Some Pig

Letter From A Broad: Dear 16-Year-Old Me Edition

Dear 16-Year-Old Me,

Yeah, I am totally stealing this idea from that melanoma awareness PSA, except for the focus on excessive sun exposure.  Not that you didn't do your level best to bake yourself into shoe leather, mind you; it's just that between living where there is only ten weeks of summer and eventually marrying Captain Sunscreen, you didn't get as much opportunity to overexpose yourself as you would have liked.  However, make a note to yourself that Warren is never allowed to see that PSA or else the girls will spend the rest of their childhood in lead-lined burkas and will turn into mole people.  

Anyway, I am going to dispense with the hi-how-are-yous since I know how you are; you're me, after all.  I would like to share my wisdom from the lofty perspective of one two several additional decades beyond 16 so you can learn from it now. And the first thing I'd like to share is, Take my advice and get over yourself.  Most of the problems and worries that keep you up at night either are going to resolve themselves over time, go away of their own accord, or don't matter as much as you think they do.  And for the love of Buddha, stop being so dang paranoid.  You are going to find out at your reunion that half the people you thought hated you either liked you just fine or didn't think you even knew who they were.  If you spent less time assuming other people automatically dislike you, you'd have more time to do things like say "hi" and be friendly.  Sheesh. 

You will have boyfriends and get married.  Just want you to know.  And you did just fine in the latter department, too, if I do say so myself. 

The hair situation, on the other hand, is hopeless.  Give up on ever having stylish hair until Ouidad comes along.  Trying to feather your hair is just an exercise in futility, and please do not - DO NOT - try to wear your hair in a bob in the early nineties.  No matter how much layering your hairdresser does, you will look like Roseanne Roseannadanna on a humid day. 

While you're 16 and just heading into junior year, might I suggest taking your academics just a wee bit more seriously?  Yeah, I know I just told you to lighten up in some areas, but that will give you room to bear down in others.  Because high school?  Is not hard.  I realize you think it is SO difficult and you are working SOOOO hard, but trust me, it isn't and you aren't.  When you go to college and overhear the prep school kids comparing what they had for workload at the same age, you are going to realize that you were barely one step removed from having circle time and taking naps after lunch.  Not that those two things aren't appealing, but trust me, they're not going to get you into Princeton and law school (which is the delusion you're currently laboring under).  Oh!  And do try to pay a little bit of attention in your US History class.  I know you hate it and it's dull and stupid, but trust me on this one - someday you are going to earn your crust from knowing this stuff, and it would be nice not to have to teach yourself everything you couldn't learn from listening to "I'm Just a Bill" and the Preamble song.

Also, would you please, please, please go into a well-lighted room and just stare at your skin for a minute?  Or an hour?  As you do, I want you to revel in how unlined, dewy, and smooth it is (mostly because all that sun worship hasn't caught up to you yet).  Notice how the skin under your eyes is the same tone and texture as the rest of your skin?  See how your eyes and mouth have no little lines at the corners?  See how your skin springs right back to normal after you pinch it a bit?  Enjoy that, and then come back and tell me all about it.

By the by, I know you're perplexed about why you can't run in Phys. Ed.  It's because your feet apparently were assembled out of odds and ends they found in the junk drawer.  That's why every time you break into a jog, your feet feel like you're running on bags of nuts and bolts and your knees hurt.  Someday you are going to drop a huge wad of cash at the podiatrist's so he can make you a pair of orthotics that look like something out of the Star Wars trilogy (the new one, not the old one), and you will be able to bear weight on your feet again without wincing.  So next time you are subjected to the scorn of the girls' PE teacher, the one who always rolls her eyes and makes comments under her breath about the kids who aren't athletic superstars, feel free to walk up to her and tell her to suck it.  In the meanwhile, I'd appreciate your NOT wearing the 3" heels so frequently for that same reason.

