Had Dolan been a girl, he would have been named Lucinda, after Lucinda Williams. I also loved the Irish name Orla, but Matt looked so pained every time I brought that one up that I don’t think I could have done it to him. Nora was a strong contender, but the only one we actually agreed on was Lucinda, with Lucy being the likely nickname.

So obviously, I have a thing for Lucinda Williams. Last night I went to see her at the Fillmore in San Francisco, which is my all-time favorite venue. Not only do the 10 glittering, snow-white chandeliers make me dream of long-past days of San Francisco, but the Fillmore has some charming traditions, like free apples in a bucket in the hallway – usually the big, crisp red delicious variety – and posters commemorating the show, handed to you on your way out the door. There were no posters last night because the show hadn’t sold out three weeks in advance (I don’t know if that’s a new recession-era Fillmore rule or if it has always been that way), but hell, I don’t need any more clutter.

The other great thing about the Fillmore is how happy artists usually seem to be there, whether it’s Gomez or – back in the day – the Jerry Garcia Band. They get a kick out of the size, the intimacy, and maybe even the lack of modern, over-planned symmetry to the room. Lucinda clearly loves the place; her 2005 live album was recorded there. Halfway through the show last night she was changing guitars after a great rendition of something (maybe “Changed the Locks”?) and said something about how “we’ve got the mojo working tonight.” (there’s a similar quote on that 2005 live album). Then she turned to the microphone and added, “We’ve always got our mojo on at the Fillmore.”

This is probably the 8th time I’ve seen her there, and I can attest it’s not always true. There have been times when she’s seemed rushed and the songs have been a little too tight. Her voice is naturally rough, and that’s always been the beauty of it, but sometimes it has sounded like an instrument that’s been abused. Last night her voice was at its absolute best, raw but controlled, pure and filled with emotion, and utterly, uniquely, Lucinda’s. She slowed some songs down, as if to savor them more, and it worked. Her rendition of “Sweet Side” was the most moving version I’ve ever heard. As she did with “Come On,” (which she describes as song inspired by the literature of Flannery O’Connor and the music of ZZTop, how can you not love that?) she got right up to the microphone and treated the song almost like spoken word.

Many of her songs are angry or mournful, and a lot of them are about being left. Lucinda had a love life so messy that it always made me feel better about my own romantic disasters. For more on Lucinda’s ups and downs, the best source might be Bill Buford’s 2000 New Yorker profile (you have to register to read the whole thing). It’s a fascinating piece to read as a journalist because it is so incredibly revealing – it was a real “get,” psychologically speaking — but as a fan, there was something miserable about seeing Lucinda hung out to dry, tattered, battered and way too exposed. Her good friend Emmy Lou Harris said it best to Salon a little later that year. Here’s the quote from David Bowman’s story:

“Even if Buford was telling the truth, he didn’t have to write certain things,” Harris says softly but emphatically. “He took license. He drew certain conclusions that were very one-sided. Hurtful to Lucinda. Detrimental to her person.”

But at 55, Lucinda seems far more personally content and ease than she ever did before – she’s now happy in love with and apparently engaged to music executive Tom Overby – which you’d think might alter some of her readings of her own songs. Instead they seem richer for the distance, and still completely heartfelt. I think she sings to her younger self, and with more compassion than before.

Back to the naming of that girl I never had. Calling her Lucy would also have been a nod to my favorite Pevensie, but mainly, it would have been an homage to Lucinda. And I was thinking about the reasons why last night. When I told Matt I’d bought a couple tickets to go see Lucinda, he said “I hope you didn’t buy one for me.” I think he sees her as yet another chick whining about her love life. Or maybe it’s that she’s just too alt-country for him. I suspect more the former than the latter. I understand, this is intense material, heavy on the self-analysis and the rage that comes when you realize you’ve made an unwise emotional investment. That’s not Matt’s thing; he’s too level-headed to make unwise emotional investments. But as someone who wrote a memoir detailing several bad relationships with men, or rather, relationships with negative outcomes, I can relate to Lucinda’s source material. That crap gets in your head and you’ve got to get it out. She turns her pain into something powerful, by transcribing it into a form so many of us can relate to. (Tom Waits does something pretty similar, but I don’t think Matt would disdain an invitation to join me at one of his shows. The difference between a man processing and a woman processing, I say.) And I love that Lucinda has never been afraid to admit how important sex is to her. Her new song “Honey Bee” indicates that things are steadily good in that department for her now. I’m very happy for her in this regard, but I’m grateful to her, both for all that processing of pain she’s done in the past and the fact that contentment hasn’t diminished her ability to communicate suffering while also making you tap your feet and swing your hips.

In the last six months I’ve fallen hard for the nimble mind of Salon’s Rebecca Traister. Every time I read her pieces, particularly those that take a hard look at feminism circa 2008, I think I’d like to be friends with her. Short of that, I’m going to do the blog world equivalent of sending her fan mail by linking here to yet another one of her columns I wish I’d written, her thoughtful piece on Michelle “Mommy” Obama.

