Click, Clack, Ooh! Kids That Type

One of the best things about becoming a Woman of a Certain Age is that when you look back on your life, there’s a lot of real estate there.  I’ve started many a sentence with, “When I was a kid, . . .” and most of the time, the eye-rolling is kept to a minimum.  Doodle and Scooby, now 12 and 10, listen to these little remembrances like archaeologists on an audio dig – sometimes they’re fascinated, and sometimes they can’t even imagine what I’m talking about. 

The other day, I spent an inordinate amount of time explaining precisely what a typewriter did and how it worked.  The kids eyed the machine warily, marveling that the keys made noise, and that you couldn’t see what you’d typed before it got printed on the page.  The erase ribbon made them giggle.  They clamored for a blank piece of paper to try it out themselves.  I could hear them snorting with laughter all the way down the hall. 

And this was an electric typewriter.

I didn’t even attempt to describe the Remington manual that I wrote all of my high school papers on – with the silver armed carriage return that you hooked with your pinkie when the bell dinged.  The kind that made that satisfying clattering sound you associated with busy newsrooms in the movies.  The keyboard that had no numeral 1 (you had to use a lower-case L) and no semi-colon (you had to type a colon, then backspace and type a comma over it).  And when I learned how to touch-type (with ALL of my fingers, not just hunting and pecking), I got ink all over my fingertips trying to pry stuck keys away from the roller because I was typing too fast.

And then I turn my eyes forward.  Doodle has a cell phone – not a smartphone, just a basic bought-it-at-Walgreens model that I periodically put minutes on.  He texts his friends from elementary school and Boy Scouts, keeping in touch as they all move toward their separate lives.  

“When I was a kid,” I say, “I had to ask permission to use the phone, and my mother would start glaring at me at about the five minute mark.”  The kids snicker.  “And, you know what?  The phone was attached to the wall.”  

“How did you have private conversations?” they ask.

“We didn’t,” I tell them. 

For them, the telephone and the typewriter are practically the same thing.  They can commit their thoughts to “paper” with their thumbs, and send them down the street, across the country, around the world. 

For me, the typewriter represents something that is so very misunderstood in today’s world:  permanence.  If you made a mistake, a typographical error, you couldn’t just backspace it away.  You had to unscrew the tiny bottle of liquid paper, or in later technology, press the [x] button, line up your cursor and re-type your mistake to erase it.  You had to acknowledge, even repeat, that stray letter or symbol in order to make it go away. 

For pre-teens, this is a difficult concept.  They are so used to easily un-ringing the bell with a flippant “j/k” (just kidding!) or smiley emoticon.  They delete poorly-thought-out one-liners aimed at their friends and it’s like the zinger never existed. 

Except it did, and it does. 

My job as a parent is to get them to see that there really aren’t any take-backs. The words you write or text or say become part of our reality, and texting “LOL” doesn’t make it funny, and doesn’t heal hurt feelings. 

 
Soon, Doodle and Scooby will get caught up in whatever the next iteration of Facebook or Twitter will be, and their words, their jokes, their off-hand comments will become part of the cyber-sphere.  There is so little time to get them to understand that what they say, and how they say it, is un-erasable.  Just like with that old fashioned typewriter, they will not be able to just delete a hurtful or unwanted comment. They will have to take the time and actually correct it, make it right.  And that takes more effort than tapping backspace or delete.

Bitter Breakup Songs

Recently, I started thinking about my favorite genre of songs: the breakup song. I’m not talking about the sappy, regretful, where-did-I-go-wrong? type of song (“If I should stay, I would only be in your waaaay . . . and I will always love you--ooooh . . .”).

No, I mean the type of bitter break up songs (I’ll call them BBS) that guys tend to write. The no, really, it’s not me, it’s you approach to breaking up. They don’t internalize, or call up their friends and cry about their faults – and then set the whole thing to music. If a guy breaks up with a girl, clearly, the music tells us, there’s something wrong with the girl. If a girl breaks up with a guy? There’s something wrong with the girl. And, you know, that can make for some awesome put the windows down and sing at the top of your lungs all the way down the highway music.

One exception to this rule is “Grenade,” by Bruno Mars. Bruno, dude, man up! I would catch a grenade for you? Really – what is that? But even that song has that desperate, psychotic vibe to it, like, This woman has driven me to the point where I would contemplate various really violent forms of death, and write a song about it. That’s a woman I don’t ever want to meet (i.e., there’s something wrong with the girl).