While we're on the topic of health and fitness, for the love of Ben AND Jerry, eat a friggin' ice cream sundae once in a while.  You spend your entire 16th year on a stupid diet, obsessing about food.  You know what's attractive about a teenaged girl with a food obsession?  Nothing, that's what.  Did you get the part where I told you you'd have boyfriends?  And get married?  See?  Dieting didn't get you any closer to that, so eat like a normal human being and stop worrying about it.

Enjoy your cheerleading days.  You don't know it, but these are the waning days of high school sports as extracurricular activities, before private clubs and travel teams and personal trainers and cheer gyms and AAU. You are going to love coaching many years hence, but you are going to be sad that the girls look down at cheering at games because they could be preparing their competition routine.  Soon getting the crowd pumped up and cheering for your classmates is going to be far, far down the list of priorities for cheerleaders, which is really too bad.

Oh yes, and take a good, long look at the girl sitting at the far end of your little group at the lunch table - you know, the one you always make sure to keep as far away from as you can get.  Yes, I do mean the girl you consider to be your arch-enemy, as a matter of fact.  Why?  Well, in twenty five years, she is going to friend you on Facebook (don't try to figure that out; you'll get it later) and you are going to discover that this particular girl - the same one you consider to be evil and heinous and would like to set on fire - is so similar to you, there will be times when you swear she took the thoughts right out of your head and said them out loud. In fact, you two will consider each other your sista from anotha motha.  At this point, I will shut my mouth and let you deduce the (very obvious) Life Lesson from this fact that I hope you learn. 

Another key point: You are an introvert.  You are going to spend your entire college career and many years afterward trying to convince yourself you're not, but you are.  Spare yourself a couple thousand unpleasant Saturday nights surrounded by loud, drunk strangers and go do what you really want to do in the first place, which is to curl up on the couch with a good book or a mindlessly entertaining movie.  You can thank me later.

Now, I've been pretty harsh on you about a few things, so I will give credit where credit is due:  You have a knack for finding people who are truly friends and not just acquaintances.  Years from now you will still be friends with Amy, Anne, Cas, Colleen, Derek, Donna, Heather, Lisa, Lisa, Martha, and Melanie, just to name the most obvious examples.  Your girls and Elaine's kids will be so close, they call each other cousins.  For someone going through a time of life generally characterized by ThE dRamA!!!1, you did a pretty good job avoiding the phoniness and bullsh!t that can come with that.

 Finally, I just want to let you know that the life you've envisioned for yourself - the one that marches in an unbroken cadence from college to marriage to stellar career to perfect children and so on - well, that just ain't happening.  You're going to think that's the path you should try to take, but you'll experience more than one sudden turn or sharp jolt along the way, so don't sweat it.  Besides, that path probably wouldn't have been as rewarding in the long run anyway.  When all is said and done, being happy doesn't come from reaching a certain milestone by a certain age or completing a bunch of stuff on a to-do list.  Although it wouldn't kill you to put a little sunscreen on that lovely young skin along the way, mmmkay?

Love,

Most Definitely NOT 16-Year-Old Me

 

I Can't Wait Til 2016

Recently, the older one has been growing more aware of the concept of private property and boundaries.  This is to say, she is more aware of HER property and HER boundaries, while the rest of us (i.e., the grownups) can just go whistle as far as that is concerned.  This is why she feels perfectly free to tromp into my room unannounced, rummage through my makeup drawer, offer her unvarnished opinion as to the fashionability of my wardrobe, wear my shoes around the house, and then insist with a straight face that I, along with everyone else in the family, should give her room a wide berth.  What's more, my firstborn has the typical first child's predilection for rules and regulations.  (Just try urging her to hustle up and make a move during a board game when it's her turn; I dare you.) 

