Generation What?

Not Blogging Here Anymore...

2010-02-26T10:38:00.000-08:00

Now I'm blogging here:

ramblinbess.blogspot.com

Come by and check out my new blog!

My New Mantra

2009-04-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

So, I’m back to liking the wedding planning process. I keep telling people who ask how it’s going some version of the following: “Oh, you know, I’m trying to enjoy it because you only get to do this once, and I’d rather have fun with it than be totally stressed out.”

Now, you couldn’t in all honesty say I’ve been “having fun with it” the past few weeks. I had several near meltdowns over the stupidest things regarding addressing and sending out the invitations. These are moments I don’t look back on proudly. For instance, dropping the F-bomb and almost crying because I wrote the city name where the street name should go on one invitation was a low point. As a side note, why don’t all stationary shops just give you five extra envelopes as a matter of course? No one can write everyone’s address perfectly the first time. No one, I tell you, no one! (Oops, I’m starting to lose it again.)

However, either because I’ve sent out the invitations now, or because I’ve said it enough that it’s starting to sink in, I’m actually having fun with the planning now. I made appointments for my hair and makeup today. (And a facial, okay! I’m not usually so superficial, but it is a wedding after all.) My dress fitting was only a little bit demoralizing … like when the seamstress measured my shoulders for the straps only to find that one is half an inch lower than the other (because of my broken collar bone).
Mostly, though, it was cool to stick my poufy wedding dress in my back seat and head off to the dress shop again. It was one of those things you imagine yourself doing before you get engaged (after people you know start getting married—otherwise, you don’t imagine that moment at all) … and then, suddenly, you find yourself actually doing it. And—I’m being serious—little kids and old men smile at you as you pass by with your dress in hand, like the joy of your wedding somehow rubs off on them.

So, if anyone asks, “I’m enjoying the wedding planning because you only get to do this once, and I’d rather have fun with it than be totally stressed out.”

Just remember that when you see me on the verge of my next meltdown.

Wedding Photography Blues

2009-04-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling nostalgic for the Sixties and Seventies. No, not in the sense that I’ve cut long, blunt bangs or am coveting high-waisted pencil skirts (in orange) from Anthropologie. What I mean is, in those eras, no one felt compelled to pay (an arm and a leg) for professional wedding photography. In a sense, though, they didn’t know what they were missing.
The idea is extremely compelling for several reasons. I’d love to be able to give my grandchildren beautiful wedding photos. In fact, I have my grandparents’ wedding pictures hanging on my bedroom wall. Also, even though I’m not a big photo person—I don’t even own a camera—it would be great to have a wedding album, or even just a section of another album, to idly peruse through when you were feeling romantic or sentimental. And, last but not least, I generally look quite atrocious in photos (admittedly this is part of the reason I’m not a big photo person (see Exhibit A below)), so I wouldn’t find having a professional making me look my very best.
So, you see, I’d be happily booking appointments with photographers and flipping through their portfolios… if my Fiancé and I weren’t paying for the wedding ourselves. We’re happy to do it, and we’re even happy scaling back since the wedding bells… and whistles aren’t really our style anyway. But, malheureusement, it’s not happening. At $2000 and up, wedding photography just isn’t something we can justify.
So, that’s why I’m nostalgic for our parents’ generation, when family members just snapped photos throughout the day and gave them to you later… and that was normal. Not only have I rummaged through my parents’ DIY wedding photos, but my middle-school and high-school friends and I would scour through their parents’ albums too, giggling gleefully at the bizarre outfits, crazy hairstyles, and illicit substances caught on film.
But how can you settle for watching that new blockbuster on a clunky black-and-white TV when there’s a brand new Cineplex right down the block?
And so my friends, that’s where we’re left. Of course, there’s still something charming about old fashioned TV sets…. Just ask that girl in the orange pencil skirt.

Exhibit A:

Last name, please?

2009-02-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

I have been mulling something over almost since the day I got engaged. Do I take my Fiancé’s last name, or not? I wish I could say that I feel really strongly one way or the other, but unfortunately I feel really strongly both ways. What else do you do when faced with a hard decision but make a list, so…

Pros of taking his last name:
1) We are symbolically, by virtue of sharing a name, part of a family (but if he took mine, we would still share the same last name).
2) If we have children, their teachers, or whoever, will know that they are ours (but ditto the last aside).
3) My initials would be BAM!

Cons of taking his last name:
1) It doesn’t make sense to me why women give up their last names and not (usually) the other way around.
2) I have to fill out tons of annoying paperwork.
3) I have published a few things under “Bess Vanrenen.” (But I could still write under “Bess Vanrenen….”)

I will spare you the pro and con list the other way around, for him taking my last name. (I’m sure you’re breathing a sigh of relief.) I did just write one, and, not surprisingly, it’s almost exactly the same as the above list—but reversed. Basically, my pro and con list didn’t really help. Damn it! This method has never failed me before….

Obviously, I’ve been thinking a lot about how strange it is that women take their husbands’ last names and that family histories are charted along the male lines, and it calls to mind all the other bizarre wedding traditions. For instance, why does the man stand at the alter waiting for the woman? Why does the woman wear white? Why does the woman wear a veil? The answers are obvious, but what’s strange is that we still adhere to many of these traditions. I will ditch a few of these customs, but not all of them. For instance, I won’t wear a veil, but I will wear a white wedding dress.

I think a similar mentality helps when trying to decide whether to take your partner’s name or not. Basically, I can ask myself, does this tradition work for me? Since I know I want to share a last name with my Fiancé, I have only two decisions: his or mine. And the fact that I get to make that decision makes me feel less burdened by the weight of the symbolism. Most of my friends did not take their husbands’ last names, so it doesn’t seem to be a given anymore. More importantly, ours won’t be a household defined by gender roles, so why does it matter if I take his last name? Because women’s roles are changing more and more, I can choose to take his last name, but I can also choose to be a working parent and I can choose to let him do the cooking (while I do the cleaning).*

So, it looks like I’ve decided—finally: I will take his last name.

(Thank goodness, because I really wanted my initials to be BAM!)

*I think it's important to note that same-sex couples can't choose to get married, and women still make less than men for the same jobs, so obviously there's still a lot more work to be done.

You Do I Dos?

2009-01-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

One of the hardest--or maybe "weirdest" is a more apt word--decisions to make regarding this whole wedding thing is choosing an officiant. In the olden days, or somewhere in Middle America, people just asked their community's religious leader to do this. But my Fiance and I don't got to church in any regular way. So, we're basically picking a stranger to marry us. That's weird. I mean, because this person is marrying you, they are playing an extremely intimate role in one of the most memorable moments of your life.

So, I found listings for a few officiants in the area and set up meetings with those that weren't ridiculously overpriced, or otherwise scary. Actually meeting up with an officiant is uncanny. It's like a first date, a blind date, but without the sex stuff. You set up a time and a place. You arrive, nervous, look around, spot the person you're meeting, compare what they look like in person to what they look like in two-dimensions, and make a snap judgment, knowing that they are doing the same.

Does this person get me? Does s/he like me? Do I find this person attractive, interesting, and nice? Does this person share my values? Is this person responsible and trustworthy? How will this person match my general wedding decor? (Just kidding on that last one, sort of.)

To make matters worse, you can't really talk about money in any blatant way. You don't pay officiants a fee. You give them "donations," but they have standard "donations" for different levels of services, which are of course just fees.

It turned out we met two really nice officiants, either of whom I'd be happy to have marry me and my Fiance. One of them happened to have a religious background similar to that of my Fiance's family, so we went with him, Father Marty.

But, I don't really know him that well.... Hopefully I can trust him.... Hopefully, he'll end up being everything I hoped he'd be, and more.... Hopefully, he'll show up on my wedding day.

See, finding a wedding officiant is a lot like finding a spouse.

Invitations, Check

2009-01-06T20:47:00.001-08:00

After throwing a fit on Friday because I couldn't order the invitations that day, we finally ordered them today! Yay! I have moved, hopefully temporarily, into the stressed realm, which became obvious when, after looking so forward to checking another thing off my wedding to-do list, I was told that the word-person wasn't at the shop that day. Then, my Fiance had to hear a long list of things we still had to do that were weighing on my mind. At that point, or shortly thereafter, my Fiance, asked me earnestly what he could do to help. I, eagerly, gave him a short list. The truth is, as stressed as I may get, I also like planning the wedding. It's a fun creative outlet. Maybe that's why I end up spending so much time thinking about the details. And why I end up stressed out, and why I feel so relieved when I finally check said to-do off my list.

So, today, invitations are it, and I have to say, I'm excited about the choice we made. The design is pretty cool and unique, and it didn't cost a million dollars. We went to a local shop called Word Shop and chose a design by Lucky Onion. Here are some other designs they've done.

Now I get to stress myself out about flowers!

Holy Cannolis

2009-01-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

I just got a quote of $700 for 75 invitations.

The Wedding Planner

2008-12-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

Planning a wedding has started to bore me. Okay, I can see the allure of having a beautiful, artistic, and memorable wedding, but it’s also so unrealistic that it’s mostly laughable to me now. Scouting out the location might have been the peak of the whole planning process. Picking out a dress was fun (and stress inducing), for sure. Choosing the colors was too (navy and ivory, by the way; note: if you come, you will never even know the colors were navy and ivory, isn’t that funny?)—as was pinpointing the “theme” (note #2: I have discovered that no real wedding actually has a theme, except for the “wedding” theme, which includes all the wedding fixings, like flowers, centerpieces, table clothes, cakes, and candles). In short, I am at the point where there are few big decisions to make, leaving just the little frankly boring details, like invitations, to be finalized.

I’m sorry, but the invitation industry has gotten painfully bloated. Three things are keeping me from just picking out any old invitation: 1) is the invitation in my wedding’s colors? (God knows why I care, but I do); 3) do I think it’s pretty? and 2) will my friends and relatives perceive this invitation to be tacky? Cost is an issue, too, but I’m perfectly happy going without a few of the industry standards, like Save the Date cards and letterpress printing. I don’t think I’m going to be able to go the cotton paper route, so getting a recycled paper is up there on my list, too.

But the thing is, whereas in the past I might have been psyched to make a new wedding decision, now I’m just not. If someone tells me how many exciting options I have with regard to my invitations, I want to tell them that I don’t want options. Just show me a pretty, reasonably priced invitation that happens to have some navy or ivory in it, and I’m sold!

The sad thing is, I can see most of the upcoming decisions falling into this category. What color/kind of table clothes? Well, table-clothe table clothes, in navy, or ivory. What kind of centerpiece? Sorry, no Rocky Mountain wildflowers in tin watering cans, here. No, striking, stark black-and-white centerpieces, say Cala lilies in ebony vases of varying heights for me either. I don’t have the time to spend on making that happen. Just centerpieces! Candles probably! And just regular chairs around the table! The chairs they already have there at Chautauqua! And no special dance floor needed! People can just dance on the goddamn floor!

I’m sorry, but all the million details that the bridal industry would like you to think you must attend to seem so silly to me. I want my wedding to be relaxed. I want it to be pretty. I want to have a good time, just like I want my Fiancé and our friends and family to have a good time. But beyond that?

Well, let’s just say planning a wedding has started to bore me.

Generation What?

2008-12-04T12:43:00.001-08:00

I had to post a link to this article because it talks about the naming of generations and shares a title with my book, the introduction of which also goes the differences between the current generation and past ones. Anyway, here it is.

Dress, check

2008-11-17T17:32:00.000-08:00

So, my wedding is still eight months away, and I already have a wedding dress hanging in my closet. I think I may have jumped the gun on that one, and in the early morning hours when I can’t sleep I occasionally worry the dress will wrinkle and yellow to the point it’s unwearable by the time June 27th comes around.

But it’s so easy to do what I did and get the dress way before you need it because, simply said, wedding dress shopping is fun. It’s dispiriting, overwhelming, and somewhat shameful, but it’s also a rollicking good time.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way. It’s dispiriting because the dresses are really made for the perfect 36-24-36 body, which many of us do not possess. When it’s much too tight here and then much too loose there, it can be quite a blow to your self-esteem.

And it’s overwhelming because the dress can influence almost everything else about the wedding. There are so many styles and you can only buy the one. See, if you buy a summery cotton dress, it will feel like one kind of wedding (you know, the hippie type); if you buy a short, funky dress, it will feel like another (yes, an urban event); and if you buy a lacy dress with a huge skirt and a train, well, you guessed it, it’ll feel like yet another kind of event (aka, a traditional one).

