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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun:
Surviving Separation
There is an old saying that men are like houses: Women should buy one and then trade up. But all too often we are our own worst enemies, deciding to remodel instead.
Men realize, even deep into a long, committed relationship, that they are being maneuvered. They don't like it, but hey -- somebody's cooking dinner, right? Yet their frustration persists at some molecular level. Often, in the bad cases, men fall into their favorite passive-aggressive groove and, gradually, over years, make themselves so unappealing that you both want out. At this point in a relationship, the one who was compulsive enough to label all their DVDs on a dreary January afternoon has the last laugh.
But then what?
Something beyond self-doubt sets in, a sense of having to reclaim the part of your identity you inevitably sacrificed after a long, failed relationship. For a second, you think you'll become the Crazy Cat Lady, shuffling out to the mailbox in your bathrobe and scuffies.
Breathe. Relationships end. Even the long ones, even the ones forged by wedding vows. Much has been said about marriage's erosion, how it has given way to more individualistic needs, to one's career, to not settling. In many ways, marriage is the new dating, even for those who married during an era that valued it a little more.
As our relationships with our jobs, our homes and our health plans get shorter, people become more disposable as well. Call it the decline of commitment, a throwaway culture. But marriage, for us, the richest generation, is no longer last century's economic institution. More women possess the corporate sway previously exclusive to men, which means that walking away, recovery, and self-reinvention are actually options.
It may not always seem like it, but our culture is designed for self-reinvention. In fact, there's somebody, who represents some half of the population, self-reinventing right now, while you're reading this sentence. Just keep dignity on your speed dial and a few basic pointers in mind.
Rule #1: He was not Mr. Right.
Lara, a 40-something Michigan native who asked that her name be changed, had kids before her marriage ended. There were arguments. It got vicious. The marriage ended. "It is better to be alone than to wish you were," she told me.
I don't know every facet of your courtship, how you talked all night at that little diner and discovered that you both loved motorcycles and Darren Aronofsky films and wanted to visit Prague. But I do know he wasn't Mr. Right. How? Because Mr. Right would still be in your life. Mr. Right would fight for the relationship. Mr. Right, amazingly enough, does not pack his stuff while you're at work and leave a note that explains he's keeping the dog and the plasma TV.
Rule #2: You are not Ms. Wrong.
Your self-esteem is probably at a low ebb, even if you initiated the separation. You're suddenly alone. You never get to say "we" anymore. You go out with your girlfriends, whom you may have lost touch with after years in a marriage or long relationship -- and that's only when they don't have dates.
You may even come to believe that your relationship combusted because your donkey-like laugh is not actually cute, it's annoying. Or you gossip too much. Or because you wouldn't do that thing he asked you to do. Bunk, all of it. You separated because you didn't fit together, and, maybe, probably, you knew it long ago.
Rule #3: Live in the now.
Don't stop looking for someone who suits you. And don't waste time retrofitting yourself to suit the man who just left you. You'll feel fake and you won't win him back anyway. Rather, think of all the times you wanted to be alone, all his peevish habits, all the things you would have been able to do had you been single, or maybe the occasional guy or two you wouldn't have minded having a drink with. Maybe make a few phone calls.
"It's good not to have to think about what someone else is thinking about all the time," says "Malik", in his twenties, from Northampton. He dated an older woman for seven years before breaking up.
Eliminate the past. Delete his number before you dial drunk. Perform the ritual cleansing (smudge sticks are optional) and get rid of all the reminders: photos, CDs, clothing remnants. If you're not strong enough to throw them out, put them all into a box and tape it shut before you throw it into the back of your closet.
Rule #4: Live in the future.
Make space in your life for the things you truly want to have someday. If you don't know what they are, this is a very good time to start. Try writing down a list of ten great things every day for a month.
Cultivate the talents you have and learn to do at least one new thing. Cook Thai food. Master the merengue. Or do what I do: Learn songs in other languages. Men who hear you crooning J'attendrai while choosing a couture vodka, yogurt or even toilet paper will ask you out.
Remember that, someday, you will be able to look back on this phase of your life. So don't fill it with bitter voicemails, desolate crying jags or Hagen Dazs. And, for the love of God, don't cut your hair.
