An Open Letter To China

Dear China,

Stop trying to kill me. 

It seems like
every day, I read a new story about how you're pumping up my food,
medicines and hygiene products with antifreeze. First, you have me
frantically reading the ingredients on my dog's pet food to make sure
I'm not feeding her tainted wheat gluten. Then, you target my
toothpaste.

And recently, I had to rummage through all of Zev's
toys to make sure my toddler's favorite choo-choo trains weren't
covered in lead paint. Next, I hear you've slipped unsafe food color
into my juice. 

What gives, China?

Sure, it's possible
that the dissemination of toxic substances is the result of lax
government oversight in the face of cutthroat global economic
realities. But, I prefer to think of this as you trying, very
specifically, to kill me.

After all, the recent recall of
Thomas the Train cars went into effect the very same day I bought my
son a huge train set for his birthday. Coincidence? I think not. And
when did all those Panamanians keel over dead from poisoned cough syrup
manufactured in China? The same week I developed a respiratory
infection! Case closed: You're trying to kill me. Now, stop.

You
have no reason to target me. I'm not a terribly powerful person
(despite the affirmations I tell my mirror each morning), and once you
get to know me, I'm actually kinda nice. I'm certain that if you and I
enjoyed a few beers together, you'd realize you don't really want to
fill my mouth with kerosene.   

You'd know that all I want to do
is to be able to buy ridiculously cheap cough medicine produced through
the toil of impoverished laborers in your country without having to
feel bad … about what might be lurking in the syrup.

I harbor no ill will, China. Can't we just be friends? 

I've
considered the possibility that it's not just me you're after, that
these toxic products are part of a larger plot to bring all Americans
to their knees. But there are two things wrong with this idea: 1. It
takes the focus away from me, and 2. It would never work.

Last
month in Alabama, 11-year-old Jamison Stone unloaded eight shots from a
.50-caliber revolver into a 1,060-pound pig, then chased it for three
hours in the woods, before walking right up to the hulking
9-foot-4-inch beast and shooting it dead with a point-blank shot.   

You think your little red choo-choo trains are going to take down a nation of Jamison Stones? No. Clearly, it's me you're after.

I
think I know why, too: It's because I'm on to you. When the history
books about modern American culture are finally written (in Mandarin,
no doubt), it will be clear that terrorist attacks and diethylene
glycol didn't topple our nation. Britney Spears did. 

I was at
an improv comedy class the other night where actors had to riff on
different celebrities. When given the suggestion "Barack Obama," half
the actors stared at each other blankly.

"Barack Obama is a presidential candidate," the instructor had to explain. 

Another suggestion came in from the audience: "Paris Hilton."

"Yeah, OK," the actors said. "Let's just go with Paris Hilton." 

When
we do bother to pay attention to current events, it's only for the
purposes of exploitation and personal profit. Have you seen Maxim's
July issue featuring Women of the Israeli Defense Forces?

Of
course you have. I have your number, China. Now that I hang out with
stay-at-home moms I have a better grasp of how pervasive – and toxic –
celebrity culture is in America.   

It seems we gobble up more
gossip than cola, cookies and candy combined. There is no way that
anything we consume this much of could possibly be made in America – we
couldn't afford it if it were. So that means, somehow, celebrity
obsession is made in China.

I'm not entirely sure how it all
works, but I'm certain that you want to snuff me out before I get close
enough to Lindsay Lohan to check for a "Made in China" label on the
back of her neck. 

Let me assure you, China, that I have no
intention of foiling your plot. I have completely succumbed –
surrendered – to your mass-produced celebrity obsessions. I'm even
planning on TiVoing Paris Hilton's first post-jailhouse interview.

So
put down the toothpaste, and let's declare a truce: Grab a seat on my
couch, China, click on the tube, and we'll watch what they say about
Rosie on "The View." You can bring the popcorn.   

On second thought, I'll handle the snacks.

Paris Hilton vs. My Husband's Penis

This week, I will delight you all with musings about Paris Hilton.

I
will write about Paris Hilton because I am not allowed to write about
how my husband fell on some jungle gym equipment at the park, tore 40
percent of his urethra and has been catheterized and bedridden for the
past 32 days.   

