Some Small Site Changes
In the last few weeks, I've been working on some changes with the blog. While they might not seem obvious at first, I'm switching ad networks, which means I had to move a few things around. Any post that was previously sponsored in any way, shape or form (via free travel, free product, etc.) has now been moved to my alternate, ad-free site It Isn't Much.
So, in case you're really missing some of my college nostalgia and Volvo stuff, you'll need to head over there.
As always, thanks for reading, and you should have opinions about any of these changes, please feel free to leave your comments below.
Not Where You Want Your Hand To Go
As I’ve mentioned before, my stress level really tends to show itself at the gas station. Apart from typos I normally wouldn’t miss, an occasional tendency to flip out over what the dogs should or shouldn’t be doing (God help my children if I ever have any) and a mild conviction online shopping can fix my problems, it really takes the service station to bring out my state of mind.
One of my latest trips to fill-up was no exception. Despite my successful efforts to pay at the pump, start the gas flow and even clean out my car, when it was time to leave, I found myself without car keys.
As a pro at losing my car keys, even I was flabbergasted as to how I could have lost what some of my friends refer to as a “janitor key ring” in such a small space and window of time.
After going through the entire car and walking the convenience store, it began to dawn on me that there might only be one place to look. And that one place was also the last place anyone would want to look – the trash can at the pump.
More scared than I’ve been since the last freakish horror movie the SO asked me to watch, I approached the plastic waste bin. Peering over the edge, all I saw at first was the lack of a trash bag and the dark, dirty sides of the trashcan. Within a few seconds, empty Mountain Dew cans and gum came into focus. Then, without fail, I saw the edges of what looked like both my keychain library card and my CVS rewards nob.
There was no denying that if I ever wanted to leave the BP station, I was going to have to go in – barehanded.
As someone with more disinfectant in my purse than cash, it was not a proud moment. Next to dumpster diving and the bins of disposed needles in the doctor’s office, I can imagine few garbage receptacles less appealing than the one at the gas station where they sell porn.
There was lots and lots of hand-washing – surgery-prep style – as soon as I got home.
What might be even worse is that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I had to rescue my keys from the trashcan at Goo Goo car wash a few months ago.
So, I leave you with this:
1. Keys are special. Don’t only learn to appreciate them once you’ve had to dig past the accumulated waste of all your fellow road companions.
2. The woman shoulder-deep in the gas station trash bin isn’t always crazy. Sometimes, she’s just really, really tired and should have had caffeine before pumping gas rather than waiting to buy her Diet Coke at the station.
Facebook, Social Networking Robs Us Of Our True Selves
An oped piece I wrote for the Birmingham News in July 2010.
It Feels Like Burning
In evolutionary terms, I’m not sure I was really meant for life in the South. By the standards of nurture, thanks to manners classes, ballroom dancing and some great stationary, I’ve done just fine here. However, if we have to look at nature, I’m not sure this pale, WASP-y body was meant for Alabama.
It’s not just the heat. You see, what comes with or causes the heat is the sun (I told you I never really paid attention in science class), and this fair skin and the sun don’t mix well.
(I’d like to thank my Scottish ancestors for the dark body hair and bushy eyebrows that come with my porcelain complexion. I’m sure if my forefathers had settled in Minnesota, I’d be more than prepared for the winters. Instead, I swelter and invest a lot of money in good tweezers. I guess the Scots never figured that they’d put all the distilleries in the South. (This really is the best reason I can figure for previous generations of my family to pick this region of the U.S.) In my family, you don’t follow the money; you follow the line to the bar.)
Luckily, I’ve had 30+ years to adapt, and I spend good money keeping the sunscreen companies in business, too. Still, every so often, I fail.
A few weeks ago, I didn’t just fail to protect my skin. I think I almost melted it.
I fell asleep reading on the beach, and when I woke up, I felt like I could be a little pink, but I wasn’t too worried.
“Why don’t you toss me some more of that Banana Boat, and I’ll reapply?”
Later that afternoon, I figured out that I was more than a little pink. While my shoulders and thighs could be described as pink/red, my stomach looked like the color of a tomato set on fire and felt about the same.
I dosed myself with Advil, slathered on the aloe and went to bed with a cold Miller Lite – not for drinking, but so I could hold it against my stomach in the night. Even the sheets were unbearable to touch.
For the next five days, I climbed out of chairs like I was eight months pregnant so as not to in any way agitate the skin on my torso and slept clutching either bags of frozen vegetables or frozen bottles of water for some sense of relief.
By day six, I thought I might need to turn to more than Internet forums for help.
In case you’re wondering, this is the advice I shouldn’t have taken:
1. The Vinegar Soak: Despite what the masterminds of the World Wide Web might say, vinegar does not “pull out the burn.” All that really happens is that you have to hope your friends always secretly wanted to know what it was like to spend time with a giant pickle.
2. A Baking Soda Bath: It’s not as stinky, but it’s equally as un-helpful.
3. No store-bought aloe is really better than any other aloe. Just make sure you buy the one with some kind of painkiller in it. I think the effect can be at least mildly psychosomatic.
I headed to my local pharmacy.
“What do y’all have for sunburn?” I said.
“Have you got aloe?” the clerk said.
“We’re a little bit past that,” I said.
“Let’s wait for the pharmacist to get off the phone then.”
While we waited on the pharmacist, the clerk and I discussed a number of different options for my sunburn, and she told me about some of her bad burns. (If nothing else, in a land where tanning beds are still prevalent, I didn’t feel judged for the potentially-hazardous-to-my-future-health slip-up.)
When the pharmacist did come over, I explained the problem.
“We have x, y, z and even a to treat sunburns,” she said. It was a litany of products with names I don’t remember. “How long have you had the sunburn?”
It was then that I decided the only good explanation would be to flash the pharmacist, so in front of her and the clerk, I pulled up my shirt to show them what we were dealing with.
“Foille,” she said. “It has to be Foille.”
It’s amazing how a little visual can take your list of potential saviors from 10 to 1 in a split second.
She was absolutely right about the Foille. If you’re ever in any kind of burn trouble, I highly recommend it. (Plus, it only costs about $4/tube.)
I know that normally one should only flash one’s doctor with skin abnormalities followed by awkward questions, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Nearly a week of burning tomato-colored flesh was my desperate time.
I’m a little embarrassed to go into the pharmacy again this month, considering how I’ve exposed myself to the staff and all, but a girl’s neighborhood pharmacy is a girl’s neighborhood pharmacy.
I’d like to pretend that they’ve forgotten about me, but I have a sinking feeling that the girl without shame and siren red stomach might have made more of an impression than I’d like.
Hot Times In The City
I have a knack for getting myself in trouble in the heat.
When I was 16, I had a mild heat stroke at my parents’ country club on July 4th weekend. I had gone with them to work out when I got slightly overheated. (It’s possible that my failure to exert myself physically in the previous two months might have had something to do with it, too.)