And dress shopping can also make you feel like a selfish bastard whose priorities are all out of whack. The price of that dress can go very far towards something much more significant: like a down payment on a house or a donation to a favorite charity. And yet, you know you won’t end up buying a white smock and donating $1000 (or what have you) to Unicef. Because you’re a selfish bastard. Or, I am.

All that aside, dress shopping is great. On the day I actually purchased my dress, I picked up two good friends of mine, Courtney and Marissa, and we stopped by the first shop, Anna Be. I’d been there before and knew which dresses I liked, but I wanted to try them all on again in front of two objective pairs of eyes. At the end of the appointment, I grabbed two last dresses for good measure, and one of them ending up being the One. When I tried it on, I definitely got that giddy feeling. It wasn’t what I thought I was going to get, i.e. a simple but pretty dress. But it made my heart go pitter patter. We grabbed a late breakfast and checked out another shop, but none of the dresses there measured up. So we swung back by the first place and I made my purchase.

Of course I won’t show you what it looks like, but here are the runners up.

and

Pretty, no?

So, now there it is, stuffed in my closet, getting more and more wrinkly and yellow with each passing day. No matter, worst case scenario, I have to sell it on Craigslist and buy a new one….

Feeding the Masses

2008-10-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

Besides finding a location for the ceremony and reception, because you can’t get married without a place to get married at, choosing a caterer was highest on my wedding to-do list. I’m glad I did prioritize it too; based on some of the experiences I’ve had, a good caterer is hard to find. Okay, I’m not planning on spending a lot of money on catering, so I didn’t expect anyone to roll out the red carpet. But, come on.

The first place I went was incredibly hard to find, which is fine, except it’s as though no one who works there realizes that. Note to anyone looking for a caterer in the near future: Caterers in general are really hard to find. They are often in warehouse districts and don’t have a street addresses like we regular folk are used to. It’s like 10089b #101-2, or something like that. But this first place particularly hard to find. I know that to be true because now I’ve been to three caterers. So, you’d think they’d mention as much when you made your plans to meet them. But no.

Because I was going from work in Denver to a caterer in Boulder, I was running behind. And stupid me didn’t have their number so I couldn’t call to warn them. After barely catching the street where I had to make a U-y, I proceeded to dart into the middle on oncoming traffic because I felt so bad about being late. Worse, I had a complete brain fart when staring into the rush hour traffic coming at me head on. I thought, if I turn into the closest lane, that car speeding at me will be forced to break, so I’d better veer into the middle lane. But then I noticed a car in that lane tearing towards me too, so I veered into the right-most lane. Of course, cars were speeding down that lane too, so I did a U-turn into oncoming traffic, veered across three lanes, and cut off several cars in doing so. Needless to say, I was feeling a little frazzled by this point.

The address came up quick after that, or so I thought. And it was all going to be okay, because I was only about five minutes late. However, instead of being at street level, it was, I soon discovered, behind the street-facing stores about two blocks deep. There were a handful of other caterers located there too, so it took me awhile to locate the damn place, even after I was in the right spot. But I checked my cell phone, and I was just under ten minutes late, and still alive. Not bad!

When I walked in, I was shuffled into a tasting room and left alone. I don’t know if it was a tit for tat thing or what. I could also stare into the kitchen from my seat, since the kitchen door was open to the tasting room. I just sat there. And sat. After a few minutes, besides music blaring from the kitchen, I heard, “I’m just waiting for this client to show up who’s twenty minutes late!” That client was me. Apparently, no one told the kitchen staff I was there. Since the door was open, the cooks looked up to see me sitting there. I waved.

Okay, the food was really good, even though it wasn’t quite the style I was hoping for. The food had nothing to do with why I didn’t go with them. It was that comment, and a few others by the coordinator. One: “I used to tell people to try a bunch of caterers before going with us, but now I don’t even bother because they always come back.” Um, confidence, or cockiness, might work on some people but not on me. Two: “Because so many caterers have gone out of business, now it’s the clients who are competing for the caterers, so you have to book them fast.” Hello, we’re going to be spending a lot of money and time on the catering, and I don’t want to feel like the caterer is doing me any favors by accepting that job. And three: “You especially want to book early because you’re having such a small wedding. If I had to choose between a 50-person wedding and a 200-person wedding, I’d always choose the 200-person wedding.” Enough said.

The second place was great, but more on that later.

Number three was a treat, too, and I mean that it a sarcastic way. The young lady coordinating the tasting made the same mistake as the first folks. She never told me where I was going. I ended up putting the address in her signature line in Mapquest to get directions. I set out proudly with my directions on hand. I was rushing again at the end of another work day, but this time I got there five minutes early, thank goodness. But again, instead of being at street level, it was in another warehouse tucked down an alleyway behind a parking lot. Still, we made it there on time. The receptionist gave us a funny look as we walked in, so I told her that we were there for a tasting. “Oh!” she said. “You’re at the wrong location. The tastings are at the event center.” Don’t you think someone could have told me that at some point?

We rushed over to the event center, luckily just a few blocks away. We were asked to wait while they found the very young coordinator. She greeted us, in a tight-fitting sundress and high heels. Not quite professional. None of these things mattered much though. What really struck me was how she couldn’t organize the details of a tasting. How could she organize a meal for fifty? The prime example: She forgot to give us any silverware when she served us our food. We sat there dumbly for a few moments until I said, “Um, should I grab that silverware over there?”

She also said “absolutely” just about every other word.

So, that second caterer I mentioned was Occasions by Sandy. Okay, the wedding hasn’t happened yet, but I was so impressed by how professional, authentic, and eager they were. Here’s the best example of this: They unfortunately weren’t on the reception site’s vendor list, and that meant they might not be able to perform the job. When I mentioned that to them, the coordinator called up the site to set up a visit. There was no promise of our business, but she did it anyway and on her own. Occasions by Sandy also gave us wine at the tasting. Two thumbs up for that. In fact, maybe we only hired them because we were drunk….

The funny thing is, I’m not a difficult person. Not really. But I’m only having one wedding. And I don’t spend a few thousand dollars every other day. So, call me crazy, but I have a certain expectations for a caterer.

Finding the caterers, getting estimates, and setting up tastings was a pain in the ass. But the caterers made it really, really easy to choose one out of the bunch.

Location Scout

2008-09-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

Fast forward to a Saturday afternoon in late June 2009. I’m gliding down a wide, regal-looking staircase wearing a flowing white gown, a white flower in my hair. My Fiancé is gallantly awaiting me at the bottom of the staircase in a crisp, black suit. All our friends and family are clustered around, silent, some smiling, some crying. Imagine that you’re among them. A musician is playing a lovely song on her guitar, and accompanying her, a mellifluous background, is the whirring, whizzing, and chirping of a brand spanking new casino.

Not what you were expecting? One doesn’t normally think of casinos when thinking of marriage, unless the wedding in question is a Vegas elopement. But we were actually thinking of getting marriage in Central City, Colorado, where gambling has been legal since 1991.

If you read my last blog, a comment about Central City and weddings prompted the question in question, and so it was a natural place to look. Okay, we weren’t going to wed inside a casino—we found a beautiful old house and garden attached to the historic Central City Opera House—but there’s nowhere to eat or sleep in Central City outside of casinos, especially if it’s not opera season. It was, despite my little jibe, a hard decision to make. In the end, I just couldn’t imagine going back to all that buzzing and beeping after such an intimate, important occasion.

We also considered a few other spots that definitely competed for our joint affection with all their individuality, beauty, and style. However, one lovely locale won out for combining all these qualities and cherries on top—cabins for rent within walking distance, its proximity to guests’ homes, a beautiful backdrop, a casual feel, etc. So we decided to hold the ceremony at the green at Chautauqua Park in Boulder—at least if we get the permit, that is—and to hold the reception in the Grand Assembly Hall there, a handsome, old building designed and decorated in the arts and crafts style.

So, one decision down, and I-don’t-want-to-think-about-how-many-more to go.

Are diamonds really a girl's best friend?

2008-09-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

Since I dropped the news about my engagement in my last blog entry, I’d better tell the back story here. Whether you like it or not…. One thing I’ve learned is that engaged people are extremely tedious, as they want to talk incessantly about their engagement and wedding plans, whether you like it or not.

That said… So, I’ve always said two things about engagements: 1) I wouldn’t want a big proposal to-do but rather I’d prefer having a rational discussion with my partner about taking that step (I know, all the traditionalists and romantics are cringing at the thought of combining logic and proposals); and 2) I wouldn’t want a diamond engagement ring, and I felt that way because I would never want to deal with people comparing my ring with theirs, and, of course, because of the horrendous outcomes of the diamond trade (by the way, I was recently told that all diamonds in U.S. jewelry stores are “conflict-free," but anyone with more information on this is welcome to share it with me).

When it came down to it, I ended up landing about midway between where I thought I would be and where I said I wouldn’t. My Fiancé asked me when we were up in Aspen for an article he was working on (he’s a writer). The proposal was a surprise to us both, and as a result, there was neither any logical talk nor a fancy proposal. We ended a night of trying out the best Aspen has to offer for the least amount of money at the J-Bar at Hotel Jerome. (Later I inquired about a small wedding ceremony and reception there—Ha!) My Fiancé, looking at the engraved tin ceiling said, “Why don’t more people get married in Central City?” (the ceiling reminded him of old mining towns like CC). I responded, “We should get married at Central City!” His eyes lit up, and he blurted out, with only a moment’s hesitation, “I think we should get married, Bess.” And if I didn’t wholeheartedly agree, I wouldn’t be writing this blog right now.

Now, is there a part of me that would’ve wanted a fancy dinner out, a hot-air balloon ride, and a cleverly hidden ring? No, not really. I think the way it happened was perfect for us, for me.

But we had no ring, which technically shouldn’t have been a problem, according to declaration #2. But conventionality came creeping back in at that point. If I didn’t have a ring, no one would believe that we were married. Shit! Is our society—am I—that materialistic? Sadly, yes—to an extent. My Fiancé had always intended to get a ring—he just hadn’t planned the proposal, so he didn’t come bearing the gilded offering. I could’ve, and perhaps should’ve, said, “No, don’t bother,” but I didn’t. Instead, we decided to go simple. Something in our price range and reflective of what I like as opposed to what the Wedding Industrial Complex (WID) has swallowed and then barfed up again. Okay, it has a little diamond, which I confess to staring into lovingly every once in awhile, but I’ve got my logic behind that, too. White matches everything, and I’ll be wearing the damn thing every day. Plus, diamonds are pretty.

2008-08-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

Did you hear? Linens n’ Things is going out of business. Hearing this good news, I decided to stop by on the way home from work to see if anything truly wonderful would be on sale. I got lucky. I’d been wanting some pillow shams and trouser hangers. Both items were deeply discounted! I drove home high on my good luck, but a worrisome thought was nagging at me. Economizing, I’d bought only one set of hangers, or twelve individual hangers. But did I have just twelve pairs of trousers? Once home I realized my mistake (I had thirteen! Can you believe it?) and resolved to stop by Linens n’ Things the next day.

Naturally, the subject came up at working as three turned to four and five was just around the corner. I popped my head over the cubicle wall and said, “Did you hear about Linens n’ Things? They’re going out of business!” “Anything good on sale?” she asked. I told her about the pillow shams and trouser hangers.

She shared my enthusiasm, especially since her son would be leaving for college in a couple weeks—but, with a wink, she said, “That’s how you know you’re getting old. You get excited about hangers.”

She was right, of course. But I thought it was especially funny because I’m always writing about moments that make me realize that, like it or not, I’m becoming a real adult.

Oh, and something else happened, too…. My boyfriend and I decided to get married. Damn it if being engaged isn’t another thing that’ll make you feel grown-up.

But more on that later…

D'you know?

2008-07-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

I finally watched Juno the other day, and I did like it and the characters, but I really couldn’t relate to Juno herself. Now, I had already been warned by my friend Courtney that you have to look past the quippy, unrealistic dialogue, especially that of little Juno. So I went in ready to forgive the movie that. But instead of relating to Juno, I sympathized much more with Vanessa, Jennifer Garner’s character—which is yet another sign that I’m all grown-up (read: old) now.

