Category: Columns

Sex, politics, fashion and everything else a Gen-X everygal loves to dish about.

Joy is Cheap

Published on February 26, 2009

They warned us: Before long, we’d all feel the effects of this recession. Now it’s happened to me. I haven’t lost my job. No evicted family members have shown up at my door. In truth, the financial crisis hasn’t yet walloped my wallet.

But it’s messing with my mind. Feeling the economy slowly constrict around our national lifestyle, I find myself in a spend-not panic: Would you like to see the dessert menu? Sigh, better not. Valet parking? Don’t be ridiculous.

Call me a brat, but it starts to piss me off. Is this the end of life’s small pleasures? A friend of mine relinquished her daily Starbucks cappuccino (extra shot of espresso, single pump of caramel) in favor of boring, home-brewed joe in a thermos.

“How bad is it,” she lamented, “when a girl can’t even have a little cup of fancy-pants coffee?”

But I had a recent revelation while driving my car and listening to an old song, appropriately, by Squeeze. I was blissing out on those endorphins that come from singing loudly to ’80s music when my guilt-check clicked on: This feels too good. Is it naughty? Is it wasteful, extravagant, thriftless? Am I somehow squandering money that, as soon as next week, could stand between my children and a bowl of pork-flavored ramen noodles?

And then a shocking jolt of relief: No. This euphoria? This is free.

The Post-Baby Bop

Published on February 19, 2009

It’s the great irony of having children: The very act that launches you into parenthood is difficult to achieve — ever again — once your kid is born.

It’s like nature looks at you and says, “What? You got what you came for. Find another way to jazz up your evenings.”

And it happens to everyone: No matter how much your boudoir tends to bounce before Baby comes along, it slows to a sort of sad, silent stillness (sigh) once the diapers start flying.

“I can’t think of a single couple I know who hasn’t been affected by this issue,” says sex therapist Ian Kerner, a New York husband and father of two.

But he swears there’s hope. In his new book Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parents’ Guide to Getting It On Again, Kerner and co-author Heidi Raykeil say there’s no reason to throw your libido out with the baby’s bath water. “It really is possible,” they write, “to do the hokey pokey and keep up the hanky panky.”

What causes the sexual fizzle between new parents? Exhaustion. Stress. Mom’s hormones, and her tendency to devote every amp of energy and inkling of empathy to the helpless, gurgling humanoid in the bassinet, leaving none for poor, pent-up Dad.

Stud or Schlub: Lust on the Red Carpet

Published on February 12, 2009

There are certain things a woman is supposed to have accumulated by this point in her life. A signature perfume. A conversation-stopping potluck recipe. And a Hollywood hunk of choice.

I have none of these things, and I spend little time fretting over it. But I must admit that each year at Academy Awards time, I grapple with some shame that I have no favorite man candy to ogle on the red carpet.

I tend to watch the awards shows surrounded by opinionated gal pals and, for the most part, I can holler tasteless comments with the best of them. We gasp and grouse over actresses’ necklines, waistlines, and panty lines. My specialty is the bitchy accessory crack: e.g., “What is that in her hair, a Krispy Kreme?” or “Earrings or necklace, honey, not both.”

It’s when my friends start hooting and gyrating over the bow-tied, limo-emerging actors — bedroom-eyed Clooney, swollen-lipped Pitt, square-jawed Brosnan — that I find myself bored and heading to the kitchen for more artichoke dip.

The Dirty Truth

Published on February 5, 2009

Freeze! This is the parent police. Drop your Windex and come out with your rubber-gloved hands up.

For years you sponge-happy, spore-hunting moms have shamed the rest of us with your spotless counters and sparkling floors. We don’t know how you did it, you fiendish scrub nuts, but your houses — your very children, even — were always cleaner than ours, ever implying (silently, so silently) that our families were destined to be dingy.

But you can put down your Pledge cans, ladies. Game’s over. Those of us who define “cleaning” as “aiming a Dustbuster” refuse to feel inferior anymore. Science is on our side, baby. SCIENCE!

Researchers are saying that a little dirt in the home, on the hands, or even — gasp! — in your kids’ mouths won’t hurt them. In fact, it’s good for them. It turns out that ingesting the bacteria, viruses, and even (just go with me on this one) intestinal worms found in everyday dirt actually strengthens children’s immune systems, giving them “practice” for more serious germs.

Scientists call this the “hygiene hypothesis.” I call it the “Hallelujah-I’m-not-a-failure finding.” It’s already changed my life.