Me? If I ever find myself newly single, I'm recovering in style. One gal I know packed her bags with self-help books and bikinis and traveled to a country of white sand beaches. The soul of discretion, I will only mention the Olympics, soccer and a night of decadent healing abandon. She flew home ready to take on the world, without the baggage of her former beau and with her shining brunette tresses completely intact.
Gee, that makes me want to break up with somebody -- and soon.
©2007 The Republican
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
Men realize, even deep into a long, committed relationship, that they are being maneuvered. They don't like it, but hey -- somebody's cooking dinner, right? Yet their frustration persists at some molecular level. Often, in the bad cases, men fall into their favorite passive-aggressive groove and, gradually, over years, make themselves so unappealing that you both want out. At this point in a relationship, the one who was compulsive enough to label all their DVDs on a dreary January afternoon has the last laugh.
But then what?
Something beyond self-doubt sets in, a sense of having to reclaim the part of your identity you inevitably sacrificed after a long, failed relationship. For a second, you think you'll become the Crazy Cat Lady, shuffling out to the mailbox in your bathrobe and scuffies.
Breathe. Relationships end. Even the long ones, even the ones forged by wedding vows. Much has been said about marriage's erosion, how it has given way to more individualistic needs, to one's career, to not settling. In many ways, marriage is the new dating, even for those who married during an era that valued it a little more.
As our relationships with our jobs, our homes and our health plans get shorter, people become more disposable as well. Call it the decline of commitment, a throwaway culture. But marriage, for us, the richest generation, is no longer last century's economic institution. More women possess the corporate sway previously exclusive to men, which means that walking away, recovery, and self-reinvention are actually options.
It may not always seem like it, but our culture is designed for self-reinvention. In fact, there's somebody, who represents some half of the population, self-reinventing right now, while you're reading this sentence. Just keep dignity on your speed dial and a few basic pointers in mind.
Rule #1: He was not Mr. Right.
Lara, a 40-something Michigan native who asked that her name be changed, had kids before her marriage ended. There were arguments. It got vicious. The marriage ended. "It is better to be alone than to wish you were," she told me.
I don't know every facet of your courtship, how you talked all night at that little diner and discovered that you both loved motorcycles and Darren Aronofsky films and wanted to visit Prague. But I do know he wasn't Mr. Right. How? Because Mr. Right would still be in your life. Mr. Right would fight for the relationship. Mr. Right, amazingly enough, does not pack his stuff while you're at work and leave a note that explains he's keeping the dog and the plasma TV.
Rule #2: You are not Ms. Wrong.
Your self-esteem is probably at a low ebb, even if you initiated the separation. You're suddenly alone. You never get to say "we" anymore. You go out with your girlfriends, whom you may have lost touch with after years in a marriage or long relationship -- and that's only when they don't have dates.
You may even come to believe that your relationship combusted because your donkey-like laugh is not actually cute, it's annoying. Or you gossip too much. Or because you wouldn't do that thing he asked you to do. Bunk, all of it. You separated because you didn't fit together, and, maybe, probably, you knew it long ago.
Rule #3: Live in the now.
Don't stop looking for someone who suits you. And don't waste time retrofitting yourself to suit the man who just left you. You'll feel fake and you won't win him back anyway. Rather, think of all the times you wanted to be alone, all his peevish habits, all the things you would have been able to do had you been single, or maybe the occasional guy or two you wouldn't have minded having a drink with. Maybe make a few phone calls.
"It's good not to have to think about what someone else is thinking about all the time," says "Malik", in his twenties, from Northampton. He dated an older woman for seven years before breaking up.
Eliminate the past. Delete his number before you dial drunk. Perform the ritual cleansing (smudge sticks are optional) and get rid of all the reminders: photos, CDs, clothing remnants. If you're not strong enough to throw them out, put them all into a box and tape it shut before you throw it into the back of your closet.
Rule #4: Live in the future.
Make space in your life for the things you truly want to have someday. If you don't know what they are, this is a very good time to start. Try writing down a list of ten great things every day for a month.
Cultivate the talents you have and learn to do at least one new thing. Cook Thai food. Master the merengue. Or do what I do: Learn songs in other languages. Men who hear you crooning J'attendrai while choosing a couture vodka, yogurt or even toilet paper will ask you out.
