Stephanie Lessing

Recently my sister-in-law emailed me a photo of me sitting next to my husband at a family gathering in her living room, about thirty years ago. What immediately struck me was that I had curly hair that day. At no time in my life do I ever remember having such hair. At first I thought after years of blow drying and flattening it, I convinced myself, and my hair, that I’m someone else. But, no, something had definitely gone awry.

I stared at the photo a little longer, trying to get a handle on what was beginning to look more and more like I was wearing a shower cap, when I suddenly remembered when that photo was taken. I was new to the family and no one was talking to me. It wasn’t their fault. They’re wonderful people. It’s just that not having anyone to talk to, even for a minute or two, has been a reoccurring fear of mine for most of my life and that photo documented one of the worst experiences of my life. As I recall my head was soaking wet from nerves.

Not only was nobody talking to me, but when I looked more closely at the photo I remembered that my husband, sensing how badly things were going, fell asleep. In the photo, I’m leaning forward looking at him like, Please don’t die. You’re my only friend here. From that point on I sat as stiff as a board unable to function.

I remember compensating for my fear by talking incessantly. I covered my parent’s divorce, my childhood eating disorder and the time I fell off my bike. I told them about our dog, Heidi, a miniature schnauzer, I described how I’d like to decorate my apartment, and gave everyone my mom’s chicken recipe. I was mostly talking to myself, but I persevered. At one point my husband picked his head up and I thought oh thank God, but then he proceeded to get up and walk into the other room so he could nap in peace.

On the way home he apologized every thirty seconds.

“I don’t know why I got so tired all of a sudden. I never meant to fall asleep. How’d it go?”

“Really well. Thanks for asking.”

“Great, so what happened to your hair? It looks shorter.”

“Humidity, I guess.”

I flipped my visor mirror down and admired my full-blown Afro from every angle before running a brush through my hair.

“I lied, by the way. It didn’t go well. I talked the entire time you were sleeping. Literally no breaks at all.”

“Yeah, I heard, but don’t worry. It’ll all be forgotten. It’s not like anybody got it on film.”

Your first day of Kindergarten can ruin you. I’m a writer because of mine. So you can imagine how badly I did that day.

My first mistake was I wore a party dress with a wide band of smocking across the chest and puffy sleeves. I knew it was all wrong as soon as I stepped inside the classroom, but there was nothing I could do. My only other wardrobe option was the extra set of clothes we were required to bring in a brown paper bag in case of an emergency, which meant in case we peed in our pants, and I knew I’d be needing those.

The only kid who was dressed worse than me was the boy in black patent leather dress shoes who asked every single blonde girl in the class if she would accept his hand in marriage. Also, I was fat.

My dress was so inappropriate I kept my coat on for the entire day. Please know that when you wear your coat indoors it looks like there’s something wrong with you. I went a step further and had my mom stay in the class with me. She had to sit in one of those little chairs looking like a giant and all the kids were staring at her. At snack time I literally spilled grape juice on my dress. Meaning I picked it up and deliberately spilled the juice on my dress in an attempt to ruin it so I could show that I knew better than to have worn it and perhaps leave early.

Had I known then what I know now my whole life would have been different. I can’t stress this enough. If you’re about to enter kindergarten, I urge you to read on.

The most important thing for you to know upfront is that almost everyone in your class will grow up to be a liar. This is not your fault, but you still have to find a way to play with them. Playing is really your only job. You can outsmart the little con artists if you don’t get emotionally involved. Think of them as toys.

*Also, do not show them your vagina (see below).

If you’re not the number one toy, that gives you plenty of time to focus on your block building, costume designing or fake food baking skills. Just hang back, be creative, and think long term: You don’t want to be the kid who peaked in Kindergarten.

If you’re playing with something and someone walks over and takes it, play with something else. Most of those toys are covered in E-coli anyway. Kids shit all over themselves regularly.

As a matter of fact, there’s an excellent chance you, too, will shit in your pants. If that happens don’t announce it. Just walk out the door and don’t look back.

If your teacher randomly breaks out in a sweat and accuses you of stealing her glasses, it’s not a reflection on you. It’s because her body is no longer producing estrogen. Tell her she looks like Jennifer Anniston. All women over forty secretly think they look like her. She will believe and reward you.

