Liars and Saints

  As the Emmy Awards approach, I have just a few thoughts about "The White Lotus." *Gay people don't always get a spotlight in prestige TV. I'm watching "Breaking Bad," and, hour after hour, I search for a gay character, and all I get is the whispered suggestion that Gus Fring is *possibly* gay. The flamboyant "Mad Men" artist disappears quickly. Good luck finding a gay man in "Friday Night Lights." (I think there is just one, and I think he gets three lines.) "The White Lotus" is a work of genius by a bisexual man--and, also, if Murray Bartlett--playing Daniel Barrett--wins the Emmy, then that's great. Additionally, I was touched by Steve Zahn's sexuality crisis--something I think I haven't seen on TV before. *It seems to me that Molly Shannon was the heart and soul of "The White Lotus." No nomination? But there's room for Connie Britton's daughter? This seems problematic to me. *Finally, people ta...

  Here are little moments I'd "rewrite," if I could edit my own week: *My son's physical therapist visits. She spends time with the entire family. At the end of the hour, she says, breezily, "Clearly, your child has a better rapport with Marc than with you!" *Constipation leads to Miralax, which leads to diarrhea and diaper rash. But, before you discover the diaper rash, you put your child to bed. This means--at 2 AM--there is sudden shouting. Then you're all awake for the next two to three hours. *The cleaning person passes by, and she is on the phone, and she says that something is SUCIA! And I know just enough Spanish to grasp the meaning of "sucia"--but not enough Spanish to make sense of the context surrounding the word..... But, anyway, we are all alive! WE'RE ALIVE!!! Onward and upward....

  Molly Shannon's father, a closeted gay man, was driving a car. He had his family with him. He'd had too many drinks. It seems he fell asleep and drove the car into a pole; three people died. One was Molly's infant sister; the cause of death was later listed as "putrification of the brain." I don't know how Molly forgave her father, but she did, and then she lived for many years with this damaged man (who should maybe not have had any children in his care). Molly's neck was dirty because her father couldn't climb the stairs to wash her. Molly's father would scream with jealousy if Molly spent too much time with a schoolyard friend. And Molly's father encouraged his prepubescent daughter to smuggle herself onto a flight to New York; when Molly succeeded, her dad said, "Find some way to get yourself back to Cleveland. I'm not paying for the ticket." My old teacher Amy is fond of saying: "Two people get hit by a bus--one become...

  My frenemy is like Maria von Trapp, and he makes me feel like the Baroness. People on this block use our Google group to make angry remarks: "The town is removing another tree! Soon you won't be able to call us  Maple wood!" "Someone deposited personal garbage items in *my* private garbage can. Was this you? Photo attached." But my frenemy writes only to invite people to parties, or to say: "I found a wounded bird in my yard. I want to care for the bird appropriately. Can anyone point me in the right direction?" And my frenemy is very excited about local library renovations--and not at all furious that the renovations project seems to require two-to-three years of planning. My frenemy  loves literacy ! He does not suspect--as I do--that the building project really requires one or two months, and that workers all over town, funded with tax dollars, are just sitting on their collective ass. Finally, my frenemy accepts playdate invites in a prompt, deci...