The Shape of X

The Nylon Hurtin'

2012-01-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

In the movie Steel Magnolias, Dolly Parton's character, Truvy, claims she hasn't left the house without pantyhose on since she was 14 years old. To this her friend Clairee confirms, "You were raised right!"

Does this make you cringe, or raise your white-gloved fist in prim solidarity?

Generation X women came of age on the cusp of the change in dress code attitudes, balancing on the cotton crotch of the Great Pantyhose Divide. We grew up when hose were still the norm, but we entered the professional world realizing we weren't so keen on spending our paychecks on clothing that had a life span of about 2 wearings. When casual Fridays became popular the first thing we tossed were the pantyhose. And yet, I still struggle with "appropriate" times to wear them, much as I struggle just to put on the blessed things.

On Friday I had a job interview, and while dressing I once again pondered my bare legs with apprehension. My stylish-yet-conservative dress fell just above the knee--the norm for me at just shy of 6 feet tall. I worried it was too informal this way. Surely the second skin of some L'eggs would solve this problem and make my ensemble more...respectable.

This is where it gets weird.

Why do pantyhose equal "respectable"?

Why did I think that going bare-legged would somehow negate the validity of my master's degree and corporate experience? Why did I place so much weight on the power of an ounce of woven nylon? Years and years of condemnation from older generations, that's why. Gen X girls were taught that to be perceived as mature, professional, and/or proper we must wear pantyhose. Without question.

I worked my way through college in about 20 different retail jobs. Most of them required me to wear pantyhose. At least one even prohibited us girls from wearing pants. That was 1992.

But we have a powerful woman on OUR side now. Our own First Lady, Michelle Obama (by broadest definition a member of Generation X herself), has been quite vocal in her disdain for pantyhose. As a guest on The View she said, "I stopped wearing pantyhose a long time ago. They're painful...it's inconvenient."

She garnered some vitriolic backlash from this comment, being called everything from "unfeminine" to "vulgar" because of it. Crazy, isn't it?

So I'm taking a stand, a bare-legged stand. Those pantyhose I wore to my interview, the ones that caused my shoes to fit too loosely and hence fly off my left foot in the lobby of said interview, they are history! Those fancy silk-like pantyhose that cost $8.95 a pair and still rip when I barely bump them with a hangnail...history! I'm done with you, you antiquated casings of synthetic torture. I refuse to allow my character to be judged (real or imagined) by the presence or absence of some Underalls. The debate continues, but I'm standing with the First Lady on this one.

I Won't Go Gentle Into That New Millennium

2011-12-29T19:42:00.000-08:00

Two and a half years ago I wrote about my disdain for a cute Asian girl who showed up on TV claiming "I'm a PC and I'm 4 and a half," while she showed off her deft technology skills. This little tyke put me to shame. At the time I was "37 and a Walkman."

I just--finally--got my first iPod this Christmas, exactly 24 years to the day after I got my first (and only) Sony Walkman cassette player. Last night I spent two hours trying to set it up. Download this program, register this gadget, create this account, autosign this legal agreement, oops you're due for updates (really, Apple? three sets of updates in one evening??). And every step contained several subsequent pop-up boxes with various options that required checking and unchecking tiny little boxes.

I don't like this kind of commitment, mainly because I will NEVER find my way back to any particular set of checkboxes. Basically, the choices I made last night will stand forEVER.

It's not that I don't embrace technology, I simply don't want all these blessed questions. My Walkman had the following instructions (in 8 languages): Pop in a cassette and push "play."

DONE.

That is why I kept it for 18 years.

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod. I'm so glad to finally be caught up to 2001. I'm just a little awkward with it. I found myself listening to it while walking around the house, holding the thing in my hand. It's what, an inch and half squared and weighs all of one ounce? I could clip it to my earlobe and barely notice it, yet I felt like I had to CARRY it because that's what I know. Even more embarassing is that I *almost* needed to put my glasses on just to read the miniscule touch screen on my nano. I didn't have to READ my Walkman, it had four buttons.

So while I try to reconcile the fact that my entire iPod nano is smaller than the mere belt clip on my old Walkman, I'm reveling in the ease and speed at which I can now search for, find, purchase, download, and listen to songs I haven't heard in years, without having to buy nine other unwanted songs on an album. And without having to sit there while I re-record them onto a tape, hoping the tape doesn't run out in the middle of a song.

Ohh, 2001, you've got your hooks in me.

Generation X and the Mom-Made Costume

2011-10-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

My brother emailed me yesterday with the news that our hometown is having its 53rd annual Halloween parade this weekend. This is the same parade we participated in ourselves every year as kids.

The parade still follows the same route through downtown, still hands out the same "goody bag" to every participant, still gives prizes for the best costumes. That parade was something every kid in town looked forward to, racing home from school on October 31st to change into our costumes to meet up to march. I love that the tradition continues. I only wish I still lived there to go watch it this year.

Gen X costumes were usually Mom-made. Our moms had craft closets and dress-up suitcases from which we pieced together odss and ends.

Some years my brother and I were dressed as a theme...

1973 was Nurse/Doctor. Mom was a nurse, so the props were easy:

In 1974 we were Gypsies:

1975, ladybug and lion. Mom spent a lot of time on these, cutting the newspaper into layers of strips for the lion's fur. Brother was a real fire hazard that year.

In 1976 my mom was really motivated in her creativity. She fashioned a totem pole for my brother, and covered it in original designs she cut from construction paper. I think it was terribly uncomfortable for him to wear. Meanwhile, my costume was a piece of cake--literally. This was clearly my mom's idea, and that's her in the picture in the chef's outfit. My costume was made out of a folded cardboard box which was too awkward and heavy for me to carry with the handles she attached inside, so she made shoulder straps out of rope to ease some of the weight. I challenge my brother to a debate on who was more uncomfortable that year. I chose my own costumes after this.

In 1977 my brother was sick, so I paraded alone in a pilgrim costume my grandmother had hand-sewn for my aunt in the 1950s. I LOVED wearing this outfit. I loved the long flowy skirt and the smell of the old material. I won a 2nd place award in the costume contest that year. I think my prize was a $2 bill.

1978, hobo and fancy lady: I wasn't much into scary costumes. This Halloween we had a torrential downpour, which wasn't unusual in Florida. We lived on a dirt road, and it was so muddy that my mom made we wear plastic bags on my feet while trick-or-treating so I wouldn't ruin my Sunday shoes. I was so embarassed, I kept trying to hid my feet from the neighbors. "Trick or treat, don't look at my feet, give me something good to eat!"

1979 was the last year my brother and I dressed up together. While waiting for the parade to start, a very concerned kid walked up to him and asked "what happened?" He really thought my brother was injured. Duh. My Flamenco outfit was one my mom had worn 20 years prior, and it was huge on me. I think I wore it 3 years in a row, hoping I'd eventually grow into it.

I never had a store-bought costume, not even a mask! Our candy bags were old pillowcases, and trick-or-treating was done on October 31st, not the weekend before when it's more "convenient" like so many towns do these days. And the next day at school everyone compared the candy they'd acquired. If you could make yours last until Thanksgiving, you'd done good.

For more Gen X costume photos, visit my friend Jen's blog, GenerationX

The New Ladies of Leisure

2011-09-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

I was watching an episode of a new MTV show called Awkward recently. In a scene involving a mother-daughter party, an angst-ridden teenage girl described a group of mothers who fit into the mean-girl-turned-trophy wife category. "These women don't work, they work out," the teenager said. As this line was uttered, the women were admiring the toned and tanned biceps of their hostess. It made me think about how the physical traits of status have evolved over the centuries.

On a visit to the Cairo Museum when I was 12, I saw statues of Prince Rahotep and Princess Nofret, each sitting on a throne. Our tour guide explained that the prince was tanned because as a man he was outside, working (or overseeing the slaves); the princess statue was very pale, because a woman of such status did not labor in the sun. I remember thinking at the time how everybody where I lived was tan...on purpose! In fact, the tanner you were, the cooler you were. What a difference a few millennia can make.

Now, as evidenced by the characters on the MTV show and others, women with defined musculature are the modern picture of status. But it's not because they are perceived to be in better health, or admired for their athletic prowess. Rather, it is because a sculpted physique infers an excess of leisure time. Bodies like these require significant time to achieve...and usually money to pay for gym membeships, personal trainers, and trendy private classes.

Take a look at most of those "Real Housewives" shows; those women are competitive in seeing who can lay claim to the most spin classes in one week (in between comparing shoe closets, fancy cars, and private jets). The Bar Method classes I attend have a reputation for attracting this distinct demographic of women. They work out 5 days per week, morning and afternoon, in a different matching designer outfit each class. There's no denying how fit they are, and that in itself is undeniably admirable. Physiques like theirs require committed effort. If I didn't have a job I'm sure I'd work out a lot more. And there's my point.

When a celebrity like Victoria Beckham or Kate Hudson is photographed six weeks after giving birth and already has her figure back to swimsuit model perfection, most of us have the same reactions. First we ask, "How did she lose the weight already?" Then we concede, "Well if I had a couple million in the bank, three nannies, and no job responsibilities, I could spend six hours a day with my personal trainer, too. And then I'd look like that."

Ergo, a thin, muscular body equals leisure time and wealth. Check out actress Julie Bowen's biceps from Sunday night's Emmy Awards. This is the what women in their 30s and beyond are striving for (visible sternum notwithstanding), which is quite different from even my mother's generation.

But as with any good symbol of status, there can be a backlash that follows. A professional woman and mom of three once made an underhanded comment to me that I have the luxury to work out because I don't have children. In reality, I am forced to work out because if I don't I will be in constant pain from a twisted, crooked spine. How odd that I have to defend my habit of exercise. I didn't know if I should be offended by her comment, or impressed that she thought I was so well-off to be able to lead such a luxurious lifestyle of leisure.

While I can't deny the high that comes with a particularly effective workout, I still occasionally long to live just one week in the baroque period, when the height of beauty was having a plump rump. It was an era where leisure time was spent lounging around eating grapes, and not by logging hours on a treadmill.

One Dish, Gold Dish, Two Dish, Old Dish

2011-08-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

This summer I’ve spent weekends in three different beach condos in three different Florida towns. Interestingly, the kitchens in all three came furnished with the same exact dishes…Correlle brand’s “Butterfly Gold” pattern. I noticed this not because I’m a china pattern aficionado, but because this is the same dish set I grew up with in the 1970s and 1980s. Every meal of every day from birth until adulthood was eaten off Butterfly Gold.

First introduced in 1970, Butterfly Gold’s universal appeal was that it matched the harvest gold appliances and countertops so popular at that time. I dunno, I’m making that up, but our house did have harvest gold everything. And it seemed like everybody had that set. Even now when I visit friends and relatives in other states, most everyone has at least a piece or two of this set stashed in the back of the cabinet.

These dishes refuse to die, they’re utterly unbreakable. Countless times one of us kids dropped a plate while drying dishes, and as we braced for the expected crash, all that resulted was a quick smack sound followed by a spin…like a hula hoop that’s dropped to the ground. They never broke!

To this day I compare every cereal bowl I use to the Correlle cereal bowl, which I dare say is the world’s most perfect cereal bowl. It has the perfect lip, contoured at just the right arc for precision drinking. Generation X kids ate a LOT of cereal while watching Saturday morning cartoons, and when it came time to drink the last of the milk after eating your Honeycomb, with the Correlle bowl you never missed a drop.

Twenty-five years ago my older brother took some pieces of the set with him when he got his first apartment after college; my parents still have a few stragglers from the original set. I figure I’ll inherit what’s left someday. It’s a piece of Gen-X childhood that, while not necessarily the most attractive, still makes any kitchen feel like home.

Can an X Change Her Shape?

2011-07-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

I’m not exactly what you’d call a fitness fanatic, but I do like to sweat on a fairly regular basis. With the added bonus of scoliosis (curvature of the spine) in my medical history, my reality is that consistent core-strengthening activity is the best way for me to stay pain-free and upright.

Since my spine is in an S-shape with a slight twist, my back muscles work in a constant dance of compensation for misalignment. My right shoulder drops lower than my left shoulder, my right hip sits higher than my left hip, and my waistline is uneven. It sounds worse than it feels. Until, of course, I get lazy and my back muscles get a little soft. So exercise I must. My back will never be straight, but it can be strong.

A few weeks ago I was overjoyed to discover that a new exercise studio was opening in my town. It’s called The Bar Method, and is a regimen of exercise geared toward sculpting and elongating muscles through the use of isometrics and deep stretching. The “bar” comes from the ballet barre, which is used for balance and support during some of the exercises and stretching. The method has its origins in ballet combined with rehabilitative therapy.

Before signing up for classes, I researched online for class reviews since Bar Method studios exist across the country. 99% of the reviews echoed the same sentiment: “My muscles were trembling after the first 5 minutes.”…“serious kicking of my muscles’ asses”…“your whole body feels like someone beat it with a stick.” Ahhh, sounds fun! I promptly signed up for a month’s worth of unlimited classes. I’ll go 5 days per week, I mused to myself.

Today was my first class. We started promptly at 9:30 with 40 standing leg lifts. Then push-ups. Then triceps work with 3-pound weights which were astonishingly heavy after 50 repetitions of the tiniest pulsations. That’s where this method gets you. Every movement is tiny but works the muscles to utter exhaustion (which is when the uncontrollable trembling surfaces).

Every exercise consists of tucking this, squeezing those, tilting this, and pressing that….60 times. Twenty-five minutes into class, I passed out. I felt all the blood drop out of my upper half so I promptly lowered myself to the softly carpeted floor, where I stayed for 10 minutes with a cool towel on my head, sipping juice brought to me by the instructor. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this reaction to intense exercise, so I was able to recognize it immediately and drop safely. I’ve learned the hard way not to ignore lightheadedness.

After I regained bloodflow to my noggin, I rejoined class and carried on through to the end of the longest hour of my life. Jelly-legged and out of breath, I walked to my car and quite literally plopped into it.

When I got home I tried to redo my ponytail, but couldn’t lift my arms high enough to do so. It wasn’t pain and it wasn’t soreness, but a complete lack of any strength.

I inhaled my lunch, and by 3:30 this afternoon I couldn’t fight napping any longer. I laid down on the couch and instantly fell asleep. I slept so hard that I dreamed about sleeping. When I woke up an hour later, my body felt like I had just disembarked from space flight and was still re-acclimating to gravity. Every limb felt like it was tied to the floor.

Now, twelve hours after class, my upper hamstrings are as tight as bowstrings. I cannot wait to go to bed. I am pooped.

I have committed myself to a full month of classes, and I intend to do at least three per week. Periodically I’ll post updates on how I’m doing and what results I’m getting from it. Changing the shape of an X isn’t easy, but I’m fighting middle age with every step.

Atlantis Rising

2011-07-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Even when I’m fully expecting its arrival, a double sonic boom always makes me jump, and this past Thursday morning was no different. At precisely 5:35 a.m., the space shuttle Atlantis passed over my home in Central Florida, its swift but thunderous re-entry into the atmosphere signaling the end of an era. Still lying in bed, heart pounding from the surprise and preventing any further snoozing, I thought about what the end of the shuttle program means to me.

I watched the very first launch of Columbia with my family from the beaches of my hometown when I was nine years old. I stared at the so-obviously-wrong contrail of Challenger from the parking lot of my junior high school. I spontaneously cheered with my high school friends during the triumphant launch of Discovery that restarted the shuttle program. But my favorite shuttle memory is from February 7, 2001.

My husband and I had our third date at that launch, STS-98 of the space shuttle Atlantis. For a February afternoon it was warm even by Florida standards, and I drove to the coast from Orlando with the car windows down, breathing in the familiar marshy scent of the river.

Shuttle launches have remained a big deal to the local population and tourists alike even 20 years into the program, and cutting out of work early to head east was a common occurrence. Reaching the town of Cocoa that afternoon I began to see lawn chairs of spectators on the sides of the road. The bridges at Merritt Island slowed traffic down as more cars pulled off onto any open space along the Banana and Indian Rivers. From the top of the bridge I could see the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in the distance.

We decided to sit along the boat channel near Jetty Park. With an hour to kill before liftoff we parked ourselves on a beach towel with the other gazers, mostly locals.

For some Floridians, shuttle launches were like weekend football. You’d pile up the car with food and coolers and chairs and spend a few hours tailgating before liftoff. It was another great excuse to relax outdoors. Even if a launch was scrubbed, you’d still spent some quality time just being a Floridian.

As the sun was setting to our left, the moon simultaneously rose to our right. We found ourselves sandwiched between a blazing sunset and an emerging full moon, an amazing combination. The blue skies were clear directly above us, in perfect condition for launch. Florida has incredible sunsets, but this scene was an extraordinary convergence of beauty from one extreme of the horizon to the other.

A few spectators held portable radios picking up the live audio feed from Mission Control. Liftoff was a go for 6:13 p.m., precisely intertwining with the sunset and moonrise. Our spot was about 15 miles due south of the launch pad.

It was then I pondered I was about to witness something that only exists in this one little corner of the world. No other country has a space shuttle. Nowhere else but in coastal central Florida could I sit by the ocean and see the culmination of decades of work by some of the most brilliant engineering minds in the world, in a massive structure of machinery that leaves Earth with such brilliance and power that witnesses to it are moved to tears each and every time.

The voice from Mission Control spread through the air, “10...9...8...we have go for main engine start...5...4...3...2...1...booster ignition and liftoff of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and five American heroes!”

The excitement of the first glimpse of the glow of the rocket boosters caused everyone to point north and cheer. The speed with which it soared upward was astounding. After a few moments we began to hear the roar of the engines rolling in, and then we felt the thunderous vibration of the roar. Even at 15 miles away we got a rumble in our tummy. First-timers to a launch are easy to spot by their astonished facial expressions upon feeling this sensation.

What was most awe inspiring on this night, though, was the divinely created display of light and color. The setting sun cast a rainbow of hues onto the vertical exhaust trail, unlike any launch I’ve seen before. The first stars were starting to twinkle, the full moon was golden in a pink and blue sky, and we all stood enamored by it. This is the kind of experience you want to freeze in time. There was too much beauty happening at once, and fleeting too fast to take it all in.

And within moments it was gone. Only a blurry trail of white smoke was left fading away.

Whether or not you believe in the necessity of space exploration, the billions of dollars spent on it, and the lives lost within it, it is undeniable that there was something magical about this program. I am sad to see it end because it’s been a constant in my life. From grade-schooler to middle-ager, on school trips and romantic dates, I’ve grown up with my eyes looking eastward and upward, wishing “Godspeed” to those American heroes.

This duo of photos of a boy and his dad watching the first and final shuttle launches together went viral last week. It perfectly captures the culture of shuttle enthusiasm that I grew up with on the east coast of Florida.

The Significance of You

2011-06-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

Fellow generational blogger JenX67 recently wrote a really smart piece about how her many pairs of Nikes have carried her through the various stages of her life. It immediately reminded me of an old Nike ad I’d torn out of a magazine 20 years ago. It was eight pages long—unheard of in the typical rules of brevity in advertising—and began with the phrase, “You were born a daughter.”

It replayed some of the desires and dreams girls all have when we're little.

It evolved through many of the typical insecurities girls go through growing up.

No matter what you went through, the ad touched on it. You were included.

When I first saw it, I was 19 years old; I had no boyfriend, no job, had dropped out of college and had just moved back in with my parents. I didn’t know what the heck to do with my life. My ideas changed daily but were backed by no real motivation. I was living in a new town and didn’t know anyone.

And then finally...

"You became significant to yourself."

Yesterday I did a quick Google search for phrases from the ad. I was amazed to find other blogs mentioning it, other women talking about how they, too, had ripped out and saved that ad. One talked about taping it to her wall where it stayed for years…and then dozens of her readers commented that they had also ripped, taped, and saved.

This was a brilliant campaign, not just because we all remembered the slogan of JUST DO IT, but because we internalized the core message. It successfully appealed to the deep motivational pit in the souls of women across America, from teenager to middle age. Apparently even Oprah herself read it on an episode of her show.

It was written by then-32-year-old copywriter Janet Champ, whose message was that women who take responsibility for everyone else needed to take care of themselves. Later Nike ads written by Champ (how perfect of a name is that?) further championed the power within women while simultaneously challenging outdated beliefs on the capabilities of women. Not only did she inspire the athlete within us, she inspired legions of burgeoning writers, myself included. Don Draper could learn a thing or two from this chick!

Over the years when I'd rediscover the pages in my notebook, I would mentally check off the items in the copy that I’d reached in my life thus far. If I found that I’d reached another one, I think it reassured me that maybe my life wasn’t so off track after all, that I was just running through the normal milestones at my own pace. Many times the ad's message was in the back of my mind when I made a major life decision; when I ended that relationship that felt too confining, when I enrolled in graduate school at 37, when I started putting my writing out there for the world to see.

I think that becoming significant to yourself has different meanings at different ages. Early on it means finding your voice, standing up for yourself. Later it means letting go of outside influences and negative peers, following your dreams. Later still it can mean regaining an independence you might have set aside for years when you chose to devote your energies to family.

In any instance, it's a profound realization to make the commitment to be significant to yourself...for the first time, or once again.

"Because you know it's never too late to have a life. And never to late to change one."

The Hardest Word

2011-06-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

There have been a few days in my life when out of nowhere an apology arrived. Not for missing a meeting or saying a curt word, but for something much bigger and deep seated.

I once reconnected with an old friend after a fallout caused us to not speak to each other for over a decade. In my heart I had long since gotten over any anger or resentment that had once existed, and my only goal was renewing the friendship that had previously been so fabulous.

In one of our first email exchanges after all those years, she apologized for all that had gone down between us (I'm paraphrasing here). I neither expected nor needed an apology from her. She had been globally forgiven years before. It surprised me so much to read it that I didn't know what to do with it. I actually felt bad that she felt she needed to apologize. But it does speak volumes about what a wonderful person she is.

Another even more unexpected apology came from an old boyfriend with whom I'd shared a tumultuous relationship that spanned the emotions from "awesomely perfect" to "how could my life be any worse?" Several years after we'd parted ways and both found and married our respective true loves, he found me on Facebook and promptly apologized for treating me so badly way back when. He said, "You didn't deserve to be treated like that." (yeah, no kidding!) He assured me that he had his head on straight now and was 'towing the line' or some other platitude. There were no strings attached to it, no favor requested. It was just a sincere apology, delivered genuinely and without prompting (and seriously out of character).

There was a real sense of redemption in these offerings. Even when you've already released the anger/resentment from yourself and have learned from the experience and let it go...a sincerely delivered apology, even long after it was needed, does succeed in bringing some peace to the world.

I don't know what triggered the need for these two friends to come to me like that, or how long they'd felt the need to do so, or even the specific events that stuck in their minds as needing correction. It didn't feel proper for me to ask. I felt it was my place to graciously accept what they offered, and move forward.

I don't think it's ever too late to apologize. You can't be sure how it will be received, but a genuine effort does mean something very real.

You Know Where to Find Me

2011-06-22T04:23:00.001-07:00

It's a curious place to be dancing on the fringe and have other people tell you that you're not happy there. Disguised by phrases like, "I just want what's best for you," and "You could be really happy/successful/popular if you'd just..", people always seem to know what's best for you even when they don't know what drives you.

I figured out a while ago that I like being on the outskirts. For a long time I fought that. I thought everybody should want to be in the thick of it, the center of attention, on stage for the world to gawk at and (allegedly) aspire to. But then I realized that when you're "there", it's a constant battle to stay "there" and friendships are fragilely based on mutual promotion.

In the outskirts you're freer to be who you want to be. There's room to breathe. Room to twirl. Room to see what's really going on. And room to ignore who and what you wish to ignore.

