Adulthood is a state of mind

I enjoy conversations with children and the elderly. I spend most of my time with people my age and being so similar, I am rarely startled by any interaction that occurs.

But older people tend to give me a broader perspective on the meaning that I attach to things and children tend to force me to narrow my perspective to explain the things that I take for granted.

Case in Point: At a family function the other day, that sweet little 5 year old in the red dress in the picture and I had a long conversation: debating the relative value of Dora the Explorer versus Spongebob Squarepants (Dora was the clear victor), discussing our favorite colors (both big fans of pink, purple and blue) and sharing secrets (her brother takes off her doll’s clothes to see how big their boobs are. Speaking of her brother, that little kid is the horniest 8 year old I have ever met – he would come up to my sister and I and bury his face in our chests! haha). But eventually, she asked me a question that I did not know how to answer:

“Laura, are you an adult?”

I opened my mouth to respond but then paused. That was a damn good question. And one that I had never really thought about. Am I an adult now? I remember that I used to think of myself as a girl, as a teenager, as a college student. But what about now? Has it become official? Do I feel like an adult?

So I said, “Yeah, I’m an adult.”

She laughs hysterically, “No, you aren’t!”

I get defensive.

“Yes, I am.”

“Hahahahaha. Nooooo. You aren’t an adult.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Ummm, 13?”

(Apparently she is seeing the same thing that bartenders do when they card me constantly)

“No, I’m 22. That’s not a teenager. See, I’m an adult. I even have my own apartment. I live there by myself, far away from my family. That makes me an adult.”

She wasn’t convinced. “What else?”

“Well, I have a job-sort of. I mean, they pay me money. I get a paycheck. And I have a car. And my own cat. And I pay bills. Wow, I really am an adult!”

“Ok” she says.

I had convinced her, and myself, a little bit.

Someone on TV joked the other day that “adolescence begins at 10 and lasts until 35.”

Maybe that is why I didn’t feel like an adult at 18 when I could vote, or at 21 when I could drink or now that I fully live on my own. These are all milestones but none have the satisfying authenticity of an end point to adolescence and the beginning of full-fledged adulthood. I still have the feeling that I am 16 years old and playing grown up. Will I ever feel like an adult? Do I want to?

It reminds me of that Seinfeld episode:

“What is this? What are we doing? What in God’s name are we doing?”
“What?”
“Our lives! What kind of lives are these? We’re like children. We’re not men.”
“No we’re not. We’re not men.”
“We come up with all these stupid little reasons to break up with these women.”
“I know, I know! That’s what I do. That’s what I do!”
“Are we going to be sitting here when we’re sixty like two idiots?”
“We should be having dinner with our sons when we’re sixty.”
“We’re pathetic, you know that?”
“Yeah, like I don’t know that I’m pathetic.”
“Why can’t I be normal?”
“Yes! Me too! I want to be normal. Normal!”
“It would be nice to care about someone.”
“Yes! Yes! Care!”
- Jerry and George, in “The Engagement”

In Praise of Difficult Women

For a long time, Angelina Jolie’s appeal escaped me. In the early “Girl Interrupted” days, I found her to be a little rough looking. But lately, I have been thinking that she is one of the most fascinating celebrity figures and a positive role model for women.

The most intriguing aspect of her public life is the shift in the media perception of her. Every couple of months, People magazine showcases beautifully shot family portraits of her and her impossibly gorgeous family. Not only is she a UN ambassador and associated with charities, but she is actually involved with the people and causes in developing nations. She lives globally, has an international family of adopted children and travels extensively. And she does it all while looking glamorous and having Brad Pitt wrapped around her little finger. Not too shabby.

But the best part is the unlikeliness of it all. She has the world media eating out of her hands, fighting over images of her family and lauding her for her good samaritan works. Yet, just a few years ago, she was portrayed in the media as a wild woman. Angelina Jolie is an incredibly open, sexually emancipated woman who has talked publicly about enjoying S&M, her lesbian relationship, her bisexuality, and having “lovers” as a single mother.

And let’s keep in mind that this is the woman who married Billy Bob Thornton. (Anyone who goes from Billy Bob to Brad is a freaking goddess in my book). This is the woman who wore a vial of Billy Bob’s blood around her neck. And this is the woman who tongue kissed her brother on the red carpet.

