Fallen Princess

Video Friday

2012-02-10T15:25:00.000-05:00

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;It&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p> Well hello. It's that time again, Video Friday. Which does not actually occur every Friday, but just whatever Friday I feel like sharing a video. Being able to post what, when and if you want: this is the benefit of having no boss and just a small group of readers. The drawbacks include no income or status, but let's be positive, shall we? It's Video Friday! And Video Friday almost always happens when I am feeling positive. This despite the fact that I just ran into to some well-groomed friends while I was still greasy in yoga clothes, shopping for Valentine's Day candy at CVS. There was no excuse for my yucky state, as class had ended 3 hours earlier. I ate lunch and got on the internet and one thing led to another and here we are, sharing "Bad Feeling" by Veronica Falls. I love how deadpan, yet romantic and sort of 60s and British it is, like they've all escaped from boarding school and Mummy will be bloody pissed when she finds out. I know about this video because it was posted by a Facebook friend, none other than Erin Smith of Bratmobile. I sure do like this, but I can't tell you anything about the band since I don't have time to google them before picking up my daughter. Just go to veronicafalls.com to learn more; apparently they are playing in Philadelphia tonight. I will say that the song kind of reminds me of "Hazy Shade of Winter" by the Bangles, which I am posting below. Bonus glimpses of young Robert Downey Jr. and Andrew McC in Less Than Zero. Anyway, good video Friday to you. See ya.

Even the 21 Jump Street movie is all about ME

2012-02-01T10:56:00.002-05:00

They've shot a movie version of 21 Jump Street, the tv show that made Johnny Depp a star in the 80s. I don't have anything to say about the movie; I don't even know exactly when it will be released. Whatever, I'll leave the facts and criticism to someone who feels like researching and watching that thing.

What I want to talk about are these pictures of me with Johnny and his high school friend Sal, who was also on the show. It was December 1987 and I had just started working at Sassy. Jane wanted a writer to get a part as an extra on a tv show, and then file what we called a "writer participation story." Someone on staff thought of 21 Jump Street. I knew nothing about the show. Somehow I was entertainment editor even though I didn't have a tv. I was a young single girl in NYC who hadn't needed one. I liked to go out to dance clubs and had been working at Footwear News.

I got on a plane to Vancouver, where they shot Jump Street. Johnny played an undercover cop in a high school. He was so exceedingly good-looking that you almost had to avert your eyes. And quite short, like almost all actors. They were filming a flashback scene to his 1970s prom. That is why he is wearing what I remember as a pale blue tuxedo. In the scene (in which I was visible on the episode for approximately .1 second), I wore a 70s prom dress, which was interesting because I actually went to the prom in 1979.* They filmed a make out scene, and after, he complained that the girl he kissed had bad breath.

After they finished shooting, Johnny was feeling goofy so he grabbed a baby doll, and a plunger, and Sal got ahold of that net. Notice they were both smoking. Shenanigans! We were having a ball! Then we all went back to my hotel, where they had all lived, to hang out until the wee hours; Johnny literally fell asleep. (At no point did I actually do any interviews. The whole story was just about being an extra, which is incredible to me. He was a much bigger star than I knew, and honestly, I had no clue what I was doing. Some readers were pissed that I didn't ask him anything.)

They left, eventually, Johnny and his buddies; nothing untoward happened, much to my disappointment. The next morning, Sal called me to see if I could stay for the rest of the weekend. See, he was the one who liked me, which is why they came over. Sigh. I got on the plane.

P.S. A few years later, I interviewed Johnny for a cover story for Sassy at his house in the Hollywod Hills. You can find it on the internet; it's called "Johnny Depp A to Z." He wasn't nearly as friendly that time, but on the plus side, Winona was there.

P.P.S. I spent this morning in the attic looking for these photos, even though I had planned to vaccuum the crumbs out of the couch cushions. I fell into a rabbit hole of old pictures, letters, articles, and a stack of stickers of the Sassy and Nirvana logos. (It was a giveway in the magazine; one Sassy and one Nirvana logo on the same sheet. I will send a sticker sheet to the reader who leaves the best comment.)

*I had already changed out of the prom clothes by the time we took the top picture, and I think that jacket belonged to a P.A., who lent it to me because I was whining about the cold. My hair is just out-of-control sweet. Those bangs, that volume; I paid someone money to give me that cut.

Note: This post seemed to call for a lot of semi-colons. I am not sure why.

The Princess Recommends...

2012-01-23T10:50:00.002-05:00

I am so into this Old Chatham Sheepherding Company yogurt, which is creamy and yummy and provides 32% of your daily calcium. Yeah, calcium content excites me, especially since my mother cracked a vertebrae and suffers from debilitating back pain. I am trying to avoid such a future, or at last postpone it. I also enjoy Total, Brown Cow and Siggi's, which is an Icelandic yogurt called Skyr that has elevated calcium levels. But this one is the most delicious. It's expensive, but the Princess' bone density is worth it, no? I gots to get myself back to Whole Foods for some more. Speaking of Whole Foods, I read about "Whole Foods Parking Lot" in yesterday's NYT, watched the video, and laughed my ass off. It's old (came out in June 2011), but so am I. Some guy takes the piss out of uptight Prius drivers getting aggro by the quinoa.

I like when this guy says "then I take it to the cheese counter." And "pay my 80 bucks for 6 things and get the heck out. The express line is moving hella slow." I drove my family crazy all day reciting from and riffing on the video: "I'm going to take it to the stove now to make the ginger chicken;" "You're doing that homework hella slow;" etc. I amuse myself. The video takes place in LA, but things get just as real in the Montclair Whole Foods parking lot, post yoga.You don't want to be around me when my blood sugar is low.

Video Friday

2012-01-20T15:02:00.001-05:00

Oh. My. God. I have always loved "Hello It's Me" by Todd Rundgren, but I had never before seen this 1973 performance on The Midnight Special. Boy am I happy to have stumbled on it when I got the urge to hear this song, right after I had the urge to hear The Fifth Dimension's "Wedding Bell Blues," which was inspired by Miss Pillsbury's rendition on Glee this week. There's a little taste of why my book remains unwritten.

Todd's look here is one of the sweetest I have ever seen in my life. The feathers over the eyebrows, the sort of winged suspenders, his dental deformity--I totally am a goner. Wait, I need to get another hit. Okay, I am back. Are his roots blue, or is it just the lighting? Because his fingertips look blue at one point. I completely support this fashion originality, and I hope Todd brings it to his upcoming shows at the City Winery. My only complaint with this video, besides the subpar quality, is that there is not enough Todd. Less of the white grand piano, more feathery sweetness! Why the shot of the piano innards? More Todd!!

Princess of the Day

2012-01-17T14:28:00.003-05:00

I love Downton Abbey. Oh yes. I am a sucker for a period drama, especially one shown on Masterpiece Theater. I love everything about this show--the comforting opening music, the intro by Laura Linney, the costumes, the total escape from my day to day responsibilities. I don't care whether the show upholds my liberal values or what comment it is making on the class system. I just love the characters. When will Lady Mary and Cousin Matthew finally get together? What about Mr. Bates and Anna? I can't wait until next week.

And let me just say that I think some aspects of the life of Edwardian nobility would have suited me just fine. (I'm conveniently disregarding the inequalities of the era.) Go ahead and judge me. I deserve my silly fantasies. At this moment my son is downstairs demanding I fix him some toaster waffles; would that I could have the kitchen staff see to it. Meanwhile, my hair, outfit and unmade bed could use the attention of a good lady's maid. Preferably one who won't injure me by leaving a bit of soap on the bathroom floor.

I especially am fond of Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Lady Cora. I don't remember seeing her in a movie since 1984 (Racing with the Moon with Sean Penn, to whom she was engaged before he married Madonna). She's been in London acting and raising the kids she has with her husband, a British director. How refreshing (and European?) that her face appears untouched by a surgeon's scalpel. She is almost exactly the same age as me (she turned 50 in July) and actually looks it! I mean this as a compliment. Name one other 50-year-old actress who appears 50. McGovern is very pretty, of course, but actually believable as the mother of grown daughters. I searched the internet and found this quote from an article in The Evening Standard:

Of cosmetic surgery, she says firmly: “It's always confused me why women do it. And the other thing that no one quite says is even if you've got your face perfectly smooth, as soon as you bring your hands up, or reveal your neck, the game's up. It's like two different people sewn on to the same frame."

Slippery Slope

2012-01-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I tried out a new dermatologist. Yes, yes, yes--the fun never stops. Skin cancer runs in my family; I have moles checked, removed and biopsied regularly. An ad in the local paper for this dude promised no long waits. The doctor I had been seeing makes you wait for an hour, then rushes you out in 3 minutes.

This guy actually sees patients once a week at a plastic surgeon's office with a very convenient location. Passing the huge "Plastic Surgery" sign outside, still clad in my yoga clothes, I was mildly worried that someone would spot me. I didn't want anyone to think I am considering having work done. Then the receptionist had me fill out all these forms as if I was in for a tummy tuck, breast implants or some other invasive procedure.

As promised, there was no wait. I was seen by a very young looking man, who declared the spot on my neck a mole, came at me with a needle to numb the area, and then sliced it off for a biopsy. He left a shallow hole that I hope will heal before too long. The doctor decided the identical looking spot on my knee was a keratosis, which doesn't need to be biopsied, and froze that off with liquid nitrogen, per my request.

Finished with the medical portion of my visit, he commenced with the upselling. "You have a lot of sun damage," he noted. Sun damage seems to be the current medical term for freckles, which I have been covered with since early childhood. "Does it bother you?" Well, not before you put it like that. I don't even notice my freckles when I look in the mirror. I am an Irish Catholic with fair skin and a history of sunburns acquired running around Orchard Beach in the Bronx before the invention of adequate sunscreen. For the past 25 years, I have been vigilant about protecting myself from the sun, and I think my epidermis looks pretty decent considering what it has been through these past 5 decades.

I had to distract Dr. Dude from my freckles. There is barely a square inch of my body devoid of them. (Sorry guys, I'm taken.) "What bothers me are these broken capillaries around my nose," I told him truthfully. When I was at ELLEgirl I saw a fancy NYC dermatologist for one very painful lasering session that did NOTHING. Since then, I usually deal with the situation by not looking in the mirror for very long; sometimes I try to cover them with concealer, which then gets sort of clumpy and noticeable. He took a closer look. "You have rosacea," he said. "You have a generalized redness on your whole face." I do? I thought that was my healthy glow. He suggested two different kinds of lasers to "even out my skin tone." It would end up costing four figures.

I actually am considering it. So I can sort of see how people become plastic surgery addicts. One minute you're having a medically necessary procedure, the next minute your lasering off this or that, trying to erase your history and your individuality.

book envy shame spiral

2012-01-04T13:10:00.002-05:00

another ex-assistant
has written a book
I update my status

My New Year's Resolution Fail

2012-01-02T15:21:00.001-05:00

For the past several years my New Year's resolution has been: Be nicer. Strive to become a more patient, kinder, gentler woman.

It's not going so well.

Last night, Day One of the sweet new me, I went into my son's room to put something away and was greeted by an explosion of toys and books and Christmas presents past. The electric keyboard we bought him for Christmas sat atop a minefield of Lego projects in various states of completion, a broken electric card shuffler, his book bag spewing books and papers, two pairs of inside-out jeans, stuffed animals. His desk was hidden beneath a mountain of books. A box for his light saber had come crashing off the shelf onto his closet floor.

I exploded. "I don't know how you can take this!" Reader, I was not speaking in modulated or calm tones. I think I may have been perspiring. Threatening to commence Operation Leave it On the Curb: Toy Edition, I picked up a Star Wars toy the size of a labrador retriever. My daughter retreated to her bedroom, where she lay clutching her unicorn. My husband appeared and spirited away the light saber to a storage closet.

I attempted to collect myself, remembering, too late, my hours-old resolution. After some deep breaths, I returned to my son's room and began giving him saner instructions. "It's...good...that...you...are...a little...calmer," he said, super slowly. I started laughing.

"I'm glad you like my comedy, Mommy," he said.

Princess of the Day: Princess Superstar

2011-12-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

My Kathleen Hanna Q&A

2011-11-26T13:15:00.001-05:00

I'm pretty excited about my interview with Kathleen Hanna in the new issue of Coilhouse Magazine. It is a beautiful, cool magazine, and the editors were amazing to work with. I interviewed Kathleen in 2010 after she donated her archives to the Fales Library at NYU. You can find out how to get a copy of Coilhouse at http://coilhouse.net/magazine.

Boycott Black Friday

2011-11-22T13:34:00.001-05:00

I am not spending a single retail cent on Black Friday. The hysteria is just ridiculous.

Sarah Jacobsen Film Grant

2011-11-21T10:50:00.001-05:00

Sarah Jacobsen was a rad D.I.Y. filmmaker. When I worked at Sassy magazine in the early 90s, she sent me her super low-budget film, Mary Jane's Not a Virgin anymore. At a very young age, Sarah had written, directed, and produced this movie about a quirky girl losing her virginity. I wrote about the film in Sassy. Sarah later moved to New York and we became friends, and she also wrote for ym when I was editor. When Violet was born, she sent me a copy of Good Night Moon, with a very sweet note. I still have and treasure them both. I am sad to say that because I was really busy with work and my babies and house, I didn't do a good job of keeping in touch with Sarah. I didn't even know Sarah was sick when I heard that she had died in 2004.

Below is the announcement for this year's Sarah Jacobsen FIlm Grant Call for Entries. Check it out.

Sarah Jacobson Film Grant

2011 Call for Entries and

2012 Film Festival with Permanent Wave Announcement!

www.sjfilmgrant.wordpress.com

This year we plan to give out three grants to support projects in any stage of completion from pre-production through distribution. The amounts will be between $1000 and $2000.

We are also planning a film/video/media festival for early 2012, in conjunction with the rad feminist group Permanent Wave. All work samples submitted will be considered for the festival as well.

(We won’t screen without your permission though!)

NOTE THAT THE DEADLINE IS DECEMBER 31.

We are open to films of any length and genre, from documentary to experimental to narrative. What we are looking for are projects that in some way embody Sarah’s spirit and represent the values that she articulated in her work — powerful representations of women, a do-it-yourself approach to filmmaking and life, and a passionate commitment to advancing equality without sacrificing fun. I want to note that last year we awarded grants to three documentaries that were all pretty big in scope—definitely don’t take that as a bellwether, look back at all the past winners and you will see very experimental pieces, shorts, etc.
We award grants to projects at any stage of production, including post, but not for marketing or publicity. After the jump is the list of what you need to enter. And I like to post Tamra’s video every year for inspiration.

CLICK THROUGH FOR APPLICATION GUIDELINES !

To apply for the grant, please mail the following materials to The Sarah Jacobson Film Grant postmarked by December 31, 2011. No exceptions. Do not send more material than requested.

Winners will be announced in February

1. A synopsis/treatment of the project you wish to fund (no more than 3 pages). This should include a detailed description of the film — its subject, style, and structure—and of your intended audience and distribution strategy. Please also explain why your project is appropriate for this grant. Send 6 copies.
2. A simple one-page budget for the project. Also include a paragraph describing other funding you have received for this project and how you would use the money from this grant. Send 6 copies.
3. A short bio for the filmmaker with reliable contact information. Send 6 copies.
4. A single work sample: either a trailer or rough-cut of the project you’re applying for the grant with, or an example of previous work. The work sample should be on DVD. Send 6 copies.
5. A self-addressed stamped postcard if you would like to get notified that your stuff arrived.
6. A CLEARLY PRINTED sheet of contact information including your name, email, phone, and address.

