bits of silly

I have a new child. She arrived over the weekend after I sent Willa to her room for a time out. When I went to get her out of time out, I discovered that Willa was gone and in her place was Kyra. Kyra looks, sounds, dresses exactly like Willa. But they are not the same. Kyra is from an orphanage in California.  She is also way better behaved. Kyra stayed all weekend. (Willa, apparently, had taken off swimming across the ocean.) There was no breaking of character. Uta Hagen would've been impressed.  If you called the resident six-year-old Willa or discussed her as Willa, she'd respond, even from the other room, "I'm not Willa!" She also made me show her where everything was—water glasses, toothbrushes, clothes—because of course, it was all unfamiliar. And she regaled me with how things were done out there at the orphanage in California. Twenty girls, they all have their own rooms. Lord knows why she wants to live here.

You could read the tolerance in Willa's friends faces over the weekend. One little girl from upstairs looked totally freaked out and when she and Kyra went to dance class together, stayed far away from the Changeling. Others, good-naturedly talked to "Kyra" with a wink and a smile. But little sister Denbele, who spent the last few days home sick—"I barfed!" she told anyone who would listen—and who I thought would be fully muddled by this concept as her language is still kind of iffy (the difference between boys and girls baffles her and though I like to think it's because she's so much more enlightened about gender than the rest of us, I suspect that's not the case) seemed to totally get it. "She's Keewah," she kept telling me any time I slipped and called Kyra Willa. And it was hard to keep track. Willa came back Sunday night. Yesterday Kyra was back. It's hard to know who will wake up in the bed this morning.  I've told Kyra we'd happily adopt her if she doesn't mind sharing the top bunk,  but that we need Willa to come back, too.

I'm not sure what this all means. Is my child a budding writer? Actress? Schizophrenic? Or is she just very influenced by books? We have been reading The Magic Half by Annie Barrows in which two twins, one living in present day, one living with a mean family in the 1930s, find each other by magic and find a way to be reunited. I won't spoil the ending but the metaphysics of it have been causing Willa major Woah moments, like in Animal House when the stoned guy starts contemplating the whole what-if-there's-a-world-in-my-thumb?

Sigh, if only I could capture the younger voice, I'd have such a wealth of books to write inspired by my kids.

In other news, Oscar nominations came out recently. I'm not sure how I feel about ten movies for Best Picture. I mean, Inception was an interesting mind-bending movie but Best Picture? And Winter's Bone. I do appreciate a small indie creeping in but this movie was kind of trite, replete with every stereotype of poor southern mountain folk you can imagine, and lots of bad teeth. Also, I'm not sure when it happened, but I've become a Natalie Portman Hater. And if she beats Annette Benning because she's a smug pregnant lady who sprouted wings, I will have to vomit.

Annette Benning is such a good subtle actress, the best actress out there if you ask me. And she took off all those years to raise her kids. And she's not campaigning to win and if she doesn't win because of that, I will be upset and will have to conclude that Hollywood is stoopid. Oh, wait.

But on the not upside side of things, can we take a moment to savor the hotness of the best actor/supporting actor categories. Jack Nicholson is nowhere in sight. (Neither is Ryan Gosling but let's not be greedy.)

[image error]

(Hmm, now that I look at all these pictures, I'm seeing how white it all is. Did any actors of color get nominated this year? Hmm, no. Apparently they all have to get lumped in at once. Did I mention the stoopid? Also Tangled didn't get nominated for best animated feature. What is going on?)

Lastly, did anyone watch the State of the Union address last night? I fell asleep about halfway through. I saw enough to say that Obama needs to take some tips on comic timing from Jon Stewart. I know it's a tough room but his jokes made me cringe. They sounded more like a student-council president than you know, a President. But maybe that was appropriate. Did you see or hear about how all the Democrats and Republicans sat together instead of the Dems on the left and Repubs on the right?  It was all a big show of unity in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting. But here's the hilarious part. The grownups in Congress were so scared about who they were gonna sit with and not wanting to be caught out with no one cool to sit next to, they went and made dates for opposition party, State of the Union seatmates. So John McCain and John Kerry sat together. It was so cute. Do you think they held hands? Had a goodnight kiss at the front door?  Eric Cantor, the smarmy House Majority Leader asked out former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Did he call? Send a little note: Will you sit with me? Check yes, no, or I will if you don't repeal healthcare). But Nancy already had a date. She tweeted to Eric: I thank @GOPLeader for his #SOTU offer, but I invited my friend Rep. Bartlett from MD yesterday & am pleased he accepted.

These are the people running are country!

And in case you were wondering, it's true. High school never ends.