The Family That Rocks Together…

Published on January 29, 2009

There’s anticipant silence as the guitarist plugs in. The whine and screech of feedback. The crisp rapping of two drumsticks as a voice barks, “One! Two! Three! Four! …”

And the rocking, ladies and gentlemen, has begun.

Only it’s not a concert stage or even a smoky nightclub; it’s a garage. And it’s not a leather-clad band of groupie-dogged rock gods; it’s a dude and his dad. Or his cardigan-sporting, axe-shredding mom.

It happens secretly in homes across America — not in silence, mind you, but in seclusion. From the outside, these folks look like normal families, earnestly attempting to fill the age-appropriate roles expected of them: goof-off kid, incommunicative teen, sedate and sober parent.

But inside — perhaps during the unscheduled hour between homework and dinner or on an unscheduled Sunday afternoon — they’re gathering around pianos and bongos, picking up harmonicas and tambourines, pulling out the weathered old Stratocaster, and making music.

Sometimes it’s a symphony. Sometimes a cacophony. But the sound, I’m told, is the least important product of the Family Jam.

Sitters: The Last Stand

Published on January 22, 2009

It was disappointing news. Crushing, even.

Our first great babysitter in years — the kind who’s like family, only smarter — announced she was moving across the country, thereby annihilating our beloved Date Night.

While grim, the news wasn’t really surprising. I have lousy luck with sitters.

There was Poor Judgment Girl, who decided to “rescue” our “lonely” dog from our backyard one day while we were gone and bring him to a 100-decibel kegger at her apartment. When we went to fetch him, she was too drunk to come to the door.

Then there was Blatant Liar Guy. We said he and the kids could build Legos, make sundaes, play Star Wars Monopoly — anything as long as the TV stayed off. We left; he plopped the boys in front of the tube and told them not to rat him out. They did.

Let’s not forget Hormonally Tormented Gal, who said she was taking my toddler to the zoo. Turns out they were at her boyfriend’s house, where my son watched Bob the Builder while the couple, um, coupled in the next room. Ick! Aack!

And I never did forgive poor Multi-Tasking Lady, who did her laundry at our house and left her lacy thong underwear in our dryer. When I found it, plagued by postpartum paranoia, I accused my husband of having an affair with the sitter. “Yeah,” he said, laughing louder than I appreciated, “we had wild sex and then … oh, baby … we did laundry!”

Jogging Mania

Published on January 15, 2009

This town is a runner’s rapture: Ribbons of scenery-skirted sidewalks, a surplus of sunshine and the shotgun start of an organized race being fired nearly every time you lace up your ASICS.

Yes, folks here like to huff and lope over endless miles of hills and plains. Glistening provocatively in tiny nylon shorts, they enjoy opening up the throttle on their miraculous, machine-like bodies and blissing out to the meditative rhythms of their feet and heart thumping in tandem, their breath chugging staccato, allegrissimo…

All of which begs the question, I think:

What is wrong with you people?

Long have I applauded and issued wow-good-for-yous when friends — in increasing numbers — tell me they’ve taken up running and are training for marathons and triathlons. It’s good to get healthy, after all. To have hobbies. To set goals.

But no more. It’s starting to feel like a plot. A conspiracy to overthrow good sense, to punish ourselves and to make us all have those weird bulbous calfs. And I just won’t be a party to that.

Just Say 'Know' to Teen Sex

Published on January 8, 2009

Grown-ups spend a lot of time worrying that the next generation is sexually stupid. “Today’s teens,” the cries begin, and they end with the words “wild,” “in such a hurry,” or “setting themselves up for heartache …”

They’re not unfounded, these accusations. But they were true of us, too. And they were true of our mothers, grandmothers, and — sorry for the mental image — great-grandmothers. Sex is like driving. Before you slide into the driver’s seat and take your foot off that brake, you don’t really know anything useful about it. And the education can be terrifying.

My friends learned the hard way. “I didn’t anticipate how emotionally overwhelming the experience would be,” said one.

“I wish I’d been better educated about STDs,” confessed another.

Me? My first time was slow and sweet, passionate and perfect — until my mother walked in on us. Wish I were kidding.

Pop Goes the Kids' Bop

Published on December 25, 2008

Wiggle me this: Why does kids’ music have to suck so badly?

Fellas, Please! Don't Go!

Published on December 18, 2008

Genital shrinkage? Starshine ponders news that the male gender is, well, dwindling.