I admire her candor about sexuality. Yet, I find it so interesting that the media has now erased her sexual past in the stories (probably in order to sell her life with Brad to People subscribers in the conservative heartland). Somewhere after the “other woman” gossip in the Brad/Jen split and before the birth of her baby, Angelina Jolie moved from whore to madonna in the age old madonna/whore dichotomy.

And so I ask myself why they must sanitize her life, why a woman can’t have a past, why women can’t be accepted for their full, complicated lives and sexualities. Are they ignoring it because an independent, sexual woman is incongruent with motherhood and domesticity? Or, has society progressed so much that they aren’t actually ignoring her past so much as not defining her by it and allowing her to move on and reinvent herself? I wish it were the latter.

I write this in praise of Angelina Jolie and in praise of difficult women everywhere who do not settle, who do not apologize for their sexuality, who are not defined by boundaries – social mores or national borders, and who grow and change in a way that positively impacts the world.

Tick tock

Tick tock, tick tock.

What is that sound you ask?

My biological clock has officially started ticking.

The funny thing is that I don’t hear it, but my mom does.

I have recently realized that, for the first time in my entire life, if I were to tell my family that I am pregnant, they would not freak out and would actually be really happy.

It all started two days ago when we went Christmas shopping with my aunt and my grandma. My aunt made us go to Toys R Us so that she could buy Santa gifts for her three adorable children. Unless you are a child or have children under the age of 10, a trip to Toys R Us feels strangely pedophiliac or at least, awkward. So my mom and I were in the baby section and she started talking about all of the things we will have to buy for my baby.

“Ahem, my baby?”

She told me that she realizes that I may only have time for one, so it better be a girl and we will have to do that one right. Haha.

I told her that she was being presumptuous and there is a good chance that I will be a single, adoptive mother at 40.

She laughed that off. Enter Nan. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Laura’s baby”

“Ahem, my baby?”

Then my Nan proceeds to ask me when I plan on having my baby. Realizing that my protestations were futile, I decided to play along. I explained to Nan that the going wisdom is that a woman should either have children during grad school after they finish classes or wait until she has a tenure track job and is pretty well settled in that. So I told her that we are looking at either 3 or 13 years.

And then my Nan says, “I don’t know if I’ll be around in 13 years. I might be in 3.”

Awwwwww, shit.

Now my decision to put off children doesn’t just affect me. I have the power to decide whether my grandmother, my precious, sweet, love her like a mother- grandma will get to meet her first great-grandchild or not, based on my selfish timing. Talk about feminist guilt.

I thought the subject matter would be dropped. I thought we were all just momentarily high on Toys R Us joy and talking hypothetically about far off distant possibilities.

But no. My mom brings it up again tonight. We are watching television and she casually mentions during a commercial break that she is going to start a “hope chest” for my future child.
A hope chest traditionally has been filled with household items given to a bride by her mother as she starts her domestic life. Since that does not apply to me, her hope is going right to the next generation.

I said, “that’s sweet, mom.” I guess she has also decided that instead of saving for my sister’s college or retirement, she is starting a DisneyLand fund for my kids. Awesome.

After the hope chest thing, we started talking about the realities of my situation and how I am going to add my own twist to these adorable procreation traditions. We started discussing genetic testing for gender, egg harvesting, and the possible use of sperm donors. The thing I love about my mom is that she is the perfect blend of tradition and modernity.

But in all of these conversations about “my baby,” no one has once mentioned marriage or finding a man. Apparently single motherhood is implicit in my baby plans.

Tick tock – they just want a baby.

Home again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

I am back in my hometown of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Every time I return, it is a bit strange but this has been the strangest return yet. I haven’t been home since August. My house looks different. The proportions are all off. The toilet shrunk, the windows are so much bigger. People eat my almonds (they are mine! I get very possessive of food). Family people are everywhere. The talking never stops.

Ever since I left after high school, I am always surprised by my family when I come back. For the first 18 years, they were all just life figures – not people I really examined or analyzed. They were just there and I loved them uncritically.

I still love them, but I am far more critical now. Or just different. I am definitely the pomegranate in the apple family tree. Now, I look at them and see actual people, situated in class, gender, and geography.