I’d take the more traditional approach of commenting on Salon, but as I learned when they interviewed me about Accidentally on Purpose in June, there are some extraordinary wingnuts on there.

Or really, if I’m honest, last week either: the Obama family. Before the election I spent an appalling amount of work time obsessively reading the Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, the New York Times, etc.. Now that the White House is won, I’ve slipped into a state of bliss (hell, let’s just say it, it’s practically post-coital) that involves indulging my every whim vis a vis the Obama family. Obviously, puppies have been on my mind and everyone else’s. And I’ve been looking at slideshows and video of the new first family, doing everything from attending the state fair to discussing their sartorial choices. In doing so, I’ve discovered something new to add to my bookmarks, this fashion-centric blog about Michelle’s style. I’m loving Mrs-O.org (wish I’d thought of it myself). And for the record, I think the Narciso Rodriguez dress was yes, unusual, but a) I love the nod to Camelot, intended or not — Rodriguez became famous for designing Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s wedding dress, as seen below, and b) the way Michelle’s little red number coordinated with Malia’s red and Sasha’s black dresses? Phenomenal. Could there be a more gorgeous image of a first family for fawning procrastinators like myself to pore over?

I kept Dolan out of school this morning so he could go with me to vote. We were waiting in line – a mercifully short one — when he said, “Is Obama here?” Clearly his mama’s passion for this election has infected him.

On the way out, I started to explain to him why this was so historical; that we could actually have a president who isn’t a white man. But then I stopped, because I realized that if this happens – Please, let it! – my son will grow up in a different world, a world where it will no longer be remarkable that a black man was elected to the highest office in the land. He’s already completely, gloriously color blind. Better to let him know a new history, a far better history than we, or our parents, or any previous generation has ever known.

I did try to explain Prop. 8 to him though, mainly because I started to cry when I saw other opponents, standing at a good distance from my polling place, waving No on Prop. 8 signs. “Don’t cry,” he told me. “It will be alright.” I hope so. This one has me really fearful that California is going to take a step back in time as the rest of the nation goes forward. The polls close in just a few hours. Get out there and vote if you haven’t already.

Last weekend, my friends Eric and Jason and I set out from the Bay Area for Reno, Nevada as part of Barack Obama’s Drive-for-Change campaign. Our mission: canvassing door-to-door for Obama. Or as we proclaimed it, somewhere around Sacramento, “Two homos and a single mom road tripping for Obama.” There are only 5 electoral votes up for grabs in Nevada, but this traditionally right-leaning state has been targeted as a toss-up; it was well worth our while to go there.

I’d been working as a daily print journalist for two decades, which has meant I haven’t been able to so much as put a bumper sticker on my car. The basic ethics of journalism have required me to stay under the radar politically, even though I’d been a movie critic since 2000, which is hardly like covering the state house. But having left my newspaper job in March to write fiction and freelance has freed me from those shackles. My inspiration to do the Drive-for-Change came from a friend who had taken a leave from her Silicon Valley job to go work for Obama in Virginia. This meant leaving behind her 10-month-old son and her little girl, who is almost three. I figured if she could make that kind of sacrifice, I ought to be able to at least get myself to Nevada. Here’s a journal from our weekend.

FRIDAY

There were rumors that Obama might be showing up in Reno for a rally early Saturday on his way back from visiting his ailing grandmother in Hawaii. The last email we’d gotten from the campaign mentioned only “special activities” during the weekend. On the car ride up, this provided us with plenty of conversational fodder (as did Sarah Palin’s poor fashion judgment and the loathsome nature of California’s Prop. 8, which opposes gay marriage). If Obama was in town, I was in favor of ditching any morning responsibilities for the rally.

“We’ll just say it took us awhile to find the neighborhood,” I said, revealing the shoddy nature of my work ethic. Jason said it wouldn’t come to that; of course they’d have go us go to any rally. Meanwhile the always conscientious Eric was determined we fulfill all obligations to the campaign before any personal indulgences.

A blast of stale, nicotine-filled air wafted from the casino into the concierge area at the Sienna Hotel & Spa. Jason’s face performed some sort of gymnastics intended to close his nostrils. He’s like the Church Lady crossed with Stephen Colbert. “Phaw,” said Eric. I had a sense memory of going to hockey games as a kid. We Californians tend to forget that indoor smoking is allowed in other states, even in the nicer joints like this one. The campaign had suggested several cheaper options, including the infamous Circus Circus. But a commitment to canvassing hadn’t robbed my gentlemen companions of their swishiness, or me of my appreciation for a high thread count. As for the smoke-filled lobby, well, we considered that our welcome to “Real America.”