Do not send more material than requested.

APPLICATIONS MUST BE POST-MARKED BY DECEMBER 31, 2011
Check the grant web page for updates: www.sjfilmgrant.wordpress.com
Contact: sjfilmgrant@gmail.com
MAILING ADDRESS:
Sarah Jacobson Film Grant
c/o Mikki Halpin
583 Driggs Ave
Apt 4F
Brooklyn, NY 11211

ABOUT THE GRANT

Sarah Jacobson (1971–2004) was a an independent filmmaker who wrote, produced, and directed several movies in the 1990s, including “Mary Jane’s Not A Virgin Any More” and “I Was a Teenage Serial Killer.” Sarah’s films reflected her punk sensibilities, her feminist beliefs, and her dedication to DIY principles.
After her death, filmmaker Sam Green and Sarah’s mother established the Sarah Jacobson Film Grant for young women “whose work embodies some of the things that Sarah stood for: a fierce DIY approach to filmmaking, a radical social critique, and a thoroughly underground sensibility.”

Video Friday

2011-11-18T09:39:00.000-05:00

I was totally obsessed with this Madness song when it came out in 1982, during my senior year of college. I think I may have played it on my radio show at WRCU at Colgate. That was also the year we got MTV at OUR HOUSE and I was so transfixed by the video, which now seems endearingly goofy in a Monty Python, early-80's-Princeton-eating-club kind of way. Aside: the room with the piano in it looks just like the piano room in my house.

I don't know if I noticed how awesome the lyrics were in 1982; I was probably too concerned with the cute boy visuals, the joyful horn and exciting string sections. The song is a nicely written sketch of an average family, from the point of view of one of the kids, but now I most relate to the mom.

Anyway, if you're still in a bad mood after watching that video, I don't know what can be done for you.

P.S.
I just made up Video Friday because I found myself with a free morning. The yoga studio sent an email that the bathroom is out of order. I have to make a number one every time I do a cobra, so that's a no go for me. Thus, I'm just listening to my playlist from ladies' poker night (I lost like $10), rehydrating and waiting until it's time to bring the chocolate pudding pie into Violet's school for the Thanksgiving Feast.

What Old Is

2011-11-15T23:21:00.001-05:00

As I am old, I enjoy reading the Sunday paper actually on paper, and then commenting out loud about what I read while my family ignores me. I made the points you are about to read to my husband this past Sunday morning. He glanced at me for half a second, and then said "blog post" before returning to the sports section. This is what he does when he just wants me to please shut up, as none of my insights are very fresh to him after spending 15 years listening to me on a daily basis. For their part, my children resumed building a fort and leaving a trail of crumbs wherever they went.

So here it is Tuesday night and I'm just now posting on Sunday's New York Times Riff about feeling old because of the internet. The column was written by a 28-year-old who edits The Hairpin, a website for young hipster ladies. Once I got over the professional jealousy that overtakes me each time I read one of those Riff columns, I had to admit that the piece was quite well-written. Her premise was as follows: so rapid is cultural turnover on the internet, that even she, a person who makes a living evaluating video frivolities on the web, doesn't always get the joke. She was made to feel old because some popular piece of ridiculousness went right over her head, like the high pitched tone that only the very young can hear.

Listen, young Hairpin editor/published NY Times Magazine writer: I'll tell you what old is. Old is: you're 73 and you've fractured your spine so you have to get around with the aid of a walker on wheels called the Rollinator. Old is: you're an 87-year-old World War II veteran who can't get up to his own bedroom without a cane. Old is: you're a 50-year-old ex-hipster telling some 28-year-old what old is. I'll tell you what old is.

Princess of the Day

2011-11-11T10:16:00.000-05:00

Liz Anderson - Husband Hunting (1970)

I never heard of this country singer until I read her obituary last week. Sounds like she was super cool. I have to figure out a way to discover these role models from previous generations before they die. In the meantime, enjoy this song, in which Liz sings about hunting for her no-good husband with a shotgun. I think it would be awesome if Kathleen Hanna or Kim Gordon would cover this.

Mothers of Three-Year-Old Girls: You Can Relax About the Princess Thing

2011-10-27T14:09:00.000-04:00

Lately I've witnessed a lot of anti-princess hand-wringing by wonderful, smart, feminist, friends of mine. They are worried that their daughters' love of all things princess will infect their brains and turn them into aspiring reality tv stars. I really think there's nothing to fear.

Here's why: The princess thing is a phase. A blip. At three, my daughter wore a crappy purple Barbie princess dress over everything she owned. She adored the DVD Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, a hellhole of weird computer animation which made me want to gouge out my own eyeballs. Did I complain? No. It made my girl happy, as did my husband's willingness to pretend to be a prince asking her to dance at the royal ball. He would even tolerate her tiny rage when she felt he wasn't acting "princey" enough. We endured Disney Princesses on Ice--twice.

Our son spent two whole years wearing a Bob the Builder costume and hyperventilating over diggers and cranes. It never made us think he might grow up to be a construction worker, or a member of a Village People cover band, not that we'd mind if he did. So why get all freaked out just because Violet liked Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and wanted to dress up? It seemed like totally age-appropriate pretend play.

During this period, Peggy Orenstein wrote her anti-princess New York Times story, and later a book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter. She worried that all the princess mania would accelerate body-image issues for her daughter and other girls in her generation. While I am certainly sensitive to that, I really don't think putting on a sparkly dress and plastic crown in pre-school is the gateway drug to anorexia.

By age 5, Violet was done with princesses, which actually made me a little sad. "Princesses are for babies," she told me. She moved on to many other interests, no harm done.

"Being A Mother is Like Being Wallpaper"

2011-10-26T13:06:00.002-04:00

I read this quote maybe 10 years ago in an interview with Brooke Adams, an actress who had taken time off to be a full-time mother. I think about it a lot.

Let's be honest: my kids don't really see me as an actual person. They love me, but they know my priority right now is to meet their needs. In a way, this is good. I provide a healthy sense of security for them. I like being the mommy who is there when the school bus drops them off. I know that I am privileged to make afternoon snacks and show up at school for the pumpkin carving. I also am absolutely sure that I prefer being at home to the alternative, since I spent 5 frazzled years as a working mom with super-stressful jobs.

Yet. Often, if one of the kids is demanding my time when I am in the middle of a project, I find myself telling them: "I am a person." Sometimes I even have to remind myself that I still exist. When our new postal worker was delivering our mail, he asked if there were more than one names at our house. "No," I said. "Just Ross." He looked confused. "Not Kelly?" he asked. Oh yeah. Kelly. That's me. I am an entity.

One way I remind myself of that is by writing, on this blog, and for paying jobs. Writing makes me happy, when it isn't making me miserable, and I just need to do it. But my freelance writing doesn't bring in enough money to pay a babysitter, nor do I want a full-time babysitter. So I'm always fitting work in when they are at school.

That is usually fine, except if a child gets sick when I have a deadline (yesterday and Monday), or an editor wants to move a meeting to a time that makes it impossible for me to be home by 2:15 (this morning). Violet was feeling a little under the weather Monday, and I had an assignment interviewing someone I had talked to 20 years ago and was excited to speak to again, for a magazine for which I had not written in 15 years. I let her watch a tv show during the interview. I had no other option. Then yesterday, she still felt crappy. I kept her home, but I was really worried that the constant distractions (can I have some water? can I watch a show? will you play with me?) were interfering with the quality of the piece. I was resenting her, and also feeling guilty for resenting my sweet girl.

I filed the piece, and they liked it, so that all worked out. When Violet woke up this morning and said she wasn't quite sure if she should go to school--no fever, mind you---I acted super cheerful, helped her get ready and poured her onto the school bus. She wasn't really sick, and honestly, I couldn't take another day trapped in the house. Then I felt guilty.

At my yoga class, my teacher had to yell over the sound of drilling in the driveway. She talked about the concept of dharma, and following your heart. You don't neglect your responsibilities, but you need to find a way to your heart's desire. It's better to follow your own dharma imperfectly than someone else's perfectly, she said. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Mommy, why do women wear bras?

2011-10-20T14:57:00.001-04:00

When Violet missed the bus this morning, I threw on a thin t-shirt and yoga pants to run her over to school in the car. I did not have time to put on a bra, because my kids both have a deathly fear of being "tardy." I think it is the old-fashioned formality of the word, or perhaps the desire to be punctual is genetic (paternally).

Driving at my usual glacial pace, I wondered aloud whether I should do the car line, or park and walk to the door. I dislike the car line, but with the principal standing in front of the school, should I really saunter up braless?

"Mommy, why do women wear bras?" asked Violet.

"That's a good question." I answered. "I think because society expects women to wear bras."

"But why?" she persisted.

"I guess people don't want to see women's breasts bouncing all over the place." There was no other way to say it.

Violet found this hilarious. I parked and walked her to the door, because my bosom is not so remarkable that anyone would really notice that I didn't have a bra on. Or at least that's what I choose to believe. She was not tardy.

Then I came home and read The New York Times article about the fashion expectations for city moms at drop-off, and I was thankful once again to be suburban.

Dawn-mageddon

2011-10-17T12:33:00.002-04:00

An accident has further maimed the one-armed Dawn doll from my childhood (I wrote about her last year in this post). I discovered Dawn's remarkable misfortune when playing Barbies with my daughter the other day. We were changing the many Barbies into new Playboy Mansion-inspired attire (has anyone ever found an outfit for Barbie that wasn't a Baby Phat-esque disaster?) when I noticed that Dawn's mini seemed glued to her behind. Attempting to disengage it, I saw that glue had dried in her hip sockets, and then--crack--Dawn split clear in half. It was truly macabre, a Boxing Helena moment.

"Why is Dawn covered in glue?" I asked Violet. She started to cry. "I don't know," she said unconvincingly, fear and guilt on her face.

I decided to drop that line of questioning. But it didn't seem right to throw Dawn out in her hour of need. After all, my grandmother had saved her in a drawer for decades. I tried duct tape, thinking a jaunty silver belt might hold her together. It did not.

"What should I do?" I asked Violet.

"I think you should keep her in your room," she said. "I don't want anything else to happen to her." So that is where Dawn is. Lying in my thong-less underwear drawer. I did not think I should photograph her for this post. It seems violent and indecent, somehow.

Confirmation: I am "unremarkable"

2011-10-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

You may believe that you are unremarkable, but do you have actual proof? I think not.

I don't know what surprises me more: that someone once bothered to create a Wikipedia page for me, or that another industrious person took the time to delete it. (You can get to this proof of my non-existence if you click on my name in the entries for any of the magazines I worked for, or for Jane Pratt's page. She actually is remarkable.)

Also, just to clarify: I love this situation. My husband and I both laughed when we discovered it. I wouldn't want a Wikipedia page. It would probably be filled with factual errors that would annoy me, but not enough to do anything about them. And plus, I love the word remarkable, as well as its antonym, unremarkable. I think people should use them more often. I am going to try to find a place for these excellent words in every future post I write.

Furthermore, knowing that I am unremarkable really takes the pressure off. No need to finish that novel I've been threatening for 30-odd years. That sure is a relief, as the non-completed state of said book hangs over my head each day while I engage in procrastinating activities such as this one.

How the lady-training is going

2011-09-30T18:55:00.003-04:00

Here is the joke my daughter told us last night:

Shut up, Poop and Manners were in a car. They stopped at a gas station so Poop could go to the bathroom. Manners went out to find him. While they were gone, a police officer went up to the car. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Shut up," said Shut Up.
"Where are your manners?" he asked.
"Outside, looking for Poop," said Shut Up.

My husband dutifully reprimanded her for the potty talk. I was not much help, as I was doubled over with laughter. Shaking, uncontrollable laughter.

Badass/Lady

2011-08-25T12:15:00.012-04:00

Yesterday at the Central Park Zoo, a mom was wearing a t-shirt that said: "Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History." It made me wonder: How do you get your children socialized while wearing a shirt with the opposite message?

And also, do you really have to misbehave to get shit done? This is a concept I have been thinking about since I read a New York Times article about Madelyn Pugh, pictured at left in that awesome chair, on which "Girl Writer" is printed under her name. (I want one like it, even though I'm not a girl anymore.) Madelyn Pugh was a writer for I Love Lucy. According to the author of the article, she was an excellent writer, and she know how to make the show's scripts realistic because she was a woman. She even went beyond her strict job description, trying out stunts to make sure they'd be ok for Lucy to do. It was said that she always behaved like a perfect lady.

Of course, at that time, it was not socially acceptable for women to be anything but ladies. Ladies had to be polite, sugarcoat their overly forceful opinions, and never appear in public without stockings. So Pugh was maybe smart to get her ideas across while conforming to the norms of her time. (On the flip side, this broad at left, lyricist Fran Landesman, was anything but a lady, and she seemed to have a great time, according to her recent obit.)

My mother raised me to behave like a lady, and I usually did. But when I discovered feminism and Ms. Magazine in high school, I decided that being a feminist meant rejecting those restrictions. Sometimes I equated being rude with strength, and I admired icons who seemed to personify that: Badasses, broads, foul-mouthed rules breakers.

That all seems very adolescent to me today, three weeks before I turn 50. In our increasingly vitriolic culture, what I aspire to is a strength that is also civil and respectful. Note: I said aspire to. My husband always says that I am not to be trifled with. Truly, I can be a bitch if the situation calls for it. But I usually regret it.

I hope that my daughter will become some combination of a lady and a badass. I am raising her to stand up for what she believes in. But she can get the point across, and maybe make history, without behaving poorly. At least that's what I wish for her.

Costco. No go.

2011-08-23T20:42:00.002-04:00

I had never set foot in a Costco. Buying in bulk freaks me out. I love a sale as much as the next person, but that doesn't mean I want to stock up on 12 boxes of mac and cheese or 4 bottles of ketchup. Such excessive frugality makes me feel like I am suffocating. As if I have no options. Like, what if a delicious new brand of ketchup comes along, but now I can't get it because I have enough Heinz to last until Violet enters middle school? I've already committed to a man, a suburban house, these two kids and their bottomless needs, endless laundry--I need to feel like there are some choices left in my life. Even if they are at the market. Goddamn it.

My husband (immoderate buyer of the sale items pictured) heard good things about the reality show Extreme Couponing, and insisted I watch it whenever it debuted a few months ago. Why? I don't know. I detest reality tv; I detest bulk shopping. Four minutes into this poisonous mix, I felt claustrophobic. The premiere extreme couponer showed off a room in her home filled with shelves and shelves of neatly organized rows of detergent and hand sanitizer and what have you. She had insanely overbought with coupons. She said looking at all these purchases gave her "joy."

I thought of this ecstatic couponer when my husband got a bee in his bonnet about checking out Costco, and we had a family trip there one sweltering Sunday. My daughter clung to my hand as we entered the huge warehouse. People were exiting pushing carts filled with gigantic flats of paper towels, 900-pound bags of rice and towers of soda. I was mildly intrigued by the discounted wine and liquor and the thimble-sized free wine tastes. An area roughly the size of a city block was filled with some off-price men's dress shirts. I don't want to buy my husband's shirts where I get my spaghetti sauce. Gross. Soul crushing. I would go to a separate store for each item if possible. Wine at the wine shop, shoes at the shoe store, cake at the bakery, cheese at the cheese shop, etc.

