The Good Girl

YESTERDAY'S PROM POST, INSPIRED ME TO RE-POST THIS ENTRY FROM SEPTEMBER 29, 2009 

Unfortunately, I don't have a steady full-time job right now. This means, I've been staying up super late watching reruns on TV. My  newest obsession is watching Roseanne on TV Land from like 12-2:30AM while my husband sleeps.

Ironically the ad running on the TV Land website says, "Survive the Recession with Roseanne" almost as if they know all of us depressed, unemployed folk are sleepless and watching the show for a few laughs and inspiration. If Roseanne and Dan can afford a mortgage and three kids, there has to be hope, right? Honestly though, I truly want to know how Al and Peg Bundy did it on a shoe salesman's salary. Seriously. I doubt I'd even eke out groceries and gas if I had Al's job!

Last night's episode revolved around Dan and Roseanne leaving Becky home alone all day to visit Roseanne's mom in that town that is a long drive from their home in Landford. Becky's alone with her BFF and instead of working on their "Women in the '90s" project, they decide to hit the Conner's liquor cabinet hardcore. Becky mixes up Hurricanes in large tumblers consisting of about 5% root beer and 95% alcohol. The girls get totally sh*tfaced and Becky busts out Roseanne's Moody Blues albums.

I'm sure you've done this at one time or another, well minus the Moody Blues albums. Why haven't I? I can't tell you one time, other than sneaking a few sips of beer at Jeannie's Sweet Sixteen party, that I've ever gotten wasted before going off to college. It hit me while watching Roseanne and Dan scold Becky. Am I really the only person (other than seriously religious kids) that didn't indulge in boozing with friends until about age 18.

The other night's episode focused on Darlene smoking cigs. They go through the whole parental confrontation and I think to myself, why didn't I smoke cigarettes in high school? Everyone else was doing it. I remember thinking the smokers in school were so "tuff" ... They usually wore leather jackets paired with stretch pants and fringe boots. I made sure to steer clear of them. I just find it so difficult to relate to these rebellious kids.

I must have been some weird late bloomer. I mean, who waits until college to pick up smoking?! I bet most kids quit by that time. I remember in 11th grade, spying a pack of Marlboro reds in an open drawer in my brother's room and being shocked. Here was my very own little brother smoking when he was only in seventh grade! Meanwhile, when I was his age, I was busy with my writing assignments for Kidsday/Newsday and working on my Monkees zine.

Was I a nerd? I'm guessing I was. I mean I was really into making out with my high school boyfriend at the time so that has to count for something, no? I'm dying for some street cred here. I hate to think that I missed out on this wild phase that others experienced. I was raised on all of these awesome '80s high school movies where kids who oddly looked much older than me, were smoking "doobies" and passing out drunk. I honestly never thought that was real life.

My rebellion consisted of buzzing part of my head and wearing weird clothes, but unlike Darlene and Becky, my folks never had to punish me or sit me down warning me of the harm in drinking or smoking. Man, I feel like I missed out.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

As a kid, all I ever wanted to do was star on a television show or in movies. I'd put on skits with my younger brother for my parents and grandparents, then again, who didn't do this? In order to make our confirmation, we were interviewed by a teacher from our small Catholic school. Of course, I got stuck with 90-year-old Sister Frances who wasn't my biggest fan. When she asked what I wanted to do career-wise, I told her, "I'm going to be a famous actress and have my own show." She shook her head and said that Hollywood was a sinful place and did nothing to help others. I told her I would help others by making them laugh and would donate money to the poor. She was not convinced.

Well, it's about 25 years later and I'm still not a famous actress and gave up the dream before hitting high school - I didn't even have the courage to join the drama troupe or audition for plays after graduating 8th grade. Ironically I've still managed to successfully nab a few funny on-air moments.

In high school I loved WLIR/WDRE. Depending on when you listened, this station was Long Island's only new wave/alternative rock station. And although the call letters changed every few years, the play list pretty much remained the same. On my fifteenth birthday I called the station in the morning requesting "Little 15" by Depeche Mode - my favorite band at the time. For whatever reason, I always found myself on the air. I called a few months later and requested "Superman" by R.E.M. and this time the DJ demanded that I actually sing the song on the air! Luckily I knew the lyrics, but still - yikes! I did it, I didn't care. I'm not sure if anyone I even knew heard it.

My final year of college required me to complete an internship in media. Thinking I may still want to pursue TV, I interned at CBS working at The Geraldo Show in Columbus Circle. Whenever we were low on audience members, the crew would ask that we fill in. I loved it! I would listen intently using appropriate and often exaggerated facial expressions while teens from Arkansas and Alabama divulged tales of being beaten up by their step dads. Knowing the camera was on me, I'd squeak out a tear watching someone geek become chic. I was a master at what I referred to as "video acting" (think of music videos with people smiling, crying, looking off into the distance, yelling but you hear nothing but the song, etc.)...