SATURDAY

We followed a long line of cars with California plates, most of them Priuses or Subaru, most plastered with Obama/Biden paraphernalia, into the parking lot of the downtown headquarters. A greeter passed a map through our window. “Good morning,” she said. “Senator Obama is in town this morning and you’re invited to a rally. Report back here at noon and have fun.”

We whooped in unison. Or rather, Eric and I whooped. “I told you so,” Jason said, turning the car around.

On the way over to the University of Nevada-Reno’s athletic complex, I considered whether I deserved this. I’d given a little money, put a sign on my front lawn, passed on two enticing social engagements back in the Bay Area and purchased a tank of gas. This was like signing up to sell Bruce Springsteen albums door-to-door, and then being handed tickets to an actual Springsteen concert before you’d touched a single door.

With that kind of luck, you expect some suffering. Maybe a strip search at the door, or a long, dehydrating wait in a hot sun. Instead we were offered bottled water at the gate and hustled efficiently through security. I’ve had more trouble getting into press screenings of Harry Potter movies.

We’d had just enough time to get ourselves as far up in the pack jammed onto Peccole Park, the university’s baseball field, as possible, and make a few gloating cell phone calls before the motorcade appeared and cries of “he’s here” went up in the crowd of 11,000.

Obama began by thanking everyone who had sent his grandmother cards and flowers. She’s likely dying, but he’d had to leave her. No wonder he seemed tired. His stump speech hardly differed from what we’d heard on television, but in person, his somewhat halting delivery is less ponderous and his eloquence and honesty more obvious. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter right up until she conceded the primary. I valued her as a candidate because she’s so damn bright, and because, quite honestly, I was sick of seeing nothing but men in the Oval Office. But the tide started to turn for me after Obama gave his speech on race. I’ve never seen that kind of sincerity, straight talk, awareness and rationality from a politician.

When the electricity went out, briefly, Obama climbed down from the podium to shake hands, and then restarted his speech with a joke. “I told you folks were having trouble paying their electric bills,” he said. “Either that or somebody from the McCain campaign kicked our plug out of the socket.” In a sign of how carefully a candidate has to watch his words in these last days before the election, Obama hastened to add “That was a joke.”

Michelle Obama was widely criticized for her comment to a Wisconsin audience in February that she felt proud of her country for the first time, but standing in that diverse crowd, I really understand what she meant. We were both born in 1964, which means that we’ve experienced most of those big pride moments – by that I mean the “I have a dream” speech or “Ask not what your country can do for you” or Rosa Parks declining the back of the bus – either happened before we were born or when we were too little to experience them in any real sense. What we lived through in terms of our first real consciousness were Vietnam and Richard Nixon. I’m sure Michelle Obama turned the same well-worn pages of Life magazine that I did, looked at the same images of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, experiencing loss without ever having had. It’s hard to feel pride when those are your introductions to what it really means to live in America. But to stand in that crowd in Reno, believing that we may be just days away from making history sweeter, the impossible possible, was to feel true pride.

Leaving the rally, Jason had to steer me away from the entrepreneurial t-shirt sellers. I was particularly captivated by a shirt that said “Black Man Running and It Ain’t From the Police” and almost bought myself a tote bag with Michelle Obama’s face on it, before I remembered that I’m unemployed and have a child to feed.

Back at the downtown headquarters we were redirected to an office park in Washoe County, along with 150 other members of the Drive-for-Change group from California (DFC’s cup overflowed; 225 people showed up). We took our place at the back of the long line, turning away from the still hot October sun. The parking lot was jammed with Priuses with California plates. As a group, cruising in hybrids and armed with iPhones and Starbucks cups, we’d be easy to mock.

Obama campaign worker Dennis Roy, who has been on the ground in Nevada since August, ran us through the basics, which mostly rested on figuring out the intricacies of the coding system we’d be using. Is the voter at home, are they voting for Obama, willing to do so early – Nevada has early polling – do they need help getting to the polls, and finally, are they familiar with Jill Derby, the Democrat running for the congressional seat against longtime Republican incumbent Dan Heller?

Roy didn’t want us to announce where we’re from, although we were never told to fudge the truth. (Fibbing would be foolish, since the natives will certainly notice our license plates.) The most important rule is, don’t get in any fights. Be pleasant, dignified. Throw no mud. In short, be like Obama. “You want to act like Barack Obama is standing right behind you,” Roy said in his thick Massachusetts accent. “And he’s wicked tall.”

Our designated neighborhood was ultra-posh, up in the hills, where almost every house seems to have a million-dollar view, a four-car garage and landscaping that made Jason swoon. We had a tacit agreement that Eric and Jason would not march up to any doors arm-in-arm; we don’t want to scare anyone.