I found the place post-apocalyptic. It felt like the world had ended and the only thing that survived is Costco, and everyone is grabbing what they can to survive.

"I'm scared, mommy," said my daughter.

Smart girl.

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

2011-08-14T15:01:00.013-04:00

People can't stop talking about Dirty Dancing. From a post by my girl Lesley over at xojane, I learned there will be a remake with Lea Michelle cast in the Jennifer Grey role. A red flag, but I'll be first in line when it comes to the Bellevue Theater. I can't help myself. I've seen Dirty Dancing probably twelve times. At Sassy, we used to act out scenes from the movie, and try to force Mike Flaherty to play the Swayze role. (He refused.) I'm pretty sure I could recite the entire film to you right now.

I'm not the only one. In the pilot for the fall series New Girl, the character played by appealing Zooey Deschanel spends her post-breakup days on the couch crying and endlessly watching Dirty Dancing. Dirty Dancing was also referenced in Crazy Stupid Love, which Dalton and I saw last night. (Fun date movie, but Steve Carell gives me the heebie jeebies, so he and cute Ryan Gosling cancel each other out.) Ryan Gosling tells Emma Stone that he always gets girls to sleep with him by executing the lift from the final scene of Dirty Dancing. And then he demonstrates. I asked Dalton if he would do the lift with me. But he said it would throw his back out.

Reading Sunday Styles this am, I found a Dirty Dancing reference in the etiquette column, and a piece about grinding, the dirty dancing that actual teenagers have been doing for a decade.

I couldn't resist any longer. I am not made of stone, you know. So I went to you tube to watch the lift scene. It still give me chills. Swayze in that low cut cropped black shirt, adorable Jennifer Grey, the father seething in the corner. It's all gold.

I'm Not Proud of This

2011-08-03T15:07:00.008-04:00

I was in a crabby mood at about 5:45 yesterday evening as we returned from an afternoon at the pool. Unloading bags from the car and picking up chip bags and crumbs from the back seat, muttering about the filth, I heard a female voice say "hello." I ignored it, because I thought it was a passerby answering her cell phone. But when she said my name, I looked up.

It was a woman in an "Environment New Jersey" t-shirt, the same persistent canvasser that inspired me to write the piece that started this blog and eventually made its way into the Complaint Box section of The New York Times. Was I having a nightmare?

"Christina?" she repeated.

"Yes," I said. "And no. No, I'm not interested."

My children were standing right there, horrified. They had spent the morning at our church's Peace Camp, learning to behave more peacefully. As had I.

"We just want to thank you for your past support," she said, a bit of a whine in her voice.

"I don't want to be thanked," I said. "I just want you guys to stop coming."

"We just knock on all the doors in town," she said defensively, marking something on her clipboard. (Maybe: "Insane, potentially perimenopausal, woman at this address.")

"I know you do," I said, slamming the car door. "And it's really annoying."

"Well, that's valid," she said, and went on to harass my neighbor.

The Talent Show Tribute to Sassy

2011-07-24T17:50:00.009-04:00

How's it going? I just sent my husband and daughter off to the Taylor Swift show. Once my son finishes his baby carrots we'll be making some smores before I settle in with a New Yorker cover story that seems to be about how motherhood sucks the life out of you.

So there's this tribute show to Sassy in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Sadly, I can't go. But my former sister-in-law Jessica Vitkus will be performing a song my ex-husband and I wrote about my ex-boyfriend. I took care of lyrics and vocals, and my ex-husband took care of everything else. Jessica (who definitely sings better than I do) will be playing with a band called Supercute.

Damn, that sound fun.

Montclair Mom Proves to be Barrel of Laughs at Son's Sleepover

2011-07-10T13:22:00.007-04:00

My son turns 11 on Wednesday, and he insisted on having a sleepover party. I tried to entice him with exciting alternatives like viewing Harry Potter on opening day. But he prevailed, with the hard-to-refute "it's only fair" argument, citing that my daughter had a sleepover for her last birthday.

The 6 guests arrived around 6-ish on Saturday night. They ran like wild around the yard playing laser tag, then began throwing water balloons. At around 7, my husband went to pick up the pizzas. I had implored him to have them delivered and not leave me alone with the boys, but damned if he was going to pay a delivery charge.

While he was out, a boy came running. "Someone stepped in the litter box and there's litter everywhere!" he announced. The second floor bathroom, was covered in litter and water from the balloons. The boy who had stepped in the box was super bummed to have litter on his feet. I was in the process of cleaning it up, when I heard the mother of a late arrival calling from the front hall. "Christina? Dalton?" Boys were wilding and there were no parents to be seen.

I went down and explained the litter situation to the mom. At this point, her husband was hit by a water balloon. He did not seem very amused. "Why don't you lock yourself in your room and let Dalton deal with the boys?" she suggested. "That's what I would do."

After the boys ate their pizza (one consumed 5 slices!), they went back to the yard. They were chasing each other, wielding hockey sticks as weapons and hurling soccer balls at each other. "Stop!" I yelled futilely. "Someone is going to get hurt." I went to find backup (Dalton). Upon my return, a boy was lying on the ground. My son had hit him hard with a soccer ball.

"I told you someone would get hurt!" I yelled maniacally. "Look what happened." In the cartoon version, flames would have been shooting from my nose, and smoke from my ears. There was silence for a beat. The boy rose from the ground. "I'm ok," he said. And he began running around again.

After the cake was served, I did retreat to my room. I know when I am beaten. Let me just clarify, these are incredibly nice 11-year-old boys, the best available, with excellent parents. But somehow when they are in a group, the boy energy spins out of control, Lord of the Flies style.

They went to sleep under protest at midnight, then rose at 5 demanding bacon. "No breakfast before 6 am," I said ungraciously. As if I would be going back to sleep. Later, as the dead pig sizzled in the pan, my husband served orange juice. "Chug! Chug! Chug!" the little darlings chanted. They sounded like the boys I lived with in a fraternity sophomore year of college, only less civilized.

21 Years

2011-06-23T11:40:00.002-04:00

Today is the anniversary of my father's death. In his memory, I am reposting a piece I wrote last year on this date.

My father died 20 years ago today.

I still miss him.

Colon cancer killed him at 58. When they first found the tumor in his colon, he had surgery to remove it. During the operation I sat in the waiting room at New Rochelle Hospital with my mother. All I remember is that the surgeon came out when he was finished, and said: "It was very big. The size of a grapefruit. But I think I got it all."

The tumor had grown so large because my father didn't get himself checked for years. He had misdiagnosed the pain in his back. I remember him always having back problems. When I was 13 he was in traction, and to pass the time, he hand-hooked rugs. I still have a lovely floral rug that he made for me in my guest room. Sometimes he said his back problem was caused by an injury he got playing Gaelic football; other times, as I recall, it seemed to be related to a fall from a telephone pole. My father used to repair telephone wires for a living.

Finally they found the source of this particular pain, and so he had the surgery, and chemo, which seemed to cure him for a while, until it didn't.

He died right after Father's Day. I don't know why, but I bought him a large mahogany wall clock that year. He was so frail, and when he opened it, he sobbed a heart breaking sob. Why had I bought him such a gift?

Very near the end, he was thin as a rail, and he wanted a cigarette. My brother Robert could not deny him. I watched him smoking it, and he seemed a corpse already, but I knew that Robert had done the right thing.

I spent the night before he died at my parents' house, and I was able to tell him that I loved him, and he heard me. My family of origin is not big on "I Love You." It is so rarely spoken amongst us that I can barely choke it out, and if I do say it, it seems like some sort of breach of etiquette. People avert their eyes, then make jokes. We don't say it, but we know it.

The afternoon of June 23, 1990, it was sunny and beautiful, and my brother took a few of us, me and some cousins, out in the little motor boat that my father had recently insisted on buying for him. (For me, he had thoughtfully purchased an air conditioner for my stifling New York apartment.) The sun glittered on the water. We were quietly waiting.

When we returned a few hours later, my mother and my parents' closest friends sat around the dining room table. I glanced their way as I went directly to my father's bedside.

"Chris..." It was Mr. Maye, my father's lifelong best friend. He didn't need to say anything else.

My father's hands were folded on his chest.

What the Kids are Doing: Bearded Edition

2011-06-16T12:54:00.007-04:00

As previously established, I live in the suburbs and work at home in sweaty yoga clothes. Thus my trips into NYC are rare, and filled with unfamiliar sights. I have learned that all women now wear towering heels with many thick straps holding them to their feet, for example. And every time I come into Manhattan, (when I am not worrying that I have a neon sign on me that screams "Suburban Mother!") I am struck by the large percentage of guys under 40 with scruffy-looking beards much different than the trimmed goatees of my youth. We're talking super long, kind of disgusting facial hair, like Rip Van Winkle.

I'm old, so I can't help being a little mystified by the young. Why do the men of this generation have faces that look more like vaginas than the waxed-clean genitalia of its women? Razor blades are obscenely expensive, but I don’t think it is fair that men can let their facial hair run rampant, while woman have to be hyper-conscious of their pubic hair.

I sought insight from a really nice bearded man, a friend of a friend. He was sweet enough to answer all my questions about beards, and now I feel a little bad for being judgmental. His name is Alexander Yerks, and he is a photographer.

So, Alex, when did you first grow your beard?

I believe the first time I grew my beard was around August 2007.

Why?

People ask me this all the time. They also say "I've always wanted to, but..." My easiest answer is that it's just easy to grow one. You don't have to do anything! At all! Just let it grow!

Did you see someone or something that inspired you?

I think what made me really want to grow one was how most people usually frown upon beards. Which is strange, since it's in our genes to grow them. We did evolve this way for a reason! I always wondered why it's looked down upon, but now I think it is just the way modern society has shaped the way people look and dress. It seems like from the beginning of mankind, men grew beards to distinguish themselves from the rest. Most noblemen, religious figures, gods, or other powerful men had a signature bearded look. For example: George Harrison, Jesus, Fidel, Socrates, Merlin, Van Gogh, Darwin, Freud, and Papa Smurf. In the past, having a beard was almost a sign of wisdom that only came with age and experiences. It's actually interesting that only a few US presidents had beards. Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Lincoln, and Harrison.

Allrighty. How would you describe your look with the beard, v.s. before?

I don't think my look changed at all. Although it did add an extra 8 inches to my chin.

Any difference in how you seem to be perceived?

I do feel like I get more respect from the everyday person now that I have a beard, but it's not always positive respect. Some people don't get it. But some people dig it.

What is the best part of having a beard?

Saving money on razors, etc. Keeps your face and neck warm without a scarf. Less people on the street will mess with you. Having lived in Bushwick for two years with the beard definitely helped keep the street confrontations down.

The worst part?

It does weird some people out. This is probably the result of the last handful of generations having grown up with this GQ mentality of clean faces, men using cosmetics, and worrying way too much about how to dress. Actually now that I think of it, the worst part of having a beard was when Joaquin grew one. I think that made more people look at beards in a negative light.

Are there any beard maintenance issues?

Sometimes you can get "bedhead". Eating was a major challenge at first. Especially when you have a moustache. A handkerchief is your best friend.

Any beard mishaps? Or negatives to having a beard?

The TSA and airport security will give you multiple pat-downs and screenings. Smoking is a hazard. Trimming can be a nightmare. One wrong move and bye bye beard.

Do you find that there is a particular type that is attracted to guys with beards?

I haven't really had any particular type of women mention that beards are their thing. My girlfriend likes it though.

P.S. I met Alex recently, and he had shaved his beard! He said he missed it , though, and was thinking of growing it back.

What, I should start using hashtags NOW?

2011-06-13T12:43:00.008-04:00

The piece on hashtags in yesterday's New York Times Style section was the paper's fourth offering on the little thingy that people like to use in their tweets and whenever they don't feel like writing out a complete thought.

I have never used a hashtag. I was briefly tempted when my highly grammatical colleague Tamara Glenny ran a post about hashtags on her excellent site wwword this past February.

Before that I wasn't quite sure I understood the hashtag. Now that I do comprehend, I feel self-conscious about becoming a late adopter. It seems vaguely age-inappropriate, the literary equivalent of wearing a tacky miniskirt to the market or constantly sprinkling your speech with "like." Or getting a hashtag tattoo.

In Which My Son Teaches Me By Example

2011-06-09T12:16:00.009-04:00

My 10-year-old played his first competitive tennis match yesterday. We are lucky to belong to a lovely pool and tennis club, and we all play, with varying degrees of ability. My husband was on the team in high school and is a natural athlete but rarely has the time for tennis now. I am an uncoordinated 49-year-old who learned four years ago. I have no stamina and love the game. Both of the kids have been in tennis clinics for the past 4 springs.

Luckily, Dale seems to take after his dad, so I signed him up for the tennis team and the juniors tournament at our club. For his first match, he was pitted against a 9-year-old. When I told Dale the boy's name, a look of panic crossed his face. "That is so unfair," he said. "What's the problem?" I asked insensitively. "He's nine years old. You're almost 11."

Dale knew this boy from camp. He apparently has played USTA tournaments. Not sure why someone so good was pitted against an inexperienced player, but that's how it works, I guess. As my husband explained, in professional tournaments, the bottom-rated players play the top-rated players in the first round. I don't understand this system, and how anyone ever gets to move up if this is the case, but Dalton has assured me that it does, and that's why we got to see Federer and Nadal in the French Open finals. (Which Dale watched with great attention in preparation for his big match.)

And so it came to pass that my boy was playing his first match at 4pm on a 95 degree day. He lost both sets, but he was spectacular. I was truly impressed. I have never witnessed Dale in a situation like this before. There he was, all by himself, losing point after point. His face and even his arms and legs were beet red, and he was dripping with sweat. I was worried that he was getting overheated.

My son never lost hope once. He got the vast majority of his serves in, and some of the rallies seemed to go on forever. His sportsmanship was excellent. He never seemed angry. I learned by watching this match that my boy is a tenacious person with a strong sense of self. I was bursting with pride. Sorry for the cliche, and for the bragging, but I was just bursting.

Dale knew this better than I do: if you are losing, you don't give up. Just keep on doing the thing, the best that you can.

"Deadly Perils of Bounce Houses"?

2011-06-07T14:38:00.006-04:00

Really, Lady Who Edits the AOL home page? Or Truly Sinister Man Who Has the Job of Picking Stories that Terrify Parents? Would you let me check my email in peace? (If you don't know what I'm talking about, because you're all hip with your gmail account, please read my post from two days ago.)

A headline like this is a Proustian madeleine for me. Don't take me there. I have long believed that bounce houses are instruments of torture. Once at a nursery school fundraiser, the bounce house came unplugged and started deflating while Violet was inside. I lunged at the thing and pulled her out by the feet, with visions of her suffocating to death if I didn't extricate her in time. Bounce houses are writhing masses of screaming toddlers knocking heads and developing goose eggs.

I'm a lot of fun.

My two cents about reality tv

2011-06-06T11:58:00.005-04:00

I hate reality tv. My husband supports our family writing and editing articles about reality tv. This creates conflict in our marriage. Hey, I just had an idea for a sitcom. (Note: I did not say reality show.)

