When I was invited to a good friend’s wedding in Washington DC, I decided to bring my nine-year-old daughter Emma. I’ve taken her brother Lex to DC (to lobby for the arts), to Arizona (to stump for Kerry, to no effect), to Lone Pine, CA (camping), to the San Diego Comic Con (!), to Philadelphia (to wonder what happened to our country), and probably other places I’ve forgotten. He’s 17 now, so I figured it’s her turn. Plus, he’s off hanging out with Arnold Schwarzenegger and others all week in Sacramento.

I don’t expect my kids to be the same as each other. As I remind my wife, “They’re different people, you know.” In her mind, what worked with one at a certain age should work with all; given what I saw of 12-year-olds when I was growing up, they would all be in the boys’ room smoking cigarettes. But no, times change, and people are individuals.

Although I did once before take Emma to southern New Jersey on a trip, she was instantly absorbed by an agglomeration of uncles, grandmother, aunt, cousins, and cousins-once-removed; here, it’s just the two of us. I’ve never spent concentrated time with just her before, and it’s been a learning experience. Here’s some of what I’ve learned.

1. She never goes to the bathroom. It’s true. When we get up in the morning, I’ll ask if she’d like to use the bathroom. No, she says — and apparently she has no need to. I don’t see her going in there before bed, either. Yesterday day and evening we walked just about all 10 squares miles of DC in heat that shrank my clothes two sizes and quaffed: a coffee, half a “homemade” lemonade, an Italian ice, a Smithicks Ale, two whiskey & sodas, and about two gallons of water. Well, that’s what I had. She had about a quart of water, the other half of that lemonade that wasn’t actually made in a home, a root beer, an orange juice, and a Coke. I used probably ever relieving station in our nation’s capitol. She skipped into one near the duck pond to wash her hands and promptly returned with damp hands. Not once have I seen her relieve herself.
2. She doesn’t eat. Well, barely. For breakfast yesterday she had one quarter of a Krispy Kreme donut. I had my donut, then my other donut, then the remaining 3/4 of hers. For lunch, I had the barbecue sausage special offered by the state of Texas as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the national mall. She picked nine beans out of the corner and ate them. And was full.
3. She is impressed by small new things. Her first remark upon this hotel room was about the beds:  “Dad, put your hands under the cover! It’s so silky!” It turned out to be that beige-ish polyester throw we’ve all seen at Motel 6. Further checking out the room, she exclaimed, “The bathroom is beautiful!” Yep:  a toilet, a sink, and a tub with shower, all in white. (Not that she’ll ever need to use most of that.)
4. She is drawn to squirrels and birds, and shares several qualities with them. She roundly dismissed the statue of Alexander Hamilton, but judging from her behavior with trees nearby would have gladly run up and around him if possible. She has pointed out and interacted with every squirrel DC has to offer, noting the whitish patch on one and the daring puckishness of another. She roared at the birds sitting inside the bowl of the water fountain intended for humans outside the Washington Monument. She’s remarked upon every red-bellied whatever. This interest extends to larger birds. She wanted to walk the length of the reflecting pool so she could make personal contact with every duck and goose. One goose hissed violently at me in warning, but didn’t seem disturbed by her presence at all.
5. She loves stickers and tattoos and art projects, but she has no interest in the space program or technology of any sort. When I brought Lex here we spent an entire day at the Air and Space Museum, going into and out of space capsules and space stations and eating space food. Emma flatly told me she had no interest in any of that. She did insist on doing every NASA-related kid activity at the aforementioned festival on the mall, though, when she learned that she would receive an activity book as well as a special sticker at every station and, if she completed them all, a special commemorative pin. In about one-million-degree heat we dragged around for what seemed like eternity to, for example, drop different sized balls and marbles into cake mix to simulate moon cratering. This, so we could get that elusive cratering sticker. She was enormously thrilled to get a tattoo of the Hubble Space Telescope applied to her arm. I’m just hoping it’ll scrub off for the wedding.

I’m sure I’ll discover more about the ways of daughter in the days remaining here, but right now I’ve got to go out for a run. When I return we’re going to the museum she said she wanted to visit — the Natural History Museum, home to many ages of birds and squirrels, held firm by fixative and easier to study at length.

Congratulations to my friend (and former student) EM (Ellen) Lewis on winning the Primus Prize for her play “Heads.” This is a significant award, and I couldn’t be prouder of Ellen, and for being there at the birth. (The play was written in my workshop.) She’s an enormously talented writer, and also a wonderful human being.

I’m not sure why I’m so interested in this brief news video about a pig that survived 36 days of being buried in the recent Chinese earthquake, so maybe you can help me.

Maybe it’s the human-interest angle of the farmer who bought the pig to fatten and profit from, only to first fear the pig dead, then discover the pig alive but 40% thinner.

Maybe it’s the joyous expression of the young Chinese soldier who takes the surviving pig as a symbol of hope and resilience.

Maybe it’s the conclusion, wherein a local museum purchases the pig and promises to tend for it the rest of its natural days, which has me wondering just how China defines the word “museum.”

Or maybe it’s just the unthinking, indomitable spirit of a pig that survives more than a month drinking rainwater and living off its own flesh.

You decide.

(A side note to the folks at LATimes.com: Your video embed doesn’t work, no way, no how. Hence my using the link, rather than sharing the vid.)

No, it’s not what you think.