Remember that, someday, you will be able to look back on this phase of your life. So don't fill it with bitter voicemails, desolate crying jags or Hagen Dazs. And, for the love of God, don't cut your hair.
Me? If I ever find myself newly single, I'm recovering in style. One gal I know packed her bags with self-help books and bikinis and traveled to a country of white sand beaches. The soul of discretion, I will only mention the Olympics, soccer and a night of decadent healing abandon. She flew home ready to take on the world, without the baggage of her former beau and with her shining brunette tresses completely intact.
Gee, that makes me want to break up with somebody -- and soon.
©2007 The Republican
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Teachable Moments: When Kids Teach Parents
Taylor, High-School Senior
I met Taylor when I looked around for help on the weight floor because dropping a heavy metal bar on my throat during an attempted bench press just didn't seem like a good idea. The learning began there.
Despite the fact that he looked twenty years younger than every other person in the gym, Taylor was the obvious go-to guy for help, even for grown adults. A noticeable hard worker who has grafted serious muscle onto his slender frame, Taylor apparently finds his stride at the gym. I am enough of a surrogate mom, though, to shudder at the amount of weight he lifts, especially when I consider the stress on delicate bones that will still be developing for years to come. But he lifts a lot more iron than I can. So it stood to reason he could catch it, too - before it fell on me. Fortunately, he didn't have to. And with his encouraging "it's all you" lingering in my head, I finish rep number eight completely intact.
So besides that, what has Taylor taught an adult lately? Taylor admits with a grin that during his early days at the gym, he could be helpful primarily because he made the effort to study the directions. "One, two, three," he says. "Most adults don't take the time to read the label on the machines."
What adults let slip out of their busy lives is something that troubles Taylor. Asked The Big Question about what he would teach adults in general, he sees the need to address a sense of disconnection and apathy. Newly able to vote this year, Taylor is looking forward to exercising that right. Even before he could cast a ballot, he had plunged into the political process, working for national and local campaigns.
Taylor is a diabetic and wears an insulin pump. It doesn't interfere with most of his activities, but it can get uncomfortable -- especially in the hot and sticky weather -- and there is a learning curve to use one. Still, he is remarkably frank and upbeat about his diabetes.
With both diabetes and a father who suffers from a spinal cord injury, Taylor follows one particular debate closely. "We're the poster family for stem cell research," he says, with a brightness tempered by realism.
I ask if he has been vocal about the need for funding and research. I am not disappointed -- and I also learn the sixth thing in my discussion with Taylor: what happens when you call the White House. "The older ladies that pick up the phone, they're really nice," he informs me. Good to know.
Asked what might be a dream job, Taylor scans the sky for a moment and offers, "back country Park Ranger ... at least while my knees hold out." He enthuses about trekking two hundred miles in the Sierra Nevadas. Inwardly I cringe and ponder my longstanding almost hedonistic devotion to twenty-four-hour room service.
Feeling the weight of my advisory adult role, I spin future career options for him that meld an interest in conservation and a hardy physical capability. Would he consider becoming a smokejumper, fighting wildfires in the backcountry? Taylor returns a somewhat bemused smile and proclaims his utter lack of interest in leaping out of a fully functional aircraft. Probably another wise choice from this National Honor Society student. At this point in our conversation, I don't expect anything less.
But rugged outdoor experiences have created a sense of self-reliance that lives close to the surface in Taylor. Whether it is finding himself the youngest participant in a Montana Outward Bound program or coping with illness in the family, he engages situations and adapts.
Telling stories in quick succession about Devils Postpile, prom and political activism, he clearly finds ways to appreciate the give-and-take of living. Taylor remains quietly confident that he has a great deal to offer while recognizing that people from all ages and backgrounds may have things to teach. From my perspective, whether he is explaining an insulin pump or the instructions on the workout machine, I have quit counting the lessons learned.
First published in Pioneer Parent, August 2007
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Men Who Don't Love Me: The Alpha Male
Six feet five inches tall with eyes the color of -- the color of nothing I've ever seen before. Half Russian sailor, half Colorado point guard, he is lean and powerfully built. Nothing added, nothing wasted with the v-shaped torso other men covet and women want to embrace.
