I have long pondered the vagaries of my intermittent inaudibility.
(Now how’s that for a first sentence? Don’t you just have to read on?)
I offer this in evidence: Lizzie and I were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch one evening two nights ago. We were about to watch an episode from a just-arrived Big Bang Theory disk, when I remembered that she had an essay due in English the next day.
“How’s that essay coming?” I asked in as gentle a tone as a mother can ask about impending homework. She got up from the couch and rummaged through the pile of Netflicks arrivals. “It’s due tomorrow, right?” I asked, still treading oh-so-carefully. She took the disk out of its sleeve, crouched in front of the player and tapped the open icon. “Liz,” I said, my voice now raised just a bit (well, okay, a bit more than a bit), “I am talking to you. Just tell me what’s up with that essay.”
She put the disk in the tray. Could it be, I wondered as I got up to eject the disk, that I am speaking these words in my mind and not out loud? (Do you have any doubt as to how this all turned out?)
Of course, I can point to just as many incidences where her hearing is acute, almost Superman-like. For example … read the rest of this entry… »
Waiting for Lizzie at Buffalo Exchange (a vintage clothing store with an edge), I watched a woman look through a rack of skimpy tees. She was wearing patterned tights, booty shorts and a cropped fake fur jacket. Her hair was chopped in ragged, uneven layers and top-streaked in an array of reddish tones. She was 50 if she was a day. My first thought was: OMG. Does this woman not own a mirror? Quickly followed by: Does this woman have a daughter, and what would this daughter think if she saw her mother parading around dressed like a skanky teen?
Adolescent and teen girls can’t wait to grow up. Sometimes their mothers want nothing more than to regress. Let me be clear about it: I am all for turning back the clock. In fact, that’s the subject of my next, currently-in-progress book, the working title of which is CounterClockwise. But I am talking about recapturing or enhancing the health and vitality of earlier decades, turning back the clock on flabby muscles and stodgy thinking. I don’t mean turning back the fashion clock. That’s just embarrassing.
Yet I see it – and so do you, I bet – every day: Mid-life women trying extra-hard to look 15, only without the pimples. Mid-life mothers raiding their teen daughter’s closets…. read the rest of this entry… »
Remember when you were my age and you were so excited to drive? But now you’re like: damn traffic, look at those gas prices, gotta remember to get the oil changed…blah blah blah.
Well, it just so happens that I got my driving permit recently – after taking the test, umm, several times – and I LOVE it and it turns out I’m pretty good at it too. If I do say so myself. But here’s the problem: My mom is soooo freaked out about my driving! I’m guessing it’s the protective mother instinct, but for the first week I was behind the wheel, I thought she had developed this weird nervous tic. I noticed out of the corner of my eye (I say the corner of my eye because, of course, my eyes are always focused on the road) that her right leg would kinda kick at the floor of the car every so often. I just thought this was the strangest thing ever. And I thought: What on earth is going on here? (Well, maybe I expressed it in stronger terms.)
After two days of this, I finally figured it out, and I said to her, “You know, Mom, the passenger side doesn’t have a brake.”
Really I don’t blame her. Between working the clutch, switching between five gears, going up and down hills…I mean who would even think about the brake? Okay, really I am a good driver. But if you see me on the road, a few extra feet of space wouldn’t hurt.
Btw, I’m kind of temporarily into possibly writing for the blog again, so I’m wondering what ideas you all might have. What would you like to read from the teen girl perspective.
Yes, that’s right, after three tries, Lizzie secured her learner’s permit and – with a parent riding shotgun – is now on the road behind the wheel of our rehabbed 21-year-old (177,000 mile) Honda Accord.
Is it harrowing? Yes.
Is she, in fact, a pretty good driver? Yep.
Which is not to say that I am a relaxed passenger with her at the wheel. (She’ll have more to say about this in her forthcoming post.) It is important to note here, with props to my daughter, that she is learning on a stick shift. She insists on it, doesn’t want to drive my Prius. That would be too easy, you see. Among other things. (Yeah, I get it.)
Today is her first time driving on the freeway. In fact, I am writing this from the backseat of the car (my husband is riding shotgun) as Lizzie barrels up I-5 at 69 mph. (Speed limit is 65, but there are certain things she picks up from me…just the wrong things.)