I would write about how my husband fell on some
jungle gym equipment and tore 40 percent of his urethra, but Hubby says
he can't stand to relive the accident and would prefer that I not tell
the whole world what happened to him. So, in deference to him, here are
a few words about the convicted heiress: She's facing a rough, rough
time. The media are cracking crude jokes at her expense, mocking the
Carl's Jr. spokesmodel for her In-N-Out jail stay. Being downright mean.

But at least she has a perfectly intact urethra.

I'm
sorry. I am trying really, really hard to care about Paris Hilton's
jail scandal. I'm told (by the guy who has been convalescing on my
couch for the past month) that such trivial fluff will get my mind off
my husband's injury.

So here goes: I feel for any girl of
privilege who is suddenly jolted awake with a bucket of ice-cold
reality. Mock her all you like, but she didn't choose to be born into a
bubble of wealth and ignorance.   

Her problems with the law are
likely going to have some long-term effects on her public image – think
of all the sex videos she's going to have to make just to get people to
stop talking about this! Of course the whole experience would have been
a lot worse for her had she, say, fallen on the red carpet at the MTV
Movie Awards and torn her urethra, and then gone to jail. That would
have been lousy.

It would have been worse, still, if she had
been sentenced to 30 months in prison for obstructing a CIA leak
investigation – and then torn her urethra. Because, even if she got a
presidential pardon for part of that, she'd still have a torn urethra.   

As it is, Paris' urethra is in good shape. And, I hear, one of her fellow inmates even made her an origami butterfly.

Hubby
does not have an origami anything. Not only that, but he so far has
been confined to bed for almost as long as Paris' sentence. So on the
face of things, I'd say Hubby has it much worse. Not that I'm writing
about Hubby's situation. I promised I wouldn't.   

So … Paris. Yes. Paris. Paris, I'm guessing, hates her life right now.

She's
stuck in her cell, missing her dog and feeling whatever pain it is she
feels from the "medical condition" that hastened her short-lived
jailhouse release. 

In this way, she's a lot like Hubby. Hubby,
too, is in pain and misses picking up his son. But, unlike Paris, he's
surrounded by his dog and his distractions (mountains of comic books).

Come
to think of it, Hubby is even encouraged to take narcotics, which I'm
pretty sure is currently off-limits for Paris. So, in that way, he's
got it better.   

Also, our extraordinary friends have been
amazingly generous with their books, culinary skills, DVDs and visits,
lifting Hubby's spirits higher than Paris Hilton's skirt … which
reminds me: This column is about Paris Hilton.

I pity poor
Paris. Since she's a celebutante, the First Amendment allows people to
flap their gums about her dealings with the penal system all they want.
Same can't be said for Hubby and his penile system. 

Oh, who am
I kidding? I can't care about Paris Hilton when there isn't a 400-pound
gorilla sitting on my brain. Heaven knows I can't care about her now.

I'm
tossing my Us Weekly, shutting out of TMZ.com and heading back to the
couch to hang out with Hubby. I can't get my mind off of his ailing
state, so I'll leave the Paris parsing to the rest of the pundits. 

But, if she happens to tear her urethra, give me a call.

More Show

I was 5 when I got my own TV set. Maybe I was 4. I could watch
whatever I wanted. There weren't that many stations back then, so there
was little worry that I would be corrupted by Fox News or some other
smarmy filth.

I loved my TV set. For nearly 10
years, I was an only child; but what I lacked in siblings I made up for
in fictional friends: Kermit, Danger Mouse, Jack Tripper, and my first
crush, Fonzie. All of these friends lived in the warm, glowing innards
of my constant, reliable roommate. It was a happy childhood.

So why, my mother wants to know, am I denying my own child the same joy?

When
my son was born, I horrified Mom by declaring two things: That I would
nurse, and that Zev could not watch TV until he was 2. I was giving him
the boob, but not the boob tube. Mom was outraged.

Kids need TV, she told me. How was he going to learn anything?

I
found the argument curious, since my mom had been a teacher for more
than 30 years, but I decided not to debate her. Kids under 2 learn by
doing, hearing, touching – and, of course, by sticking things in their
mouths. Grandparents learn by seeing.