Over half the people weren’t home. But we were surprised by how many voters opened the door and told us that they’ve either already voted for Obama or plan to. “I’ve just got to wait for him to leave town,” one woman told us, lifting a rueful shoulder in the direction of her boyfriend. Both Eric and I were transfixed by a handsome blue-eyed former cop who appears on the rolls as a registered Democrat. “I’m actually an independent,” he said. “But I wanted to vote in the primary. I wanted to vote for Obama,” he continued. “He’s something special.” He declined our offer of a yard sign, peering up the driveway at his neighbor’s house, where a McCain-Palin sign loomed large. “I don’t like to wear my politics on my sleeve.”

And signs aren’t always the best indication of what’s going on inside a household. After spotting an Obama-Biden card in the window of a car parked in his driveway, I greeted a 72-year-old registered Democrat like an old pal, only to receive a tepid hello in response. “That’s not my car,” he said taciturnly. “And I voted for the other guy. You want my wife. She’s not home.” The front door slammed.

I’m on my tenth house before I blow it, betraying my outsider status by saying Nevaa-da, despite the fact that the campaign had given me a helpful pronunciation guide (“The Silver State is pronounced “NevAda” as in, “pad, glad, sad or dad”). Fortunately, I couldn’t have picked a better guy to blow it with. This 50something voter gave me a little punch in the arm, said “You’re not from here,” and continued right on with his soliloquy to Obama: “We haven’t seen anything like him since Abraham Lincoln.”

Our last house of the day was a French chateau style mega-mansion that sat on a cul-de-sac. We peered through the gate at the actual doorway, which was far far away, across a courtyard filled with statuary. No one was home. Just then, a man in a big truck pulled up. He was about 40 and had got three kids in the backseat. He’d come to take a peek at the chateau, which it turns out, is on the market. For $1.8 million. “Things are looking good for your guy,” he said without any obvious resentment. He claimed he hasn’t quite decided who he is going to vote for yet. “You’re in the over $250,000 a year income bracket, aren’t you?” I asked. “That’s right,” he said, laughing. Then, unprompted, he began musing about leadership. McCain hasn’t showed it lately. “Your guy has though,” he said.

He didn’t give us his vote, but he did have some good ideas about where to eat dinner. At 4th St. Bistro we found fellow carpetbaggers: poultry from Sonoma County, Sharffen berger chocolate and an owner who came from California ten years ago. We had just started in on dessert when the table of six next to us launched into a birthday toast to a newly minted senior citizen with them. The toast concluded with “And here’s to Obama!” It turned out they were from the Bay Area too, and soon we were cackling and gabbing away with each other like a bunch of Sonoma hens. “This is like Sundance,” I said, thinking about the good will and pleasure of befriending strangers. “Without snow or movies.”

After dinner, Eric and I left Jason in bed and wandered off down the street to do some gambling, novice-style, the kind where you find a blackjack dealer with an empty table and an extremely tolerant attitude. Having lost my $20 pretty quickly, I left Eric and his winnings at the table and set off around the casino looking for someone with a pack of Marlboro Lights. There is no easier place in the world to bum a cigarette than a casino. I opted not to ask either of the smokers with oxygen tanks seated in front of slots machines and moved on until I spotted the tell-tale white and beige pack on a table being shared by two men. One of them was young and had a hint of Todd Palin about his features, while the other was about 50 and scrawny, with the air of man who may have spent some time in a meth lab in his day. The younger man generously offered me one of his two remaining cigarettes. I bent down to light it and their eyes lit upon my Obama pin. “Oh geez, she’s voting for the anti-Christ,” the young one said. “He’s a terrorist,” the other said cheerfully. “And a Muslim.”

One thing a journalist learns on the first few months of the job is how to talk to assholes. Also, I remembered Dennis Roy’s reminder that morning: Barack Obama is standing right behind you. So I smiled big. “So I take it you guys are voting for McCain/Palin?”

“You betcha,” the young guy said. “I wouldn’t vote for that Arab. He didn’t love his own mother. He admitted it in his own damn book.”

“You read ‘Dreams of My Father?’” I said, trying not to sound too surprised. And wishing I had read it, so that I could argue the finer points of mother-hating as interpreted by the giver of Marlboro Lights.

“Yep,” he said. “I read everything.”

I refrained from saying, Sure, just like Sarah Palin. But what about Sarah Palin anyway? These guys had stationed themselves about two feet away from the pair of gyrating, skimpily clad women currently on stage duty. Maybe the whole woman a heartbeat one-heartbeat-away-from the-Oval-Office thing was the chink in their armor. “So what about Sarah Palin,” I asked. “You like her as much as McCain?”

“Hottest woman in politics,” Marlboro Light Man said. “She’s hotter than any damn Democrat woman alive, that’s for sure.”

I stood in front of him, feeling mildly insulted on the behalf of my sex.

“Really,” I said.

“I’ve got the Internet pictures to prove it,” he said. His friend nodded sagely beside him.