If I squint my eyes and furrow my brow and think real hard, I can remember how horrified, scared, and, yes, embarrassed, I would have been if I’d gotten pregnant in high school. In fact, I think if it had been me, I would have displayed a lot more anxiety than little Juno did. And being dumped by a pseudo-boyfriend/baby-daddy and missing prom would have made me sad, too. But those problems seem so miniscule to me now. See, if I accidentally got pregnant, like, tomorrow, I would still be scared but I can’t imagine that I would be horrified.

No, who I really felt sad for in Juno was Vanessa, the adoptive mother-to-be. The white walls and clean lines of her house were a little sterile, but I would lying if I didn’t say I choose my décor carefully and keep my personal space on the neurotic side of clean. Okay, the pictures of turtleneck-clad laughing-posing-smiling-gloating husband-and-wife team lining the stairs were ridiculous. Period. But, Mark, her reluctant hubby (Jason Bateman’s character), acted pretty ridiculously (read: salaciously), too.

I think it would be much harder to want so badly to have a baby, to be so emotionally ready to make that step, and then to have your hubby tell you, no, he doesn’t want that—or to have your doc tell you, no, it’s not gonna happen. Not that anyone should have to make the choice between getting pregnant at sixteen or not getting pregnant at all. I guess I’m just saying it was funny to watch a movie with a bright young teenage heroine and think she’s sorta sweet but have so much more in common with her alter ego.

[STOP READING HERE IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN JUNO.]

The nice thing about Juno was that despite the fact that it poked fun at Vanessa and teamed Juno and Mark up against her in parts, ultimately the film showed how immature Mark was and how loving and open-minded Vanessa could be. Hell, she ended up a voluntarily single adoptive mom. And happy.

So to circle back around, I did like Juno. And I’m getting old.

Riding the Slow Bus

2008-05-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

I can’t remember if I already blogged about this funny situation I found myself in a few weeks ago, but it makes a good lead in to what I want to talk about today, so here goes:

I’m sitting in a hotel room, or suite, rather, on the 27th floor of the Tampa Marriot. I’m surrounded by veterinarians in their forties and older. My supervisor is tapping their brains for information about what kinds of press products they need; I’m just really taking notes. I’m in my twenties, so I’m surprised that when the conversation switches over to generational issues and staffing, everyone talks freely about their annoyances right in front of me. Maybe I look older than I am. Unfortunately, I have gotten that. Or maybe they just don’t care. One man gets riled up and suddenly spits out, “That whole generation [entering the work force now] is developmentally delayed.” My mouth falls open. Did he just say that? In front of me? Is he calling me delayed?

It actually didn’t hurt my feelings. It was pretty humorous, plus I think his comment was really directed at the generation below mine, Y (or something). Regardless, the same thing was said about my generation and probably every other generation since the beginning of time. I’m not even gonna get into that because it is such a sweeping overgeneralization and a gross overstatement. I will say that the most significant difference I can see between “kids today” and in the past is that a lot of us had/have the ability to explore a little bit before settling down (Thanks American Express!). But I like the idea that I might be severely delayed.

The other day, I did actually discover an area where I’m still pretty behind the curve: I can’t handle rejection. When someone turns me down professionally, I still take it personally. Every time a pitch gets ignored or declined and a piece of writing gets “constructively criticized,” I become a needy and insecure child. I [or my writing] must really suck! Why don’t they love me [or my writing]? Everyone else [or their writing] is so much better than me [or mine]! WAAAAHH!!!

It’s definitely okay to allow myself to feel upset by rejection, but it’s immature to depend so heavily on other people’s perceptions (or perceived perceptions) of my work. So, I decided I need to take a writer’s workshop. Lighthouse is offering one next month on revision, which is perfect for me. I also need to develop confidence about my writing. I understand that you can fake it until you actually feel it. So, here goes: MY WRITING IS TOTALLY AWESOME!

Wow, I feel better already.

Well, not really.

I've been marked with the Sign

2008-04-21T16:08:00.001-07:00

So, Frances Bean is, like, seventeen years old. Who knew?! That is just one sign of many that I’m getting old, from a pop-culture perspective. I remember when she was born, and then suddenly I look in a magazine and there she is with her mom at some party. That’s probably what people would say about Kate Hudsen and her cohorts. “I remember when she was just a wee lass.” (All baby boomers speak with an Irish accent, or didn’t you know?) When celebrities you know from your teenage years themselves have teenage children, consider yourself marked with the Sign of an Era Passed.

Another sign… I had a great fear of skinny pants for many, many months. I thought they were weird and ugly and I vowed never to wear them. And then I did! What’s worse: Swearing off the crazzzy pants worn by Kids These Days, or going back on your word to never touch a pair? I will say, I do only have one pair, and they are a tame specimen. I’d still prefer to wear the more classic-looking ankle pants, and I love trouser pants.

I felt similarly wary of IPODs and digital music in general, until a friend gave me a Shuffle she won. I used to mourn the demise of albums as an art form, and now I love how easy it is to try out new music—it’s like the appetizer plate off the music menu! And I totally rely on my iddy-biddy IPOD whenever I’m traveling or wanting to block out loud noises (like at work when someone is having a shouting match at a nearby cube).

I also never know how to have my hair cut and styled—is a particular cut too young, too forty-year-old Midwesterner, or too Medieval? (I just got a bob that looks eerily like Chigurh’s from No Country for Old Men. (Okay, it’s supposed to look like Katie Holme’s haircut, but it’s truly a fine line between on point, style-wise, and just plain weird.))

But I keep going back to one thing. Sure Courtney Love and Madonna have teen and preteen children, but on the other hand, they themselves have no problem keeping up with “the times,” ever elusive as “the times” are. And my own mother started blogging way before I did. The moral isn’t quite, “You’re only as young as you feel.” It’s more like, “You can be hip (sick/phat/rad/tight) too if you just keep watching MTV.” No, just kidding. But it is true that if you’re totally signed off, you’re probably gonna end up like that aging hippy you used to make fun of living forever in her patchwork skirts.

Butter knives

2008-03-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

It sounds like a metaphor of some kind. She chops her vegetables with butter knives. Maybe a metaphor for not having the right tools at your disposal, making any job you do much more difficult than it should be. And maybe it is a good metaphor for my early adulthood, even though it’s something I literally used to do.

My boyfriend reminded me of this the other day, and it was funny to think back to all those years when it never even crossed my mind that they make special knives for chopping—I think they even call them chopping knives. When I was in college and grad school, I always just assumed steak knives served the same purpose as chopping knives, and plus I didn’t cook that much so it didn’t really matter. Then I hit a period that I was too poor to buy warm socks, blankets, towels, and a full set of plates, let alone fancy knives. (Okay, I still managed to buy new clothes, but, hey, we all have our weaknesses.) So, I owned one steak knife, and when it was dirty and I didn’t feel like washing dishes, I used a butter knife. How pathetic I must have looked grinding away at all those broccolis and tomatoes!

When Jared and I started dating, he cooked more than I did, and we usually ate at his place, which boasted a full set of shiny knives, passed down from his parents. Now that we live together, I have full access to those lovely tools, and let me tell you, it really makes a difference.

Okay, so I still won’t use the really big one for fear of accidentally chopping an appendage, but still it’s a good sign that things are moving in the right direction.

Inspiring… Versus Tiring

2008-02-28T17:13:00.000-08:00

I have a hard time calling myself a writer. Last night I watched the “world premiere” of NBC’s Quarterlife—I’ll elaborate shortly—and one snarky comment directed at the protagonist hit home. The blogging quarterlifer called her friend an alcoholic, and a promiscuous one at that, on her blog. (That part didn’t hit home.) Her friend, pissed, and rightfully so, asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. She said, “I’m a writer. I have to write about what moves me.” Friend: “You’re not a writer. You’re an assistant editor.” Ouch.

I don’t get paid to write either. Except one time for this little book called Generation What? I’m an acquisitions editor. I work in book publishing, practical books for veterinarians. I’m not a reporter. I don’t even write freelance articles for magazines. I don’t publish masterful poems in literary journals. So, how can I call myself a writer? Of course I know the definition doesn’t matter. It’s a being/doing thing. Am I writer? Do I write?

I’ve been thinking about things that inspire me to keep writing, and I’ve gone to few cool events the past couple weeks. Last week or the week before I went to the Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts. The Curious Theater, the Denver Brass, and the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop all won awards. (Check out their websites.) It was really cool to watch the videos showing what they all do, especially Curious Theater and Lighthouse. I definitely left feeling excited to live in Denver and to participate in the arts community, and it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to become a member of Lighthouse.

Valentine’s Day rolled around and I got a really great present from my boyfriend. A membership to Lighthouse. I wouldn’t have joined myself because I can be lazy like that (Why does it take two years to enroll in a continuing ed class you keep saying you’re going to take?), so it’s really wonderful that he got me a membership. I actually can’t wait to take a class.

Then last night I went to Carleen Brice’s book reading at the Tattered Cover for her debut novel, Orange Mint and Honey. (Check out her blog.) She used to work at my company, but she left before I got hired. Her husband and other jazz musicians played at the reception. They served yummy barbeque sandwiches and delicious orange mint brownies, and then she got up to read. I liked the whole event, and the passages she read were really intriguing, but maybe the coolest part was hearing about all the exciting things going on in her life right now—great reviews, more book deals, possible movie rights—especially after hearing her talk about how many years she worked on this novel (five!). So… inspiring.

Now, unfortunately, Quarterlife was… tiring. (I stole the “tired/inspired” thing from someone, but I don’t know who. A trashy tabloid no doubt.) It’s a little ironic because a not-so-great review of Generation What? said some of the essays seemed too familiar. But my intent with the book was to have real people share stories about their own mid-twenties breakdowns. Quarterlife, also on myspace.com, seems familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. We’ve definitely seen these characters before… in Volkswagon commercials. But I totally can’t relate to the soap opera elements of their lives. Or their cheesy-ass boyfriends. It may have been made by the creators of My So-Called Life, but it is no peer of that totally awesome show from the nineties. It’s disappointing because a show about an aspiring writer, post-college-age kids, and job and relationship upheavals has a lot of potential. It makes you wonder if the “money people” can only get behind an idea like that if it also has lots of sex and drama.

I mean, come on, no one in their twenties is having sex anymore.

Snappily Ever After Returns

2008-02-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, I can arm myself with critical theory and storm the Land of Disney Princesses, but those myths are pretty damned strong. The night after I saw Enchanted, I had a very unpleasant dream, and I think it’s pretty clear how directly related the two occurrences are.

I’m approaching a beautiful white house on some island off the East Coast, and there’s clearly something special going on here. A lot of people are in the front yard and inside the house. I see my boyfriend, and I realize that it’s his wedding. Off a ways, I see his bride-to-be. I’ve never seen her before, but she’s very pretty, very sweet looking. He’s invited me here, and I’ve come; but all of a sudden I realize—with a sick feeling in my stomach—that if he marries her we’ll have to break up. He goes upstairs to change for the ceremony, and I stealthily follow him into the bathroom to tell him what I’ve figured out. I tell him, not wanting to cause any trouble, but also not willing to stay quiet. He says, “Yeah, I know. I thought of that too.” After a less-than-convincing frown, he adds, “But she really wanted to get married, and you didn’t.” The conversation is over.

I head out to the porch, needing to be alone. Dozens of candles line the walls, and every time I try to sit down, I plop right on top of a flame. My clothes light on fire and I have to put it out. I head back downstairs. I was supposed to be in the wedding, but my recent bad behavior must have made the bride and her mom change their minds. Someone else has taken my place and is slipping into a tight-fitting fuchsia dress that was supposed to be mine.

Jared is back in the downstairs too, and now we’re all out in the garden. I tell him this also means we won’t ever get to have children together. I don’t want to make a scene, but all of a sudden I can’t handle it anymore. I start running away from the party, trying to hold back my tears, telling myself that I can’t let them see me cry.

I wander into a park, and a dirt-covered old man approaches me. “Can I walk with you?” he asks. “No.” He starts following me, grunting and tugging. “No!”

Years pass. I’m not there, but I can see the scene like in a movie. My boyfriend and his young wife are pushing a stroller through the same picturesque seaside town.

And they lived happily ever after.

The End.