After sitting in front of a fan for 15 minutes or so, I decided to go to the snack bar for something to drink. That’s when I proceeded to faint and start vomiting -- in front of about 30 kids and their parents enjoying the pool over their holiday weekend. Oddly enough, if you know me, throwing up doesn’t bother me, but throwing up in public upsets me immensely. My legs were wobbly, and I was covered in some throw-up and shame. It was every teenager’s dream.
My father found me, scooped me up like a child and carried me to the car, so we could go home.
At 18, as a freshman in college, some friends and I were on our way to the first football game of the season when someone started complaining about the heat.
“You can’t think this is bad,” I said. “You should try living in Alabama.”
Well, I might as well have shot myself in the foot because it wasn’t even 30 minutes later that I had an EMT student checking my vitals and recommending that I get back to my dorm before I had a real heat stroke.
Here comes the weird part of this story: A friend of mine decided to help me back to the dorm, and to do so, she had her arm under me for support. We were ambling along when a frat boy on his way into the stadium yelled, “Lesbians!”
It’s not that I was offended; I just think it’s really strange. It was almost like he thought he was on a road trip and should point out interesting specimens on route to his friends. “Oh my gosh, did you see that deer by the side of the road?” Only this time, his fascinating find was lesbians?
Surely a college male has seen women and women that are close to one another before in his life. Also, everyone else was already in the stadium. There was one, count it, one, person, to hear him, and if he really wanted to be offensive, I’m sure you can imagine the terms we would have expected to hear.
My friend thought his behavior was very rude and would have liked to tell him so, but since I was having a little health issue, we tried to turn it around. We agreed that we would make an incredibly attractive lesbian couple, took it as a compliment and moved on.
However, the hottest I can ever remember being is in the summer of 2003. My friend Annie and I had purchased around the world plane tickets and were on the last leg of our global tour in Italy. There was an infamous heat wave in Europe during the summer of 2003 – to the point that the train was often delayed by melted sections of track.
We were in Venice, and we checked ourselves into the hotel we’d found in our guidebook. Being 23, we thought we’d save money by staying in a hotel without central air.
This was not a good idea.
As Annie later said, “The next time we see a woman lose consciousness in the lobby of a hotel as we check in, it’s probably a sign that we shouldn’t stay there.”
After dinner and some drinks, I feel fairly confident in saying that I then spent the most uncomfortable night of my life trying to fall asleep in that sauna they called a hotel. At one point, I even got up in the middle of the night convinced that a cold shower might save my sanity.
I stepped into the icy cold water only to have it switch to burning hot water within three minutes. I stepped back out of the shower and waited. A few minutes later, there was more cold water, and I climbed back in. Then the hot water came back.
I couldn’t even find cold sink water to save myself. By the time the morning came, I was an angry and nearly insane person.
“We said we’d stay here for two nights,” Annie said.
“I don’t care,” I said, when I decided to speak. I was so angry with Mother Nature or the world or our guidebook – you can pick one --- I didn’t even want to talk. “I don’t care what we have to pay. I can’t spend another night in this misery.”
“But they have our passports.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Believe it or not, I am normally a nice, non-confrontational person. Most of my bad thoughts are just that, thoughts, and when I recount long strings of crazy, confrontational statements, it’s what I wish I’d said, not what I actually did.
This was a different day.
After we had packed, I walked into the hotelier’s office. I had money to pay her for one night in cash and was hell bent on a passport for cash trade. “We’ll be leaving now,” I said. “I’d like our passports back, please.”
“You made reservations for two nights,” she said.
“We changed our mind.”
“But you said you would stay for two nights.”
“Your shower runs boiling hot on the coldest setting.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“That happens sometimes?” My voice was rising at this point, and I thought I might lose it. I wanted to ask where this happens. I thought most of the Western world had conquered plumbing and faucet settings, but we were in a very delicate place in our negotiations. I’d also seen her turn towards the cabinet where our travel documents were, and I wanted to keep what little of my wits I had left since I was pretty sure I was going to get what I wanted.
“In the summer. It is hot here in the summer.”
The idea of a physical attack briefly crossed my mind. As if I didn’t know that summer was the hottest month of the year? Instead, I nodded.
She brought the passports over; I basically snatched them out of her hand, gave her cash with my other hand and was at the door before she could say anything else.
Annie said a little “Thank you,” while I told her to book it out the door before the conversation could go any further.
Still angry – heat makes you crazy, there’s a reason the South has so many more crimes of passion than other areas of the country – we went to find lunch, and half a pizza and some white wine later, I finally felt human again.
Annie found us a great hotel for that night. It was more expensive, but you have no idea what I would have paid for a bucket of ice, let alone an air-conditioned room at that point. When we opened the door to our new room, and I saw a thermostat I could control on the wall, I think I cried tears of joy.
My advice to fellow travelers is to pay attention to those hotel ratings in travel books. Two stars are not enough, three is cutting it close and you will pay in so many non-financial ways if you’re not careful.
Also, if you ever really need an enforcer, deprive me of some AC for a few hours, and it’s like having a hive of angry hornets at your disposal.
Throwback Thursday: The Old Guard
Last night's Lifetime DVD selection starred the lovely Richard Crenna.
You see, I actually started out the evening watching "Evidence of Love" with Barbara Hershey, but Barbara's frightening fashion choices in the film, from her crude, nearly shaved pube-like hairdo to the large overly round, bug-eye glasses, were so overwhelming and lasting that I didn't want to go to sleep with that being the last image in my brain.
There are 2 reasons for this:
1. I didn't want the nightmares.
2. As Lifetime has strategically led me to believe, someone could break into my home and strangle me at any moment. And, I might not be able to count on a psychic waitress to warn me of said serial killer's attention. Therefore, I didn't want Barbara Hershey's 80s-era Midwest androgeny to be the last thing I saw of this world.
Also, in case you were wondering, "Evidence of Love" revolves around a gruesome murder committed with an axe. And, yes, Barbara's hair scared me more than the hideously painful death by axe thing. So, I popped in Richard Crenna as a hardened cop who, through struggle and hardship, learns a lot about himself so that we, as his audience, can learn a little about ourselves.
For those of you who don't recognize the name, you might remember Richard Crenna from his stint on "Judging Amy" or for "Rambo: First Blood" or even "Hot Shots: Part Deux." My personal favorite is "And the Sea Will Tell." (I don't want to spoil anything, but let me say this - boy, does that sea have a lot to offer about love, deception, and the price of trust ...)
Seriously, I love Richard Crenna, even though I do find it unforunate that he made movies with titles like "First, You Cry," "The Rape of Richard Beck" and "A Pyromaniac's Love Story."
Richard Crenna is a member of what many of us know to be the "Old Guard" of Lifetime. He's no flash in the pan. He won't do 1 "based on a true story" deal for the money or a desperate need to be in the limelight. He's in it. For the long haul. You'll see him again and again. He's with Meredith Baxter-Birney, Brian Denehy, Kate Jackson, Lindsay Wagner ... You know their faces even if it takes a second on their names.
They're always there. They've been wronged, but they keep on ticking. Meredith Baxter-Birney has been left by more men than I can count, and she's even killed a couple of them, but she'll still turn up on the tube sometimes, and she'll still have hair that yellowy blond color you've come to know and expect like the turning of the seasons or the fertility of K Fed.
