the Talk

So I had the talk yesterday with my ten year old.  Yes, that talk.  We were in the car coming from the pediatrician where he’d just had a tetanus shot after a run in with a rusty nail, en route to the vet with our older cat who’d had a run in with her younger male sibling that left her with a pus oozing wound, an unfortunate need to vomit over the entire house and a bad attitude.  As the cat growled and screeched in the carrier, Jack and I rode to our vet, a great guy who unfortunately moved twenty minutes away a couple of years ago but is so nice he’s worth the trek.  The ride gave us a chance to chat and it turned out to be substantially more interesting than I could have imagined given the pus-y pissy pussy in the back. So there we are, me and Jack, cruising down the highway, when he says, immediately after a somewhat mundane discussion about why he refuses to wear his yellow raincoat,  ”Mom, you know how you tried to tell me where babies come from and I didn’t want to know.  Well now I have some questions.”  I kept both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and tried to stop the sudden rush of blood to the head.  I had, in fact, about eight months before, tried to have “the TALK.”.  Jack was home from school, pseudo sick during a period of malingering that ended when he made the serious misstep of pretending to lose vision in one eye.  He lost the fire for faking while sitting in the pediatric neurological opthamologist with numbing drops in his eyes and teary parents, imagining brain tumors.  Who knew, in his world of ten year old fakers,  that losing vision was ANY different from a belly ache?  On the day I decided to talk about where babies come from, he was perched in front of the boob tube, eating a quantity of cereal that would belie the claim of severe gastric distress and I thought, what the heck, if he can eat that much cereal, well, let’s just make something of this day.  I got out the book that covered this topic, one that my mother had actually used for me and my siblings.  I find it comforting that in a world of endless changes,  where babies come from has changed not one iota since caveman days and before, even if the advent of Victorias Secret, transexxuals and deadly STDs has made the whole production somewhat more complicated.  So there I am, well worn book in hand  proposing a chat about where babies come from.  Jack stopped chewing cereal, looked skeptical and, for the first time that day, actually a bit sick.  But he nodded.  I began with the flowers and their stamens, moved on to pictures of tadpole like sperm and jelly doughnut eggs, followed by wrestling frogs and just prior to the doggie style doggie style, stopped at chickens who looked for all the world like they were playing leapfrog.  Even more than the previous page’s frogs.  At that point, Jack, eyes now truly feverish, closed the book and said he needed a nap.  That’ll teach him.  You may not start sick, but I can get you there.

And that was the last time we dealt with that.  I had begged Rich to take him into the garage and do the talk.  Rich assured me he would, once he got around to it.  Which was NEVER.  And look, I do think ten is a bit young for this conversation even though the experts recommend eight.  I, personally one to often ignore experts, would have delayed oh, say, until he was thirty and getting his own place, but Jack has some very sophisticated pals who have known the nuts and bolts of procreation for a long time.  The only fight I’ve ever had with my friend Martha, the mother of Jacks best friend,  was when, at four, she told her son EVERYTHING, just because he asked. To me, that’s like dating Claude the local homeless guy, just cause he asked.  Sweet, yeah, but not advisable.  And, thus, because Henry ASKED,  I had dropped sweet  Jack in the sweet little nursery school classroom  with his sweet pal Henry who swaggered in armed with this potent time bomb of bizarre info.  I am unclear on the connection between autism and vaccinations but make no mistake, I think this kind of penis/vagina info at that age could result in permanent catatonia.  And I thought the grin on Henry’s face was about Legos.  I freaked when, once outside the school, Martha told me that Henry was now the possesor of the penis/vagina info, info that I, at forty eight,  still find hard to fathom even though I have, indeed, been an active participant and have the children to prove it.  She calmly explained to me that she and George were parents who believed in telling the truth when asked a reasonable question.  I shrieked that I was a parent who preferred to elude any less than tidy truth, particularly those involving penis’s and vagina’s,  at all costs at least until children could shave and buy their own dinner in four star restaurants.  And that there were no reasonable questions involving four year olds and the penis in the vagina thing.  It all eventually died down but, six years later,  I was reasonably sure that Jack did, in fact, have the info and I feared his version was not accurate.