There is no good response to anyone who introduces the topic of female images he’s collected from the Internet. I resisted the urge to call him a pussy for smoking girly cigarettes and steered the conversation to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, the proposed under-ground storage facility for the nation’s nuclear waste. Obama opposes it. McCain is all for it. This line of argument went nowhere. Neither of them had any problem with have nuclear waste dumped in their state.

“There he is,” the Light-man said, pointing to the TV hanging above the bar behind me. Obama literally was right at my shoulder. “He’s not even black.”

I considered the image. I looked back at the dude. “He’s black,” I said with certainty.

“He’s not black,” the guy crowed, shaking the last cigarette out of the pack. “He’s an Arab.”

“Muslim,” the other guy agreed. “And the Anti-Christ.”

“He was in Nevada today,” I said. “Campaigning hard. The vote is supposed to be pretty close here you know.”

They both laughed. “Oh yeah, he was here,” the Light-man said.

“And he didn’t get shot,” the older guy said.

“Not yet,” the Light-man said. They sniggered companionably.

I reflected, as I have so many times before, on how many fist fights I’d have gotten in if I’d been born a man. But in this chilling, Real America moment, there was nothing more to do or say. Lee Harvey Oswald walked across my brain. I replaced him with an image of the Secret Service men I’d seen at the rally that morning, with their super high powered binoculars. Please protect him, I thought. “I’ll be thinking of you guys on Election Day,” I said, waving as I walked away, back to the relative safety of the blackjack table, where another free drink was waiting for me. I told Eric and our dealer, a bikini-clad African-American woman in her 30s, about my encounter. “So don’t forget to vote,” I said to her. “I already did,” she said. She dealt another hand, her smile confident and serene.

SUNDAY:

A man dressed in a pirate costume stood at the corner, waving a sword and a sign for the apartment complex we were bound for. This neighborhood was distinctly less fancy than Saturday’s. We had a list of 60 voters to track down, 60 doors to knock on, in a complex with a layout so complicated it would have sorely tested Magellan. This time, we separated, eager to get in and get out.

I was trotting along in search of Apartment 147 when I noticed a tortoiseshell cat sunning itself and stopped to talk to it. A greasy-haired man wearing an odd looking hat materialized as if from nowhere. “She’s a bitch,” he hissed. “And so was her mother. Mother-bitch, daughter-bitch.” He leaned forward, getting his head down at tit level, and examined my pin. “That doesn’t say McCain-Palin,” he said. “No it doesn’t,” I said, starting to move away. “Tsk, tsk,” he said. “It’s a free country.” “Yes it is, I said, picking up the pace. The imaginary Obama patted me on the shoulder, It’s okay to skip the creepy ones.” I’m going to write you up,” the greasy-man yelled after me.

I’d only found three voters home by the time I arrived at the 230 block. All of them were voting for Obama. Then I came around a corner, disturbing two teenaged boys who were lurking in the shadows. I said hello and walked briskly up the stairs. One of the cement slabs moved under my foot and I thought, as I leapt to the safety of the step above it, that Real America needs some maintenance work.

When I came back down, the boys had moved across the lawn and were talking to a third boy who was leaning on the wall of his apartment’s tiny patio. All three of them were harassing a pair of cats in the next building over. They called to them in high voices, as if they were pretending to be, perhaps, the owner of the cats, who clearly had the misfortune of being a neighbor. “Come home sweetie, before you get raped,” they said. I realized I was going to have to walk right past the boys again and up another flight of stairs to get to my next door. They switched focus. “Oh watch out up there, you might get raped,” one of them said. “Maybe we’ll rape you.” They all giggled. Further discussion of rape continued. Little shits.

Enough of the solo routine. I found Eric over in the 400 block, feeling triumphant over the head-way he’d just made with an undecided older woman. Health care seemed to have tipped her over into the Obama camp. Together we hit his last door. An absolute ghoul appeared, sharp-nosed, long lank hair, a goth complexion. He looked like a bad Muppet. “This is the fourth time you people have been here,” he barked. “We already voted. Don’t come back here ever again.”

That slammed door happened to be our last of the weekend. Did the Drive-for-Change make a difference? It’s tough to say. There were an estimated 1,500 people from Northern California knocking on doors in Reno and its suburbs that weekend. We had the potential to reach thousands of voters. Carpetbaggers have a habit of turning people off, although our neighbors to the East were plenty friendly to our little group, even the pair I met in the casino. On Monday, a new poll did show Obama pulling into a 10-point lead in Nevada. I’m sure Obama’s appearances in both Reno and Las Vegas have a lot more to do with that than any doors I pounded on.

