The Hollywood producer

Yesterday Sian told me that she was going to marry a Hollywood producer. And I didn't even know she had met a Hollywood producer-that's how difficult it is to keep an eye on your kids in these days of chat rooms and MySpace.

While waiting for her tutor at school yesterday, Sian got bored. She decided she would play Mash (or Match? oh no, has she been on an adult dating site?). It sounds incredibly complicated, with arcane numerological rules. But do you remember some of those games we played with folded papers on our hands? As I recall (dimly) these, too, were supposed to predict our future.

Because even eleven year olds try to play fair, Sian had to include some unsatisfactory choices for her future mate and career in the game of Mash. But she lucked out, avoiding a career as a garbage collector or housecleaner (a honorable one for which she is hugely unsuited). In addition to marrying the producer (unnamed) she is going to be a dress designer. Her salary? A hundred million dollars an hour. Perhaps all of us should have gone into dress design-or perhaps everyone in the year 2020 will be wearing the same suits and dresses.

We didn't explore such complicated questions as what would happen if she fell in love with a struggling actor before she met the producer, or if she lost her passion for designing clothes. For this girl on the cusp of adolescence, life is complex enough already. Why create more stress by breaking the news that she has as much control over whether she will meet a Hollywood producer as I do of having an article published in the New York Times (maybe less)...In the meanwhile, it is fun to observe her starting to choose a life for herself-there is no harm in daydreams.