I'm so excited to be spotlighting Sarah Darer Littman's latest release, Want to Go Private?! I first heard Sarah speak about this book when we were on a panel together during Teen Author Week in NYC, and I was so impressed by her thorough, insightful, and fearless treatment of a bold and important topic for teens today.
And I'm not the only one! The LA Times called the book "a bold investigation of a potentially lethal issue."
Abby and Luke chat online. They've never met. But they are going to. Soon.
Abby is starting high school--it should be exciting, so why doesn't she care? Everyone tells her to "make an effort," but why can't she just be herself? Abby quickly feels like she's losing a grip on her once-happy life. The only thing she cares about anymore is talking to Luke, a guy she met online, who understands. It feels dangerous and yet good to chat with Luke--he is her secret, and she's his. Then Luke asks her to meet him, and she does. But Luke isn't who he says he is. When Abby goes missing, everyone is left to put together the pieces. If they don't, they'll never see Abby again.
And if the premise of WTGP? weren't harrowing enough, consider this: it was inspired by a true-life story. And sadly, the particular incident that sparked Sarah's curiosity is only one in a staggering number of fast-accumulating statistics.
The Internet is essential part of all our lives, ever more so for teenagers who have grown up never knowing life without it than for old fogies like me who can actually remember a time when there WAS NO INTERNETZ!
And we’re not just accessing the web from our home computers. Kids can get online while on the go from smartphones, tablets, and even in a limited way from some e-readers.
While all of this creates a wealth of wonderful possibilities for learning and education, there is a dark side. And unfortunately, this one doesn’t have cookies.
According to a Harris Interactive-McAfee study conducted in Oct 08, 52% of teens have given out personal information online to someone they don't know offline including personal photos and/or physical descriptions of themselves. Double the number of teen girls have shared photos or physical descriptions of themselves online as boys. (34 percent girls vs. 15 percent boys)
Sexting is also becoming a widespread problem amongst teenagers. Well, not just teenagers - even some allegedly bright Congressmen can show an astonishing lack of judgment, and what's crazy is that a teenager who forwards a sext of another teen would face harsher punishment than Congressman Anthony Weiner. Why? Because a teen who sends or receives a picture of a naked underage teenager is distributing child pornography. That teen could end up with not just a criminal record but the requirement that they register as a sex offender. Scary, scary stuff.
Here are some startling statistics about Sexting from a 2009 MTV/AP Research Study for A THIN LINE.org
3 in 10 young people report having been involved in some type of naked sexting
1 in 10 has shared a naked image of themselves
Females are slightly more likely to have shared a naked photo or video of themselves (13%) than males (9%)
Those who have shared a naked photo or video mostly report that they initially sent the photo to a significant other or romantic interest. However, 29% of those who have sent sexts report sending them to people they only know online and have never met in person. 24% sent sexts to people they wanted to date or hook up with.
61% of those who have sent a naked photo or video of themselves have been pressured by someone else to do so at least once.
Bearing in mind that all schools these days include Internet Safety in the curriculum and most parents have reiterated the message at home, how come kids are still experiencing such a disconnect between what they're hearing and their behavior online? It was this question, inspired by hearing a true life story about a girl who'd left with an Internet predator and her reaction when apprehended by police, told to me by an FBI agent who came to talk at my son's school, that inspired my new novel, WANT TO GO PRIVATE?
I've created two informational websites around the book. WANTTOGOPRIVATE.COM for parents, teachers and librarians and CHEZTEEN.COM for teens. Both will have a comprehensive curriculum/discussion guide that can be downloaded in PDF form later this week.
I'm very excited to welcome Margie Gelbwasser to The Contemps today. Her debut novel,INCONVENIENT, was named a 2011 Notable Book for Teens by the Association of Jewish Libraries.
In fifteen-year-old Alyssa Bondar’s Russian-Jewish culture, having a few drinks is as traditional as blinchiki and piroshki. So when her mom’s midday cocktails turn into an all-day happy hour, it seems like Alyssa’s the only one who notices—or cares. Her dad is steeped in the nightly news—and denial—and her best friend Lana is too busy trashing their shared Russian heritage so she can be popular.
