Change of A Dress

One recent Friday, Mary Katherine wore Emma’s favorite dress from last summer to her out-of-uniform day at school. The next day, Angie wore Mary’s new black-and-white dress to her graduation and all-night party. Also that night, Mary Katherine’s friend Sulia wore Angie’s dress from homecoming to her prom. The next day, Emma wore Mary Katherine’s new flowered dress to a graduation party, then drove home by 6:15 so Mary Katherine could change immediately into the dress for a party she was attending that evening. Emma changed clothes, handed over the frock, and went back to her party, having dropped by home just for the garment hand-off.

This sort of activity is a fairly regular occurrence here in the People’s Republic of Womenswear, a classless and stateless society with free access to all articles of wearable consumption. Marx would be so proud, although he would probably disapprove of the amount of leg these girls display as somehow not in keeping with proletarian standards.

Perhaps Marx would observe that it’s because these girls have ready access to cheap goods (thanks to Everyday People and Savers), but it’s certainly true that they don’t engage in a capitalistic insistence upon private ownership. Clothes, accessories and shoes are freely offered up to siblings and visitors; and I often come upon a guest preparing to leave our house in an entirely different ensemble than the one in which she arrived. Olivia, who is frequently the recipient of largesse from the Mary Katherine Lending Library of Fashion Finds, will often show up for a visit with a large sack of previously borrowed items that she’s returning. Mary Katherine loves this, since she’s usually forgotten about the stuff by then, and says it feels just like Christmas.

My children's friends, I find, have a much better working knowledge of their possessions than I do. I was recently working at home when I received a phone call from Olivia, on her way to school.  “I need a bowler hat and a silver glove for a Michael Jackson skit at the talent show today,” she informed me. “They’re in Mary Katherine’s closet, top shelf, left side. Leave them in a bag on the front porch.”  (The make it snappy was implied, not actually spoken). Doubtful, I rummaged around where she’d told me to look, and sure enough, there was the stuff. I would have sworn an oath that we didn’t own any silver gloves, so it’s a good thing that the People’s Republic of Minneapolis doesn’t require inventory-related oaths from citizens, especially where matters of costuming are concerned.

Angela is departing for Rome in just a few weeks. Emma will be spending next year studying in Beijing. I wonder what next year will bring, when the pool of borrowables shrinks dramatically. When I find Mary Katherine schlepping around the house in my oft-mended and way-too-big-for-her yoga pants, I’ll know she’s truly desperate to wear something, anything, that doesn’t belong to her. Power to the people, Comrade Mary Katherine.

Teenage Dream

They cost just two-and-a-half cents apiece (“Give me a nickel and then I’m packing up,” said the weary garage saler), but Clive and Patty were definitely one of the better purchases of my lifetime. Their ratio of joy-delivered-to-amount-invested far exceeds that of more luxurious pleasures. Who needs Big Stuff when you can own a couple bits of small, cheap plastic that make you smile?

The duo (pictured above) are clearly ‘60s era cake decorations. But, beyond that, their life is a mystery.  How old was the person celebrating the big day? Was it for a brand-new teen or a late-blooming eighteen-year-old? Were they used many times, for all the members of a large family, or did they only hear that off-key version of Happy Birthday and feel the thrilling flame of the candles, just once in their little plastic lives? Whatever their backstory, Clive and Patty aren’t talking.

They are emblems of the entry into adolescence, in the way that long-ago admen saw that age to be. Thus, they are depicted lounging in positions of exaggerated repose, as if the sudden surge of hormones has dissolved their spinal columns. They prop themselves on books, but of course the schoolwork is ignored for the greater thrill of the hottest piece of high-tech equipment – telephones with extra-long cords. Looking at them, I can almost hear the opening song from Bye Bye Birdie:

Hi, Nancy!

Hi, Helen!

What's the story, morning glory?

What's tale, nightingale?

Tell me quick about Hugo and Kim!

Nancy and Helen, what a pair of cutups. They’re probably in a nursing home now, drool dribbling onto their hospital gowns, but they sure loved to give each other a jingle and gab on the horn, back in the day. And remember those little glass bottles of Coke, Helen? Yes, Nancy, and also – record players! 

I’ve been thinking about teenagers lately because, as of Monday, I share living space with three of them. After years of obfuscation, upselling and bare-faced lying about her age, Mary Katherine finally turned 13; Emma reached the 16-year-old milestone the next day. Angela, our elder stateswoman, is exactly 16½ today.  

Everyone I know has an opinion about teenagers. I suspect that the very people who were once the absolute worst examples of “these kids today” are the ones who seem most incensed. It’s not a new story (Socrates said in 400 BC that “the children of today are tyrants.”) Still, I wonder if it’s true that the ones who acted up the most are the ones who are freaking out the loudest now.

I’ve watched several acquaintances get utterly gobsmacked when their little darlings hit that certain age. What’s funniest is when the person complaining about the behavior actually exhibits it. A mom will sarcastically decry teen sarcasm and eyerolling by sarcastically declaring, “And I LOVE the eye rolling,” while, at the same time, rolling her eyes. Hmmm.