Often I find myself in the living room while Dalton is watching reality tv. Such was the case on a recent night. The Voice was on, and I was waiting for it to be over so we could watch Modern Family. The guy with the huge afro and his singing partner were preparing for their duet-off. (The show operates on the evil premise that the signers have to sing duets, and whoever does best, gets to stay on. Work together, guys, but make sure you make your "partner" look bad.) While I was trying to focus on the Dining section of the New York Times, Big Afro guy was talking about his “strategy” for faking out his singing “partner/competitor.”

That’s what I hate about reality shows. Everything is strategy and subterfuge and being fake. No one is being straight-up. An entire generation is learning that this is the way you should behave to be successful in the world.

I told Dalton my really insightful thought, and he disagreed. He said since he watches more reality tv, he knew more about it. And I said that no, it’s like when you live in a house that smells like cat pee you can’t smell it anymore, but if a guest comes over they can totally notice it.

That’s when he paused The Voice so we could watch my show.

Dear AOL: Please stop scaring the crap out of me every time I check my email

2011-06-05T21:19:00.006-04:00

If it's not an 11-year-old falling to her death from a ferris wheel, it's a Little Leaguer dropping dead on the baseball field. I get that you need to increase traffic, but I'm not clicking on this terrifying stuff anymore. Quit it.

More from Christina "No Such Thing as Too Much Information" Kelly*

2011-06-02T12:39:00.004-04:00

Today on xojane, I provide sordid details of my misspent youth. Here are some bonus photos from that era, for FP readers only. That's quite a look I was working. I do realize that one picture is facing the wrong way, but I am too lazy to rescan it. The guy I am with was my boyfriend for the entire weekend that photo was taken. I don't remember his last name. But I hope you don't mind, Ron, wherever you are.

*As I was once identified in Bitch Magazine

I'll be blogging at some point

2011-05-31T12:41:00.003-04:00

Here's another xojane post from me. Have at it.

Also, for those who care, I had some technical difficulties (spilled water on my keyboard, once new keyboard arrived and I figured out how to work it, Blogger was messed up). And also a crisis of confidence initiated by a person who does not like my writing. Because, why believe any positive feedback when you can wholeheartedly agree with the negative?

My first post for xojane is up!

2011-05-17T11:33:00.001-04:00

Click here to read it. Thanks.

A Fashion Shoot Waiting to Happen

2011-05-12T08:45:00.000-04:00

As I was reading my Tuesday New York Times this
morning (we're really on top of things at Fallen Princess this week), I was transfixed by this picture. This sweet dude is just killing it with his look. Everything is working, from the unbuttoned shirt to the vertiginously high-waisted trousers. I mean no disrespect to the dead. Quite the contrary.

Tina Fey and ME

2011-05-10T13:29:00.011-04:00

My husband bought me Tina Fey's Bossypants for Mother's Day. (Petite digression: Anyone know why the type is coming out wonky and in blue? I think it's because I stole this picture from the internet. I had to, because the cover of Bossypants is too freaky for me with the hairy man torso.)

So, Dalton got me the book, which I read in 24 hours---oh, good, the type is normal again--- because I'm obsessed with Tina Fey. I've written about her before. I wanted to express annoyance that the press always connects Fey's weight loss with Lorne Michaels' decision to put her on the air.

What I didn't admit in that post is that I am jealous of Tina Fey. I relate to Tina so much, and feel that we have so many similarities that it leads to full-on career envy. We're both writers, we're both sarcastic, we both have brown hair and wear glasses. We are both moms. Yet there she is ruling the world, running a tv show and writing a book that was excerpted in The New Yorker. Damn, I have always wanted to be in The New Yorker. In contrast, here I sit, still in sweaty yoga clothes, trying to finish this post before the school bus arrives and I begin the unglamorous work of keeping my children from killing each other, while getting everyone to soccer on time, homework done, a reasonably healthy dinner cooked. And on and on. I wonder what special gene Tina has that makes her super successful?

"She is a workaholic," theorized my close friend Heather. "She would go home to put her kid to bed and then make everyone from 3o Rock come to her house so they could write all night." I am definitely not a workaholic. I am a hard worker, and was once an overachiever but I burned out around age 44. And I've never been one to work late into the night, not unless you count going to rock shows for live reviews as "work."

Heather also relates to Tina, though H. has short blond hair and no glasses and is not that sarcastic. Aha! Maybe that is why Tina has done so well for herself! Many women feel a kinship with her! Not just those who can dress up as Sarah Palin for Halloween. (I wanted to post my picture in my SP costume here, but iphoto was being weird and, as I said, the school bus will be here any minute.)

Tina is also pretty fucking funny. I found myself laughing uncontrollably, more in the first half of the book than later. And she was hilarious as a Jersey Girl on Jimmy Fallon.

From the book, I have analyzed five similarities, and five differences, between myself and T.F. This is interesting to no one, except myself, so talk amongst yourselves for the next bit.

Similarities:
1. Name: Tina/Christina
2. I can be funny too, sometimes
3. Both got pregnant with second baby at 40
4. Can't drive; lost virginity at age 23. (These seem related.)
5. Long-suffering husbands

Differences:
1. She acts
2. She did not breastfeed, and wrote some rude things about breastfeeding moms having nipples the size of dinner plates, maybe because she was feeling defensive. I breastfed each kid for 2 years. While working full time as an editor-in-chief. See: "overachiever," above.
3. She's not really a girl's girl, or at least her show isn't very girly.
4. She's very rich
5. She chooses to continue working, while I threw in the towel except for some half-hearted part-time freelancing as well as full-time complaining.

OKAY. The bus is here.

P.S. I guess what I am saying is that Tina represents the road not taken, or perhaps the road not available to be taken. It is possible that me being jealous of Tina Fey is a bit like a karaoke singer being jealous of Christina Aguilera.

Me Me Me: On Narcissism and Yoga

2011-04-26T12:02:00.012-04:00

Interesting article about narcissism in today's New York Times. A new study links boastful song lyrics from the '80s through 2007 with the self-obsession of the youth of today. One 50-year-old friend of mine used the article as fuel for his ongoing tirade that the young have too much damn self-esteem. However, the piece was nuanced--it suggested that the middle-aged may be just as narcissistic as the nubile, but the data on the middle-aged doesn't exist.

I had an uncomfortable feeling while reading the piece. Especially when the ubiquity of the word "I" in lyrics was mentioned as a narcissism red flag. Hmmm. During my brief "career" as a song lyric writer I don't think I composed a single song without the word "I" in it. Me and the word "I" are really good friends. Years ago, during a conversation about psychotherapy, my friend Dan said something that I never forgot: "Nothing is more interesting than oneself." I love the first person. It's my go-to point of view for basically anything.

And what is more narcissistic than writing a blog? Or writing anything, really. The very act of writing is an act of ego. If you're a writer, you think (or hope) that people care about what you have to say.

I started this blog partially because I felt that the person I was before becoming a stay-at-home mother had ceased to exist. I wanted her to have a place to live. If that's not narcissism, I don't know what is.

I was contemplating all of this (does worrying whether you are a narcissist implicate you right off the bat?) when I went to yoga class this morning, to attend to the needs of my soul (more narcissism?). Halfway through class, I helped my yoga friend Dina into a middle-of-the-room handstand. Dina is a practiced yogi with a generous spirit. When she told me she was ready for me to let go, I did, and she fell over onto her back and hit her head. I stood motionless, too horrified and lightheaded from my own handstand to act. Dina lay there on the floor, half-laughing. People gathered. Water was brought. "What happened?" asked the teacher.

"She told me to let go, so I did," I said weakly. "When your friend asks you to let go," she announced to the very full room. "Make sure she's really ok first." I hadn't done that. I trusted that Dina knew what she was doing. Dina was still lying on her back at this point. "It's not your fault," she said, looking up at me. But I felt like it most definitely was my fault. I am a terrible spotter, and handstands are really scary for me. I went out to the lobby and lost it, bawling like a little kid.

Another friend came out and comforted me. "People get hurt," she said. "It even happens in advanced teacher trainings." I wanted to leave, but Dina, ambulatory by this point, convinced me to stay and finish the class. "You need to deal with this," she said. "That is why you are here." So I did. At the end of class, I got hugs and kisses and love from my fellow students.

"That's quite a yoga community you have," said my husband when I called to tell him the story.

I sure do.

Breast Implants

2011-04-13T15:57:00.023-04:00

The number of breast augmentations increased 39% from 2000 through 2010, according to new data from the gleeful American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

I read about the study the morning after a friend, a breast cancer patient, told me that she had just had her saline sac removed because of an infection. her troubles made me wonder why anyone would put herself through surgery if her breasts were actually healthy and intact. I did some browsing on the web and found another stat that shed some light on the situation: women who get implants are more likely to be depressed and suffer from body image problems than those who don't, and are 3 times as likely to commit suicide, according to 7 studies.

I once hugged a friend and realized with a flash that her unnaturally hard breasts were not real. We exchanged a glance, and that was that, but I never thought of her the same way. Years ago, I knew a girl whose father bought her implants as an 18th birthday gift. He looked at her and said: "You're a little out of proportion. Let's get you some implants." Amazingly, this girl grew up to be a productive member of society.

Not that you asked, but I myself have smallish breasts (34 B). They get the job done with a minimum of fuss. I did enjoy the novelty of wearing huge hogans back when I was breastfeeding, but I never felt like shopping for a permanent set. I have a thing about squandering my children's education fund on paying someone to cut open my body and insert foreign objects into it. But also I appreciate the excellent job my breasts did feeding my children, and I'm grateful that small breasts remain perky for decades longer than is really fair.

Other than the creep who bought his daughter a new pair, I have never heard of a man who likes implants. Listen to my friend Bryan, a known pervert: “Like many others, I think breast implants are sad. For nearly all men who actually touch breasts (as opposed to that greasy cohort whose acquaintanceship with breasts is relegated solely to computer screens and strip clubs), implants are a huge turn-off. I do totally love big breasts. But I also really love small breasts. They're all awesome. Most of all I think that the breasts of adult (rather than 18-year-old) women, post-childbirth, sag and all, fully set the bar for beauty. I am a guy's guy and an authority on this issue."

Mike, a fan of adult entertainment, is also repelled: “I do NOT like breast implants. I just think that after a certain point, bigger is not better. The irony of breast implants is that way more often than not it's someone going from a 34B or C to a 44D or E, and winding up looking like a caricature of femininity. The poster girl for this is, of course, Pamela Anderson, a stunningly beautiful woman who turned herself into a cartoon. Implants just don't tend to look very good or very real. At best, they tend to result in an unnatural roundness, like someone stuck half of a coconut shell under their skin. At worst, and over time, it looks more like a hockey puck.”

Ergo, if you are getting implants to attract men, then it may be an exercise in futility. Although I do dye my hair and apply various creams and potions in part to be more attractive to a man--my husband--so it's not like I exist in some patriarchy-free bubble.

The ASPS didn't release any stats about women getting implants to attract other women. But I'm curious about it. I couldn't really find any studies about this online, so if you're a researcher, there's your topic.

One last thing: don't try and tell me you got implants "for yourself." I'm not buying it.

Middle School Misery

2011-04-06T16:09:00.007-04:00

We just chose a middle school for our son. The process was agonizing. He has been so safe and warm throughout elementary school, constantly under adult supervision, lovingly ferried from school to soccer to chess to play dates. The child has no freedom. And that's the way I like it.

Next year, Dale will often be at large. He'll join the unruly pack of preteens that rove through Upper Montclair, playing chicken on the train tracks and generally being stupid. We'll have to buy him a cellphone so we can find him, and he us.

In our town, there are three middle schools. I preferred the crunchy one that is half the size of our kids' elementary school. At this middle school, they believe in a long recess and outside time. Plus, I really liked the earnest language arts teacher I met. It seemed like the public middle school version of the private preschool our kids attended.

Dale, however, had other plans. He wanted to go to the school three blocks from our house. It has two big gyms and offers an architecture elective. It's the math and science magnet, and he excels in these subjects. And, he said, "All my friends are going there."

Long story short, all his friends are not going there. Their parents were able to talk them into the crunchy granola school, while I allowed Dale to make the first really big decision of his life.

And I've been so anxious about the change. I was totally fine about him starting preschool and kindergarten. Of course, at those times I was working full-time and distracted.

Yesterday, I realized why I'm so freaked out about my boy starting middle school. It's because sixth grade was pretty much the nadir of my life. As always, everything is ALL ABOUT ME.

So, anyway, back to me. We had just moved and I started the year at a new school. I walked onto the playground that first day, and a boy took one look at me and said, "That girl's so fat she looks like a Butterball Turkey!" The name stuck.

I don't think that will happen to Dale, and yet. There is a picture of him sitting in his classroom on the first day of Kindergarten. His lunchbox is on the desk, and he looks so small and scared. I can't stop thinking about that photo.

Irking Me: Sheer Blouses

2011-04-04T12:39:00.004-04:00

I found myself in Soho with a free half-hour so I stepped into Olive and Bette. I was casually looking through the racks when I was accosted by an over-eager sales girl. (Have NYC shop girls become more aggressive, or do I just have the whiff of a sucker?)

My hand must have lightly grazed a sheer peasant blouse. She held it aloft, offering to start a dressing room for me. "No thanks," I said. "I have a thing about sheer blouses."

I don't want to pay $200 for a shirt, and then have to get another shirt to wear under it. She nodded as if she understood, and then proceeded to bring over 5 more sheer blouses.

At this point, I excused myself. I headed over to Comptoir des Cotonniers, where I was happy to be ignored by the sales girls as they gossiped about another sales girl who wasn't working that shift.

I Do Draw the Line Here

2011-03-28T14:34:00.005-04:00

AARP sent me a fanny pack. Quite a look, no?

I like this video for City Center's "Cookies"

2011-03-26T16:44:00.004-04:00

Click here to watch it if you are in the mood to see something awesome. I enjoy the part when the singer says "water and water and water and... sunshine." Not sure why, it just gives me a special feeling inside. Apparently, their new album Redeemer is on K Records. All right then.

Sick Fashion Bargain of the Day

2011-03-24T21:22:00.007-04:00

Martin is no longer going to be available online, and everything from this cool line is on super sale. (It will still be sold in stores, thank goodness.) I just ordered three things for super cheap, including this awesome dress for $60! I suggest you do so right away. But don't get the same dress as me if you're going to the school fundraiser next week. That would annoy me. Click here. Bye.

Video of the Day

2011-03-23T10:13:00.001-04:00

Somebody's been listening to The Cure.

Demented Product of the Day: The Solar Powered Waving Queen

2011-03-22T14:27:00.003-04:00

Would the customer for a waving Queen really care that it was solar powered? Just a thought.

Confessions of a Brogue Chaser

2011-03-14T10:13:00.024-04:00

I watched an advance of Colin Quinn's HBO special over the weekend (it airs in April), which got me thinking about my Irishness. Although the show is not explicitly about the Irish, it has a distinctly Irish-American sarcasm, which is probably why I find Quinn so funny. (I'm still laughing over a bit where he seeths with impatience because someone steps onto an elevator after he's pushed the button. "I've got important business on 12; you've got some bullshit on 8," he says, and I lose it.)

I was raised to take pride in being Irish. My mother's maternal grandmother was born in Ireland; my dad's family came over to build the Erie Canal. So it's not like we're just off the boat, as they say. Yet my parents were almost pathological about their Irishness. All of their friends were Irish-American; we vacationed together at Mullen's, a resort that called itself "A Little Piece of Ireland in the Catskills" and featured Irish music in the cocktail lounge at night. Anyone with an Irish brogue was practically worshiped.