My family is very small-town, country infused, semi-hick people. My 17 year old sister is a living manifestation of the movie Mean Girls. She doesn’t seem to have an ironic viewing of the film; rather, it is a playbook for her life. Sooo fetch. Or whatever. And my 13 year old brother seems to be slightly racist.

Who are these people? How did I grow up in the same family, same place, and turn out to be so liberal and independent. I am definitely the black sheep. It’s the reverse of the scenario of growing up in a high achieving, well-educated, professional family where the black sheep is the free spirit who travels in a van and sells art he makes out of dixie cups.

The thing is that I am just as bizarre to them. I told my grandma and my aunt that I got an A in the class Constructing Sexuality. They smiled politely but couldn’t bring themselves to say “good job.” I am convinced that no one in my family would be entirely shocked if I were to one day disclose that I have been living as a high end prostitute for the past five years.

And I am the one who will have books entitled, “Slut!” “Promiscuities” and “Bitch” under the Christmas tree. People don’t know why I am going to school for “social work” because that is just “so depressing.” They think that a doctorate means I will one day be able to prescribe their meds at a discount. My life doesn’t make much sense to them.

But honestly, they are the best people you could meet. I have been around smart people, ambitious people, rich people, but it is kind of nice to be around people who like you because they’ve known you since birth and whoever you turned out to be would have been equally ok with them.

The Holiday

Some friends and I went to see The Holiday last night for some chick flick action.

The movie was written and directed by Nancy Meyers whose previous work includes “What Women Want” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”

She is one of the most successful women in Hollywood and tends to write movies that appeal to women.

And it works. I know that I’m a sucker for them.

When women go to these movies, we laugh, we cry, we empathize, we relate, and in the end, we are left with a mixture of dissatisfaction with our own lives and hope for a future just like the movies.

After the movie, I said that Meyers writes women really well. But after thinking about it for awhile, I realize that she writes for women really well.

I have noticed recently that media representations of the modern woman, especially in all of the “female” shows that girls go crazy over like Grey’s Anatomy and Sex and the City have very similar characters. Meyers has perpetuated these characterizations in The Holiday.

Above all, the media’s modern woman is smart, attractive, and very successful. Meredith, the doctor, Carrie, the columnist, Amanda, the movie bigwig, Iris, the columnist. (see the pattern already?)

These women are wealthy, fashionable and professionally accomplished. So what is wrong?

They don’t have a man. Correction, they actually have tons of men, but not the one they want.
Because the ones they want are the McDreamys, the Mr. Bigs, the Jaspers– men who are aloof, ambivalent, hurtful, arrogant, incommunicative – all of which exacerbates insecurity. And somehow the insecurity makes him all the more undeniably attractive and sexually irresistible

And these portrayals send the message that smart and capable women need love to be difficult. They need the assholes for the challenge of it all. They can be successful but not independent. Accomplished but not complete. Fulfilled but not whole. Because somewhere along the way, we are still dependent on romance. Not love, not dependability, not Mr. Nice guy. We want tear your clothes off, dramatic, passionate, full of struggle romance with the unattainable.

I have met so many people in their 20’s who refuse to be tied down to one categorization. Instead, they say that they are homo-flexible, poly-amorous, and bi-curious. But I wonder if perhaps we are actually a generation of selfish masochists fed by the romance machine of movies and television.

Because in these shows, the women are as strong and powerful in their jobs as they are flawed and fragile in love. And in these fairy tale stories of the 21st century, that drunk, random one night stand calls you back and falls in love with you. And if you are sexually empowered enough and patient enough, Jude Law will show up at your door and be “better than perfect” and all of your neurotic insecurity will be resolved.

Because that is the point of these stories: you may have to sleep with a lot of frogs, you may be dissatisfied with the way too nice Aidans and Finns and have to dump them, you may be single until you are 35 but if you are patient and have gumption, The One will find you. The one who will choose you, who won’t string you along (or at least, come through in the end), the unattainable one you managed to attain.