About ten years later, commuting to my teen mag job in NYC, I was waiting on the platform listening to my Walkman (before ipods!) and heard the WLIR/WDRE DJs asking listeners a question about the Lion King movie. At that time, we were writing so many stories about this kid, Jonathan Taylor Thomas that I could tell you his birthday, fave color, siblings names and to this day remember he's from Bethlehem, PA. I quickly called in and told them he was indeed the voice of Simba and they demanded to know why I knew that and laughed when I told them I was an editor at SuperTeen magazine. We all laughed and I promised to send them some issues of the mag.

Less than an hour later, I settle in at my desk and my good friend Tarah calls me. Apparently her alarm clock went off and just who did she hear gabbing away on the air? Why me of course! She joked that it was so typical of me to get on the radio, but of all things to wake up to.

About a year later Conan O'Brien decided he was going to do a funny skit on becoming a boy band member. His crew came to our offices and we took it all very seriously. We sat around a conference room table and brought copies of our magazines filled with pinups and centerfolds of Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. We utilized flip charts and markers to share the secret to boy band success. I didn't expect to have a speaking part, but suggested Conan grow some funky facial hair. Conan was intrigued and asked me to elaborate. I did so by showing him a photo of one of the Backstreet Boys and his signature look.



After a long hiatus of radio and TV airtime, I recently had another shot at a few more minutes of fame when a UPN 9 news crew approached me. It's so funny because I spotted them as we pulled into our local diner. We ordered soup and salad and I said, "Watch they come in and try to talk to us about fatties in America or something." Just my luck. Of course, not even ten minutes after I whispered that, the reporter and her camera guy were at our table begging us to talk. My friend refused and told them how she just broke up with her bf and was too upset to go on camera. Instead, she insisted they talk to me. I cringed, but did it since they were so persistent and the diner happened to be empty at the time.

That was two weeks ago. I wonder when my next shot at stardom will take place. Hopefully one day it will be in the literary world since I don't exactly have the look the cameras want to know better.

The Sundays

Today is a rainy fall Sunday. Thinking about my younger days and growing up fourth-generation Italian, our Sunday consisted of church and pasta with meatballs. I hated pasta as a kid. Probably because we ate it twice a week. Every Sunday and Wednesday. Now I'll eat it if the husband is in the mood, but it's rarely my first choice.


Sundays as a kid, we would typically have a nice breakfast, attend mass, consume a pasta dinner with Italian bread (my mom would send me walk to the corner bakery - "No Semolina!" she'd yell to me as I'd set out on my ten minute walk. Afterward, we'd watch the Mets or Yankees game and finish homework assignments and get ready for the school week - usually in that exact order.

The day would begin with a hearty, delicious breakfast of pancakes or eggs and bacon. I went through a weird stage around age 12, where I would wake up super duper early and prepare a huge scrambled egg breakfast complete with potatoes, toast and bacon for my parents and little brother.

My mom doesn't remember this short-lived Sunday ritual of me cooking them breakfast, but I do and I loved it. I would quietly pretend I was on a cooking show like a young Julia Child with a Long Island accent. In my head I would say, "First we crack the eggs, careful not to let those nasty shells in" ... then I'd look up as if a camera was panning in on me. I'd smile, happily whisking the milk and egg yoke mixture. I'd peel and slice potatoes and add spices like Paprika and onion salt and toss them in a butter-laden frying pan (I didn't know about oil). Where did I learn this? My mom never made breakfast potatoes. How did I know what Paprika was?




Afterward, we'd pile into the family Oldsmobile Cutlass with full bellies and go to church. Now, I'm not gonna lie, church sucked. I swear, I never once listened to the stories the priests told and found the crying babies and cute alter boys way more fascinating than whatever lesson we were learning that Sunday.

Worse yet, my mom had this habit of physically forcing me to sit nearest the stranger while she plopped herself down between my brother and me. She seemed to thrive on having me sit butt-to-butt with a polyester-clad lady that reeked of moth balls. If not that, my pew partner was an older man with knobby knees and wrinkly hands I was forced to shake during the whole dreaded "Peace be with you" portion of the service. It was pure agony. My luck never had me seated next to an adorable preteen boy wearing a Gremlins shirt and Pony sneakers like myself or my current crush from school.

I remember that 45 minutes of my weekend seemed like an eternity. It felt as if it droned on and on as I anxiously awaited the priest to dismiss us with, "You may go in Peace, to Love and Serve the Lord."