But for me, what the Drive-for-Change was really about was finding unity, sometimes in unexpected places. On Saturday, we stopped to buy bottled water at a supermarket. The checkout clerk spotted our Obama pins. She was white, middle-aged, obviously working class, just exactly the group he’s supposed to be struggling to woo. “Did you get to see him?” she asked. On hearing we did, she held out her forearm to us. “I’m getting goose bumps,” she said. We gave her a pin and she put it in her pocket. “I can’t wear it here,” she explained. “But I really wanted one.” I wanted, very badly, to hug her. “I already voted,” she continued, handing us our change. “I think he’s incredible.” Then she held out her arm again. “More goose bumps,” she said. And I felt my skin prickle as well.

Throughout my childhood I put on the same witch costume pretty much every Halloween. Maybe in my tween years I pulled off something vaguely Native-American. But 9 times out of 10, I was a witch. I loved my mother, but she did nothing for me in the costuming department, except maybe waving me in the general direction of a black grembiule leftover from one of my sibling’s time in an Italian school. (A pinafore-style uniform, the grembiule yielded sort of a Schoolgirl Witch. Not very threatening.). Perhaps she helped me make the accompanying peaked hat at some point, although I have no actual memory of that. My father? His contribution to the occasion was probably stealing a few pieces of my carefully horded stash. So maybe as a result of that, I’ve been a little lackadaisical with my own child come All Hallow’s Eve.

On Dolan’s first Halloween, he wore a honeybee costume, purchased by his grandmother. For his second, I put him in a pair of jeans, a Western style shirt and a cowboy hat (he was in a horse phase, so I figured, cowboy, for a bargain price). For his third year, I blew a wad of cash on a Pottery Barn lion outfit. Insanely cute, but he had nothing to do with choosing it. Last year we cobbled together a fireman suit out of a raincoat and boots.

But this summer, he fell in love with Batman, courtesy of a freebie DVD of the 1966 cartoons that one of the studios sent me. So I decided it was time to get him a costume he’d be excited about. Here it is. I think I’m as smitten as he is.

Oh Jesus’ Son, how long have I been trying to get through Denis Johnson’s big fat National Book Award-winning Vietnam novel “Tree of Smoke?” At this point, I read it only on the elliptical machine. It’s too big and fat to take on BART and too miserable to engage me at bedtime. I started it at least two months ago, liked it very much for the first 200 or so pages and then started to find it disappointing and then by page 350 full-on hated it. Having never been a soldier, having never been to Vietnam, or for that matter, any Asian country, any country in war, I should think myself ill-equipped to judge its accuracy of emotion or plot, or character. But I kept coming up against the sense that Johnson researched it by watching Hollywood versions of Vietnam, the same films I’ve seen. Such familiarity just feels sad. I want a book to teach me something, not just take me to the same places “Apocalypse Now” took me (and with more economy).

Why not just stop? It seems as though I should. But I haven’t been able to. Obligation, I suppose. I acquired it at Book Expo, lurking around the FSG booth, where all the best books seemed to be, and shipped it home along with all the other free hardcovers I gleefully snatched up while allegedly publicizing my own book. I’ve put it down plenty of times, picking up and finishing Curtis Sittenfeld’s “An American Wife” in the meantime (another form of suffering, about as dreary as I’d imagine screwing Laura Bush to be, if I could ever twist my mind into that particular perversion), starting Marilynne Robinson’s “Home” (I’m willing to be patient for her, but later) and digging into “The Berlin Stories,” my book club’s selection this month, with much greater enthusiasm. Yet I keep coming back to “Tree of Smoke,” waiting for something to convince me it is a great book, worthy of being annointed by dozens of literary critics. As I march toward the end I get the sense that Johnson’s point is that Vietnam was a terrible mistake, that the entire CIA didn’t know its ass from its elbow (duh) and that thousands of young men had their humanity stolen away from them in the course of America’s long ugly visit with the Vietnamese.

This is hardly revelatory. Is it worth saying again, especially as we continue to make messes in other countries not our own? Sure, if the story is worth it, if the prose is beautiful or fascinating or even incomparably ugly. But more often than not, Johnson writes like this is a screenplay intended to give Bruce Wilis wet dreams of Oscar time (I can see him, wanting to play the Colonel, Johnson’s Kurtzian character). The timeline is a mess, I’m suspicious of the authenticity of any dialogue spoken by any Vietnamese characters and subplots are picked up and dropped, Hollywood style, as if a producer had been breathing down Johnson’s back demanding he move things along. (I just hit the point where the story returns to the character of James, who grew into a full-fledged monster off the page, and having mercifully forgotten him after an absence of what felt like at least 100 pages, I was dismayed to see that Johnson had not). I have about 80 more pages to go now, easy enough to blow through in two exercise sessions, and I’ll be shocked if I discover the book says anything more than has already been said far more eloquently in “The Quiet American” (which it references) or “The Things They Carried.” I can’t wait to get back to the gym, so that I can put this behind me and let myself go into “The Berlin Stories.”

