a bag of gourmet potato chips and show it to them as if it's a 1934 bottle of Chateau Lafitte. Colette, suspicious but hungry enough to give it a try, tentatively dips her hand in the bag. She eats a chip. She approves; she eats another. The older sister Natasha follows suit. I stand there with them in the hallway, holding the bag, while they poke their hands in and out like little robots, munching and glowering at me.

And then they leave. Aliza had left an hour earlier, said she was going to see a movie about Iraq playing at the Film Forum. But the family leaves, the girls all giddy about being in an air-conditioned Lexus SUV for an hour and a half while scarfing their Quarter Pounders and fries. Peter and I clean up. We each lost a few pounds last night.

I really enjoyed spending time with Greg and Barbara, who are both lovely and funny and easy-going.

Will Eden be weird if she doesn't watch any TV? Will she be weird if she develops conversation skills by the age of seven? Will she be weird if she's never tasted Chicken McNuggets or a Big Mac? Will the other kids laugh at her and make fun because she likes books? All I know is, in the suburbs, Peter and I would be failures.

Once on the Playground

I took Eden to the Bleecker Street Playground this morning at 8:30 a.m. Something unusual happened. This really beautiful woman with a tall, handsome husband and gorgeous 20-month old, approached me and introduced herself. There had already been some eye contact between Eden and her son Jack, but this woman - Chrissy - made it official by telling me her name and shaking my hand. I got all nervous. She was so beautiful. I realized at that moment that in my heart of hearts I am a thirteen year-old boy with bad acne. I got all nervous, tried to play it cool with a stupid joke. Hours later, as I relate this story, I still can't believe she talked to me. Chrissy, the prettiest mom on the playground. She talked to me, Alice, the biggest dork in the world. Now I know that all good things are possible.

The image above is my brother Luke at age 12 or 13. Who would have guessed that he'd turn out to be such a fox? Maybe he will look just like this again, when he's elderly. It doesn't matter. As he made his way in the world, he looked nothing like this.