For the moment, I’m observing this hysteria from a distant shore. Yes, I entered motherhood knowing I’d be adopting an adorable Chinese baby, but, unlike some of my pals, I think I did understand that she wouldn’t be four months old forever. Not to be all Stephen Covey here, but I began with the end in mind. Children grow up. They become teenagers. They leave. You live for a while more. Then you die. That’s pretty much the trajectory, and all the eyerolling in the world won’t stop it.

I’ve been known to publicly state that the absolute ideal age for a human being is four-and-a-half, especially the summer before kindergarten. If I could arrange for an endless stream of kids that age to drop by now and then, to bake cookies with me and mess around with watercolor paints, I’d be very happy. Also, I’d prefer some who still take naps, but that’s quibbling.

Much as I love an unspoiled type, I also enjoy teenagers. Everything is extreme, even dumb stuff like boredom, or sleep. And everything is possible, which is alternately terrifying and thrilling, for all of us. Perhaps it’s true that the worst offenders from the past are the strictest parents of today. I spent my teen years watching television and going to the library (yes, it was just as pathetic as it sounds, now that you mention it), so I can’t really imagine the Bruegelian bacchanals that my parent chums continually conjure up. 

And please, shut up about the texting, I want to tell my friends. You might as well say “davenport” and “icebox” and talk about the great mileage you got on your Model T. You are old. They are young. They have shinier toys than you did at that age, but you don’t have to act like their toys are from Satan. You’re just jealous that YOU couldn’t text in American Civics class, so clam up already.

These days, I’m not rolling my eyes and sarcastically saying, “I LOVE having three teenagers in the house.” I’m just saying it, and I mean it. Of course their adolescence won’t be like Clive and Patty’s, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. (What is the proper decoration for a teen-theme birthday cake these days? A giant thumb?) But they’ve made it this far, and they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. They’d be the first to tell you about my long list of flaws as a mother, but I feel pretty darn proud that I got them to this point without driving away with their carseat on the roof of my Honda, or letting them suffocate on the dry cleaning bag. Hurray for me, and for their keenly honed survival skills.

They’re here. They’re alive. And they’re teenagers. No eyerolling required.

Beauty Base Zero

It was Southwest High School’s Homecoming this week, and I kept tripping over School Spirit in the hallway. It took up a lot of space, energetic and otherwise. But Emma and Angie really managed to pull off the “dressed in purple and sporting war paint” look, which can be tricky, so I was impressed. Last night was the Homecoming Dance, so the stylin’ was flyin’ at the Upstairs Bathroom Command Center.

If this house were a magazine, it would be a fall-season combo issue of In Style, Glamour, plus a supersize spread of “Who Wore it Best?” pages. Here is the magazine this house would NOT be: Real Simple.

Anyone under 20 who walks through our doors leaves with a makeover. It’s like a movie montage – sweet girls arriving for sleepover, sultry starlets leaving the next morning, having Dad carry their sleeping bags because the manicure needs to stay fresh.

Our house is like a giant Beauty Blob that spreads over its inhabitants. It misses me, consistently (honestly? Have you seen me lately? I look more like Ma Joad every day), but it covers the girls something fierce.

This summer, we hosted a lovely student from Nanjing, who told us about her school’s strict appearance policy: no nail polish, no earrings, nothing fancy with the hairdos. Within 24 hours, the girl could say “mani pedi” in flawless English, and was already well-versed in the stylistic differences between flat irons and curling irons, with the clear understanding that the “Chi,” whatever it did, was an object of deep aspiration. She went back to China with a suitcase full of lip gloss and a completely corrupted attitude.

And while Emma had been seriously considering asking for a boy as an exchange student, I can’t quite see how that might have worked. The brassiere-shopping marathons, the long discussions of threading vs. plucking – I wonder how he would have stayed connected to the family when all anyone around here wants to do is try on shoes.

At The House on Maybelline Street, we remain committed to gleaming, glossy, luscious gorgeousness, the sort that’s never found in nature but has primary residence in LA. The commitment was in evidence on the Saturday afternoon of the homecoming dance. The shower started running around 3 p.m. I was leaving for 5 p.m. Mass when I finally caught sight of Emma. Ducking into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I noticed an array of tubes and bottles I didn’t even know we owned. Her skin has been on the planet for all of fifteen years; seriously, what does she need to remove from it, anyway? Based on the exfoliation lineup on display, I was surprised there was anything left of her.

But there she was, striding purposefully into the bedroom. (Emma is a purposeful strider by nature; even when she was learning to walk, she went fast, and in a straight line.) “I’m at Beauty Base Zero,” she announced, conveying the attitude that I might want to pick up a notebook and jot this down.

“Do tell more,” I said, on cue.

“Beauty Base Zero is the pure, raw state in which you must put yourself before you begin to add on layers of polish and makeup and whatever.”

“About this Zen state of pre-glamour,” I inquired. “Do the boys get themselves to Base Zero, too?”

The returned look, pitying, indicated that if the boys attending this dance had bothered to take a shower, she would consider herself lucky. Boys, I sensed, were not going to get a lot of time with Emma tonight, at least not more than the mirror.

She flipped her well-conditioned hair back with her perfectly exfoliated hand and sighed. “Only three hours to go,” she barked to her flawless reflection. “Time to get to work.”