But take heed when center stage sees your bliss out there on the fringe. Oh mama, that unleashes the fury. How dare you enjoy life on your own terms!

There are certain people who only enjoy life when they dominate the rest of us. Those people want you to want what THEY want, and they really want you to want what they have (or perceive themselves to have), because that is what makes them feel superior. They want to see the green monster of envy in your eyes because that is what validates them. And when you don't want what they think is important, it's an affront to their personal values.

It's tiring dealing with people like this.

Sweet Dreams and Other Things in Pieces on the Ground

2011-06-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Every time I watch Extreme Home Makeover, the same question enters my mind: Is it difficult for these families to reconcile gaining such massive profit from the tragedies they’ve experienced? Typically the recipients of these amazing homes have either suffered the untimely loss of a parent, have a disabled child (or 3 or 4), lost their home in a natural disaster, or were living in near-squalor after having been cheated by scam artist contractors. Sometimes they fit into more than one of those categories. The most tragic stories win a new house and all the furnishings, often with the balance of the mortgage paid off, and even scholarships for the kiddos.

When the show first started the makeovers were modest, they were actually makeovers of existing homes.
Roofs were fixed, appliances were replaced, and the redecorating was realistic. But as ratings grew, so did the budgets. Now, the existing homes are demolished and entire new homes are built in one week with 100% of the furnishings replaced brand new. Children’s rooms look like dance clubs or rocket ships, parents’ rooms are “spa getaways.”

I don’t begrudge these families for accepting the gifts offered them. If anyone deserves some free shelter and college scholarships, it’s them. And they are always extremely gracious and overwhelmed by the generosity bestowed on them. But I always wonder if, when they close their new front door and the camera crews leave, does any of the sadness leave with them? I know I’d rather have my husband with me in our undervalued townhouse than be a widow in a mansion. I just wonder what it does to a person’s mind knowing that this gourmet kitchen and indoor basketball court only came to fruition after heartbreak, medical devastation, or loss of life.

Back when I still believed the urban legend about the meaning behind James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” I felt the same way about this song. Rumor has circulated for decades that the “Susanne” in the lyrics was Taylor’s girlfriend who died in a plane crash after his bandmates flew her in to meet him as a surprise. This story is not true but for years I would tear up every time I heard the song thinking about that tragedy. I always wondered if Taylor would have traded the fame and fortune that “Fire and Rain” brought him if it meant having his girl back.

Now I’m not talking about making lemonade out of lemons. I totally agree that we all have to take what life dishes out at us and try to make the best of it and try to find a way to grow from our experiences. This can be done on many levels, privately or publicly, and can take years to accomplish depending on the size of the lemon. What I’m pondering is the mental journey one takes when a personal tragedy directly brings great fortune. You can’t go straight from despair to living the high life without some introspection. After Eric Clapton’s toddler son died in a high-rise fall, he wrote the song “Tears in Heaven.” I can’t help but wonder if he ever felt guilty for the royalty checks the song has brought him? Are the six Grammy awards he won for it reminders of his son’s death or symbols of triumph?

At least with a trophy you can hide it in a closet. What do you do when you’re living in the trophy?

When Blogs Collide

2011-06-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Twenty-three years ago I was a devotee of Sassy magazine, and one of my favorite staff writers there was Christina Kelly. She was a young hipster who understood me. She wrote like I wanted to write, with honesty an a lack of pandering to her target demographic.

Just last week I came to find that Ms. Kelly writes a blog, Fallen Princess, and is also a contributor to xojane, the blog by Sassy's original editor-in-chief, Jane Pratt. Finding CK's blog was like finding an old issue of Sassy in an attic trunk, unread but entirely familiar.

Since anyone who loves Christina Kelly has a working brain, I not only read her blog but I read every single reader comment. One spoke directly to me in a way that only a fellow Sassyite could.

Now, a while ago I wrote a post on this here blog that a couple readers took offense to. Instead of writing coherent comments to me, they decided it would be cooler to bombard me with juvenile insults. I never addressed them directly nor the event on the blog, though a few of my readers nicely defended me. What annoyed me was not just their inability to articulate what their issue was with my writing, but that they totally missed my point. And for a little while I thought that maybe what I'd written just wasn't clear enough...as if it was an error on my part that THEY had a negative reaction to my words.

A reader/commenter named Marianne on Christina Kelly's blog made me see the situation differently. She told Ms. Kelly,

"Your writing has always been honest. Sometimes a bit brutally honest, and sometimes people can't handle that, and so they choose to just think of that writer as the problem, instead of examining why they are having such a hard time with the writing."

I realized it wasn't my words that they were reacting to, it was my TRUTH.
MY truth.
Something I said made them examine themselves in a way that wasn't comfortable. But it wasn't wrong of me to write it. Those words were as honest as they come and I stand by them, even more so now.

I never cease to be amazed at how much Sassy has influenced my life. Its former writers are little spirits of inspiration who show themselves in the most unexpected of times. Twenty years later even a fellow Sassy reader can help re-ignite the passion for writing that Christina Kelly and the others spurred on in me back then. I speak the truth.

Not So Divine Design

2011-05-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I was in my mid-30s and deep in the pit of the career blahs. I needed something new and was having difficulty figuring out what to do next. After scanning several local college handbooks and watching a lot of television, I enrolled in an interior design program, much to my mother’s delight. She’s fascinated by my uncanny ability to remember colors, so somehow this translates into me being the next Laura Ashley.

Clearly, my mother had forgotten my first foray into interior design.

The year was 1984. I was in 7th grade when my humanities teacher assigned us the task of designing our dream home. We were to make ourselves architects, landscapers, and decorators. Anything that was luxurious, futuristic, innovative, or just plain cool was to go into our dream house. The sky was the limit, and creativity was encouraged.

It pains me to see now what I valued then. It hurts so very badly to see what I thought was pretty…or stylish…or even not utterly ridiculous. Let’s take a little tour. We’ll begin with the floor plan:

Yes folks, it’s a trapezoid. That was me trying to be…funky? Being different for the sake of being different was my motivation. Nobody else will think to do a trapezoid, I’m sure I reasoned. This shape lends itself to awkward corners and narrowing closets, and not much else. I guess I didn’t realize they don’t make furniture with 75-degree angles.

Notice the oddly-shaped dining room on the right, with the bathroom directly off of it. Everyone’s dream is to hear a flush during the salad course, right? Notice, also, that the kitchen is on the opposite end of the house from the dining room. One has to walk through the family room, past the pool, and up three steps to get from kitchen to dining. I guess the word “convenient” escaped me. And yes, that’s the pool in the center of the home. But what’s truly awesome is that you enter the pool from the second floor. The walls of the pool are Plexiglas, so you can see into the pool from the main floor. Brilliant! (Pretty sure the Atlantis Hotel in Nassau stole the idea for their aquarium from this project.)

On level two we find the triangular master bedroom, complete with triangular closet and triangular bathroom, where the door cleverly opens directly into the seat of the toilet. Minimalism at its best! No wasted space in that pesky bathroom.

See the bedroom in the upper left corner? “It looks like a Tetris piece,” said my husband. There is literally nowhere in that room to actually place a bed.

Now let’s move on to the luxury furnishings I chose for my casa ideal.

This picture was labeled Guest Bedroom. Ok, who wants to stay in the brothel room?

Check it out, I was gay-friendly before I even knew what that meant!

I can only surmise that I chose this living room ensemble because my neighbors down the street had this exact set and I liked hanging out at their house. I cannot fathom any other excuse for choosing this rustic tartan cabin-in-the-woods theme.

Although, I do recall having an affinity for swinging saloon doors and perhaps I thought this furniture would work with those. Wow, did I just admit that out loud?

The dream bathroom…just…No.

It appears all of my décor was taken straight from the JCPenney catalog, so this phat pad wasn’t entirely a pipe dream. I can remember my mom telling me that if I put effort into finding good deals, the dream could someday become a reality.

I think we can all be thankful that some dreams never come to fruition.

As for my recent venture into design school, I quit after one semester. I'm much better at writing about style than I am at trying to create it.

Fashion News Network

2011-04-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Somewhere around the time of middle school I was paging through the weekly TV listing in the newspaper looking for something to watch on a Saturday morning. I was too old for cartoons, and this was decades before the advent of HGTV and Food Network.

Something caught my eye on channel 13, which was CNN. All it said was “Style.” There was no description, but as any 11-year-old girl would think, I hoped this show had something to do with fashion. I eagerly switched to CNN, and thus began a weekend tradition that lasted nearly 20 years. Every Saturday morning at 10:30 I tuned in to CNN, from junior high to college to early adulthood.

The show was Style With Elsa Klensch, a 30-minute roundup of weekly news from the worlds of fashion, interior design, and art.
Ms. Klensch is an Australian journalist who was the authority on all things contemporary and beautiful. She taught me names like John Galliano, Thierry Mugler, and Annu Sui. Because of this show, I knew the difference between Elie Saab and Elie Tahari. I understood the characteristics that identified a chaise lounge as post-modern or midcentury modern. I grew to appreciate not only the creative process of haute couture, but also what makes something a piece of art, whether it’s a ball gown or an end table. Style With Elsa Klensch had a strong influence in shaping both my knowledge of, and appreciation for, design. And, as I tried to explain to my husband, watching it just made me feel...fancy.

And while I have been known to veg on the couch during a marathon of MTV’s “Cribs”, with its rock ‘n’ roll style of profiling celebrity taste in architecture and fashion, I still long for Elsa Klensch’s presentation. She had an air of dignity and expertise of subject matter that taught me to see the profiled designers as artists and masters of a craft. The show’s regal opening theme song let us know that what we were about to view was something high class, and it always was.

Even this morning, a Saturday in 2011, I looked at the clock at 10:10 a.m. and had a fleeting thought of wishing I could have another half-hour dose of the runway shows from Milan.

What Light Through Yonder Coffee House Window Breaks?

2011-04-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago my husband and I returned from spending seven days in Seattle.

I’d never been there before, nowhere even close, so I was giddy to finally get there. My knowledge about Seattle prior to that week consisted of whatever I learned from episodes of “Frasier”, the fact that the grunge movement in music originated there, and the rumor that there’s a Starbucks on every single street corner. But after this time in the Emerald City, I’m happy to say there’s so much more to it.

I have to say, the coffee there really is great, and there is no shortage of corner coffee houses. But for me it was as much about the atmosphere of the establishments as it was the taste of the beverages. These places are cozy, metropolitan-yet-kitschy with eclectic furniture and local art. Most pleasing, though, was the genuine friendliness of the baristas I encountered.

I fully expected to be given a rolled-eye look when I ordered my caffeine fix in the wrong manner. Many jokes have been made regarding whether it’s a “grande mocha latte double whip” or a “double whip mocha latte grande.” The truth is that they all knew what I meant and didn’t make a big deal about my style. The coffee snobbery that’s so often portrayed on TV is total fiction. I think only coffee preppers in OTHER cities behave that way on the false assumption that this is how Seattle baristas behave.

After taking a 3-mile walk around Green Lake Park in a slight drizzle, my friend and I popped in to the Title Nine store on Woodlawn for a quick look-see while we left our two dogs with the menfolk outside. The store clerks immediately insisted we bring the dogs inside the store so they could meet them. [Insert surprised look here.] A retail clothing store preferred we bring our dogs inside. And then they gave them water. How awesome is that? Seattle is super dog friendly, and I’m convinced it puts everyone in a better mood. Everywhere we went there were dogs walking their owners, and they all seem happier because of it.

I found the majority of people in Seattle to be quite pleasant, as well as helpful, polite, gracious…and I promise it’s not only because I was on a constant buzz of local microbrew influence. People there just seemed to be content. (Maybe they’re under a constant buzz of local microbrew influence.)
Our hosts for the week, who both grew up south of the Mason-Dixon, consider Seattle to be “home”, and I can see how the place can quickly grow on you. The backdrop of immense mountains, the never-ending expanse of evergreens (I’m telling you, these trees are spectacular), the clean air, the availability of every outdoor recreational sport imaginable, and the general attitude of welcomeness all contributed to my relaxation and fascination. On my first day back to work my boss told me I looked so relaxed that I looked 10 years younger. Seriously!

Since returning to Florida, my friends have all questioned me about the weather in Seattle. We all believe that it does nothing but rain there. Sorry, folks, but we saw the sun this week, multiple times. We even wore sunglasses. And we saw a glorious full moon between the evergreens one night. But I’ll tell ya, the Seattle rain is far more tolerable than the Florida rain. It may last longer, but it’s less obtrusive. Our hosts told us not to bother bringing umbrellas because “everyone will know you’re a tourist.” They were right, I didn’t see any umbrellas in use, only hats and hoods, and even that was only sometimes.

Truthfully, the overcast skies contributed to the beauty of the landscape. It’s easier to stare up into the massive evergreens when you’re not being blinded by sunlight. The clouds teasingly shadow the snow-topped Olympic and Cascade mountains far off in the distance.

Our ferry ride across Puget Sound seemed more romantic blanketed in grayness.

Finally, I cannot discuss Seattle without mentioning food. A place called Duke’s Chowder House on Alki Beach served a scrumptious chowder sampler that was an absolute dream.
Dungeness crab bourbon, clam, lobster pernod, cajun chicken, and Northwest seafood combo chowders were each simmered to perfection. There I also had wild Alaskan cod that was the freshest, heartiest hunk of fish I’ve ever tasted, with nary a drop of greasiness.

Our last night found us at The Matador in the Ballard neighborhood where I chose roasted tomato, chicken, polenta, and avocado soup (can you hear the choir of angels singing at its mention?). This was accompanied by butternut squash and goat cheese quesadillas. Divine. Nothing pretentious, but skillfully executed (which could describe much of Seattle, actually).

There’s no question whether I loved Seattle. It was well worth every dollar and hour it took to get there. I felt a million miles from home and yet felt entirely comfortable there. I already miss the chilly mornings I spent sipping my coffee on the deck, gazing at the evergreens and cedars, looking for the hummingbird that surprised me the first day. I can’t wait to go back to what was described to me as “the only place you want to be in summer.”

Seattle, wait for me.

"Honey, I forgot to duck."

2011-03-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

On March 30, 1981, my friend Tamara and I were selling ice cream to neighborhood kids from a table that we set up in my front yard. Business was good, and we were turning a profit within the first hour.

When I went inside to get more chipwiches from the freezer, excited to relay the news of our sales to my mom, she quickly shush’d me. Taken aback, I just stood there wondering what the problem was.

She said, “The President was shot.”
“He was shot at?” I asked.
“No, he was shot,” she corrected.

Arguing semantics with a 4th grader is probably frustrating, but I had no idea what the difference between “shot” and “shot at” was. Then I saw the footage being replayed on the TV. Ohhh, the bullet actually hit him, I realized.

Past that moment, I don’t remember much. I’m not sure if or how the issue was addressed at school the following school day. I’d bet we talked about it, but I can’t recall any specific conversation.

At just nine years old my interest in politics and world events had a short attention span. I remember the Iran hostage crisis and how most of the hostages were released as Reagan delivered his inaugural address. I remember debating in class whether or not Reagan would lead us into a nuclear war. Gen X hadn’t known Ronald Reagan the actor, we only knew him as the politician. His election was BIG even to elementary school students, and the attempt on his life forced us to realize that people in power are vulnerable, and that bad people with twisted minds would do crazy things. This event most certainly shaped Gen X’s political awareness.

Less than two months later Pope John Paul II was also shot, so we were thrown into a world of questions about why such things kept happening. While I was too young to remember it, I knew that an attempt had previously been made on President Ford’s life, and of course I’d heard of President Kennedy’s assassination. So I came to see the Presidency as a very dangerous position. I almost assumed that being President guaranteed you’d be shot.

Throughout the last 30 years we’ve periodically seen updates on TV of the status of Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, who was also critically wounded that day.
Gun control as Gen X knows it originated with this man, as the “Brady Bill” became law in 1994. Images of him always brought me back to that day in my front yard at nine years old, and I’d think about all I’d done and everywhere I’d been since that day; I wonder if my old friend Tamara connects that day’s two events.

This AP photo by Ron Edmonds fascinates me. Taken milliseconds after the bullet struck President Reagan in mid-wave, a secret service agent has already begun to push him toward the open door of the limousine. The look of realization of what is happening just begins to show on the President’s face.

Terror in Tahrir

2011-02-15T14:56:00.000-08:00

My voice cracked just now as I tried to read the news story out loud to my husband. CBS Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lara Logan, 39, was covering the political upheaval in Egypt last week, when on Friday she was surrounded by a crazed mob and brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In the frenzied activity she was separated from her crew. According to CBS reports, Ms. Logan was finally saved “by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.”

I’m in mental disarray trying to reconcile my feelings about this. Anger at the violence, gratitude to the women and soldiers who came to her rescue, frustration at Ms. Logan for placing herself in such a location. Earlier in the week her crew had been targeted by angry protesters. “We were accused of being more than journalists, very frightening suggestions were made. Suggestions that really could be very dangerous for us,” said Logan, as quoted by the New York Daily News.

I can’t place myself in the mind of a woman who stays somewhere after that experience. I know I don’t possess the obsessive journalist drive that I must stay until the story is complete. And I’ve never been in the middle of such a huge historic event so I can’t place myself there mentally. But I’ve been places where I felt unsafe and I’ve been in the midst of scary people. When I feel true danger, I flee. Count me as one of the team who puts my personal safety before the story. Had she been a rescue worker or soldier I would have a different view. Putting the life, safety, or welfare of others ahead of your own is different than getting 20 seconds of great TV footage.

Lara Logan is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I’ve often thought to myself that she’s too pretty for the job she does, or more importantly where she does it. She’s an outstanding journalist and reporter, but her brilliance and talent cannot overshadow centuries-old cultural differences that have no respect for women as people, let alone as professionals.

I know Ms. Logan is not ignorant to the dangers of her job. In 2007 she survived a suicide bombing of her hotel in Baghdad. She knows the dangers, and she accepts them. I have to respect her right to make decisions for herself. But it doesn’t mean I don’t wish she’d choose otherwise.

My overwhelming feeling right now is sadness. I cannot imagine the terror that Ms. Logan undoubtedly experienced, and the lasting effects this will have on her. Wishing her recovery is so underwhelmingly less than what I wish in my heart.

I wish that women worldwide could pursue whatever vocation they want without fear of being beaten for it.
I wish that women worldwide could be seen as equal in every aspect of life, worthy of every respect.

And I thank God for those Egyptian women who came to rescue the stranger being assaulted in front of them.

The Aging (but still hip) Role of GenX on TV

2011-02-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

Somehow I missed watching FOX’s new comedy series Raising Hope until this week, even though it’s aired since September. I did a cartoon-like double take at the opening credits when Martha Plimpton was listed as the grandmother character on the show.

Martha is only two years older than me and smack in the middle of Generation X. She can’t be a grandmother yet! It wasn’t THAT long ago she was a teenager in The Goonies, was it?

But my stumbling upon the show was serendipitous, because I ended up really liking it. The plot is strange on paper, but in action it works. Main character Jimmy Chance is a 23-year-old single dad living at home with his slacker GenX parents (who conceived him on their prom night, thus making them meemaw and peepaw so young). Jimmy’s raising 1-year-old Hope by himself because his baby’s mother—with whom he had a one-night stand—is on death row. Like I said, in theory it’s a head scratcher, but on screen the hijinks ensue nicely.

Plots center around Jimmy’s struggles with parenthood, the generation gap, family dynamics, friendship, and fitting in…but not in a "very special Blossom" kind of way. These aren’t the Keatons or the Seavers of yesteryear. These folks are more like what would happen if Punky Brewster got knocked up by Ben Seaver, they moved into the apartment above their parents’ garage, got hourly manual jobs, and then became grandparents at 38. They’re good people at heart who just happened to get caught up in life.

I love that Jimmy struggles with the frustration of living with GenX parents. When he’s unable to delete an awkward and nervously-delivered phone message because he’s calling from a rotary phone, he exclaims in agony, “WHYYYY do we live in the ‘70s?!?!”

I also love the hidden bits of nostalgia in the show’s set. When Grandpa Chance sits at the kitchen table, hanging behind him is a 1972 linen dish towel calendar, the exact one I am sure my own mother had in our kitchen when I was a kid. Basically Jimmy is living in the house WE all grew up in, and it frustrates the hell out of him. (For all I know it IS the house his mom grew up in; I missed the first 11 episodes so that may have been covered at some point.)

The Chances are people you’d totally want as your neighbors. They freely share their box wine, they take great delight in tiny bits of clever humor, and Granny Martha never fails to capture special moments on her breadbox-sized VHS camcorder.

Raising Hope probably won’t win any Emmy Awards for writing, but who cares. I laughed out loud multiple times. It’s worth the 30 minutes if only to play How-Many-Things-in-Their-House-Were-Taken-From-My-Mom’s-House. It airs Tuesday nights at 9:00 on FOX, and is also on Hulu.com, which is where I am headed now to catch up on the first 11 episodes.

Generation XLII

2011-01-21T18:28:00.000-08:00

I totally admit one of my guilty pleasures is watching that seasonal TV show about the hundreds of women who every year vie for a spot on a very popular cheerleading squad for a major NFL team. I’m not naming it here because this post isn’t about them, but rather the general population of the show’s cast.

A typical NFL cheerleader hopeful is about 20 years old, blonde, tan, buxom, super fit, and loves to dance. There’s definitely a formula the powers that be like to stick to.

Now, meet Laura Vikmanis, current member of the Ben-Gals, the cheerleading squad for the Cincinnati Bengals football team. Like so many of her sistren, she is blonde, tan, buxom, super fit, and loves to dance. But 20 years old she’s not. In fact, she’s twice that. And then some.

At 42, Ms. Vikmanis is the oldest cheerleader in the NFL. And she’s a full-fledged member of Generation X.

I don’t have statistics on the ages of all current NFL cheerleaders because I would be embarrassed to admit to such research. But I think it’s safe to assume the GenXers are fast being pushed out of the stadium in favor of girls who are too young to even remember the Bengals’ two appearances in the Super Bowl in ’82 and ’89.

While half the fun of watching the afore-not-mentioned cheerleader squad tryout series is snarking on the contestants’ abilities, apperances, and delusions, I can’t snark on this lady. Nope. This woman is in crazy good shape, has serious dedication to fitness, and above all—in my mind—she didn’t let anyone tell her what she couldn’t—or shouldn’t—try to do simply because of her age. Bravo, Laura. Bravo.

Buffetting the Storm

2011-01-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

Fifteen years ago I learned to embrace the power of positive thinking.

I wasn’t attending a Tony Robbins seminar, nor was I reading a Norman Vincent Peale book. Rather, I was stuck in a car on a Pennsylvania highway, alone in a traffic jam.

It was early January 1996, the final semester of my senior year of college. It was 18 degrees outside and I was driving back to campus after a seven-week internship in sunny Florida. A major storm had just blown through the entire Northeast, and I knew there was 23 inches of snow on the ground waiting to greet me at my apartment.

I was still an hour and a half away when it began to snow again just as the sun started to set. Some unseen event ahead of me halted traffic to a snail’s pace, and we reached a top speed of 10 miles per hour for the short spurts when we were actually moving.

In the prior seven weeks my blood had quickly thinned out to a deeply southern consistency, so the cold was hitting me hard. On top of that I was tired from hours of traveling and just wanted to get to my apartment. My stomach was growling. And I had to pee.

Solitary on Interstate 78, I had no companion with whom to commiserate. So I reached for my tape collection and one of them spoke to me. His name was Jimmy Buffett. I cranked up the heat as hot and high as it would go, then I popped in the cassette and pushed play.