If a kid really doesn’t want to play with you he’s either afraid of you or grossed out. Check in and around your nose.

If you’re a girl and you want to play with another girl because she’s beautiful and wearing a sparkly pink headband, but she’s deeply involved with another girl who’s pretending a doll is their baby, while a third girl is quietly fashioning a starter home for her (with her own tool set that she brought from home) and the girl with the headband whom she’s planning to steal from the girl with the baby, statistically, one of you is a lesbian.

As far as pot smoking, it’s pretty much always a good idea to wait until you get to middle school. Now is just too soon.

If you call your teacher mommy by accident, I can’t help you. That’s how bad that is. You should kill yourself.

If your teacher shows favorites and you’re not it, remember this: There are women out there who prefer liars. These women make bad choices all throughout their lives. Still not your problem.

At one point you will dream that you went to Kindergarten naked. In my dream, I’m always riding a tricycle around the classroom with my whole ass showing. This dream will haunt you for life. It means you are deeply insecure and afraid of being known. The only way to stop having this dream is to become a writer and tell everyone what happened to you in Kindergarten.

*Suffice to say I responded to an invitation to meet with three little boys behind a tractor, all of whom promised to show me their penises if I showed them my vagina. Long story short I went first and they were liars.

The day I got my first Huffington Post blog published (about how I pee in my pants all the time now that I’m old) I peed in my pants. And then I called my kids and my husband, and emailed everyone I know. And then I quickly got in touch with the guy who does my website to make a few changes. “We better check all the links to Amazon. My book sales could easily go through the roof with the huff post exposure.”

After the blog went up, I spent the whole day sending and answering emails from fans. Fans like my kids, my college roommate, the lady who gave me my first set of highlights, who still has my email for some reason, my next door neighbor, the secretary from my kids’ middle school, my mom, my sister, and the woman who waxes my moustache.

“Wow!” I thought, wiping a tear from my eye.  “What a great day for my career!” I guess this is how it all starts. First the huffpost, then the emails, then I’ll probably want to set up an account exclusively for book sales royalties.  As of now it’s got just the $3.74, but that number is certainly about to change.

So I made some more calls, took a shower, checked my website a few times and decided to check my post.  Just to see if it had gone viral.

164 Likes.

I hit the button again to see if 164 was short for 164 million.

It’s not.

I decided that it’s better to build an audience slowly. You don’t want to overexpose yourself and then burn out.  The idea is to stay under the radar until you build a solid fan base to protect you from the haters.

I checked the post again.

166.

I remember my first book signing at Womrath’s in Tenafly, New Jersey. I parked a few streets down to leave spaces for my fans.  I was wondering if some of my old teachers might show. I imagined pointing them out in the crowd and telling them to give themselves a hand for knowing me.

I pictured my kids setting up a little lemonade stand for parched fans while they waited on line for a signed copy of, “She’s Got Issues.” And then I blotted my lipstick a little so I wouldn’t look too done.

When I arrived at the bookstore for the signing, the owner, Bob, had set up a bunch of chairs. I’d say about twenty chairs.  I was surprised to see that only three of them were occupied.

“Where is everybody?” I whispered to Bob.

“Oh, this is it. This is a typical turnout. Authors aren’t rock stars.”

“Right, right. So, who are those three people in the audience?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s my wife, Meryl, and her sister, Arlene. They both read and loved your book. That other woman is from the chair rental company. She has to stay until you’re done.”

The reading ended up being one of my best.  A few more people trickled in and they asked some amazing questions. We all started sharing our experiences about how women treat each other in the workplace. By the end we felt like a little family. That’s how it always is with readings. The people who come truly want to be there. They want to connect with one another through books and writers get to feel like they did something useful that day as opposed to what they usually do, which is sit in a room talking to themselves and writing it down.

If you touch even one person a day it’s a miraculous feeling, so miraculous in fact that I could go on and on about it all day. But I have to go check my likes.

I finally got around to reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (circa 1989), and let me just say my hat is off to you, Stephen R. Covey, particularly in regard to the part about sharpening the old saw, but I’ll have you know there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’d like to share my daily routine with you in case you want to incorporate some of my principles into your next book.

Here goes:

Wake Up.

Look at clock – this sometimes takes several hours.