At the end of the movie, I heard a girl a few rows back say, “That was my life.” And throughout the movie, I thought to myself, “Gosh, I am exactly like Cameron Diaz. Ohmygod, that Kate Winslet scene is just like me!” And then I realized that no, in fact, I am Laura. And as much as I like to think that I am the leading lady of my life, I don’t think that I want to wait around for a leading man to choose me. I don’t want to wait 15 years for someone to love me in spite of the fact that I am too selfish to be loved. I don’t want to be strung along because I’d rather feast on scraps than starve for attention. I don’t want to be defined by the man (or lack thereof) with whom I am romantically involved.

I don’t want those things at all. I want to be a smart, successful, accomplished, independent woman.

So why did I absolutely love that movie so much?

It’s All Over

Takin’ It Easy

Yay! The first semester of grad school is OVER!

Bah Humcat

My neighbors are very into Christmas. When I think of neighbors, I only think of this couple because I have not met any of the other people in my building (except for the hippie who hit my car, but I choose not to associate her with my conception of neighbor).

But yes, they are very nice and live a life of seemingly idyllic domesticity. Woman, man, 2 perfect cats and a christmas light covered (metal)picket fence.

I compare myself to them all the time. I check out what’s happening on their porch to see what I should be doing. When I moved in, I saw their welcome mat. So I bought a welcome mat. I saw their amazing display of flora and fauna and I bought a flower pot. I saw their grill and aware of my limitations, decided to stick with my George Foreman.

But my welcome mat doesn’t say welcome and my flowers became a testament of death for a month until I threw them away but kept the pot of dirt out for display.

One weekend afternoon, I was sitting on my plastic lawn chair on the porch, reading Durkheim with Whiskers at my feet when the lady-half of my neighbors came out, probably to water her healthy, still living plants. She noticed Whiskers and became excited by her beauty. She told the man-half to come outside.

He came out and she exclaimed to him, “Look, look at her. Isn’t she so pretty?”

He looked at me and we exchanged an awkward glance until the woman said, “The cat.”
He looked at Whiskers and said, “Yes.” Then went back inside.

And that has been my sole interaction with them the entire semester. But keep in mind that these are the neighbors I consider myself closest to.

A couple weeks ago, I pulled into my parking spot, having returned from one or another of my depraved activities and noticed that they had put out quite a Christmas light display. And my first gut reaction was, “Blech.” Maybe I have become cynical but their couple cuteness coupled with their christmas cuteness was just too much to take.

And last night, I noticed that they have put out an entire lit christmas tree on their porch. This has gone too far.

Whiskers and I are over Christmas. We will just curl up in a ball and not feel inferior to our neighbors. Well, one of us will.

Who wore it better?

So this is pretty amusing to me: You know how Flava Flav has taken over VH1 and there are so many reincarnations of shows connected to this man. First, Surreal Life, then Strange Love then Flavor of Love and now one of the female contestants from Flavor of Love has her own show. I don’t really understand the details, but they don’t matter anyway because they are all really stupid shows.

The point is that the girl in the spin off is wearing MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME DRESS in her promo photos!!! It is hilarious. And kind of sad that VH1 only gave her a wardrobe budget to buy $30 dresses from Wet Seal! Ahahahahaha.

Ok, photo evidence:

Here is Flava’s girl, they call her “new york”

And here is me on halloween, they call me “indiana”

So who wore it better?

Well, she is definitely playing up the hot leopard print in a cheap dress look whereas I go for the kittenish cute, I’m not spending a lot on Halloween because I will only wear this dress once as a joke look.

Guess it depends what you are going for….

Full of piss and vinegar

“How ya keepin’ yaself?”“Full a piss an’ vinegar.”

-John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath

The great thing about uprooting yourself and moving to a new place is that you are freed from the constraints of the past. There is an opportunity to explore new facets of personality. No one expects you to be a certain way and all of the newness inspires a fresh manifestation of self.

I have been in Bloomington for almost four months now, and I can honestly say that I have never been more content in my entire life.

I obviously had no idea what to expect when I got here, but everything has exceeded my expectations – the town, the sociology program, the people. But perhaps the most shocking change has been in myself.

I have gotten really FEISTY.
Uninhibited.
completely vivacious

In fact, I might even say that I am full of piss and vinegar these days.

