Full disclosure right off the bat. I come from a family of lawyers: my brother, my father, my grandfather… all the men in my family. Why not the women? Well, that’s another story, for another day.

The story for today is that I don’t understand why lawyers get such a bad rap. I’ve had occasion in the past few months to talk to half-a-dozen different lawyers for various reasons, and all but one have been generous, wise and flat-out amazing, without asking for a dime. Now admittedly, had it been necessary to proceed in any of these situations, every one would have charged an hourly rate, which, as we all know, tends to be a wee bit more than a writer’s hourly rate. If you’re cynical you might say they were just doing advance marketing. But at least half of them knew I’d never be hiring them, because they didn’t have expertise for the situation. Bottom line — if you need a lawyer in LA any time soon, I hope you’ll email me for contact info.

Meantime, I was so inspired that I paid it forward. A publisher was stuck for somebody to do some proofing and write a few headlines, so I helped him out gratis.

Whoever thought lawyers would change the world?

Jodi and I are becoming pals. She sits next to me in Excel class and shares her granola bar at break time. Today she was anxious cause her ’97 Corolla is overheating. I thought my car was old, but she’s got me beat by two years.

Last week I went to the food truck with Jodi and since they had no decaf or teabags, I got a cup of wretched coffee. José is a sweetie, but his coffee? Ewwww!

Excel is really an adventure. I was traipsing through the Louvre when they learned formulas, but the teacher helped me catch up today. Mostly what we’re doing is cosmetic. We put things in pretty colors, choose background patterns, change the angle of the type, and today I found a function that puts words like total and percent into gorgeous 3-D fonts. If I knew how to do that in this program, I’d do it for you here. But my computer knowledge is all on a need-to-know basis, with the street as my teacher. It’s better than my German, as I found out recently when I was editing a translation, though probably not as good as my French. But I can get around pretty well in both.

I don’t know whose voice I’m writing in today. But I like it. For today. It’s a little overcast and I’m procrastinating.

I’ve just spent a marvelous week there and I can’t possibly tell you everything I love about Paris, but for starters…

1. Beauty. Not only in the seemingly infinite number of museums (17 km of galleries in the Louvre alone), but also fountains, buildings, the Seine, window displays.
2. Butter that is always unsalted. Even in restaurants. Even on Air France.
3. Subways that have almost no graffiti and for which one seldom has to wait longer than two minutes.
4. Great tartes de framboises, aka raspberry tarts. I never had a bad one, and I sampled, um, several.
5. I feel safe walking home alone (to the Marais) at 2:30 am.
6. Amazing yogurt flavors like lychee and rhubarb rose.
7. Fabulous parks offering yellow, pink and lavender tulips amidst spacious paths and greenery; chestnut trees blooming everywhere.
8. Never having to worry about GMO foods or rBST in the milk because they don’t allow it!
9. A palpable history.
10. They let me massacre their language and for the most part, smile en route.

My last adult ed class was in comedy screenwriting at UCLA, so right away there was substantial student self-selection. This morning, however, I joined 25 or 30 other tech-challenged adults aged roughly 18 to 65, with quite a few more at the top end, to try to learn something about Excel. I’m not yet sure why I’m taking this particular class, other than that I’m interested in the program and know it can come in handy. Also, the reg fees at the community center are almost embarrassingly low.

Tech-challenged puts it mildly. I suddenly felt like a computer whiz. But although I was both amused and impatient at the confusion engendered by every instruction from the teacher, I was impressed. Most of these people have clearly been through ESL — some with more success than others — and here they are in a computer class. I speak a little French, some street Spanish and a smattering of German, and I can’t possibly imagine taking an Excel class in any of those languages. Quel courage! Que brava! Sehr beherzt! (OK, I admit it, I had to use the online dictionary for the German one.)

On the other hand, I couldn’t resist a snappy answer to the woman who clattered in late in designer jeans and wedges and left a trail of cookie crumbs around her keyboard. She wanted to know why the blue in my screensaver was brighter than hers, so I told her I had a better computer.

Nope, they aren’t my lucky numbers, and they aren’t yours either. A new report confirms that although any container (read water bottle) with one of those numbers on the bottom is recyclable — great news for the planet — it’s bad for your body. Nasty plastics leach out into the water we later drink.

Like most Angelenos, I spill a fair-sized puddle of change each month to get spring water delivered to my home, so imagine my chagrin to find that my vendor’s new delivery bottles all have the number 7 clearly embossed on the bottom.

The half-gallons I purchase at the market now and then are all number 1 — fine for one round, but easily damaged and becoming bacteria transmitters with repeat use, and toxic after a stint in the microwave or dishwasher. But those bottles have to be constantly recycled, which seems a colossal waste of resources.

I dream of a world where instead of putting money into weapons of destruction, we invest in clean, transportable drinking water for all. In this munificent country, we do have all the water we need for the moment, albeit toxin tinged. Let’s not forget how much of the world has to walk miles each day for even a sip.

