Pamela Adlon: "Better Things"

A favorite character of mine, right now, is the fictional actor Sam Fox, played by Pamela Adlon, on "Better Things."

Adlon almost won the Emmy--twice--for this role. The show itself recently ranked among the top comedies of this current century, according to the NYTimes.

Sam Fox has a crazy British mother--one of the lost souls from "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"--and she has three needy daughters. The father is basically not around. In one of the show's great scenes, the father pops up to say he will be taking a job in the neighborhood, for the summer, a very high-profile job. Fox reasonably believes the guy is making this announcement because he wants to request more time to spend with the kids.

The guy clears his throat. Actually, this request is *not* the purpose of the dinner. The guy doesn't want to spend *any* time with the kids, and he fears bumping into them while on the job, and he just wants his ex to invent a diplomatic way to tell the kids that "Daddy's mysterious presence doesn't indicate a large block of new Daddy/daughter time, though in his heart Daddy does want to see you, though there is no evidence to support this claim."

Once Sam has found a way to say all this to the daughters, then Sam is to deliver the message. The guy can't be bothered.

Sam draws our attention to the shittiness of men in other ways. She counsels her oldest daughter not to spend time with a "lying turdball," then directly intervenes with the turdball, then attempts the inevitable: Assist your daughter when the turdball breaks her heart. Sam loses her shot at an impressive script because--at the final moment--Rachel McAdams expresses interest. (We might struggle to see how Rachel McAdams's dramatic skills overlap with Sam's, but of course McAdams is a beautiful Hollywood star, and men are calling the shots.)

Despite many travails, Sam maintains generally high spirits. She has a protracted play-battle with one daughter, which involves an elderly woman playing dead. Sam attends a school function and speaks bluntly to a group of mortified tweens about her period. ("Raise your hands if you're here tonight and you've started bleeding! Raise your hands if you've *stopped* bleeding--permanently!") Sam also offers wise thoughts to a teen in crisis: "No one actually knows what she is doing--ever. Maybe you'll have a career, and maybe you'll just have a crappy day job. And even if you just have a crappy day job, you'll still find reasons to enjoy yourself, because this is life, and life is sort of consistently interesting....."

Quietly subversive, unusual for TV. Good stuff.

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...

Liars and Saints

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