Brian Denehy is kind of like your really creepy uncle. Sometimes he's defending the wronged. Sometimes he's attacking women in his dental office. He's not always a good guy and not always a bad guy ... It's a little like life, isn't it kids?
Joanna Kerns, God love her, she pretended to find Alan Thicke attractive for years and still had to make the movie "See Jane Run" (which is, of course, about an amnesiac who must not only overcome her own physical and psychological handicaps, but also save her daughter from her husband's abuse).
Their TV movies are cautionary tales in the truest sense. They remind you of every lurking danger, every unfulfilled dream, every psycho who might have commandeered your child's robot to spy on you in the shower ... For that, Old Guard of Lifetime, I salute you.
When You're Not Out In The Club
Weekend before last, I went up North to hang out with my friend Jane* and meet her new four-month old baby. Our friend Rita joined us, and we had a great time together. On the Saturday afternoon of our weekend, we decided (or really the one of us who is actually a mom decided) to hire a babysitter so that we could go see Bridesmaids (loved it, wish I could be Kristen Wiig, must move on now).
When we got back from the movie, Rita and I decided that it was wine time. This set us off on a slew of questions:
Was the babysitter 21? The answer: yes.
Should we offer the babysitter a glass of wine? I mean, we’re Southern, so it feels rude not to ask, but she is the babysitter and has to drive. We went with “no” on that one.
Is the babysitter going to judge us for drinking at five? Does she think we’re the lush friends of our suburban mom friend? The answer to that one is probably a sad yes.
I could have sworn that yesterday I was babysitting to supplement my income (and due to the Great Recession, “yesterday” is probably closer than you’d think), and suddenly I was on the other side of the babysitter scenario. I do not know when this happened. (In my head, I’m 17. Seriously. I just wish my face would stop giving me away.)
The next day, the babysitter came back so that Jane could drive Rita and I to the train station and the airport, respectively. While I was trying to hide just how much wine S and I actually drank the night before, we struck up another conversation with the babysitter.
“So, did you go out last night?” Rita said.
“Not really,” the babysitter said, “I was pretty tired.”
I decided to ask my own questions about where she liked to go and what there was to do around town.
And then it happened. I should have seen it coming, but it was a little like a freight train – not really welcome, but unstoppable. Within five minutes of what should have been a very innocuous conversation, I started to relive my “glory days” that were, if you know me well, not really so glorious. (I thank the magazine writer who put a piece in something I read about how she spent most of her early ‘20s in a bar bathroom stall crying about some dude or other before getting her act together. It gave me far more hope than any older adult or mental health professional at the time.)
Before I knew it, Rita and I were on a little bit of a roll. These are the kinds of phrases that came out of my mouth:
“I actually had a fake id that said I was 30 for awhile. It came complete with a social security card. Can you believe that?”
“Hey Rita, remember when I used to have a beer or two while I wrote my summer school papers? Did I really think Latin American economic policy and Bud Lite were a good mix?”
“What was that guy’s name we met in Adams Morgan over Spring Break? Didn’t somebody make out with him?”
And my favorite, which I believe I threw in there as I was walking out the door (a parting gift if you will):
“Don’t worry about having a gay ex-boyfriend or two. It happens to all of us.”
?!?!?!
In a way, my hope is that the babysitter got bored and stopped listening to us pretty quickly. Otherwise, I have a sinking suspicion she went home that night hopeful not to turn into the older crazy lady that was disposing of wine bottles and reminiscing about her borderline-indecent going out wardrobe from college.
*Names have been changed.
In The Event Of The End Of The World
I realize that some people think the world might end tomorrow. I’m not actually one of those people, and honestly, I don’t even know what the theory is based on, but I do pay attention to the four stories that pop up on my Yahoo! home page, and May 21 has been getting a lot of attention lately.
I mean, if the world is going to end, it’s not like there’s a lot I can do about it. (Not that this is an excuse to stop recycling or pursuing green initiatives in case there are still any conservatives left in my blog audience.) As I was discussing with a friend over the weekend, I think most generations would almost like to think that the end of the world would come within their lifetimes. It’s a good way to put off the unnerving truth/realization that, most likely, life will go on without us, for generations and generations, and possibly even eons. An ongoing world means we’re all a little more forgettable, and no one wants to be forgettable. (Sorry to get a little dark there.)
I also know some people are freaked out by the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Anxiety disorder and all, I think this is one of the least upsetting signs of a possible impending apocalypse. Let’s be real. For a group of people that went out around 1450, I think it’s pretty impressive they even bothered taking the calendar to 2012. How far out front are you supposed to get with those? I doubt anyone is working on day planners with New Yorker cartoons in them for 2415 right now, and I hardly take it as a sign that the world will end whenever the people down at the warehouse decide to stop making kitten calendars.
However, since we never know what can happen, I might need to get a few things off my chest before tomorrow – just in case.
1. I cheated on my menu tests at both La Paz and Calypso Joe’s. I have never cheated on any other tests in my life, but those menus presented some problems. At La Paz, I was a hostess, so I didn’t really see a need to learn the menu. They were going to make me take the test until I passed, so I used the menu as the hard surface on which to take my paper test. (I did learn a little though. That job is the only reason that I know the difference between an enchilada and a burrito is that a burrito is made with a flour tortilla while an enchilada is made with a corn one.) As for Calypso Joe’s, well, that one was just pride. The manager liked to post scores at the end of the day, and I refused to come in behind a bunch of perfect scores because I couldn’t have cared less about what dipping sauce came with the conch fritters.
2. I didn't like Titanic -- or Sex and the City.
3. From the ages of 21-25, I gave out my fake phone number to boys far too many times. It wasn’t very nice, but that’s kind of what happens when you’re a slightly cowardly people pleaser. It’s probably a little late, but I’d like to say I’m sorry anyway.
4. I don’t like the symphony, ballet or opera. I find them boring, and they always remind me of being forced to do educational stuff when I was a kid. (And this is coming from a girl who likes learning new vocabulary words.) If I nod when these topics of conversation come up, I’m only pretending to be cultured (or listening).
5. In the third grade, I stole my classmate's square dancing partner. I had a crush on the tallest boy in class, and square dancing partners were assigned by height. As the shortest girl in class, I was screwed -- and stuck with the boy who got very, very angry every time we played dodge ball in gym. When my classmate was out for a couple of days with a stomach bug, I saw my chance to move up, and we she came back to school, I pretty much implied that our teacher thought the new dance partner relationship was better. (Although, I hardly think our teacher had an opinion about the dancing partners.) Oh, the things we do for love ... And again, sorry about that one.
6. I prefer my dog to a lot of people. I can’t help it. She’s adorable, snuggly and completely non-critical. I should probably have some more love and compassion for humanity, but in general, a lot of my affection goes towards the dog. And that whole thing about there not actually being dogs in heaven if you go by strict theology? (I told you Sunday school was quite upsetting for me.) I’m not pleased.