Today, I'm an adult and other than being able to skip church, Sunday seems to go sorta the same way. The ball game is always on - it seems like it's an extra long game on Sundays. It really does. I wonder if they tell the teams to drag it out a bit longer or something. We consume a plentiful b-fast then discuss dinner minutes after the egg covered pans and dishes are washed. We tend to lay around. That sick stomach I'd get thinking about school the next day now replaced with thoughts of the work day ahead.

Five Unforgettable Things My Mother Taught Me

I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one who remembers simple rules my mother taught me while growing up. It’s weird because although I’m actually old enough to have a teenage kid, I still think of them. I guess this could be a spin-off of the blog where I complained about how I never forget various comments I’ve endured throughout my lifetime…

1. “When washing your face, never rub! Always pat dry.” I don’t know where she got this from, but it was something she always instructed me to do when washing my face. To this day, every evening when I roughly scrub my impossible-to-remove eyeliner with a washcloth, I feel guilty for not softly “patting” my eye lids clean or dry.

2. “When shaving your legs, never go above the knee.” One summer, my mom walked in on me while shaving the barely-there hairs off my legs and exclaimed, “Never above the knee!” I’m not sure why this even happened – I was much too young to be shaving my legs that summer. I guess a friend said she did it, so I had to do it. But this “never above the knee” stuff makes me laugh. I guess back in the ‘80s, moms didn’t know people wax and shave their entire bodies.

3. “Don’t take candy from strangers.” OK, this is very true and as adults, we should heed this warning. Think about the Andrew Lusters of the world passing women Roofies in their drinks. Then there was my economics teacher in high school. Someone in my class offered him a cupcake and he refused. He told us a wild story about how in the ‘70s a student gave him a brownie and it was a special brownie and he was wacked out of his mind all day.

4. “Don’t get in the car with someone you don’t know!” As with rule number 3, this is still true today, I guess unless it’s someone you pay, such as a limo or cab driver. The one time I did this, I swear the outcome could have gone horribly wrong. It was during my rave days. My friend Kristina and I drove out to Deer Park to hit up our favorite “rave” club, Caffeine. Thirty minutes from home and my 1979 Mercedes 300D decided that was the perfect night to cease all operations. Stuck out in Suffolk county at 11PM alongside the Southern State, before cell phones, we nervously accepted a ride from a nut job. He kindly taxied us to some godforsaken area off the highway to use a payphone and kept shutting his headlights off. We truly thought he was going to kill us that night. He ended up instead, prank calling me for months because he had my contact info. Originally we asked him to call AAA and he came back saying they didn’t believe him – we later discovered that AAA would never do that. They said they take all calls seriously and if it prevented a stranded motorist from taking a ride with a freak, they wouldn’t insist on speaking to the driver/AAA member.

5. “Don’t eat raw cake mix!” Come on, who doesn’t love to lick the spoon from a Better Crocker cake mix? I know raw egg is what's holding it all together, but sorry Mom, I can’t resist and to this day, I insist on licking the bowl and spoon and hope I don’t catch a disgusting case of Salmonella.

There were lots of other little rules like, “No soda before bedtime” which my cousins still remember from when I babysat them in fifth grade. Basically that’s true, caffeine can keep you up. My mom was always pretty laid back and I learned this the hard way when staying with friends at their homes.

My dad’s thing was, “No elbows on the table.” I still have trouble with that one and it’s funny because my husband is really good about that, yet he often holds his spoon like a sailor – that was my childhood friend’s moms rule. She always made sure we held our spoons properly. To this day, I always notice if someone is gripping their fork or spoon with a fist-like motion and think of my friend’s mom.

She had a proper British accent and that alone made you sit up straight. I stayed with that friend and her family for a week in 1983 and I swear this woman couldn’t stand me. I had many bad habits. She nearly had a nervous breakdown because I always threw my dirty clothes into the hamper inside-out. I think of that when folding my husband’s clothes and they’re, of course, always inside-out. “I’m leaving them inside out to teach you a lesson,” the mother yelled to me from the family’s laundry room. I sometimes leave my husband’s clothes inside out and smile thinking of that summer stay at their home.

My high school boyfriend’s parents had an obsession with drying the bathroom sink after each use. I couldn’t get the hang of that, but he was so good – he did it every time. Then I think my college friend Jen had to do that for fear the wrath of her mom too. I wish I could get my husband to clean his toothpaste splatters off the bathroom mirror and sink, but I know that’s really wishful thinking. Each time I rinse it off, I think of my once 15-year-old boyfriend nervously drying the sink and surrounding area and wonder what it’s like in other people’s homes.