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Author: Starshine Roshell

Since When Does 'Adult' Mean Dirty?

Published on September 9, 2010

Growing up is no rare achievement, but we did work hard to get here. Stumbling around the house in our parents’ shoes, calculating our ages in cheeky increments of halves and quarters, scrutinizing that slow-growing height chart etched onto our bedroom doorframes in ballpoint pen.

In fact, you could argue that our entire childhoods were devoted to prepping and plotting for adulthood. In my own eager little mind, being “big” meant freedom. It meant confidence. It meant respect.

Imagine my shock to discover that adulthood actually means shopping for vibrating underpants and schmoozing the stars of Busty Cops and Naked Heroines Bound for Trouble!

This weekend, porn stars and erotic toy peddlers will gather at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the annual naughtyfest known as Adultcon. Open to the public, the expo invites guests to meet “over 69 adult entertainers,” purchase “male sexual enhancement products,” and learn about “vaginal rejuvenation centers.”

All of which sound diverting indeed. Stimulating? Maybe. Amusing? Undoubtedly. But … adult?

Continue readingSince When Does 'Adult' Mean Dirty?
Cinema Verite

Life is Laundry

Published on September 2, 2010

Some of my friends are sending their kids off to college this fall and discovering, with some shame, that their offspring — who can build Web sites, play stringed instruments, and locate Latvia on a world map — are deficient in other life skills. Basic skills. Crucial skills.
“We just got back from dropping Devon off for his first night in the dorm,” says my friend Tracy. A superlative mother, Tracy has taught her children to play cribbage, iron a dress shirt, and consider protein and fiber percentages when choosing their breakfast cereals. But that evening, while introducing her son to his new bedroom, she realized there are still some things she’s failed to demonstrate.
“They need to learn how to put sheets on their bed,” she says, describing a slapstick scene of mattress-wrestling that left her shaking her head. “Thank god he didn’t have the top bunk.”
We modern parents are great at teaching our kids the value of empathy, recycling, and broad bandwidth. But have we forgotten to school them in, say, soaping their skivvies?
A young woman I know admits she had no idea how to do laundry when she left home: “My mother always said she paid too much for my clothes to let me mess them up in the wash.”
Another says she’s flummoxed by grocery shopping: “I always forget to buy something important.”

Continue readingLife is Laundry
Rock Steady

The Art of the Come-On

Published on August 26, 2010

The perfect come-on. It’s the Holy Grail of dating, the enchanted key that unlocks the glorious gates of Eternal, On-Demand Lady Lovin’. Many seek it. Many fail.

“Shoot, I seem to have lost my phone number. Can I have yours?”

“If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together.”

“Did you clean your pants with Windex? Because I can practically see myself in them.”

The notion that a single pick-up line could win a woman’s heart, or even convince her to doff her Hanky Pankies for an exceedingly pleasant 37 minutes, is so far-fetched I’d swear it were a myth. Except that, occasionally, it works.

I was sitting outside a Denny’s recently, waiting for my family to arrive. A couple of young guys were walking in when one stopped and said, “Excuse me?”

I turned, expecting him to say that I’d dropped my car keys. Or forgotten to put on pants. You know, the usual.

“I just want to tell you, I think you’re really pretty,” he said.

And that was it. No creepy alligator smile. No goofy drunk-on-the-dance-floor body language. Just “you’re really pretty,” a shy grin, and he moseyed into the eatery.

Continue readingThe Art of the Come-On

Our Kids are Snitches

Published on August 19, 2010

Running for office requires a hardy hide. Detractors lob accusations as easily as jugglers hurling torches; politicians expect it. But Oklahoma judicial candidate John Mantooth is being pelted by a particularly painful source: his own grown daughter.

Jan Schill (formerly Mantooth) recently took out a newspaper ad that read, “Do Not Vote for My Dad!” on the grounds that he’s “NOT a good father, NOT a good grandfather,” and would make a lousy judge. She launched DoNotVoteForMyDad.com, linking to legal documents that call his integrity into question and describing a Christmas gift she once received from her pop — a box of chocolates infested with worms and weevils.

Eww. I don’t care if you vote for him, but do not under any circumstances invite this guy to a secret Santa swap.

The candidate claims his daughter is embittered by his ugly decades-gone-by divorce from her mother, which may be true. But it’s hard to ignore the shocking shriek of a child blowing the whistle on her own badly behaving begetter.

Cops heeded just such a shriek last week when a 13-year-old New York girl called 911 from the backseat of her mother’s swerving car to report that mom was driving drunk. The good news: Troopers hauled in the besotted mama before anyone was hurt. The bad: Dinnertime conversation at their house will be awkward for quite some time.

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Once Upon Two Mattresses

Published on August 12, 2010

Standing naked at the bedside, my man and I tear back the covers, anticipating ecstasy. We climb between the sheets and press together, limbs entwined. Our eyes close in mutual euphoria and we fall … rapturously … asleep. (That’s right, pervs. Asleep.)

It’s our cherished nightly ritual: tug comforter up to noses, whisper, “Don’t tell them where we are,” and huddle pod-like ’til morning. Our shared shuteye is a horizontal dance — not a provocative bop but a slumber rhumba. Throughout the night, we flop subconsciously apart and back together, finding ourselves reconnected by morning’s first light: feet stacked, knees overlapping, fingertips resting on shoulders.

So for us, the following news was a rude awakening: Almost a quarter of American couples sleep in separate beds or bedrooms, according to the National Sleep Foundation. And builders claim the demand for separate master suites is on the rise.

I thought his-and-hers bunks were a relic from the I Love Lucy days — and even then, a fake-out to placate easily titillated network execs. Who wants to trot off to dreamland solo when you’ve got a buddy to spoon?

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Family Travels

Published on August 5, 2010

You’ve got a lot of nerve calling this a vacation. I’m chasing sun-punchy children around a murky pool with a spray-can of SPF, wondering how the oldest will survive on his all-Doritos-and-no-sleep diet and why the youngest appears to be missing a shoe. Just one shoe, not both.

I took off work for this. I got a dog-sitter. I’m spending $20 a night just to park my car — the same car that’s strewn with minuscule pegs from the inexplicably explosive Travel Battleship game.

This is not hell. I understand: It’s family travel. It’s togetherness-away-from-home. It’s bonding-over-adventures and, more often, under adventures.

But it ain’t my idea of a vacation.

Where’s the cabana boy I was promised? Where’s the bottomless blended cocktail and crisply pressed sheets? Where’s the blessed silence? The divine stillness? The hallowed, hard-won sloth, for flip-flop’s sake?

Vacations used to be different for my husband and me: isolation, rejuvenation, coconut libations. Our idea of bliss is sitting somewhere sunny, doing less than nothing, and consuming our weight (pre-vacation weight, to be clear) in guacamole.

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