He has elaborate tattoos that scroll up his forearms. Curling patterns and finely detailed vines swirl over his pale flesh, monochromatic, suited to his minimalist habits. Until the day I saw him sleeveless, I had to live with a maddening ignorance of the extent of that ink. Finally I discovered that his work coils over his biceps and stops at his delts, leaving the rest of him as pale and blameless as the day he was born. His wrists are one of the few elusive parts of him that seem fragile, offering a wild sweetness that softens his intensity.
Like everyone who encounters him -- even gay women describe him as awesome -- I am fascinated by his physique. But after I met him, all of my adjectives changed. Describing him to a girlfriend, she interrupted my endless catalog of "sweet, fierce, gentle, funny" to ask, "Yeah -- but is he CUTE?" And then I knew: all of that fabulous packaging had become The Last Thing on My List.
That list is a real thing and in a crowded field what typically rises to the top is his aversion to causing pain. I myself have benefited hugely from this. He does not know but I met the Alpha Male at a desperate time in my life. Quite unwillingly, I was close to a karmic bingo of sorts, with four of the top-five-ranked life crises all occurring simultaneously. This condensed stress caused a significant uptick in what I will kindly describe as my tendency to blather, something the Alpha Male hates. He will never discover that I could easily spend an hour with him in total silence, basking in the solid warmth of his presence like a cat on a sunny windowsill.
I once casually asked if he enjoyed Thai food - and experienced a spike of humiliation as I realized that could have been interpreted as a dating inquiry. My cringing embarrassment melted into admiration for his decency though as I watched him search for an answer that would dismiss me without injuring me. His ultimate reply was delivered in a halting cadence like an open-mike poetry slam. "I mostly cook my own food." Revealing a skill women universally admire while diverting any hope of a hot time Saturday night? Now that is a man worth knowing better.
He dates only Pretty Girls, the ones that shine. They swarm all over him and he is sweetly unaware enough of his own worth to be grateful for their attention. They will always have his eye because in all the ways that matter, they are most emphatically Not Like Me. Their skin glows in the long summer sun and their hair sluices down their backs, tousled and touchable. Their manners are enticing, their smiles beguiling and their giggles like music. For crying out loud, even I think they're gorgeous. And if I ever jump the fence, they're exactly what I'll be looking for in a date -- yet will be sadly unable to obtain, I might add. Be gentle, girls, and know this: his real beauty does not show. His most impressive muscle is a heart that is surprisingly generous and loyal.
I must reluctantly admit that The Big Picture Me knows all the reasons why he and I don't fit -- jeepers there are lots and, uh, lots actually. But The Daily Me whines and rebels. In the harsh light of reality, all those reasons boil down to just one: he's never actually even seen me. Perhaps it is part of his pared-down efficiency that edges towards ruthlessness, but he has never wasted even the nanosecond it would require to catalogue the 837 obvious reasons why we would be a train wreck.
His disregard of me is epic and positively glacial -- an iceberg wrapped in barbed wire. And I, apparently, am the Titanic. I felt a bump to be sure. But at the time, it just didn't seem that bad. It was only later that I noticed how heavily I was listing to my starboard side. By then, my fate was inevitable. All my hysteria seems even more ridiculous if measured in proportion to the time we have spent together.
I know they say, "Whenever God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." But sometimes I think He nails that door shut. And then you realize you're in the sub-basement. I guess I'm clinging to the idea that maybe, just maybe, there's a freight elevator around down here somewhere. And there will always be the next man, the next smile, the next wisp of possibility.
First published in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!, July 2007
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
He has elaborate tattoos that scroll up his forearms. Curling patterns and finely detailed vines swirl over his pale flesh, monochromatic, suited to his minimalist habits. Until the day I saw him sleeveless, I had to live with a maddening ignorance of the extent of that ink. Finally I discovered that his work coils over his biceps and stops at his delts, leaving the rest of him as pale and blameless as the day he was born. His wrists are one of the few elusive parts of him that seem fragile, offering a wild sweetness that softens his intensity.
Like everyone who encounters him -- even gay women describe him as awesome -- I am fascinated by his physique. But after I met him, all of my adjectives changed. Describing him to a girlfriend, she interrupted my endless catalog of "sweet, fierce, gentle, funny" to ask, "Yeah -- but is he CUTE?" And then I knew: all of that fabulous packaging had become The Last Thing on My List.
