The baby is crying and crying and crying. She’s clinging to her father, grimacing in terror, while around her awkwardly stand four other toddlers, plastic cars in their fat hands, looks of perplexity on their round faces. What is going through their minds? I wonder, glad that the crying child isn’t actually mine. My Sasha is one of the watchers, and soon she turns away, walks over to a miniature table and overturns a box of toys.

This is Sasha’s first day of day care (unlike Nate’s and Ted’s kids, Sasha’s not old enough to be rejected from universal pre-K), and she seems utterly indifferent to the fact that five minutes ago her mother left and that in another five I’ll be gone too. She’s her usual outgoing, independent self, and is delighted to find chairs she can climb up into and a new batch of books to rend and consume. So what if Mom and Dad won’t be around? There’s fun to be had!

Isn’t it supposed to be harder than this? In preparation for today, I’ve been reading various Websites for advice—give the kid a favorite toy or favorite food, bring a family photo the teacher can show her—and we’ve been carefully referring to it as “school” not “day care” or “babysitting.” And we limited our time in the classroom so she wouldn’t expect us to be there all day.

Huh. I guess those things work. The only thing we weren’t prepared for is that Sasha wouldn’t really need us around.

Of course, this is still her first day. I’m half-expecting to pick her up this evening and find the classroom a shambles, the teacher wounded and bald, the other kids cowering in fear of Sasha, and the administrator holding up a large check and asking me never to return. Stay tuned…

Emma Goldman, railing about the lack of Pre-K seats?

Today is March 1st, a notable day around here because the New York Public Schools pre-K program list (here as a .pdf) was posted online at 7 a.m. this morning.

Okay, so this post may be of interest only to me and fellow Gothamists, but here it is: Theodore and I have been complaining about the lack of options for public pre-K. Theodore is putting a deposit on a private school in case it doesn’t work out. We are not: it’s a waste of money, right? But maybe Theodore isn’t such a dummy after all. The news this morning is that a dim situation will only get worse this year for us. In particular, the school right down the block that we had our eye on — the one that was merely ridiculously oversubscribed last year — simply isn’t offering pre-K at all this year.

By my calculations, all of District 3, which covers both West Harlem and the extremely fertile yuppie wonderland known as the Upper West Side, has 406 public school pre-K spots this year, down from 432 last year. The number of applicants for those spots last year: 2,125.

There are schools in District 3 that have slightly fewer kids applying than there are available spots. They are all in West Harlem, where, last time I checked, people are also having kids. We’ve got no compunction about traveling north for school, but I do have to wonder why families there aren’t filling up those schools. Who doesn’t like free education? Is there something so wrong with those programs? Or is Head Start fulfilling the demands as it is?

This month, we will be spending a lot of time in Harlem figuring it all out. I will try not to bore everyone with the details.

Cameron Douglas, cursed by fame and fortune

There are many things I blame Michael Douglas for. I blame him for not just acting in but also producing The Jewel of the Nile. I blame him and for trying to make us think that Demi Moore would sexually harass him in Disclosure. I blame him for glorifying anti-cholo violence in Falling Down.

I would not blame him, however, for the fact that I asked my girlfriend to smuggle me heroin inside an electric toothbrush. But that’s exactly what Douglas’s son Cameron, 31, did in a New York courtroom last week.

In a legal strategy best described as fame-blame, Cameron’s lawyers said the his father’s success as an actor caused the son’s (repeated) troubles. Said Dan Gitnar, Douglas’s defense attorney:

(Douglas’s) serious heroin addiction (stems from) notoriety that is not due to any acts of his own but by dint of birth and a difficult upbringing.

Gitner gets one point for using the phrase “by dint of birth.” He loses many more points for letting a full-grown man blame dope-seeking on his dad. Gitner’s dad, by the way, was a powerful CEO, the former head of Trans World Airlines — but that didn’t make Gitner a drug addict/dealer.

It’s not just drugs they’re blaming Michael Douglas for. At an earlier February hearing another defense lawyer blamed a whole catalog of “reckless” behavior on him:

Not violent, just screwing up in every way — car accidents, motorcycle accidents, tattoos. I think a lot of it had to do with who his parents are.

I don’t know what kind of father Douglas actually was. Am I wrong to assume that any man who marries a woman nearly his son’s age may have had difficulties accepting the task of father the first time around? He admitted to being “no angel” and being absent a lot. But seriously, Cameron, you’re an adult. Leave your dad out of it, unless he was the one asking for the dope.

Speaking of accountability, the courts might want to take a look at themselves. I am no fan of the War on Drugs, but it’s worth pointing out that when Douglas was first arrested in a raid on his room at the Hotel Gansevoort, he was charged with dealing meth. But in short order he was released to house arrest at his mom’s $9 million New York apartment. That’s where he tried to get his girlfriend to smuggle heroin in the toothbrush (by the way, don’t people keister anymore?).

If anything has been troubling Cameron, it might be that the legal system has a double standard for the rich and famous (see lying chauffeur-slayer Jayson Williams, eligible for parole in 18 months). For once, I’d like to see Cameron’s lawyers push a more honest claim in court: Your Honor, my client has been damaged by a lifetime of leniency from starfucking judges like yourself.