For the next 70 miles I thought about how I’d been lying by the pool just days before, and I really pondered the concept of changes in latitudes/changes in attitudes. Steel drums had me drifting south immediately.
I imagined sitting on dock sipping two more boat drinks. And crazy enough, I slowly shook the chill that had enveloped me all day. I could envision that the snow outside was really a white sandy beach, and that the blowing flakes were sea spray. The heat pouring out from my ’85 Celebrity’s vents rivaled any Florida summer wind.

In a bit of perfect comedic timing, Buffett’s song Volcano was playing just as I passed a highway sign pointing toward Three Mile Island (“Don't want to land on the Three Mile Island/Don't want to see my skin aglow”). I may have rolled the window down just a tad and sung this line at the top of my lungs, but I can’t be certain.

In any case, by the time I arrived on campus my mood had improved so much that I didn’t even mind that the parking lot hadn’t been plowed, or that snow drifts had completely blocked the sidewalk. No, in my mind I lived down by the ocean.

For all my friends in PA and NC and crazily even GA, who this week are all dealing with ice and sleet and feet of snow, I can only offer as advice that process which got me through my own snowpocalypse. Remember, it won’t last forever. Come Monday, it’ll be alright….

Ponyboy Curtis Sleeps Here

2011-01-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

It wasn’t so long ago that I had a magazine picture of Ricky Schroder taped to the wall above my bed. Most of my friends had a Duran Duran poster taped to the ceiling above theirs. But 25 years later, such decorating sense would be frowned upon both by spouses and design professionals alike.

Luckily, there’s a place to where us Gen X girls can steal away and relive our 1980s youth, if only for a night. The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto boasts a Teen Queen room, decorated with lavender walls, gingham bedspread, unicorn lamp, and—best of all—walls plastered with teen magazine photos of everyone from Rob Lowe to C. Thomas Howell.
All of The Outsiders are represented, as are “fox” Kristy McNichol and bionic woman Lindsay Wagner. There are also a few paintings of horses thrown in for good measure. (I never had the horse fixation myself, but I’ll roll with it knowing so many others who did.)

Cecilia Berkovic is the artist who created the room and describes the Teen Queen as, “Like sleeping over at your best friend’s. An homage to the young girls we were, feared, wished we’d been, or wanted to date.”

My friend Leslie recently spent New Year’s weekend in the Teen Queen. Despite the retro pop culture theme, she said the room was actually aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. “I definitely felt like I was spending intimate time in an art installation,” said Leslie.

In fact, the Gladstone boasts 37 uniquely-designed rooms which the hotel claims reflect the diversity of talent in the city of Toronto and “encompass a number of disciplines including visual artists, interior designers, architects and material-based artists.” Each room is dramatically named for its theme: Skygazer, Faux Naturelle, Trading Post, and my favorite…Parlour of Twilight.

Said Leslie, “Some of the rooms had long-winded, high-falutin' artist statements about “acclimatization” and “erasure as efflorescence,” but the artist statement from the Teen Queen room sold me with its simplicity.”

Just looking at her pictures makes me want to put my hair up in a neon scrunchie and choreograph a dance to a Wham! song.

If you venture to Toronto, the Teen Queen starts at $169/night. But please, no lipstick marks on the photos.

Merry GenXmas!

2010-12-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

The holiday cards are still in the box on the dining room. My decorations are a mishmash of unrelated, non-themed odds and ends, most of which my lovey and I threw about the house 2 nights ago. Christmas Eve dinner is going to be soup because I just don’t have the energy for anything more elaborate. Gifts are modest. I started my shopping at 9 p.m. tonight—December 23rd. I'm left wondering when Christmas changed from being the thing we LIVED for all year long, into the thing that makes us pull our hair out. Our childhood wonder became adulthood I-wonder-how-I'm-gonna-get-everything-done.

Thankfully I am not alone, as proven to me by Facebook. A quick scan over the past 24 hours revealed the following:

“Now I am going to have to pull an all- nighter to get everything wrapped…”

“Don't feel left out…nobody got cards from me this year. it's called burning the candle at both ends.”

These were followed by status chantings of, “I will not feel stressed, I will not feel stressed…”

Seems the 35-42 age bracket is feeling a little less jolly and more stressy this holiday season. Not that anyone’s surprised. Haven’t we all been a little more stressy for the past two years or so?

Gen X is still strongly attached to Christmas and the holiday spirit, clinging (of course) to the holiday icons of our youth. Raise your hand if you made sure to catch A Charlie Brown Christmas for the 30-somethingth time. (Several retailers are now selling sad little Charlie Brown Christmas trees; no doubt who the target audience is.) Many of my friends are making plans to go out for Chinese food to recreate the Fa ra ra ra ra incident from A Christmas Story. We want our holidays to be lighthearted, filled with laughter and friends, and a release from the stress of the year. We can’t stand that the holidays seem to ADD stress to our lives.

More and more we find ourselves rebelling against the expected traditions of the holidays, sometimes to the chagrin of the older generations in our families. But it’s not the day itself we’re rejecting, it’s the long-held expectations developed over decades of mass media influence, retail suggestion, and old-fashioned guilt.

Yesterday an acquaintance suggested to me to “throw out the "supposed tos/what ifs/what might they thinks"”… and I said hallelujah! Thank you for telling me plainly what my brain has been screaming at me all along. We should all celebrate as we wish, and not be afraid to do away with what doesn’t fit us. Celebrate for joy and thanksgiving, and reflect on all that is good in your life.

So whether you’re opting for Festivus and its feats of strength, a solemn midnight mass, a rousing family dinner, or simply 24 hours of A Christmas Story, I wish you peace in your home, joy in your heart, and friends at your side.

All 4 the Money

2010-11-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

It seems the sticky fingers of greed-disguised-as-mental-anguish have reared their ugly head again. This time it’s in the form of a young woman claiming to have been sexually harassed by a prominent NFL player, whom she is now pressuring for a whole lot of cash. As we all know, nothing cures anguish quite like a hefty payoff.

Jenn Sterger, who became semi-famous by ripping her T-shirt to shreds and positioning herself prominently in the stands at a televised Florida State University football game, claims to have photos of Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre’s private parts. Allegedly he sent them to her via phone in 2008 as an act of…seduction? flirtation? general peepaw creepiness? What is unknown is what the relationship between the two parties was at the time, and why Favre thought it would be a good idea to do such a thing.

I do not in any way condone what Favre allegedly did (while he’s confessed to leaving her some racy phone messages, he has denied the photos). It is behavior unbecoming of a married man, regardless of his personal notoriety. It’s not only disrespectful to his wife, but it reeks of a drunken frat boy stunt. He’s a granddad, for crying out loud.

But come on, Jenn…why’d you wait two years to come forth with your “anguish?” If the action was so offensive, then why’d you save the photo(s) for so long? Did it really take two years to figure out if you were actually offended or not?

This is just as weird as Monica Lewinsky saving her biologically-stained dress. The only reason one saves evidence such as this is because they know it will be worth something in the future. And by “something” I mean money.

Those of us with common sense and a little self respect know that we have two choices when confronted with someone offensive: speak up when it happens, or realize there are just some stupid people in the world and you sometimes need to have a thicker skin.

Depending on what action, if any, the NFL takes on the matter, Sterger may or may not bring a civil suit against Favre. If I ~~extorted~~ sued every guy who was inappropriate to me I would have been a millionaire by the time I hit 25. Guys can be immature, inappropriate jerks. Some even cross the lines of decency. But unless Sterger can prove actual assault or job loss as a direct result of her interaction with or denial of Favre, this girl needs to grow up and learn to work the ‘delete’ button on her phone.

Sterger has appeared in both Maxim and Playboy magazines. A Google images search of her name turns up 117,000 results, at least half of them lacking actual clothing. She made herself a frat-household name by dressing scantily for FSU football games with two equally scantily-clad friends. This is not a shy girl, nor is she unaccustomed to parlaying sexual images of her surgically-enhanced body into offers that include lots of dollar signs. With all this intentional exposure, I hardly believe Favre was the first guy who ever--as the New York Post put it--“tried to land her in the sack with sleazy voicemails and text messages.” My guess is he was simply the biggest bank account to ever try.

Bury This Show!

2010-10-15T07:58:00.000-07:00

As Generation X’s love affair with MTV continues to wane, a part of me still keeps going back, giving the network just one more chance to prove to me that they’re worthy of my time. And I continue to shake my head.

This week after much ballyhoo about the new season, I gave “The Buried Life: What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?” a shot. The show follows four male college friends who drive around the country attempting to complete all 100 things on their do-before-I-die list. Allegedly the show was picked up to help MTV make a major shift in their programming, away from the nonsense reality programming they’ve been known for of late, and toward a more socially conscious media. In fact, the show was nominated for a Do Something award for its efforts in encouraging the pursuit of life goals. Sounds promising, doesn’t it?

Let’s take a look-see at a few of the things on these guys’ bucket list:
#62 Steal a lock of Robert Pattinson’s hair
#36 Street fight
#54 Make a million dollars
#27 Marry a stranger in Las Vegas

What exactly about those four goals is socially conscious? One is mayhem, one is personal assault and theft, and one is nothing but pure selfishness. The last one, though, is not only NOT socially conscious, it also makes a complete mockery of the fight that millions of gay Americans have struggled with for years. Going to Las Vegas purely to find a stranger to marry (with the assumed immediate annulment) is spitting in the face of all gay Americans. In effect it says, “Look what we can do and then throw away when it becomes boring.” It’s like buying a feast in front of a homeless person, taking one bite, then dumping it in the trash.

Until recently I was ambivalent about gay marriage. I wasn’t against it, but I really had no internal push to fight for it, either. Depending on the day and my mood, I could see the arguments from both sides. But when I watched this ridiculous spectacle of young 20-somethings herding unsuspecting women in the casino to “interview” with the determined groom-to-be (who was so drunk that at least one girl had to extricate herself from his inebriated grope), it dawned on me just how unbalanced our marriage laws are.

There is nothing stopping this idiot or others like him from legally marrying a complete stranger on a whim, so long as the two participants are of opposite sexes. There is no test, and there is no qualifying background check. Pay a hundred bucks and sign your name a few times, you’re married. You are now granted all the benefits and privileges assumed in marriage.

Yet, two women in a committed 15-year relationship cannot attain this privilege. The law sees them as somehow inferior, unable to uphold the sanctity of such a union, not worthy of the legal benefits that accompany marriage.

As the show progressed, Dave the protagonist did find a willing girl, an 18-year-old casino pool lifeguard named Michelle.
Her puzzled and shocked reaction to Dave’s proposal conveyed that she only said ‘yes’ because cameras were on her. Yet she donned a wedding gown and veil, Dave’s fellow bus-mate wore his best penguin suit (this is not a euphemism for a tuxedo, he wore an actual penguin costume…again, taking this whole marriage thing extremely seriously), and some dude walked the bride down the aisle. The two strangers were legally married. No muss, no fuss. No forethought. No plan.

Even without my inclusion of the debate over gay marriage, this episode of The Buried Life was insulting to my intelligence. Once again MTV has made me want an hour of my life back.

As the episode fades to black, Dave is on the phone with his mom. He tells her just got married in Vegas. Mom says, “You know I feel that marriage is sacred. I’m going to go throw up now.” Listen to your mother, Dave.

Zero Tolerance for Hate

2010-10-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge. The Rutgers University freshman had just been outed by two fellow freshmen who secretly videotaped him in an intimate encounter with another man in his dorm room, then broadcast the video live on the internet. One of those fellow students was his own roommate, whom Clementi had previously described as “an asshole from time to time.”

The roommates had had some issues getting along, as evidenced by Facebook posts Clementi had made. One night, knowing that Clementi was going to have a gentleman friend over for the evening, the roommate set up a webcam aimed directly at Clementi’s bed, with a note indicating he would broadcast what was recorded. Despite going to his dorm’s resident assistant for help, Clementi didn’t wait for help to happen. Instead he killed himself.

Roommate Dharun Ravi and student Molly Wei have since been charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy. Hmm. Somehow that seems…too easy.

I’ve written before about bullies, but this story is so far past bullying. It’s harassment, it’s intimidation, and despite sexual orientation not being included as a protected group, it is most certainly a hate crime. It’s so much more than just invasion of privacy. Those two students intentionally and maliciously set out to destroy another person’s reputation and mental stability. There is no way to misconstrue their actions, and there is no way to chalk it up to a mere prank.

Rutgers University President Richard McCormick wrote, "These actions gravely violate the university's standards of decency and humanity." I couldn’t agree more. It is sickening what these two young people did, and they did not do it just against Tyler Clementi, they did it against humanity. The message they publicly proclaimed by capturing and posting this video was that a gay person is not worthy of basic human respect. It sickens me that two people so young could have so much hatred in them, and further that it was toward another person they’d not even known for a month. To make such a calculated effort to secretly expose another person’s private activities for no other reason than hate makes me physically ill.

These two should be expelled from the university and prosecuted to the strongest extent the law allows. Yes, make an example out of them. Point to them and say, “THIS is what hate looks like. This is what intolerance looks like. And this will not be accepted.”

The Deja Vu Memorial Bridge

2010-10-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

If you’ve ever driven I-95 in northern Maryland, chances are you’ve crossed the Millard E Tydings Bridge, which spans the Susquehanna River near Havre de Grace. As a kid, we must have gone over this bridge every year on family vacations, but I saw it differently the first time I drove it alone. For one thing, I never noticed the sign warning motorists of “Dangerous Crosswinds.” Great, I thought, I’m going to blow off the bridge. I then white-knuckled it all the way across.

It’s a beautiful view, traversing from one rocky bluff to the other.

(photo found on Flickr by Tpal3)

That first time driving it alone I was on my way from New Jersey to northern Virginia, on a weekend trip to visit my brother. It was the first real road trip I’d taken by myself, and while it was only a 4-hour drive, it was something special for me to do. Something about crossing state lines on your own feels grown up.

As I approached the bridge heading south, Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” came on the radio. Having just read the road sign about the deadly crosswinds, the lyric “fly away…high away…bye bye…” didn’t ease my nerves. Neither did the one about “walking head-on into the deep end of the river.” But somehow I made it across, and was even able to catch a few glimpses of the changing fall foliage on that October morning.

I might not have remembered what song was playing had it not been for a strange coincidence. Two days later on my return trip, the same song played on the radio as I drove northbound on the very same bridge. I was sad to be leaving my brother’s place after a really fun weekend, and the melancholy tune was fitting. It served as the opening and closing acts to the weekend.

I usually have a fleeting thought of that bridge whenever I hear that song. But two mornings ago I heard it on the way to work and I thought about it a little longer. Today is the beginning of October, almost the same time as the day I took that trip 19 years ago. While it doesn’t feel like fall yet here, the sky and sun look like fall. It was grey that morning, making me yearn for cooler weather. I found myself wishing there was a bridge nearby that I could drive across.

(photo found on Flickr by Karol A Olson)

Movie Review: Greenberg

2010-09-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

“My shrink said I have trouble living in the present, so I linger on the past because I feel like I never really lived it in the first place.”

Such was the response by main character Roger Greenberg in the 2010 film Greenberg, when a 20-something girl matter-of-factly tells him, “you like old stuff.” The gravity of his response was lost on the girl, too young to possess the life experience necessary to fathom it.

Co-written by Gen Xers Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the movie spans six weeks in the life of Greenberg, played by Ben Stiller. He has just turned 41 years old and was recently discharged from a mental hospital after experiencing a nervous breakdown. Spending this time house-sitting for his much more successful brother, he half-heartedly attempts to connect with his brother’s 25-year-old personal assistant, Florence. Their 16-year age difference shines light on the generation gap between Gen X and Gen Y, much to the chagrin of both characters.

While this movie has been described as “Gen X Hits Middle Age,” that’s hardly an accurate summation. This is not Hot Tub Time Machine, nor is it Fast Times on Suburbia Lane (which would be an awesome sequel…). It’s one man’s question of where his life was, is, and is going. He just happens to be Generation X.

Personal relationships are the heart of the script, which often flips from past to present to cover the changes in relationships between the decades. Reconciling life imagined versus life realized is the antagonizing co-theme.

The interaction between Greenberg and his old friend and former bandmate, Ivan, made me imagine what the interaction might be like between Ferris Bueller and Cameron Frye 25 years after their day off…if Ferris was now working a 9-to-5 and separated from his marriage to Sloane, and if Cameron never got past his daddy issues and really tried to drown himself in the pool. I wanted clever banter when they reminisced about the old days, but the smiles were limited and were overshadowed by regret and missed opportunity.

When Greenberg meets for a drink with former girlfriend Beth, the ambivalence of one-sided memories was exquisitely displayed by Leigh’s less-than-nostalgic character.

While she reminded me why I love her as an actor, I had hoped for something a little stronger from Leigh as a writer. I found the script to be disjointed but sporadically emphasized by a handful of profound quotes that were too good for the scenes in which they were used. I did appreciate that the pop culture references so commonplace in Gen X-oriented movies were subtly infused and not gratuitous. They were always used to illustrate a point and not simply for the sake of inclusion.

The finest scene involved Greenberg attempting to blend his current 41-year-old self with the lives of partygoers in their early 20s. His rant on what’s wrong with Gen Y was both hilarious and spot-on, and the subsequent reaction by the young’ns further demonstrated the frustrations X has with Y.

The role is a complete change from what we’re used to getting from Stiller, so it was nice to see him not Fockering things up yet again.
Roger Greenberg is not a likable person, though I found myself applauding a few of his brutally honest reactions. This is not a happy movie in any way, and you'll probably want to go to bed after you watch it. But if you're in the mood to take stock of life a little, it's worth the 2 hours. With any luck you'll actually feel better about your own life afterwards.

(Greenberg is out of theaters, but available on Netflix.)

If MTV Really Knew Us...

2010-09-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

Given MTV President Van Toffler’s recent comment about how the network is “pushing Generation X out” for the “more civic minded, less cynical” Millennials, it’s no wonder very little of their programming interests me anymore. I didn’t care what rapper T.I. was doing with his pre-prison life (if I’d have said he’s just going to end up in prison again anyway, I would have been called cynical…but guess who was just arrested on drug charges a few days ago. Ahem.) And I won’t watch anything featuring Tila Tequila.

So given this waning love, I was surprised to be so taken with a recent addition to the MTV lineup. If You Really Knew Me is an hour-long documentary taking place at a different high school each episode. Students from every social group participate in a day-long activity called Challenge Day, facilitated by leaders from Challenge Day/Be the Change, a California-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide youth and their communities with experiential programs that demonstrate the possibility of love and connection through the celebration of diversity, truth, and full expression.

Through different sharing exercises the students slowly let down their privacy walls and confess facts about themselves, first in small groups and then later to the entire assembly. Every confession begins with “If you really knew me, you’d know that I….” The students divulge everything from the pain of losing a parent to personal mental illness to regret felt after having treated a friend badly. There’s a lot of crying, a lot of hugging, and a dash of Gen X-aged leaders trying to be hip by throwing street lingo into their presentations. It’s like a cross between the Oprah show and a church youth group convention.

What most amazes me is the ease at which many of the students tell their secrets. Even more so is that they tell these secrets to the very people who could most use that knowledge against them. I tried to imagine such a day taking place at my former high school and the thought seemed absurd. No WAY would I have told what was really going on in my life to 98% of my classmates. No way would I have trusted 100 other students to not tease each other incessantly with all this juicy new gossip. (Woops, there’s that Gen X cynicism rising up again.)

In every episode I’ve watched there’s been a girl who lets out that she lost her best friend but doesn’t know why. Across the room, the former best friend admits to her small group that she treated her best friend badly and now they don’t even speak, and how bad she feels about it. Everybody in each group knows exactly who each girl is talking about. Having been in the shoes of girl #1 my sophomore year, admitting what she admitted would have been social death for me. My former best friend’s social group would have crucified me.

But amazingly, as the confessions flow, so does the peer support, in a fascinatingly strong way. It often reminds me of the scene from The Breakfast Club where the detainees are talking about their respectively sucky home lives. Remember Allison’s confession, “They ignore me.” Also like in the movie, students at the end of Challenge Day often ponder to each other whether the message will stick once they’re out of the confines of the program and back in the halls of everyday school life. Will the homecoming queen who feels alone really say hi to the quiet bipolar girl nobody knows? Will the cowboy really stick up for the nerd who’s incessantly teased?

The show does a phenomenal job of showing how you never know what is going on in someone’s mind, life, or family. One of the most powerful examples of this was Eric, the physically imposing Texas football player who completely broke down when the leader asked, “Who never got the chance to just be a child?” Poor guy could barely hold himself up he was so overcome with emotion. A redneck in a 10-gallon hat was the first to step up to support him, and a sassy black girl was so moved by his unexpected breakthrough that she truly appeared to see everyone in her school in a new light. Clearly these kids are motivated to break through the social and racial barriers that normally plague the high school experience.

Challenge Day/Be The Change has been in existence since 1987, when many of its group leaders were still in high school themselves. So in a way, MTV has Gen X to thank for this popular show. Our own experiences are what shaped a desire to incite change in the next generation. If Gen X was truly so cynical, we wouldn’t have faith that things could be different, that high school didn’t have to be so awkward, judgmental, or vicious.

So don’t be so quick to dismiss us, MTV. While I still haven’t forgiven you for taking JUST SAY JULIE off the air in ‘92, I will hold on for just a little longer thanks to this latest offering.

New episodes of If You Really Knew Me air Tuesdays at 11 p.m., but are repeated often throughout the week.

My Love Affair With Neil Perry

2010-08-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

As the students crowded around trophy cases full of old black-and-white photographs, the teacher crouched behind them and slowly whispered, “Carpe…carpe diem…seize the day, boys…make your lives extraordinary….”

I never took a Latin class, but I did learn to love that phrase: Carpe diem.

During my senior year of high school, my creative writing teacher introduced us to a soon-to-be-released movie called Dead Poets Society. She had gotten hold of some condensed versions of the movie script, and we read it aloud in class. I remember our Australian exchange student played the part of the inspirational teacher in the reading, and I still hear her accented voice saying those words, carpe diem.

It was a good enough story in its shortened version; I was very much into poetry at the time, and anything that this particular teacher recommended I took as gospel. So when the movie came out the summer after I graduated, I was eager to see it.
The movie told the story of a group of high school boys enrolled at a boarding prep school in New England in the 1950s. Their lives were dramatically changed by the introduction of a radically inspirational new teacher, Mr. Keating, as played by Robin Williams. Through unconventional methods he taught them to question the status quo, to be free thinkers, and to “do more…be more.” It was the message I needed to hear at precisely the time I needed to hear it.

At the time I had just turned 17 and was eager to get away to college and experience everything new. I was soaking up every word my own radically inspirational teacher said. I was yearning to be worldly and wise.

At college, I introduced one of my freshman year roommates to DPS. She fell in love with it just like I did, and this bond was a major pillar of our friendship. Whenever it played at the dollar theater, we caught a ride to see it. If we heard a dorm-mate had rented it, we knocked on her door to watch it. We regularly quoted lines from it in everyday conversation. It was a part of us. And how we loved those boys; she loved Knox, I loved Neil.

But really, we loved them all. They were the boys we wanted to meet, the boys who would write us poetry and reveal secrets about themselves to us. Boys who would find us beautiful but be even more interested in our minds.

We didn’t meet those boys anytime soon, certainly not that year. But the movie gave us hope that they were out there. And it gave us a seed of motivation that, 20 years later, I can see has grown in both of us and influenced choices we’ve made along the way. Both professionally and personally we’ve heard that whisper coming from behind us saying, “seize the day…make your life extraordinary.”