The king of the BBS, for me, is Ceelo Green’s “‘Forget’ You.” (I put that word in quotes because that’s the radio-friendly title.) Where was this tiny round man when the guy I was going to go to the senior prom with started flirting with another girl at a party? I can just imagine my seventeen-year-old self bopping around in my pale lavender off the shoulder gown in the middle of the country club dance floor, singing in my strong soprano: I see you driving ‘round town with the guy I love, and I’m like, forget you!

Okay, maybe not, but the forty-five year old me can certainly go to town on it in her fantasy.

How about all those popular boys who never, ever gave me a glance in high school? Oh, I’ve been to my twenty-fifth reunion, you guys, and I know exactly what you look like. I saw your double takes at my fabulousness as I strode across the room to claim my gin and tonic at the bar. And, why, yes, I do still have that really great job and that awesome husband. The soundtrack to that particular night? The All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell.”

Tomorrow you'll be thinking to yourself
Yeah, where did it all go wrong?
But the list goes on and on
Truth be told I miss you
And truth be told I'm lying
When you see my face
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell
When you walk my way
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell

Or Keith Urban, who doesn’t find his ex’s cute qualities all that cute anymore: Take your cat and leave my sweater, ’cuz we’ve got nothing left to weather, in fact, I’ll feel a whole lot better, but you’ll think of me.

Not that women can’t do the BBS well, when they put their minds to it. Right up there with Ceelo’s “‘Forget’ You” is Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable.” I mean, really:

I can have another you in a minute

Matter of fact, he’ll be here in a minute . . .

Now, that’s cold. I like the urban smoothness of it, that certainty that she could just walk down any crowded street and find a newer, better, updated model immediately. But there’s also a part of me that groks the down and dirty, malevolently violent mayhem of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” Girl follows the guy to a bar, keys his car, slashes his tires, and rips up his leather seats, all the while hilariously mocking the bimbo he’s cheating on her with:

Right now, she’s prob’ly up doing some

white trash version of Shania karaoke.

Right now, she’s prob’ly saying, “I’m drunk,”

and he’s a-thinkin’ that he’s gonna get lucky.

Right now, he’s prob’ly puttin’ on three dollars’ worth

of that bathroom cologne . . .

Yes, she commits a couple of minor felonies, but I’m rooting for her all the way.

When Alanis Morissette tells her ex, “I’m very happy for you both,” I pretty sure she’s being insincere, especially since the balance of “You Oughtta Know” is dripping with malice. Dude, I wouldn’t eat that box of chocolates she sent you if I were you.   Or sweet little Taylor Swift, offhandedly threatening to tell her ex’s friends that he’s gay. The forty-five-year-old me would definitely do something like that.

Why am I thinking these breakup thoughts?  Oh, I’m not planning on leaving Rev anytime soon (or poisoning his food).  But there comes a point when you look at your life -- a job, a relationship, an expectation -- and say, You know what, it’s not me, it's you, and I'm breaking up with you.  

You know what, 2012, I didn’t like you all that much.  I'm kicking you to the curb, buh-bye.  I deserved better than what you dished out, so I’m trash-canning you.  As my guy Keith Urban sang:

It took a while for her to figure out
That she could run
But when she did
She was
Long gone, long gone.
(“Stupid Boy”)

Summer Challenge

Why do schools put parents in this position?  My middle kid, Doodle, is in an "advanced work class," for fourth grade (which he just finished) and fifth grade.  His teacher, who is one of those "tough but fair" teachers you mention in your valedictory speech, sent home a book list/math and reading comprehension packet to complete over the summer.  I've looked through it.  It's a lot of work. The kids in her class (she'll have the same kids next year) have to read four books -- three assigned, and one more off this giant list.

Just to give you some context, one of the books, Divergent, by Veronica Roth, was one I had put aside in my Amazon.com wish list for Boy to read over the summer. Boy, who is fifteen years old.  That book is on my ten-year-old's summer reading list, along with Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Seriously, you people?!  The kid is ten years old. I didn't read Agatha Christie until college, and I was a reading maniac.  (True fact:  the three or four times I  played hooky from school, I went to the public library and hid out in the stacks. No word of a lie.)  I was debating whether he was ready for the first Harry Potter book.