That list is a real thing and in a crowded field what typically rises to the top is his aversion to causing pain. I myself have benefited hugely from this. He does not know but I met the Alpha Male at a desperate time in my life. Quite unwillingly, I was close to a karmic bingo of sorts, with four of the top-five-ranked life crises all occurring simultaneously. This condensed stress caused a significant uptick in what I will kindly describe as my tendency to blather, something the Alpha Male hates. He will never discover that I could easily spend an hour with him in total silence, basking in the solid warmth of his presence like a cat on a sunny windowsill.
I once casually asked if he enjoyed Thai food - and experienced a spike of humiliation as I realized that could have been interpreted as a dating inquiry. My cringing embarrassment melted into admiration for his decency though as I watched him search for an answer that would dismiss me without injuring me. His ultimate reply was delivered in a halting cadence like an open-mike poetry slam. "I mostly cook my own food." Revealing a skill women universally admire while diverting any hope of a hot time Saturday night? Now that is a man worth knowing better.
He dates only Pretty Girls, the ones that shine. They swarm all over him and he is sweetly unaware enough of his own worth to be grateful for their attention. They will always have his eye because in all the ways that matter, they are most emphatically Not Like Me. Their skin glows in the long summer sun and their hair sluices down their backs, tousled and touchable. Their manners are enticing, their smiles beguiling and their giggles like music. For crying out loud, even I think they're gorgeous. And if I ever jump the fence, they're exactly what I'll be looking for in a date -- yet will be sadly unable to obtain, I might add. Be gentle, girls, and know this: his real beauty does not show. His most impressive muscle is a heart that is surprisingly generous and loyal.
I must reluctantly admit that The Big Picture Me knows all the reasons why he and I don't fit -- jeepers there are lots and, uh, lots actually. But The Daily Me whines and rebels. In the harsh light of reality, all those reasons boil down to just one: he's never actually even seen me. Perhaps it is part of his pared-down efficiency that edges towards ruthlessness, but he has never wasted even the nanosecond it would require to catalogue the 837 obvious reasons why we would be a train wreck.
His disregard of me is epic and positively glacial -- an iceberg wrapped in barbed wire. And I, apparently, am the Titanic. I felt a bump to be sure. But at the time, it just didn't seem that bad. It was only later that I noticed how heavily I was listing to my starboard side. By then, my fate was inevitable. All my hysteria seems even more ridiculous if measured in proportion to the time we have spent together.
I know they say, "Whenever God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." But sometimes I think He nails that door shut. And then you realize you're in the sub-basement. I guess I'm clinging to the idea that maybe, just maybe, there's a freight elevator around down here somewhere. And there will always be the next man, the next smile, the next wisp of possibility.
First published in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!, July 2007
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Family Ties - Surviving Summer's Encounters
Ah, summer in New England. The June solstice ushers in a season of long light, fast-moving thunderstorms and baseball widows. Hallowed rituals mark the steady passage of time; air conditioner installation, craft fairs and something we all look forward to with a mixture of fascination and horror: extended family get-togethers at reunions and weddings.
As we survey the relatives grazing on the back porch, we have all known the same terror -- and asked the same questions. "What am I doing here? Was there a mix-up at the hospital?" But the physical resemblances prove unmistakable -- if often cruel -- and the personal quirks too eerily familiar. On my family tree, those include prominent noses (a fate I mercifully escaped) and the ability to burn lobster-red just from looking at a picture of the sun. Our relations are cruel reminders of just how shallow the gene pool can be.
Most reunions, weddings and other similar shindigs follow a fairly predictable pattern. You feel anxious. Somebody's offhand remark reduces you to a balky fuming nine-year-old. You attempt to recover your dignity. These steps can be repeated almost indefinitely. In the final act, frequently accompanied by large amounts of alcohol, you swear that you will never ever go to the next one. Uh-huh. But you do. Why? Because it's family.
The word Family is key here. If you've seen The Godfather, you already know the most basic rules about surviving family encounters.
Respect: Family is all about respect
Thank your host or the parents of the bride first, before you have a bad time. That way you will actually sound sincere.
Let roles be assumed
Even if it breaks every law of intuition, ritual and tradition must be observed. Let your grill-challenged Dad restart the smoldering charcoal briquettes by lobbing little baggies full of gasoline onto the coals -- before reducing every piece of meat to a carcinogenic chunk of meteorite. Why? Because he does it every year. If you don't like it, eat before you go and then claim to have become a vegetarian.