There are so many lines that spoke to me in that movie, I could fill pages just quoting them all. But one of the strongest was, “The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” It is my life’s goal to contribute a verse that is remembered. It is why I write and why I push myself to reach out to relationships I was previously scared to pursue. I’m still working my way up to a barbaric YAWP, as Mr. Keating encouraged the boys to exalt. I try to remember, as he told them, that “poetry, beauty, romance, love—these are what we stay alive for.”

I still get choked up every single time I watch that movie. The beauty of scenery, the truth of the theme, and the emotion of the tragedy never fail to touch me. But above all, the closing scene where the boys take a final stand to honor their teacher who was forced out of his job shaped the way I view loyalty. I hope that when the opportunity arises I can be as courageous as they were in standing up to defend the honor of someone I truly believe in. And I hope that my contributed verse will be honorable.

We're The Class of '89

2010-08-10T18:35:00.001-07:00

It was only a week or two ago that my husband and I had a conversation about our mutual concern for friends who maybe aren't taking as good care of themselves as they should be. We're in our late 30s and our friends are on both sides of 40; old enough to notice health effects of bad habits, but still young enough to make significant changes.

We talked about not knowing how to express our genuine concern without coming across as judgmental or trying to suck all the fun out of life. Nobody wants to be told they need to lose weight, to exercise, to stop smoking once and for all, to cut down the drinking. Nobody wants to admit they are a danger to themself.

Sadly, my doomsday fears were fully realized this afternoon when I learned that a high school classmate of mine died of a heart attack last night. He wasn't even 40 years old yet. I couldn't fathom that Generation X is already "there," in the Land of People Having Heart Attacks.

Ironically, my classmate WAS attempting to take care of himself; he suffered his heart attack while running. He'd been in the Navy since just after high school, so he was no stranger to physical conditioning. But it happened anyway. And now his wife has lost her best friend, his kids have lost their dad.

His friends from junior high are already rallying together, figuring out how to establish a scholarship in his name, planning a service at the veterans' memorial park in our hometown, determined to honor him properly by promoting organizations that had fostered him growing up.

We weren't close friends, I only knew him as the goofy guy who sat next to me in 9th grade biology class, the guy who thought the McKenzie Brothers were hilarious. But after reading post after post on his Facebook wall, tributes to friendship and expressions of admiration, I know that his goodness ran deep to his core, and his generosity reached far. "He cared more about the people around him than for himself," said one of his closest friends. "By living a selfless life, he left a legacy that we can all learn from."

Take care of yourselves, Xers. I mean REALLY take CARE of yourselves. Don't let fear keep you away from visiting a doctor. Don't keep turning your back on family trends in medical histories. Realize that there's no time like yesterday to get back on that exercise program. I don't want to read any more tributes. Not this year.

Generation X-hausted

2010-08-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

The year was 1982. The movie was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a staple of the Gen X cinema experience. Judge Reinhold’s character, Brad, was sitting in his school guidance counselor’s office discussing his college options. When the counselor realized Brad hadn’t applied to any colleges, she berated him for treating his future like life was all fun and games. This threw Brad into a tirade. He described for her what his days as a high school senior were like:

“I broke up with my girlfriend this
year. I lost my job at Carl's and
two other places. I wake up at 5:30
to work at Mighty Mart, then I go to
school, THEN I go back to Mighty Mart.
I have to pay rent, you know. My
grades haven't been that bad, and
now you're telling me that the fun
is over? Frankly, Mrs. O’Rourke, I'm still waiting
for the fun to start!”

It may be 28 years later, but the reality is that Gen Xers are voicing the same lament in 2010. Only this time, we have multi-generational caregiving to add into the mix.

Many of us approaching or already firmly seated in middle age find ourselves in a “sandwich generation,” the population caring both for aging parents as well as young children, with little or no time to address our own personal issues. But what I’m noticing in my own circles of friends is that the children involved are younger than in previous sandwich generations, leaving us even more mentally and physically strained.

A woman I know is 40 years old. She has one parent in a nursing home with Alzheimer disease and another parent who just suffered some scary cardiac events requiring hospitalization. But she also has three children of her own, the youngest of which is only three years old. And she has a career and a husband in graduate school. And a mortgage. And a tweener.

Another 40-year-old friend recently had a newborn baby who required several weeks of post-natal treatment for a minor birth defect, and at the same time she was trying to help her own mother rehabilitate from a broken hip in a town two hours away…in addition to maintaining her own career, raising a 10-year-old daughter, and keeping her marriage intact.

Yet another friend is 42 and childless by choice, but finding herself in the position of parenting her own mom and dad who have serious financial and health issues, including early Alzheimer symptoms. When the parents refuse to admit they need help, it becomes that much more emotionally draining. “Everything I suggest they do for their benefit, they do the complete opposite,” she said. “I’ve never wanted anything but the best for them…but I’ve become the enemy.”

Could the economic and housing crises of late have come at worse time? Not for Gen X. Twenty-five years ago most of thought that at 40 our kids would be pretty much self-sufficient. We thought we’d be firmly planted in successful careers, our bank accounts would overfloweth, and we’d be spending weekends jaunting off on exciting excursions. We never envisioned losing our homes and retirement accounts despite doing everything right, or losing jobs we’d been at for a decade due to corruption of upper management. We didn’t envision making less money in 2010 than we made in 2000 but being told we better be grateful we even have a job. We didn’t envision unemployed for a year or more. And we sure did not envision pushing our baby’s stroller with one hand and our mother’s wheelchair with the other. Yet, we do it, because that is where we are. And it is who we are. Generation X is resilient, determined, and enterprising.

But frankly, Mrs. O’Rourke, Generation X is still waiting for the fun to start.

Now on Facebook!

2010-08-02T20:19:00.001-07:00

In an effort to broaden my reach, I have created a Facebook page for The Shape of X. All new blog posts will be linked on it, plus daily doses of Gen X-oriented pop culture. Discussion topics are posted and I welcome interaction among readers. Comments are always appreciated both here on the blog and on the Facebook page.

The Effect of the AIDS Crisis on a Gen X-er

2010-07-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

Today I'm the featured blogger on
Are You There God? It's Me, Generation X Read about my reactions to the changing HIV/AIDS crisis over the years and how Gen X grew up in this era.

The Smile as Bright as a Painted Bunting

2010-07-03T07:58:00.000-07:00

I had a disturbing dream last night. I often have vivid dreams which I remember the next day, and they are usually filled with characters from what my husband calls “central casting.” One dream will be populated with random people from my entire life, usually who’ve never met each other, but they’ve all crossed my path at one time. But this dream was more striking in its choice of characters.

I dreamed that I was living in a new apartment and went next door to meet my neighbor. He was nobody that I can place in my mind. But then his roommate walked in, and I recognized his face and name though I know I’ve never met him in real life. He’s the older brother of a friend from high school, J. I told him my name, but before I could say anything further, the brother recognized me. He said, “I know who you are. J’s face would always light up whenever he talked about you.”

That is the part that makes my heart ache. About 3 years ago J killed himself. I found out about it by reading the obituaries in the newspaper. I was unaware at the time that we were living in the same city. We had lost touch since high school, and this was before everyone was on Facebook. There was a picture accompanying the obit, so there was no second-guessing who it was. Those dimples were unmistakable. It was unreconcilable in my mind that this face that so often lit up so beautifully was now forever dimmed.

A few months later I found out more details of the incident and what precipitated it, which made me hurt even more. It seems J was working at a restaurant at the time, and I realized that by pure coincidence I had gone to that very restaurant the day before he died. But our group ultimately decided to eat across the street instead because the wait was too long at J’s restaurant.
For a long time I thought if only we’d gone there as planned, I would have seen him and we would have hugged and talked and we would have exchanged numbers or emails. I kept thinking that meeting might have been a tiny spark of joy in his obviously troubled mind. That spark might have led to a phone call that might have changed future events.

But it didn’t. If only, if only….

So I’m left with the vision in my dream, of a brother I’ve never met telling me that I meant something to this lost friend.

In my pile of mementos I have a note that J had written to me in high school. It’s covered in hearts and smiley faces. I’m not sure why I saved it for so many years; it doesn’t say anything particularly special, just one of those notes you write when you’re bored in class. “Maybe we can go out next weekend,” he said.

MYODB

2010-06-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

I realized something about myself today: I’m a lot more private than I used to be. That may sound strange coming from someone who writes about her life on a public forum. But on here I control what gets out, and my words are carefully chosen. I try to make the stories have meaning, not be just a random spewing of facts and thoughts.

But the truth I realized today is that I just don’t like to divulge things about myself to strangers without good reason. If you want to know something about me, tell me why you need to know. “Just curious” isn’t enough for me anymore. You have every right to ask me a question, but conversely I have every right to deny you an answer. Your desire to know does not constitute a demand on my part. Staring me down doesn’t help your cause, either. I don’t know if people have gotten nosier or just worse at reading nonverbal cues. I hadn’t realized until today just how strong my desire for privacy is, how prickly and uncomfortable I feel when pressed for intimate details about myself, like a cat backed into a corner.

A perfect example—though not the impetus for this post—is the ever-looming “so why haven’t you had a baby?” inquisition. The most likely answer I give is, “because I haven’t.” I can’t think of a more personal question, or one that has so many possibilities of having a tragic or painful reason behind the answer. It amazes me how many people fail to consider this before speaking.

Also, I don’t give my phone number to retail stores. Take my money for my purchase and let me leave. I don’t care why or how you track customers, you’re not getting my number. I don’t care that the cash register “won’t let you” continue the transaction without a phone number; I’m sure you can make one up and override it, it’s not a nuclear detonator. Nor is it my problem. I will gladly buy my jeans elsewhere; you’re not getting my number.

I have to take a deep breath when someone asks me what bands I like, because this is typically asked by someone who is passionate about the bands THEY like, and they want me to like their favorites. If I don’t, I’m usually then told why my taste is juvenile/commercial/uninspired, and that the music I like has no soul. No, I just don’t have YOUR soul. MY soul is happy with my music. Music is like politics in terms of loyalty. A single conversation isn’t going to change anybody’s opinion, and trying to do so only pisses somebody off.

“What is your dream ________?” also makes me very uneasy. Dreams by their very nature are extremely personal and often shrouded in impossibility. I’m fully aware that many of my dreams have aspects that render them invalid by pesky realities like gravity and my lack of a functional time-travel machine. But they are my dreams and I enjoy them, knowing full well that they may sound crazy to an outsider. So I choose to keep them to myself. I don’t want to be marked off the short list for a new job because the interviewer doesn’t understand my dreams, which most likely are irrelevant to the matter at hand anyway. You won’t “get a feel” for the person I am in 20 minutes by asking what my dreams are, nor will they indicate my likelihood of success in said job. Doing so only works to add an uncomfortable heaviness to the room.

Declining to answer personal questions often leads to the misperception that there is something sinister to hide, or of paranoia. Neither is true with me.

Former US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “Privacy is the right to be alone—the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man.”

Word.

Carpe Dancem!

2010-06-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a coworker relayed a story from her days in kindergarten, and it bears repeating.

In many kindergarten classrooms, the bathroom is attached to the main room since 5-year-olds tend to have urges with short wait times, and such was the case with V’s classroom. For reasons unknown, one particular day V wore her fancy black patent leather shoes to school, which was unusual so it must have been picture day or some other dress-up day. She remembers loving those shoes, and remembers the sound they made when she walked across the hard tile floor. V also noticed that this sound was accentuated in the confines of her class's tiled bathroom.

V began clicking her heels and toes, and soon found herself full-on tapdancing in the bathroom, oblivious to the world beyond the closed door. The acoustics of the tile made it that much better. Not a trained dancer, she winged the moves extemporaneously. Jazz hands, scissor kicks, and big finish! The spirit moved her, and she had to dance.

When her big number was complete, V washed her hands, straightened her dress, and opened the door. To her surprise, the entire class was staring at her. The teacher stood stoically, arms folded over her chest. “Are you finished?” she asked. Mortified, V remembers feeling the heat of embarrassment envelope her. She took her seat, never to attempt such a performance again. AT least not during school hours.

I had tears of laughter streaming down my face hearing this story. Not because I was laughing AT her, but because it was such a beautiful display of the joy of spontaneity we enjoyed as children. Who among us didn’t have a moment where we saw an opportunity for delight and took it, without regard or forethought to how silly it might look to others?

There was an episode of Friends where Rachel gets embarrassed when she goes running with Phoebe in the park. It seemed that Phoebe ran with wild abandon, arms flailing. Phoebe explained it simply, “I run like I did when I was a kid because that’s the only way it’s fun.” After reluctantly trying it for herself, Rachel realizes she’s right, “You don’t care if people are staring, because it’s only for a second and then you’re gone!”

I used to do cartwheels everywhere. I was a cartwheel fanatic. I loved that I could do it and I loved how good it felt. But I couldn’t tell you the last time I did one. Somewhere I realized it looked silly for a 6-foot adult woman to cartwheel in public. But so what?

We should look more often toward the way children approach enjoyment, giving less consideration to our possible audience and more to the honest joy it brings us. The amount of time we waste worrying about other people’s perceptions could be so much better used just enjoying simple pleasures.

If you gotta dance, by golly you dance and do it with vigor!

Please Cancel My Subscription to Mean Vogue

2010-06-15T10:35:00.001-07:00

If you ever took Psych 101, you probably studied the Nature vs. Nurture argument. Are our behaviors and habits innate or are they learned?

Two personality traits I've always possessed are an attention to small detail, and the perceived notion that the world notices small details about ME. Don't confuse this second trait with narcissism; I don't think the world revolves around me, I simply believe that flaws in my appearance, even the tiniest minutiae, are giant red flags that can't be missed...by anyone.

While I can credit my mom with teaching me to notice details, neither of my parents nor my older brother had a hand in my obssession with the outside world looking in on me. I can't recall ever being admonished to fix some small detail about myself so as not to embarass myself. None of them ever teased me that "everyone's going to look at you if you go out like THAT." But I can tell you that this feeling has always been with me. I present to you exhibit A:

One morning while getting dressed for kindergarten (age 4-1/2) my mom realized there was a hole in my opaque white tights. This was back when little girls still had to wear tights with dresses, as we didn't have the much more comfortable and realistic cotton leggings that little girls have today. So she had to improvise and dress me in a pair of lace-pattern tights. This might have been fine for church or with another dress, but with the flower print dress I was already wearing, lace tights were ALL WRONG. Too fancy, the patterns clashed, it just wasn't right. But time was of the essence, and despite my protests, off to school I went with my lacy legs.

In kindergarten we always opened the day with reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing a few patriotic songs (it was 1976, the year of the Bicentennial). Normally I loved to sing along, but this particular morning I couldn't participate because I was bawling my eyes out. This was unusual so a teacher tried asking me what was wrong, but between my gasps and the noise of the other students singing, she could not understand me. Escorting me into a quieter room, Miss Sherry knelt down and attempted to help me catch my breath so I could tell her what was wrong. Bewteen gasps I finally stuttered, "My...tights..(gasp)...don't match..(gasp)...my dress!!!"

Miss Sherry immediately dropped her head, and at the time I thought she was looking down at my tights to confirm that they indeed looked ridiculous with my dress. But in hindsight I realize she was probably hiding her face so that the hysterical child wouldn't see her stifling a smile.

I don't remember what she said to me then, but somehow I was convinced to go back to class and that everything was going to be okay.

So where did this appearance obssession originate? Why was a 4-1/2-year-old histrionic over legwear? Did my mom read a Vogue magazine while pregnant and the information transferred to me in utero? Did some random older kid laugh at me as a toddler when I had rice cereal drooling down my face and it flipped an appearance awareness switch in my brain?

Looking at me today (or even much of growing up) I'm not the innovative fashion maven, and I was never voted Best Dressed. Even now I don't wear a lot of makeup because I never learned how. But if you could see into the little factory that is my brain, there would always be a department devoted to analyzing incoming potential insults, and a tandem department devoted to damage control and neutralizing those perceived insults.

Sometimes purposely going out in public "looking ugly" (a phrase my husband hates) is therapeutic, sometimes it makes me feel worse.

The feeling of having eyes on me is always there and always has been. It's like an accessory I can't take off, a barrette stuck in my tangled hair. Most days I can hide it, but it still pulls at me.

Summer Days Driftin' Away

2010-06-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've been away from home this week, part of that time in an area where internet access was not easily accessible. I'm a little late to mention my latest contribution to Are You There God? It's Me, Generation X but I hope you'll be able to relate. Here's to kicking off the summer of '10. May it be filled with good memories and great music.

There She Is...Miss Embarrassment

2010-05-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

Less than 24 hours after earning the crown, scandalous photographs had already surfaced of the 2010 Miss USA, Rima Fakih. She was caught on film participating in--and ultimately winning--a stripper pole-dancing contest hosted by a radio station. The usual excuses and justifications immediately circulated..."it's not like she was naked,"..."it was only in front of other girls, not men,"..."she's just young and having fun."

Still, she was pole-dancing for money. On camera. In public.

In the past decade or so, pageants have turned into a laughable parade of beautiful but vacuous, immature women who have taken the adolescent excuse of "everybody's doing it" to a new level. Apparently everybody has nude pictures on the internet, everybody is bi-curious, and everybody can perform a cross-knee release on a 5-cm pole (OK I Googled that one).

Listen up, chicas. EVERYBODY IS NOT DOING THIS!!!!!

(Though it seems everbody in the pageant world IS.)

But let's retreat a little. There was a time when pageants attracted wholesome, respectable, girl-next-door types, and a dwindling few still do. Miss America and America's Junior Miss are still scholarship programs that emphasize academic achievement and community service, and both still require a performance talent.

But not the USA pageants under the governing thumb of Donald Trump. Nope, these are pure T&A shows, complete with dramatic black and white 'promotional' photos of all the contestants in garter belts and fishnets stockings. Miss USA is obviously not stressing brains. So why even bother anymore with the judges' questions? Why ask Miss Whoever State what her feelings are on Arizona's new illegal immigrant show-me-your-papers law? Because you know what? She doesn't care. She didn't even know what it was until her walking coach told her about it the night before.

Come on, Don. Just be honest and rename the pageant. Miss Hot Piece is really what you're running here. We know you couldn't care less about these girls' political and social opinions, and neither could they. Let's not forget that a girl whose on-stage interview answer contained the phrase,"people out there in our nation that don’t have maps, and I believe that our education, like, such as in South Africa and Iraq, everywhere like such as," still managed to place in the top 5 of the Miss Teen USA pageant (owned and run by Trump). This pageant isn't looking for the next Attorney General or Pulitzer Prize winner...it's looking for Trump's fourth wife.

I admit, there was a time where I looked up to these women, dreamed of one day walking in their lucite stilettos. But no amount of cash and prizes could persuade me to vie for the title of one of Donald Trump's beck-and-call girls. A gilded studio apartment in Trump Tower would be to me akin to a year in the Bastille (look it up, Millennials!)

I'm not offended by Miss USA's antics. I'm bored by them. I am unimpressed by her completely predictable, generationally-typical plea for attention.

A Weekend in the Garden of Good and Evil

2010-05-16T13:43:00.001-07:00

I love traveling as much as I love writing, so it's a bit of wonder why it took me so long to blend the two. This is my first attempt at travel writing, and I think I like it.

Paraphrasing from John Berendt’s novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, “The whole of Savannah is an oasis...it is isolated, and gloriously so. A little enclave on the coast, surrounded by nothing but marshes and piney woods, and not easy to get to. If you fly there, you usually have to change planes at least once...it’s a terribly inconvenient destination!”

But, oh, how worthwhile that journey is.

Upon arriving in Savannah, my first stop is always a place called Fiddlers, where I sit on the upper balcony overlooking the Savannah River, inhaling the fresh air. It is here that my blood pressure drops and my neck tension releases. It is here that life is good. I found it by chance, but I think maybe it found me and said, “this is where you’ll sit a spell.”

So how do you get the most out of a weekend in this fair city, nicknamed the “Hostess City of the South?”

The only way to stay in Savannah is at a historic bed and breakfast. The city is full of them, each one unique, and many offer a little something extra that you won’t find at a chain hotel. A resident ghost--or at least the legend of one--is common. In fact, Savannah boasts some of the finest ghost tours you’ll find in the South, which detail more stories of skeletons in closets and unexplained beings than you’ve likely ever heard before. You can even take a ghost tour while riding around in a hearse for a truly spooky experience.

Now, depending on where you’re from, Savannah may take a little adjustment time. If you’re city folk, slow down a bit. In Savannah you walk slower, you talk slower. The city just wants you to relax. Take your time, Savannah’s not going anywhere.

Understand that this is a walking city. To get the most out of what’s really worth seeing, put on your comfortable shoes and head toward the riverfront through the historic district.

The historic district is situated around 21 grassy squares, or small parks, which are over 150 years old. Most have a noble statue or a fountain in memoriam to a war hero or other city historic figure; all have benches and grand oak trees, with blooming azaleas in the springtime. Remember the scenes from the movie Forrest Gump where Forrest was sitting on the bus stop bench? That was filmed in Savannah’s Chippewa Square. That bench is no longer there, but you’ll recognize the square nonetheless. And don’t be surprised to see an eccentric old woman in a fancy hat pushing her Pekingese in a baby carriage, or art students sitting on a bench, sketching.

The district is easy to navigate, and sidewalks are plenty, but keep a basic map handy just to keep the street names straight.

It is through this easy meandering that you will discover part of the city’s exceptional beauty: its architecture. From Georgian and Greek Revival mansions to colonial rowhouses, hidden gardens and brick alley passageways, you’ll find yourself peering through wrought-iron gates in search of a peek at a hidden treasure. You don’t have to be a student of architecture to appreciate Savannah’s dedication to both historic preservation and old Southern charm.

But all this walking can make a person hungry. Being a coastal city means many things, not the least of which is delectable seafood. The riverfront section on River Street is full of casual restaurants serving up the fresh catch of the day. I especially recommend the crab cakes at Fiddler’s.

From here one can meander down the clunky cobblestone street—remember those comfortable shoes, this is not for the stiletto crowd, trust me—and grab an icy drink. Savannah knows everyone is happier with a cold drink in hand, and has a relaxed attitude on folks who prefer to amble with a go-cup.

If the feets are achin’ but the soul is still willing for more Savannah touring, there are many options. Tours are always circling, just take your pick of your desired mode of transportation: horse-pulled carriage, motorized trolley, Segway...hearse. Tours are affordable and all give an excellent overview of historic points of interest, and tour guides are personable and quaint, giving a wonderful representation of Southern Hospitality with humorous commentary.

But don’t think you’ll see everything in one weekend; you won’t. Savannah is a city of great warmth and kindness, but it delights in teasing you to come back for more. And you will want to.

It clings to your memory like so much Spanish moss clinging to the boughs of a 300-year-old live oak. No need to brush it away, though. Savannah will welcome you back, anytime, with a cold drink and a soft breeze. Savannah’s an old friend with an open gate; come on back anytime, Sugar.

My Best Days, Part 1

2010-05-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

One of my college roommates has written a book that is a guide to gratitude. Conscious gratitude is supposed to improve our outlook on life and bring us joy. So in that spirit, I’m starting a new recurring feature of the blog.

Called My Best Days, it will be a recollection of singular days that in themselves might not have been dramatic or life-altering, but were memorable simply for being good. The experiences were simple but they continue to remind me of how life can be great through a collection of bright moments.

My Best Days, Part 1….LaJolla, California, 07-06-2000

I get lost in thought when I see these photos. I was visiting one of my best friends in the world (of course, a “Jen”) who was living in the San Diego area. She had a cute little apartment in La Jolla, just two blocks from the Pacific coast. We spent this particular morning hiking the hills and rocks along the shoreline.

It was misty and breezy in the morning, but in typical fashion the marine layer lifted by noon and our sweatshirts came off.