7. For a few years now, my chest has actually been known as “the rapture.” It was a name that a female friend came up with for my boobs while we were drinking one night. I kind of thought it was awesome (especially since my late-blooming meant I didn't have a chest until the age of 18), and the name stuck. I hope this will not be considered blasphemous during the actual rapture, but clearly I can’t be sure. Even in the end of days, we can all appreciate a good joke, right? Maybe?
Anyway, I look forward to our continued interactions next week when I will most likely be experiencing some shame for what I hope are a few very premature confessions.
Truth And Fiction
Sorry for the short post today. Other than the big news coming about my Bissell SpotBot, it's been a less-than-creative week.
When I was working on my Master’s degree, I signed up for a fiction workshop one semester. Actually, I am no good at making things up. It’s the very reason I write creative nonfiction.
I cannot lie, I cannot cover for anyone and if you want to commit or have committed a crime, do not tell me about it.
Naturally, all of my fiction was based on my life, which is why it was so incredibly upsetting to go through a workshop and have the primary comment be, “This premise just isn’t believable. Something like this would never happen.”
(In case you’re wondering, the story in question was about a married couple with squatters in their back yard. At the time, my great aunt and uncle were trying to deal with some vagrants that had taken up behind their house – in Southside.)
So, whether or not anyone believes me when I write essay and memoir, at least I’ve gone ahead and called it truth to try and avoid that particular criticism.
For God’s sake, I have an anxiety disorder and occasionally still suffer from night terrors, and I was born on Elm Street.
The only time I almost got in a bar fight I was at a place called "The Trailer Park."
And, as I’ve said so many times before, I’ll never write a joke as good as this: My senior year of college, I took “Social Inequality” with Ivanka Trump.
She defended Reagan-omics, shock of shocks.
Sister Wives '70s Style
Today, I am grateful for two things:
1. I am not Daryl Hannah or Peter Gallagher, so I don’t have the movie Summer Lovers on my resume or imdb profile.
2. I did not come of age in the ‘70s or early ‘80s, so the subconscious soundtrack to my youth does not feature music from this time frame. (As always, Dan Folgerberg, you are excluded from any and all criticism.)
I was going to put that I was just glad that I didn’t come of age in the ‘70s until I learned that Summer Lovers was actually made in 1982. Based on the quality of the film, I did not see that one coming. (It also messed with my title, but I left it anyway.)
For those who haven’t had the opportunity to see it, and I wouldn’t recommend that, Summer Lovers is the tale of a couple abroad that learns to expand their horizons and defy convention, or some kind of early ‘80s new age crap of a similar vein. I just think of it as Sister Wives 1.0.
Why did I watch this movie? Because occasionally Netflix live-streaming and I have an unhealthy relationship, and after awhile, Summer Lovers is too much of a train wreck to look away from.
In the movie, Michael (Peter Gallagher) and Cathy (Daryl Hannah) go to Greece the summer after they graduate college, and inspired by the lack of inhibitions around them, strike out on a new path that involves living together with a French woman named Lina.
The movie thrives on two main principles:
1. Michael has to have an affair with a French woman that he meets because his “whole life has been planned out for him.” Really? We’re going to continue to trot this one out. Really? All I could hear in my head was James Van Der Beek saying “I don’t want your life” in Varsity Blues, and I actually preferred his acting to Peter Gallagher’s. (That’s right, I just made Varsity Blues a superior film.) Why can’t we just be honest and say that Michael has an affair with a French woman because he’s young, he’s a man and he can? The psychological subtext is weak, to say the least, and even though his girlfriend Cathy can’t see through it, I think the rest of us do.
2. Cathy can only enjoy self-discovery and liberation from Puritanical American values by not only accepting Michael’s love of Lina and overcoming her jealousy, but also falling in love with Lina, too. Or, as the rest of us call it, low self-esteem.
For anyone who thinks I watched this movie for the “sexy” scenes, let me assure you that there are none. (I think it’s a big mistake to make a movie with “lovers” in the title and not have good sexy scenes. I also think this movie would have really benefited from some better love scenes, and I think it’s rare to find that gem of a film that would be improved by taking more cues from porn.)
There is lots of nudity, but it’s all early-‘80s-at-the-beach nudity. It’s not pleasant. Also, having been to Greece, I can assure you that the beaches are not teeming with naked, attractive young people. Most everyone who takes advantage of the “optional” part of “clothing optional” is eligible for AARP membership or could really benefit from a few less gyros.
Now, you would think this movie might explore themes like what happens to a relationship of this sort or even what happens when summer ends. (Vicky, Christina, Barcelona is a good movie after all.) Summer Lovers doesn’t.
Spoiler Alert: Instead, you get this – once Lina the free-spirited European realizes that she might be developing feelings for Michael and Cathy, she runs away with someone who looks like he escaped from the set of Xanadu. She’s afraid of getting close to people. Saddened, Michael and Cathy decide to end their trip to Greece three weeks early. They are just about to board a plane off the island, when Lina arrives on a moped after doing some soul-searching. The very fact that she would ride a moped shows that Lina has broken through her own barriers since she swore the horrible scooters off after spraining her wrist during a particularly arduous moped outing for the threesome. (During this part of the movie, I mainly thought about how that sprained wrist must have been a real bummer for Michael.) Lina wants Michael and Cathy back, and the movie actually ends with a still shot of the three of them frolicking on the beach.
Clearly, I’m not speechless, but I’m having trouble here. Someone wrote this, someone else decided to throw money at it, and then someone convinced Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher it would be good for their careers. I find that both impressive and sad. (It’s similar to the feeling I get when I read some published authors and then count my rejection letters or watch Julia Stiles.)
My favorite scene was when Cathy’s mother paid the couple a surprise visit with her friend, only to find Lina living with Cathy and Michael. Later, the three of them then show up for dinner with Mom and gal pal.
In the end, I took two very important lessons from this film:
1. It’s hard on a couple when your girlfriend breaks up with you.
2. Your mistress should not join you for dinner with your mom. It’s just bad manners and makes everyone feel uncomfortable. Mistresses should stay home for family functions.
Also, "I’m so Excited," "Just Can’t Get Enough" and Chicago’s "Hard to Say I’m Sorry" – all featured on the soundtrack – are now ruined for me. If there was any music that I wouldn’t have minded from this era, thanks to Summer Lovers, it’s now dead to me anyway.
In the future, I think I need to take more caution with my Netflix recommendations. Clearly, the video service and I don't always see eye to eye, and considering my love of Lifetime, I could watch every bad movie in film history before this is over if I'm not careful.
A Sunday School Drop-Out Spared
My parents tend to worry – a lot. Kidnapping, hostage-taking, teen pregnancy, drugs, drunk driving – you name a problem; my parents have considered how to keep it from happening to their kids.
There’s only one thing my parents never worried about when it came to me and that had to do with joining a cult. Their theory? “You had so much trouble with conventional religion; we never really figured you’d fall for some extreme splinter group.”
I guess there’s at least one plus to raising a natural skeptic.
My parents both taught Sunday school when I was growing up. My father taught kindergarten, and my mother usually taught sixth grade.