(piss and vinegar = “full of youthful energy and vitality”)

You see, for most of my life, I was pretty quiet. I didn’t want to be noticed. I hoped that I would be liked, but the bottom line was that my main desire was not to be the center of attention or be put on the spot or judged in any way. The ultimate goal was to just blend in. So, I was fine with being ignored because it meant that I was safe. I was completely inhibited, almost to the point of paralysis.

Over the years, I definitely have broken out of that shell. I went through a phase of “acting out” in high school, mainly to prove to myself that I wasn’t boring. And I have always had moments of being bubbly and outgoing. But overall, I liked to keep things low key and my immediate world small.

But in the past year, I have noticed symptoms of this untamed part of me coming out. When I was in a relationship last year, I was very direct, honest, confrontational and emotional. I couldn’t subdue it. And it ultimately submerged us.

And now this “it,” this piss and vinegar is overtaking my life. For all the times in my life that I didn’t raise my hand in class when I knew the answer, or when I didn’t talk back to my mother, when I retreated to my room with books, or when I constantly, desperately sought out rules so that I could follow them, when I sucked it up, toed the line, lived passively, didn’t ask for what I wanted, blushed when a guy talked to me, shrunk in the corner, held my tongue, over-analyzed, never asked him out and doubted myself and my right to claim my desires…..

For all those times, I have exploded into this demanding, honest, overwhelming, no holds barred, take no prisoners approach to life.

I admit, it’s a little much at times. At worst, it has made me a little too brash, condescending, critical, blunt, impatient, and selfish. Perhaps, even reckless. And I am working to temper those negative qualities while keeping this life force.

Because this is living. This is what life should be.

Fearless passion.

Every single aspect of myself craves it.

Fearless.

Passion.

Passion is not being afraid to feel. Feel it all. Feel the highs of being spontaneous, of telling the God-awful, stream of consciousness truth. Freak them out with it. Be unabashedly honest about what you want. And then go after it. This is authenticity. This is fearlessness.

I completely accept every emotion that I have. And I accept its intensity. I ride the waves of it. God, there is nothing better than being excited about something or somebody. This is passion. How I wasted all those years of denying feelings, telling myself to moderate, to protect myself, that I shouldn’t feel that way, that it won’t work out so I better be cautious. Passion is extreme and it is rare. If you can tap into passion, cultivate it. It makes life so much more fun.

So, fearless passion, it is. It’s a paradox: with maturity, I feel younger. I was so tightly wound, going through life in the fetal position. That’s no way to live! I left the uterus 22 years ago. Life should be lived like a 4 year old – running around with open arms, talking non-stop, crying when it hurts, demanding what you want, and days spent in playful exploration.

And these are the lessons I have learned in the past four months of fearless passion:

I would rather be rejected than ignored.

I would rather ask the questions now than be told the answers later.

It is ok to be “too much”

I am resilient. There is no such thing as too far or too hard. It may sting in the moment, but you bounce back, you move on, everything will be ok.

The more honest I am, the more deceitful people come into my life.

Sometimes people don’t want to hear your truth. Maybe what you want isn’t what they want. Better to find that out immediately than be dishonest and neither of you get what you want.

Patience and understanding are crucial to loving people, yet you can still love people even when you are impatient and don’t understand.

Demand better. Don’t compromise yourself. Don’t settle.

If you are being treated poorly, don’t put up with it. You have the right to express your needs and be treated well. The best person to look out for you is you. If someone only brings doubt and insecurity to your truth, perhaps that person is more of a drain than an asset to your life.

I am not sure how much longer this piss and vinegar phase will last. I’m sure I will calm down eventually. It’s exciting in the sense that I feel really alive and present and raw, but passion is hard to sustain and I am not always sure that I am on the right side of the fine line between fearless and reckless. And even though I am learning a lot, I have not always been met with successful results. Other people don’t live and feel at 200 mph. So I hope this wild bursting out teaches me a lot and then I am able to be more reasonable and not be so overwhelming. Or maybe I will just start running with a faster crowd.

But until then, I am going to savor the verve, live with abandon, and bask in this enthusiasm that is my life.

Sniffles

Well, it was bound to happen. I am officially ill just days before the big Theory exam weekend. Now with this compromised immune system and mind altering cold medication, how will I ever show Tom Gieryn my heretofore dormant theoretical brilliance?

Who knows? Maybe being heavily medicated will help my cause.