So here we were, travelling the Parkway at sixty, screeching cat in the back seat, eyes on the road and Jack with some questions.  It was as good a time as any.  He turned his precious ten year old eyes my direction and said “Okay, mom.  First question.  Ketchup, pickle, mustard?”.  I had no idea what the fuck he meant. And, as I explained before, I have participated in the penis/vagina thing so I was confused.   “Huh?” I said articulately.  ”You know, mom, ketchup, pickle, mustard.”  It became clear that I was screwed because my sex talk dilly dallying had allowed him to move so far beyond the certainly odd penis/vagina connection and into the land of the truly bizarre, although that reference to hamburger companions made me more than curious.  And concerned.  ”Jack”, I said, “I gotta be honest.  I have NO idea what you are talking about.”  ”Mom, c’mon.  You know. (look of disbelief) What are those?(look of extreme disbelief) What are ketchup, pickle and mustard ” (Look clearly translated to mean: “you idiot, you’re trying to keep me from the smutty truth. But I can take it”).  My mouth was now hanging open in dull confusion and I was fantasizing about the enormously expensive vet visit that was, oh, shoot, another eight miles away.  I shook my head.  ”I don’t know ,sweetie.  I don’t know what you mean.”  He paused, turned to look seriously at me and said. “You know, Mom. Ketchup, pickle, mustard.  Condiments.”

Thank god we had this talk.   Condoms.  It’s condoms.  God, the embarrassment potential at the hands of his male pre-teen pals because of word confusion was enormous.  Condiments.  Condoms.  You can just see the poor little guy standing there nodding knowingly and about to make a fast food reference that would guarantee years of no one to sit with at lunch except for the other children who thought that ketchup, pickle and mustard were part of a romantic experience.  Phew.  And we’re were off and running on “the Talk”.  I explained the “whats”, the “hows” and the “what fors” only touching on STD’s for fear of wounding my boy for life.  I think I made a good case of the clap sound almost like a romantic sinus infection.  But there was a relief in having this chat.  That could have been embarrassing down the road, say, when, my boy,  preparing to lose his virginity at thirty six has to stop by the the Grand Union pickle aisle first.  And the mustard.  My god.  Downright painful.  The other questions were about Maxi Pads and vasectomies (this one prompted by running in to a friend in the supermarket parking lot, while Jack helped load the car, who was near tears because her husband had gone to the doc for the old snip/snip and had balked at the last minute and come home intact. Don’t get me started on the difference between a tiny nick to the balls and pushing an eight pound moving thing out of a canal half as small as a paper towel tube, attached to your body and surrounded by sensitive nerve endings, over a period of several hours.  NO patience. ).  This talk with Jack was amazing.  I don’t know if I have ever been as proud of myself as a mother (other than, perhaps pushing the moving eight pound thing through the half size paper towel tube).  We had a good chat, I stayed calm and was, if I do say so myself, quite articulate about things hard to be articulate about.  Jack didn’t turn red or even look confused.  He just wanted to know some answers and he knew when he was ready to hear them.  He listened and sighed with relief when I think he realized that condiments had no part of romance even if penis/vagina contact did.  I’m sort of with him.  The thought of pickles in your bed, ohh, and relish?…..anyway.  While I was proud of myself, I was even prouder of Jack.  Brave boy, calmly taking advantage of some quiet time (save for the screaming cat) to ask something he wondered about. And really listening.