Through what I will claim is no fault of my own, I tended to be a troublemaker in Sunday school class. It’s not that I ever meant to get in trouble; I just like to ask a lot of questions. (Outside of Sunday school, my mother and I spent many hours in the library researching my various topics of interest from why ostriches liked to stick their heads in the sand, how an egg develops and the growth of asparagus.) Curiosity, neurotic-ism or annoyance? You decide.
Wikipedia and IMDB have been Godsends in my adult life.
Long before I knew the difference between evolution and creationism, when one of my Sunday school teachers went over Genesis, I had to ask why she seemed to be in direct conflict with my science teacher. “If the Earth was created in six days, what about the dinosaurs?” I said.
Mrs. Johnson, my science teacher at the time, had explained that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with no humans, and I really didn’t see where Adam and Eve fit in on this time frame.
Then, there was the day our Sunday school teacher came in to explain that “We were all adopted because we were all God’s children, and He had given us to our parents on loan.” (The “on loan” might not be a direct quote, but I promise that that Sunday school teacher was not particularly eloquent.)
I think I started the crying that day, but I know a lot of other kids eventually joined in. I think adoption is lovely, but as a kid who feared learning she was one day adopted, breaking the news this way seemed insensitive to say the least.
I also did not know how much I would upset my first grade Sunday school teacher when I answered the question, “What’s the last movie you all saw?” with “Aliens.” My mom had been out of town, and it was true. I’m sorry she only wanted Disney answers.
Eventually, my Sunday school teachers seemed really tired of my questions, and it could be hard to get them to notice my raised hand, but I’m not one to give up easily.
“Would King Herod really have cut the baby in half? What if none of the moms said anything?”
“How could you really have all of your power in your hair?”
“Wouldn’t the whale’s stomach acid be a problem for Jonah?”
“Just going from Saul to Paul doesn’t seem like a real earth-shattering name change. Wouldn’t Joe or Sam have been more dramatic?”
Apart from making my class the Bible Trivia champion of 1980-something, I was not an asset to most Sunday school classes. (I actually had to share that title with another Sunday school class, a decision I contested and still consider to be an unfair ruling, but the journey to move on continues.)
I don’t know whether or not it was discussed during some sort of Sunday school teacher conference, but from fourth grade on, I spent three years in my mother’s Sunday school class. She was used to my questions, and I imagine my departure from the regular course of Methodist teachings was a relief to many.
So, this Mother’s Day, I’d like to thank my mom for putting up with a lot – from the struggle to define infinity for me to typing up the school newspaper my third grade class dreamed up one day. But, I suppose that most of all, I’d like to thank her for taking me in when no one else was eager to, listening to and trying to find answers to my questions and never making me feel like I was the weird one for going against the flow.
Happy Mother’s Day Mama! I love you!
The Beach, Perfection And Big Wheels
This past weekend I went to the beach, and I was reminded how important it was for me when I was little to create a “perfect” last day vacation memory. Basically, if we were leaving the beach the next morning, I thought that the last time I stepped off the beach the day before needed to be postcard-worthy ideal. (Can we say obsessive much? This is even before that obligatory age when you have to read Our Town, after which I tried desperately to notice life in the moment. I found it exhausting and only made it about two weeks.)
In particular, I remember a time that we were staying at one of those condo units where you had to use a raised bridge to safely cross the street from the beach to your hotel.
On our last day of the trip, I walked up the center of the stairs at sunset (because no perfect memory happens without symmetry or when you’re too close to the hand rail), turned around to face the ocean, took in a deep breath of sea air, and then turned to walk down the center of the bridge – without looking back – towards our condo.
At the time, I thought, “This is a perfect moment.”
Since then, it’s been my experience that trying for perfect moments is more likely to ruin an experience than enhance it. Putting too much pressure on anything other than a bleeding wound usually tends to backfire, and it’s pretty hard to manufacture perfection outside of a movie set. I find imperfection much funnier (usually) as well as a good indicator of whom you should and should not be dating. (I mean, if you’re going to be stuck in the airport for added hours, wouldn’t you far rather it be with someone who can find some fun in the situation rather than the person who yells at every flight crew member they spot?)
Also, being quite flawed myself, a life that didn’t involve embracing imperfection would be pretty darn frustrating. And I just don’t think Thornton Wilder wants that for any of us.
Moving back to what was going to be my core topic, I also remembered some other awesome ideas/beliefs/misconceptions I had as a child. Here are a few of the “brilliant” ideas from my youth:
1. Doctors should use magnets on gunshot wounds. If a bullet is metal, why wouldn’t the magnet just pull it out of the skin?
2. Unicorns – real. Everyone else – confused and unwilling to believe.
3. Drinking and driving applied to any beverage. Therefore, I would not take a coke or water with me before a bicycle or Big Wheel ride.
4. There’s no such thing as infinity. Space may be vast, but it has an ending or borders. It just fit inside a really, really big box.
5. Policemen were mind readers. If you had done anything wrong and were anywhere within their vicinity, they would know – whether it was sneaking cookies or robbing banks.
Truthfully, I’m still holding out hope on #2, and every policeman makes me nervous to this day, but at least I’ve given up on the idea of patenting #1. As for those perfect vacation memories? They have a much broader definition as well. As long as I don’t drown in the ocean, I tend to call it a good day.
Acts Of God And Nature
Not to go all Patch Adams on everyone, but I really do feel like laughter can be the best medicine (along with antibiotics and all the traditional Western stuff that is). I think we should look for laughter – and joy – whenever we can because life can be pretty darn hard.
However, there are also plenty of times when laughter doesn’t seem appropriate. Or when there doesn’t seem like there’s much to laugh about. For the past few months, I often haven’t felt like laughing, but that’s another story for another day, when I’m ready to tell it.
More immediately, today is not a day that I feel like I can share anecdotes or talk about my annoyances from trips to the pharmacy, talking on the phone or attempting to fit in the clothes at Forever 21 (because at 31, I still believe I can be Forever 21).
On Wednesday, as most of the nation knows, a tornado unlike anything I have ever seen tore through my state and my city. The worst reports I hear have the main funnel at 1.5 miles wide and traveling a 200-mile path. Hundreds of people are dead, missing or homeless. So, even though I’ve spent most of my life being called irreverent, I’m going to just let today be today. There but for the grace of God, they say.
Also, at the risk of sounding preachy (which is not anywhere I ever want to go), I’ve been thinking about the ring my best friend gave me when I graduated from college. She’d had the same one for years, and I’d always wanted one of my own. It’s made of silver and says “This too shall pass” in Hebrew. A skyline of Jerusalem is engraved on the inside.
(I’m not Jewish. I have a St. Jude medal, too, even though I’m not Catholic. I don’t worry about it, so I ask you not to either, if you’d be so kind.)
At the time, I thought my “This too shall pass” was just a reminder that the bad times aren’t permanent and won’t last forever. (I’m sure it’s the depressive in me.) However, my friend reminded me that the adage isn’t just for the dark moments. It’s a reminder in the happy ones, too. We will not always be sad, just as we will not always be happy. Life happens in the ebb and flow, and you have to appreciate each of the moments when you’re in them because you have no idea how long they’ll last or what you might learn.
