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.

My best April Fool's Day prank was in college (I know I've told this story before). I worked part-time in the Registrar's office, and so I sent a letter to one of my friends saying that the university was going to stop offering her major, and that she needed to contact her advisor to discuss her options, and that We (at the Registrar's office) hoped this wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience or require her to spend any extra semesters beyond 4 years.

On a second sheet of paper, behind the letter of academic doom, I put a note saying something like, "Now that you've recovered from your heart attack -- April Fool!"

She was kind enough to forgive me since I immediately revealed it as a prank.

I'm not shocked. She's taking a lot of abuse for anything and everything she says over at Salon, too, and it doesn't seem proportionate to what she's actually musing about.

The Salon kerfuffle has been interesting to watch, but "not publically humiliating your children" strikes me as good policy regardless of your profession, gender, or fame. My family is full of clergy-- it's an ongoing struggle as to what remains strictly private and what makes it into sermons and essays. It's not something that seems to be of concern to her with the blog (though this essay? eh, not really)

somebody gets raped in the middle...they always do, of Danielle Steele novels, I mean.

You do NOT allow your children to feel responsible for your emotional welfare.

I'm canonically huge on the parent/child emotional separation (see my distaste for early Gilmore Girls and residual Veronica Mars issues), and I can't agree more.

Which brings me to another fictional thought. I do know IRL a mother who considers her teenaged son to be really friendly-I-know-his-secrets close, and it turns out he's got some of the nastiest legal secrets, and she has no idea. Does the precocious kid who's buds with mom and/or dad turn out to be male, often? I'm thinking of Jack and Bobby a little, but he's not her friend, even though he parents with her and interacts with her as a peer.

eta:

I remember the oldest daughter being angry about it until she meets her true love.

Okay, OW.

What's a false tabloid?. Cause I don't understand at all.

What's a false tabloid?

Redundant?

Yeah, but Gud, in the context of that post, it makes no sense at all.

I'm not shocked. She's taking a lot of abuse for anything and everything she says over at Salon, too, and it doesn't seem proportionate to what she's actually musing about.

It feels like a lot of what she's currently touching on are the things that pass through your mind late at night, but there's some sort of assumed compact not to speak of them out loud or even think about them too hard. Things that to me feel like musings, not many steps above idle thoughts, are clearly being taken as pronouncements. To me that seems connected to the MotherLoveCult stuff, and a general humorlessness that seems to surround a lot of touchy issues these days. I really feel for her regarding the drubbing she's taking - I was shocked at the reactions to her first couple of Salon columns.

fictional thought. I do know IRL [...] Does the precocious kid who's buds with mom and/or dad turn out to be male, often?

Wait, in real life or in fiction? Because for fiction, you've just cited Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, and in real life, I know that I, for example, am friends with my mom. So all I'm coming up with is girls. But I don't watch Jack and Bobby.