The kids started day camp today, and when I went to pick them up this afternoon, Doodle was curled up on the floor of the gym, fast asleep, using his beach towel as a pillow.  He could barely keep his eyes open during dinner.  (Which is how it should be.  All I ask of a good summer day camp is that they send the kids back to me dirty, hungry, and exhausted.)  And now I have to goad, coax, and cajole him into doing a page or two of math drills.  Doesn't really seem right, that.


It's not like I don't challenge them.  This summer's goal is for Doodle and Scooby each to read twenty-five chapter books (only two of them can be from the Captain Underpants series), at a dollar a book, and if they reach twenty-five, they get a ten-dollar bonus.  (Yes, I bribe my kids; I'm not too proud to admit it.)  Boy's challenge is to read twelve books, at two dollars each, with the same ten-dollar bonus. There's a bonus in here for me, too; it gives me an excuse to get them out of my hair when we go on vacation.  I'm looking forward to a quiet round trip drive to the Berkshires, and an equally quiet flight to Florida, with the children's noses deep in their novels for long stretches of time.  


I felt like that was a doable challenge.  Now, though, having looked at the summer work load for my fourth-grader, I'm tempted to become "Julie McCoy, Your Cruise Director," just to make sure the kid has some summer in his summer.  

Doodle's fine with all this work, though, or at least he's resigned.  The four reading list books will count toward my challenge, and at the same time I ordered them, I bought a third grade workbook for Scooby, just so he won't feel as though she's getting off easy.

And when he's done with those books, maybe I'll read them myself.  I'm sure my brain could use the exercise over the summer, too.

Suspended Animation

Nope, not dead.  Nope, haven't given up, either.

Life has been in a state of  "suspended animation" -- you know, that feeling you have when you've just thrown a bunch of balls up into the air, and you're waiting for them to come back down.  You don't know where they're going to land, or even if you'll be able to catch any of them.  You just keep looking up at the sky in equal parts expectant hope and dread.

I look back on the past few months and realize that, for all the running around like crazy, spending late nights to get everything done, more running, and panicking over dropped stitches, we've been extraordinarily blessed.   Our kids are well, we're healthy, and summer is underway.

So picture me standing under a cloudless sky, looking upwards, hands open.  I'm ready to catch those balls as they come down, and I'm not going to worry about the ones that get away.

Inspiration, Silenced

Oh, dear. Yet another blog post about Whitney Houston (1963-2012).

But it’s not about her slammin’ rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” at the Superbowl, or the brilliant, ubiquitous “I Will Always Love You,” which, for some odd reason people used for their wedding song (did people even ever listen to the lyrics?). It’s not about her sad, slow decline into a drug-fueled, reality-TV train wreck. It’s not even about the heartbreaking knowledge that she was blessed with and squandered a once-in-a-generation instrument, like leaving a Stradivarius out in the rain.

It’s about inspiration.

It’s about her soaring voice pushing Olympic hopefuls to get up and try to be more than they’ve ever been, just once.

It’s about “learning to love yourself.”

It’s about sitting on a front porch with your (okay, fictional) sister (okay, yes, who wants to have you killed – come on, work with me here), and just straight up singing about how much Jesus loves you because you feel it and because He does.

I wish, I wish, oh, how I wish that Ms. Houston had been able to hear herself, to actually listen to herself – and be inspired.

RIP, Whitney Houston. Thanks for the inspiration.

You Do The Math

What a cool evening.

Boy was sitting at the kitchen table, last night, doing his homework. No, that isn't the amazing part. He had just cued up some music videos and was huddled over a worksheet when I cruised through the room. I tossed a glance over his shoulder and halted. At the top of the page, it said, "Algebra."

Now, I have to confess: math is not my friend. I use a calculator to do the simplest addition. I get cold sweats thinking about Doodle's fourth grade fractions. Math was the one subject in high school that I routinely flunked -- and I never took another math class once I graduated. (My liberal arts college didn't require it.)

But as I looked at the worksheet, I noticed that it was on equations, the "solve for x" kind. Oooh! I was actually good at those!