Like we all know, life is hard, and it isn’t fair. I’m just trying to figure it out like anyone else. And what do I know? Very little. But I know that today I’m lucky while others aren’t, and I may not always be the lucky one.
To quote more pop culture (because that’s what I do) I like what Morgan Freeman says in Bruce Almighty. When it’s all going downhill, sometimes it’s not the time to look up, but to look around. I am thankful for the family, friends, volunteers and general human beings who share in our triumphs and do want they can to make the tough times a little easier to bear.
Handling Telemarketers
In the last few days, my cell phone has become telemarketer central.
I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but I think it has something to do with a pre-caffeine, I-know-it’s-too-good-to-be-true-but-I’m-feeling-overly-optimistic-today visit to a site that promised free iPads. My punishment for this lack of good judgment? Counting down the 31 days until I can start filing complaints with the Do Not Call Registry.
Fortunately, I treat my phone like I treat the front door – if I don’t know you, and I’m not expecting you, I don’t answer. Unfortunately, because ringing phones drive me mildly insane no matter where they are, I’d still put this in the “nuisance” category.
(One of these repeat callers is not a telemarketer, but rather the mail-order drug company I “have the privilege” of using under my new health insurance. Note to my health care company: It’s not a privilege if I don’t want to use the service but have to if I don’t want to pay the full-price of my medications. I really wish more people would check the dictionary before speaking. This information is not relevant, but it bugs me, so it gets included.)
Tired of the ever-ringing phone, I finally decided to answer one of these unidentified calls. My usual M.O. for telemarketers goes something like this:
“Hi, do you have time to listen to our great offer about X?”
“Sure, I’d love to,” I say.
Click.
I’m a hanger-upper. I don’t like to converse. I don’t like to argue. I just hang up. It’s cowardly, but it works. It’s either that or I tell them to call me back during a time I know I won’t be available. Like the title’s said for over five years now, it is what it is.
But, this time it was a little different.
“Hi, I’m calling from X* publishers.”
Publishers? In whatever delusional optimism I’ve been suffering from these past few days (like the free iPads that originally got me into this mess), for a few seconds I considered whether or not this might have something to do with my writing.
It didn’t.
“We’d like to inform you that you’ve been selected to receive a $1,000 gift certificate from our company. You can log on to our website and choose for a variety of home goods, clothes, shoes …”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now, you’re probably thinking that this sounds too good to be true.”
This would be exactly what I’m thinking, but now I’m kind of intrigued by what the catch is.
“In addition to this gift certificate that you can spend immediately, you’ll also receive a subscription to five magazines, including Woman’s Day … for the next 60 months.”
“I see,” I say. I wonder if it’s like Barnes & Noble, and I can cancel these subscriptions whenever I like and still keep the gift certificate. Again, for some reason that might have to do with my new vitamin supplement, I’ve gotten a whole lot more gullible lately.
“All you’ll have to day is pay us a weekly fee of $3.95 for the next 60 months so we can manage your magazine subscriptions.”
Despite my issues with calculus, I know enough about math to figure that $3.95 charge is about $208.00 per year. I also know that 60 months is five years, so we’ve just put the cost of this “great service” at $1,040.00. The $1,000 gift certificate immediately makes sense. Buy over-priced crap, and we’ll bleed your checking account slowly buy surely for the next five years.
For some reason though, this isn’t what upsets me. I expected a catch from a telemarketer. What bugs me is the “subscription management service.” Is there really anyone out there who feels overwhelmed by the process of subscribing to magazines? When do I renew? How do I do it? What day of the month will my issue arrive? There’s so much paper in my mailbox!
Yeah, I don’t think so. And if there is someone out there who needs that much help with their magazines, I’m more than willing to provide the same service for a mere $3.50 per week. (You’ll find my contact info under the About Me tab.) I imagine these are the same people who struggle with blankets and watering ferns, but bygones.
Since I’d had this conversation for too long to just hang up, I had to default to my “Why don’t you call me back later” excuse and have proceeded to avoid the same number ever since.
It’s been a good time, and I only have 30 more days to go …
* Clearly, the name has been changed.
My Beef Of The Week
First of all, let me say that I like babies. I like them a lot in fact. I like pregnant people. I have no issues there. I love my pregnant friends and their babies. I love strangers that are pregnant and their babies. Little people are cute.
However, what I do not like is a certain big box baby story that has taken the name of a lovely musical and turned it into a play on words celebrating capitalism and conspicuous consumption. (Yes, Buy Buy Baby, I’m looking at you. I won’t say that you’re a lot of what’s wrong with America because that would obviously be a bit extreme, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about it occasionally.)
This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of going to Buy Buy Baby. Clearly, my first mistake was going on a Saturday. I work from home, I have other opportunities to shop and I should have known better. I will take responsibility for throwing myself in with the stroller stampede at such an inopportune time.
Inside, I walked straight to the registry desk and gave the lovely woman behind the counter my friend’s name. Now, while she’s pulling up my friend’s registry, I can clearly see a line, three-deep of gift bags behind her. Are these gift bags for anyone using the registry service? Of course not. These gift bags are for registering pregnant ladies. What I’m about to say will probably sound selfish and I like I need to feel special all the time, but well, I can fall into that category, so I’m just going to own it. Pregnant women come in to Buy Buy Baby to scan gifts they want and leave, and they get the free stuff? I come in here to print out a piece of paper that will tell me what to spend money on, and I get nothing? I think there’s a flaw in the system. Why can’t we all have gift bags for being in the store? Hell, I’d even settle for a sticker. Did no one hear read about reciprocity in Psych 101? You have no idea the unnecessary shopping I’ve done for a logo-embossed stress ball or ruler.
As the registry attendant hands me my print out, she says, “When you check out, don’t forget to give the cashier your registry so you can enjoy the free gift wrap service.”
I thank her and move on. This is when I discover that the registries at Buy Buy Baby are arranged in no way that is at all helpful. I want aisle numbers and kiosk locations. What I get are headings like “Feeding” and “Bedding.” Bottles are in feeding? Really? And crib sheets belong in bedding? What would I have done without this oh-so-handy information?
Going through the list, I decide that I want something like the Go Monkey Pack ‘n’ Play Travel Go Set. I walk to the “Toys” section, but can’t seem to find it in the sea of other themed baby items, so I look for an associate.
“Can you help me find the Go Monkey Pack ‘n’ Play Travel Go Set?” I ask the first person in a blue shirt I can find.
It is at this point that I realize Buy Buy Baby has caused me to speak complete nonsense. A Go Monkey yadda yadda go set? Who am I?
We walk to toys together. (I will say that the Buy Buy Baby staff is incredibly nice. My strong feelings are reserved for their employer – “The Baby Man,” “The Baby Machine,” “The Baby Capitalist” or whatever you want to call it.) Our conversation continues, and while these were not the exact words used, this is what if felt like.
“I don’t see Go Monkey, but how about Chimpanzee Play Park?”
“I’d really rather have Go Monkey.”
“Are you sure that it say’s it available there? If it says that it’s available, I’m going to have to go to the back.”
I nod, and I wait.
“It says it’s available because only the display model is left. Would you like to special order it?”