Snappily Ever After

2008-01-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I saw Enchanted at the cheap movie theater with my boyfriend and his daughter. Let’s just say I wasn’t. Just like most everyone who saw it, I thought the movie and Amy Adam’s Giselle, a fairy tale princess trapped in New York City, were extremely charming. It’s Disney for God’s sake—charming is their shtick. But as soon as Robert (Patrick Dempsey) gives his young daughter a book of important women in history to warm her up for the news that he is going to ask his girlfriend Nancy to marry him—and she gapes at him and his gift—I started to get worried. When he tells her the news, she looks skeptical at best, and he tries to change her mind by saying that Nancy’s a lot like the women in this book. I can’t wrap my mind around why the screenwriter would include that line. When I hear that Nancy is a strong, smart, consequential person, I think good things must be in store for her, especially in a comedy. No such luck. I’ll tell you right now, she gets screwed. Before you get bored by the idea of reading a feminist essay on the Disney princess myth, hold out. I’ll try to ground my thoughts in reality. I don’t mind that the movie ends in marriage, most comedies (by definition) do. I don’t really mind about the wicked stepmother motif. The sweet-tempered, nurturing, and Disney-princess beautiful Giselle didn’t bug me at all—she is too innocuous to bother anyone, I would think. Here’s what really pissed me off: Nancy, a very sympathetic and realistic character, gets (very rudely) sacrificed on the alter of Disney. Here she is a smart, independent, streetwise woman with a great career and “sensitive” boyfriend. (And she’s beautiful, of course. It is Hollywood.) She accepts her boyfriend’s wishes for five years not to spend the night at his apartment so as not to confuse his daughter. She tells him it’s okay that the dizzy Giselle is staying with him until she can find her way, because she trusts him. She encourages him warmly when he becomes more romantic (of course he’s only doing it at Giselle’s behest). Sure, she’s jealous of Giselle, but she’s hardly vindictive or neurotic. Okay, I admit it, I can relate to Nancy. I’m dark-haired. I have a boyfriend who has a daughter. My boyfriend and I have been dating for three years, and we’re not engaged. Grant it, I don’t particularly want to be engaged right now, but that’s beside the point. Plus there’s the whole evil stepmother thing. Is the only way to avoid being the evil stepmother being a fairy princess too? When Giselle tries to convince Robert’s daughter that Nancy will make a nice stepmother, she says her prince has a stepmom and everyone says she’s great—she’s actually a witch, literally. I’m not a princess, but I don’t want to be a witch! I can guess what a character like Nancy would want (maybe because it’s what I might want in her shoes, pre-Cinderella-slippers). She’d want to continue excelling in her career. She’d want her relationship with Robert to keep growing, maybe even turn into a marriage. She’d want to become closer with his daughter and perhaps have children of her own. She’d want to maintain her ties to her friends and community in New York City. But this is what Disney gave her: a self-absorbed, superficial fairy prince who sings and dances, and a “happily-ever-after” in a two-dimensional land far, far away. What else could Disney do with her? The fairy prince needed a princess, and more importantly the princess at heart, Giselle, needed to marry her true love—Nancy’s man, of course. But in this funny world, Nancy and the fairy prince don’t get mad when they both get dumped because everyone, supposedly, gets what they want. So is that what happens to women like me?! We get pushed out of the way, so that the more deserving—aka sweet, pretty, nurturing, good—women can have their happy endings? I don’t want any Giselle’s stealing my boyfriend with batting eyelashes and heaving bosoms! And to top it off, the movie gets the same fairy tale ending as every Disney flick. I don’t even mind Disney endings. This one is just really offensive because of what happens to Nancy and because the story plays out with actors, not cartoons, and in NYC, not Far, Far Away. Giselle, who the movie tries to convince us has become multi-dimensional in her time in NYC, is really never anything but sweet-tempered, nurturing, and Disney-princess beautiful. She ends up “rescuing” Robert by climbing up a tower after him and the evil stepmother and throwing a sword into his sleeve so he doesn’t drop to his death. But all she really does is throw a sword at his sleeve. The goddamn chipmunk sidekick actually kills the witch. Giselle doesn’t even choose Robert. She just wishes for him and waits patiently for a kiss from him that will seal their love forever. To make matters worse, Giselle ends up, with Robert’s money no doubt, opening a princess-inspired clothing store for women and girls, and much like Disney does, perpetuating the ever elusive princess myth through easily obtainable merchandise. Sure, she’s an entrepreneur, sort of. The only thing that’s really altered about Giselle from beginning to end is she stops singing in public—but that was one of her better traits. I guess I wouldn’t expect much more of a change in her, considering what she started with. I just wish they’d made her end up with a more likable version of the fairy prince than a “sensitive” lawyer that theoretically could make plenty of smart women very happy and presumably vice versa. Would Robert, a character suggestive of someone I might find myself attracted to rather be with a Giselle than a, me? If only he didn’t encourage his daughter to practice karate, look up to powerful women, consider that happily ever after just might not exist. If only he wasn’t an intelligent lawyer and a kind dad to boot. A man like that would rather end up with a giggling princess than, say, one of my interesting and intelligent friends? It would sad, very, very sad, if that was the case in real life. Is it? Giselle also supposedly learns from Robert that you have to get to know your partner over time to make sure you have compatible interests and tastes. She only knew the fairy prince for one day before becoming betrothed. When she wisely, but for typical reasons (she found her real true love), decides to go on a date with the fairy prince, she realizes what a dud he is. (No matter, let’s give him to Nancy!) So, three days after meeting Robert, she’s more or less engaged to him. They sure spent a lot of time getting to know each other. And they sure have a lot in common. Here the movie gives us a contradictory message: You can’t jump into marriage because your prince might actually be a selfish twit; but if it’s really true love than you can throw yourself (and your whole future) into the arms of a man. It’s a good thing Giselle is so damn sweet-tempered; being totally dependent on Robert, she’ll need that trait if he turns out to be a total asshole—and it seems like he might be what with the way he treated his girlfriend of five years. If I was more like Giselle, would I have a handful of marriage proposals by now?! No one’s falling at my feet in love, totally enamored with me…. I should be sweeter. I just got my hair cut short. Totally un-princess-like. Damn it! Why can’t I sing? Maybe I should get a boob and nose job. There you have it. The moral of the story seems to be, a smart woman like Nancy (or me!) has no place in a Disney story, so she has to be sent away with Giselle’s leftovers—something her character would never logically want. And everything a silly, naïve princess could ever want (aka, the heart of her real true love) falls into her poison-apple-drugged lap. (Okay, maybe I do hate her.)

Spanish omletes and truffles

2008-01-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

For those who get particularly stressed out during the holiday season, I have some suggestions that might lesson the stress load. They worked for me!

1. Get someone else to cook the holiday dinner! Especially if you’re not a good cook! This year I spent Christmas with my boyfriend and his family, and they had a big Christmas brunch on Christmas Eve. I didn’t have to cook anything, and it was great! (If I’d been a real member of the family, I would have had to make something—crescent rolls or what not—but just that one thing.) (Also see point 2.) A couple years ago, nobody chez moi was interested in cooking Christmas dinner, so I took the bulls by the horn. Not a good idea. Largely because I’m not a good cook. To add preparing a full dinner for a good handful of people onto the list of things “to do” when you don’t know how to do it is not smart thinking. To get someone else, who enjoys cheffing, to do it, is smart thinking. If no one you know and love gets into that sort of thing, you should give up your notions of what a holiday meal should be. Which brings us to #2.
2. Change your ideas about what the holidays should be like. Sure, on TV, big families sit around beautifully decorated tables, dining luxuriously, drinking wine, and laughing. Please note: This will likely never happen to you, in your life! Real people don’t actually do that. So if no one you know and love likes to cook, then you should not have a big holiday dinner at home. You have many other options: Have a friends-and-family potluck; go out to eat; make a different, relatively easy favorite meal (like Spanish omelet!); forget having a special meal altogether and buy lots of yummy treats (like truffles!). Having to buy lots of expensive presents can be stressful too, so don’t! Do it up Secret Santa style: one present for everyone. Don’t you feel sorta cheap taking home a bunch of loot anyway? So pick holiday events that you actually like, or think of things that you’d enjoy that can become new holiday traditions, and do those things instead.
3. And, finally, go to the beach! I did, and it was great. Okay, not everyone can go to the beach during the holidays, and I was only able to because my lovely boyfriend’s lovely parents live near the beach. However, anyone can do the next best thing: anything outside. Depending where you live, it may be warm or very cold, but no matter. Gear up appropriately and go skiing, snowboarding, hiking, horseback riding, snowshoeing, surfing, swimming, even just jaunting about (Everyone is capable of just jaunting about.). You know why those people way back when decorated evergreen trees? Because it was cold, and they looked to nature to be reminded that life can actually survive in that nasty cold weather. So do the same. It may be the dead of winter, but we can still grow! Besides, being outside and moving around just makes you feel good.

Alright, that’s it. I know the holidays are over anyway—breathe a big sigh of relief—but remember my tips next year and thank me then.

"Oh Crap" Moment

2007-12-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

There have been a couple of “Oh Shit” moments lately—with regards to being quote-unquote Old. A few weeks ago I was on the eve of a business trip (a business trip—it still seems weird); but I was finally able to get together with a few friends I hadn’t seen in awhile, so I made it out. We got sushi, and it was fun and nice and sushi, and then, about halfway through the meal, I looked around the table. “Do we all have Master’s degrees?” I asked the five women I was hanging out with. The answer was yeah. But what I didn’t ask was, “Do we all live with our boyfriends?” We might be proud of our higher education, but we children of the yuppie Eighties just weren’t taught to value relationships and marriage.

But what I saw was: to the left, a woman who hadn’t dated much before but had met a guy who she just really clicked with who ended up moving in with her; to her left, a friend of mine from graduate school who moved in with her boyfriend a couple years ago; across from me, her good friend from home who met someone… and moved in with him; to her left, a friend… who met a guy at the bookstore she worked at… and moved in with him; AND—don’t fade here—to my right, my good friend from graduate school who took the leap awhile back and has been living with her boyfriend for a few years. And me, living with my boyfriend since July.

WHAT? Who are these women? I’ve always been friends with people who placed relationships—as much as they fell in love, and got their hearts broken or vice versa—a little lower on the totem pole than school, and art, and careers, and travelling, and adventure. To suddenly see so many friends quote-unquote Settled Down was just plain odd.

The second “Holy Crap” moment came a few weekends ago when we were celebrating said good-friend-from-graduate-school and boyfriend’s engagement party over pizza. Okay, I’m twenty-eight. Is that right? Or twenty-seven? No, twenty-eight. You’d think I’ve been through all this before, but I’ve only been close to one other person who got married, and she got married in Greece so I missed the ceremony. Anyway, an engagement party in and of itself was weird, but once again I looked around the table and saw: to my left, a lovely married couple; to my right, married friends who just brought the cutest, smiley-est sweetie named Gabriel into the world; to their right, said engaged couple; and at the end of the table, an ex-colleague and friend who married her college sweetheart before they moved out here. Not only did I have to contend with a tableful of marrieds or near-marrieds, but also PEOPLE WHO DECIDED TO PROCREATE.

And then it happened again, this weekend. Another dinner. My boyfriend and I were there. With his daughter. And, the newly-engaged couple I’ve already mentioned. And another married couple they know. And my ex-colleague-friend and her husband.

I could go on and on.

SO WHAT’S GOING ON? I know that not everyone I know is engaged, married, or procreating, but it’s sure starting to feel that way. How do I feel about it? A mix of emotions, really. Not quite envious, but a little. Not quite scared, but… a little. Isn’t it weird, though? How we get older, and make this choice, or that one, either in our careers or relationships. And without even realizing it, we narrow our options, one by one, until our lives almost seem laid out before us.

It’s not a bad thing. It could be a good thing. But… it’s definitely a thing.

Remember when...

2007-11-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

I posted a blog with the lyrics to Marissa's song... that she wrote after I sent out the call for submissions for the book....

So, the lyrics don't do it justice.

Click here to hear her singing it.

Hi

2007-11-15T15:39:00.000-08:00

Without irony, life would too literal. Literally.

As many of my faithful blog readers (ha, ha) know, my parents are living with me and my b/f as they get resituated back in Colorado. Although I love them (goes unsaid) and enjoy spending time with them, said b/f and I don’t have much alone time anymore, so we’ve been going out a lot more than we used to. We’ve been trying to fill up our evenings with (cheap) music and art shows, (free) movies, (cheap) dinners out, et cetera—things we in fact used to do only rarely. It’s actually been a cool side effect of this whole arrangement.