This picture was taken on a pedestrian bridge that spanned a small cove of ocean that jutted into the landscape.

The water could not have been bluer, the foliage greener, or the sun cast a more golden glow on everything. I kept looking right, then left, then ahead, and then back again…I just couldn’t take in enough of the panorama. At that point I remembered a coworker telling me that when she went to San Diego, she felt like her soul was where it belonged. That is what I felt here!

And it was so quiet, save for the water hitting the rocks, the blowing breeze, and our own laughter.

I don’t know how far we hiked, probably only a mile or two. Maybe “hiking” isn’t the best word…aerobic meandering is more like it.

We watched the seals on the pier. I saw gnarly trees that appeared to be directly out of a Dr. Seuss book.
We laughed uncontrollably when a squirrel looked at us funny. It was that kind of day, where nothing could have gotten us down.

We ate lunch at bistro in LaJolla Village, and to this day I swear it was the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten. Turkey and cheddar on rosemary bread.

Two old friends with no schedule to keep, warm sunshine, and laughter. It was a day where I can truthfully say I completely relaxed and loved every...single...minute.

I still think of that day whenever I eat rosemary bread.

Grandma's Parlor

2010-04-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

Most summers as a kid we took our vacation to my grandparents’ house in New Jersey. They lived in an old house, the one my grandmother was born in, and it was HOT. No air conditioning hot. Crazy muggy hot. In the evening with the windows open and the fans blowing it was tolerable and we’d all sit in the parlor watching the old black and white television. All the TV stations were out of New York City so we got the big stories not the fluff you get from local stations.

I distinctly remember certain touch sensations of that parlor. The quilt that covered the sofa had small circular patterns in it that I would run my fingers over and over. The carpet which was probably extremely old but incredibly durable was rough and flattened with age and felt kind of like running your hand over a panful of Rice Krispy treats; not sticky, just textured like that. All the years we went there, those 2 touch sensations were consistent.

The thing about sitting on that floor or that couch watching the NYC news is that major world news and social events and always seemed to happen in the week we were visiting there:

AIDS was discovered
A few different airliners were hijacked and on one of them terrorists killed that Navy diver, I still remember his name was Robert Stethem.
Yankee Dave Righetti pitched a no-hitter on the Fourth f July.
Rock Hudson announced he was dying of AIDS.

It’s the AIDS story that I remember most. You remember where you were when major events happen, like the shuttle explosion, Reagan being shot; I remember hearing about this new disease called AIDS. I was sitting on that rough carpet in that hot parlor with the fan blowing, playing cards with my brother. I was 10-11 years old. My brother and I both remarked “Aids, that’s the name of that diet candy.”

So much happened on that old black and white TV.

I first watched Norma Rae on that TV. I learned about unions and factories.
I watched 4th of July fireworks at the Statue of Liberty on that same TV. For a small-town Florida girl that was a big deal.

I don’t know if it’s because I was younger and my brain was more spongelike or if it was just because we had less access to information back then, but these stories stuck with me. Even now when I remember the footage of the body of the Navy diver thrown out of the plane, the footage of the pilot held captive in the cockpit window, and the heroic stewardess with the curly flyaway hair, I’m also still feeling the circles in the pattern on that sofa quilt in my mind, and my fingers still move.

In my 20s I lived with my grandma for a few months, and that same carpet and sofa quilt were still there. We would still sit together on the sofa and watch the TV news, which thankfully was now in color, and I’d run my fingers over the quilt pattern. It was familiar and somewhat hypnotizing, not in a spooky sense but in the sense of “I’ve done this 1000 times before,” and felt like I knew every thread in it. Muscle memory, sensory memory, loose associations. Like the autistic child who rocks back and forth, I’d feel the patterns and remember the stories.

A Minor Change, A Major Opportunity

2010-04-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've made a slight change to my profile...instead of FLConfetti, I will now be known on this blog as HeyRay. It's an old nickname some followers may already recognize. With the name change, Shape of X will now be more flavorful and get your whites whiter.

The reason is purely for ease of recognition. I've been offered a super opportunity to be a guest blogger on another Gen X-themed site, are you there god? it's me, generation x If you haven't read this blog, I seriouly suggest you lurk a little while over there. I will be known as HeyRay over there and on any other locations that'll have me.

Thanks to everyone for reading/lurking/linking!

Eloquence By Design

2010-04-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

During my senior year of high school, my AP English teacher assigned us to write a character development paper, two pages that presented a fictional character by way of a scene utilizing dialogue. Once the papers were completed, we were to read them aloud for the class.

I clearly remember my gnarled stomach the afternoon the papers were due. Our class was small, but I was terribly nervous about reading my work aloud even though I was proud of my writing. I kept hoping that maybe we could exchange papers and read each other’s papers. No such luck; if you write, you read it.

I wrote about Rose, a young woman who was outspoken, opinionated, confident, and bold…quite the opposite of everything I was at the time.

When I finished reading my paper for the class, there were raised eyebrows and smiles of disbelief. I didn’t know how to interpret these silent reactions. Was it that bad?

My teacher said, “You had someone in mind when you wrote that.” It wasn’t a question. It was obvious that there was inspiration.

“Yes,” I stammered, not knowing if that was allowed for the assignment. I was terribly concerned about following what was allowed back then. “Julia Sugarbaker…the character from the TV show Designing Women. I kind of wrote what she would have been like as a teenager.”

Who I was really writing about was the person I wished I was as a teenager; unafraid to speak up, not easily duped, a smart cookie.

Dixie Carter, the actress behind the Julia Sugarbaker character, died yesterday. Even though Designing Women hasn’t been around for almost 20 years, I was sad to hear this. Dixie’s Julia was an inspiration to me. Her ability to stop traffic with her eloquent yet biting soliloquies was magic to me. It didn’t matter that she had a team of writers behind her words…all I saw was an intelligent, elegant woman who could steal your breath with her words. She could conjure a fire in your soul and smack you with her wit. Love her or hate her, you never forgot her.

I know that somewhere in the stacks of notebooks I’ve saved from my teenage years there is a page of notebook paper with Rose’s scene written on it. I saved it as a memento for when I became a famous writer and was asked how I got started writing.

So today I drink a toast: to Dixie, to Julia, to Rose, and to the girl I once was. May you all live on as proud Southern women, unafraid to speak your mind, even if your voice cracks.

Battle of the Bulge in a Food Revolution

2010-03-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

A few nights ago I watched the TV special “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” where the celebrity chef went to Huntington, West Virginia, in an attempt to revamp the public school system’s student lunch menu. His purpose was to phase out the ever-present frozen chicken nuggets and pizza, and replace them with fresh produce and scratch-made real food. No processed meats, no flavored fun-colored drinks, no high-carb anything.

You would have thought he was trying to force-feed oddities like bangers-and-mash or spotted dick based on the reactions he received. He encountered resistance with every effort, from lunch ladies, the principal, and the kids themselves. God forbid they feed these young kids fresh food that’s not full of preservatives, excess sodium, and other ingredients with names so long even the teachers can’t pronounce them.

Mr. Oliver’s motivations were pure. He saw the epidemic of obesity in American children and wanted to use his knowledge and talent as a trained chef to make a positive change. How mystifying that he was met with such disdain. School officials accused him of only being there to make fun of them for the purpose of sensationalistic TV.

What boggles my mind, though, is that many of today’s school leaders are Gen Xers who grew up in schools that served these real-food lunches that Mr. Oliver was pushing for. This is not a new concept, it’s something we all grew up on only a few decades ago!

I attended public elementary school from 1977-1982. I usually brought my own lunch, but would buy the cafeteria selection 2-3 times per month. One difference in school lunches between then and now is the choice factor.

We had none.

There was one balanced lunch served each day, and you could take it or leave it (and it always included a vegetable). The favorite dish at my school was the Mexican Hat, a delicious concoction of sliced baloney, a scoop of mashed potatoes, and a slice of American cheese melted over top. There were the less favorites, too…most memorably a pasta-and-sauce dish nicknamed “Barfaroni.” But whatever the day’s selection, it WAS eaten! If you didn’t finish your fruit cup, there was a hungry kid next to you who would gladly take it off your hands. I remember seeing kids go back for seconds of cooked spinach. I never would have done that, but there were 7-year-olds who gladly did so. Why? Because they were hungry, and that was what was offered.

Too much choice can be a bad thing for young kids. They don’t have the capability to make the wisest nutritional decisions for their bodies because they’re simply not old enough to understand everything that goes into nutrition. They don’t know additives or phosphates or saturated fat levels. But they do know hunger, and that is the more important need to be satisfied.

I was appalled during the TV show when the woman in charge of the county’s school food services department (including purchasing, menu decision, and adherence to USDA regulations) said that one of the requirements for them approving Mr. Oliver’s menu changes was that “there must be acceptance by the kids.”

Really? When did we allow 7-year-olds so much power? They are not capable of making the best decision in this matter. Their knowledge base is limited. Their ability to consider future consequences of immediate choices is undeveloped. This is a situation that clearly needs adults to be the responsible decision makers, and to place a strong consideration on future consequences and not simply keeping the kids happy for today. Kids with full bellies are happy kids. Kids without excess weight are happy kids. Kids with all the vitamins and minerals that they need to grow, without excess sugar and preservatives and hormones that they don’t need, are ultimately healthy adults. We have to think long term on this subject!

I get that there are budgetary restrictions and bureaucratic USDA food pyramid requirements and all that. I get that it’s really hard to feed hundreds of mouths economically and efficiently 5 days a week with the smallest amount of waste. But I also know that nobody is doing any child any favor by pacifying her with a tray full of over-processed food-like items that may plug a growl in a belly and not actually nourish the whole body.

I applaud Jamie Oliver for his effort. It’s a huge undertaking to undo years of gradual bad choices across the country that are entwined in federal and local regulations. But come on…we’re talking about feeding our children. Kids who are repeatedly misfed today become the overweight, diabetic, high-blood pressured, and high-cholesteroled adults of tomorrow. This is not a subject that should be controlled only by the monetary cost of doing business. In this month where national healthcare is the biggest debate, we must consider the huge population of future health problems that is being slowly and methodically created by our public schools every single day.

Cuando Los Lagartijos Corren

2010-03-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite books to read growing up was Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume. In it, the main character, Davey, meets a cute older boy while hiking in a New Mexico canyon. She notices the lizards scurrying around the rocks, which is a new thing for her to see, having just moved there from the Northeast.

Later in the book, the boy, Wolf, tells Davey that he has to go away for a while. When she asks when he’ll be back, Wolf thinks for a moment and then says, “Cuando los lagartijos corren.” Davey doesn’t speak Spanish and has no idea what this means. “Look it up!” Wolf tells her. So Davey writes it down as best as she can remember, and takes the phrase to the Spanish teacher at school to translate it for her.

He tells her it means when the lizards run.

Davey then realizes that it means Wolf will be back in the springtime, when the lizards come back.

Growing up in Florida we had tons of lizards in our yard. They would dart out from a hundred hiding places whenever we’d walk down our driveway. Now that I live in my own home, I’ve grown accustomed again to watching the lizards that perch on a ledge on my front porch, warming themselves in the morning sun that heats up the stucco. Each season there’s always a few lizards who claim my potted plants for their home, and I see them every morning when I come down for my coffee. We look at each other through the glass and have a staring contest to see who will blink first.

We had a particularly cold winter in Florida this year, and everyone has been praying for spring to show up. For the past three weeks or so I’ve found myself checking the front window for tiny beings perched on the ledge. The azaleas are blooming and the oak trees are bursting out with new leaves, but no lizards.

Until this morning! Today, on the official first day of spring, I looked out to the porch and saw a single tiny being scurrying into the hedge. Soon enough they will be running everywhere, darting out from underfoot, leaping from leaf to leaf, and doing those crazy push-up mating dances they do. Spring is here, my friends! Bienvenidos, los lagartijos!

The Buried Life

2010-02-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

I’ve had a bad couple of days. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with my life. I haven’t been able to sit still, yet most everything on my to-do list involves sitting still and concentrating, focusing. Work, school, planning for future work, stressing over other personal life issues.
School, school, and more school.

I felt physically ill, nauseous; I was crying, irritable, nervous. I felt on the verge of breakdown, and said so.

My husband looked at me knowingly, “You do this at the beginning of every semester, and you always end up fine,” he said.

"Yeah, I know, but this time it’s twice as bad because I’m taking twice as many classes.”

He shook his head.

Earlier in the day I had posted a status update on Facebook: “FLConfetti has that buried feeling.”

Only one friend responded. He said one word: “Dig.”

I kicked an imaginary wall in frustration.

This friend managed to survive medical school, and so much more. I’m sure he’s had his days of feeling buried. I can’t NOT listen to him.

Kick.

Pout.

Dig.

(thanks, Doc)

The Rowdy Girls

2010-01-31T13:40:00.000-08:00

I’ve written before about the very special episodes of the TV sitcoms of my youth, with some sarcasm. But not all were as corny as I made them out to be. One that I first saw in 1989 still resonates with me, and truly did partially shape who I am.

Season 4, Episode 6 of Designing Women was titled “The Rowdy Girls.” In it, main character Charlene introduces the other women to one of her childhood friends, Mavis. By chance Charlene stumbles upon Mavis’s husband physically abusing her. When confronted by Charlene about it, pregnant Mavis knows that it’s wrong, but claims she can’t leave because she doesn’t have any money of her own, all her credits cards are in her husband’s name, and where would she and her three young daughters go? She’s embarrassed, humiliated, and feels helpless to change her situation.

The next day Charlene comes to see Mavis again, and hands her an envelope of money from herself and the other women. The money is to allow Mavis to leave her husband, and Charlene tells her where and when to meet up with her, and she would find them a safe place to go.

Mavis is stunned when she looks inside the envelope. She asks, “Why would your friends do this? They don’t even know me.”

Charlene answers, “Because that’s the kind of people they are...and that’s why they’re my friends.”

As a teenager, I didn’t know anyone who was being abused. It was something I only learned about on TV talk shows or in school assemblies. I never knew anyone who needed to get out of a dangerous situation like that. But I was still affected by this show, and every time I watched it in reruns years later I had an emotional reaction.

As an adult, I eventually came to know friends who needed a way out of something, be it an abusive relationship or an unhealthy living environment. I remembered Mavis and Charlene, and I made a mental note to be a Rowdy Girl myself. I decided that I would be “that kind” of person; the person who sees when a friend is in trouble and makes the step to show her a way out and give her the necessary help without being asked for it. The friend who helps quietly and unselfishly, not for thanks but for the sake of doing the right thing.

On the show, Mavis does eventually leave her husband, and when she meets up with Charlene later, The Supremes’ song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” is playing prominently. I just heard that song on the radio yesterday, and even 20 years later it still calls to mind this episode and reminds me of my aim.

I still strive to be “that kind of friend.” The friend who sees through the excuses and coverups, one who listens to the shaky voices and realizes I’ve been placed in that moment for a reason, and that I can and should make a difference. It’s not always easy to see the need, and sometimes I feel as helpless as those who need the help. But I keep trying.

What I Am is What I Am...is 37

2010-01-26T13:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a friend asked, “When did 7:30 p.m. start feeling like 10:30 p.m.?” to which another friend immediately answered, “This is how the 30s go.”

I wish I could tell her it was probably just lingering jet lag from a recent trip, or the winter blahs, or effects of the high altitude where she lives.

But the truth is our mid to late 30s feel like that first minute when you try to drive the car with the parking break still engaged. You’re moving, but slower than you think you should be, and all the younger drivers are honking at you to speed up, and you don’t know what’s wrong. Only when the bell ding-ding-dings and you notice the dashboard light flashing “Brake On” does the problem become clear. Except here the flashing light reads, “You’re 35.” And there’s no disengage lever.

But with that downshift in speed and endurance comes (hopefully) some self awareness. We notice our slowly declining limitations, but we also can laugh hysterically at them rather than get depressed about them. We fondly recall times of staying up partying till 4 a.m. the night before a final exam and then playing volleyball for 6 hours immediately afterwards and still feeling great. Then we laugh at not even attempting such a feat now. We know we can’t do it, and in all honesty, we don’t want to be able to do that now. We’re perfectly content to catch an early movie and have a glass or two of wine with dinner, then call it a night. Why? Because we enjoy getting up in the morning and not having to ask ourselves why did I do that?

We no longer need to prove our super-humanness, our stomachs of steel, or our capability to function without sleep for 36 hours straight.

You think I’m not cool anymore because I’m not slamming shots at the dance club till all hours? I don’t care. I really don’t. Nor do I care that I stay in most Saturday nights, and that I really enjoy spending them cooking a great meal and organizing my closets over going out somewhere trying to impress people I don’t know with my designer clothes or an inflated story of my job/friends/travels/money, which was such a ridiculous staple of my 20s.

I wanted to kiss my 42-year-old friend the other day when she said, “I am so unattached to being thought of as cool. I’m sure that as hard as I have worked to be cool I’ve done so many things to blow my cover.”

This girl is one of my coolest friends, and that comment doubled her coolness ranking. She gets it. She does what works for her, is honest and doesn’t hide behind an expected persona for approval of the masses. She laughs at her own shortcomings and always leaves me in a good mood when we part company.

Yes, Gen X is getting older. But I also believe we are getting calmer, funnier, more sincere, and genuine in ourselves. We’re less willing to waste energy or brain space on activities or people that don’t positively influence our lives, and we’re more apt to recognize and appreciate the deeper qualities of our friends. At 37, I’m far more willing to drop affiliations with people whom I don’t trust or don’t have anything in common with than I was at 27 or 17, when all that mattered was who other people told me were the right people to know.

If I’m having my last glass of wine at 7:30 p.m. tonight instead of 10:30 p.m., I will do so toasting my fellow Gen X-ers who are doing the same. Let us laugh at ourselves cruising through (early) middle age with the dome light on and my Edie Brickell cassette still playing in the radio. Cheers!

Look, Ma...No Clothes!

2009-12-30T13:17:00.000-08:00

I was mortified to see a public service announcement during primetime hours on television cautioning girls on the dangers of sending elicit photos of themselves to boys via cell phones, or posting them on social networking sites.

Let that sink in. We are now at the point of having to very specifically tell underage girls that it’s not a good idea to take nude pictures of themselves and post them in public places. Somehow this has escaped the basket of common sense.

Girls have always been guilty of trusting boys more than they should. Regardless of what generation we grew up in, we all believed a boy when he said he wouldn’t tell anyone if we kissed him behind the bleachers, snuck out and met him at the beach late at night, or whatever else might happen. Raise your hand if you ever heard, “I won’t tell, I promise,” from a very convincing cute boy.

But they all told.

Maybe they only told their best friend, but the friend in turn had no loyalty to us, the girl, and before you knew it he had spread quite a tale across the school. Everybody knew your business. Any self respecting girl was humiliated or mortified, and undoubtedly was then teased or gossiped about.

Yes, girls, there are no secrets when it comes to boys and their intimate knowledge of you or your parts. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.

But those of us coming of age in the pre-Information Era benefited from one advantage that no longer exists. We didn’t have to worry about being caught on tape without our knowledge. Cell phone cameras and tiny video cameras weren’t even in our imaginations.

When you were alone with someone...you actually were alone with them. You didn’t have to fear a replay of your weekend night activities being mass-emailed to your entire grade by Monday morning, or playing in an endless loop in the computer lab.

And what a relief that is to me even now. Like most high school girls, I was convinced I was horribly unattractive as a teenager. I hated my legs, my thighs, my hips, my boobs; all of them were misshapen and inferior to the other thousand girls at my school. Would I have EVER sent a nude picture of myself to a boy?

‘Scuse me while I choke on my frappaccino.

As my friend Vanessa said, “Good ol' body dysmorphic disorder kept us chaste.”

It’s true. We were so embarrassed or disgusted by our own bodies that we didn’t even want to look at them ourselves. There was no way we’d take photographs or video of such hideousness for a boy to see! Our low self esteems kept us from doing things we shouldn’t do.

So that brings me to the question: Which is the lesser of two evils, a 16-year-old girl with no self esteem, or a 16-year-old girl with high self esteem but no common sense?

Reality Check$

2009-12-22T12:54:00.000-08:00

As a kid in the 1970s and ‘80s, there were a lot of different things I wanted to be when I grew up. First I thought I’d be an Olympic gymnast, then a flight attendant, psychologist, and finally a news anchor.

While my friends and I actually wanted to have “normal” careers, so many girls today have only one ambition: to become famous on a reality show. It makes me want to bang my head on my desk.

They don’t care what they have to do, whether it’s eating a live slug, cat-fighting with 19 other women over some single guy they just met, or living with a houseful of other ill-behaved, scantily-clad drunk girls vying to see who among them is the most ill-behaved. All that matters is that they do it on TV, consequences be damned.

There’s even a dreadful pop song by the Pussycat Dolls about this very topic. Some lyrics:

When I grow up
I wanna be famous
I wanna be a star
I wanna be in movies

When I grow up
Be on TV
People know me
Be on magazines

Ok, I admit that part of the reason I wanted to be a news anchor was because I wanted to be on TV. But I had every intention of going to college, actually studying hard and obtaining a degree in a legitimate subject, and working for the privilege of seeing my face on the evening news. It never occurred to me that I could bypass all that pesky educational stuff and make a profitable living merely by donning a push-up bra and behaving like a selfish entitled brat.

On one episode of MTV’s “True Life” show, a 19-year-old was bummed out because her parents were on her case because she didn’t have a job and wasn’t in school. She just lived at home, went out with friends, and ... I don’t know what else, not much. But she had big dreams: her goal was to be in Maxim magazine. So she found a sleazy photographer whom she paid several hundred dollars to do a “photo shoot” so she could send the shots to Maxim. Because, as we all know, this is all it takes to become a famous model.

The poor girl couldn’t even formulate a sentence without using “like” four or five times and she still never got a real point across. But nothing was going to stand in the way of her dream, certainly not lack of communication in her native tongue.

Now I’ve got a confession
When I was young I wanted attention
And I promised myself that I’d do anything
Anything at all for them to notice me

I don’t know who I’m most annoyed at: the girls with no ambition, their parents for not having a lick of influence over them, or the people who invented reality television in the first place. What I do know, though, is that listing “last girl standing from Bad Girls Club, season 5” on a resume isn’t going to push anyone over the top for that law clerkship job. Those appearance paychecks run out quickly, but the after effects of many of those shows linger far longer than their participants might prefer. The public’s collective memory is quite clear and has a penchant for remembering embarrassing detals for years.

Unbelievably, I would have to agree with the Pussycat Dolls here...

Be careful what you wish for
Cuz you just might get it
You just might get it
You just might get it.

It's Okay

2009-12-18T08:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was getting my hair colored. While sitting in the foils I picked up a magazine that listed a bunch of things the editors deemed “okay” to do in the next year. So I’m stealing their idea for this post, with my own twist.

This year,

It’s okay to still wear Ugg boots this season, even if the fashion mags say they’re a “don’t.” They’re super warm and super comfortable, so Ugg away!

It’s okay to start college now even if you won’t finish until you’re 40. You’re going to be 40 anyway, you might as well have a degree when you reach it.

It’s okay to deny a friend request on Facebook. It’s okay to de-friend someone, too.

It’s okay if you’re absolutely cuckoo about Twilight, and it’s okay if you’re not.

It’s okay to have your own taste in music, even if that guy from high school who acts like he’s the Guru of Rock tells you that your taste is infantile and shallow. You like what you like, and if that includes Party in the USA, then so be it.

It’s okay to turn down a party invitation whether you have a good reason or not.

It’s okay if your kids don’t look perfect in the Christmas card photo.

It’s okay to walk out of a stinker of a movie only halfway through.