Brave the elders
Despite your exhaustion, make your way to the chairs in the shade -- there you'll find your elders. Approach the clan's most annoying grandmother/aunt/great-grandfather -- smiling! -- with an almost empty glass in your hand. Deliver a brief speech at high volume about one relentlessly positive event in your life. Suddenly, look surprised by your empty glass and say that your doctor has warned you not to become dehydrated in the summer heat. Then run away -- still smiling. Mission accomplished.
Leave your dignity at home
Although I don't think they covered this in The Godfather, you must sacrifice your dignity and participate in at least one embarrassing photo op that will be immortalized on Flickr. So fire the potato cannon. Do the chicken dance. Let your four-year-old nephew feed you blueberry cobbler -- or try to.
Defense against button words
Most importantly, know your button words. Typically a blast from your distant past, button words reduce any functional adult to the failed child within by recalling some nightmarish t-ball mishap or tragic Christmas pageant. The most famous and familiar of the family button words is "yet."
"Haven't you finished college YET?"
"Don't you have a real job YET?"
Auuuugh. In the likely event that you fall victim to a button word, you must overcome your hardwired response. Rather than patiently explaining to straight-laced Aunt Adele that your sweetie pie has not made an honest woman out of you YET, you need to distract her. I like to go straight for the jugular with a compliment.
"Have you lost weight? You look great!"
With old coots, I ask for advice on how to buy a car. Presto. Domineering relatives get to tell me what to do, which they love, and I don't have to hear about all of my flaws in nauseating detail, which I love. Everybody wins.
Finally, bear in mind that family reunions, like revenge and your Oma's famous macaroni salad, are a dish best served cold. Eventually, we all love to tell -- and retell -- tales of our completely insane relatives. Admit it! Who doesn't secretly treasure returning from a big Texas wedding with a story that combines a drunken male cousin, women's lingerie and a Shakira song parody? Otherwise, we'd have nothing to talk about during the flight delays on the long trip home.
First published in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!, July 2007
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
As we survey the relatives grazing on the back porch, we have all known the same terror -- and asked the same questions. "What am I doing here? Was there a mix-up at the hospital?" But the physical resemblances prove unmistakable -- if often cruel -- and the personal quirks too eerily familiar. On my family tree, those include prominent noses (a fate I mercifully escaped) and the ability to burn lobster-red just from looking at a picture of the sun. Our relations are cruel reminders of just how shallow the gene pool can be.
Most reunions, weddings and other similar shindigs follow a fairly predictable pattern. You feel anxious. Somebody's offhand remark reduces you to a balky fuming nine-year-old. You attempt to recover your dignity. These steps can be repeated almost indefinitely. In the final act, frequently accompanied by large amounts of alcohol, you swear that you will never ever go to the next one. Uh-huh. But you do. Why? Because it's family.
The word Family is key here. If you've seen The Godfather, you already know the most basic rules about surviving family encounters.
Respect: Family is all about respect
Thank your host or the parents of the bride first, before you have a bad time. That way you will actually sound sincere.
Let roles be assumed
Even if it breaks every law of intuition, ritual and tradition must be observed. Let your grill-challenged Dad restart the smoldering charcoal briquettes by lobbing little baggies full of gasoline onto the coals -- before reducing every piece of meat to a carcinogenic chunk of meteorite. Why? Because he does it every year. If you don't like it, eat before you go and then claim to have become a vegetarian.
Brave the elders
Despite your exhaustion, make your way to the chairs in the shade -- there you'll find your elders. Approach the clan's most annoying grandmother/aunt/great-grandfather -- smiling! -- with an almost empty glass in your hand. Deliver a brief speech at high volume about one relentlessly positive event in your life. Suddenly, look surprised by your empty glass and say that your doctor has warned you not to become dehydrated in the summer heat. Then run away -- still smiling. Mission accomplished.
Leave your dignity at home
Although I don't think they covered this in The Godfather, you must sacrifice your dignity and participate in at least one embarrassing photo op that will be immortalized on Flickr. So fire the potato cannon. Do the chicken dance. Let your four-year-old nephew feed you blueberry cobbler -- or try to.
