I'm not a huge Spike Jonze fan but S. Zacharek positively reviewed Zombieland which absolutely sucked (sue me, I like zombie movies, satire and Americana). I'm hoping this one is good and once it comes to this isle I'm there!

As one of those childless women intrigued by homeschooling as a thought experiment, I'll uselessly put forth that it makes some sense if it is mixed in with periods of institutional learning.

One of my reasons for not having children (I have a lot of reasons, most of them quite stupid, but so what) is I can't imagine the guilt I would feel having a kid and sending him or her out into the same school system I was educated in. I wouldn't have the money or resources to control the situation to a point where I could send the kid to Montessori then whatever cute little attentive private school would give non-existent child freedom to pursue interests and not spend all his or her time taking unpleasant tests.

My schooling was not entirely bad. I grew up in Long Island. I had some good friends. I loved the gifted program my elementary school shipped me off to one afternoon a week. But the environment of bullying conformity, wicked school cliques, and too many moronic teachers was awful. Getting up at 6:30 every day, shipping off on the bus to sit in school for seven hours. I mean, sure, we can't send the kids to work that early and they've got to be good for something, but it sucked. And I loved learning and reading.

So, I can sympathize with people homeschooling because they are just too soft to send their children into the misery grind of school. It is a conundrum I'm avoiding. But making your kid sit with you all day every day year after year does not sound so great either. Basically if you have the money and resources to do it in tandem with other homeschooling parents and make sure your kid does extracurriculars and sports and dance a lot, and makes the sort of good deep profound friendships often gleaned from school, then fine. But I don't know how one can do that.

Rain in a hot place has so much more personality. Here in London it's mostly drizzle; in five years of living here I've heard thunder about twice. In L.A. it comes over the mountains like a tropical storm and makes crazy sounds. Doesn't come often though, from what I remember

I live in London. I'm not entirely sure how the benefits work but keep in mind that in addition to a woman keeping a percentage of her pay while she's on leave the employer needs to pay her replacement. The benefit does not only exist for Brits- anyone living in the UK working full-time and having a baby can get it, so I don't know how linked it is in terms of policy to keeping the population above replacement level. As I've mentioned on this board before Britain is in a baby boom and a casual appraisal of the population reveals many, many people with several or more children, from a range of economic circumstances. British (not American or European) families in the UK also get 80 pounds per month per kid until the kid is 18 whether or not the parents work. Thats about $120 a month, not a lot but every little helps, as they say at Tesco.

I have to say, Crystal Renn does have a high fashion look in a way that some of the other "plus" size models don't, and kudos to her for getting that recognition. She evokes a 1950's Italian siren, something lovely and primal. She must be pretty smart to have been able to insert herself in her natural form into the fashion world which now has so many skinny identical girls.

The discussion about this issue does get very confused. There is no reason for fashion to show all sizes any more than for fashion to exhibit plain features and poorly straightened hair. It's fantasy. That a beautiful woman like Crystal Renn is rarely the visual in that fantasy is ridiculous, however. Having all women in magazines the same height and shape is boring, much like having the same clothes in every store and endless revisits of the 80's shoulder pads when I'd really rather see and wear something else. I'm a size minus or whatever they're slapping on the clothes nowadays and it doesn't make me more attractive than a bigger girl- it just means I won't look as good in a tight sweater and wide-legged pants as Crystal Renn would. Magazines should be mindful of this and have a range of women to sell the clothes, which is the bottom line- they aren't there to make us feel good about ourselves!

Geez, people, learn to read. I'm not saying the LW is a saint (maybe she is, maybe she isn't, all I know is she loves her husband and her tone about her in-laws is rather glib) but she says she is saving money and wants to have kids soon. All we know about her unemployment is that a year ago she didn't have a job. And MIL bringing up grievances about the son from twenty years ago sounds painful, if utterly within the realm of typical family dysfunction, although the tragedy of the suicide takes the possibilities into another realm about which I can make no assumptions other than pain, pain, pain.

Her question was simply whether she owed the maiden aunt an explanation now as to their plans. The answer is yes, not to mention a thorough conversation about the aunt's hopes and expectations. Personally I think family ties are worth cultivating and even if the LW moves away she can leave a good feeling in her wake by kindness and communication and, you know, love.