It got me thinking about all of us.  Perhaps we all need to ask more questions.  When things don’t seem right to us, rather than jumping to judgement in our confusion, or boarding the bandwagon of popular opinion, we need to ask questions.   And lots of them.  Some big.  Some small.  Can you leave your kids in the car while you run into the grocery store?  If you don’t tell a friend she looks fat, is that lying.  Does executing terrible criminals make sense or does it make us worse people?  When does life begin and how do you reach a common ground when some people believe that abortion really is killing little babies?  Why is Geithners plan the wrong one or the right one?  Is Blue really the new Black?  Or is Brown?  Or, as I suspect, is black always going to be the new black?  Why does my hairdresser, after years of fine work, suddenly give me a purple lowlight?  What if the one I love isn’t really cold, but I’m just a bitch?  Is a romance in cyberspace cheating?  How do you take care of your parents when they’re old.  Why do I have to wear a yellow raincoat that looks like it’s for babies?   You can go on for ever.  And I think we should.  Talk to each other about all sorts of things, try to see how the other one thinks. See who knows what.  Henry knows a lot.  And acknowledge that you only know what you feel.  And that it may not always be right.  Just spend some time asking and answering.  Go for a ride with someone you like (I recommend leaving the screeching, pus covered cat at home) and find out something you want to know.  And something they want to know.  I think we’ll all be better off.   And stand less chance of spending large amounts of time in the ketchup aisle before a hot date.

PS.  Okay, can we talk about my Pus-y, pissy, pussy line?  And here’s some smart people talking about how to tell your kids about sex.  Just wing it.  You’ll be fine.(something pertinent)

Naked Face

Okay, it’s 6:54 in the morning and I have nothing better to do than sit here and look through a two week old People Magazine that features a bunch of really pretty actresses with “no makeup”.   The deal is one I’m sure you are familiar with. The magazine strips these lovelies of their makeup and lays them out, blemishes and all, for the rest of us to see.  Weird, though, I never see any actual blemishes.  Or bags under their perfect youthful eyes.  Or the slightest sign of a crows foot.  In fact, almost no sign that their faces might ever move or see the light of day.  Hmmm.  Being the sleuth that I am, I found a surprisingly similar story from a few years ago titled  ”It Takes Guts to Take it Off.  Who Dares to go Bare”.  After years of experience with beauty and gossip magazine reading, I know that this is a common sport.  The sport of asking beautiful young women who only just discovered the benefits of makeup four years ago when they stopped needing Clearasil to appear without their makeup.  They think we like it.  And maybe we do.  Apparently it’s a risky thing, the magazines always point out, appearing without makeup.  But they will do it, particularly if their publicists think it is a good idea and if they have a movie or tv show they need to get people interested in.  Or if their careers are failing.  Nothing gets people more interested in you than appearing with naked face in a national publication even if it is so SCARY for the star.  I guess it’s somewhat similar to asking me and my crowd to strip to their underwear, clench their butt cheeks and allow a photo to be taken from behind.  Hard to say a joyous “yes” to.  But I suppose if our publicist thought it was a good move?  So who dared?  The answer is several really beautiful woman well below the age of forty who may in fact be barefaced but are so beautifully and dramatically lit that it’s next to impossible to tell.  Check em out.So I looked long and hard at these women “daring to go bare” and thinking of my own clenched butt cheeks, wondered what this was supposed to tell us?  What were we supposed to get from these pics?  Were any of us really stupid enough to believe that these woman, or in many cases, girls, were really au natural.  Trust me, I used to be on TV.  My husband is a cameraman. These women may not have on any make up.  But these women have something going on and that’s called lighting.  And retouching.  HEAVY retouching.  Truth.  Most of us will never be as pretty as these women, as gifted in the bone structure department and most of us will only have our picture snapped by family members at family functions, usually from an unpleasant angle with our mouths hanging slightly open, a double chin and the only lighting coming from the sun.  And no one will ask us to go without makeup, even our spouses. who used to claim we looked better that way.  In face, when I do go without makeup, someone always assumes I’m sick and I have to assure them that I feel fine, I’m just “daring to go bare”.  This usually prompts a blank stare and a quick move on down the supermarket aisle.  Look, the reason these women look like movie stars even without makeup is because they ARE movie stars.  And beautiful one’s at that.  No one is asking Seth Rogen to “Dare to go Bare” although I suspect he always does.   These women, in all their barenaked glory have been lit to high heaven.  The amount of light on their faces, bleaching them smooth and unspotted would, in a normal world, would require tapping into and sucking dry the electrical grid and possibly blacking out the Northeast.  And can we talk about retouching.  My god.  After forty, we should all be assigned a retoucher to follow us everywhere.  My friend Jane believes that there is a poetry in the failure of eyesight as we age.  If you don’t wear your glasses, after a certain age, then whenever you look in the mirror you are instantly retouched. As she says, no nasal labial sag, no wrinkles, beautiful complexion. The key is how to keep everyone in your life from wearing their glasses and that seems unrealistic.  And problematic.  You might look good to everyone around you but suddenly the world will stop because no one can actually see what they’re doing.  It may be a small price to pay but I can’t see convincing Obama that this is something we should encourage for vanity’s sake. I do know, should your eyesight be still quite good or you actually want to appear attractive to those not just suffering from myopia, there are some tricks for looking better in a pic.  Find your side.  We all have one.  I have one eye smaller than the other so the smaller one needs to always go toward the camera.  Chin extended but sort of tipped forward as if you were extending your neck .  Avoid that double chin at all costs.  I ALWAYS raise my eyebrows.  It’s a mini, very short term facelift with none of the pain, the expense or the sutures and blood.  Trust me, it’s all a science. And finally , when possible, I have very good lighting.  Lighting beats makeup ANY day.  At least in a photo.  I am going to show you the difference below.  Me, daring to go bare.  As much as it kills me to not have on lipstick.  I think we each have our things.  I can’t go for a jog without lipstick even though my friend and jogging partner Kristina thinks I look way better without it.  She seems to be the only one who doesn’t think I look sick but I often wonder if this is some weird passive aggressive thing she’s doing trying to make me look bad in case I run faster.  She, of course, has to put on eyebrow pencil before we run.  I think that is just weird.