Defense against button words
Most importantly, know your button words. Typically a blast from your distant past, button words reduce any functional adult to the failed child within by recalling some nightmarish t-ball mishap or tragic Christmas pageant. The most famous and familiar of the family button words is "yet."
"Haven't you finished college YET?"
"Don't you have a real job YET?"
Auuuugh. In the likely event that you fall victim to a button word, you must overcome your hardwired response. Rather than patiently explaining to straight-laced Aunt Adele that your sweetie pie has not made an honest woman out of you YET, you need to distract her. I like to go straight for the jugular with a compliment.
"Have you lost weight? You look great!"
With old coots, I ask for advice on how to buy a car. Presto. Domineering relatives get to tell me what to do, which they love, and I don't have to hear about all of my flaws in nauseating detail, which I love. Everybody wins.
Finally, bear in mind that family reunions, like revenge and your Oma's famous macaroni salad, are a dish best served cold. Eventually, we all love to tell -- and retell -- tales of our completely insane relatives. Admit it! Who doesn't secretly treasure returning from a big Texas wedding with a story that combines a drunken male cousin, women's lingerie and a Shakira song parody? Otherwise, we'd have nothing to talk about during the flight delays on the long trip home.
First published in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!, July 2007
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Male Parts: Electronics and the American Female
Standing in the wide well-lit aisles of my local Best Buy, basking in the glow of fifty-seven screens showing me Johnny Depp grinning beneath swinging dreads, one thing is immediately apparent: Size Does Matter. The largest display in the store tops out at sixty inches, only four shorter than the average American female. I try to imagine watching Paris Hilton life-sized but the sensation is too disturbing.
An attentive salesperson hurries up to me, clearly aware that a female in this environment is as vulnerable as a wounded giraffe at a watering hole. Wearing the ubiquitous uniform of polo shirt and khakis, I don't know if he wants to bring me a chai latte or recommend a five iron for this distance on the fairway. He begins to speak.
We start off with the Stereo 101, the baby steps. Where will I be installing the stereo? How big is the room? Would I be using the thing for atmosphere or to loosen the screws in my home's foundation?
Then, the expected talk of component, cable and surround-sound integration. But his sales pitch wades deeper into stereo lingo and an unintelligible stream of acronyms. I discover that even highly-trained staffers must consult like anxious referees about the origins of THX and WEGA. If you cannot pronounce Wii, do not pass go. More importantly, do not shell out $400.
Remember when that neatly stacked set of boxes on an awkward stand in the corner of the living room was called an Entertainment Center? Now it's a Media Center, a term that accommodates both the fact that the average home has twenty-five electronic devices in it, with TV's outnumbering live residents, and that the average cable system offers five dozen channels - but there's still nothing on.
Television, Best Buy's most aggressively-displayed commodity, still anchors the electronics sprawl in the modern home. But its supporting accessories are immense. I inspect the store's shelves of receivers, CD players, speakers and equalizers — black and silver boxes with shimmering green and orange LCD displays. These are the dreaded "components," the arch enemy of feminine interior decor that can transform any carefully-fashioned living room into the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
The salesman assures me — an obviously stylin' gal — that these systems are designed with a "small footprint" for "minimal intrusion" on your home's space. It takes me a moment to realize that he is serious. I express a healthy skepticism that seven pieces of anything packed in a box as big as a file cabinet can possibly avoid intrusion.
"Well," he offers helpfully, "you can hang them on the wall."
Mounted, perhaps, next to my series of black and white photographs from a recent vacation to London? Too polite to guffaw, I cough delicately and my stereo education continues: hertz, watts, inches. "It's all about power," my guide intones as he surveys the blinking readouts. Inches, indeed.
I share the terror of every woman when I envision my cozy home refashioned into a sports bar by a wall of electronics, the coffee table where I had artfully merchandised my accessories now buried under a herd? a gaggle? a click! of remotes. (Even die-hard techie friends acknowledge to me that the "universal" remote is a myth, like Atlantis or the unicorn.) The only shared characteristic for these gizmos is their uncanny ability to attract all of the dust in the known universe.
As men accumulate larger assortments of components, women retaliate with embellishments. A grim trench warfare ensues. Guys grudgingly realize that each electronics purchase entails a compensatory number of trips to Target. There, anxious spouses will search for camouflaging accent items like shallow bowls full of pine-cone potpourri and lacquered wooden fruit or fake orchids in elaborately painted ceramic urns.