On Sunday at a backyard event for our new state Assembly Speaker, Karen Bass, I learned from my assemblyman, Paul Krekorian, that he’s about to face two opponents in his re-election bid. In addition to his Republican challenger, he’ll also be facing off against porn star Mary Carey. Here’s her announcement for office for, yep, California Assembly District 43.

Of course I — and no doubt many others — had many one-liners about this situation. (For starters, I told Paul that while of course I support him, I might be interested in working on the Carey campaign, depending upon the volunteer freebies.) But on further reflection, it might not be a laughing matter. Krekorian is a hard-working, common-sense public servant doing his best on behalf of his constituents. I hope that’s enough to offset the “why not vote for a famous whore just for the fun of it?” angle. Name recognition counts. Remember:  Hulk Hogan won. Arnold Schwarzenegger won. Ronald Reagan won.

For 20 years, Paul has dedicated himself to community improvement, as a volunteer, as a school-board member, and as assemblyman. To lose him to a porn star?

That would suck.

I owe a debt of gratitude to whoever close-captioned this Joe Cocker performance from Woodstock. I’ve always admired the performance, but now I know what he’s actually singing. You should check it out — because it’s nowhere near what you think.

Congratulations to my friends Grover and Marc on their wedding day.

Here’s another fine example of compassionate conservatism, in the form of a pin offered for purchase at the Republican state convention in Texas.

While this sort of messaging (albeit usually somewhat more cleverly disguised) has worked for them in the past, I don’t think this approach is going to help them this election year — and may have quite the opposite effect. But I suppose we’ll see.

Thanks to Paul Crist for making me aware of this.

Thirty years past high school, I have finally developed an interest in playing soccer.

Furthermore, if topless soccer is what would come to town, I have changed my mind and now favor taxpayer subsidies for building the new sports arena.

That’s what this piece on Slate asks.

In a word, the answer is: No.

At least, from all evidence, not this night owl.

Some time even before puberty, it became almost impossible to go to sleep at what most people would consider a “reasonable” hour. I remember as a boy reading comic books by flashlight under the blankets so that my parents wouldn’t see my light on. By age 12 I gave up on that and just used the lamp, because my parents had given up on trying to get me to go to sleep early. In adulthood, here’s what I’ve discovered: My body wants to fall asleep somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m., and get up at 10:30. To prove it once again, I set no alarm clock when I was in Nebraska and just let my regular cycle happen — and I fell asleep between 3 and 4 a.m., and woke up at 10:30.

In addition to being a night owl, I have a further complication. Just about everyone in my family has what I’ve come to decide is a sleep disorder:

• My father was a somnambulist (sleep walker)
• So was his father
• I am a somnambulist and a nocturnalist (someone who can’t fall asleep early, and doesn’t sleep well)
• Both my brothers are nocturnalists
• My sister is a somnambulist
• I believe all five of my adult nieces and nephews sleep talk or sleep walk
• My elder son sleepwalks
• My daughter sleepwalks and sleep talks
• My younger son sleep talks and, if I read the signs on the landing correctly the other night, was walking around doing something in his sleep

Clearly, there must be something genetic behind all this. Given the other maladies one can pick up genetically — say, sickle-cell anemia or the sort of cancer that has torn a hole through Jimmy Carter’s family — this isn’t so bad. Although I do wonder on occasion what a full good night’s sleep might feel like.

When I was back in New Jersey recently, my birth family and I were discussing all this. (Yet again.) Treatments we had tried came up. My one brother takes sleeping pills, which I have relentlessly avoided because I don’t want to spend the next day feeling drugged. (I have a low tolerance for medications.) My other brother, the one who gets up at 5 or 6 a.m. (!) just stays up late. I’ve tried acupuncture, which worked brilliantly, but it wears off and I get tired of building it into my regular routine. I’ve tried exercise to tire myself out, but weight training, racquetball, firewood-chopping, and even marathon training isn’t putting me to sleep. Hypnosis was the single best remedy yet, resulting in an immediate sleep benefit that shocked my wife (“I kept checking on you because I thought you were dead!”), but gradually it wore off and now I need to find a new hypnotist.

Yes, I’ve read books with titles like “Get a Good Night’s Sleep.” I’ve tried herbal remedies and, as I said, hypnosis and acupuncture, and also resetting my circadian clock, and taking vitamins, and drinking warm milk, and laying off caffeine and on and on. I’ve done everything but go to a sleep lab for testing, which I’ll get around to at some point. This would be less of a problem if two of my three school-age children didn’t need me to get up with them at the ungodly hour of 7:06 a.m. twice a week, roughly four hours after my body would actually like to be asleep. If I could figure a workaround — some other way to get them up and out on Mondays and Tuesdays — the world would be a better place. But in the meantime, whenever I come across an article like that one on Slate, I always read it in the hopes that it has something new to say. So far, it never has.

Today, Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama for president.

I know. I couldn’t believe it either. I mean, was he sure? Had he thoroughly vetted the field, now that it was down to one Democrat?

Why make this decision so early? Surely he could have waited until, well, November 1st. Or even early evening on November 2nd. This election is four and a half months from now, and as we hear constantly from the same people writing the hagiography of Tim Russert, even 20 minutes is “a lifetime” in politics.

I realize that Gore probably was never going to endorse Ralph Nader, given their checkered history. (In 2000, Gore denied Nader the presidency by 270 electoral votes.) Had he not been so hasty, Gore could have taken a second look at, oh, Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate. But now he’s made this risky endorsement of Barack Obama — completely contrary to the expressed desires of every non-Democrat in the country, I might add. I just hope that he’s made the right endorsement, and at the right time.