So, a couple nights ago we went to see a friend’s friend’s band at the Hi-Dive. Very good: check out their Web page. My friend ended up asking me how things were going since my parents had been living with us. She said, “I know if my family was living with us, it’d drive me crazy.” I replied—stupidly, totally pushing my luck, not even bothering to knock on wood—that, actually, things were going fine. Not five minutes later did my b/f’s cell phone ring. My mom was calling. Why would she be calling at 9:00 p.m. when she knows we’re at a show?, we thought. So we didn’t pick up the phone.

Twenty minutes later, the band—no joke—called Say Hi to Your Mom was playing. (You should take a peek at their Web page too.) And guess who calls again. Yep, Mom. This time I think maybe it’s an emergency. Maybe the dog escaped or the pipes, like, exploded or something. But in the back of my mind I knew it was probably the worst thing: nothing.

And that’s what it was. I won’t go into the details of what she wanted to tell me, but it absolutely could have waited for the next day. Obviously I’m glad it wasn’t something serious, but since my parents have been staying with us I’ve needed some time away from them—and I mean that in as loving a way as possible.

Somehow the dynamic of the whole situation made me revert to feeling like a teenager again, and I suddenly got really mad. All sorts of feelings totally unrelated to the situation at hand came up in me, and I completely overreacted. (Sorry, Mom.)

Of course, now I wish I could go back and handle the whole situation differently. And if I could, I know exactly what I’d say.

“Oh, Mom, there’s someone here who wants to say hi to you.”

A pirate's life

2007-11-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

Usually I’m all jokey, jokey-funny, funny with my blog. I’m all crackin’ you guys up and all. Or at least making you crack a smile. right? Well, today I’m feeling philosophical. (Well, not exactly today because unlike some bloggers supposedly do I don’t actually sit down and write exactly what I’m thinking at that moment. But it’s cumbersome to say, “At some point last week, I was feeling philosophical, and later I decide to blog about it. So, a few days ago I wrote a little bit, and today I’m revising it some.”)

See, the last blog I wrote was about the way we talk (look, act, are) at work versus the way we talk (look, etc.) outside of work. I was beginning to feel like I had two different identities. A friend wrote me an e-mail in response to that blog and mentioned that she felt that way too at one point, but she realized that (a) we—at least she and I, and probably a good bunch of you, too—are in creative industries and so we have more freedom that way and (b) it’s okay to surprise colleagues a little bit as you let them know who you really are. That’s so true. It may seem obvious, but sometimes I get so caught up in how I think others will perceive me. In the end, it’s just insecurity on my part, being afraid that, to oversimplify it, they won’t like me.

Then I realized/remembered that I’ve always been like that. I’ve always been the person it takes months to get to know. It’s a defense mechanism because if I don’t let someone in, let someone get to know the “real” me, then they can’t hurt me. (I know, I know, pop psychology.) But what it really does is just keep people away. You actually set yourself up for failure. I said something along those lines in response to my friend’s e-mail.

BUT, she e-mailed me back and said something else interesting. You don’t have to reveal all of yourself to everyone. You can choose who you let in and how much. I do know that, and you all probably know that, too, but it was a nice reminder.

Then, I started to think about who we truly are. What does that really mean? I don’t want to get all postmodern on your ass, but how is it that we have fixed identities that we can either hide from or share with other people? I mean, a person obviously has a certain gene pool, and certain early life influences, and certain later-life influences, and all that adds up to certain skill-sets and personality traits. But how is it that it’s fixed? And how fixed is it? And could two people have the same exact background and turn out to be totally different?

So, what did the pirate say when you started over-thinking everything? ARRGH-right already!

It's, like, you know.

2007-10-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

I’m not a valley girl!

But … I have to admit, I talk a little bit like those employees referred to (read: complained about) in articles on gen-x/gen-y/gen what?—see my book!—workers.

The other day my boss, a colleague I’d just met, and I were standing around discussing another colleague’s book deal—a two book-deal, with her first book publishing in spring 2008.

Boss: “And the next day she came into work with two giant rocks in her ears.”

Colleague: (nodding knowingly)

Me: “That’s awesome!”

Awesome? Really? When did “awesome” become part of the lexicon of the publishing world? Am I 28, or 8? I also catch myself saying “cool” a lot in situations where other, more professional types might say, “That’s completely doable.” “Like” is another big problem for me. I didn’t even realize this until my boyfriend pointed out that I use it—and “uh”—as conversation filler. But isn’t there another filler I could use, less “processed sugar” and more “protein”?

Okay, I think I’d rather speak like a fourth grader than a corporate zombie, but isn’t there some kind of middle ground? I’ve already started walking around all morning at work with my coffee cup in hand like it’s surgically attached. I’ve also caught myself saying, “go ahead,” as in, “Let’s go ahead and [do something].” Note that you can take “go ahead and” out and the substance of the sentence is exactly the same, only less … annoying. Put these two characteristics together, and I’m basically the boss from Office Space!!! So, I don’t want to swing in the opposite direction either.

I also don’t want to have to adopt two completely different dialects, one for work and one for home. How schizophrenic. It wouldn’t work anyway. The outcome would be the same. I’d accidentally say “killer” in a staff meeting and “deliverables” with my friends at the corner pizza joint. (I don’t actually use the word “killer.” (I also don't have a corner pizza joint, for that matter.))

Maybe the best option is to become the epitome of the stoic Man-of-Few-Words. A Marlboro Man. A ranch hand. Then there’s very little chance of saying stupid things. On the other hand, maybe I’ll just try harder at filtering meaningless words out of my vocabulary. (“Go ahead and” as well as “like” both fit in the meaningless words category.)

Alright then. I’m gonna go ahead and, like, try that.

MY LIFE AS I KNOW IT IS OVER!

2007-10-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

Even though I swore last time I wasn’t pregnant … I’m still not, but it is an apt metaphor for the new phase in my life. With all the changes becoming an Adult brings, the one that I’ve found the most … significant so far is my parents staying with me, as guests in my house. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but in order to have guests, one has to have a domicile with a guest room—and a job that pays for that domicile with a guest room. See. My parents have just returned to the United States after two years in France, and as they get settled back into life in Colorado, they are living in the house I share with my boyfriend. Moving is supposed to be one of the biggest stressors anyway, but in this case there are added layers of intrigue.

1. I’ve only just gotten used to being Grown Up, with all the responsibilities that come with it: holding a job, paying bills, living with a partner, et cetera. Not ready for anymore!
2. Even though it’s not really this way, with my parents living with me, it’s kinda like a weird Freaky Friday moment. And who is going to be Lindsay Lohan?!
3. We’re also housing my parents’ two cats.
4. I already have a dog.
5. One of those cats is crazy!

Plus, a lot of this was happening just at the time I was flitting off to Nashville (see below), so there was a lot going on at once. I have to admit, for a few days, I thought my life as I knew it was over. Could I still go out till all hours? (I never do anyway [sheepish grin].) When would I get to be alone with my boyfriend? When would I get to be alone!!!

BUT, a lot of times “burdens” are blessings in disguise. It’s been great to see how accommodating my boyfriend can be. It’s been a surprise to see that I can be generous too. I’ve gotten to spend (a lot of) time with my parents, whom I haven’t seen in two years. And there are other pluses, too.

Of course attitude-is-everything sentiments aside, sometimes burdens are just burdens. And that’s just part of Growing Up.

My Google Talk

2007-10-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4y9epTza8

It's me again...

2007-10-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

It’s like I had a last gasp at adolescence. And by adolescence, I mean…freedom, carelessness, even recklessness. But wait, there’s a whole back story. See, I put off Adulthood so long that I actually made myself sick; it’s not like, in my case, adulthood was a necessary evil; it was more like…just necessary. But here I am, in the throes of it, and what happens? A ten-year high school reunion does. I blogged about that already. (See below.) Okay, it was just one stupid—okay, fun enough—night that wasn’t even supposed to happen. Momentous, it was not. But, it started something. It’s like I remembered who I was before I practically begged Adulthood to come back and stay this time. Who was I? Well, basically the same. Ambitious. A little nerdy. Bookish. Fairly quiet. A tad bit selfish. Overly organized. Okay, nice, too. But back then…I went out until five o’clock in the morning sometimes! I wore tight pants! I took last-minute road trips with my friends! I smoked cigarettes! I travelled! I flirted! Where is that girl?

But was she so great anyway? Honestly I don’t know. In fact, sometimes she partook in very stupid activities. Like hitchhiking. I mean, seriously. But she did have fun occasionally. She had “life experiences.” And she rarely hurt anyone but herself. So, all I want to know is, if she can come back to visit occasionally.

All I had to do was open the door a crack and she came bursting in. Go out on a work night? Sure. Have a smoke? Why not? Walk home seven miles in high heels just because? A great idea. And fly to Nashville on a week’s notice to accompany a friend (in her own life-changing moment) on a cross-country drive? Love to.

And I did love it. I loved putting on my little-used cowboy boots and boarding a plane for somewhere I’d always wanted to visit, but never had a reason to. I loved throwing on a dress over those boots and hitting up what we liked to think of as honky-tonk joints. I loved listening to the-perfect-song for that stretch of road. I loved stopping in St. Louis for a late lunch just before a baseball game, when it seemed like the whole city was grabbing a quick bite to eat, drinking and dancing in the park, and then heading over to the stadium. I loved smoking a cigarette outside an Applebees in Hays, Kansas, and grabbing some Dairy Queen a little farther down the road. I loved it all, practically.

I got home that Sunday night tired and glad to be back. It took a day or two for me to settle into my old routine. I didn’t even realize that Miss 23-Year-Old had made only a fleeting appearance and that the responsibilities I’d temporarily shucked off would come tumbling back down on me. (No…I’m not pregnant.) To circle back to the beginning, it’s like I had a last gasp at adolescence and now Adulthood is back for good. But, I’ll blog about that next week.

Bess Says

2007-09-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

[I wrote this essay a little while back. I think I was influenced by the Generation What? book because it's a personal look at coming to terms with your own version of adulthood.]

“With Child”
By Bess Vanrenen

“Can your daughter have a lollipop?”

The woman behind the counter had seen us plenty of times before. She looked at me and Johanna and grinned. Both of us squirmed a little.

“Oh, she’s not my daughter,” I said, as I paid for the cheese. “She’s my boyfriend’s daughter.”

I felt weird. I felt weird because, at twenty-seven, wasn’t I a little too young for this, to have a boyfriend who had a child? And because, honestly, I didn’t really know if it was okay if she had a lollipop. I wasn’t related to her after all.

I was twenty-four and in my second year of graduate school at the same university where I received my bachelor’s degree, and the spring semester was almost over. I was reclining on a hammock, one leg hanging over the side, a giant butterfly tattoo covering a good part of my left calf. Well, the tattoo was a pen-drawn one, designed by a five year old. The five year old in question sat cross-legged in the middle of the hammock, and my friend Courtney lay facing me. When Courtney’s boyfriend had invited us to this ramp jam, a party that centered around a skateboard ramp and didn’t include much else, we didn’t expect to find ourselves a five-year-old friend there. We also didn’t expect to be the only adult females present, the sole other member of the so-called fairer sex, in this case an honest appellation, being a quirky little girl named Johanna.

Upon walking into this testosterone filled zone, Courtney and I had almost immediately sequestered ourselves. Johanna had almost immediately latched onto us, we being welcome distractions from her summer-afternoon malaise. Her dad and uncle were no more than ten feet away the whole time. But, much like a different child would have found herself bored out of her skull warming up the back seat of the car while her parents appraised real estate on a Saturday afternoon, Johanna, the child of much younger, dare we say, hipper, parents, was sorely lacking in any worthwhile occupation until two members of the female species (hurray!) showed up.

Courtney had brought her Polaroid camera and I had a pen, and, heck, there was a hammock there, so we easily passed the time taking pictures, drawing butterfly tattoos, and swinging rowdily in the hanging chair. Later, looking back at a photo from that day that Courtney gave me (because she didn’t know who else to give it to), I saw a little girl with almost-wavy, mouse-brown hair, a ski-jump nose, and big eyes wondering at the camera.