Recently, India came to me with a request for a custom transcription job.  She had come to the realization that, HORRORS, other members of the family were accustomed to WALKING IN AND OUT OF HER ROOM as if they owned the place or something, and by golly, that situation wasn't going to go unaddressed.  Comments to the fact that some of the people entering and exiting her room DID happen to own the place went unacknowledged while the room's erstwhile proprietress had me draft this little missive, laying out the ground rules for the unaware:

India made several pointed references to the sign while her primary audience blithely walked right by it on her way into India's room.  India immediately rectified the situation by frog-marching the offending sibling to the door and reading the whoooole sign, Emphasizing!  Every!  Individual!  Word!  Along!  The!  Way!

Not to be outdone, the younger force of nature counterpunched by dictating this little doozy:

Sadly, I fear Celeste lacks the killer instinct her sister possesses.  Notice how she gets sidetracked from the disciplinary message to discuss her emotional reaction to her environs, and then finishes by adding grand flourishes consisting of loops and whorls.  Either that, or she translated the sign into Martian and an ancient runic language never before seen by modern man.

I would like to point out that, at present, my cherished darlings are six and a half and four years old, respectively.  And they are already fighting about who's been in whose room uninvited, and who touched whose extra-special (fill in the blank here) without permission and the like.  If it's this bad now, what's it going to be like when they hit adolescence for real?   What kind of signs are likely to grace their doors then???

Well, I'm looking on the bright side:  Since they're already scrapping like cats and dogs about these issues now, that means they'll be all done and past that by the time they hit the teen years, right?  RIGHT?!?!?

Dear lord.  Maybe I should just plan to buy an RV and park it in the back yard.  Either I can stick one or the other kiddo in it overnight for cooling-off purposes, or I can jump in it myself and run away from home at a moment's notice.

Betcha It Needs 2 'D' Batteries and Comes Some Assembly Required

Lately, the elder daughter has started talking to herself as she plays, narrating out loud the little dramas that run through her head.  While this offers valuable insight into her psyche, sometimes I wonder if that's not a window better left firmly shut.  The other night, the psychodrama involved Santa giving India a "brain controller".  Thanks to this miraculous device, "the teachers and grownups will do anything I want!"

All Aboard The Gravy Train

I was at Borders with the girls the other day, helping India make the critical choice between a gripping installment of Thomas the Tank Engine and a paint-with-water Pooh, when my eye happened to fall upon the end cap of the young adult display.  There were five or six books set out with plots centered around a theme guaranteed to ensnare the interest, and disposable income, of the local 'tween girl set: the Prom.

How the hell did I miss that one?

It makes perfect sense.  With the boom, nay, explosion of chick lit, what better way to groom the next generation of pink-paperback readers than by giving them a baby chick lit - is that redundant, given that we're not using 'chick' in the sense of 'baby bird'? - okay, a chick lit-in-training in of their own?  The Prom-lit genre is so broad, it even has a subgenre of its own, that being the horror-Prom-but-not-Carrie novel.  As in, Prom Date from Hell, in which the plucky protagonist and her escort have to battle the Cloven Hoofed One, or at least one of his minions, at the big event itself, probably to the strains of "Stairway to Heaven." (Okay, that's not very realistic, is it?  No one plays "Stairway to Heaven" at dances anymore.)  A digression here:  Just where the hell, pun intended, are Jerry Falwell and his ilk when it comes to this trend?  I realize that as a certified East Coast secular humanist, I'm not considered qualified to speak on these issues, but don't you think it belittles the whole concept of Satan somewhat when the Prince of Darkness is also the King of the Prom?  You'd think the Bible-banging types would be picketing the doors and hollering for the firebrands on this one, but they're nowhere to be seen.  Well, what do I know.

The bigger issue here is, why didn't I cash in on this trend in the first place?  After all, who's gone to more proms than Yours Truly, at least once Paris Hilton left the fifth grade?  I bet I could've written one of these books in my sleep.  The formula is obvious:  plucky, cute-but-not-popular heroine wants to go to big social event with boy of her dreams, encounters several obstacles along the way, faces said obstacles with resolve and, um, pluck, and winds up at the prom with her best friend Duckie.  Oh wait, that's the plot for Pretty in Pink.  Well, you know what I mean.  Anna Karenina it's not.