She just passed a semi, and I felt breakfast at the back of my throat. But then she maneuvered ever-so-smoothly back into the right lane and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. I had told her the trick (which my father, possibly the world’s least patient driving teacher, had told me) about waiting to see the headlights of the car you just passed in your rearview before signaling to get back in the lane.
“Good tip, Mom,” she says, nodding and smiling the kind of relaxed, self-satisfied smile only a 17-year-old is capable of pulling off.
So my Mom and I went to the beach last week to do a book reading. Beforehand we were discussing how to jazz it up a bit, you know, take it one step further. Do something more than just explain about the book and read some passages, which is what my Mom usually does. So we thought about what if the dialog in the book was a reinactment of the real thing! Cool idea, right? (It was soooo totally my idea.)
And this is how it went. My Mom would do the normal introduction of her book, My Teenage Werewolf, and start to read the first chapter (I really like the first chapter), but when she came to the dialog between us, I would read my own lines. I would be an actress! Of course, it wasn’t really acting as these lines came naturally to me because I actually did speak them. (Snarky comments are my specialty.)
It was fun, and the audience really liked it. Also I got free brownies. Woohoo. We decided to do this again for other readings. We — okay, I — want to know your feedback on this (cough) genius idea of mine. xoxo
Are things better now between you and your daughter? Interviewers want to know. Readers who email me want to know. Roller coaster-weary mothers who waylay me in the line at the grocery store want to know. The answer, happily, is yes.
Some days (but not as many as before) it may not seem so. Those are the eye-rolling, deep-sighing days of high drama and low mood. But there are also an increasing number of days where actual civil conversation takes place, where iced lattes and frozen chais are sipped in companionable silence, where friendly/ joke-y text messages are regularly sent and received. It’s been a slow journey down a rocky path, but I am here to tell you that there has been real progress. I was in need of a reminder about how far we’ve come — and I got one a few days ago when Lizzie came with me to the Oregon coast.
I’d been invited by Writers on the Edge to talk about My Teenage Werewolf, which, incidentally (with no apologies for the plug because, after all, this IS my blog) just came out in paperback. Part of the deal was a free night at a nice hotel. When we got to the hotel and I went ahead to open the door to our room, my heart sank. There was only one bed — a big one, plenty roomy for two…but only one. As I stood there waiting for Lizzie to come up the stairs and join me, I flashed on the last time she and I were faced with sleeping in the same bed… read the rest of this entry… »
A few nights ago Lizzie and I and an unnamed companion went to see the movie Bridesmaids at the cheap seats. (The unnamed companion was my husband Tom, who has warned me many times that he does not want to appear in my posts, so forget I just named him.) I didn’t expect much from Bridesmaids. I figured on 90 minutes, plus or minus, of forgettable fluff, the experience greatly enhanced by the small bag of Jelly Bellies I sneaked into the theater in my purse.
A pleasant surprise awaited me. Actually, two surprises. First of all…those pomegranate cosmopolitan Jelly Bellies — a great new flavor for you fans out there. And then, oh yes, the movie. It was, as expected, lightweight entertainment. In many ways it was the typical hetero chick flick with marriage as the brass ring and the well-worn stereotype of women eyeing each other warily as competition – not, in this case, for men but rather for BFF status with other women. But, given all that, the film was deliciously subversive.
Why? Just the simple fact that some of the actresses actually looked like women you might see in real life. One of the two main characters had a pleasantly lopsided face with mix-and-match features; the other looked realistically ragged, like you really would look if your fledgling business went belly up and your boyfriend dumped you and, in your late-30s you had to go back and live with your mother. Of the eponymous bridesmaids, one had troweled-on pancake make-up that was trying to hide bad skin. (How difficult it must have been for the film’s make-up artist to do this – kind of like a perfect-pitch singer hitting a sour note on purpose.) Another bridesmaid — the funniest, most appealing character in the movie – was built like a tank and talked like a trucker. Or vice versa.
I always hated this time of year when I was a kid, that week or two between the unofficial end of summer (that is, the end of summer camp) and the beginning of the school year. Pretty simple really: I loved camp, and I hated school. And why not? Camp was sports all day (my idea of heaven, then and now), followed by a teenage girl’s favorite social activity: flirting with, fooling around with, and ultimately ditching a succession of guys. Oh yes, there were campfires and talent shows and Pajama Nights and cultural forays to Tanglewood. But really, it was sports and guys.