I’m not intrinsically maternal. I do think most children, and dogs for that matter, are quite cute, but I call a spade a spade, or, more specifically, a brat, a brat. But Johanna isn’t a brat, at all. I could see right away that she was good-natured and good-hearted, and, in a room full of adults, she has that hard-to-resist lost puppy dog air about her.

Later, her father—not married to her mother, but a steady and wonderful part of her life—breezed over. I’d seen him before, I knew that. He’d been a student in the English department, too. I don’t think we’d ever met, but it definitely felt like we knew each other. I hadn’t known about his child, but I just tucked that fact away. We said “hi,” smiled flirtatiously, and that was that.

But when I left the party I remembered her as much as I remembered him. When Courtney and I walked back to my house, I thought, albeit on some very deep level, “I’m going to be a part of that little girl’s life.”

Back track to my college years. I was your typical cute-smart girl and I had acquired four or five cute-smart girl friends. Channeling Sex and the City’s fab four just like most college girls of that era, we got dressed up and went out to the bars and parties, always itching for something terribly exciting to happen. We chattered around polished wood tables, you know, the high ones surrounded by sleek bar stools. And I know, even though I don’t remember any specifics, that in one such conversation on one such night, someone would’ve said archly, “So and So is dating a guy with a kid.”

“No way?” (One of us would have responded.)

“Really?”

“I would never.” (Someone would’ve upped the ante. Maybe me.)

“No, me neither. Who would want to take on that kind of burden? It would just be too hard.”

“And too hard on the kid, too.”

“Yeah.”

End of conversation. Sort of.

It was almost a year after the ramp jam that Jared and I started dating, a full love-and-then-heartache later. I’d forgotten about him, actually. There was nothing spectacular about our reconnection. I saw his profile on Friendster. I sent him a message. He wrote back, “You wanna get a drink sometime?” Okay.

I knew he had a child, I’d met her, but it didn’t matter at the time. I’d made so many rules about whom I would and would not date, and it hadn’t worked. I’d met plenty of guys who matched the image (constantly in flux) of my perfect someone. Crushes, basically. But the perfect someone never materialized. The guys always ended up changing, or, rather, they didn’t change: I just got to know them. But here was someone, as plain as it sounds, with whom I could really talk. Months later, he amazingly became someone I trusted enough to let down my guard. So, on a hunch, I kept going.

On our third date, we saw Sideways, a romantic flick that you didn’t have to feel guilty for liking because of its grown-up plot, smart dialogue, and cool cast. Afterwards, we both felt warm and gooey and he grabbed my hand. It was raining outside and we shared an umbrella as we devised ways to extend the night. We decided on our snobby college town’s one dive bar, and there, over beers, he told me he had a little girl.

“I know,” I said. “I met her, remember?”

His face brightened. Here he thought he was dropping a bomb, but I already knew about his “baggage.”

Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t always easily slide into place. I managed to accept the fact that he had a child without heavy judgment or reservations only because I’d told myself I’d only get to know the little girl if things got serious. I won’t get involved, I thought. I won’t hurt her. I won’t hurt him. He won’t hurt me. We’ll keep it casual.

“Do you want to come over for dinner?” Jared asked one afternoon early in the summer. “Johanna’s here. She’s playing, but we can pick some food up later and have a barbeque.”

“Um, I don’t know.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun. Besides, you haven’t really met Johanna yet.”

Yeah, that was the point. But during the course of the conversation the impossibility of abiding by my new set of rules dawned on me. It’d been a couple months, and I couldn’t say no every time he invited me to hang out with him and his daughter. So, with mixed feelings, I got in my car and headed over to his house.

During the first few months of my relationship with Jared, despite the fact that I was falling in love with him, I was also beginning to distance myself, the way I had in so many relationships in the past. Even though I’d broken my rule about not getting to know his daughter before I absolutely, positively knew we were going to last, I’d made other guidelines I’d been sticking to rigidly. I’d told myself I wouldn’t spend the night at his place on the weekends when she was there. I didn’t want to confuse her, and rightly so. But here we were, five or six months later, and it was getting hard to obey that rule, especially since I hadn’t actually told Jared such an edict existed.

So one Sunday after we’d dropped her off at her mom’s house, we went out for a beer. As we sat at the near-empty bar, I knew I had to broach these topics I’d been avoiding. Even though I told myself I was clearing the air, I also think I was testing him, trying to see how serious he was about me. I gave him something of an ultimatum, and yet I’m not sure if the end result I wanted was for him to stay or to go, for us really to begin, or to end.

Holding my pint of beer with two hands, eyeing the bartender, I told him, “See, I’m just not comfortable spending the night at your house when she’s there.”

“Why?” he asked, always a little defensive when I stepped into the parenting realm.

“Well, I just don’t know how long we’ll be together,” I replied, “And, I don’t want to confuse her.”

“It’s not like I have women over to my place all the time, or ever for that matter. I don’t think Johanna has even met a girlfriend of mine since college.”

“I know. But, like I said, what if we break up in a couple months?”

“I don’t know. You can’t predict those sorts of things. Hopefully we won’t. Hopefully we’ll be together a year from now, more than that … five years from now.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I think you’re using the fact that I have a daughter to push me away. I think you’ve been doing this for awhile,” he offered a moment later.

I knew he was right.

Hanging out and barbequing that early summer afternoon was just the first step for me. There were other mile markers, too. The time we—just Johanna and I—went on an amusement park ride at the flea market. The first time Johanna and I held hands. The night Jared, Johanna, and I went out to dinner and a movie with her mom, her mom’s brother, and his girlfriend. When she came over to my apartment with Jared for the first time. When she started to prefer me to the other female family friends. At first, these events both pleased me and worried me almost in equal measure. Of course as time went on, I was able to enjoy spending time with her with less and less reservation.

Other tricky situations came up as we kept going. When she acted out, which admittedly didn’t happen often, could I reprimand her? Could I get her hair trimmed if she needed it? What should I say when someone referred to her as “your daughter.”

In short, how do I act in a mother role without encroaching on the territory her mother and grandmothers already occupied?

There have also been all the games that began, “Okay, me first, and then my dad, and then Bess.” And there was the time she announced, “Whoa, your arms are hairy!” (But then again, when I was a kid, boy did I laugh while slapping the extra skin on my beloved aunt’s upper arm back and forth as she drove … until she told me that it hurt her feelings.)

In a way we were trying each other out all those months, just like Jared and I had done. Getting to know each other. In retrospect, the hardest part was that I fell in love with him before I began to love her. See, you may care about a child the minute he or she walks into your life, but you don’t intrinsically love that child. When I found myself in such a domestic situation, I felt like I should, though, and then I felt a little guilty and even out of place.

I don’t remember when I started to feel truly comfortable with Johanna in my life. It snuck up on me. I do remember moments when I would look at her and feel a rush of love for no reason at all. And I’ve started to brag about her to my friends. We all do a lot hugging and playing and laughing these days, and I miss her on weekends she doesn’t spend with us. Johanna likes it when I talk about the first day we met at the ramp jam. She asks, “How long have I known you now?” “And then what’d we do?” “Oh, yeah, I remember!” It’s an origin story of sorts, I guess, something like (okay of pale version of) a mom telling her child about the day the child was born. It also firmly establishes what comes next, which is a present and future together.

A couple weeks ago, Johanna and I clasped hands to embark on a trip to the neighborhood market for cheese. Remembering that as a kid even a walk down the street can become a voyage, I said, “I wonder what adventures we’ll have on the way to the market.” Johanna’s eyes sparkled. Between the house and the store, almost anything could happen. We had tadpoles to eye, dogs to greet, alleys to creep down, and more. There were also a handful of games that we always played on walks. Besides not permitting ourselves to step on any cracks in the sidewalk, we would also only let our feet touch the white bars that mark pedestrian crosswalks on the street.

Our destination in view but across 32nd Street, we leaped from radiant white band to radiant white band. Once inside the store, another shopper told us we’d reminded him of the cover of “that Beatles album” as we’d hopped across the street. The reference was, of course, entirely lost on Johanna, and it didn’t quite resonate with me either, but we both smiled. The cashier, smiling at Johanna and me, was about to make the dreaded comment.

I’ve made plenty of rules over the past couple years. Don’t spend the night when she’s there. Don’t baby-sit her. Don’t move in with him. And maybe those rules helped me to navigate a difficult situation. But I’ve been doing the same thing—finding ways to keep up a wall—with every guy I’ve ever dated. There were plenty of, “If he doesn’t call by 9 pm…” and, “If he hasn’t said ‘I love you’ yet….” In this relationship, though, I’ve found someone who calls me out on my immature behavior and is willing to grow with me, most of the time. I didn’t plan on all this, but I’m glad I found it.

“Can your daughter have a lollipop?”

After I telling the cashier she wasn’t my daughter, I said, “But she can have a lollipop.” And then Johanna and I set off for the trip back to her dad’s house, losing our discomfort with each step.

Bess Says

2007-09-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

If any picture captures the magic and mystery that is the ten-year high school reunion, this is it. You start the night dolled up, set to—at least persuade yourself that you might—impress your old classmates. You even tell yourself you won’t have more than a glass or two of wine … so you don’t end up embarrassing yourself. You know what you’ll tell people when they inevitably ask what you’ve been doing, and you vow not to ask anyone, “What do you do?” (rather than, “How are you?”).

And yet, as the night goes on, the interminable chatting up and facing up to people that you used to be at least sort of afraid of; or dislike; or envy; or people you just forgot about—begins to wear you down. (And the fact that someone from your high school got apparently ridiculously rich, and, in his neutral-colored linen suit, leaned over the bar to arrange for free drinks, for everyone, all night long … that doesn’t help either.)

Eventually, you find yourself quite buzzed, alone (because your boyfriend is busy talking to some kid you knew from your AP classes) on the dance floor, a glass of white wine teetering in your right hand. At least this spectacle, it seems, is not a total loss, because the dance floor soon becomes more populated. But the situation deteriorates….

Is it true that you’re caught in film embracing the drop-dead-gorgeous-girl-from-h/s–turned-Hollywood-hopeful? If so, what a funny contrast: her lovely, curvy body and your own spindly arms and “birthing” hips. (But don’t ignore that voice in your head, saying, “You’re body is lovely, too.”)

And did you and your b/f/f from h/s steal not only your high school’s but also your rival’s decorative balloons at the end of the night? Imagine the site: two once well-put-together and intelligent women, slinking down a hallway with dozens of balloons, squished in a steel elevator with said balloons, and then set free into the night … away from friends you never had, acquaintances you never kept up, fears you finally let go.

And the two of you prance down the street, the shiny, poppy balloons barely contained by your grip, and then stuffed, and forgotten, in the back of your friend’s rental.

“I knew we were a little drunk last night,” she says the next day, “when I saw those deflated balloons in the trunk of the SUV.”

Caitlin Says

2007-09-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

I keep telling myself to breathe. Inhale for six; hold for three; exhale for six. I try to go to meditation on Sunday nights for forty-five minutes. On the good days, I breathe, am present in the moment, and don’t mind the ridiculous amount of time spent being “still within myself.” On the bad days, I creep my body around, yawn, and peek open my eyes to figure out what time it is . . . and how many more minutes of this torture I have to endure. Sometimes I keep my eyes open, watching the people across from me, and I wonder, ‘Why are you so peaceful? How do you get your serenity?’

My search for peaceful days has led me to the best over-the-counter remedy for stress reduction: kava root tea. It’s an herbal extract sold at my local co-op. Before my last organic chemistry test, I was drinking three to four cups a day: the maximum recommended dose is five. I am not to operate heavy machinery. When my boyfriend tried it, he screwed up his face, squinted at me, and told me his mouth felt numb. After one three-cup day, I returned to the library and halfway there noticed that my legs did not feel quite . . . right. So to counteract the kava tea addiction, I’ve taken to drinking chamomile tea at night. I try to breathe and to be present, but mainly, I think of all the things I should be doing.

Last spring, I had a bit of a meltdown during finals week. As an undergraduate, I thought of finals mostly as a nuisance. Now finals feel like they could make or break my shots of getting into medical school, and I already feel like my ability to get into medical school is starting to dribble away. I can relate to that scene in Amelie in which she falls to the floor in a puddle of water, her hopes dashed. I could give excuses as to why this has been a tough semester, but mainly, I am out of both excuses and motivation.