The even bigger question is, why do I always miss the gravy trains?   When it comes to moneymaking, yours truly sucks.  Not only do I seem unable to accrue money, money actively avoids me.  There was one year when I worked so many jobs, I had nine, count 'em, nine W-2 forms to file, and all I got for my efforts was a $200 federal tax bill I still couldn't pay.  I had to send the IRS $20 a month for ten months, which is the living definition of "pathetic" if you ask me.  If I hadn't had a regular under-the-table babysitting gig, I wouldn't have eaten that year.  In my life, the gravy train is the Hogwarts Express, and I'm the stupid Muggle wondering where platform Nine and Three-Quarters is.  Somehow I managed to wrangle Warren (MBA, minor in finance) down the aisle before he realized what a financial Typhoid Mary I am.  He does have the annoying habit of pointing out that he brought an active investment portfolio to our marriage while I brought $25,000 in student loan debt, accrued in pursuit of my highly remunerative career.  He likes to ask me why I didn't pay off my student loans with my signing bonus, the way he did, and why I didn't pay off my credit card debt with my moving stipend, the way he did, and watching my face turn purple with apoplexy.  He doesn't seem to understand that the only "moving stipend" I've ever known consisted of me buying friends six-packs of beer in return for some muscle power and use of a truck.  As for "signing bonus," well, when I started teaching I got a shiny new box of chalk and as much lined paper as I could carry; does that count?

Naturally I am going about this moneymaking thing all wrong, even within my notoriously underpaid profession.  I keep insisting on doing the boots-on-the-ground stuff instead of following the money into educational consulting.  From the looks of it, it's not that hard.  All I need is a slick brochure, a PowerPoint presentation, a canned speech that includes phrases like "standards-based," "data-driven," "results oriented," "measured measures," "success for all learners" and "NCLB" and I'll be good to go. 

The best part about being an educational consultant is that I don't actually have to know much about anything useful as long as I find the right niche.  Geez, my school even hired a "consensus building consultant" once when everyone was up in arms about block scheduling.  (It worked, too - the one thing all parties agreed upon was that they hated her.  It was unanimous.  Then everyone went back to fighting over the original issues, unimpeded by any desire for consensus.)  The superintendent at my previous job did this beautifully.  He created an "institute" for "brain based learning" (thus differentiating it from all the learning one does through one's ass), set up as a private company with himself at the head, of course, to run conferences about this twaddle.  This so-called institute, which was shorthand for 'I want to retire to Florida and still make a packet of money running conferences,' held one of their annual conferences near our district, and you will be shocked - shocked! - to learn that, if the conference didn't attract enough attendees on its own merits, somehow we'd all wind up going to hear more about brain-based learning for our spring teacher workshop day.  I remember blessedly little about brain-based learning, except for one keynote speaker whose message was basically that we learn and retain information more readily if we involve more than one of our senses as we learn.  Well, gee.  Thank Buddha I didn't waste my time getting a master's in education when I could have learned that!  Oh, wait... Anyway, I remember vividly watching this dreadful man illustrate this complex and abstract concept by talking about how he used scented markers as highlighters while he was reading on the airplane on his way to our conference.  "So I'm reading, and I'm smelling the marker, and I'm reading, and I'm smelling the marker," and meanwhile I'm hoping he got off the airplane and wondered why everyone was laughing at him because he'd accidentally colored his nose as he was huffing a grape-scented marker.  Then he said something huffy and condescending about how his son's classroom teacher was too close-minded to embrace the enlightening theories he was promoting and I lost what minuscule shreds of respect I had left for the man and stopped listening.

Realistically, there are a lot of reasons why I'd be a flop on the conference circuit. I hate jargon. I hate using phrases that get tossed around so much they lose all meaning (performance-based assessment, anyone?). I hate wearing suits and I don't have enough of the accessories like scarves and brooches that all the lady-type consultants have to wear.  I know I would hate reading long reports issued by various states' Departments of Education that will be adopted, ignored, and replaced by other long reports two or three years hence, just so I can tweak my BS dog-and-pony show so that it seems applicable to the case at hand.  And now that I've shared these valuable insights with you, that will be $145.00 per person, please, payable by credit card or purchase order to the Institute for Strategic Initiatives.  Toot, toot!  All aboard! 