I figured she'd
see what an engaged and intellectually curious baby he'd turn out to
be, and she'd drop her TV demands before the first year was through.

I smiled patiently during the early arguments: Zev
would be the only kid in preschool who didn't know Elmo. How will he
learn to talk? "Baby Einstein" teaches the kids classical music. 

I
showed off Zev's first Elmo doll, pointed out his remarkable mastery of
language and bragged about the always-running iPod in the baby's room
programmed with everything from classical to rap (He has shown a
preference for Tchaikovsky over Mozart and Busdriver over the Beastie
Boys – beat that, Einstein.).

This failed to move Mom,
who believed I was somehow doing injury to my son by denying him the
joys of "The Wiggles." She'd call to tell me about all the fabulous
children's programming her friends' grandkids were consuming. Why, oh
why, couldn't Zev join in the fun? 

She went so far as to suggest – based on something she'd seen on "The Tonight Show"– that if I exposed Zev to the "Baby Einstein" video series, he'd become an instant music prodigy.

Mom
even said I was likely damaging Zev's attention span. When he finally
does get to watch TV, she said, he won't have the discipline to sit
still for 20 to 30 minutes at a time and reap the full benefits of
those cathode rays.

I'm sure at first Mom thought I'd
break. That I'd see how difficult it is to raise a child without
television, and I'd cave to the reassuring baby-sitting abilities of
Barney. When I didn't, she called me "too strict," and warned me that
my son was going to rebel one day. I tried to picture what this would
look like. He'd spend his 20s binging on "Max Headroom" reruns? Marry a
Philo Farnsworth descendant? Run a network?

We'll
never know. Last week we introduced Zev to television – one month to
the day before his second birthday (See, Mom? I'm not strict.). Hubby
and I TiVo'd a few episodes of "Sesame Street" and sat down to watch
one with him. Perhaps you've seen it? It was brought to you by the
letter "V" and by the number 16.

Zev took to TV with
aplomb. He confused Grover with Cookie Monster – a common rookie
mistake – but other than that, my mom's worries have proven unfounded.
Even with a two-year delay, Zev managed to laugh at everything Elmo
did. He looked deeply concerned for Telly Monster when Telly expressed
trepidation about trying a square-shaped sandwich. He even counted
along with The Count.

His gaze didn't wander, and his comprehension of the various story lines didn't falter. Zev didn't just watch TV, damn it, he understood it.
And when the final credits were running, Zev said something that I'm
sure I'll hear time and again. Something that will make my mom proud.
After we turned the TV off, Zev pointed to the screen, and like every
normal television-watching toddler everywhere, he demanded: More show.

Gender Politics 101: Or Why Hillary Won't Win

My husband thinks I hate women.

Not only do I hate women,
according to Hubby, but all women hate women. In his view, we double-X
chromosomed creatures arise every morning in our feminine loveliness,
look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "What a beautiful, smart,
wonderful woman I am. I hope my husband's pretty co-worker gets a skin
disease." 

This, apparently, is the only way Hubby sees fit to
explain my belief that a woman will never be elected president. When I
– and all my girlfriends (I have girlfriends, despite Hubby's
assertion) – say that Hillary won't win, Hubby gets apoplectic and
claims, "You're the one keeping her down.

"If she doesn't win, it's because women hate her," he says. 

It
is true that women have the capacity to despise other women. We are
also pretty good at excoriating men, not to mention vermin and certain
species of mold. But to say that the only thing keeping a woman from
being elected president is other women completely baffled me.

When
Brill heard Hubby's theory, she said, "But I'm going to vote for her. I
still don't think she'll win, but I'm going to vote for her anyway."

Hubby's
eyes practically popped out of his skull: "By saying that you don't
think she could win, you're spreading the kind of negativity about her
that will make her not win."
 

Brill and I blinked at him a few
times, both wondering whether he'd secretly been watching Oprah and was
quoting to us from "The Secret."

My friends tried to explain
it to Hubby, get him to understand that our calling other people sexist
doesn't make us sexist. We just believe that, unconsciously, most male
voters want their presidents to possess certain pendulous organs along
with strong resumes.
 