One showed one's Irishness in many ways, such as by never thinking of oneself as a "big shot" or making it seem like one was "hot stuff." Nor was one to associate with, or harbor, big shots. "Fat Cats" were also frowned upon, and usually to blame for each of the world's problems. Any display of high self-esteem was strictly prohibited. We're Irish, damn it!

We also made an annual pilgrimage to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Manhattan. My mother and aunt took all of us kids out of school, I put on a scratchy wool hat covered in green sequins, and we went down to the city. The weather was likely bitter and rainy. My mother bought us green carnations and hot pretzels and we watched the marchers and became one with the bagpipes until we were numb with cold. Sometimes we'd take a bathroom break at Gimbel's on 86th Street.

Mom invariably saw people she knew marching with the police or the Emerald Society of the Fire Department She would say, there's what's his name, and wave. After the parade we would go home and eat corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread.

I became a lover of all things Irish. I wrote high school and college papers about Yeats and Celtic mythology, listened to Irish bands, and traveled around Ireland with an Irish-American friend for 17 days in 1994. Even as an adult, I would always take the day off from work to meet my parents and their friends to watch the parade. I would passionately dispute people's stereotypes of the Irish as a bunch of green beer-drinking lowlifes. Particularly to one friend who imagined that my family would be "beating each other with shillelaghs."

So last year, I was pretty thrilled when I had the opportunity to march in the parade with the friends and family of the Grand Marshall, NYC police commissioner Ray Kelly. For something like 8 years, I have enjoyed an annual Christmas lunch with the P.C. and other members of The Kelly Gang, a group of important media people--big shots, really--who share the same last name and accidently let a person like me slide into their group. Some years, I have also helped plan a St. Patrick's Day fundraiser that we have put on 7 times.

Nonetheless, it felt like a bit of a stretch to call myself one of the esteemed Ray Kelly's "friends and family." But it was so awesome to march down Fifth Avenue on the Kelly green line in my Kelly green coat and wave at all the spectators. The only bummer was that none of my loved ones understood the significance. My kids were at school; my husband was at work. I scanned the crowd for people I knew, but they were all dead or in Florida. My mother got to the city too late to see me marching. Maybe it appeared as if I considered myself some sort of big shot. "If your kids were in it," she told me later. "Then I would have gotten myself here in time." That's when I realized that it's over, because my kids have never even been to the parade.

The passing on of the Irish culture that has happened for generations in my family really stops with me. My husband probably has as much Irish blood as I do (his great-grandmother was named Maude Heaney), but he was not raised as an Irish-American. (His mother's family has an attachment to Texas, similar but not as intense as my parent's Ireland thing.) I stopped eating beef 25 years ago, so I don't serve the signature dish to my kids. The little darlings wouldn't eat it anyway; they won't even choke down a piece of soda bread. Violet does have an "Everyone Loves an Irish Kid" t-shirt and my special green hat. Other than that, the best culture passing I can do is to serve vaguely shamrock-shaped Entenmann's cookies and let them watch some of the parade on tv.

It's kind of sad, really.

What she said

2011-03-09T14:52:00.003-05:00

I was horrified by yesterday's New York Times article chronicling women who shoot themselves up with pregnancy hormone to lose weight. I was going to write about it, but then my new favorite blog writer at Two Whole Cakes beat me to the punch with this brilliant post. Her conclusion is perfect.

AARP Update

2011-03-03T12:56:00.008-05:00

Those O.D.B.'s at AARP have pulled a bait and switch on me. Loyal readers will know that the organization for the elderly recently sent me an invitation to join---a FULL SEVEN MONTHS before my 50th birthday. Click here if you missed my cheery missive about that momentous event. I was all psyched for the discount, so I sent the $16 check in right away.

Today, an envelope from AARP arrived in the mail. I was immediately suspicious because of how thin it was. That's the letter up there. It's tiny because I can barely work a scanner or anything technical, a true sign of advancing age (other indications include my love of Masterpiece Theater and Tony Bennet). Turns out AARP gave me some lame "associate" membership that includes the AARP magazine but not the discount! Because I'm not 50 yet! That's so totally come here go away. Age discrimination!

I think Scattered Trees broke into my husband's brain for this video concept

2011-03-02T20:01:00.003-05:00

Countdown to Fresca Season

2011-03-01T21:28:00.002-05:00

Starts April 1.

I still love you, Sarah Silverman, by Mayim Bialik, PhD

2011-02-22T17:28:00.017-05:00

Ladies and gentleman, I am privileged to once again have Mayim Bialik writing for Fallen Princess. Today the Big Bang Theory star and funny writer for such excellent blogs as Kveller comments on Sarah Silverman's sexy new look. P.S. Here is a picture of me with Mayim after we ate dinner with her parents at Spago in the early 90s. Look how young we are. I wanted the picture at the end but I can't figure out how to place pictures where I want them on this thingy. I'll shut up and let Mayim talk now.

In case you don’t know who she is, Sarah Silverman is a bold and fairly outrageous comedienne who is probably known equally for one of three things: her Comedy Central show (“The Sarah Silverman Show”), her recent NY Times bestseller, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, and “The Great Schlep,” her hysterical successful attempt to get Barack Obama elected in Florida through encouraging all of the Jewish grandparents there to vote for him.

Although her brashness is not always my cup of tea, the reason I have always loved Sarah is for her signature style. She is attractive by general standards of our culture: raven black long hair, pale smooth skin, proportional features, and a curvy but thin body. But she became famous wearing baggy boyish jeans, ¾ sleeve baseball tees, a ponytail, and no visible make-up. And I’m not talking about skin-tight sexy jeans, curve-hugging tees, and a cutesy little-girl ponytail. We’re talking effortless confident female; not “trying to look unattractive,” not “dikey” (I know you were thinking it!), not self-conscious, and not “hiding her body.” Just simple. That’s her look and I love it.

So imagine my shock and awe (forgive me) when a few months ago, I chanced to see her on some late-night talk show and she was – hang on to your seats—in a short mini-dress; layered hair grazing the top of her slender shoulders; in high spike heels; with glossy lips and blush. She looked great, don’t get me wrong; but something inside of me shrunk a little bit and I gasped outwardly. Where was my sporty Sarah? Where was the brave no-nonsense comedienne who held her own among males in her industry without “having to” display herself as a sexy woman? My husband told me to pipe down; he was trying to hear sexy Sarah being totally crude and over-the-top vulgar in her new get-up!

I instantly felt bad for doubting her simply because she was doing what almost every other female in show business has to do (myself included, to the best of my ability…). How many actresses and even respected writers like Tina Fey are only truly considered competitive in this industry when they shed those ‘extra’ 20 lbs and squeeze into a size 2? Most.

Sarah Silverman’s s talent is not in any way decreased by her showing her legs or letting her hair down, as it were, but still! I can’t help but wondering if some stylist got a hold of her and told her if she wants to compete, she’s gotta drop the boyish boxy look. Or perhaps she got tired of her signature look and wanted to start dressing up. But maybe she felt she “had to” do this to get “real” parts? (She is apparently appearing nude in her upcoming film but has said a lot of funny self-deprecating things about the nudity…)

I hope the old Sarah comes back soon in some permutation. I want her to have all the success in the world, but I also want her to know that she is someone I have looked up to because she hasn’t typically tried to fit the mold of what women in this industry are “supposed to” look like. She has her own style, and I love it. I think she is someone I would want to hang out with, if I were allowed by my stylist to even wear baggy boy jeans with ¾ sleeve baseball tees.

Oh, feminism. We’ve come so far but it sometimes seems we have such a long long way to go.

AARP

2011-02-11T12:22:00.014-05:00

In today's mail, I received a personal invitation to join AARP. I find myself inexplicably tickled pink. For you young readers, AARP is the American Association of Retired People, or some such thing; interestingly, the full name is not spelled out on the literature.

(The massive clicking you hear right now? That's the sound of Fallen Princess being un-followed by every subscriber who found me through Style Rookie.)

My first reaction to the mailing was, "Sweet, I can now get the hefty AARP discount." For a mere $16 per year! I immediately called my husband at work to tell him the excellent news. He was silent for a beat. Confused about what was expected of him, no doubt. Sucks to be him.

The thing is, I am not 50 yet! I won't even be 49 1/2 until March 15. My main concern here: can I still have the discount? (The letter says it's for all people over 50, whether retired or not.) I am also wondering about the AARP status of people just a few years older than me. Do the members of Sonic Youth, for example, have AARP memberships? What about, like, Debbie Harry? Iggy Pop?

"I remember when I got my first AARP card in the mail," said my friend Mike Flaherty, age 50, when I emailed him the news. "That was a pretty momentous day...almost as depressing as when I found myself in Duane Reade buying Gold Bond Foot Cream." I can always count on Mike to make a funny.

About 10 years ago, I saw my mother cry after she was able to get a senior discount for a parking permit. I was completely shocked. My mother does not cry easily, and furthermore, as I hadn't even turned 40 yet, I was insensitive about the trauma of finding oneself a senior. My feeling was, she is that age, so what is the problem?

A few years after that, my mom and aunts were lamenting their wrinkles. I was scoffing because they have so few wrinkles between the three of them that it is actually unfair to other septuagenarians. "No one wants to look old on the outside, when you feel just the same inside as you always did," said my aunt. This is true."You know the only alternative to getting older," my dad used to say. "Dying." He died at 58, never to collect a senior discount.

I have gotten increasingly aggressive about telling people my age before they even ask. I keep my birth year on my Facebook page, though no one over 30 seems to. Taking it off won't make you any younger, people! This is not to say that I am happy about getting older.

Last night, at poker, two of the other ladies were almost exactly my age. One said, "50 is the new 30." I don't really agree, but whatever gets you through, I guess.

Incivility Sucks

2011-02-07T12:15:00.007-05:00

I agree with Obama. Our society has become too damn incivil. Today's opinion might seem a tad inconsistent, following my last post, an apologia for profanity. As well as a youthful tendency for occasional rudeness in my writing, but that was many, many years ago.

I've been writing for some blogs, and the reader comments never fail to freak me out. (Not the Fallen Princess commenters; you guys are a self-selecting, polite group.) But at these other blogs, which I don't want to complain about because they actually pay me, unlike the cheap-ass owner of Fallen Princess, the commenters are just full-on rude, illiterate and venomous. I expect that people will disagree with me, of course, but the hostility of the disagreement somehow still surprises me.

I've spent quite a bit of time pondering this feeling of being thrown to the psycho online lions. Also, I unsuccessfully tried to find studies about online incivility. This is the only explanation I could come up with: Obviously, the anonymity that blogs offer their commenters frees people to express themselves in horrible ways. So here's my solution: I suggest that when commenting, be brave enough to use your real name. If you wouldn't want your comment to be attributed to you, then don't say it.

Allrighty then.

Profanity

2011-01-24T11:19:00.017-05:00

This may come as a surprise, but I have a teeny problem with controlling my temper. On occasion. If provoked.

Yoga and deep breathing are fairly effective for anger management as well as socially acceptable. But nothing soothes the nerves like unleashing a colorful stream of profanity, with a reddened face and a stamped foot. I learned this from my mother, an upstanding Irish Catholic lady who isn't afraid to use the f word if the situation calls for it. Frigging was a favorite of hers, as well. Also, she would call my brother "The Prick of Noon" when he emerged midday from his closet-sized room reeking of alcohol. (Teenage drinking, while not exactly encouraged in our house, was viewed as normal, unlike my desire to become a writer.)

My father was more circumspect. He mostly confined himself to "bloody" although he was not British. Also, if my brother pushed the limits Dad would mutter, while cracking open a can of Schaeffer's: "You have some set on you." For years I puzzled over that expression, and I never heard anyone else use it. It wasn't until I was working at Sassy that my friend and co-worker Mike Flaherty explained that it meant that my brother had a set of brass balls. Which is quite a thing to say to a 12-year-old.

When I got pregnant for the first time, my husband started a crusade to make me stop cursing so I would not corrupt our child. What a pain in the ass. I had already given up coffee and wine for our precious bundle; now this. What had Dalton given up? The S.O.B. put a jar in the kitchen and I was supposed to pay a quarter each time I swore. I told him to fuck off.

But once the baby was born, I realized that it would be embarrassing to have a toddler exclaiming "shit" when he fell down in the playground. I agreed to cease saying the worst curses, so as to set a good example.

Ten years later, we're still working out the kinks. I refuse to classify "crap" as a curse. Dalton refuses to make it neutral. If he chastises me for saying "crap" in front of the kids (as in, "You kids better clean up all this crap"), I am likely to lose my tenuous hold on my temper. I let him have fuck, frigging, shit, ass, etc; I think I deserve crap. Crap crap crappity crap crap.

Dalton, if you are reading this, I have a confession to make. I said "fucking" in front of the kids this morning. This was at 8:15 when you were inside blow drying the frozen pipes. I was standing in the 2 degree cold wearing my coat over yoga pants and a pajama top, about to drive the kids to school because the bus had never come. Our daughter wouldn't put on her gloves because they are "fat." Our son said he thought we had missed the bus when we went inside to get my car keys. That's when I said it. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

I apologize to you, my Brownie troop, our minister, and the kids. And also the lady who was walking her dog by our house when I said it.

Earbuds: I hate them

2011-01-10T14:23:00.006-05:00

The New York Times has provided validation for one of my many pet peeves: earbuds. Virginia Heffernan, who writes The Medium column in the NYT Magazine, cites research that earbuds are bad for your hearing. No offense to the scientists who conducted the research, because I'm excited to have proof--but we needed a study to prove this? Really, that blasting music into a device that you shove in your ears will cause hearing loss?

Virgina laments the fact that hearing loss in teenagers has jumped 33 percent since 1994, but her larger point is the isolation that escalating earbud use fosters in our society. Totally agree, and my kids aren't allowed to use earbuds, but I am, according to many, a neurotic lunatic.

The main thing I want to focus on here, though, is the pain engendered by earbuds. Doesn't it hurt you to cram those things into your ears? I just won't do it. I have the old fashioned kind of headphones that fit over your ears. It occurs to me that earbuds are the aural equivalent of thongs. Am I overly sensitive? Maybe.

Five Reasons Why Black Swan starring Natalie Portman is a Sickening Male Fantasy

2011-01-04T14:16:00.005-05:00

Imagine you are a fly on the wall at a meeting between the three (male) writers and the (male) director. Some sample dialogue.

1. "Those dancer chicks sure are hot."

2. "Except the old ones. They are not so hot. Let the camera linger on that one's wrinkly back. Gross. Also, the mother is over 40, so she is really not hot. Light her super harshly."

3. "Psycho dancer chicks are really hot. But not when they act frigid. Let's have the dude in charge seduce Natalie Portman! To loosen her up! Also, make her masturbate as part of her job description. That's hot!"

4. "It's really hot when psycho dancer chicks lose their minds and stab themselves to death."

5. "How about a sex scene between hot ballerinas! Let's put Natalie Portman in bed with another chick! OK, I think we have a movie."

Happy New Year!

2010-12-30T09:52:00.010-05:00

As we kick 2010 to the curb, I would like to thank all 394 of my followers, as well as the 750 who read Fallen Princess through Google reader. Especially you commenters. You guys are awesome. You have made me feel like I could get back into writing for a living again.

There is one thing that confuses me, though, and that is some of my subscribers from distant locales. Frequent visitor from Bucharest, what is it that the Princess offers you? And, you as well, Jakarta resident. Please enlighten me.