I used to take pride in my strength and my quiet confidence. I don’t even have that in my sleep anymore. Now my ability to believe in myself has plummeted so low lately that the night whispers of, ‘What else am I going to do with my life?’ have become nauseatingly insistent. My boyfriend tells me that I do not have the relaxed, slow breaths while sleeping that I used to. I have taken to hyperventilating and panting at night. I will wake up afraid I overslept or wake up thinking about certain organic chemistry reactions. At these moments, unable to breathe, I think I will never get into medical school. Chamomile and kava root teas, obviously, are not helping.

Things might not be so dire if I were not so “old.” I am taking classes with pre-med students unable to drink legally. I don’t understand the leggings with mini-skirts and the too-large and tacky white plastic jewelry. I envy them their certainties and their abilities to see things in black and white. I wish that my life did not depend so much on these fourteen months (of hell). They tell me, as if it’s a consolation prize, that at least I am able to rent a car.

I miss my friends. Granted, I have friends here, all pre-med, so our conversations center around medical school, plans for the gap year, and, occasionally, “real” talk that always somehow inevitably turns back to medical school. I watched a group of girlfriends at breakfast the other day, sipping coffee and chatting. I could not stop staring at them. When did I get so bogged down with the seriousness of my life? At that moment, I craved a group of girlfriends to talk idly with. I craved a hug.

Don't forget...

2007-08-21T10:17:00.001-07:00

... you can buy Generation What? at the Speck Press website, or at your local bookstore.

New Field!

2007-08-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

We'll start putting up songs, poems, anything really, inspired by the quarter-life crisis that our friends and others send us.

This one is a song written by Marissa Russo, to whom I sent the call for submissions. Instead of writing an essay, she started writing a couple songs. Here's one:

Dreamin'

I spend most my time dreamin'

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that?

I'm not afraid of thinkin'

That I could do better than this, oh yes I can

Why am I always sittin' around

Waiting for something to happen to me?

Even though I know my fate lies in my own hands

I just let it be

And sit here just thinkin'

Of what I could do with my time

Instead of waste it

Can't get those negative thoughts outta my mind, not ever

Any effort I put forth never seemed worth it

Anytime I was ready to try

I spend most my time dreamin'

Whats wrong with that? Whats wrong with that?

I'm not afraid of thinkin'

That I could do better than this, oh yes I can

Caitlin Says

2007-05-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

I am trying not to complain. I mean, I could discard my choice to attend medical school like a bad impulse-buy, but I choose to keep it. Most people ask me, why are you doing this? My boyfriend, the other night as he witnessed another one of my “peaks” (of neuroses), suggested that maybe I should pursue that whole writing thing more. It makes you calm, he said. I like to think that neither of the desires is mutually exclusive, and I point to doctors such as Atul Gawande, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer, and Jerome Groopman, who have written very elucidating and moving books. After all, doctors are storytellers of disease and hear so many patient narratives that it is amazing more doctors do not write.

And yet, I can’t lie. To focus so heavily on one side of my brain for these last fourteen months has been taxing and downright detrimental at times. I have to write my personal statement on why I want to be a doctor, and unlike most of my classmates, I did not dread the task. I did, however, dread going to physics everyday and could not understand why they said physics was easy. The chance to play with words and syntax rather than electric potential and magnetic fields was enough to make me sit down right away and write. I am an above-average science person (but not a genius), but I will acknowledge that writing not only comes easier to me but is also more enjoyable. I find myself writing even now—although I need to be memorizing my amino acids and their requisite pKa’s—because my “writing voice” began to scream softly in my head. It erupts at strange times to remind me I am creative and have other strengths. It reminds me of me.

The stress of this last year has made me desire things that I have never desired previously. Before this year, I have always dated or pursued the type of boys that I generally knew were, well, less-than-stellar. Oh, so you party every night of the week and have five tattoos? Perfect. They were the type of boys that I would not feel attached to when I left them or were the type who would not tie me down in a messy web of commitment. Now, I almost want to be that Fifties housewife with the green gingham and rickrack apron. There is a certain amount of stability and certainty in that life. This year, I have found myself yielding and being vulnerable. I have allowed myself to fall.

Does it add to my stress or relieve it some that I’m dating the guy in my eyes? I’m cynical enough to know he’s as perfect as I am perfect, but somehow we work for each other. He’s the type of guy I can’t imagine leaving. I feel he looks at the tempest of my being, stares at it calmly, and continues to want me. His soft strength humbles me. And now, as we both look at medical schools and talk about my life, my goals, and my desire for this path, I feel as if I’m foisting this intense life on him that will revolve around me for the next eight years. I want these decisions to be about both of us, but the simple fact is that I will go to any medical school that accepts me. I know of so many relationships that have crumbled under the intense commitments of professional school. I also worry too much about him not wanting to live in a city, not being able to have the type of career he would have had if it weren’t for me, and not having a partner who is always there—because I’ll also always be in a “relationship” with the health profession, whether I like it or not.

"Salvation in Wordplay" by Justin Maki

2007-05-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

From "Salvation in Wordplay" by Justin Maki

We needed two taxis because there were five of us. Our guide hailed the first cab, spoke to the driver, and then hailed another cab for himself and Ken-chan. As we rode along, I thought about the driver knowing exactly where we were going, Shinji and Daisuke having some idea from earlier conversation, while I had no clue. I just watched the dark highway unfolding in front of us, with block after block of enormous, dimly lit apartment buildings. There were red neon crosses mounted here and there, at various heights, and the moon looked almost orange from air pollution.

It was a long ride, but finally we got out near some fruit stands beside a big shopping center. When our guide caught up with us, he mentioned neither the fruit market nor the shopping center; we followed him through a few back streets where the buildings were more run-down, where there was more debris and dust. Then we came to a narrow street where scantily clad women were hanging out in glass booths. Even though it was cold, most of them had the sliding door open and stood there smoking or talking to men. Each booth had spotless glass panels and a few things to make it look like a barber shop—a chair or two, a radio, mirrors, beauty supplies. Not that there was much effort put into deception. These women were clearly waiting for men, and as Jin explained, the symbol of two barber poles right next to each other, rotating inward, tells you that this is not the neighborhood for a haircut.

My first response was a sort of confused excitement, fueled by opportunism and less-than-detached curiosity. I eyed some of the sexier girls, smooth-skinned, bored, in the peach glow of their booths. Most of them were in their late teens or early twenties, rail-thin, wearing skimpy tops and tight polyester pants, or loose silk that hung all the way to the soles of their big blockish shoes. I gave one or two of the women a second look, but I still didn't want to be a guy who resorted to the sex industry. Quickly I found myself a bit embarrassed to be there, and had an urge not to linger. But it was not a completely simple decision—I wasn't alone.

"Listen to the Sounds of the House" by Jared Jacang Maher

2007-05-19T10:57:00.001-07:00

From "Listen to the Sounds of the House"

by Jared Jacang Maher

One morning my dad came in from the garage wearing his leather work gloves and tattered weekend T-shirt, which had a minefield of little holes that pockmarked his torso. I was at the kitchen table, sitting in the same seat, in the exact same position as I held when I was twelve. The only difference was that I had traded Capt'n Crunch and the comics section for a mug of fair-trade Sumatran and The New York Times. My mother was out at various supermarkets, as per her customary five-hour routine of coupon-guided power shopping. I scratched at my stubble, reading an article on tort reform or something while my dad consulted his to-do list on the dry-erase board mounted to the refrigerator. Today the list said: "mow lawn, put winter tires in attic, move cabinet, marinate chicken," and so on. Then, at the end was written, "show boys sprinkler drain." He asked me what my plans were for the day.

"Ahh," I drew out like I was in the middle of a really engrossing paragraph.

"Ahh, I've got to, well, you know…" My voice trailed off. "Things like…"

My daughter, still in her Hello Kitty nightgown, poked her head up from the couch-cushion fort she had constructed in the living room. "Like what things?" she asked.

"Like important adult things," I answered. "Like giving-little-girls-showers things and brushing-the-tangles-out-of-their-hair things." Her head disappeared with a yelp. She knew that the longer I was left undisturbed with my coffee and newspaper, the longer she would remain immersed in a sea of warm, glorious Saturday morning cartoons. The program she was watching was about a group of grade schoolers who had discovered one of those little folded paper, fortune-teller contraptions, which they dubbed the "Cootie Catcher."

"Pick a color," one kid said.

"Red."

"Pick a number." Once the numeral was chosen, he worked his hands like little crab's claws. "One, two, three, four."

"Will I get a new bike this summer?"

The little triangle flap was lifted. They gasped.

"Yes, definitely."

The whole story was about how the kids began to consult the Cootie Catcher on everything—if they should study for the next geography test, if they should swing at baseballs, if they should watch certain television shows—and how their reliance on its powers began to dominate their lives. Since they felt the future was pre-determined, or at least being shaped by some unseen force, they had no option but to hand over every decision to the judgment of the pocket oracle. But when the Cootie Catcher accidentally got put through the wash, the kids were left helpless, unable to function in a world of unrelenting choices and grand expectations. Were I to write an analytical English essay on the cartoon, I would conclude the Cootie Catcher was an indictment about the postmodern condition. Although I think my daughter thought it was just funny.

Bess Says

2007-05-15T09:11:00.001-07:00

It’s graduation time. It happens every year, and even if you’re not graduating and don’t know anyone who is, it’s hard not to notice. Since I graduated from college, and then from my M.A. program, I haven’t paid that much attention to graduation. Until this year. Honestly, part of it is that we thought there might be a “marketing tie-in” with the book since a lot of time graduates experience something akin to a quarter-life crisis. (What better gift for your favorite grad! (Well, some would say a new car is a better gift … or lots of money….))

But, it’s more than that. For one, the Virginia Tech shooting is still looming over me—and a lot of other people. That appalling event was really traumatic for so many Americans, most not at all connected to VT or any of the victims; now that it’s graduation time, it’s hard not to think about those kids who would’ve graduated, but will never experience that rite of passage.

There’s that, and there’s also the fact that my ten-year high school reunion is supposed to happen this summer. Honestly, I’m not very far away distance-wise, just a few towns down the highway, but high school still seems so long ago. Like most people, the only classmates from high school I kept in touch with were my best friends, and I’ve even grown apart from a few of them. Plus I look back at who I was then, and it half feels like I’m remembering a character in a movie. I’m still not sure that I’ll go to the reunion because I’m afraid it’ll end up being a brag-fest or a drunk-fest or, in our somewhat unique case, a golf-fest. I should give my ex-classmates more credit than that, though. I’m sure they’ve all blossomed into lovely adults, or lovely almost-adults in some cases, like mine.

Plus, with my first (and maybe only) book publishing this month, I feel like I’m graduating in a different sense. You know how you never actually feel older on your birthday? Well, you also don’t feel very different on graduation day. Then something like this happens. Say, you finally land a job you’re proud of. You record your first few songs on your Mac. You notice yourself taking care of someone else rather than the other way around. Or, you see your name on the cover of a book and on Amazon. Weird. But cool.

I didn’t even go to my college graduation. I went out to brunch with a couple friends. We each drank a Bloody Mary and then headed over to the local dive bar for a beer. Later that afternoon, after our little celebration was over, I didn’t feel any more “graduated.” But these past few days, I sort of do.

Recently, I’ve been trying to plan some kind of event that will commemorate the book’s launch, just like a graduation ceremony or party honors graduation. It hasn’t really been working out. But these events are almost always a let-down, aren’t they? That’s not to say we shouldn’t plan them since they probably trigger a sense of achievement. It’s sort of like, “Hey, people are making a big deal about this. Maybe it is a big deal.” But in the end I think we just need to take these moments—feeling like you’ve accomplished something—as they come.

Hey, at least it’s one way to avoid the disappointment that sets in when everyone sucked so bad at planning you the-best-party-ever.

"You wanna know what happened?"

2007-05-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Check out our first book reading. It's at Tattered Cover in Denver on Thursday, May 24, at 7:30. Be there or be rhombus.

"Afterlife" by Nick Burd

2007-05-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

From "Afterlife"
by Nick Burd

Our band had songs on MTV. Not videos, but clips of songs played during reality shows where awful people did awful things to each other for vacations, prepaid credit cards, or just the chance to have their horribleness televised on basic cable. One of our songs played while two girls wrestled for a boy on an early episode of Sorority Life. I wrote that song. It was about how hanging myself wouldn’t fix the fact that my first real boyfriend had dumped me; then it became the soundtrack for a different kind of heartbreak, the kind that lost its value the moment the advertisers pulled out their checkbooks.