Hubby wouldn't hear any of it. The only
thing keeping Hillary – or any woman – from the presidency is the
cattiness of other women.

I had no idea that Hubby had this
view of gender relations. He must think girls' night out is like one
long scene from "Heathers." That the Red Tent got its name from all the
back-stabbing he imagines goes on inside. Women hate women, and our
disbelief in the possibility of a woman getting men to vote for her was
all the proof Hubby needed.
 

Ha, ha, ha. Isn't Hubby silly? Oh,
wait, what's this? Shortly after Hubby began calling me a sexist,
stories emerged from France's election – the one in which Ségolène
Royal lost.

At the time, I had figured gender had nothing to do
with Royal's defeat. She's a socialist. She was up against a
right-winger. I had figured Nicolas Sarkozy's win was all about
ideology. But in the days following the election, stories were written
with headlines like "Women shun Royal," and "Sarkozy gets the women's
vote." 

None of the stories suggested that women voted for
Sarkozy because they preferred his policies. Instead, the pieces
focused on how much women really didn't like Royal.

One paper
quoted a female Sarkozy operative saying, "Her 'I'm beautiful, look at
me, I've got four children' might impress a supermarket checkout girl,
but we don't use that card."
 

Meow.

The stories left me
wondering: Is Hubby right? Are women the only thing standing in the way
of a female president? Do women hate women?
 

No. Of course not, Leslie assured me.

Saying that the country is too sexist to vote for a woman doesn't make me a woman-hater.
 

"He
is basically arguing that we're making things worse via the so-called
soft bigotry of low expectations. Incorrect. We're just commenting on
the current state of the playing field," Leslie reassured me.

Phew.
Thank you, sister, for helping me through a critical moment of doubt. I
will no longer question whether my fatalistic view of gender politics
is a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. I will not wonder whether women
inevitably turn on each other. Whether we're our own worst enemies. I
will rest assured in the knowledge that women evaluate each other based
on our qualifications and experience – not on petty jealousies or weird
Darwinian dictates.
 

But I still kinda hope Hubby's pretty co-worker develops a skin disease.

You Can Just Call Me "Mayrav"

I'm in a bar with three men. Three very masculine men who refer to
each other by vaguely vulgar nicknames, drink copiously and talk about
their fondness for "fun-loving women."

I haven't come to San
Francisco to be drunk under the table by a guy named "Golden Flow." I
have come to San Francisco to attend a lesbian couple's baby shower.
But I'm staying with Lisa, and she's clearly in love with one of these
fellas, so, I'm happy, at least, to toast to that.   

The guys
we're drinking with go way back: They served in the military together
in Okinawa. Lisa and I go way back, too. So much so, we know intimate
details about each other's lives. Like our names. The same cannot be
said for the drinking buddies.

The men are all "hashers,"
members of a mostly military social club that – as they explain it – is
known for hosting biweekly races that end in excessive drinking and the
occasional life-threatening vehicular stunt. The only other detail I
learn about hashing is that every participant is benighted with a
nickname.   

No one questions his nickname. No one uses any name
other than his nickname (Lisa's man honestly couldn't tell us the real
names of the men we were meeting that night). And no one really answers
questions about his nickname.

In fact, each time I inquire about a name – I take it you weren't named "Golden Flow" because you rock the mic– I'm shrugged off.   

There's
something sacrosanct about the nicknames, and it becomes clear that I'm
annoying everyone when I keep asking the guys to explain each one.

I
don't normally hang out with men like this. I should say Men like this.
My guys are more likely to launch into a debate about "Lost" than pick
a fight at an Irish bar in Japan. They throw punch lines, not punches.
And none of them have nicknames.

With few notable exceptions, I
have never hung out with men who ascribe nicknames to their friends,
and now I know why: It's an impenetrably elite, masculine thing to do.
"Hulk Hogan," was likely not his given name. And he'd probably ignore
me, too, if I prodded him about it. A nickname is not just about the
moniker; it's about branding someone as a member of your group – and
keeping your Average Joes out.
 