It's Not a Fair Fight

Being the modest and retiring sort, I usually don't poke my nose into affairs of state.  In this case, I will make an exception.  After all, my country needs me, and I am nothing if not patriotic.  Hey, I've listened to that new Chevrolet ad with the John Mellencamp song at least thirty times this football season so far and not hurled my dinner; if that doesn't establish my bona fides, nothing will.

Our popularly elected government (ha! hear the burning cynicism there?) has managed to cover itself in glory by insisting that we have the right to torture certain people, under certain circumstances, using certain methods.  Only according to the powers that be, it's not really torture, it's just being really, really firm, and if we can't get these prisoners to speak up, we can always ship 'em out to a country with a really stellar human rights record, like, oh, say Syria or Libya - someplace where their grasp of the Geneva Convention is even shakier than ours.  According to the administration's mouthpieces, we have to weigh the potential value of the information these enemy combatants hold, and the potential lives at stake, against such namby-pamby considerations as international law and the primacy of the social contract.

Well, I have a way out of this mess for everyone.  I know of a form of torment that will have the most hardened secret operative blubbering on his knees. begging for mercy, and it doesn't leave so much as a scratch on them!  It's cheap, it's effective, it's sheer genius!  Let's pair up suspected terrorists with my older daughter!

For those of you who have not met my daughter, she is going through an inquisitive stage.  It began about eight months ago and threatens to continue until she gets her Ph.D.  She questions everything - and I mean everything - that passes through her little world.  A typical excursion to the supermarket, for instance, goes like this:

India:  Mommy?  What he doing? (looking at man in cereal aisle)
Me:  Shopping.
India:  What she doing? (points to perfectly nice lady reading nutritional information on a package)
Me:  Shopping.
India:  What she shopping for?
Me:  Groceries, honey, we're in the grocery store.
India:  What they doing?  (signals harried-looking woman with cart full of kids)
Me (through gritted teeth):  They're shopping, India.  We're in the grocery store.  Everyone here is shopping, okay?
[moment of silence]
India:  What they shopping for?

Now, I know that I will be thankful someday for her inquisitive turn of mind.  I know when she has found the cure for the common cold, or brought about world peace, or balanced the federal budget AND fed the starving, I will secretly (and not-so-secretly) pat myself on the back for not quenching her natural curiosity about the world.  But the questions, dang, they never stop!  If she's awake and not eating, tending to Ida the doll, or watching Clifford the Big Red Dog, she's asking questions.  And then when she's done with the above, she'll ask questions about those, too!  "What Clifford say, Mommy?"  "What I do with Ida, Mommy?"  "What I have for lunch, Mommy?"  Should I dare to reply, "I don't know," (because I don't, since I spent the half hour of CTBRD happily drinking coffee and reading the New York Times) or worse yet, turn the question back on her and ask, "What did you do with Ida, honey?" well, that way lies madness.  "NOOOOOO, Mommy!"  my firstborn wails, "you say 'India sang Ida a SOOOONG!'" These exchanges are as ritualized as a geisha-hosted tea service, and woe betide the participant (me) who doesn't play her role.

Now, a few minutes of this is charming, and an hour or two at least bearable, but now that India's day care slot is filled, I have to listen to this all day, every day, from 5:30 am to 8 pm, with just a nap to silence the barrage.  I freely admit I get desperate.  Once, when we were trapped in the car for an hour together, I begged - begged - "Please, honey," I said, desperation in my tone, "can we have a ten minute break from questions?" 

"What Mommy need a break from?"  India asked, "Questions?"

I challenge anyone to live with that for a week and not gladly exchange state secrets for some peace and quiet.