So down below, so to speak, I take it all off just to show you the power of good lighting.  And retouching.  The first pic is a snap from the nice family camera with a flash.  The second, a picture with lighting but very close from my spouse who makes thousands of dollars a day filming anyone from Angelina Jolie to Ann Curry and Stephen Colbert.  And they always look good.  Particularly Stephen. And the last was sweetly retouched by my friend Rob, an extraordinary photographer(www.robfortunato.com) who has, according to my kids, somehow shaved fifteen years off my life by eliminating anything that might show I had lived on the planet.  And it took him less than an hour.  My boys actually looked at Rob’s picture when I asked if it looked like me and they said “Yeah, mom.  How old were you when they took it?”  The were shocked when I said that the pic was an hour old and not from nursery school.  It’s pretty interesting to look at the three.  Deep, no.  Interesting, yes.

So here’s the deal.  Unless you can travel with your retoucher or only hang out with people who are not wearing their glasses, don’t go bare.  Or go bare but know that people will think you’re sick.  And they’ll count your wrinkles.  Or do what my friend Jean Godfrey June suggests.  Jean is the ultra talented beauty editor of Lucky Magazine and the author of the book “Free Gift With Purchase”.  Jean knows everything there is to know about looking good.  She’s not twelve and she always looks beautiful. Jean is one of these natural San Francisco beauties, all fresh faced and seemingly bare save for what appears to be a slick of Vaseline on the lips.  But as Jean will tell you, it takes some very artful makeup application to look like you aren’t wearing anything.

Here’s what she swears by:

I say use Jeans tips.  Then no one will ever say you look tired or sick.  And they will think you are perfectly preserved.  And that you “Dare to go Bare”.  Somehow that get’s me thinking about clenched butt cheeks again.  And I would rather NOT think about butt cheeks, particularly with bathing suit season here.  The other thing People and other magazines seem to be really attentive to are celebrity weight issues.  Once again, back to the butt cheeks.  Stop me.  It’s like a bad dream, the clenched butt cheeks in my head.  Next week:  Reality Shows we’d(those of us of a certain age) ACTUALLY watch.  And magazine headlines that would make us buy. And we’re not talking celebrities yoyo dieting or willingness to go makeup free.  Or Jon and Kate, whoever they are.  We’re talking things that WE care about.  Like “The Chardonnay Diet…Lose Pounds and Inches by Giving Up Food”.  Or “Survivor: Suburbia”.