The monikers I have had as a
kid have all been derivatives of my actual name. I've never been a
"Pinky" or a "Flashdance" or anything cool like that. One of my former
Register colleagues occasionally calls me "Pinhead," but – I think for
HR reasons – it never caught on 

Listening to stories about
"Slap" and "Care Bear," and other racier nicknames, I suddenly feel as
if I've missed out on a significant social bonding experience. Women
don't give each other nicknames. We pour our hearts out to each other,
offer advice when it's needed and support even when it's not. But I
can't imagine Lisa ever turning to me and saying, "Hey, Curly-Que,
how's it hanging?"

When I find myself nodding off in my brew, I
signal to Lisa that it may be time to leave the cast of "Top Gun" at
the bar and head home. The whole way back, I think about how ridiculous
the monikers are – and how badly I want one.
 

Best way to get
a nickname, I figure, is to give one, so I work on creating a handle
for Lisa. She's a horseback-riding, museum-curating, animal-loving
artist. It should be easy to come up with a name, but all I can think
of are funny, fond memories.

Like the time we showed up to
breakfast wearing the identical outfit and having ordered the exact
same meal. The all-nighters we pulled. The way we can never remember
each other's birthdays – even though they're only a few weeks apart.
 

I
go to bed, calling out, "Good night …" searching for something to say,
and coming up with nothing funny or clever or goofy. Lisa isn't a
"Slap" or a "Toad" or a "Golden Flow." She's a real and legitimate
friend. So I settle for what she's always been to me … "Good night,
Lisa," I say.

"Good night, Mayrav."
 

No, I didn't get a nickname. But I guess I don't need one.

Please Return This Passenger To The Upright And Locked Postition

I've always bristled at the stereotype that women prefer jerks. That
we're drawn, by some reptilian part of our brain, to guys who would be
capable of bashing in our heads with a rock – and then making us clean
up the mess.

Unfortunately, the stereotype is true.

I
had just boarded a plane the other day, heading from New York to Los
Angeles. A nor'easter threatened to smash the East Coast. Flights were
being canceled, and security lines at the airport pooled hundreds of
damp people in stagnant lines for more than two hours. I nearly cried
when I got on board, so grateful was I to have finally made it on – and
so relieved that I'd be going home.

The stewardess warned us to
turn off "all electronic devices" as the plane started to taxi. But a
young man kept yapping on his cell phone. He was having some kind of
issue with the airline, something about changing the date of his return
trip. I wasn't really listening, but he was three rows in front of me,
and speaking so loudly, it was hard not to hear.
 

The stewardess walked over to his seat and asked him to get off the phone.

"I'm almost done," he said.
 

"No,
Sir. You're done right now. We can't take off until you turn off your
phone," she said. The stewardess was British and quite a bit older, and
had it been me, I would have listened. But it wasn't me. It was
Obnoxious Man.

"I just need five more minutes," he said.
 

"You get off the phone, or you're getting off the plane. Is that understood?"

"Oh,
no," I thought. "We're going to have to taxi back to the gate. He'll be
apprehended. By the time things normalize, the nor'easter will have
hit, and I'll be stranded."
 

The stewardess huffed and puffed,
but ultimately, she let the guy finish his call. When she returned to
her seat, he got up from his.

"Can I just tell you why I was on the phone?" he said, walking toward her seat in the back.
 

"Sit down!" she said. She was annoyed, but not angry. In fact, was that … amusement I detected in her voice?

She
escorted him back, returned to her seat and had barely fastened her
seatbelt, when Obnoxious Man popped up out of his chair and headed to
the bathroom.
 

My jaw dropped.

"What do you think you're doing?" the stewardess asked.
 

"They made me drink my whole bottle of water at security," he said, shutting the door behind him.

I
looked around at my fellow passengers, most of whom were women, trying
to catch someone's eye and share a can-you-believe-this-guy moment.
Instead I saw a lot of smiles.
 

These women thought Obnoxious Man was kinda adorable. They thought he was funny. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

When
this overindulged man child finally sat down, the plane took off. And
almost immediately, the women around Obnoxious Man started chatting him
up. Where was he from? Where was he going? He ate up the attention, and
the women ate up his brazen cluelessness. Two middle-age women giggled
whenever he spoke to them.
 

