This season is a lot funnier, not as dark, mainly because, well, she has accepted the fact that she is dead. She knows she cannot go back to where she was when she was alive.

I'd hope to reach any kid who feels apart from the group - those who seem to be outsiders, who feel different. Kids who want to reach their parents often don't know how to do so.

Oh, she didn't schlep me. I schlepped her, actually. I was the one who wanted to be an actress.

I find that the majority of the actors I've worked with are extremely sensitive people and very spontaneous people. That's why I always say I'll never date an actor, because they're in love with you one day and the next day they're not.

In one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home.

In the West, especially after World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family.

We hear the stories every day now: the father who puts on a suit every morning and leaves the house so his daughter doesn't know he lost his job, the recent college grad facing up to the painful reality that the only door that's open to her after four years of study and a pile of debt is her parents'. These are the faces of the Obama economy.

I know I've had a charmed experience of being a parent, with healthy kids, a helpful partner, access to good day care, and great public schools.