School, on the other hand, was about sitting at a hard wooden desk, listening to a series of old people tell you stuff you figured (sometimes, with teenage wisdom, rightly) had little meaning to or connection with your life. (I was right, for example, about trigonometry.) High school was a four-year, seven-hour-a-day prison sentence. Also, no boys. No, I didn’t go to an all-girls high school, but for reasons that are still somewhat mysterious to me (and about which I ceased to care millennia ago), I was popular with the guys at camp and a Loser (yes, capital L) with guys at school.
So, right around this time of year, I looked at the dark clouds gathering on my personal horizon – that is, the looming school year – and I gritted my teeth and made a list of all the extra-curricular activities I could load up on so as to avoid thinking about how much I hated school.
Lizzie – who starts school (her SENIOR year!!) tomorrow – does not bring the drama I brought to the moment. It’s not that she loves school. But… read the rest of this entry… »
The paperback edition of My Teenage Werewolf is here! To celebrate its arrival – and have some fun with the angel/ devil theme of the new cover art – we’ve created a NEW book trailer. By “we” I mean my wonderful creative team… which also happens to be my wonderful creative family. My son Jackson and I wrote the script. My son Zane created (and stop-action manipulated) the animated angel and devil. Lizzie, of course, co-starred — and contributed improvisational dialog. And doubled as hair and make-up. Jackson directed, filmed and edited.
I’d like to say something heartfelt – and something crassly commercial – about these efforts.
Heartfelt: What a complete and utter JOY to work with my talented, sparky, imaginative, creative, funny children. Relationships evolve and deepen as we work together, and this is truly a wondrous thing. It is so much more than “Quality Time” or “bonding.” This is a powerful, energizing blast of shared experience, a game-changer, an up-close-and-personal look at the amazing people my children have become.
Crassly commercial: My uber-talented son Jackson is a videographer, website designer, photographer and all-‘round visual genius doing business as Vanguard Media. Just sayin’.
I’ve been thinking about envy – and the difference between experiencing it as a teen and as an adult. (Oh, wait. As an adult I am not supposed to experience envy. I was supposed to have grown out of that by now, evolved, become wiser, more grounded or more centered or more comfortable with myself or whatever the women’s magazine tell us women over 40.) Yes, I know, envy is not one of the more enlightened human responses. But in the realm of Deadly Sins we all occasionally visit, it’s definitely kinder than wrath, not as morally questionable as greed or lust, and healthier for you than either sloth or gluttony. So – not so bad, as long as you are not proud (another sin) of being envious. Which I am not.
Why I’m suddenly thinking about teen v adult envy is Jenny. (I am giving her a nom de blog to protect her privacy.) Jenny is the girl I envied all through high school. I hadn’t thought about her for decades, but then last week facebook united us – and this surprise connection made me remember how pure and fierce and uncomplicated my envy was back when Jenny was its object.
Envy was simple then. Jenny was blonde – very blonde—and popular. Very popular. As in voted Most Popular. She was also smart, a decent athlete and, damn it, really nice. read the rest of this entry… »
Straight from the trenches…a Great Read for parents of teens.
–People magazine
... hilarious and insightful... sure to resonate with any mom.” –Ladies Home Journal
..painfully funny, occasionally shocking, tender, wry…and ultimately reassuring. –Seattle Times
A bestselling journalist navigates the stormy seas of the mother-daughter relationship at its most crucial moment.
With the eye of a reporter, the curiosity of an anthropologist and the open -- and sometimes wounded -- heart of a mother, award-winning author Lauren Kessler launches an 18-month mission, embedding herself in her own about-to-be teenage daughter’s life. From middle school classrooms to the mall, from summer camp to online chat groups, Kessler observes, chronicles—and sometimes participates in—the vibrant, dynamic and scary life of a 21st-century teen.
Funny, harrowing, poignant, and invariably candid and insightful, My Teenage Werewolf is both a canary in the coal mine for mothers of girls and a vibrant exploration of the single most important relationship in a woman’s life.
We are Lauren (Mom) and Lizzie (teen daughter). We blog about our relation- ship (good, bad, ugly) and about what divides and unites mothers and daughters.Read more about us.
I have long pondered the vagaries of my intermittent inaudibility.