Look down at my pajamas.

Decide to finish writing new book (Do not mention to anyone that you’ve only completed just the one chapter since 2011).

Scan help wanted ads for women over fifty with no skills or any real desire to do anything.

Put a coat and ski pants over pajamas.

Walk Dog.

Act like you didn’t see her go, but wave the doggie bag around in case there’s a cop.

Go home.

Think about arranging sweaters by color, neckline and fabric content.

Walk away from that project to take off nail polish.

Break for lunch.

Clear schedule for afternoon activities.

Think seriously about making a mammogram appointment.

Remember how unpleasant that is and quickly forget to make the call.

Briefly consider showering.

Browse all shelves of refrigerator for anything at all besides unopened eye drops.

Write something. Even if it’s just, “hi.”

Make a list of things that will help you become a better person. Include, “sharpening the old saw.”

Really start focusing now.  You only need 300 more pages before you can call what you have there a book.

Call Sister, and then mother, and then all friends.

Text both kids and then stare at phone waiting for a response.

Bring laptop in car for change of scenery and inspiration.

Just keep driving until you get an idea.

Pull over.

Start typing, excitedly, like you’re in a movie.

Then sit back and read what you wrote.

Realize you almost completely plagiarized, “Saving Mr. Banks.”

Drive home…thinking…thinking.

Drive to friend’s house by accident.

Talk about how hard it is to write, while looking through her clothes, drinking all of her wine and watching television.

Go home.

Change into a different pair of pajamas to fool husband.

Feel good about yourself. You earned it!

This morning I woke up and I wasn’t young anymore. At first I thought I was just bloated, but no. I didn’t wake up 100 years old or anything bizarre like that. It was more like I’d become fifty…ish. I’m really too young for this so you can imagine my surprise when I looked down at my hands and they were all swollen, knuckly and red. My initial reaction was this is kind of cool the way I just puffed up out of nowhere. It was almost like when I got my period for the first time.

After the novelty wore off and the realization sunk in that I’m never going to turn back into the young version of myself I started apologizing to people for my oldness.  “Sorry it’s taking me so long to find the Refresh button on this machine,” I’d say. Or, “Sorry I’m no longer willing to ski. I know we flew all the way out here and everything. It’s just that I don’t feel like bending over to put my skis on.”  I suddenly felt like apologizing for everything. “Sorry for coughing too loud.” “Sorry for burping.” “Sorry I’m sitting like this; my legs just seem to spread apart on their own now.  I think a hinge must have broke in my hip.”

And then boys started looking at me differently. Like something was funny.  I know my chest got unbelievably big at one point while I was just starting to turn old, but no one thinks her own chest is laugh out loud big. Oh, but it can be. And then the thing with the neck happened and the oversized, not-cute freckles. It was just a whole string of bad luck until I finally got so distracted by the physical changes I couldn’t even speak properly anymore. “Did you just make up a word?” my husband would ask me. “No whydge?” I’d reply.

And then I started peeing in my pants a little. Only when someone says something really funny, or when I sneeze, or, for no reason at all. I finally understand Kafka. One day you’re a girl and the next day you’re something else, something that pees inadvertently. What if you just woke up and were like, what’s that hump on my back? That’s exactly what this feels like.

I used to look at pictures of Marlo Thomas and think, I’ll never be old enough to wear those clothes. To dress like a lady. To wear calfskin gloves and tiny waist dresses and big sunglasses. And I never was. I past right by whatever age that was and now I’m too old to dress like that. Who would ever want to wear anything with a waist? That’s why old ladies wear housedresses without a bra.  I used to think it was my grandmother’s way of stopping us from visiting her so often, but now I know it was just a fashion choice, and she was willing to live with the consequences. She’d always leave her bra on, unhooked, and let it just sit there. I begged my sister, if I ever do that, poison me. But I dare you to spend one glorious day braless in a housedress and then tell me if you care if you ever see your relatives again.

But here’s the thing. I like being older. I like that I won’t have to try to look even remotely sexy ever again for the rest of my life. I can dress like a boy without it coming across as an ode to menswear. It just looks more normal than me hobbling around like a chimp in heels. I can eat bread; I can wear slippers outside because someone was nice enough to invent Uggs and let them go so far out of style that they’re in again for people whose feet hurt. I can stay up as late as I want. I can snore. I can even have a chin hair if I choose to, because that’s what old people do.  They have chin hairs and they don’t care!

