do you have any more moving boxes?

Not that are empty, or likely to be soon, no. Sorry.

violating the current cultural presumptions about A Mother's Love

Very much this. I feel really unable to predict how I'd feel in her place, but just questioning my responses to that article is making me realise how much internalising I've done.

Mom sends all the kids to the life boat and dies with dad.

Was there room for her? Were the kids messed up as a result?

When I was in college we had a particularly ugly piece of campus sculpture called Solar Wind.

We also had an art department that would cover the campus in senior projects every spring.

A friend of mine (actually, remember that comic with the penguins the other day? that guy) foolishly left his damp laundry in the laundry room. Dude, we were being helpful when we hung it on the volleball nets in the quad to dry... it could have mildewed.

The fact that the next day was Easter and everyone on campus and their parents would be wandering around all dudded up on their way too and from brunch at the commons 25 feet away... and that it might be kinda awakward to pick your way through the crowd and climb around on a volleyball net pulling down your clothes... mere coincidence.

The fact that we lableled it Solar Wind II -- Senior Art Project (please do not disturb) PROTECTED his drying laundry from harm, darn it. How were we to know that people would go over and read it and take photos and point and laugh and...

I'm smiling just thinking about it.

Not that are empty, or likely to be soon, no. Sorry.

Oh well. I may get some Miracleborn boxes, and I can always hit TJs again.

Was there room for her?

Yes, there was.

Were the kids messed up as a result?

Course they were -Danielle Steele novel.

Yes, there was.

Inneresting -- is she painted as selfish or villainous or anything negative for her choice? I mean, by the author, more than the other characters.

Course they were -Danielle Steele novel.

You can tell it's been a while for me, hasn't it?

I'm trying to think of portrayals in fiction where the mother espouses more dedication to her spouse than her kids

It happened in the movie (and I think book) The Sundowners. Where the kids resent having a nomadic life and appeal to their mom, and bluntly says, "I love you but if I have to choose, I'll choose to follow your father." And it was shocking then too. Of course, the father in that movie is Robert Mitchum so you can see the appeal.

People ripped Anne Lamott to shreds, too, for admitting that sometimes you really resent your kids.

Nonetheless. I wouldn't attack Ms. Waldman, but I also think that when your kid reads your blog and worries about you, it's high time to use friendslock. You do NOT allow your children to feel responsible for your emotional welfare.

he knows far too much about Klingon politics and the lyrics to Yes songs

I think I love him, too.

Inneresting -- is she painted as selfish or villainous or anything negative for her choice? I mean, by the author, more than the other characters.

No, it was painted as a true love thing. She couldn't live without him. Ain't twue wuv gwand? I remember the oldest daughter being angry about it until she meets her true love.

You can tell it's been a while for me, hasn't it?

Hee.

The current book "The Glass Castle" is by a woman telling how her childhood was spent being drug along in her eccentric parents' wake. They were often too poor to eat or to have a decent home, but the lovely thing to me is that she doesn't resent them but thinks they were pretty nifty folk despite it all and honors them for their ability to live life exactly the way they wanted to. She and her siblings are successful and fairly cool themselves, by all accounts.