Oh, and I remembered vaguely that someone had trashed “Tree of Smoke” mightily, in the kind of way that gets notice from Gawker and such. I figured it was someone with an axe to grind or a legendary grump like James Wood. But I just went looking for it and found it in the Atlantic. I think B. R. Myers is right on target. (Although, really, BR, I appreciate the honesty of admitting you haven’t read any of the rest of Johnson’s book, but come on, at least crack the cover of “Jesus’ Son,” which is well worth reading, not to mention, short. The movie is pretty great too.)

Tonight I hauled Dolan out of the tub and into my lap, noticing how big he’s gotten. Granted he only weighs 34 pounds, but he’s solid. I wrapped his towel around him and said, “You’re so heavy. What am I going to do without my baby?”

“Make another baby,” he suggested.

“I’m afraid I’m too old,” I said, pulling his wet self to me for a squeeze. At 44, I am, and it makes me deeply sad, although simultaneously, I’m grateful I ever had the chance to have a child.

“How do you make a baby?” he asked.

I contemplated ways to get out of this one, and then decided on the truth. A 2008 kind of truth. He’s got friends who came about through less conventional means.

“Well, there a few ways,” I said. “But the simplest way is that the Daddy put his penis inside the Mommy.”

“No,” he said, incredulously.

“It’s true,” I said. “And then some stuff comes out of the man’s penis and it meets up with the egg and then,” I pulled away to demonstrate something with my hands, some mish mashing of matter. “The baby starts to grow.”

My son put his head back and laughed so hard I started to laugh too. He kept laughing until it turned into a full fledged cackle.

“So what do you think is so funny?” I said.

“I’m laughing at the laughter,” he said.

Which is a pretty sweet summary of what a good laugh evolves into it. I had to admire his line of thinking.

So that was our introduction to sex. Much earlier than I would have expected. My own came at 8. I was squatting in the boxwood-hedged formal gardens of an Italian villa, listening, rapt, as a girl I’ll call Emily spelled out the facts of life to me. Her parents were also American academics spending the year in Italy, and like us, tenants at this large estate in the hills to the south of Florence. The place was so big that the owner, the Baroni — he really was a Baron — and his ancient mother could live comfortably in the bottom two floors of the villa while renting out two, or maybe even three apartments, to sizeable families (we were six, the other American family were four). They came from California, which made them advanced experts on everything. Emily was perhaps two years older than I was. Her description was definitely muddled – there was some nonsense about using different colored condoms in order to create different colored children – but highly evocative. I remember standing in front of the entryway a few minutes later, bellowing the details up at my mother, who was leaning out of one of our third story windows. My disgusted final bellow was “And she said you and Dad did it too.” I believe I was sobbing by then. My parents were not exactly the kind of people who would then sit me down and set the record straight, although I do remember my brother Benet scoffing at Emily’s account later, enough so that I knew at least that she was wrong on the topic of condoms. I’m not sure I had the rest of it straight for several more years.

And I’m not sure Dolan believed me tonight. Clearly he thought the idea was ridiculous. He’s still only four, so it doesn’t much matter (but Christ, I hope the topic doesn’t come up at school tomorrow) but I’m glad to at least have gotten off on an honest foot with him.

At dinnertime, my single mother fears come out to play. I bring Dolan home from school between 5 and 6 pm and almost immediately begin to feel like a failure. In order to keep him entertained while I cook him the nutritious meal I’ll then spend 30 minutes trying to cajole him into eating, I generally have to plug him into the boob tube (I loved the way my mother used to say that). It’s not like I’m having him watch crap either – thanks to my movie critic gig, the kid has a great selection of high quality entertainment, and he never watches anything but PBS, sports with his dad and movies or vintage shows (like his new favorite, the boxed set of Charlie Brown holiday specials, which has taught him to call me blockhead, but is so damn charming I don’t care). But I still feel bad about putting him in front of the set at all. We should be playing. I should be teaching him about the stars. Or at the very least, helping him learn to spell. 

When Matt is here, it’s all different. They play outside in the yard, either baseball or football, or mess around with toys. Then Matt and I take turns with the post-dinner chores, either tubby time or doing the dishes. It’s cosy and reminds me that we really are a family, even though Dols and I live here and Matt lives over there. But lately I’ve been trying to have Matt come over a little less while I’m here. The fact is, he’s an amazingly sweet dad and the best man I’ve ever been with. Also, he’s only gotten cuter since I met him. We get along so well, and I love him so much, that it’s a bit hard not to start thinking of him as a de facto husband. But since he’s not, I need a little distance. That’s what I’ve been trying to achieve lately anyway.