Most of mathematics defeated me. But there were a couple of topics that were less about the numbers and more about the logic. I rocked geometry, because it was like one long series of logic games. Prove a triangle is a triangle? Okay, no problem. I liked -- even loved -- those elegant proofs. They were like a dance, and once you mastered the steps, it was kind of fun. (To be fair, I also enjoyed diagramming sentences.)

Likewise, I could solve for x like nobody's business. I can do those, I said to Boy.

He looked at me skeptically, having heard (all his life) about my math allergy. Okay, he replied, do problem number four.

I snagged a pencil and gave it my best shot. I had fractions going on in there, ended up stumped for a moment on how to convert it to a decimal. Five point two, I said triumphantly.

Four point four, Boy answered, his deep voice just a shade away from condescension. No way. He whizzed through the steps and I saw he was right and I was so, so wrong. As my face fell, and I balled up the paper and threw it, hard, into the recycling bin, he offered, That's okay, Mom. You're good at English.

Well, now, them there's fighting words.

Give me another one, I said.

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Try the last one. I can't do it.

I looked. There were two xs in that one. I snatched another piece of paper and started in.

All of a sudden, it all came back to me. It was easy. X equals 6, I said. Boy gave me a comical look of disbelief. He replaced the x with 6, did the math in his head, and stared at me, shocked. That's right, he said, on the cusp of total incredulity.

I then did probably the most offensive booty dance in the history of ever to the hip-hop song that was playing on the computer. I got it riiii-ight, I crowed. Boy's expression said, Please stop. You're embarrassing me, even though there is nobody else in the room. Rev came upstairs to see what the commotion was about.

And then I wrote on the homework sheet, "Mom got this one right!"

Algebraic equations living somewhere in the recesses of my middle aged, math-phobic brain? Who knew?

X = 6.

Best. Night. Ever.

Revisiting That Bucket List

I’m sitting in my bedroom, jealously listening to the conversation going on in the living room. Rev is sitting very close to a PYT (for non-Michael Jackson fans, that means “Pretty Young Thing”), speaking in hushed tones. He’s been looking forward to this date for weeks. He left work early to get here, probably driving a little faster than usual to make it on time.

I’m not jealous because of PYT’s age, or the fact that she’s cute and funny, and did I mention cute? I’m not worried about anything “inappropriate.”

I’m jealous because Rev is learning something new.

PYT is a music teacher, and Rev is learning how to play the guitar. As in, how do you hold this thing and where do I put my fingers? beginner guitar lesson. He joins Scooby and Doodle, who have both been learning to play the piano for about nine months now.

And I’m jealous.

Oh, I already know the basics of guitar, having taken a year or two in grade school. If I picked one up, I could play along to a few songs, so long as you didn’t throw too many sharps or flats or major sevenths at me. I have no desire to become the next (old) Taylor Swift.

I’m just sitting here feeling sorry for myself, asking myself, What is the last new thing you learned how to do?

I was going to learn to speak Spanish. Never did. Ballroom dancing? Nope. I did start yoga, but that’s not really a skill you learn and master (unless you’re planning to make a pilgrimage to Tibet or something). For a hot second, I thought about taking voice lessons, to learn how to sing the right way. That died a quick death when I realized I would then have no excuses for not singing in public, or at least in the church choir.

How can it be that at forty-four, I’ve lost the ability, the inclination, to learn new things? What the heck happened?

Maybe I’ve become too complacent. Two years ago, just after my diagnosis, I went through the usual bucket list exercise: what are the things I wanted to do before I die but haven’t gotten around to? Because death, at that point, seemed real and imminent, no matter what imaginary statistics the oncologists pulled out of their . . . hats.

Now, I sit here, listening to the first, halting chords – and really, what courage it takes to put yourself out there in middle age to learn something completely new – I think about what I can learn to do in my spare time. I can’t think of anything that isn’t too time-consuming (spare time? Hah.), too expensive, too out there. I’m mad at myself for not having any interesting, pro-active hobbies. Even my resume is boring: I enjoy reading, writing, and listening to music. Snore.

Clearly, I have some soul-searching to do. What can I learn – I mean, really throw myself into – that can enrich my life? I don’t want to become one of those sour, provincial people who do the same boring stuff every boring day.

Because, if not now, then when? Tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us, and I don’t want to reach my sunset consumed with coulda-woulda-shouldas.

Everyone needs a mission. That’s mine, and, ask they say, I choose to accept it.

Stay tuned.