The president is scheduled to sign the “Second Chance Act” tomorrow, thus officially making rehabilitation a goal of our misguided prison system. It’s difficult to get excited about any program from the architect of the spectacularly flawed No Child Left Behind, but the wheels of progress are turning exceptionally slowly these days and how wonderful that our government is even thinking about such things! I know it’s prompted more by prison overcrowding than deep concern for society, but we have to start somewhere.

Education is primary, but not just book learnin’; communication skills and techniques for mediation and meditation would be great. We should also teach them yoga, or send Peter, my Total Body Workout teacher, to whip them into shape. Physical workout classes using weights, balls and BOSUs create more centered bodies and minds. Prisoners would develop discipline and balance, and probably take a bit of an ego bruising in the process (as I do), but humility is always a good lesson.

Speaking of starting somewhere, if we’d stop making budget cuts in schools, we could lessen what is in LA a 50 percent high school dropout rate, and diminish the prison population over the next few decades. Let’s give the kids a second chance to create meaningful lives before they get anywhere close to a jail. It’s going to come out of the federal budget sooner or later, so doesn’t it make more sense to help our kids achieve productive lives and contribute to society? What, you say the teacher’s lobby isn’t as strong as the prison lobby? We noticed.

If we’re really going to look at where all this starts, we should be supporting family planning clinics so that every kid who gets born is affordable and wanted. Oops, I forgot, the gov doesn’t give money to clinics that promote any birth control besides abstinence, and we know how well that works.

All these elements are integrally related, and until we start looking at the way the puzzle pieces fit together, we’re swimming upstream.

The April issue of Vanity Fair features three iconic women in the soft rock pantheon: Carol King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. Carly Simon???? I adore Joni Mitchell. She’s written some amazing songs — like the entire Blue album — and covered others as well — how about the great Lambert, Hendricks & Ross song, “Twisted”?

Carol King, oh good lord. Who can argue with “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “You’ve Got a Friend,” both fantastic tunes.

But then, they throw in Carly Simon. I have nothing against Carly Simon. “You’re So Vain” was so fun; we all know at least one person to dedicate that song to, especially here in Hollywood. But what else did she sing? There was the ketchup song… but that’s kind of stuck on the supermarket shelf. Anything else? Were you ever at a party or in the car and someone said, “Oh hey, let’s listen to the new Carly Simon CD”? (And by the way, you can count them on your fingers.) Didn’t think so.

What about Judy Collins? She sang some great tunes, has a discography of about 30 albums and is still going strong. In fact, were it not for Judy Collins’ cover of “Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell, great as she is, might still be a musical footnote. And yet, Vanity Fair mentions her only in conjunction with Joni. Judy is also a beautiful lyricist and musician… “Since You Ask,” My Father” and so on. OK so her father was a blind musician and not the head of a big publishing house, but let’s give credit where it’s due.

Even after many years in LA, I’d never been to Palm Springs, famous as a haven for golfers, gay men and retirees. Over my daughter’s spring break, compensating her for a missed trip to Vegas (which was about the last place I wanted to send my young beauty), we went out to Palm Springs for a couple of days and surprise, surprise — it was perfect! Our days were spent by the pool, she sunning and I in the shade of a robust bougainvillea, after which we put on something adorable and sauntered a few streets over to the downtown area. Within just a couple of blocks we found three live bands playing great dance-able tunes. We rocked our socks off, savored a luscious strawberry margarita, then raced back to our hotel for a jacuzzi under the full moon. So if you’re saving your pennies for the Caribbean? Maybe you can get away sooner and cheaper. And if you’re in LA, it’s definitely closer.

It’s spring, my roses are budding and if I can just keep the aphids under control, there will be a breathtaking display in my backyard in the next two weeks.

Spring is a great time to fall in love, whether for the first time or again with the same partner. If you’re looking for inspiration, rent “Love in the Time of Cholera.” Based on a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book, which wasn’t quite as breathtaking as “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” it still has much to recommend it, and for once the film adaptation is perhaps even more powerful than the book on which it’s based. I promise you, if you watch this film you’ll fall in love! It’s pace is measured, but if you finding yourself drifting off into a little siesta, don’t worry. It will infuse your dreams.

It’s good to think about books that have moved us, as we mourn the closing of Dutton’s beloved Brentwood bookstore. My computer is a marvelous machine but never will it replace books.

March 17 has always been green, in honor of… well, ostensibly in honor of St. Patrick, though history gives no indication of that being his favorite color.

But consider: Didn’t St. Patrick travel around Ireland on foot, encouraging Irish farmers to plant potatoes? Maybe he really was a “green” saint, connected to the earth and concerned with sustainability.

And don’t the Irish traditionally like to throw back a pint, especially on March 17? I just Googled “organic beer” and got 106,000 results. I think it’s safe to say St. Patrick would approve.