During my years as a TV critic, I was invited to sets in Los Angeles, where I'd interview the principal actors, directors etc and then go home and write about the experience.

The job entailed watching TV, a lot of it. I interviewed Salma Hayek (she’d just launched Ugly… Read full post »

I’ve been ying of ying and yang. I’ve been a gypsy. I’ve been a princess. I’ve been a doctor. I’ve been a gunslinger. I’ve been a piece of gum. I’ve been cloudy with a chance of showers. I’m proud to say all of these Halloween costumes were hom… Read full post »

Gift registries used to be the exclusive domain of the newly engaged and newly pregnant – but now high school graduates are using registries at Bed Bath & Beyond to attempt to score expensive gifts as they head off to college.

Freshman year no longer has to mean borrowed… Read full post »

Surely, this isn’t how God meant me to look in the company of my tour guides, one of whom was the hotel’s general manager and the other a divinely beautiful and fun marketing director. I can sugarcoat the situation and use words like “dewy” or “moist”… Read full post »

Five months before he began working on How To Train Your Dragon, animator Gabe Hordos adopted a cat from the humane society in L.A. Hordos, a Regina, Sask., native who has lived in L.A. for seven years, had never owned pets before so his first attempts at friendship with the… Read full post »

When you see thieves on film they're always glamorous. It's George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean's Eleven, all chisel-jawed, debonair, hunky, stealing with hi-tech flair. Or there's suave Cary Grant stealing priceless baubles and Princess Grace's heart in To Catch a Thief. It sure as… Read full post »

Tiger Mother’s been clawing her way through the talk shows and radio circuit this week. I’m talking about Amy Chua, the Yale law professor whose book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother hasn’t won her many fans in the U.S. this week. I haven’t been able to get a copy of… Read full post »

I wanted to be invincible like Wonder Woman. I wanted her chunky bullet-repelling bangles precisely coz they stopped bullets and because they were a funky fashion accessory. I wouldn’t wear that Playboy Bunny outfit because it looked like it was crushing actress Lynda Carter's… Read full post »

We live 20 minutes from Disneyland. We’ve lived 20 minutes from Disneyland for 6½ years. You’d think that, because we live so close to the “happiest place on earth”, we’d be there all the time. Not so. We went there for the first time in April when my son was 2… Read full post »

There was a moment early in TRON: Legacy that my husband turned to me and said, “Holy Hell am I ever glad I’m not trapped in a videogame. How do you get flying-killer-disc practice? Frisbee? If I was Sam I would have committed suicide by now.” He was joking, of course,/… Read full post »

My husband asked me today how old I was when I stopped believing in Santa Claus. Sorry to break it to you babes but I never believed in Jolly Ole Claus. It never registered in my early years. My first memories of Christmas are from when I was about 11 or… Read full post »

Which of these women do you know?

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran. In 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's,/… Read full post »

Remember when you were in high school and had a secret crush on the captain of the basketball team and you sat, breathless, face-to-face with your best friend and poured out your heart and made her promise not to tell anyone?

You knew full well the… Read full post »

My father arrived in the U.S. in 1964 as a Fulbright Scholar with less than $10 in his pocket. When he was leaving Pakistan he was forced to empty his wallet by a greedy customs officer at the Karachi airport. My dad didn’t have money for soap or toothpaste when he… Read full post »