When the captain turned off the
seatbelt sign, a cute teenage girl got up out of her seat and stood in
the aisle to talk to Obnoxious Man, hanging on his every word. I don't
know if he got her phone number. I couldn't watch any longer without
reaching for the airsickness bag.

I turned back to my magazine
and fumed. The guy is congenitally stupid, and now he's got a harem? I
understood then why Adam Sandler is a millionaire. All the women who
spoke with Obnoxious Man had the same look in their eyes – like they
were beholding a precious, silly little puppy. A cute thing they wanted
to take home and nurture.
 

This, I realized, is the true secret
of the jerk. It's not that women want to be mistreated; it's that all
of us want to coddle helpless men.

Well, almost all of us. When
we landed at LAX, I stood behind Obnoxious Man in the aisle, waiting to
get off the plane. Impatient, he whipped his head around and said,
"There should be doors at the back of these, too … oh, wait! There are
doors …"
 

"They won't open them," I snapped, so sternly it made the people around us titter. "Not even for you."

Partying With Mom Is No Day At The Beach

Mom turns 60 at the end of this month, and all she wants is a pony.

Actually,
she said, several ponies. And a clown. Oooh, and a bounce house, and a
guy who makes balloon animal hats. Maybe a magician, too. 

"I'm going to be 60, but I want to have a party like I'm going to be 6," she told me.

I
seized on the idea immediately – how adorable! We can have a Barbie
cake and a face-painter. Everyone can get little goodie bags filled
with candy and bubbles. Maybe we'll hire a guy to dress in an Elmo suit
and dance around. It will be perfect! It will be hysterical! It will …
never happen. 

Israelis have one party. It doesn't matter if the
occasion is a bris, a birthday or a bar mitzvah – if my mom's friends
are gathering in celebration of something there will always be obscene
amounts of food, a full bar, live music and, occasionally, a mime (your
guess is as good as mine).

Hubby and I had to hire three bands
to perform at our wedding in order to accommodate our tastes and Mom's
intractable image of a proper party. 

So, I should have known
that no matter how different a party Mom said she wanted, in the end
we'd wind up with lamb skewers and a lady with an accordion.

Still,
I held out hope that Mom was going to let us go off script for her
celebration. The whole thing set my imagination afire: Maybe we could
have it at Chuck E. Cheese or American Girl Place! Or maybe make it a
princess party and have Cinderella show up! What about hosting the
whole thing at Disneyland? 

"No," Mom said. "I want it at the beach."

A beach party! OK. We can have a big beach Twister game, maybe get a snow cone machine and a piñata.   

No. No. And no.

One
by one, all my ideas were shot down until this party started to
resemble every other party Mom's group has ever thrown and attended –
just with a better view of surfers. 

Her crowd wouldn't go for
face-painting, Mom said. They don't have any use for the Wiggles, and
princesses "just aren't me" (evidence was mounting to the contrary, but
I bit my tongue). Instead, Mom had a list of decoration and food
requests that were more Tutto Mare than "Sesame Street": Grand
Marnier-soaked asparagus spears? Having trouble finding that in a
Lunchable.

Mom did commit enough to the little-girl theme to go
with teddy bear invites, but only after a strange exchange in which she
violently rejected my idea of sending out Malibu Barbie invitations. 

"No!" She said, throwing her fist down. "I don't want Barbies! I hate Barbies."

She
collects Barbies. But that's not the point. The point is, she had
accepted my offer to plan her "little girl party" but hated every one
of my ideas. That's fine. It's her party. But after being shot down at
every turn – the food, the music, the entertainment, the location – I
was at wit's end when the invitations became an issue. 

I know
that Mom gets a little stressed out before a big event. Her temper can
flare. She can get a wee bit bossy (one of my favorite wedding pictures
is a close-up of my Mom's arm, outstretched and ending in a tautly
pointed finger). In the end, I know her control-freakishness will pay
off with a fun party, something she'll embrace and remember. But right
now, it's driving me nuts.

"I don't want Barbies! That's not me!" 

"Oof!"
I looked at my soon-to-be 60-year-old mom, my mom who told me that all
she wanted for her party were pony rides and a little-girl theme, and
found myself thinking: "I wish she'd just grow up!"