That and worrying, to the level of sleeping really, really badly. Techically, I haven’t tried to worry, it just keeps happening. Something about the economy and the fact that I’m out of a job and my book sales seem, from this uneducated distance, to be dismal. Then there’s the election. On Tuesday I spent 48 minutes on the elliptical machine at the gym reading George Packer’s letter from Ohio in the New Yorker (“The Hardest Vote”) which is just a heartbreaking look at voter cynicism and deep-seated racism. I wanted to run off to Ohio to grab any number of people by the lapels of their stone-washed “jeans” jackets and tell them what idiots they are. Like Bonnie Dunham, a retired fourth-grade teacher clinging to the delusions that Obama is faking his Christianity and hiding his secret Arab identity (thank God this woman is retired, but think of all the young Midwestern minds she had her foolish mitts on for all those years).

Also, I’ve got to say that freelancing, which is technically how I’m making my living between my attempts at fiction, absolutely sucks. I’d say 95 percent of my freelance inquiries to editors are met with silence. Maybe it’s polite silence, but it could just as easily be appalled silence, or  annoyed silence or just completely disinterested silence. If you don’t even get a “no thank you,” it’s hard to know what anyone is thinking, or if they are. Hell, they’re probably reading Gawker and wondering if they’ll have jobs tomorrow. I’ve been sympathizing a lot with Rick Redfern, Doonsbury’s Washington Post investigative reporter character, whose fortunes I’ve been following since before I ever figured out I wanted to be a journalist some 20 or so years ago. Rick just got bought out by the Post and has resorted to blogging, because that’s the thing to do. He looks miserable.

Wait a minute, I’m totally whining like an asshole here, when what I really wanted to write about was something cheery I discovered this week. I’ve taken the path of least resistance on dinner with Dols. You want ravioli with red sauce? Mac and cheese? No vegetable more challenging than the beloved broccoli? You got it my sweet, blue-eyed boy. And a side of chocolate milk. Me, I’m on Weight Watchers. I’ll just eat soup, or the last tomatoes of the summer, with the last basil from the garden, and just a smattering of buffalo mozzarella. And then I’ll stare at your ravioli and will you to eat the last one so I don’t.

To be liberated from my usual attempts at the gourmet is a pretty sweet thing, because it means Dolan and I have had more time together post-dinner. More time to go into his room and pull out the toys. Monday night we played with his eraser-board thingie. I have no idea what you actually call these things – oh wait, I’ll go find it or something like it on Amazon, what else do I have to do but fold laundry and debate who I’d like to sleep with more, Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert – but Dolan treasures his. He went first, drawing shapes or writing words, mostly his name, and then instructing me to duplicate his every move. There is something marvelous about being told by a four-year-old you’re doing it wrong; I have never loved being meek so much as with him.

On Tuesday, we moved on to house building with his faux Lincoln Log set (Roy Toy, much cheaper, made in Maine and sold at my beloved LL Bean, although not apparently, on line). As I figured how to get the door and windows right, I tried not to think my usual Eyore thoughts about how we’ll never be anything but renters and concentrated instead on what divine company my kid is. He searched his toy chest for appropriately sized people to put inside, and then took care of putting the roof on, crowing with delight as he discovered at the last minute, a chimney. I wanted to join his Playmobile buddies – technically garbage men, but everyone needs a break from drudgery – and crawl inside.

My son just gets nicer and more beautiful and fun every freaking day. I’m sure every mother thinks this, except maybe Barbara Bush, who appears to be such an epic bitch she has to at least occasionally think, what a tool my firstborn child is. As for Dolan’s gift for roof construction, well, I’ll take it as a metaphor. He helps me keep my lid on. He makes this house (apartment, flat) warm. The whole fucking miserable world out there would come crashing into our home and destroy me if it weren’t for him.

On Wednesday, we went to a presidential debate party, where I let him eat french fries for dinner. More on that later. Oh, and PS: I’m thinking Colbert has the edge. That twinkle, that twist of the wrist… Read the rest of this entry »

We lost Paul Newman yesterday. If I still worked at a newspaper I’d be hustling to put together 40 or so inches of copy that captured his essence: actor, husband, philanthropist, race car driver, father and so on. I’d have twisted myself in knots trying to do him justice, because there was no actor I loved better. I fell in love with him when I was just a young girl, smitten with those eyes, even in black and white, entranced by his sly, smart sense of humor and transfixed by his innate elegance (no one ever made the simplicity of a white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up look better). As he aged into his 70s and 80s, I found myself comparing him with my own father. Part of it was the big, dark rimmed glasses both of them wore — resolutely practical and old fashioned — and part of it had to do with the fact that both were handsome men who aged well. But more than that, I admired Newman as one admires a good father, for living life with extraordinary dignity and a sense of grace married to strength.

In the end, I don’t need 40 inches to say what was important about Newman.  First, he was the most beautiful man who was ever born. No one will ever be that physically beautiful. More remarkably, defying most of Greek mythology, he seemed to have never been corrupted by that beauty (actually, he seemed mostly embarrassed by it). Most remarkably, by all accounts, he lived beautifully, giving back to family, to friends, to the world. We were so lucky to have had him, and for so long.