No matter, near and far, I will be lifting a glass of Prosecco to you all tomorrow night, and with any luck, I'll even be able to stay awake until midnight.

Merry Christmas from ALL of us at Fallen Princess

2010-12-24T14:59:00.001-05:00

Disturbing Dawn Doll

2010-12-10T14:58:00.011-05:00

I would like to introduce you to this maimed Dawn doll from my childhood. I have no memory of how she lost the bottom half of her arm, and I was not one of those kids who engage in doll abuse. I do admire her chutzpah in wearing a newly fashionable cold-shoulder dress.

I was reunited with Dawn three or so years ago. I think it was Mother's Day, and I was at Glen Island Park in New Rochelle, N.Y. with my mother, my grandmother, my kids and my husband. As my mother and son fished, my grandmother reached into her pocket and handed me the doll.

I was startled by her hacked off stump, and I didn't recognize her. It's certainly possible that we used to hang out, as my once photographic memory has gotten a bit wobbly. I do recall playing with Dawn, the more diminutive Barbie knockoff, just not an injured one. "When her arm broke your mother didn't want you to have it any more," Grandma explained. "So I put it in a drawer." This did not surprise me, as the woman saved everything. She hung onto Dawn for almost forty years! She actually packed it and moved with it, twice. I imagine her thought process on this: "Some day Chrissy will find a man, God help her, and maybe she'll squeeze out a daughter before her ovaries dry up, and that daughter will certainly want the opportunity to play with a one-and-a-half armed doll from the late sixties." Grandma wanted permission to give Dawn to my daughter Violet, so I said ok. My mother, cranky from chemo, shook her head disgustedly.

The other day Violet and I were playing, and she wanted to develop a story line about how Dawn lost her arm. I suggested that she was injured by a shark while surfing, inspired by an article we had done while I was at ym. Violet loved that.

You've got to cherish your family heirlooms, such as they are.

Thongs Make My Skin Crawl

2010-11-23T13:01:00.018-05:00

Look, I'd rather not be uncomfortable. And I've reached an age where I don't give a shit if my panty lines show. My list of worries (1. college tuition for two children 2. inability to drive on highways 3. will daughter grow up to be a cheerleader? 4. finish barely started memoir/novel 5. get son to eat one green vegetable 6. is mole on hairline skin cancer? 7. why is the gas heater banging? is it about to blow up?) is way too long.

I've actually never cared about VPL, but in the late nineties, I was peer pressured into buying several pairs of pricey Hanro thongs. For a brief spell, I wore them with low-riding Rebecca Danenberg jeans, plagued by a string of cotton lodged deeply in my crack. Thong wearers, are you not feeling that? I could think of nothing else all day. When I became pregnant, I was liberated to let the instruments of torture rot in my drawer under piles of cozy cotton maternity briefs. Oooh, sexy.

I never looked back, until yesterday, when I was chastised by one of my yoga friends for wearing Gap bikinis which, apparently, are highly visible. She gathered support from a yogini who helpfully showed me the thong she was wearing, from a line cleverly named Commando. I would have said, I'm too old for that shit, but my yoga friend is actually 60! Which is way older even than me!

When I am on my deathbed, I am not going to be lamenting, I should have worn more thongs! (See previous post.)

Mortality

2010-11-10T13:25:00.012-05:00

My mother called at 8 am this morning, and uncharacteristically got straight to the point: "I wanted to tell you that I am leaving for Florida today," she said. Cathy, her closest living friend, had died in her sleep. Mom was going to the funeral.

I held back my own tears and asked mom how she was doing. "There aren't many people you can call friend," she said, her voice catching. Cathy's daughter had come to the house to tell my mother. That's how close they were. This wasn't news she would be given over the phone.

I haven't seen Cathy in several years, but during my childhood, she was a constant presence in our lives. She was tiny, with strawberry blonde hair. Her husband, a burly firefighter that we called "Mr. Mickey," was my father's lifelong best friend. He looked like John Wayne and would often threaten to put mustard on our toes and eat them. They lived a block away from us. I remember many Sunday dinners in their Tudor home, and happy hours sitting in their living room, which had stone walls like a castle, listening to the adults talk about the old days. Watching Mickey fall asleep in the den during 60 Minutes. Trips to Loehman's and drives into the city for this outing or that Irish-American fundraiser.

I remember Cathy sitting at the counter in her kitchen, smoking and drinking coffee. Her wedding album was a favorite, because she had a winter wedding and wore a velvet gown, which seemed so exotic to me. Cathy had five children, one after the other, and we all went to high school together. She encouraged my writing. "You should write a book about us, about the crowd," she said. "The crowd," was what they called their group of friends, who had hung around together in an ice cream parlor in the South Bronx, and spent weekends in the Catskills.

One night, Cathy and my mother sat drinking Sambuca in our living room, arguing about politics. "You'll talk different in the morning, Mary, when you're sober," said Cathy. A line that was repeated endlessly over the years.

I feel sad for Cathy's family, and for my mother. Her other best friend died just months after Mom lost her husband at 52. Her mother died last September. And also (because it's always all about me), I'm thinking, hey, my life is likely 3/4 over, so I better get in gear.

I started on this train of thought watching "The Big C," where Laura Linney plays a woman in her 40s who is dying of cancer, desperately trying to enjoy the things she should have been enjoying all along. Then yesterday morning, this Nora Ephron interview on NPR hit home. She made a good argument for doing the things you love all the time, right now, because you might not get that many more chances. Here's an excerpt lifted from npr.com:

"You do get to a certain point in life where you have to realistically, I think, understand that the days are getting shorter, and you can't put things off thinking you'll get to them someday," she says. "If you really want to do them, you better do them. There are simply too many people getting sick, and sooner or later you will. So I'm very much a believer in knowing what it is that you love doing so you can do a great deal of it."

For Ephron, there was a moment that helped bring that realization vividly home. She was with friends, playing a round of "What would your last meal be?"

(Her pick, by the way: a Nate & Al's hot dog.)

"But (my friend) Judy was dying of throat cancer, and she said, 'I can't even have my last meal.' And that's what you have to know is, if you're serious about it, have it now," Ephron says. "Have it tonight, have it all the time, so that when you're lying on your deathbed you're not thinking, 'Oh I should have had more Nate & Al's hot dogs.'"

That's Miss Kelly, if you're nasty

2010-11-02T12:37:00.007-04:00

So, I never change my name when I get married. I quite like the sound of it, and I've been Christina Kelly for too long to start calling myself something else. This despite the fact that people persist in naming their children Christina Kelly, some of whom grow up to torture me.

It can be inconvenient, now that I have two kids in school. There's a sentence of explaining involved in phone calls on their behalf: "This is Christina Kelly, and I am the mother of Dale and Violet Ross." I blame the extra use of breath on my husband Dalton, who didn't expect that I take his name, and is a very enlightened man in most matters (except for he pretends he doesn't know how to do laundry). But Dalton got all patriarchal when I wanted to give my son the hyphenated last name "Kelly-Ross." What two names join together more felicitously, I ask you?

I had to compromise, so we named our son Dale Kelly Ross, without the hyphen. I tried to pretend that Kelly was part of the last name for years, writing the full name on every form and thank you note, until the impending birth of our daughter. I also wanted to give Violet the middle name Kelly. That's when Dalton wised up to the fact that in my "compromise" I was merely pretending to let the children have only his last name. So then I had to give her a different middle name. Drat.

Sometimes I get called "Mrs. Ross," which makes me feel like I'm playing house. I never correct people, and it doesn't bother me; it's just not my name.

Recently, Violet's piano teacher pulled me outside and asked dramatically: "Is her last name Ross or Kelly?" I explained that her name was Ross, like her brother and father, and mine was Kelly. He looked at me like I was insane. "Why?" he demanded. I explained that I did not change my name when I got married. "Why not?" he persisted. I resisted the urge to say, are you kidding me? and mumbled something about being a writer. This seemed to satisfy him; you know those writers, always trying to be different.

I thought my decision was commonplace, but apparently, 77 to 95 percent of married women do change their names.

Weird.

The French are Different From You and Me

2010-10-15T12:00:00.015-04:00

I've been obsessed with this Monday New York Times article about French working mothers. Not so much the part about the state-sponsored "vaginal gymnastics" coaching that all mothers receive to get them back into shape to make more babies. (Although it is pretty mind-boggling that the state provides postpartum punani care. Helpful, though not as useful as the free nursery school all French kids are entitled to.)

What I can't stop thinking about is the photograph of 31-year-old Fleur Cohen, a doctor, walking her four tiny children across the street to drop them off before heading to work at the hospital. She's carrying a baby in a sling while wearing stilettos and a sexy above-the-knee skirt. (I will spare you the details of my current outfit, but I assure you that it does not include stilettos.) All five of them look to be bathed and in clean clothes (a miracle in itself). Fleur is holding the hand of the second youngest, and the other two are walking unaided in the crosswalk.

First of all, how did Fleur manage to become a doctor and give birth to four children by age 31? (Is it all thanks to the vag gymnastics, which were designed to increase the birth rate?) And where in the hell is her husband, also a doctor? I guess he must have already sailed off to work, sans kids and, presumably, stilettos. Or maybe he is enjoying a petit dejeuner avec colleagues. The point of the NYT article is that while 82 percent of French mothers work, they also do the bulk of the childcare, and are expected to look gorgeous at all hours, so they are super exhausted. In addition, Fleur says she cooks dinner every night.

I hope she changes her shoes first.

Frenchy Fragrance

2010-10-06T14:40:00.011-04:00

Fresca season ended on October 1. So I put away my summer perfume, Calyx and have been indulging in my fall favorite, Citrus Allegro by Le Prince Jardinier. Yes, it's citrusy, but it has a more subtle kick than the full-on grapefruit aroma of Calyx. I first found this enchanting scent in Paris about six years ago on a madcap girls' weekend with my friend Gigi. It was being sold at Deyrolle, a shop on the Rue Du Bac which carries taxidermy and educational posters from the 1800s. (I later read about the store and the actual prince who makes the stuff in Vanity Fair.)

This fragrance is perfect. Fresh, yet sophisticated. Not at all ladyish or synthetic. I used to have to go to Paris to restock every time I ran out, but then I discovered that, duh, it is available online.

My current bottle was a birthday gift from my long-suffering husband. I spritz it on and am immediately transported from this N.J. town with a fake French name to, if not Paris, then at least some chic suburb of Paris.

I now resist the urge to say, Voila!

Fat Talk Free Week Starts October 18

2010-10-05T12:55:00.013-04:00

1. Young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of losing their parents.
2. After viewing images of female fashion models, seven out of ten women felt more depressed and angry than prior to viewing those images.
3. 54% of women would rather be hit by a truck than be fat.

I pulled the above facts from a press kit sent by Delta Delta Delta. The sisters of Tri Delt are promoting Fat Talk Free Week. They are challenging women and girls to refrain from saying such things as: Does this make me look fat? I'm so fucking huge!!! My hips are gigantic! My stomach is frigging disgusting. Or even: Have you lost weight?

I'm all about this initiative . I already never say things like that in front of my daughter. Sometimes I still do disparage my body with friends, even though I know better. I'm going to stop. You cut it out too. Don't wait until October 18. Just quit it now.

Note: They are also on Facebook: www.facebook.com/FatTalkFree

Non-Yogic Yoga Bitching

2010-09-28T12:35:00.006-04:00

I have been practicing yoga on and off for 15 years. Fifteen years! I started at Jivamukti Yoga when they were in the funky walk-up studio on Second Avenue in the East Village. Some friends were going to a class, and I joined them. The famous David Life, co-founder of Jivamukti with Sharon Gannon, was my first teacher there. He is an awesome instructor, and though I am quite inflexible, both in body and mind, I was immediately hooked on Jivamukti. I loved looking at his craggy face, ponytail and hoop earrings, and I think he used to wear purple leggings. Or at least I wore some. He was so calm, down to earth, yet spiritual. I came to rely on all the other teachers, too, and the relaxed way I felt after class. (And as it was winter and I was a freelance writer, my evening yoga class also inspired me to leave the apartment and interact with other humans.)

I chanted with Krishna Das, hit some Ananda Ashram retreats and showed up for at least three classes per week. I even learned to do full backbends for the first time in my life! By the time I got married 4 years later, I sometimes made it to class as many as five times a week, literally crawling out of my cubicle at Jane so the managing editor wouldn't catch me and make me stay at work.

After the wedding, I quickly become pregnant. I suffered from terrible morning sickness and was too exhausted to attend a rigorous class. I did a bit of prenatal yoga, and birthed my son with the aid of yoga breathing (and a nice epidural--AWW YEAH!!). When I was on maternity leave I would take him to a "mommy and baby" yoga class. My practice never really returned to its former glory, though. I had a full-time job and a baby, and soon after that a house and a commute.

Weeks after the move to the suburbs, I fell down the stairs while sweeping and broke my foot. I was in a cast for six weeks, and the minute they sawed it off, I was pregnant again. I very occasionally hit a prenatal yoga class. I had not a prayer of achieving a full back bend.

Two folded magazines later, I decided to become a full-time mother. While my daughter was in preschool, I slowly made my way back to yoga at an Anusara studio I can walk to. Like everything else, yoga has to be planned around the kids' schedules.

Okay. That was a lot more about my yoga history than I was planning to write. Here's my bitch: I went to class today, and I feel like crap. I blame this not on the teacher, who is one of the best I've ever known. It's just that I hate partner poses. Hate them. Always have, always will. The purpose of partner poses, in case you don't know from yoga and are still reading (although I don't know why you would be), is to demonstrate proper alignment. But, did I say I hate it? I'm often worried that I'm not doing the assist properly, and yet when the teacher gives instructions, I zone out.

Also, I dread the moment when the teacher says, "find a partner," and certain people don't turn to the person next to them, but instead look around for someone worthy. This happened to me today. The lady next to me, who I recognize from many classes, dissed me for a yogi in the back row. I halfheartedly located a spare person. She complained that she couldn't feel my assist. The assist was literally to squeeze the person's butt (or sits bones, in yoga parlance) simultaneously together and down. Who wants to do that to someone you don't know? And smell their butt smells? I mean, really? No amount of OMing is going to make that ok.

And then my partner proceeded to press down on me so hard that I quite literally have a pain in my ass. Ouch. I know the fact that I don't like partner poses says something negative about me. Perhaps it's that I can't comfortably work with people, trust them, do what they expect of me.

Or maybe I just don't want to smell their butts.

Indignity of the Day

2010-09-25T10:02:00.008-04:00

On Thursday, my friend alerted me to this flattering post about Fallen Princess on dailyfrontrow.com. It was very gratifying. I felt slightly less irrelevant, for at least an hour. I especially enjoyed it when my husband emailed me the following: "You look hot in that [five-year-old] picture." (Side note: that guy next to me was a something on America's Next Top Model. He was British, so his name was probably Nigel. We were seated together because it was an ELLEgirl fashion show, and I was the editor-in-chief, and one reflexively tries to drum up "celebrities" for these things. As you can tell from our body language, I had nothing to say to him, and he had nothing to say to me. Seated on his other side was my friend Laurie Trott, ELLEgirl fashion director. You can see how interested she was in chatting with Nigel.)