But we thought we were going somewhere. Sometimes a venue was full of people, for no discernable reason except that kids in that town had nothing better to do on a Friday night then see a band they’d heard on college radio a few times. So much of that time on the road went beyond the realm of mystery and traveled into ghost story territory, like the time I walked into a bar in a city I’d never been to before and saw “NICK BURD IS AN ASSHOLE” written on one of the posters we’d sent the club a few weeks before. I wondered if we’d already played this show, already sucked, already pissed someone off.

The phone calls from home collected like change in my pocket. My mother wanted to know when I was coming home, when I was going to call my student loan officer and explain why I wasn’t paying off the thousands of dollars of debt I’d acquired for the sake of an English degree.

“We’re going to blow up soon,” I said. “I can feel it. People are buying the album, singing along with the words. By next summer I’ll be living in Los Angels in some mansion that a record company bought for the band. We’ll write our second album on the beach. I’ll break up with the boy and write a million songs about it. I’ll go to the Gap and get attacked by hordes of screaming girls, and it’ll be so easy to look disinterested and that will only make them crazier, make them buy more copies of the album. I’ll be the first openly gay pop icon, sort of like George Michael but without the self-destructive neurosis. I’ll be just like that line in the song of ours where I say: ‘I’ll prove you wrong by doing right.’ I’ll do good, Mom. I promise. Just you wait and see.”

Jared Says

2007-04-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Multiculturalism to blame for Virginia Tech?

Was the gunman behind the Virginia Tech shooting suffering from a quarter-life crisis?

We can stamp that question with a huge, "NO."

One week has passed since the massacre and the media has thoroughly peeled away the mysterious onion layers of the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, to reveal yet another pathetic, self-absorbed man-child so devoid of insight or empathy that he confused vengeful martyrdom with what, outside of his delusion, really amounted to nothing more than an armed temper tantrum.

Still, amid all the depressing clichés uncovered, reporters and pundits are attempting to affix the event to a larger narrative about American culture. What has this taught us about violence? About youth? About ... (fill in the blank)? Because the response has been largely predictable: The anti-gun crowd has a sure-fire talking point to push for greater gun control, while yakkers from the From-My-Cold-Dead-Hand camp have blasted back (some with the amazing suggestion that the carnage could have been prevented if more students and teachers were outfitted with weaponry—and shot Cho down before he had the satisfaction of doing it himself.)

Liberal or conservative, political opinion-makers were already hunkered down on this issue long before Virginia Tech became yet another synonym for tragedy, and they’ll interpret the event accordingly. But it’s truly astounding when a pundit like Pat Buchanan has to bend himself into a rhetorical pretzel to fit Cho into his paleo-conservative agenda. In an April 20 column on the subject, he begins on solid right-wing footing by blazing the media and echoing the arm-the-teachers argument cited above. Then things start to get interesting, however, when Buchanan goes on to explain how multiculturalism is to blame for the killings.

"Though he spent four years on campus, no one knew who Cho was," Buchanan writes, "which bespeaks a larger point. Colleges have grown into city-sized universities of tens of thousands and have ceased to be communities, even as the United States is ceasing to be a country, a nation and a people."

The ideology of diversity is at fault, Buchanan continues, because "[w]e are told that among the worst of sins is to be judgmental about how others behave," which allowed administrators and students to accept Cho’s self-imposed outsider status. The real problem, he concludes, is that "there is such a thing as too much tolerance."

This argument is a stretch, even by Buchanan’s standards. First off, Cho was a pariah at the school. As Buchanan points out himself, the masters of multiculturalism singled him out several times for his strange behavior, including his creative writing teacher who kicked him out of her class for disturbing other students and referred him to administrators. That’s not the kind of blind tolerance that Buchanan and others on the right say infects the liberal mindset, but an example of a very swift reaction to unacceptable conduct. In fact, Cho was one person who would’ve wholeheartedly agreed with Buchanan’s belief that Virginia Tech is an over-tolerant environment. When police investigated his dorm room after the shooting they found a note that denounces "rich kids," "debauchery," and "deceitful charlatans."

If there was one attribute that Cho didn’t embody it was the values behind multiculturalism. That’s because true tolerance—unlike Cho’s feeble attempt at existential complexity—cannot be taught through the barrel of a gun.

Check out

2007-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

some of Jared Jacang Maher's (and other staff writers') blogs for Westword at www.westword.com/blogs.

Jared Says

2007-03-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

Generation Braff

The Lost Generation had Ernest Hemingway. The Beats had Ginsberg and di Prima. The Hippies had Ken Kesey and Abbie Hoffman. Generation X had Douglas Coupland and Kurt Cobain. And, we, the generation culturally sandwiched somewhere between Molly Ringwald and High School Musical, we have … Zach Braff.

Zach-fucking-Braff?

You mean that gangly dude from Scrubs? The voice of our generation? Braff may be mostly known as a happy-go-lucky doctor who gets laughs by slipping on urine, but he received indie props in 2004, after he wrote, directed, and produced Garden State, the movie, directly targeted toward disaffected twentysomethings, about a young actor returning to his hometown in New Jersey for his mother’s funeral. Braff, who starred as the main character alongside Natalie Portman, made no secret of his desire to strike a generational nerve in subsequent interviews that hailed him as a kind of latter-day Bob Dylan for assembling a sound track that included songs by The Shins and Iron & Wine.

Still, I purposely skipped the movie in theatres, even as some of my friends were raving about the “connection” they felt to the flick where the post-college-age kids live with their parents, do drugs, and brood in an existential frump. Cult-following, shmult-following. How is the essential premise any more timely to me, in the early twenty-first century, than movies like Clerks, The Graduate—shit, even Easy Rider?

By the time, I got around to watching Braff’s movie on DVD last year, I was prepared to hate it. But, despite myself, despite the heavy-handed quirkiness and sappy “screaming into the abyss” epiphanies, I actually enjoyed Garden State. Maybe I even identified with it a little. But, as studio heads and corporate marketers look to Braff as an identifier of the current twentysomething condition, I have to wonder if he really has anything new to say beyond the observation that young people are struggling to live up to the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood, as they always have throughout modern time. So, what’s the stylistic difference between Braff and the totemic cultural figures mentioned in the opening paragraph that makes me and my friends feel like he’s reflecting us? First of all, Braff ain’t no Hemmingway, that’s for sure. In fact, he’s the near opposite of a Hemingway or Coupland. Braff is like your buddy from high school. He’s simultaneously self-serious and self-deprecating. He’s both goofy and emo. In one interview he admitted to being depressed—who isn’t, nowadays—but he said it in an off-handed way, as if depression is just another accessory to be worn alongside your I-pod or posted on your MySpace blog. (Find Braff’s MySpace page here) If he’s anything, Zach Braff is a representation of a media-saturated generation that has projected all of its angst into really cool things, like a The Shins ringtone.

Released last summer, Braff’s latest film, The Last Kiss , was about people in their late-twenties dealing with adulthood problems as they approach thirty. I haven’t seen it yet. The reviews weren’t great … but I hear the soundtrack is awesome.

The Cover Model

2007-03-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

The book's cover model when he's not cover modeling.

Fun Links/Contributor News

2007-03-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

For a fun, cool, new blog, Crucial Minutiae, put together, in part, by a couple of our contributors, go to www.crucialminutiae.com.

Also, check out contributor Courtney Martin's new website, www.courtneyemartin.com.

Bess Says

2007-03-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

We all have different markers of age. For instance, I’m moving in with my boyfriend soon, and I’ve never lived with a partner before. I’ve been in the working world for two years as of February 28, 2007. I pay all my bills on time, too. It seems I’ve left behind the World of Adolescent Angst and Instability and settled comfortably into Adultland. But some of these markers of adulthood, I’ve noticed, are less expectable. And, while some of my movements forward seem like progress, others seem like… degeneration. Sometimes it seems like they are less rites-of-passage and more the-beginning-of-the-end.

I’ve become a gasper. This must mean I’m getting older. When I was younger, I wasn’t as shaky and nervous as I am now. Maybe it’s because I’m beginning to fear death. Isn’t that the root of most of our ills? Well, I’ve always been an anxious person, and during my quarter-life crisis, I think I was clinically so, but now I’m anxious the way my French host mother was. (She was small with a pageboy haircut, and she would take the most remarkable, inimitable inhalations as she sat talking at the table with her daughters or best friend, drinking coffee, smoking.)

I should start collecting sound bites from all my various gasps. Like dried-up moths and butterflies pinned to a chart on the wall, my breathy gulps come in all shapes and sizes, some outright outstanding and others only subtly so. There’s the, “Oh, my gosh, the driver of this vehicle is going to drive out into oncoming traffic, but maybe if I push my foot against the imaginary brake on the passenger side we’ll live,” gasp. That’s a very traditional gulp. There’s the, “I swear I got up from this seat the same way I always do, but my feet don’t seem to be holding me up this time and I think I might plummet to the ground,” gasp. That one is understated, but not customary from a twentysomething and therefore noteworthy. And there’s the, “Who is that dark, shadowy figure I see darting across the kitchen just as I’ve emerged from the shower—I’m sure my boyfriend’s taking the dog for a walk right now,” gasp. As you can see, the fear of death underlies all these other frights.

I don’t mean to insinuate that my fate, that of my French host mother, is the fate of all women (exhale a large sigh of relief here), or even set in stone for me. I happen to be a nervy one, and that side of my personality doesn’t show any sign of leaving. In fact, if my mouthfuls of air are any indication, that part of me is growing. It’s true that I used to say death didn’t scare me, and now I can’t say as much. One day in the recent past I realized that dying must hurt. Breaking a leg hurts. Getting punched in the nose seems to cause a great deal of pain. Death has got to be worse than both of those put together, times ten. This fear arose in me around the same time as the chronic gasping, so I think they are related. I also think I’m getting old.

Publication date set for Generation What?

2007-03-04T13:38:00.000-08:00

Generation What?
Dispatches from the Quarter-Life Crisis

Edited by
Bess Vanrenen
Essays by
Jennifer Banash
Joshua M. Bernstein
Nick Burd
Vince Darcangelo
Mark Dye
Caitlin Dougherty
Matt Farwell
Rebecca Landwehr
Harmon Leon
Jared Jacang Maher
Justin Maki
Courtney E. Martin
Hal Niedzviecki
Catherine Strawn
Kate Torgovnick
Erika T. Wurth

Price: $15 - Trade Paperback w/flaps
Essays | Self-help
ISBN : 1-933108-12-6
ISBN13: 978-1-933108-12-4
5.5" x 8.5", 162 pages

Available May 2007
Generation What? is a collection of essays by young writers about that awkward phase between adolescence and adulthood, infamously labeled the “quarter-life crisis.” Though no road map to a contented adult life, the stories provide assorted experiences—some heartbreaking, some hilarious—of this very real phenomenon that seems to be afflicting more twentysomethings with each passing year.

If disparate in subject matter, the personal experiences recounted by these individuals pull at a common thread: the inconsistent quarrel between hoping to exist on the fringes of childhood and wanting to participate in the arena of adult responsibility.

One writer encounters a quick, coming-of-age lesson when he contemplates losing his virginity in an East Asian red light district. Learning of her father’s sexual improprieties, another writer finds her worldview shaken by the knowledge that parents, too, are fallible. Some essays focus on leaving school—or not wanting to leave school—and facing the “real world,” be it during the emotional 2004 election, in Afghanistan, or in a florescent-lit human resources office.

The Lost Generation nursed the devastating wounds of World War I. The Greatest Generation conquered both The Great Depression and totalitarianism. The Beat Generation sped along the counter-culture pathways. The Baby Boomers embraced protests and free love, while Generation X birthed mass technology and post-modern malaise. And Generation Y—the young people of the millennium who have more resources, technology, and education than any before hasxwhat?

Bess Vanrenen lives and writes in Denver. To anyone seeking out a quarter-life crisis, she recommends graduate school.

Essayists include editors from Broken Pencil and Jane Magazine and contributors to The New York Times, The Village Voice, Bust, Adbusters, and Plenty, as well as young authors with books forthcoming from Harper Perennial and Simon and Schuster.