Pearl divers

I did three things at once today, a pretty heady accomplishment for someone raised in the era of uni-tasking or bi-tasking, at best. Who would have guessed in1981 that you could read, write, drink, eat and drive watch TV at the same time?

Today I soaked in the bathtub, drank a beer and read a little more of "Telegraph Avenue." Throw in  "worried" (where is everyone? why is the dryer still running?) and you'll see that I was actually quad-tasking. (#superstud #freak).

I like the hashtag. I like how it's replaced italics and parentheses for those moments when you need your inner thoughts to be heard as well as whatever drivel your fingers are typing.

#what?

During my strenuous hour of multi-tasking, I came across a passage that stopped me cold, meaning made me close the book and my eyes. The truth can whack you like that. Like the knife that finished off old Gyp Rosetti (#boardwalkempire). Prose can do that. (Literary analysis #penta-tasking.)

"The little boy had wandered away from his mother, tacking across the grass toward the play structure. His mother watched him go, proud, tickled, unaware that every time they toddled away from you, they came back a little different, ten seconds older and nearer to the day when they left you for good. Pearl divers in training, staying under a few seconds longer every time."

My little pearl divers. Rose is home for winter break. She no longer talks about transferring to a West Coast school after two years. She did tell me of a Christmas decoration strung above a busy New York avenue (Park? Fifth?). It was single, brightly lit star suspended in the sky, so glowing and so beautiful that for a minute she thought it was magic. As she spoke, I saw the bubbles in a trail. Me on the surface.

I should have stopped it. I should have nipped it in the pink and unfolding bud. I did not.

The truth is, I started it.

I grew up on a cul-de-sac in what was then Blossom Valley, a suburb of San Francisco so suburban that no building in town exceeded two stories. We had no sidewalks, no street lights.

No one walked. No one was out after dark.

There were one or maybe two African American students at my private Catholic high school. My mother tells the story that the first time my sister saw an African American, she imprudently touched his cheek then looked at her hand. The paint had not rubbed off.

But in my inner life -- a life fueled by the glorious transfusion of TV in this claustrophobic suburban straightjacket -- I was different. My life was rich. It was diverse. It was far from Los Altos, California. In my head, I lived in New York.

How could I not? In Los Altos, we all spoke with the non-regional dialect reflective of the West Coast. We shopped at the Mayfield Mall's chain stores, ate at the tres exotic Taco Bell and spent our weekends drinking Mickey's Big Mouth from a straw in a grocery store parking lot.

But TV! The fictional lives made my suburban youth 2-D! Rhoda, with her scarves and pantsuits and exotic Jewishness. Her accent ("Maa-wee!")! Her glamorous job arranging Fifth Avenue department store windows! Her totally stoned doorman, Carlton! Oy vey!

In time, it only got worse. "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," "The Royal Tennenbaums." The erudite discussions! Everyone in New York was smarter, funnier and more stylish than anyone I had ever met in the Bay Area.

In 1994, I moved as close to New York as I will ever get -- Los Angeles. To me, it was Paris on our own shores. Surely, anyone ambitious -- and as a young journalist I vibrated with ambition like a human tuning fork -- would live in New York. But the prospect...it was as crazy to a fourth-generation native Californian -- someone raised to believe that Los Angeles was the earthly manifestation of Hell, and New York dark side of the Moon -- to think that someone would give up the comfort and safety of suburban California to risk the possibility of mugging in New York. It was out of the question.

As an entertainment reporter in LA, I eventually made my three exciting trips to NYC. And with each trip, I understood more that it was less a mugger's paradise than an endlessly fascinating big city, much like the LA I so loved.

And then I had children. And the old childhood pull of the suburbs surfaced, like bubbles in the La Brea Tar Pits. What's the best environment for a child? Crowded, traffic choked LA? Or a sweet Northern California neighborhood, like that of my childhood?

I opted for the later, relocating to picturesque Curtis Park, a Sacramento neighborhood just south of California's Capitol. Here, my girls ride their bikes with abandon, walk to school and know most of the neighbors. In the summer, they enjoy ice cream at a friendly, family-owned parlor that has not changed since 1927.

And that has been good. But not good enough. They need more. They need the vibrancy that only a big city provides.

Or, I've brainwashed them to believe this and now it's what they think they want.

Whatever.

Fact is, since the time they were little, I have carefully edited their viewing and reading material. "Mary Kate and Ashley Take Manhattan"? Yes. "Annie Hall"? Yes. "The Royal Tennenbaums" -- oh hell yes. Can I watch "Gossip Girl"? "Flight of the Conchords?" "Ugly Betty"? "30 Rock"?

Please my darlings. Please do.

I didn't have the guts to live in New York. But my daughters do. And will -- Rose has been accepted to the freshmen class of CUNY Hunter College for the fall.

Did I engineer this outcome? I'd like to think so. My daughter differs with this conclusion. And of course she's right. She knows the best place for her is a city bustling with opportunities. She knows the suburbs are sweet and safe.

And the past.

A nice past.