orichalcum

1. Advertised in _Parenting_ magazine this week: The Pat-the-Bunny DVD. WTF??? Apparently, it offers four virtual "playdates." How about some real textures and _real_ playmates/things?

2. So, i started watching the Sarah Jane Adventures this last week, and in the first scene, I noticed one of my pet peeves - the uncaring mom leaving behind her awesome daughter with Mr. Cool Single Dad.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against single dads - more power to them. But the overwhelming prevalence of them on tv and in movies, particularly compared to their relative rarity in the real world, is really getting to me. Furthermore, television single dads are caring, thoughtful, hard-working, and devoted. Juno was another example of this - good dad and stepmom, worthless abandoning mother. Same with Veronica Mars.

The rare tv single moms? Well, I can think of Lorelei in Gilmore Girls, what's her name on Joey, and Christina Applegate's character a few years ago, all of whom were portrayed as slightly ditzy, feckless young women who were "growing up" along with their responsible, mature kids. All of them were teenage single moms, not divorced moms - women who were having to live with the consequences of reckless behavior at an earlier age, not the respectable grieving widowers or abandoned dads you see.

I feel like tv is sending a strong message of "lots of women don't really care about their kids and will leave them, and the ones that don't? Well, they're pretty incompetent if loving mothers anyhow. What you really need to have a functional family is a Cool Dad." I swear, I want sometimes to write a story in which Lianne Mars and Juno's mom and so forth hang out in their hedonistic hippie commune with the cacti and talk about what total jerks their husbands were to them and how they were blackmailed out of custody.

3. I don't get the fun of secrets. (N.B: This isn't related to anything in particular, just something I've been musing about.) Yes, some things you _need_ to keep confidential, and in other cases you can promote happiness for others by delaying an announcement, like a surprise party. I think the last time I asked people to keep a secret was regarding my pregnancy; I happened to find out amidst a gathering of many friends, and so in my excitement I told a few, but asked them to keep it quiet until 10 weeks - not because I took joy in the conspiracy, but because should I have miscarried, there was no reason for our general community to go through both the joy and sadness.

But I feel like a lot of people get pleasure out of the simple knowledge that they _have_ a super-special sekrit that they share with only a few other people, and that just doesn't do it for me. If I have happy or good news, I want to share it with people. If I have sad or embarrassing news, I want comfort and support and perspective from other people who've had similar mishaps. Too often, other people's secret-keeping has hurt me - not the secret itself, mind you, but the dangling of it over my head like I'm Coyote and it's an Acme box, and everybody's in on the joke but me.

4. Chicago weather. Admittedly, it's okay right now. But dude, it snowed Saturday night. Snow! in mid-April!

Off to send off our tax forms - well, the extension form anyhow.