It’s okay to NOT wear the hooker/stripper platform stilettos that the media keep ramming down our throats as the must-have of the year. We can't all be Posh Spice.

It’s okay to use accrued sick days even when you’re not sick.

It’s okay to have secrets.

Ms. Understanding

2009-11-17T15:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I asked a classmate to critique a piece I had written for a graduate writing class. It was a speech in praise of a former high school teacher whom I admired for inspiring me to be fearless in pursuit of my goals. In this speech I used the word “feminism” and the phrase “proud feminist” to describe myself, and credited this teacher for inspiring those qualities.

My classmate suggested an editorial change: remove “feminism” and “proud feminist,” replace them with something less negative. Tone it down a little, she suggested.

I am equally dumbfounded and pained that today there are still educated American citizens who view feminism as a negative thing.

Changing those words in my speech was not an option; they were the heart of the theme of the entire piece. They are also a keystone in the blocks of which I, as an American woman, am constructed. Those words will remain.

By definition, feminism is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” It’s about equal rights, folks. If you see equality as negative, you have some serious socio-cultural issues to work through.

A friend called this persistent ignorant misinformation a “cultural script,” thoughtless cliches that are easy to reference and regurgitate but aren’t based on any personal thought. If you once heard the word “feminist” associated with the groups of women who used to burn their bras in protest, or that horrible moniker “femi-nazi” and that’s all you’ve ever bothered to learn on the subject, let me assure you here and now that the feminist movement is so much more than undergarment pyromania.

Women who are directly benefiting from feminist action every day are doing so unknowingly and thanklessly. Let me attempt to end some of the ignorance.

Feminists are the ones who drafted and rallied in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which stated "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." The ERA passed in Congress in 1972 (the year I was born), but was killed 10 years later when it failed to be ratified by a minimum of 38 states. 134 years after the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls we still had not reached full equality. But we trudge on. Feminists are nothing if not determined.

The feminist movement has been a long and arduous one, but the successes it has reached have been significant:

1920 Women gain the right to vote
1963 Equal Pay Act
1972 Title IX enacted
1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act
1986 sexual harassment deemed to be illegal job discrimination.
1996 Virginia Military Institute ordered that it must admit women

And the list goes on.

The feminist movement did not end with women gaining the right to vote. It did not end with the passage of Title IX, and it will not end when a woman is elected President of the United States. There is no singular final task to accomplish, after which “feminism” will retire.

The feminist movement continues, and must continue, in order to remain vigilant in maintaining the equalities that have been attained, and to be a watchdog against inequalities that continue to spring up.

If inequality is a cancer, then the feminist movement is lifelong aftercare. It is the daily surveillance for new malignant growth; it is the periodic education of new generations to the dangers of discrimination; it is the chemotherapy which goes to Washington to permanently eradicate practices which promote gender biases that threaten to kill a healthy state of equality.

I hope my classmate comes to realize how much she has gained from feminist action. Equal access to education and sports, voting rights, marriage and reproductive rights, and prevention of and legal action against gender-related job discrimination are all POSITIVE direct results of proud feminists.

Never be afraid to call yourself a feminist. Wear that badge proudly.

The Song Remembers When

2009-10-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

There’s a Trisha Yearwood song from several years back that begins:

I was standin' at the counter
I was waitin' for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start

It continues to recount how even though years have passed and “though I had forgotten all about it, the song remembers when.”

How often do we find ourselves going about our daily lives when a song comes on the radio or in the grocery store and we’re suddenly floored by memories that only seconds ago were buried in the deep recesses of our minds? Sometimes it’s a memory of heartache upon hearing what used to be “our song” from loves past. Other times we’re reduced to a brief trance as we’re mentally transported back to a time and place decades gone but crystal clear in our mind’s eye.

Earlier this evening I was engrossed in writing a travel piece when Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando and Dawn came on the radio via the Saturday night oldies show. Suddenly I remembered being in our big green ’71 Chrysler, driving down Route 60 in my hometown with my dad. We had just gone to the post office and were stopped at a red light in front of the big catholic church when it came on the radio. I was tagging along while Dad did some errands that day as I was too young to be in school yet. I suppose my dad might have actually been singing along, which was a rare occurrence and probably why this stayed with me. I remember nothing else about that day, but I remember those moments of that song.

I also have a cache of what I call “vacation songs” that trigger memories. When I was a kid we usually drove up North for our family vacations, spending several days in the car. Going up I-95 you lose radio stations every hour or two and constantly have to find a more local one. Invariably they’re all playing the same current top 40 songs, so we’d hear the same songs several times each day, to the point of begging the radio gods to please find a new song for us weary travelers!

Because of this, I remember where we went on vacation each year by the song I associate with each location. Summer of ’79 was the Reunited vacation thanks to Peaches and Herb, so that was the year we had a family reunion in the Midwest. Summer of ’81 was the Queen of Hearts vacation (Juice Newton), which means New Jersey. Summer of ’83 was the Flashdance vacation, so that means we went to New England that year as I remember hearing it in the train station at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.

Even 25 years later, I always think of these places and their respective scenery when I hear these songs. When I hear the theme from Flashdance I’m once again sitting in the backseat of our old van, counting license plates and reading the road atlas.

As Trisha’s lyrics say, the moment seemed to freeze/and we turned the music up and sang along.

Yeah, and even if the whole world has forgotten
The song remembers when.

What songs are strong memory triggers for you?

Empty Crosswalks

2009-10-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw a friend's picture of the fall foliage on a tree-lined residential street, and off in the distance was a little boy riding his bike down the sidewalk. My immediate thought upon viewing this photo was not of how beautiful the changing leaves were, but rather, “Wow, he’s too young to be alone like that.” This was a visceral reaction to changing times, and it surprised me to realize my own thought. (The boy was indeed fine, both of his parents were nearby and closely supervising him. It was only this single out-of-context shot that caused my concern.)

I grew up in a time and place where kids could ride their bikes all over the neighborhood alone or in pairs, for hours at a time. Riding to school or to a friend’s house a few streets away was so commonplace that no one gave it a second thought. But that was 30 years ago. Sadly, we can’t give kids that freedom anymore.

Just this week, a 7-year-old girl named Somer Thompson was abducted in North Florida as she walked home from school with her sister and twin brother. She was only out of sight for a few moments, but it was long enough to end in tragedy. She was soon murdered, her body found in a landfill in Georgia. How did such an innocent situation turn into something so dangerous?

When I was 7 years old I was walking to school by myself every day, a distance of half a mile. I’d usually meet up with friends along the way, as so many of the other students walked or rode bikes to our neighborhood school. That was the norm. Even on the days my mom wasn’t working at her job, she never accompanied me on my walk, even when I begged her to do so. But soon enough, the walks to and from school became something to look forward to. It was freedom! The 10-15 minutes it took to make the trek down our dirt road was a tiny bit of independence that we kids had carved out for ourselves. We were trusted enough to get ourselves where we needed to be without adult supervision.

Never once was I approached by an unseemly adult. I was cautioned what to do in case that ever did happen, but I never had to employ those skills. The worst thing I ever encountered was a stray dog that tried to follow me home. A nice lady in a car saw that I was scared of it and she positioned her car between me and the dog until I got to my street. She did what we kids thought adults would do: she protected me.

Normally, walking back home in the afternoons through the school field was a time to talk with friends, to run off some extra energy, or to kick in some ant piles. We never feared being taken.

The terror poor Somer must have gone through sickens me. The guilt her siblings will no doubt live with will take years to overcome.

I hate that we have to take away childhood freedoms and joy in order to keep children alive. But we have to, because kids today aren’t just being robbed of life experiences, they’re being robbed of life.

School Days, Ghoul Days

2009-10-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

One of my best memories from elementary school in the ‘70s-‘80s was Halloween. Every year my public school hosted a fundraising Halloween carnival on the Saturday before the holiday, held on school grounds. Each grade or class sponsored a booth, game, or event. The kid whose dad had a big tractor ran a hay ride through the back field. One 5th grade class made a haunted house in their portable classroom where you had to stick your hands in bowls full of scary items: the bowl of eyeballs was made up of peeled grapes, the bowl of brains was actually a bowlful of cold spaghetti, and the vat of blood was just Elmer’s glue. But the power of suggestion was strong in the darkened room with spooky sounds playing on the crackly record player.

There was always a judged costume contest, so everyone showed up fully involved. Since this was back when children were still allowed to walk places unaccompanied by adults, you’d usually see several other kids walking down the street in costume toward the school with you.

The prizes for the costumes and the various games were simple, usually just candy or a cheap trinket. I once won an Erik Estrada “CHiPs” poster there. But we all loved this annual event as if it was the most exclusive black-tie event of the social season.

In music class during the week before Halloween we always cheered when the teacher brought out the film strip projector. Every year we spent that class watching a sing-along film that took traditional tunes and changed the lyrics to fit the holiday. My favorite one of all was to the tune of “There is a Tavern in the Town,” which was changed to “There is a Haunted House in Town.” Even at 37 I find myself singing this to myself every October. The lyrics as I remember them:

There is a Haunted House in town
(in the town)
Where all the creatures gather 'round
(gather 'round)
Where the cobwebs hangAnd the window shutters bang
And all the creatures gather 'round!

There is a Haunted House in town
(in the town)
Where all the walls are tumbling down
(tumbling down)
Don’t you trick or treat, or YOU’RE the one they’ll eat
When the moon shines on the Haunted House!

--bridge--
Oh the bats and cats and witches
Keep the skeletons in stitches
As they sip their spider cider in the Haun-ted House

They're there!
They're there!
They're really there!
(really there)
Watch out
Be Careful
And beware!
(oh bewaaaare)
Don't you trick or treat
Or you're the one they'll eat
When the moon shines on the Haunted House!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeek
Creeeeeeeeeeeek
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek
Shrieeeeeeeeeeek!

On a side note, I credit this film strip for solidifying in my brain the difference between there, their, and they’re. Those sneaky teachers always found a way to teach us even when we didn’t realize we were learning!

I absolutely loved my elementary school experience. I know that in many school districts music classes are being cut for lack of funding of the arts. It makes me sad to hear this because every learning experience at that age is beneficial. What seems simple and merely fun at the time can still teach concepts that last a lifetime.

I tip my witch’s hat to Rosewood Elementary. Every year I miss you but I thank you for so many memories.

One Small Step for Mom, One Giant Leap for Daughter

2009-10-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

For centuries man has tried to guess what the future will be like. Predictions of science, technology, fashion, food, or architecture are all fodder for literature and cinema.

But I recently had a more realistic glimpse of my future. I found myself looking face to face with my mom, who was bruised and stitched after a double mastectomy. While the face was my mother’s, the body was my own. We are the same height and weight, the same shape, with many of the same features. With only slight differences in age-related wear and tear, there’s no mistaking we’re related. But on this day when I was tending to her wounds and trying to ease her burden, I realized that I was quite possibly looking at myself in 30 years.

The disease is familial. Her mother had it, and now she has it. The odds are stacking against me. While I can claim to intellectually understand what my odds are, seeing the result of the diagnosis and treatment on so familiar a canvas was the most powerful bearer of reality.

It wasn’t scary, though. It was strangely calming. Having the opportunity to be the able-bodied one in the situation and to be able to help in the progression of healing not only made the situation less ominous, but it allowed me to see it for everything that it is.

I am not sick, not yet. My mom had only a short amount of time to prepare herself for this life-changing effort, a matter of weeks. Her treatment was quite different from my grandmother’s had been, so she did not have the opportunity to fully see what she was in for. Books and conversations and websites can only take you so far, and the ultimate plunge toward hopeful cure is a terribly solitary excursion.

I am reminded of the scene from Apollo 13 where the stranded astronauts circled the dark side of the moon in order to harness the moon’s gravity to propel their crippled space capsule back to Earth. They experienced a few minutes of complete lack of communication with the rest of world, nothing but darkness and silence. They were wholly alone and had only faith and a trust in science to bring them back to their former lives.

Surgery is the same combination of spiritual faith and intellectual trust in science, but it’s still scary as hell. When you don’t know if you’ll make it to the other side, 3 minutes in a lunar module or 5 hours on an operating table are about equal.

While I hope I somehow sidestep the odds and remain cancer-free in my lifetime, I feel more prepared for the opposite because I’ve glimpsed the future. I’m oddly comforted by having clearly observed and touched the body so similar to mine which has lived through it. I know what will likely happen to me. I’m better informed what can go wrong. It’s still an unwanted future, but now at least I’ve witnessed the path around the moon for myself.

Never bypass the opportunity to help someone else in their time of need. Little epiphanies appear in unlikely places.

Temporary Hiatus

2009-09-17T20:24:00.001-07:00

I know I've been neglecting this page. I haven't given up, I just have a ton of personal issues happening at once and writing hasn't seemed alluring just yet. Please bear with me, I promise I'll be back soon.

Reality: Still Biting

2009-09-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

Several posts back I wrote about the competitive nature my fellow Gen X peers and I seem to have when comparing our financial woes (Bragonomics). It was written 3 months ago, and the incident that inspired it was 3 months prior to that.

Since then, I’ve seen a shift in the discussions among us. Continued economic downslides and family crises have lessened the novelty of the recession. It’s no longer a fascinating time in history that is affecting us for a short while; it is now some serious muck we’re mired in. We’ve shifted from gabbing about it over drinks to internalizing our stressors quietly, especially the effects they are having on us.

A few days ago the author of the site are you there god? it's me, generation X (http://www.jenx67.com/) wrote:

“Gen X is said to be the most neglected generation in American history. The experts say the Gen X childhood and teen years were marked by profound loneliness (all those cartoons, all that cereal), and followed by an even lonelier, more stressful adulthood (the worst recession in 75 years; booms and busts, and oh, BTW, how am I going to pay for my kids’ college education?) Of course, nobody will admit to being lonely or stressed on Twitter.”

JenX, let me profess loud and clear, I AM LONELY AND STRESSED.

And I know my friends are, too. I read it in their Facebook posts, even when they try to disguise it.

I try not to whine. I know everyone is going through multiple issues in their lives. Mine are no worse than theirs, but they are MINE. I have a stack of medical bills (even with insurance!), a job I’ve outgrown but can’t break free from, graduate school studies, two family members with serious health conditions, and a bank account that never seems to get out of the kiddy pool. My house is worth $30,000 less than what I owe on it. Likewise, my friends are facing unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, infertility, divorce, children with learning disabilities, parents with Alzheimer’s, cancer.... Some of them are dealing with 3 or 4 of these things all at once. For all our efforts to be responsible, productive adults, we’re feeling like the punching bag generation.

Gen X-ers still have a strong sense of self reliance despite what older generations might say. We want to make it on our own, to be successful and comfortable through our efforts. But unlike our parents and grandparents, our sense of pride is different. We’re not above admitting when we’re on a losing streak. But at the same time, we don’t want to appear weak, as if we can’t handle what life throws at us.

We want to lean on each other, but we don’t want to be a burden, even emotionally. We want to encourage our friends when they’re dejected, but some days we can barely hold up our own heads up. It’s hard to inspire others when you’ve lost your own faith. But we hope for and rejoice in bits of good news in anyone’s life as it gives us a glimmer of hope that something in this world is going to turn for the better.

Not Alone, But Still Lonely
I have a loving husband and wonderful friends whom I can count on for levity. My Facebook page is a portal across the miles to friends past and present. Thank goodness for those daily doses of baby pictures and corny jokes. They divert me from my stress for brief moments. Yet, I feel lonely.

I’m lonely for a time and place where my paycheck was more than enough.
I’m lonely for friends who are always in a good mood because their lives are all falling into place.
I’m lonely for friends whose eyes don’t well up when I ask how everything is going, even though they say “pretty good.”
I’m lonely for the babies my friends realize they will never have.

I don’t have the answers yet. I don’t know how we’re going to get through all this. I know we will, because we’re resilient. But in the moment we’re mentally bruised, and tired, and struggling.

What are you lonely for?

The Slam is Mightier than the Sword

2009-08-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

Hanging out at the school bus stop one morning in 6th grade, I was introduced to the concept of the slam book. Hand made out of notebook paper strung together with yarn, the slam book was a book of opinions. Each page had a person’s name at the top, with each book containing 20 or 30 pages with names. The book was passed around classmates, and each person was to write their opinion on the named person, but instead of signing your name, you were assigned a number. So a page might have “Jane Doe” at the top, and then several comments below ranging from “quiet, but sweet” to “stuck up!” and “conceited!” signed by #12, #7, and #14.

Slam books were popular because as you were filling it out, you could concurrently see the opinions of everyone who’d signed before you. You’d learn everyone’s true feelings about each other. But, if your name was on one of the pages, the anticipation of seeing what was said about you was nerve wracking, and the fallout could be devastating. Girls who had been to your birthday party only a month before were now saying (in print!) that they think you’re “weird” or “she thinks she’s so special but she’s not!” Girls who didn’t know you at all suddenly had nasty things to say about you. And, the numbers-as-signatures were useless because page 1 of the book was the list of signers and their assigned numbers, so you very easily could check to see just who #12, #7, and #14 were.

Teachers did not tolerate slam books, and with good reason. They were nothing more than horrible collections of meanness used to humiliate others. The creators of the slam books were often the more outspoken girls who had the ability to attract a following out of intimidation. That type of girl would create the slam book and make half of the names her own circle of friends—who of course would have nothing but praise for each other--and the other half would be the quiet, chubby, poor, or otherwise easily threatened girls who didn’t have a group of their own to stick up for them. Those girls were then ripped to shreds in this makeshift Who’s Who of the schoolyard.

I can remember one slam book being passed around, the creator of which let me read the book but didn’t want me to sign in it. It was as if the book was a meant as a warning to me, a “see what I can do if you don’t stick to my side” kind of thing. Morbid curiosity got the best of me; I read it, and found out who she and her friends had decided to hold under their collective thumb and harass that month. You bet I didn’t want to be next on their list. These opinionators huddled in groups in the cafeteria and bus stop, well aware that their strength lay in their numbers. At those times, they were powerful.

I was never a member of the controlling crowd, and I was lucky enough to escape being one of the perpetual punching bags. I was carefully balancing the line between the two, always well aware that one bad move on my part could destroy my social standing, modest though it may have been. Methods of self preservation in middle school fluctuated. Some days you had to speak up and out, other days lying under the radar was imperative. Friendship circles changed weekly and you often found yourself straddling two competing circles, forced to choose between them. And the slam book was the social register of middle school.

It occurred to me recently that some folks never outgrew the habit of pseudo-anonymous print bullying. But now, instead of crudely fabricated paper books they utilize the internet and leave disparaging comments on personal blogs or social networking web boards, and none of these are intelligent or useful remarks.

“You’re obviously miserable!” was a recent commentary on this blog. This judgment was then repeated by several cohorts of the original poster, all delivered under the cloak of the anonymous comment option (which has since been disabled). Their medium has changed but their sentiments have not. In person these opinionators still huddle in groups at social events, still well aware that their strength lies in their numbers. They still tell each other who to like and who not to like. Their power, however, is questionable.

Much to my dismay I came across a website that is an online slam book. According to the site’s homepage, “You can SLAM, bitch, moan, complain, vent, whine, inform, protest, post funny pictures or videos, make fun of or prank ANYONE OR ANYTHING here AND we will index it for the world to see.”

Wow.

How is this not libel? Full names and pictures are printed with disparaging remarks against people both famous and not. I won’t give the name or address of it because I refuse to promote such a useless waste of bandwidth. But its existence and popularity prove that public humiliation is a marketable domain, revolting though it may be.

The writers at both ages and of both media are cowardly, afraid to attach their names to their opinions and publicly own them. They are doing no one any favors by voicing them, and so often their insults are unfounded, untrue, and utterly undeserved. What motivates them…jealousy, rage, a need for revenge?

No one ever said we had to be friends with everyone we ever meet. But for everyone’s sake, we all need to realize that choosing friends is a personal decision, and everyone has something to offer to someone. Public teasing is juvenile, hurtful, and tactless.

This is true whether you’re 11 or 38 or 60.

Is it Love, or is it Memorex?

2009-08-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

A conversation on Facebook yesterday reminded me of a Gen X mainstay of teenage emotional angst: the mix tape. In the intervening decades since my high school days, 21st century technological advances have relegated cassette tapes to packed boxes in the backs of closets, and even a mention of the words “mix tape” to anyone under the age of 20 induces perplexed reactions. A friend said, “You know, our word “mix” is gone, it is very sad. Now I guess it is a playlist? I liked mix better.” Today’s young’uns probably think “mix tape” is an assortment of sticky substances of masking, duct, and scotch.

But I fondly remember the forethought, effort, and emotion that went into creating the masterpiece of the mix tape, seemingly unrelated songs brought together to express secret crushes, unrequited love, or remembrance of crazy times. Hours were spent coming up with the list of songs, getting the sequence of tunes just right to configure the most perfect segues, and in the process of finding all the songs on your albums or borrowing them from your friends. Sometimes it even required the biggest time waster of all…waiting for hours for a song to come on the radio with tape recorder in hand so you could record it from speaker to tape player. That was some quality remixing there!

The final product felt like you had poured your soul into this little plastic container of magnetic ribbon. All the words you could not compose yourself were now neatly packaged for your beloved. The only thing lacking was a title for the tape. “Good Stuff” was common, or “My Faves.” You didn’t want to be too committal on the title, it was crucial to leave an air of mystery as to what was inside. Once named, all that was left to decide was the mode of delivery. Would you sneak it into their school locker? Trust a friend to give it to them? Leave it on the windshield of their car for them to find on the drive home? It was imperative that no one other than the intended recipient got their hands on your masterpiece. The embarrassment of someone else learning your true feelings was to be avoided at all costs!

And when somebody made a mix tape for you--especially someone of the other sex--it was as if Casey Kasem was sending out a long-distance dedication just to you. That meant undeniably that not only did they LIKE you, but that they THOUGHT about you, a lot, or at least for an hour or two it took them to make the tape. Yes, the mix tape was tangible proof you could show your friends to prove that somebody liked you.

But occasionally there was that uncomfortable moment where you reached a song on the mix that seemed questionable, even inappropriate. “Ohmygod, why did he put that on there? What does that mean? Is he kidding? Is he mad at me now? Should I ask him about it?” Mix tapes often ignited more questions than they answered, thereby not only sustaining teen angst, but firmly securing it into a long-term seat on the emotional rollercoaster.

The worst mix tape to receive was the I Like You But Only As A Friend mix. I got one of those once and it only had, like, 3 songs on it. See, he didn’t even want to put effort into the breakup, just 3 songs and then 33 minutes of dead air. I still can’t hear Nelson’s “After the Rain” without thinking of that jerk. Don’t be afraid to lose what was never meant to be. This from the same guy who once made me a tape that included Journey’s “Open Arms.” Where’d the love go? I guess we sailed on together, but drifted apart.

Sigh.

To return to the days of my double tape deck with double-speed dubbing, to bust out my Journey, Wham!, and Jack Wagner records, to once again play the role of teenage deejay in the nightclub of junior high life…would be to once again remember how tortuous young love was. Rock on, friends.

Jen-eration X

2009-08-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

When I start a conversation with, “My friend Jennifer…,” my husband immediately stops me and asks, “which one?” This is because I am acquainted with no fewer than 22different Jennifers, and without some sort of clarification the ensuing conversation will be lost on him.

The movie Love Story came out in 1970, with the beautiful and tragic main character named Jenny, played by Ali MacGraw. This Oscar-nominated actress and film spurred a revolution. I was born in 1972, which was the third year of the 15-year run of Jennifer being the most popular baby name for girls. I met at least one new Jennifer every single year of school and continue to do so even now. Generation X could easily be called the Jen-eration.