I think, “And drive the 15 miles back here to pick it up?” I say, “No thank you.”
Three people then apologize to me about the dearth of Go Monkeys.
“It’s fine, really. I’ll find something else.”
I’m temped to go look for the Cuddle ‘n’ Love Sleepy Time Lamb Buddy (do you not see what I mean about this nonsense language?), but since it’s under the “Miscellaneous” heading, I assume I will never locate the item in the store. (Is that a wire basket near the cash register? A wall in between sections?) The Soft Fleece Wrap Wrist Buddy also confuses me, and unable to handle another conversation with a sales associate, I head to feeding feeling like I probably can’t get bottles wrong.
Purchase at last in hand, I head to check-out and hand over my items and my registry print-out.
“Thank you for shopping with us today, and please feel free to make use of our gift-wrapping station.”
Wrapping station? Now, in my mind, complimentary gift wrap service is labor-free. At Buy Buy Baby, complimentary gift wrap is exactly what it sounds like – free wrapping paper.
At the station, I wrap my gifts in paper covered with the Buy Buy Baby logo. So, really, what I’m doing here is perpetuating Buy Buy Baby’s advertising while annoying everyone in line behind me because of my ribbon-tying difficulties. This only reminds me that for my help with their marketing, I really should have gotten one of those free gift bags from behind the registry counter, and I use an extra piece of the nice ribbon in my own passive-aggressive revenge move.
Finally free of the store, I nearly skip to my car. I would vow to only shop online in the future, but I’m not sure how I’d use my coupons that way. Then I’m off to pick up another baby registry at Target.
Oh, Target, how I love you. I can print my own registry. The registry is organized by aisles. I actually find what I need without having to say the words “nipple,” breast pump” or “Me Learn To Drive Baby” aloud.
And then I see it. In aisle N22. Just below the bibs. It’s the exact two items I just purchased from Buy Buy Baby. For less.
Luckily, I find it to hard to get too angry when surrounded by onesies, and I knew it was better to just walk away.
Pregnant and mom friends, I love you dearly, but I might have to start some sort of campaign for a price-matching program at the baby box store. I apologize in advance if I embarrass you.
As for Buy Buy Baby, I know we will meet again, but as far as I’m concerned, this isn’t over – not by a long shot.
The End Of An Era And A Day of Mourning
All My Children and One Life to Live were cancelled yesterday. (AMC and OLTL for those of use in the Soap Opera Digest know.) While this may not seem like a big deal to some, it’s the end of a very special era for me, and dare I say it, America.
I have never hidden my love of soap operas. Without them, I probably wouldn’t be the slightly dramatic, prone-to-hyperbole gal that I am today. My secret wish in life has always been to be a soap actress (preferably playing my own evil twin as well). I believe soap operas taught me as much about dialogue as any other writing. If you think about it, that’s all that really happens on a soap anyway.
I may not have watched a soap in years (I got too old for the drama. Once my couple is together, I want them to stay together), but that doesn’t mean my love for the characters or the genre is at all diminished.
Perhaps more important than my personal loss is what this means for television. Is this just another nail in the coffin of scripted television? Will our children grow up on reruns of Nancy Grace, Judge Judy and Jersey Shore? Will Maury’s paternity tests go on indefinitely? Will Cheaters be the default for tired moms folding laundry throughout the day?
On soap operas, despite the shenanigans, the good are eventually rewarded while those who lie, trick and manipulate are punished. Can I come even close to saying the same thing about any of the Real Housewives? No.
Even taking me and the fate of television out of the equation, who will teach the children? How will they know all that they’re missing?:
1. The L-Shaped Sheet: That special sheet used in post-coital daytime scenes to cover the woman to her sternum and the man to his waist.
2. How easy and inevitable it is for the heir from the right side of the tracks to fall for the girl from the wrong side of the tracks (most likely after a lifetime of playing together while her mother worked in the rich people’s home).
3. A kinder, gentler and generally more attractive mafia.
4. Is there a better memory exercise than keeping tracks of characters’ changing last names? I’m not convinced.
5. The aforementioned evil twins.
6. The common, everyday nature of long-lost siblings and children.
7. The inevitability of aging – how toddlers will go upstairs in the Spring and re-emerge as teenagers during May sweeps (usually just in time for Summer story lines to capture the teen demographic).
8. Hospitals run by three doctors that don’t need specialties because they have to treat every problem from pregnancy to trauma in a town of 40.
9. The real emotional toil of amnesia and multiple personality disorder.
10. Paternity tests limited to two candidates – one’s loving husband/boyfriend and the ex you accidentally slept with while thinking your loving partner was cheating on you.
11. How to run a city with only cops, lawyers, doctors, competing corporate magnates, models, the help and the staff of one restaurant/night club/coffee shop/country club.
I’m nervous about a world without Oprah, Susan Lucci or Erica Sleazak. Someone please hold me and tell me it’s all going to be OK.
R-Rated Souvenirs
I’m not always up to date on the latest lingo and certain slang terms. If you text me any short hand other than LOL or OMG, I’m completely lost. I have recently added IDK (I don’t know) and IRL (in real life) to my vocabulary, but for the longest time I thought an IDK just meant someone had probably been drinking and was having trouble spelling.
Despite my wide range of friends, sub-sets of society with their own terms also tend to be beyond me. (It took me two years, and extensive questioning, to grasp “emo.”)
When I was living in Chicago for the summer, I lived a few blocks north of Wrigley Field and not far from Boystown, a well-known area for gay men. (According to Wikipedia, it was the first recognized gay village in the United States. I’ve learned something new today.) One day, there was a street fair in Boystown, and a friend and I were off to enjoy the festivities. The primary highlight of the day had been a Menudo/Spice Girls style group singing in matching white outfits with different colored sash belts (to represent all the colors of the gay rainbow) until I spotted a carnival game.
A couple of men were standing next to rows of plastic pigs. For a dollar, you could purchase rings to toss around the pigs, and if you rung one, you could choose between some prizes. Condoms were free just for participating, but what I really wanted was this adorable little pig keychain. The booth was sponsored by Steamworks, which I assumed was some kind of gym.
“Can I please borrow a couple of dollars?” I begged of my friend since I never carry cash.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said. “Look how adorable those pigs are.”
I think it took more than a couple of dollars, but I finally got one of those rings around a pig and got my keychain. I was also decked out in some free beads and condoms for my patronage.
Wearing my beads proudly, my friend and I continued our walk through the street festival, until my friend couldn’t hold his laughter in anymore.
“Did you know what Steamworks is, Laurel?”
“Something fitness-related?” I said.
“It’s a bathhouse.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, I was not so sure about the logo stamped on the keychain I adored so much.
“And did you happen to notice the name of the game?”
“The game had a name?”
“It was written in big letters,” he said. “Give a pig a pearl necklace?”
“Uh-huh.” This meant nothing to me. I knew the “pearl necklace” part did not reference jewelry thanks to having gone to high school, but it still wasn’t clicking for me.
Then, my friend leaned in and whispered what it all meant.
“Oh,” I said again.
“I just thought you should know,” he said, before feeling free to really laugh out loud.