Yesterday, when I was still feeling vaguely buoyed by the dailyfrontrow attention, one of my poker buddies contacted me about writing an online column for a site she is editing. I was a little excited until I found out the fee: $50. Which is roughly the amount I would have to pay a babysitter to keep my kids from killing each other while I poured my rapidly depleting stores of creative energy into said column. I respectfully said I'd have to think about it. She nicely informed me that this was the going rate for the type of work she was talking about. Didn't really make me feel better.

When I graduated college, the standard fee for an article was $1 a word. Now, 27 years later, most of the work that comes my way, which is for the internet, is a fraction of that. Bummer.

I Hate My Birthday

2010-09-14T09:50:00.009-04:00

I will be 49 tomorrow. There are no special plans.

When I was a kid, our birthdays were low key: cake and a can of Hawaiian Punch with our cousins, possibly pin the tail on the donkey if we were lucky. My dad took me out for surf and turf once in my early teens, just the two of us.

I turned 18 shortly after arriving for my freshman year at Colgate, and some friends from the dorm suggested we get dressed up and have cocktails at the Colgate Inn. I could henceforth drink legally. I think I was also thrown in the lake, in keeping with school tradition.

In my 20s, I liked giving myself parties. Keggers, usually. People I had never seen before plus my friends, and possibly my brother, drank beer in the backyard of my building on Sullivan Street. One year I got really fancy and half-ironically rented a Knights of Columbus Hall. A friend in the art department of Footwear News, where I worked as a writer, pasted up the Xeroxed invitation. We used a cheesecake photo taken by another work friend. I wore an off-the-shoulder black Lycra dress and stiffly moussed 80's hair, gazing to the the left like Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles. The invitation said: "It's My Party and I'll Cry if You Don't Come."

I continued on this path through my thirties. I think it was my 37th when I had friends meet me at Windows on the World. My 40th was four days after 9/11. The burning smell permeated the air of our apartment on Washington Square, and a party would have been inappropriate. But it's not like I had plans anyway. Drawing attention to my birthday no longer seemed cute or funny, just sad.

Each year since, I have had two opposite urges on my birthday: I would like to get in bed and pretend it isn't happening, yet I wish fervently that a parade and fireworks would be organized in my honor.

Tomorrow, I have a writing deadline and a dermatologist's appointment. Woo-hoo!

Cuts Like a Knife

2010-09-08T18:41:00.008-04:00

Not long ago, the phone rang. It was a boy named Greg who lives across the street, a college student whose sister sometimes babysits for my children. He told me he has just been hired to sell Cutco knives, and would I please let him come by and do a practice sales call? "Honestly," he said, "you don't need to buy a thing."

Of course I said yes. My husband thought it sounded like a great idea, especially since it involved no expenditure of cash.

Greg arrived at the appointed time, 7 pm on a warm summer Sunday, and set himself up in our dining room. He had brought some sample knives, a piece of rope, a morsel of leather, and laid them all out on our table. He told me to bring in two of my best knives.

I sat across from him and tried to exude encouragement. He had me cut through the leather with my knife, a Wustof, which is pretty good and cut fairly well. But the Cutco knife, ergonomically designed, pleasing to hold---it cut through that leather like it was butter. And with the Cutco in my hand, it was like the rope was applesauce.

I began to covet the knives. They are expensive (nearly $1000 for a full set!), sure, but just last Thanksgiving my Uncle George pointed out that I didn't have a proper carving knife. Maybe I would just put in a little order for the carving knife and fork, which would set me back something like $140.

When Greg said "I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you to buy something," I declined to buy the full set, or even the half set, but conceded to take the carving knife and fork. While he wrote up the order, I went upstairs for my checkbook.

I was intercepted by my nearly apoplectic husband. He did not want me to spend the money. I acquiesced, mainly so he would not bust a blood vessel. Something didn't feel right, though. I am not a spendthrift. I should be allowed to make my own less-than-frugal decisions, especially if they help neighbor children and provide me with gorgeous carving knives.

So a few days later, as I sat poolside with my mother, I asked her if she had ever heard of Cutco. I think Greg said the company was started in 1949.

"Yes," she said. "Aunt Jean had a Cutco party right when I was first married [1959] and I bought a whole set for Grandma." I was shocked. "They were $1000!" I said. And also, I remember my Grandmother cooking the huge meals she routinely served with nothing more than a rusty butter knife and a bent teaspoon.

"They cost a lot," she agreed. "But Grandma never used them. She called them 'Mary's knives,' and they hung on a wall."

My grandmother, the daughter of immigrants who worked as domestic help on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, never opened expensive gifts. Her refusal of finery was like a repudiation of the excess of her parents' employers. We once went to the Frick Museum, a former home of a fabulously wealthy family, and Grandma couldn't enjoy it at all. She hated to be reminded of people who had so much, while others had nothing. When she died in September 2009 at 94, her children found numerous unused silk slips and nighties dating back to the Second World War.

"Why wouldn't she use the Cutco knives?" I asked, though I thought I knew the answer. I was also thinking, how can I get my hands on those knives?

"She was superstitious," said Mom. " She thought that if you gave knives as a gift, you cut the relationship."

One of the many things that I didn't know about my grandmother, Mary Vorel Burr. RIP.

Lots of things irking me today

2010-09-02T12:33:00.002-04:00

In no particular order:

1. People who used the word boobs. It really bothers me. This particular annoyance came to mind this morning when I read a mention of the book "Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls." I especially hate it when women refer to their own breasts as boobs, or even worse, tits. It seems like a special kind of self-hatred. Please, ladies, refer to them as breasts. Give them the reverence they deserve.

2. In Jane Brody's column about BMI on Tuesday, she, or some hack doctor she quotes, says that it's thoroughly possible for a 125 pound, 5 foot 5 inch woman to be fat. Shut the front door. Jane, this is frigging impossible. I am resisting the impulse to say you are going senile.

3. An ad for a plastic surgeon in The Montclair Times today asks, "Do you suffer from cellulite?" Suffering? Really? I'm almost speechless. There is a lot of suffering in this world, to be sure, very little of it from cellulite.

4. Tracking down payment for freelance articles published in May. DRIVING ME BONKERS. It amounts to 600 measly dollars and the number of polite emails I have sent is staggering. I'm getting ready to name publications. PAY ME, NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Yes, Ma'am

2010-08-29T08:12:00.003-04:00

An article in today's New York Times condemns the word "ma'am." It quotes many broads who find usage of the word condescending.

In some prehistoric time when I was 35, and there were numerous magazines, some of which assigned me articles, for which they would then pay me, I wrote a similar piece for Index magazine. I think it was titled "Just Don't Call Me Ma'am" and it is now in a box somewhere in my attic, buried underneath piles of Christmas decorations, Thomas the Tank Engine, and assorted other crap.

The article was inspired by a trip to a record store (they had those back then, and they were usually staffed by cute, dismissive 22-year-olds with esoteric music taste). The clerk had the audacity to call me "ma'am" and I snapped bitchily at him: "Don't Call me Ma'am!" The poor child looked wounded, and my boyfriend gently suggested that I may have overreacted because the clerk was just trying to be polite.

To no avail. I had been made to feel old. This was a sin, an affront to all of womankind. I would have my revenge in the pages of Index magazine.

Now, of course, in my new life as upstanding suburban wife, stay-at-home mother and furtive blog writer, I am constantly referred to as ma'am. I have long since resigned myself to this fate, as 50 looms in the very near future. I now take it as it is offered, politely, if I notice it at all.

The Tooth Fairy is a Flake

2010-08-16T22:26:00.003-04:00

My 10-year-old son lost another tooth yesterday. They're coming out fast and furious now. I put it in a ziploc under his pillow, and when the tooth fairy went to claim it in exchange for $1, rooting around under the f-ing pillow while trying not to rouse the child, she couldn't find it.

Thus, when the boy woke up before 7 am, he came into my room, handed me the tooth, and said, a bit jaded, you forgot this.

Yeah, mister, I wanted to say. I'm the frigging tooth fairy. You're lucky I remembered this time, because more than once, in the midst of taking out the recycling, scooping the cat litter, viewing some mindless entertainment, flossing, starting the dishwasher, etc., I have completely forgotten to fulfill my tooth fairy duties. Honestly, I've never been invested in this myth, and I'm tired of this charade! You're ten, for the love of God.

Instead, I said, sweetly as I could muster in my pre-caffeinated state, do I look like the tooth fairy? And he smiled with relief.

Operation Leave it On the Curb

2010-08-08T18:51:00.008-04:00

Our relatives are just TOO TOO generous with our kids (seriously---we're suffocating here guys!!!). I'm constantly getting rid of outgrown clothes, toys, books, sports equipment and assorted plastic crap. Clothes are easy to find homes for, but toys are tricky. The local Human Needs Food Pantry doesn't accept used toys, and no one else seems to, really. So I came up with Operation Leave it On the Curb. Our Fisher Price farm, ride-on fire engine and Smarty the Construction Robot have all left us in this manner.

I like to see who takes our castoffs. If no one picks up an item within 20 minutes, I feel very insulted. I track the curb periodically. Someone always takes it eventually. I recently had the pleasure of watching an overjoyed 2-year-old boy with my son's old fire engine (itself a hand-me-down from our neighbor). I think OLIOTC is the most environmentally sound way to clean.

Recently, a beloved neighbor of mine, a single mom with twin teenage boys, moved to another state. I didn't know her super well, but I saw her daily, she fed my cats when we were away, and she was the nicest woman you will ever meet. She basically got rid of EVERYTHING. First, she had a yard sale. She priced low and did a brisk business. But she couldn't get all the merchandise out to the lawn before the hordes started to come.

Over the course of the next week, my neighbor began giving me choice gifts: a set of silver-plated flatware from the thirties, a sideboard, Fire King dishes, an X Box for my son. On the curb, she put out a freegan's all-you-can-eat buffet: books of all kinds, lamps, cleaning supplies, kitchen ware, baseball gloves, bric a brac, jewelry, Stangl Pottery---everything she had accumulated over the years.

At first I tried to keep up. I put out the Lincoln Logs that no one has looked at in three years. Some Play Doh accessories that have been dissed since 2007. I began evaluating everything in my house for possible curbside abandonment. I threatened to put the kids on the curb if they didn't behave.

Then she started freaking me out. Perfectly good tennis rackets? Really? A lacrosse stick? Wouldn't the boys need anything in their new home?

I wanted to box everything up, learn to drive on the highway, rent a van, and deliver it to her. She was definitely getting her possessions down to 100, as the trend du jour dictates. And I couldn't handle it.

Right before she left, she asked me if I'd dispose of anything that wasn't taken in a few days. I had a charity pick up coming anyway, so it was easy. Among the booty was a child's bank, with $23 dollars in change inside! Literally throwing money away. My kids split that.

Nicaraguan Fresca

2010-07-21T10:24:00.000-04:00

My husband went to Nicaragua last month and augmented his usual cache of souvenirs (the hotel toiletry samples) with some elusive Nicaraguan Fresca. For those who didn't read my Memorial Day weekend post about Fresca, I'm obsessed. Please read it. Also, leave a comment.

Anyway, the Nicaraguan Fresca has sugar in it, and when I tasted it, it reminded me a bit of this Alka Seltzer with Lemon that I used to take when I had the flu. It didn't have the pleasing artificial bite of the American version. I quite like the can design though.

P.S. Sorry I haven't posted lately. I've been so depressed that no one from Fresca's marketing department has contacted me about sponsoring Fallen Princess. It's been hard to focus, frankly. Also, the room where my computer is has been at a steady temperature of 150 degrees.

Montclair Mom Proves to be Barrel of Laughs at Seaside Heights Water Park

2010-07-14T20:05:00.003-04:00

Enough said.

Road Rage

2010-07-08T09:50:00.002-04:00

Last Wednesday, at 9:15 am, I was waiting at a stop sign for my chance to turn right after dropping my daughter off at field hockey camp. Granted, I'm a cautious driver, but there was a fair amount of traffic as many other parents had also just dropped their daughters off.

Behind me, a driver honked very aggressively. In the sounding of her horn, she channeled all the rage of the universe. I waved her to go around me. Another honk, more enraged, if possible.

I turned off the car, and got out. From the relative safety of the curb, I observed a woman with silky blonde hair in a shiny, obnoxiously large car. She was wearing workout clothes. Clearly, she was late for kickboxing or spinning, or some other extremely important gym activity. Her face was twisted with fury.

I held up one finger. I wanted to say, "Your actions affect others. It is not all about you and the calories you must burn." But she teared off, leaning on the horn one more time for good measure.

I got back in the car, shaking, and was frazzled for the rest of the day.

I Hate Right on Red

2010-06-29T10:59:00.002-04:00

Right on red is optional. So quit honking at me.

The Mother-Daughter Creators of Huge on What to Avoid When Doing a ‘Fat Camp’ Show

2010-06-28T20:19:00.002-04:00

Here's another interview I did about Huge, on New York Magazine's website.
Okay bye.

Hey, "My So Called Life" Fans: Watch "Huge" Tonight

2010-06-28T13:28:00.006-04:00

The ABC Family drama Huge, which is about teens at a weight loss camp named Camp Victory, is shocking for the number of genuinely plus-sized actors in the cast. The series is written by Winnie Holzman, creator of the legendary teen drama My So-Called Life, and writer of the book for Wicked, as well as her 24-year-old daughter, Savannah Dooley. It is based on a book from Alloy Entertainment, the behemoth that created Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars.

This subject matter is rarely properly dealt with on tv. So far the show seems to not be coming down hard on fat camps, nor arguing for them, but rather using the camp as a way to explore what it's like to be an overweight teenager. The tone is pretty serious. The main character, Willamina, a sarcastic girl who has been sent to the camp against her wishes, is played by Nikki Blonksy, best known for her role as the maniacally enthusiastic Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray.

Why did you want to do “Huge”?

It was a scripted show about plus sized people. And people forget that most of America is over a size 12-14. What the media feeds the kids is that you have to be a size 2 in order to be an actress or a singer, or whatever. And that’s not the case. You take someone like me, who is definitely not a size 2 or a 4, and I am living the dream. So I was so pleased to hear that they had the courage to make a show like this, with a full plus-sized cast, and we are just having the time of our life. What I’m getting so excited about is that people will be able to see that plus-sized people are not just there for the joke or the laugh. We have the same issues that skinny people have. We have body issues. We have eating disorders. We deal with everything in this show that thin people deal with. Just because we’re plus-sized doesn’t mean we don’t deal with it.

Did you have a prior opinion about weight loss camps before you did this show?

My opinion is if the kids themselves say they want to go, I think they are perfectly fine. If the parents are pushing camp, like in my character's circumstance, then it is not ok- that’s sending a message to the child that you’re not good enough for us, and no child should ever have to go through that.

Will is so different from the role you’re most known for, Tracey Turnblad in Hairspray. How did you feel about playing a darker, more sarcastic character?

I loved Tracy—don’t get me wrong—but Will is so much fun to play. I didn’t want anyone else to play her. I kept telling my agent, I have to play this girl. If anyone is going to play this sarcastic girl and still be likable, I have to. It’s a different side of me.

Were you nervous about doing the striptease that Will does in the first episode?

That was actually Day One, first shot, and I just went for it, There were over 200 people there, watching it. I just said, you know what Nikki, here’s your time, let it all hang out. I just had so much fun. My mom was there, and she gave me thumbs up, and it was a go. I just did the striptease like I was brushing my teeth. It was no big deal.

Was that your first strip tease?

Yes.

But maybe not your last.

Maybe not. Never say never.