Every event of significance in my formative years has involved a Jennifer. School classes, gymnastics team, cheerleading squad, choir, roommates, one of my bridesmaids, and coworkers at just about every job I’ve ever had all included at least one Jen. I’m not comfortable if I don’t have a Jen to go to at any particular time. When I start a new job, if there’s a Jennifer, that’s automatically the first person I gravitate to, I suppose because of the familiarity. If I ever had a daughter, I could name her Jennifer and honor a couple dozen friends all at once.

I can remember wishing I’d been named Jennifer so I would fit in better. My mom tried to explain to me that while she thought it was a pretty name, she had named me otherwise in the hopes of me standing apart from the crowd. By no means did she give me a trendy name; in fact, it’s traditional with a Biblical origin. But that didn’t sit well with me at age 8. I wanted to be in the club. Being a Jennifer was like knowing the secret handshake, there was automatic inclusion. Between first and sixth grades I never met another girl with my same first name. There were only 3 of us in my graduating class of over 600. But how many Jennifers? I can name 11 right off the bat and 5 more who moved away before graduation.

A musician named Mike Doughty wrote a song called “27 Jennifers,” with the line, “I went to school with 27 Jennifers, 16 Jenns, 10 Jennies….” Yeah, no kidding, man. There was a time I could differentiate my Jennifers by their surname initials, but that quickly became outdated when I realized I knew 3 Jen Bs, 3 Jen Ms, and 2 Jenny Ms. I knew who I was talking about, why couldn’t everybody just figure it out? No, no, too easy to accidentally start rumors about the wrong person, I learned that one the hard way. Incidentally, in all my years and in all my acquaintances, never once have I met someone in my demographic who was a real-live Jen X.

We laugh nowadays about all the little old ladies with their antiquated names like Beulah and Agatha. Fifty years from now, teenagers will be laughing at Granny Jennifer and all her Jen friends meeting up to play shuffleboard at the retirement center. Those girls will have trendy names we’ve probably never even heard of yet, possibly spurred on by a movie character yet to be written. But think how easy it will be to find a friend then; we’ll only have to wander down the halls of Shady Palms Living calling out “Jennifer?” and chances are, 5 new friends will call back, “right here!” We’ll all be half-demented, nobody will know the difference.

Click

2009-08-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

I was in college the first time I remember my parents advising me to “pick your battles.” I don’t recall what the crisis of the day was, but that bit of advice was the right thing at the right time to say to me, because it was a lightbulb moment. I realized then that I don’t HAVE to be a part of something negative, I am not forced to justify my opinions or my actions to everyone who may have a differing perspective. Our lives may have parallels, we may walk similar paths in life, but there are 6.7 billion people in the world and I’m bound to disagree with a few. Some are going to misread my words. Others will have a bone to pick with me no matter what because their brains are wired differently than mine.

But I have a life and a family, a career and friends. I’ve spent 37 years becoming who I am, and part of who I am is a woman with the presence of mind to turn away from circular arguments, political/office power plays, and toxic relationships. Choosing your battles means knowing the difference between what is important enough in your life to fight for, and what is merely static to be turned off.

On Choosing and Keeping Friends

2009-07-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

Choose friends who support your dreams and goals, even if they don’t fully understand them.

Choose people who allow you to pick your own friends and don’t try to discourage you away from other friendships out of their own jealousy.

Choose people who will invest time and effort into the friendship. One-sided friendships are tiring and demeaning.

Don’t expect your friends to go above and beyond to help you, but appreciate them when they do it. Make sure you reciprocate when the chance arises. Find a reason to reciprocate.

Realize that you and your friends are going to disagree on some things, and that their opinions are just as valid as yours. Their truth may be different from yours, but it’s still their truth.

If friends are getting their opinions from other people, that is not a true friendship. Be wary of relationships based on pack mentality.

Always remember that you don’t know everything that is going on in your friends’ lives/minds/family/job/health/finances.

There is a difference between privacy, secrecy, and lies. We are all entitled to privacy. Sometimes secrecy is necessary for safety. Lies are always toxic.

If you have a problem with a friend, you have three choices: Let it fester inside of you, confront them directly about it, or let it go. Nobody wins with option #1. But option #2 often leads to #3, and peace can be restored.

Sometimes friendships end. People change and so do interests and commonalities. Putting a friendship to rest is not failure, but rather acknowledgment of truth and growth. All friendships will not last forever, and that’s okay. Knowing what you need and from where you can draw strength is maturity, and putting to rest relationships that don’t foster growth or joy is to be commended. There is no good reason to stay in a toxic relationship.

Where Everybody Knows Your Song

2009-07-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

TV sitcoms used to be events. They used to have theme songs that everyone knew and could sing along to in their entirety. Theme songs told the back story or the premise of the show so that even if you’d never seen the show, you knew what you were getting into simply by watching the opening credits. They gave the emotional feel of the show and they were contagiously singalongable. Find me a Gen X-er who can’t still sing the entire theme songs from Cheers, WKRP in Cincinnati, or my personal favorite, The Facts of Life. When the TV was on, you heard the theme song begin and you knew you had about 45 seconds to finish brushing your teeth, yell to the rest of family “IT’S COMING ON!!!” and run to the living room before you missed anything.

Now, there are no theme songs. You better have your arse on the couch at precisely 9 p.m. or you’ll miss the whole plot.

And remember how exciting it was to start the new fall season and see all the revamped show intros? In them we’d get a sneak peak of clips of upcoming episodes, and then all season you’d watch in anticipation for when you’d finally see the episode where that clip of Tony Danza in the shower acting like he’s doing a TV commercial with his shampoo comes from! Or, why is Tootie covered in paint? What kind of hijinks ensued to create such a scene? The anticipation! My 10-year-old mind could hardly wait!

Why, network gods, did you do away with the sitcom theme song!? Why have you forsaken our love of schmaltzy rhyme with upbeat tempos? These theme songs made me believe in the human spirit! They made believe that yes, I, too, can be standing tall on the wings of my dreams, just like Balki Bartokomous! When the world never seemed to be living up to my dreams, suddenly I was finding out the facts of life were all about ME.

I beg of the network execs, bring back the sitcom theme song! If you did, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

Sit, Ubu, sit.

A Matter of Trust

2009-07-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

One week ago I had the unfortunate experience of fainting and conking my head on a bathroom sink, and subsequently required 6 staples to the scalp for closure. Since what goes in must eventually come out, I was due for a return trip to the ER this week for hardware removal. Wanting to save me the hassle of this experience, my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Doctor, offered their technical services in the privacy of their own home, and would even throw in some dinner to make it a full evening. Not needing any more convincing to avoid the hospital nor an excuse to visit our friends, my husband and I made the trek to the coast.

As soon as we walked into the house, Mrs. Doctor informed us that she had brought home the wrong tool to perform the procedure. “But don’t worry, I can do this,” she assured.

My first thought: No, you can’t. You just told me you don’t have the staple remover.
My second thought: Of course you can, you’re a doctor and I trust you.

So I bellied up to a seat at the kitchen table and awaited the process of staple extraction. The first tool utilized was a hemostat, which resembles a small pair of dull scissors and is normally used to control bleeding. Mrs. Doctor tried to bend the staples out with the hemostat, but they were too strong for it. Failure #1.

“Hold on, I have another idea,” she said as she headed toward the utility room. I saw her reappear with a pair of household needle-nosed pliers and I immediately recalled the scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High where two teenagers wreck a car, and one says to the other, “Don’t worry, my dad is a TV repairman and has an awesome set of tools, I can fix it!”

You are a doctor, and I trust you. You are a doctor, and I trust you. You are a doctor….

Failure #2. Pliers hurt.

“Don’t go anywhere, we can do this!” Mrs. Doctor said encouragingly as she flew down the hall to her home office. She emerged carrying a staple remover. Not the medical kind we so desperately needed, but rather the school kind that your 3rd grade teacher used to remove staples from a bulletin board, the kind that look like an alligator mouth.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME, MRS. DOCTOR??!?!

Funny, but those hurt, too. They also didn’t work. Failure #3. (The next day Mrs. Doctor told me she brought these out as a joke, but I still don’t believe her.)

Feeling a little frustrated, Mrs. Doctor decided to call Mr. Doctor, who was still at his office, to see if he had found the elusive tool there. (Please, please let him have found one…)

In this interim, Little Doc Jr. offered to have a look-see. He’s only 4, but his tiny fingers are nimble so I said, “Sure, give it a shot, kid!” He just looked so cute in his little lab coat, I couldn’t resist.

After careful inspection, Little Doc Jr. determined “they’re in there pretty good,” and referred me back to Chief Mommy. (I bet he’s still going to charge me a consult fee.)

Just then, Mr. Doctor’s voice came through on the speaker phone…YES! There is one medical staple remover left in all of Tropical Paradise Town, and it is now in Mr. Doctor’s possession, speeding down the causeway!! Hurry home, Doc, hurry home!

When Mr. Doctor walked in, Little Doc Jr. and Little Miss Doctor ran to him with excited delight, “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” Yes! Daddy is home indeed and he carries with him what may as well be the key to the Ark of the Covenant, given my anticipation for it.

In a matter of mere seconds, Mrs. Doctor deftly removed all 6 staples with zero effort and only a minute bit of discomfort on my part. The source of all my woe was now just a tiny pile of bent metal on the granite table. Sweet, sweet relief!

Thank you, Mrs. Doctor. You promised me you could do this, and you did.

Left of Center

2009-07-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I attended my high school graduating class’s 20-year reunion. I was expecting to walk into a John Hughes movie when I walked into the country club. The prom scene from “Pretty in Pink” is what I pictured.

While the ‘80s music played in the posh venue and we dined on a surprisingly impressive meal, I was much more playing the part of observant attendee rather than the interacting social butterfly. If you want me, you can find me left of center, off of the strip. In the outskirts, in the fringes, in the corner out of the grip.

I found my curiosity in the popular crowd to be almost nonexistent. I wanted to see what the stay-at-home moms with the rich husbands and unlimited spending power were wearing, but after that detail, the formerly fascinating popular crowd bored me. I don’t care anymore what they do or where they live. I don’t care what their kids’ trendy names are. I can pretty much guess what their lives are like. Out of habit I was still snarking on a couple of the old mean girls, but it wouldn’t be fun without a little snark. When they ask me, ‘what are you looking at?’ I always answer ‘nothing much, not much.’

I was much more focused on realizing who I am now drawn to in friendships. The maturity of the women made me happy. That the wives and girlfriends of my former boyfriends/dates can make friends with me now is how it should be. Decades have passed, and I am not pursuing your husband. Thank you for realizing that we actually can all be friends and appreciate each other. I think that somehow, somewhere inside of us, we must be similar, if not the same.

I was also more apt to let go of attempts at friendships that I just don’t care about or know aren’t healthy. I didn’t feel the need to be nice for more than a minute to those whose friendly appearances shaded unfriendly pasts. Maybe these attempts were sincere, maybe they didn’t remember how they treated me back then, or maybe they do remember but were hoping that I’d forgotten.

Maybe they don’t remember anything at all and were just acting their way through the crowd, hoping no one would notice their oblivion.

Whatever the case, I DO remember and I’m done with them. It’s not out of spite or revenge, but rather a lack of desire to reconcile those emotions within myself. My hurt feelings have been neatly tucked away for 10-20 years without incident and I’m perfectly content to leave them that way. Amends do not have to be made with everyone. I’m okay with that. Go hang with your crowd and leave me with mine. Unless you have a sincere apology for me, we don’t need to act like we’re friends.

Sometimes the expectation of seeing someone for the first time in years brings so much anticipation that it’s anticlimactic when you realize you don’t have much to say. A hug and “you look good!” is all that comes forward. You never know when dead air will hit. So I continue to be wanting you, left of center, against the grain.

I saw emotions in classmates’ eyes that I recognized because I’ve had them in my own eyes. I know the look of missed opportunity, the look of a broken friendship walking by, the look of regret, the look of repressed hurt, the look of relief and glad-I-got-out-of-that-situation. I saw the disbelief and shock at the realization of change.

I saw joy that negated the expanse of years of noncommunication, and I saw sincerity that made all the traveling worth it if just for those few minutes of rekindled mutual admiration.

I saw spouses secretly wondering if they know the real story behind the person they just met as I watched hugs that lingered longer. I could discern between smiles of joy and smiles of politeness. I think they know that, I’m looking at them, I think they must think I’m out of touch. But I’m only in the outskirts, and in the fringes, on the edge, and off the avenue…

Still, I wouldn’t trade my time this weekend with my old friends for anything. I would bargain away most things in life for more time with them. They get me, they laugh at me, and they let me laugh at them. They make themselves available as friends in so many ways.

And if you want me, you can find me left of center, wondering about you.

Wondering about you.

Chiffon Wishes and Crinoline Dreams

2009-07-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

The other day I was watching a horrible reality show called “Say Yes to the Dress,” which spotlights brides-to-be as they search for their dream wedding gown at a high-end bridal salon. I call it “horrible” because it perpetuates the ideas that, A) an article of clothing can be akin to your utmost fantasy, and B) if you find your dream gown and don’t purchase it, you will quite possibly ruin your own wedding and regret it for the rest of your life.

Brides are duped into believing that it is totally worth it to be in debt for the next decade so as to not pass up “your” dress (which, apparently, is hidden in a large storage room in New Jersey). These perfection-seeking, emotionally taxed women are duped into spending thousands of dollars on something they will wear ONCE, all by the idea that they are purchasing an actual dream.

On the episode I was watching, a very young woman had flown her entire family from Florida to NJ to go to this salon, and of course she found her dream gown there. The price tag: $23,000. That’s twenty-three THOUSAND dollars for a single-use dress.

This probably comes as no surprise, but my wedding gown was not my dream dress. I don’t even know what my dream dress would be. I don’t think I could put all the features of every beautiful dress I’ve ever seen onto one single garment without creating a hideous monster, much like one of those 27-scoop ice-cream sundaes. There are many details (and flavors) I find amazing in their own ways, but that doesn’t mean they should all be in one place at the same time. My wedding gown was beautiful and elegant and flattering, but I did not go on a nationwide search for it with multiple friends and relatives in tow for additional opinions and moral support.

I found my gown by myself, online, in a bridal salon on the opposite side of the country, and it arrived by UPS without my ever seeing it in person first. It was a high-end designer gown that was a season old and had been a store sample. It had been tried on and was missing a button, maybe a few scuffs on the hem. In the world of bridal salons, it was a bruised banana not fit for the sundae.

But I got it at a 95% discount. So while it wasn’t the Gown of the Century, it was a gorgeous wedding dress that I could afford, and it saved me what surely would have been days of emotional exhaustion and outbursts of frustration taken out on other people when things wouldn’t go my way when trying on gown after gown in search of my dream. A professional cleaning, a replacement button and some alterations, and I had a gown I would have never even been able to consider before. So who’s living the dream now?

Dream gowns rarely come at dream prices. And they rarely bring with them the promised dreams of everlasting bliss.

Great Taste, Less Embarrassment

2009-07-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I attended a 4th of July party at the home of a friend whom I’ve known since elementary school. Upon being introduced to the other guests, I was greeted by my friend’s mother, whom I haven’t seen in at least 20 years, but with whom I had been fairly well acquainted in the past. We hugged our hellos, and sat down to chat.

Mrs. B was the mother who was always available to help with end-of-the-year class parties, chaperone field trips, and drive the car pool. She was the super-sweet, always-smiling mom who was helpful to all of her son’s classmates. She made sure we buckled our seatbelts in her station wagon and always offered a ride home to the walkers when it was raining after school. All-American sitcom moms were modeled after this lady.

Strangely, when she next offered me a beer at the party, I hesitated. It was a hot summer afternoon and we were sitting out by the pool, so a cold beer would have been perfect. But I suddenly felt like I was 9 years old again, and a beer suddenly felt like something I wasn’t allowed to have. Surely she should have offered me a nice soft drink instead. Did I hear wrong? No, she definitely said “beer” because she was now reciting the various choices on hand. I finally stammered a weak, “yes, please…thank you…” and took my seat.

When she returned with a chilled Samuel Adams Summer Ale zipped up in a koozie, I found myself unable to take a sip while she was watching. It didn’t matter that she was drinking one herself (after all, she’s an adult!), and it didn’t matter that her son was also drinking one…heck, everyone at the party was drinking them. It didn’t matter that I’m 37 years old and have been legally drinking for 16 years. All I could think was, this is Mrs. B and she just handed me a beer…not Kool-Aid, not chocolate milk, but an icy cold beer. Just like I can’t call her by her first name, I couldn’t sip a beer in front of my childhood friend’s mom. I waited till she distracted by one of the grandkids before I could imbibe.

As the evening progressed my self consciousness faded, and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself for once again reverting to the shy, always-does-the-right-thing girl I once was. It was another reminder that time marches on; another chapter in the book of Hey, When Did Everybody Grow Up?

I love the smell of bleached denim in the morning...

2009-06-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

I loved my ‘80s-era bleached and ripped jeans, I really did. I took a pair of nondescript Zena brand jeans and turned them into a creation of holes and stains like nobody else. That first rip was so liberating…I felt like such a rebel! I made the first cut after careful examination of where it would end up as it grew and frayed. I cut, and then put them on and sat down to allow my knee to protrude through and make an authentic rip. Once in elementary school I had a power push with my mom over wearing my favorite jeans to school because I’d fallen on the hardcourt and ripped a small hole in the knee. I didn’t care, I wanted to wear them. But my mom I guess thought they made it look like I was unkempt or uncared for…I really don’t know, lots of kids had a hole in the knee of their jeans. But in high school, I would win the battle. I bought the jeans, I ripped the jeans, and dammit I would WEAR the jeans to school!

Of course, despite my anticipation of fashion glory, nobody really noticed my jeans, probably because half the school was already wearing the same thing themselves. They weren’t impressed with my admittedly cautious attempt at rebellious style, and I received no accolades for my wares. No, what I needed was more panache, more defiance to the preppy domination that defined my high school. I needed bleach!

Off to the utility sink in the garage I went, armed with nothing more than a spray bottle and a dream. Utilizing the spray bottle’s various squirt options I created a masterpiece of faded streaks, blotches, and spots. Yes! These…these are what the 1980s are all about! These jeans will get me featured in a cute candid shot on the fashion pages of the yearbook! (They didn’t.) These jeans will make little sophomores look up to me as a truly cool senior (Mmmm, if they did, they never mentioned it to me.)

In all honesty, nothing magical resulted from destroying said denim. But I wore the heck out of them, feeling all hippie flower child and Edie Brickell every time I did. I rolled the cuffs and paired them with my Reebok Freestyle hi-tops and Vuarnet sunglasses T-shirt. I was it, man; I was the ‘80s personified…in my own mind.

Twenty years later, I still have those jeans. It’s amazing what 20 years will do to bleached denim. They’re now an unappetizing shade of dingy yellow, with holes where I never intended due simply to chemical breakdown of the fabric. Somewhere along the line I sewed on some flower appliqués in an attempt to make them more hippie style. At one point the seat ripped open and had to be patched. But I kept them all this time for a few reasons. One was vanity: If I could still fit into my high school jeans, I knew I hadn’t gained weight. I didn’t need a scale as long as I had my Zena jeans. The second reason was that I wanted to wear them to my 20th high school reunion, which is next month. Trying them on last week I came to realize that’s not going to happen. Again, vanity wins. These sad pants just aren’t as flattering as they used to be. For one, they’re REALLY high-waisted and there’s no disguising that unfavorable feature. And, sadly, the few pounds I’ve gained since high school are in all the wrong places for this style of pants. So I won’t be showing up in public looking like I just stepped out of a DeLorean originating from June 3, 1989. And while the scent of bleached denim still transports me back to my teenage years, my beautiful personal-stylized jeans will remain where they are, in a storage bin under the guest bed. Unless, of course, I decide to construct a life-size shadow box in which to display them. That wouldn’t be weird, right?

Comedy Wtih a Conscience...or Just Uncomfortable?

2009-06-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

I miss the days of the Very Special Sitcom. It was a night of television history that every family in America should not miss. Just about every sitcom from the late 1970s through the early 1990s had at least one Very Special Episode. In these half-hour treasures, comedy was suspended in order to teach us a lesson, attack a current social issue, or to just be preachy. Arnold and Dudley were almost molested on Diff’rent Strokes; Tootie was recruited to become a NYC prostitute on Facts of Life, and my personal heartbreak favorite was when a pre-Friends Matthew Perry tragically died in a drunk driving accident on Growing Pains. Two social issues in one episode! The teenage girls in my school were still crying the next day at school after his character, Sandy, died. Ahh, the memories...the nightmares…the misconceptions they wrought.

Very Special Episodes led me to sincerely believe that half the kids I went to school with were being abused by their parents, were runaways living under assumed names, or were hopped up on speed. I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16, most likely because my parents watched the Very Special Mr. Belvedere episode where a young man got fresh with Heather at the prom.

Nobody did the VSE quite as masterfully as Family Ties, though. We had the pleasure of the Alex Hooked on Speed episode, the Mr. Keaton Has a Heart Attack episode, the Mallory’s Teenage Friend is Pregnant and Can’t Talk to Her Own Mother episode, and of course, the Tom Hanks as Uncle Ned the Alcoholic who Drank Vanilla Extract episode. Nothing says family togetherness quite like desperate substance abuse paired with uncomfortable studio audience laughter on cue.

A college friend and I used to see couples sitting in restaurants having what looked like “the talk,” and we’d joke that they were having a very special episode of their own. Or if somebody had a particularly stressful weekend visit home full of family issues…it was a very special episode vacation. You didn’t really have to be in on the joke to figure out what it meant. If you watched TV anytime during the ‘80s, you understood.

But as much as I miss these non-comedic comedies that taught me so much about how life can suck, I supposed I’d prefer there not be any Very Special Episodes these days. How ticked off would we be if we turned on the tube this Thursday night to find a Very Special Episode of The Office, all about Pam’s miscarriage? Yeah, not exactly must-see TV.

The "Off" Button Exists for a Reason

2009-06-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

I have a favorite lakeside park that I frequent to bird watch or power walk (really, I bird watch!). There is always a mixed demographic of visitors there, both families and singles, old and young. But practically every time I’m at this park I see something that bothers me to no end. It’s the Cell Phone Distracted Parent.

It’s always the same scene: one adult gabbing away intently on their cell phone while holding the hand of a young child who is staring blankly, grasping their sippy cup and watching the world go by.

This is a beautiful park with lots going on. There is a lake that is filled with swimming ducks and turtles. There are cranes and ospreys circling overhead. There are steps to climb and bridges to cross. There are a hundred different kinds of flowers, dancing fountains, and music playing. In other words, a whole world of discovery for a kid who has a little bit of adult guidance.

But these parents don’t see any of it. Their conversations are more important. They seem to think just being physically present is quality time. But merely being in the same vicinity as your child does not equate to actually spending time with them. These children are aching for interaction.

When I was little, my mom would take me to the park and we’d bring the stale bread crusts she’d saved for such an event, and we’d feed the ducks and seagulls. She’d point out flowers and tell me what they were named and we’d smell them. She’d challenge me to walk across curb as if I was on a balance beam. It wasn’t advanced child psychology, it was simple parent-child interaction, stimulating my interest in the world and opening me up to new things. Common as though they might seem to an adult, everything is new to kids that young.

People complain about the current generation of teenagers and young adults being disinterested in the world outside of their texting circles. Wait till this next batch of young’ns gets to be that age! It’s going to be a whole generation of glazed-eyed, non-verbalizing teenagers who are clueless about anything beyond their own backyards.

Why are these parents SO disinterested in their own children? And why don’t they realize it’s going to bite them in the ass big time when their children grow up to be completely disinterested in not only the world and their future, but disinterested in their own parents, as well?