I looked down at my beads that had a medallion reading, “I gave a pig a pearl necklace at Steamworks.”
“I think I’ll take these off now,” I said.
“I thought that might be the case.”
I still have the beads and keychain because, let’s be honest, it’s not like I’ll have another chance to get such unique mementos, but I don’t wear them out and about. And if clueless-ness provides you with endless entertainment, I’m clearly your gal for all sorts of adventures.
The Birds And The Bees
No one ever had the sex talk with me.
My mother once asked, while I was locked in the car (her preferred means of trapping me for uncomfortable conversations), clearly embarrassed herself, “Do you have any questions about sex?”
I, equally embarrassed and after a long pause, said, “Yes.”
“Do you have specific questions?”
I shook my head “no.” I was not prepared for this, although I did have a bad feeling when the lock dropped on the passenger seat door for our impromptu “fun trip to the mall.”
“Do you think you’d like a book or something?”
I nodded.
A few days later, my mom slid a large picture book under my bedroom door. (I was 11 at the time and hadn’t read a picture book since about the age of 5.)
Of course, I immediately dove into the picture book. I had had questions about sex for years (or two, whatever). When we went to my grandmother’s house, I used to grab the “S” World Book encyclopedia for her shelf and look up “sex” when I thought no one was looking. (I always kept a hand on another page like “Syria” or “sulfur” just in case someone would come downstairs and wonder what I was researching.) Unfortunately, the 1963 World Book only covered sex as a topic having to do with plant reproduction, so that was a quick dead end.
When I was six or so, a friend of mine told me what sex was as she’d learned from her older sister, but I had a hard time with her definition. In the end, she was right, but it sounded awfully made up at that point.
What I remember from the picture book were drawings of an overweight couple and mention of loving one another a whole lot, nudity and friction. It might be because I was a very shallow child, but the really overweight cartoons were an immediate turn-off. (I now think it was an excuse to keep from making the figures anatomically-correct. Those bellies covered a lot.) These people just disturbed me, and I was glad they had found one another, but I did not want to read about their expressions of physical love.
That book was the last mention of sex my mom made to me for another eight years.
We clearly had sex education in school, but our first sex ed program was a little extreme, and I think it scarred most of us for life.
At the beginning of the day, a woman stood before us with a pink paper heart. “There once was a girl named Jane. Jane met a boy that she liked. She thought she loved him. Jane decided to have sex with this boy – before they were married. Then the boy dumped Jane, and she lost a little bit of her heart …” At this point, a corner of the paper heart was torn off.
“Then Jane meets another boy, and she thinks that she loves him too …” she went on. Before long the entire heart lay shredded before us.
“By the time Jane wants to get married, she has no heart left to give.”
There was a later story along similar lines about a girl who decided to wear the special pearls her parents were going to give her on her wedding day before their special time. She snuck in to her parent’s room and stole the pearls to wear when she went out (which is what everyone does with pearls); so that by the time she received the pearls on her wedding day, they were brown and dirty. In short – damaged goods.
The latter story bothered me only because I knew from my mom that pearls needed to be worn to keep their shine. Something about the oils in your skin being good for the jewelry. I got where the woman was going with her story. I just thought she should have chosen a more accurate metaphor.
The day ended with abstinence pledges that were “our choice” to sign, but everyone from the program stood over our shoulders for extended periods of time while handing them out.
After the disastrous paper heart incident and poorly-chosen allegories, the school stuck to puberty and “our changing bodies.” When I changed schools, sex ed was led by someone who looked like the picture-perfect grandma, and after she said “fellatio” more than once with her lovely, I-made-you-cookies-dear smile, I think we were all traumatized in a different way. (If trauma was meant to counter raging teenage hormones, I suppose it was borderline successful.)
Cosmo was my new textbook, for better or worse.
It wasn’t until years later, when I was already in college that my father referenced the sex talk my mom and I had had when I was younger. My mother, my father and I were in the car on the way back from dinner.
“Sex talk? What sex talk?” I said.
“Your mother and I talked about it, and she agreed that she would be the one to give you and your sisters the sex talk. Surely, you remember that?” my dad said.
“There was no sex talk,” I said.
This is when my mother finally 'fessed up. “I couldn’t go through with it,” she said. “It was just too hard. I couldn’t do it.”
“Laurel’s mother!” (I don’t like to use real names.)
“You try it,” she said. “It’s not easy.”
“Clearly,” my father said, “but I think it’s a little too late for me to give it a shot.”
“You promised,” my father said.
“Well,” my mother said, "like you said, it's a little late."
Finally, the missing piece of my adolescence made sense. “So,” my father said after a few minutes, “where did you learn about sex?”
And that’s when I gave him the answer every parent wants to hear, “On the street, of course.”
From The Way Back Machine: Laurel As Marketing Guru
From my days on the Lipstick magazine blog, circa 2008. (Although, in my new incarnation as media guru, I would like to add for my clients that I understand -- and love -- e-blasts and viral videos, but I remain ambivalent about mass text alerts.):
I will be the first to confess that I am no marketing guru.
I have an OK head for business — supply and demand, profit margin, yada, yada. But I could care less about packaging, price points, focus groups and all the rest of it. (My brilliant slogans for Lipstick — "Read Lipstick magazine!" "Lipstick is a good magazine!" — were met with blank stares, and probable questioning of whether or not I was a good hire on the fourth floor.) I like what I like, and I tend to assume that other people will like what I like, too. Self-involved? Yes, but it's gotten me this far — 8' X 4' cubicle and all the printer paper a girl could want — so why ask questions now.
Apart from my love of funnyordie.com, I don't necessarily understand all of the new-fangled means of marketing like e-mail blasts, viral videos and text message alerts either. But, despite the fact that I can be out touch with what the kids are doing these days, I do still think of myself as a relatively informed and intelligent human being.
And it is for this very reason that I am completely baffled by CNN's latest venture. When you go to the CNN.com main page, you'll notice that certain stories have a little video camera and a little t-shirt icon next to them. The video icon is so that you can watch the story. This makes sense. After all, CNN stands for cable news network. The little t-shirt icon is so that you can purchase a t-shirt with that particular headline on it.
Seriously?
I read US Weekly; I've noticed how much fun people have putting pithy sayings on t-shirts. I've seen plenty of "Your boyfriend thinks I'm hot" and "Everyone loves an Italian boy." And, while sometimes it's hard to find the appeal of this ("Give me my coffee and no one gets hurt"? on a shirt? why?), I can accept it.
What I can't understand is why anyone would want to wear a CNN headline. Here are some examples from yesterday:
Colossal squid has soccer-ball eyes
Teen too young for 'come hither' pose?
And my personal favorite: Crying 4-year-old found along highway
Why on earth would anyone need a shirt emblazoned with "Crying 4-year-old found along highway"? I hardly think it's the same frat boy market that buys up "Beer drinkers get more head," or the politicos looking for "Every time you vote democratic, God kills a kitten." And I can't really see how slogan-ed t-shirts would be the final piece of Ted Turner's multi-layered, much-researched media empire.
Then again, I'm no marketing guru.