Life is the longest running gag in history, and getting older is the funniest thing that will ever happen to you, so you might as well learn how to laugh in your own face. It’s only going to get puffier.

Last night I dreamt that one of Kim’s friends called me up to say that the whole math class was mad at me for holding them back.

“What math class?” I asked, feeling guilty and curious as to how I managed to get into Barnard.

“You know which class I’m talking about,” she said.

As I felt that familiar pulsating fear of math failure instantly spewing its hot, inky venom throughout my veins, I could feel my whole head shriveling in shame, as if the skin on my skull was crawling its way down my neck. How could God be doing this to me again?

“Big deal,” I said.

“Well, I just thought you’d want to know that everyone thinks you should drop the class.”

“I don’t even want to be in that class,” I said, racking my brain for clues as to what sort of math I was failing this time.

“Good,” she said.

“I’ll just drop the class tomorrow and then all of you can stop being mad at me.”

And then it occurred to me, as I slowly gained wakeful consciousness, that I was not, in fact, really in math hell after all, and that, more importantly, I will never take another math class for the rest of my life. Never. Ever. Ever. It also dawned on me what a complete and total waste of time school was for people like me, people who function beautifully without any sort of learned pattern of reasoning skills, mathematical or otherwise.

I mean let’s be honest, math? The only thing I ever needed to learn was how to add, and my mother taught me that. I don’t even use subtraction. And aside from the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square, there aren’t even any triangles.

History was also particularly daunting for me as I have no sense of time or direction and I’m terrible with names. The only thing I came away with was that my ancestors were Pilgrims, only to realize much too late to save myself from severe embarrassment, that we were Jews, and therefore, not Pilgrims.

As far as science goes, I would have been better off if they just dropped me in a ditch and said, “Figure out why you’re here and how to get out. Hint: God won’t help.” Everyone knows biology and physics are for geniuses. That’s the whole reason people like me make fun of science. We don’t need it.

If I had my own school, here are the courses I would offer:

First Period: Reading & perhaps some light Addition

Second Period: Hair Removal

Third Period: Manners

Fourth Period: Lunch

Fifth Period: Spouse Retention & Child Rearing

Sixth Period: On the job training of your choice.

Seventh Period: Pet care

What do we really need to know to be successful? A)How to read, certainly, but mostly how to do one thing very, very well (first and sixth periods) and B) How not to offend people (second, third and fifth period). That’s it.

My own school would have saved me from years and years of feeling like a failure, all because I couldn’t grasp the fact that numbers weren’t tiny, little people in costumes. I still don’t really know what they are or what they’re there for. If they were created to express or represent something else, like say, energy, movement, distance or equality, why not just demonstrate those things with hand puppets?

For example, instead of two years of Algebra, you could just hold up two dolls, one with a head and one without, and then rip the head off of the doll with a head and say, “See? Before they weren’t the same. But now they are.”

But no, instead we’re forced to live in a world where we have to sit trapped in a room for five days a week, with a bunch of other morons and try to guess what that manipulative little x is posing as this time, with its tiny hand on its hip and its legs crossed like a little bitch, for no reason. A world where people like me, who know absolutely everything about hair removal, hold the rest of the class back.

By that genius Gary Shteyngart:

“The elephant is aware of his eventual extinction and he is hurt by it, reduced by it, made to feel his solitary nature, he who will eventually trample his way through bush and scrub to lie down and die where his mother once trembled at her haunches to give him life. Mother, aloneness, entrapment, extinction. The elephant is essentially an Ashkenazi animal, but a wholly rational one-it too wants to live forever.”

“He reminds me of you,” Eunice said, “A big nerd.”