My father died 20 years ago today.

2010-06-23T12:09:00.012-04:00

I still miss him.

Colon cancer killed him at 58. When they first found the tumor in his colon, he had surgery to remove it. During the operation I sat in the waiting room at New Rochelle Hospital with my mother. All I remember is that the surgeon came out when he was finished, and said: "It was very big. The size of a grapefruit. But I think I got it all."

The tumor had grown so large because my father didn't get himself checked for years. He had misdiagnosed the pain in his back. I remember him always having back problems. When I was 13 he was in traction, and to pass the time, he hand-hooked rugs. I still have a lovely floral rug that he made for me in my guest room. Sometimes he said his back problem was caused by an injury he got playing Gaelic football; other times, as I recall, it seemed to be related to a fall from a telephone pole. My father used to repair telephone wires for a living.

Finally they found the source of this particular pain, and so he had the surgery, and chemo, which seemed to cure him for a while, until it didn't.

He died right after Father's Day. I don't know why, but I bought him a large mahogany wall clock that year. He was so frail, and when he opened it, he sobbed a heart breaking sob. Why had I bought him such a gift?

Very near the end, he was thin as a rail, and he wanted a cigarette. My brother Robert could not deny him. I watched him smoking it, and he seemed a corpse already, but I knew that Robert had done the right thing.

I spent the night before he died at my parents' house, and I was able to tell him that I loved him, and he heard me. My family of origin is not big on "I Love You." It is so rarely spoken amongst us that I can barely choke it out, and if I do say it, it seems like some sort of breach of etiquette. People avert their eyes, then make jokes. We don't say it, but we know it.

The afternoon of June 23, 1990, it was sunny and beautiful, and my brother took a few of us, me and some cousins, out in the little motor boat that my father had recently insisted on buying for him. (For me, he had thoughtfully purchased an air conditioner for my stifling New York apartment.) The sun glittered on the water. We were quietly waiting.

When we returned a few hours later, my mother and my parents' closest friends sat around the dining room table. I glanced their way as I went directly to my father's bedside.

"Chris..." It was Mr. Maye, my father's lifelong best friend. He didn't need to say anything else.

My father's hands were folded on his chest.

The Jewish Goodbye

2010-06-18T11:30:00.003-04:00

After reading my post about the Irish Exit the other day, a Jewish friend of long-standing sent me the following message.

"Did you know that there is something known as the Jewish Goodbye? It's when you start your goodbyes and end up walking out the door 30 minutes later. The amount of time increases exponentially depending on how many other Jews there are in the room.

Given the right circumstances I am completely capable of the Jewish goodbye. If there are enough Jews in the room the Jewish goodbye takes you over like a life force. There just keeps being one more Jew to connect with before you get out the door. Or non-Jew, but two Jews can really maximize the potential of the Jewish Goodbye. And if the Jews in the room are relatives, one might even expect to get sucked into the Jewish goodbye's vortex for at least one third of the amount of time one spent at the gathering itself."

Ode to “Sunday Bloody Sunday”

2010-06-17T20:43:00.008-04:00

U2's 1983 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" has been running through my head since last night, when I read about British Prime Minister David Cameron’s apology for the Bloody Sunday killings. In 1972, British soldiers murdered 14 innocent protestors in Northern Ireland. Cameron’s unequivocal statement, which came after an expensive investigation by the British, has impressed many with its bold apology-like qualities. How often does a politician, or a corporate executive, or anyone, really, just come out and admit, “we were totally, totally wrong”? More often people apologize with a caveat. And that’s not a real apology.

Others are less impressed by the apology. For one thing, why did it take 38 years? And why did the Prime Minister who was in office in 1972 cover up the soldiers’ guilt?

I’m no expert, but this debate about the “Irish Troubles” is in my bones. I grew up in a house where it was argued regularly. So after folding up my New York Times last night, I immediately posted a live video from ’83 (the one where Bono waves the white flag) on my Facebook page, along with the song’s first line: “I can’t believe the news today.” And also a comment about his sweet mullet. I don’t think any of my friends had any idea what I was on about.

I love this song, and I love U2. I was 10 when Bloody Sunday happened, and a senior in college fresh from a Rolling Stone internship when War, the album “Sunday Bloody Sunday” opens, was released. I would ride the Stamford Local to Manhattan from my house in Westchester wearing a purple Esprit mini and listening intently to the cassette on my Walkman. It’s a fucking great song, from the military style drums that open it, to the pain in Bono’s voice, to the soaring message of hope for a peaceful future: “We can live as one.”

Bono was worried “Sunday Bloody Sunday” would be taken as a rallying cry to fuel the endless cycle of violence in Ireland. He would always introduce “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by saying it wasn’t a rebel song. Because after Bloody Sunday, the retaliation was violence. And the British Embassy in Dublin was burned down. And there was a lot of smack talk about the British amongst Irish-Americans.

The house I grew up in, the Kelly house, was no exception. I have memories of conversations around the table between my parents and their friends, England get out of Ireland this, the Protestants that. I was taught: You are Catholic, the Catholics are being oppressed and the Protestants suck. I still have vague guilt over raising my kids in a Protestant church. I feel culturally Catholic, but the Pope could learn a lesson about how to apologize from David Cameron.

It seems to me that current popular music is rarely about anything important. I mean, I guess there is MIA, but for every MIA you have a Gaga and a Miley Cyrus and a Taylor Swift. The hits are all about partying. I like party music, and I enjoy belting out cheesy party songs in the car with my kids, and actually, party music can be transcendent, but we need more than just party music. I hope Bono’s back feels better soon. I really want to know what he thinks about all this.

Dear Sofia Coppola: Please make a movie about Monet. Thank you.

2010-06-16T14:28:00.005-04:00

If you are anywhere near New York and have even a passing interest in Claude Monet, you should view the unbelievable show of his Water Lilies paintings at the Gagosian Gallery at 522 W. 21st Street by the time it closes on June 26. My friend Stuart, who is very knowledgeable about art, took me to see it yesterday. These paintings were borrowed from art collectors and museums around the world, and it's the first time Monet's early, more detailed Water Lilies paintings have been exhibited with his later, very modern renditions of the same scene.

I remember seeing a Monet show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was in high school. I bought a poster of a Water Lilies painting. I brought it up to Colgate and hung it on the wall of my freshman dorm room, while wearing skin-tight designer jeans, feather earrings and Candies. I quickly adapted my wardrobe to the climate, culture and steep hills of my alma mater, but the poster remained. My super-preppy freshman roommate said she was a little worried by my clothes and taste in dorm decor, but we ended up getting along great.

But I digress, as usual.

Stuart, my friend and art guide, was saying that these paintings are so familiar, people have forgotten how groundbreaking they were. Monet, of course, was a rich philanderer as well as a genius. I think his life would be great material for a Sofia Coppola movie. With music by Phoenix.

Rules Are Made to Be Broken

2010-06-15T20:21:00.007-04:00

When I turned 40, four days after September 11, 2001, I instituted a No Miniskirts After 40 Rule. I have no idea why I introduced this initiative. I must have been suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress/midlife crisis combo.

In my twenties and thirties I wore the shortest skirts imaginable without batting an eyelash. One Betsy Johnson number that comes to mind fell maybe an inch below the crotch, and was cinched with a sort of bondage belt. I felt this was appropriate for office wear. If truth be told, I think I was a little conceited about my legs. I don't like to brag, but my legs are still holding up pretty nicely. Who knows why I have deprived myself of miniskirt wearing for all these years?

I think I started playing tennis because the No Miniskirts After 40 Rule is waived for sports attire. What, you didn't know about this? And then I went to Paris last year, and when you are shopping for clothes in Paris all sorts of rules no longer apply. I bought a "knee-length" dress, or at least that's how I rationalized it. Once back in NJ I had to admit it is more like mid-thigh. I love that thing. I can't wear it enough.

Fuck it. I'm wearing minis again. I'll reassess when I turn 50.

I've lost a follower

2010-06-14T08:48:00.008-04:00

Last time I looked, I had 285. Now, 284. I don't handle rejection well. Just ask any of my ex-boyfriends or Axl Ganz.

I'm obsessed with knowing why. Do I post too frequently? Not often enough? Is it because my writing is boring? Too personal? Not personal enough? Superficial? Do I offend? Am I more funny sad than funny ha-ha? Am I not thin enough?

Did my former follower think, "why am I, a 17-year-old girl, following this old lady?" Or maybe, "why do I, stay-at-home mom, subject myself to giddy posts about Glee?"

And for what reason did I even start this blog? I have a busy family, three cats, a falling-apart house, a frustrating freelance writing career, a sputtering yoga practice and an unfinished novel, all of which need my immediate attention.

Is it better to have had followers and lost them than not to have had followers at all?

Yeah, I went there.

The Irish Exit

2010-06-14T06:49:00.004-04:00

I was at a fun party on Saturday night, dancing poolside with the ladies while overlooking the Manhattan skyline, when I realized that two friends had left without saying goodbye. Now this is one of my trademark moves, because I hate a long goodbye. I can't stand it, actually. When I am ready to go, it comes on suddenly and strongly, and I want to get the hell out, never mind the niceties. I like to "phantom," as my husband calls it. This becomes difficult when you have children to extricate from games of running bases and swimming pools, and a husband who has been bred to never appear rude. I mean, I'll thank the host, but then I'm out.

I confronted my friend about her unannounced departure and she referred to it as "The Irish Exit." I immediately loved the sound of this expression, so I looked it up online. Apparently it arose to describe those times where you've had too much to drink, so you leave discreetly before your friends can confiscate your car keys. There's even a Facebook page devoted to The Irish Exit, where fans contribute their own stories of Irish Exits. They all seem to be about getting completely wasted.

Damn. I hate an Irish ethnic slur.

Lament of the Stay-at-Home Mom

2010-06-11T20:34:00.004-04:00

I didn't post yesterday or today because, chronologically: my husband left to spend a week in Nicaragua; I was informed that half of our four-year-old wood picket fence is rotting and has to be replaced; a pregnant woman and her toddler fell down my new back stairs; my mother came to visit and I cooked her a birthday dinner; my son, with no regard for my sanity, scaled a story-high stone wall; I spent three hours touring lovely gardens; I escorted two children to swim practice; and a babysitter skipped town without telling me, causing me to miss two non-refundable events.

On the plus side, I pitched a story to an actual magazine and was given an assignment which is due in two weeks.

Also, Gavin and Stacey, in 15.

Video of the Day: The Drums, "Forever & Ever Amen"

2010-06-09T13:05:00.005-04:00

There is nothing about this video that I don't like. Reminds me of The Specials, with a little whiff of Haircut 100. It doesn't hurt that the roof where part of this video was shot is just like the one on my first Manhattan apartment at 227 Sullivan Street. Also, loving the drum with the one stick and the way the guy is carrying his guitar all high up. I'm clearly drowning in nostalgia on this weirdly chilly June day. The Drums' first record was released yesterday. Look into it on their website, where you can also get a free download of "It Will All End in Tears."

This is How It's Done, People

2010-06-09T11:56:00.003-04:00

Definitely enjoyed the Gleek version of "To Sir With Love," but nobody can touch Lulu singing in the 1967 movie of the same name.

I'm Online Shopping for a New Bathing Suit

2010-06-07T11:00:00.003-04:00

I don't think the Victoria's Secret "topless bikini" (above) is quite right, though. It is a one piece, but...

P.J. Clad Montclair Mom Refuses to Answer Doorbell

2010-06-07T09:44:00.004-04:00

At approximately 9 am this morning, a Montclair mom was still in her green and white Garnet Hill pajamas, having sent her children off to school and her husband to work. She was finally enjoying a moment of peace after a long weekend of school fundraisers, family events, and a good deal of whining. She was grateful that the unusually high heat and humidity of the weekend had broken. Just as this mom was engaged in a particularly competitive game of Lexulous with her friend Dan, the doorbell rang. Was it PSE&G to read the gas meter? The Jehovah's Witnesses yet again, with news of eternity in the flames of hell?

The doorbell rang again. Now, this was unusual. Yet there was no car in front of the house. Still, the Montclair mom declined to go to the front door. But she did realize that it was time to shower and get dressed.

Finally Saw SATC 2

2010-06-05T22:55:00.005-04:00

I haven't thought of the song "I am Woman" in so long. I used to totally love it, back in the 70s. I was in high school with subscriptions to Ms. Magazine and Seventeen. Somehow, I owned a Helen Reddy album. I have vivid memories of listening to this song and "Delta Dawn" on the headphones to the stereo my parents bought me as a 15th birthday gift (one component contained a turntable, receiver and 8 track!; it came with a T Rex 8 track as well; it was my sole stereo until the late 80s.) This song may be cheesy, but I like a little cheese. And, the point is, I think it really helped me form my feminist convictions at a young age. (Interesting aside: while searching for this song, I learned that the United Nations declared 1975 as "The Year of the Woman" and chose "I Am Woman" as its theme song.) I think it was a very good karaoke choice for the SATC girls.

Ladies Need to Eat More Ice Cream

2010-06-04T22:20:00.005-04:00

So I went to an ice cream party this afternoon, where I paid $10 for the privilege of eating ice cream (and to raise money for the local schools), and I was literally the only woman eating ice cream on an 85 degree, high humidity day! Hello, it's an ice cream party! Ice cream was invented to combat this weather. If you don't want to eat ice cream, don't come! Don't make me feel like a freak with my icy bowl of chocolate.

The Fragrance Version of Fresca

2010-06-04T13:58:00.010-04:00

A grapefruit scent that, kept in the refrigerator, cools and refreshes you on hot, humid days. As light as this post.

Ladies, My Summer Excitement Dress Has Arrived!

2010-06-03T10:26:00.003-04:00

It's Madewell's "High Summer" dress. They run small, fyi, so order up.

I'm Calling for a Boycott

2010-06-03T09:57:00.003-04:00

Urban Outfitters Wants You To “Eat Less”.

Hey Baby

2010-06-02T11:48:00.006-04:00

In the new shooter game "Hey Baby", women who are being street harassed shoot and kill their harassers. I have a personal interest in this game. I read about it this morning in a Salon article that was posted on a friend's Facebook page. At one time, street harassment was a particular concern of mine. I wrote a song called "Hey Baby" about this very subject in, like, 1990. The song is a list of disgusting catcalls that I endured as I walked around the streets of Manhattan, usually wearing short, tight skirts. My "Hey Baby" is on the internet, but I won't post a link to it here, because the sound of my own voice makes me cringe. Also, I live in fear of my mother-in-law or kids ever hearing me using such inappropriate language. It is "Rated I," as we say in our house.

After I wrote "Hey Baby," my mother said, "Someday the comments will stop, and you will be sorry."( Or maybe her "wisdom" was prompted by a similar street harassment diary that I did for Sassy?) I remember being infuriated, like, Mom, I am making a statement here about the plight of women, and how could you not get it? She was right about one thing, though, the day has come when I am very rarely street harassed. (For one thing, I no longer dress provocatively or live in Manhattan. And I must say the ravages of time and child birth have taken their toll.) I can't say that I particularly miss it. But if I am being really honest here, I have to admit that the occasional cat caller these days makes me think just one thought: Still got it!

So back to the game. Commenters on Salon felt it was outdated, and the graphics made it seem like it was made 12 years ago. I am against all shooter games, obviously, even if the object is killing street harassers. Is this some misguided attempt to get more females interested in gaming?