I imagine how my honey and I could have put those same funds to decadent use during a series of pampered weekends at some snug bed and breakfast. But then his friends come over to watch the new Blu-ray release of T2: Extreme Edition. And they confront his masterpiece of surround sound. Pausing at a respectful distance, there is a hushed moment of inspection and awe.
His friend, the uber-tech, speaks: "Titanium-laminate-dome tweeters?" My man nods without any trace of smugness. A chorus of "Duuuuude" is their ovation. It may be goofy but I cannot help but be happy for him. At least until the next round of engineered obsolescence upsets our delicate balance of decibels and decor.
First published in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!, June 2007.
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
An attentive salesperson hurries up to me, clearly aware that a female in this environment is as vulnerable as a wounded giraffe at a watering hole. Wearing the ubiquitous uniform of polo shirt and khakis, I don't know if he wants to bring me a chai latte or recommend a five iron for this distance on the fairway. He begins to speak.
We start off with the Stereo 101, the baby steps. Where will I be installing the stereo? How big is the room? Would I be using the thing for atmosphere or to loosen the screws in my home's foundation?
Then, the expected talk of component, cable and surround-sound integration. But his sales pitch wades deeper into stereo lingo and an unintelligible stream of acronyms. I discover that even highly-trained staffers must consult like anxious referees about the origins of THX and WEGA. If you cannot pronounce Wii, do not pass go. More importantly, do not shell out $400.
Remember when that neatly stacked set of boxes on an awkward stand in the corner of the living room was called an Entertainment Center? Now it's a Media Center, a term that accommodates both the fact that the average home has twenty-five electronic devices in it, with TV's outnumbering live residents, and that the average cable system offers five dozen channels - but there's still nothing on.
Television, Best Buy's most aggressively-displayed commodity, still anchors the electronics sprawl in the modern home. But its supporting accessories are immense. I inspect the store's shelves of receivers, CD players, speakers and equalizers — black and silver boxes with shimmering green and orange LCD displays. These are the dreaded "components," the arch enemy of feminine interior decor that can transform any carefully-fashioned living room into the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
The salesman assures me — an obviously stylin' gal — that these systems are designed with a "small footprint" for "minimal intrusion" on your home's space. It takes me a moment to realize that he is serious. I express a healthy skepticism that seven pieces of anything packed in a box as big as a file cabinet can possibly avoid intrusion.
"Well," he offers helpfully, "you can hang them on the wall."
Mounted, perhaps, next to my series of black and white photographs from a recent vacation to London? Too polite to guffaw, I cough delicately and my stereo education continues: hertz, watts, inches. "It's all about power," my guide intones as he surveys the blinking readouts. Inches, indeed.
I share the terror of every woman when I envision my cozy home refashioned into a sports bar by a wall of electronics, the coffee table where I had artfully merchandised my accessories now buried under a herd? a gaggle? a click! of remotes. (Even die-hard techie friends acknowledge to me that the "universal" remote is a myth, like Atlantis or the unicorn.) The only shared characteristic for these gizmos is their uncanny ability to attract all of the dust in the known universe.
As men accumulate larger assortments of components, women retaliate with embellishments. A grim trench warfare ensues. Guys grudgingly realize that each electronics purchase entails a compensatory number of trips to Target. There, anxious spouses will search for camouflaging accent items like shallow bowls full of pine-cone potpourri and lacquered wooden fruit or fake orchids in elaborately painted ceramic urns.
I imagine how my honey and I could have put those same funds to decadent use during a series of pampered weekends at some snug bed and breakfast. But then his friends come over to watch the new Blu-ray release of T2: Extreme Edition. And they confront his masterpiece of surround sound. Pausing at a respectful distance, there is a hushed moment of inspection and awe.
His friend, the uber-tech, speaks: "Titanium-laminate-dome tweeters?" My man nods without any trace of smugness. A chorus of "Duuuuude" is their ovation. It may be goofy but I cannot help but be happy for him. At least until the next round of engineered obsolescence upsets our delicate balance of decibels and decor.
First published in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!, June 2007.
© 2007 MassLive.com All Rights Reserved.
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