I saw a woman at this same park on her cell phone, and when her toddler daughter squealed upon seeing ducks take flight, the mom shook the child’s arm sternly because obviously the child’s delight was interrupting the phone call. I just wanted to take the girl’s hand and say to the mother, “Give her to me! You go sit down and finish what I can only assume must be a multi-billion dollar business negotiation, given your devotion to it. I will take your daughter to see the ducks until you are finished, because I would HATE for some quacking to ruin your phone call!”

It makes me sad. These kids aren’t old enough to judge their parents for the stupid things they do. But they are old enough to crave attention, and it’s a genuine desire to have that attention from their parent. I may not remember every outing my parents took me on, but I gained something from all of them. Maybe it was nothing more than learning that you can see shapes of animals in the clouds, or that if you look close enough you can see minnows on the banks of the river. But I remembered doing things, and I remember the interaction. I remembered that I mattered in those moments. Certainly more than any phone call.

Tour de Mom

2009-06-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

Whenever I see a parent riding on the bike path with their toddler in a seat behind them, I laugh. It’s not because of the giant safety helmet the kids wear on their already oversized heads that leave them looking like Marvin the Martian. And it’s not because half of these kids are somehow still able to fall asleep despite the wind and bugs in their faces and the bumpy ride.

I laugh because my experience as a tot on the back of Mom’s Schwinn was vastly different…and way more dangerous.

Today’s tot bike seats look like NASA-inspired personnel modules made of space-age polymers. The kids are held in by a spider web of unbreakable woven nylon straps going every which way, the likes of which Houdini would have had trouble escaping.

The bike seat I rode in was made of thin aluminum piping. The seat was vinyl that I sweated on and slipped around in after 5 minutes in the Florida heat. The seatbelt, if that is what we’re calling it, was a single strap of plastic that fastened with a rusty little metal clip that you could probably have bent in half with 2 fingers. My helmet was nothing but a full head of blonde hair, maybe a knit cap if it was cold.. I have never worn a bicycle helmet in my life. We really dodged a visit from DCF on that one!

Mom and I would tool around town in this fabulous mode of transportation; she’d take me to nursery school, maybe drop a book off at the library on the way. I remember a very bumpy ride, and I remember finding out the hard way that many of the sidewalks in our town didn’t have ramps to the street level, requiring us to drop straight down off the curb. Did I mention that sad seat of mine really wasn’t padded? This could be the reason I have a crooked spine today. But I held on for dear life, just like Linus’s little brother, Rerun, in the Peanuts comic strip.

Somehow we never fell that I can remember, and she never stopped short, sending me flying into traffic. I never bumped my big unprotected noggin on the ground. Mom’s deft navigation skills kept us safely on the bike path, roaming the streets of my hometown with the breeze blowing through our hair. These kids today will never know what they’re missing.

Summer = Play Clothes

2009-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

While reading a chat board for professionals in my line of work I came across a plea by a grandmother. Her granddaughter is heading into 6th grade and the girl’s mother is at her wit's end trying to figure out ways to keep the girl entertained this summer vacation. The mom has a home-based business so she is home, but working. The granddaughter “just wants to go somewhere and shop or have someone over to spend the night, all involve spending money.” Granny was asking for creative ideas on activities an 11-year-old would like.

I’ve got a great idea for her. GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY. I don’t know who I’m more annoyed at, the mother for being at her wit’s end over this no-brainer, or the meddling grandmother for not conking her own daughter on the head for not thinking of this.

What were you doing the summer you were 11? I was playing kickball with my neighbor in the backyard. We were riding bikes. Then we came inside for 20 seconds to guzzle a quart of Kool-Aid before heading back outside to build forts (I can prove this event, I have a picture of it sitting on my desk). We came home when the street lights came on. We were filthy and tired. I thought this was the norm. Am I wrong?

Both of my parents always worked, but they were able to stagger their shifts so we kids weren’t left alone. I suppose a lot of my friends had stay-at-home moms, but this girl in question has a mom who will be home, so she won’t be unsupervised. What’s wrong with telling an 11-year-old to go rediscover what is surely a roomful of neglected toys? Get the kid a library card and tell her she will be reading this summer. Art projects, yard work, these are all basic things all of my friends did. Nobody “entertained” us! Not that I don’t remember whining occasionally “Mom! I’m booooorrrrred!” to which I was then given an appealing choice of washing the dishes, folding laundry, or, if I was lucky I was handed a box of construction paper and told, “Here, make something.” Our choice was either entertain ourselves, or accept a list of chores.

This child is old enough to fix her own lunch, put on her own Band-Aids, and understand the boundaries of how far in the neighborhood she is allowed to go. When did summer vacation become such a hassle to contend with?

Regrets, I've had a few...

2009-05-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

When someone asks of regrets, my first answer is usually something like “getting that first perm in back ’83,” because it kick-started a long habit of questionable hair choices. But delving deeper I’ll admit the regrets that still trigger a pensive sigh.

I regret not playing sports in high school. Aside from 1 year of rec department softball in third grade, I didn’t play team sports at all, but it’s the high school years that spark the feelings of regret. Growing up, gymnastics was always my thing. I wasn’t great at it, but I enjoyed it immensely. So when I got to junior high, cheerleading was my dream team. While I liked the dance and tumbling elements of it, and the cool uniforms, I also equated cheerleading with popularity. Like so many girls before and after me, I assumed making cheerleading would automatically elevate my social standing and make life grand. For a shy girl like me, that prospect was huge.

Just prior to tryouts, the volleyball coach approached me in the halls and tried to recruit me. Nope, I told him, I’m going to be a cheerleader. Lesson #1 not learned: When you are recruited for anything, at least hear out the idea. It means somebody sees something in you that you might not yet see in yourself.

I made the cheerleading squad, but it didn’t take long for reality to come hard at me. Being on the squad means nothing if you’re not already in the ruling clique. Being on the squad did nothing for me socially. If anything, it just confirmed that the popular girls were making fun of me. I had a few friends on that squad, it wasn’t like I was complete leper, but we weren’t besties, either. And it was only a few choice girls who were the main offenders, the ringleaders of mean. But it only took a few to be a majority against ME.

One of my closest friends now is another girl who was on the 9th grade squad with me. She was made to feel like such an outcast that she quit after one semester. Nobody quits cheerleading! But she couldn’t--or wouldn’t--take the humiliation, and I don’t fault her one bit for escaping that ridicule. At the time I was torn in my feelings. I wanted to stand in solidarity with her, but no way would I give up my coveted spot on the squad. So I chose to stay and be an outsider on a squad of 24. I can still picture her walking away from the final football game in tears after she told me she was quitting. Nobody else on the squad ever tried to convince her to stay.
But I trudged on. I made the high school JV squad the following year. Although I enjoyed the activity, I wasn’t gaining anything from being on the squad. We were all about boosting the morale of our school's football and basketball teams, and exciting the crowds, but among ourselves we were a mess.

Despite my best efforts I never made the varsity squad, which was humiliating. Tryouts were held publicly, with the winners being lauded and applauded, and the losers left crying in huddles on the sidelines. That didn’t happen with the volleyball, soccer, or softball teams. I didn’t realize this at the time, but my experience on the cheerleading squad did more damage than good. Don’t get me wrong, I truly loved the activity. I was committed to the group, I never skipped out on practice or games, and I put my best efforts into all we did. But who benefited from that?

It was a good 10 years or more before the girl who quit and I sat down and talked about the situation and bonded over our shared experience. She has turned out to be a far better friend than I ever could have known, and certainly a longer-lasting friend than any of my squadmates. I wish I’d been stronger back then, more assertive in sticking up for her against the others, more vocal in trying to convince her to stay. That’s one thing I never learned in cheerleading…how to stick up for your own teammate. All the things team sports are supposed to teach really aren’t in the cheerleading handbook. Our purpose was to boost up all the other teams, to smile, and to do everything in unison. This was preparing us for life how?

I know that any group is going to have some members who get along better than others, especially when you’re talking about teenaged girls. But team sports address those problems, and they reinforce the necessity of working together toward a common goal and of making everyone accountable for every victory as well as every defeat. Team sports foster talent, emphasize effort, encourage excellence, and discourage personal grandstanding. And you know, we weren’t a cheerleading team, we were a cheerleading squad. I guess if you don’t all yourself a team, you don’t have to worry about teamwork.

I look back through the yearbook pictures, and in the sports pages I see photos of jubilant players congratulating each other after a win, helping a team member up when they’ve fallen, arms around each other holding a trophy, bonded in victory. In the photos of the cheerleaders we’re smiling and coordinated, but we don’t look cohesive, despite our perfectly structured poses. They could have taken our pictures solo and then Photoshopped each of us into the shot as a collage and it would have looked the same. We look as if we’re each there only for ourselves.

I now envy my friends who played sports. Even back then I could see they had a sense of focus that I was lacking. They did better in school. They had strong ties to a group that they securely belonged to. They seemed to have more self-confidence.

I like to believe that I’ve since learned many of the lessons I missed not being in sports, but wish I’d learned them sooner, and with the benefit of teammates. I was born the same year Congress passed Title IX, the act that declared, among other things, equal athletic opportunities for girls and boys in federally-funded schools. I’m sorry I never took advantage of this opportunity.

But I am thankful to still have my fellow cheerleading outcast friend 23 years later. Obviously the other cheerleaders had no idea they were dismissing such a valuable person. I know we both survived and thrived in the end, but I guarantee you if I ever have a daughter, I’m going to encourage team sports till I’m blue in the face.

Mad About Angel Dust

2009-05-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

If you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s you undoubtedly watched your share of ABC After School Specials, those hour-long mini movies produced to educate us young folks on the perils of growing up around the temptations of the world’s evils. One of my personal favorites was “Desperate Lives,” starring a young Helen Hunt. Her character, Sandy, hesitatingly agrees to try PCP after being pressured by her pushy boyfriend.

Seconds after snorting it she leaps out of a third story window, sending glass flying in slow-mo destruction from a mid-air craze-induced karate chop. Awesome!

Sandy survived her fall, but was confined to a lifetime of limping and pained facial expressions because of not sticking the landing.

Other issues addressed were eating disorders, alcohol, teen pregnancy, and runaways, but those specials really loved the drugs. I think there was a different special for every drug.

In our county, all 9th graders were required to take a class called Life Management, where we learned how to balance a checkbook, became certified in CPR, and watched every single After School Special ever made. Why bother having teachers actually teach when they can just show 37 different VHS tapes every semester? This class was when we were 14 years old and terribly impressionable. I’m sure the school board thought this was the perfect time to influence us in the most positive of ways, showing us the dire effects of making bad choices. But the truth is these videos ended up teaching us how to more cleverly handle (and hide) our burgeoning vices.

In one movie, sitcom cutie Scott Baio taught us how to make a homemade bong in Stoned, as well as the proper way to inhale so as not to burn our throats. Ganja loves Chachi!

Similarly, I didn’t even know what bulimia was until Life Management class. I would never have thought to throw up my food to lose weight and then hide it in jars in my closet to keep my dirty little secret concealed. These movies taught me how to be thin AND sneaky. Thanks, Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Best Little Girl in the World.

I know I’m not alone in this realization. Tracey Gold, the sister from Growing Pains, has been quoted as saying she learned how to be bulimic from watching this same movie. She went on to battle an eating disorder for years before, ironically, filming her own TV movie about a teenager with an eating disorder. I don’t know what she hoped to accomplish there. Seems like prolonging the cycle to me. In fact, the opening scene of Gold’s For the Love of Nancy is almost identical to Best Little Girl.

I personally know 2 girls who developed serious eating disorders in junior high, one of whom died from her complications before she reached age 30. They both watched these films the same year their disorders became problematic.

Sure, there were kids who already had a familiarity with the underbelly of life, or had older siblings who were bad influences. Some would have figured out self destructive behaviors on their own. But I have to believe that maybe a few kids would have had fewer downfalls if we hadn’t been shown so colorfully how to engage in such activities. Major backfire, ABC.

I'm 37, and I'm a Walkman

2009-05-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

You know what really burns me? That little Asian girl on the Windows commercial, “my name is Kylie. I’m 4-1/2 and I’m a PC.”

What do you mean you’re a PC? You’re 4-1/2, you’re a Fisher Price. You’re a teddy bear. At best you’re a Magna Doodle. But you, my dear, are far too young to be a PC because I am 37 and I barely know how to edit the photo gallery on my computer, so you should not be using your tiny little fingers to “stick this thingy in here and make the picture better.”

Seriously, I just threw away my Sony Walkman last year, the same one I got for Christmas in 1988. I still don’t have an iPod. I just bought my second cell phone—ever-- last week and only finally mastered how to take a picture on that thing today, a week later and with my husband’s tutoring.

Today I came across a You Tube video posted by a family friend. It was shot by 7-year-old and 3-year-old sisters. BY THEMSELVES. Their 9-year-old sister happened to find it on the family computer. Not only were their on-air adlibbing skills far advanced for their ages, but the production quality of the clip was quite creative. I’m pretty sure they’re going to be the next Food Network comedy cooking duo.

My husband and I talk about having kids, and he has only one caveat: “They have to learn Photoshop right away.” Sigh…little Kylie is going to have to come tutor me first.

Bragonomics

2009-05-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I spent a girls night out consisting of dinner and a chick flick with a friend. While feasting at the Olive Garden, we soon found ourselves divulging personal details as girlfriends are prone to do when the husbands aren’t around.

“You know, we had to sell one of our cars. I have to walk to work now.”
“Oh, well we had to cash out a retirement account to pay the credit card.”
“Yeah, we had to cash out a life insurance policy to pay the mortgage.”

In the midst of this conversation, what struck me as strange was not the secrets themselves, but rather the competitive attitude with which they were being divulged. It was as if we were trying to win the “My Life Sucks More Than Yours Does” title. Despite the dire straits many of my friends are currently in, we seem to actually take a strange delight in being forthcoming about how bad off we are.

Our parents and grandparents would never let on to their peers if they were having “money troubles” as my mom calls it. Their generations would scrape and scrimp, work second and third jobs, and find a way to NOT let their issues be known. They weren’t going to take any handouts from anybody. They had a different sense of pride. To them, financial duress was failure in their role as head of a household or family. But not us Gen-Xers! I don’t know if it’s a lack of pride, or a just stronger ability to roll with the punches, even when the punches are ruining our credit record.

But it’s not as if we’re miserable people. We’re happily married, some of us have kids, and we all have stable and supportive families and friends. The difference between us and our parents is that most of our financial woes are attributed (okay, blamed) on everyone other than ourselves. Companies had mass layoffs, health issues brought stacks of medical bills, jobs were outsourced to India, a sinkhole swallowed the neighborhood. And while all of these are very real and valid contributing factors to our respective fiscal fiascos, I’d like to see a show of hands of how many of us don’t have some purchases or creative financing in our recent pasts that should have been delayed or foregone altogether. We’re not entirely blameless in our money woes.

Nonetheless, Gen-Xers don’t feel the need to hang our heads in shame when we come to realize our money has gotten away from us. Instead we see it as yet another way to compete with our friends…even if in reality, the “winner” of this argument is the one who’s the worst off. Maybe we just have a strange way of empathizing. We were always taught it’s not nice to brag, so we take it to the other extreme and try to assure each other that we are far worse off than they are. Trust me, you don’t want to see my savings account.

Forever Young

2009-05-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret I’m a feminist. I openly and proudly lay claim to that title. I tend to be quick to point out actions or words that are contradictory to gender equality; sometimes I’m nicer about it than other times. I also tend to be a little old-fashioned when it comes to the way I address adults. I still want to call my friends’ parents “Mr. and Mrs. X” even though I’m in my 30s and they’ve told me I can call them by their first names. But if they were Mr. and Mrs. X when I was 7, they’re still going to be Mr. and Mrs. X when I’m 37, and not “Bob and Judy.”

But there’s one demographic that I wrestle with addressing…what to call middle-aged women whom I still see in my mind as teenagers? I find myself referring to my friend Jennifer as “this girl I know.” In actuality, she’s a 38-year-old corporate lawyer, well educated and worldly. She's hardly a “girl” and certainly worthy of a higher social title than that. Even though I know she’s a professional grown woman, I still think of her and see the smartypants girl I met in 6th grade math class. It’s a term of endearment, and a compliment in that I don’t notice that she is aging. But I don’t want to offend. If a grown man were to call me a “girl” I’d have a fit. I know that I should bestow the same respect that I expect from others.

I used to roll my eyes when my mom referred to her contemporaries as “gals,” as in “me and the gals are heading over to the malt shop.” Corny, right? She’s in her 60s but her best friend from college is still her best gal. My grandmother was 78 and still referring to friends she had known since grammar school as her “school chums.” Antiquated, but quaint. And you can’t fault your Gran for that. I guess that every generation has their own version of this dilemma, whether they realize it or not.

So to my friends, if I refer to you as girl or chickie, please don’t freak out, I am not belittling you. It simply means you’re ageless to me, vibrant and beautiful.

Serendipitous scheduling

2009-05-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

During my senior year of high school a scheduling conflict planted me in aerobics class my last semester. I never would have picked this class; what 16-year-old girl wants to spend an hour in the middle of the school day getting all sweated up and messing her hair? Not me! But I had no choice, the all-powerful beings in the guidance office said it was either aerobics or weightlifting. Great.

On the second day of class we dressed out and spread out in the gym. Our leader, known as “Coach P,” lugged out the 50-pound standard school-issue record player since I guess cassette tapes were still too new-fangled for the public school system in the late ‘80s. The scratchy recording began, and some music that none of us recognized started to play. And then we heard it… “I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore…”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! We’re doing aerobics to hippie feminist propaganda folk music? Isn’t that illegal? Or something?

There was no time to question in, Coach P was already showing us the choreography and yelling at us to follow along or be doomed to running extra laps around the track later. We realized there was no fighting it, as we were already doing high kicks to Helen Reddy’s verse. So we continued, intermittently giggling at the outdated song and rolling our eyes at each other that this is how we were spending our noon hour. It’ll be over soon enough, we thought.

Oh, silly girls, how wrong we were.

Day three began with the same routine, as did days four and five. And weeks two and three. Five days a week for 18 weeks we aerobicized to I Am Woman. But what else happened in that time was unexpected.

When you hear any song repetitively you can’t help but learn the lyrics. Long after I’d left the gym and proceeded on to Contemporary Lit class I still had the song playing in a loop in my head. After a couple weeks, we let down our too-cool-for-everything attitudes, gave in to the madness, and started singing along while doing our stretches and lunges. A few weeks later, we even began to have fun with it, dramatically emphasizing certain lines, dividing the group into 2 parts as if lead singers and backup chorus: “I am strong…STRONG!…I am invincible…IN-VIN-CIBLE!…” All of this much to the delight of Coach P, who couldn’t help but laugh at our enthusiastic turn of attitude.

A few years after I graduated high school I really found myself embracing the feminist movement, finally understanding what it meant as a whole and to me as a young woman. I was coming into my own as an adult, learning about the world outside of the bubble I’d grown up in, and exploring socio-cultural enlightenment. I was born the same year this song was popular, but it was almost 20 years before it meant anything to me.

Often I’d find that song still playing in my head and it came to have a profound effect on me. Fighting the little-girl shyness that had identified me for most of my life, I’d sing this song to myself when I needed a confidence boost. The comedy of my high school experience coupled with the motivational message played a role in the self confidence I have today.

I made myself a little promise that if I was ever on TV accepting some major award that I would thank Coach P for making me do aerobics to Helen Reddy. Teachers don’t always get the recognition they deserve, and I thought that would be a great public shout-out. But the truth is, I’m never going to be accepting an Oscar so chances are the world won’t hear me say that. But Coach P, you deserve applause and acknowledgment for your contribution to my maturity as a proud feminist. I don’t know if you realized what you were doing at the time or not; I suspect you did. I want you to know the message got through loud and clear.

Think but this, and all is mended...

2009-05-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

I had an eye-opening dream last night. I dreamt that amends were made in a confusing relationship that dates back 30 years.

From elementary through middle school I had one best friend. We had all our classes together, we practiced gymnastics together, were both very much girly girls. We were competitive in school but only to the point of motivating each other to do better, we never got jealous if the other did better on a test. We incessantly wrote notes back and forth. It all made sense.

In junior high things were a little different; we were still friends but there was a growing distance between us. We didn’t have many classes together and we were starting to make new friends in our bigger school.

By sophomore year of high school, there was no trace that a friendship had ever existed. We wouldn’t speak to each other, we couldn’t look each other in the eye, we didn’t even acknowledge the other’s presence. To this day, I have no idea why. Our lack of relationship made no sense to me. We hadn’t had a fight, we weren’t rivals over the same boy, and no amount of “what’s wrong?” questioning got me anywhere with her.

There was no conversation about it; she simply decided we were not friends anymore. And that was it. I lost my best friend.

As dumb luck would have it, we both made the JV cheerleading squad that year. How ironic that the team whose sole reason of existence—to promote teamwork and unity—had such divisive hatred within its own ranks. I clearly remember the coach instructing the two of us to be partners in a stunt, and neither of us budged. We both stood firmly in our spots, waiting for the other to take the first step. “MOVE IT, girls!” the coach demanded. Reluctantly we complied and formed the base of the world’s most angry pyramid.

I have a picture of us performing another partner stunt, again not of our own free will, and the look of utter disdain on her face for having to actually touch me is heartbreaking to me even now. What made me SO unworthy of her acceptance? I know I did nothing wrong. But, sadly, this question continued to nag at me for 2 decades.

I hate that it still bothers me. It makes me feel like I’m emotionally stunted, unable to get over a simple relationship. Friendships come and go all the time, part of the circle of life, right? This wasn’t the first friendship I’d lost nor was it the last.

But I feel it nonetheless, and denying it would be denying a portion of my human existence. For whatever reason, the abrupt ending of this friendship affected me. It broke something in me that has remained with me all this time, like a broken secondhand of a clock that just hangs downward, unable to spin. It doesn’t affect that day-to-day functioning, but it sure would be nice to restore it to what it once was.

But back to the dream. It was simple. In it I was attending my high school 20-year reunion, which in reality I will be attending in a few months. In the dream, she and I are walking toward each other, and before I can walk the opposite direction or look away, she speaks to me. While I can’t remember the exact words—as often happens in my dreams—the sentiment was crystal clear: she simply put an end to the feud. There was no blame placed and no apology made, but one wasn’t needed.

It was as if we simultaneously popped a bubble of anger that had been encircling each of us.

I woke rather suddenly from this dream, and remembered it immediately, feeling like I was still in it. I had a sense of peace, as if the exchange had really taken place between us.

The “why” of it all doesn’t matter anymore. For over 20 years it did, but I now realize we could easily spend 20 more years rehashing the “why” in an endless circle, and likely still not accomplish anything.

I never hated her. I only treated her badly then because she treated me badly first, and in the world of teenage girls you can’t look like you’re just taking the abuse. Never let them see you sweat and never let them know they got to you.

The reasons for our actions back then most likely wouldn’t make sense now. They’d either hurt or embarrass one or both of us to air them, and neither of those feelings is necessary in order to move ahead. We both had other personal issues we were struggling with in our respective lives that the other didn’t know about and which influenced our actions. We were young and emotionally immature, unable to deal with everything falling on us.

Two things keep repeating in my mind. A few lines from the closing monologue by Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

If we shadows have offended
Think but this, and all is mended…
Give me your hands if we be friends
and Robin shall restore amends.

The other is a few lines from Sarah McLachlan’s song “Adia,” which I never knew the story behind, but from the first time I heard it, it has always reminded me of this friend:

we are born innocent
believe me Adia, we are still innocent
it's easy, we all falter does it matter?
believe me Adia, we are still innocent...