All of which brings me to my next post:

Advice for Literary Dating Disasters in a post Reality-Show World

I’ve had Gary Shteyngart’s, spectacularly depressing masterpiece, “Super Sad True Love Story,” in my Kindle since November. I finally got around to reading this not too distant futurist novel about the incredible mess our country is headed for, and Lenny Abramov, a man who wants to live forever in spite of it all, even though doing so requires a very strict diet, a diet he finds very difficult to stick to, especially while vacationing in Italy. What he can stick to is Eunice Park, a pretty, emotionally abused, Asian-American who he has no business being in love with, because, despite her occasional kindness, she finds him gross, and eventually leaves him after several attempts to make him smell and dress better. If the future is just one mega-corporate-conglomerate, yuan sucking, Media streaming, Teen Global texting, Onion-skin jean clad generation ruled by their fuckability and credit rating scores, it’s hard to imagine why anyone thought Indefinite Life Extension would be a good idea, even before they figured out it wasn’t possible. The whole thing is so frighteningly not that far fetched I don’t even like looking at my Kindle anymore, for fear I’ll reread certain passages and continue hoping things will turn out differently if I read them in a different mood or room. And yet it’s impossible not to keep looking. Not only because I’m more than just a little intrigued by the idea of a (HNWI) high net worth individual only society, particularly the New York version, (imagine the shopping!!) but more because it looks as though I, too, have been conditioned by reality tv to make other people’s horrible relationships a huge priority, and Lenny Abramov is the most frustratingly thrilling dating disaster I’ve seen so far.

I mean, for crying out loud, Len, it’s quite possible when all this is over that you’ll be the last man standing. You’ve already proven yourself capable of surviving utter chaos and impending doom. You have a very impressive book collection and you’re a very funny guy. There are women who appreciate such things. You even have a nice group of friends, two parents who love you and a bank account. Granted, you’re not cool or even a little sexy, but that’s to be expected of an only child of immigrant parents. The truth is you live and breathe the human condition more powerfully than all of Chekov’s, Tolstoy’s and Woody Allen’s characters combined– and you were willing to settle for Eunice Park? She called you repulsive. That’s a red flag! Eunice Park was nothing but an apparition, Lenny– her beauty a con. She was no better than the promise of eternal life. You never could have possessed her. She was a user, a cheater, a climber and a gold digger. And for God’s sake, she wasn’t even Jewish. What the hell were you thinking? It just kills me to think of all the precious time you wasted with that girl. You even admitted she smelled like food. You know what’s super sad and true, Lenny? Patti Stenger was right! (And not just because we went to the same high school)All you people secretly want to be alone. Forever. You say you don’t, but it seems to me (and Patti) like you do. Why can’t you people ever learn?

Okay, here we go. For the last time. It’s not about getting someone younger and more beautiful than you to agree to stand next to you. It’s about finding someone who genuinely wants to. It’s about mutual attraction, similar values and I have to add this in because I’m almost positive this is the key to a healthy relationship, it’s about having the exact, I mean exact, same sense of humor. You can’t just pick some random, hot, twenty-something Asian and pretend you go together. You’re a thirty nine year old Jew. Which brings me back to Patti. I think you should call her. No matter what year we’re up to here in that weird book you wrote, I’m pretty sure she’s still available.

Whenever I see a movie, I secretly think I could have done it better.

I’ve never made a movie, nor have I ever acted or even held a movie camera, and yet I really think that.

I’ve yet to walk away from any film not thinking I would have played all the parts better, male and female, or that I would have done the make up and hair more accurately, picked a more character appropriate wardrobe and fiddled with the lighting just a bit more until everyone looked a little prettier.

While brushing those little leftover bits of popcorn from my lap I always find myself shaking my head and chuckling as I imagine all the silly running back and forth that must have gone on to make whatever film I just saw, knowing I could easily make an entire movie in one take.

But that’s all changed now that I saw Melissa Leo’s white boots in “The Fighter.” There is nothing I could say that could possibly prepare you for the genius you are about to witness when you go see this movie and watch that foul woman, Alice Ward, walk up the stairs in a pair of white pleather boots. Forget the perfect pitch of Leo's (Alice's) accent and hairstyle, or the way she sits there impaling her lungs with one cigarette after another mimicking the toxicity of her mothering. Forget the fact that Chritian Bale is not a real crack addict or that Marky Mark walks around with that body attached to his neck the whole time or any of the other marvels that are this film. Melissa Leo’s boots have mastered the art of story telling in a way that I actually heard my heart rip when I saw them.

I never thought I would say these words, but I could not have done this one better.

A pair of lips and a cape sip a cup of tea in a Paris cafe and then they leave. Later, a very pretty diamond choker is forced to open a safe.