DC

The Green Festival in DC this weekend was most excellent even though I didn't get to hear Amy Goodman because I was moderating the progressive parenting panel (say it ten times fast) at the very same time and I didn't get Amy Goodman to sign a book for me because I was signing books at the very same time. I guess I was kind of loser-mama sitting next to Amy Goodman all weekend long, like, No, sorry, I'm the other A.G. But it was all right. What are you going to do?

I'd told China Doll Martens to meet me at the festival before I realized that was kind of like saying "Meet me at Grand Central Station," but miraculously, we were united. I was wearing a pink tutu and she's 6'3"--so that might have helped. "Have you seen a tall girl?" "Have you seen a girl in a pink tutu?"

So we found each other and we traveled through underground honeycombs of stalling sweaty public transportation to the weird hotel out in Virginia because all the DC hotels were full of protesters with credit cards.

Pajama Party! And working on China's new book, a compilation of so many issues of The Future Generation that have sustained you since almost forever, the original punk parenting zine. But isn't it weird when you mostly talk to a friend online or mostly communicate through your respective zines and then suddenly in person you feel a little awkward?

Morning and we could sleep as late as we wanted, but we woke up early and needed coffee so we headed back into DC for the Code Pink demo and of course we got lost. China reassured me: We're in DC and we're looking for the White House, so I think we will find it.

China is funny because she says things like "I have no sense of time" or "We're just walking" and she'll shrug and get that look on her face like she just fell of the turnip truck, but actually she's totally competent and she'll raise a kid and write a book and take you to the White House.

So we found the White House and joined the pink ladies and my tutu was so fabulous everyone wanted to take my picture, but then they wanted to interview me, too, and there were plenty more eloquent people around who'd had enough coffee and I'd done enough talking at the Green Festival so I said, "No, I'm just the Code Pink supermodel."

I didn't want to get arrested because I had to catch my plane home and get Maia to school this morning and to work this afternoon, so I took on tasks that were more my speed like Water Girl and Lady With the Pink Parasol Watching the Backpacks while the braver mamas who maybe didn't have to make sure they weren't incarcerated by today crossed the street to yell at the President and deliver a million reasons to stop the war in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan was the first to get arrested.

I met a woman who showed me this box of M&M's the size of a pack of cigarettes and she said that this is what W. and Condoleeza gave her when her relative was killed in Iraq--after the family portrait they gave her these M&M's with the national seal on the front of the box and this happy flag-toting yellow dancing M&M on the back and this is what they gave her. At first I think she's out of her mind, but she's not. This is what they gave her. Like free gift with you cosmetics purchase only it's just M&M's and your son brother uncle sister daughter is dead and the yellow M&M is dancing on the box and this is what they gave her.