Salon.com > Amy Silverman

A boy named Rover

Fri, 08 Mar 2002 20:23:00 +0000

I checked my voice mail this morning, and in between the one from my mother and the one from my boss was one from my husband. You wouldn't have been able to tell it was Ray, but I could. No one else would hold the cellphone up to the car radio for a full 30 seconds to record Neil Diamond singing "Cracklin' Rosie."

Ray is no Neil Diamond fan, but he loves the name Rosy. We both do. I like AC/DC about as much as Ray likes Neil, but I'll always keep the dial on "Whole Lotta Rosie."

The name Rose is beautiful. Classic, elegant, with a great nickname -- Rosy. And it's not too popular, only 294th on a list of girl names in the morning paper.

So you'd think that when our first child -- a daughter -- is born this summer, we'd have no trouble picking a name. But there is a problem: We've already got a Rosy in the house. A 5-year-old, 50-pound, sweet-faced, black-haired dog.

Much as I love Rosy -- both beast and title -- I can't name my child after a retriever-spaniel mix.

I haven't taken a survey, but still, I'm certain I've stumbled on a social phenomenon here. So many people are waiting longer to have children, and making dogs their pre-kid substitute, that there must be a rash of babies out there with second-choice names. How could anyone name their kid after their dog? (Or cat, for that matter. I never should have wasted the name Isabelle on the kitty.)

Watergate kids

Mon, 07 Aug 2000 19:30:00 +0000

I am a child of Watergate, but only in the most obvious sense, which is to say that I was a child at the time. I was 5 years old the summer of the break-in, and my only political memory is the John Lindsay for President bumper sticker my mom stuck on a box in the garage. Someone had ripped the other one off the back of our station wagon.

In our family, it was more than OK to take unpopular political positions. My mother is descended from socialists and I picked up the cue, which made me a lonely child growing up in Phoenix, a place where government is a dirty word and even Democrats are armed. I spent many solitary summer afternoons in the '80s licking envelopes for losers in empty campaign headquarters. Mom was so proud.

There was never any question in our house about Watergate: bad. Very bad. And the scandal definitely had an impact on me. But it was nothing stars and stripesy, nothing like seeing the movie "All The President's Men" and deciding to become a journalist. To be honest, I decided to be a reporter after Meg Ryan moved to New York to go to journalism school in "When Harry Met Sally." Looked like fun, so I did the same thing.

The secret life of Dad

Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:25:00 +0000

Every year, I tell my father that I'm going to show up at his office on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. We both know it'll never happen.

My father runs a public utility, one of the largest companies in Arizona. I'm a political reporter at Phoenix New Times, the alternative weekly here. I make my (comparatively meager) living writing about the way my dad makes his living. Well, not my dad. I don't write about him or Salt River Project, his company. But his friends and associates and the politicians they elect? Definitely. It can't be helped; the town's too small.

You'd think such close quarters would breed contempt between a rep-tied father and his Doc Martened daughter. But really, our relationship has never been better.

Dad and I barely spoke before I took the job at New Times. Of all my childhood memories, one of the clearest is the feeling of my tiny hand in my father's huge, warm one, slowly swinging back and forth as we walked. I don't recall where we were going, but I do know that the memory is precious because it is rare.

The virtual bitch slap

Thu, 27 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

I don't play video games. The last video game I played was probably Pong, during the late '70s and early '80s. Remember Pong? You plugged a giant box into the TV and hit an imaginary Ping-Pong ball back and forth with your sister until you got in a fight with each other or realized that watching "Brady Bunch" reruns was more exciting. I was never very good at it.

Pac Man. Ms. Pac Man. Donkey Kong. I passed on 'em all -- partly out of boredom, but mostly because of a lack of eye-hand coordination.

And then video games got violent. I'd walk past the study and see my otherwise angelic husband, Ray, pointing an enormous, very real-looking gun around the interior of a half-submerged submarine, waiting for a predator to pop out. Boom!

"It's relaxing," he explained, eyes on the screen, keys clicking, mouse poised, muscles clenched.

As far as I was concerned, being a true video-game junkie required more time than I was willing to spend. I'm the queen of multitasking: I shop on the Internet while I do the laundry. Or I watch "Ally McBeal," talk on the phone, pet the dog and eat a Starbucks low-fat frappuccino bar. Or walk on the treadmill, read the paper, listen to a CD, watch the "Today" show and talk baby talk to the dog.

A Jew for baby Jesus

Wed, 22 Dec 1999 17:00:00 +0000

I have a confession to make: I am a Jew who loves Christmas.

I love the twinkly lights and the TV specials and watching the kids at the mall line up to sit on Santa's lap. I love red and green Cap'n Crunch. Every year, I spend months daydreaming about what to buy friends and family, and hours at the stationery store, agonizing over just the right yuletide greetings.

I make hundreds of star-shaped Christmas cookies and stay up all night, icing each one. I like all the carols, but my favorite is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I blast it on the car radio, make sure the windows are up, and sing a duet with Bing, sobbing happily, brimming with seasonal joy.

"Amy shines at Christmas," my husband tells our friends, as I'm struggling to tie the reindeer antlers around the dog's head, or coercing cocktail party guests into decorating gingerbread men.

Someone should start a support group for us, the Jews who love Christmas. For as much as I throw myself into the season, there's always been something missing, something more than the Christmas tree I've never had.

How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction

Mon, 18 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000

GOP presidential candidate John McCain's wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on "Dateline") and Diane Sawyer (on "Good Morning America") the tale of her onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief organization.

It was a brave and obviously painful thing to do.

It was also vintage McCain media manipulation.

I had dij` vu watching Cindy McCain on television, perky in a purple suit with tinted pearls to match. It was so reminiscent of the summer day in 1994 when suddenly, years after she'd claimed to have kicked her habit, McCain decided to come clean to the world about her addiction to prescription painkillers.

I believe she wore red that day. She granted semi-exclusive interviews to one TV station and three daily newspaper reporters in Arizona, tearfully recalling her addiction, which came about after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. To make matters worse, McCain admitted, she had stolen the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, her own charity, and had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Don't ask, he'll tell

Mon, 30 Aug 1999 09:00:00 +0000

The investigation by the U.S. Army Reserve into Lt. Steve May's alleged homosexuality is the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars since the $640 toilet seat, since May has been openly gay for the last three years. But May's challenge to the Army's prohibition against openly gay soldiers could be the biggest threat to the Clinton administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy since it was implemented in 1993.

May admits he has probably violated the "don't tell" part of the policy, which resulted in the discharge of more than 1,000 gay men and women from the armed forces last year, because he has certainly told -- and told and told and told. But May came out as openly gay not as an Army reserve officer, but as a Republican candidate for the Arizona Legislature, where he took office last January.

His openness has led to an Army Reserve investigation -- and a new status as national media star. The Service Members Legal Defense Fund has taken his case, and his plight has been featured in media coast to coast. "I just did a press conference with CNN, all the networks, probably 20 reporters," he told me from New York, where he was attending a weekend meeting of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group. He'd been on MSNBC and "Good Morning America" already, but had to turn down other offers because he'd promised Larry King an exclusive on Monday night.