Alyssa would rather focus on cross-country meets and her first kiss with her running partner, Keith, but someone has to clean up her mom’s mess. But who will be there to catch Alyssa when her mom’s next fall off the wagon threatens to drag her down, too?
Today Margie takes the lid off the tranquil perfection of suburban life.
While I was writing INCONVENIENT, my dad said, “Your story takes place in America? And the family is Jewish? That would never happen. There are no Jewish alcoholics, especially not here.” And you're probably laughing at that, but his thinking that families with opportunities don't produce dysfunction, is not isolated to our Russian-Jewish culture.
I have recently seen a lot of backlash in the Twitter universe about the NBC drama Parenthood. Apparently, all the characters are whiners. Let's look at what they're “whining” about.
1. One couple's son has autism—Yes, I've been told, but he gets to go to a special school, and they have a big house. 2. One couple's marriage was falling apart—Yes, but they have a big house and money. 3. A mom is raising her two kids alone because she left an alcoholic spouse—Yes, but she has her family and gets to live in their big house 4. Another couple is deeply saddened because they can't have another child—Yes, but they have one and the three of them get to live in their big mansion
So, the way I'm understanding this, is if you have a big house and money you have to shut the hell up. I'm not going to say money doesn't help, that it doesn't make things easier, but this idea that having a nice home and money for fancy clothes (or even just regular clothes), is license to keep silent is not only ludicrous but damaging to many teens today. If we perpetuate this line of thinking that kids living in suburbia need to be happy with what they have and just stop complaining, we're contributing to the pressure many of them already feel about keeping silent. Sexual abuse, eating disorders, bullying are all suburban problems. The kids are told not to air their dirty laundry, not to talk to guidance counselors. The fact that families have money to keep up their facades only feeds into the misconception that all is right behind closed doors.
But here's the thing—all isn't.
I have lived in Jersey suburbia since I was eight years old. I never thought I was poor, but I definitely did not think I was rich. Many kids in my town had brand name clothes. My parents, coming from communist Russia and having to work extra hard to get us to the States, never wanted my sister or me to take anything for granted. If we wanted brand name clothes, we had to work and buy it ourselves. I respected them for that and prided myself on all the jobs I had. We didn't go to fancy salons to get our hair cut and the first and only time I tried fake nails was Lee Press Ons for my senior prom. I hated them.
And that's typical for suburban kids, right? Biggest problem is that their Lee Press Ons fall off? Oh, I had also developed an eating disorder while in high school and had my first bout with depression too. Gosh, those fake nails are like a gateway to psychological problems, aren't they?
I don't blame my parents. At all. Teens are good at hiding things. And I didn't really know anything was wrong, so how could they? And it's suburbia. You're supposed to appreciate everything you have. Especially if your parents came from a land of persecution, a land where your grandparents fled from the Germans, where many family members died in the Holocaust, where your parents left a nice two bedroom apartment and brought you and your sister to a mice-infested apartment in Brooklyn where boxes served as bed, table, and chair. So, see...they worked really hard to get me to the suburbs and went through so much so what the hell was I upset about? I didn't know. The kids I went to school with, whose parents didn't go through all that, sure as heck had no right to be upset about anything either, right? Not when people live in poverty. Not when people have “real” problems.
Are we going to get to a point where the only way our teens' problems will be taken seriously is if their families go bankrupt? How about those teens getting suicidal because of the pressures of getting into a good college? Should they just suck it up and deal because at least they get to go to college? These are not cases of guys and girls complaining because their diamond shoes are too tight.
I had a variety of objectives when I wrote INCONVENIENT, but the more I hear this line of thinking, the more I want teens who live in troubled fancy homes to read it. Yeah, teens walking across marble-floored foyers who've had to clean their parents' vomit before putting on their own Juicy pants. Teens staring at Rembrandt originals while their parents snort cocaine off glass tables. Teens who've had their Hollister jeans ripped off them by their boyfriends. Teens who use their nifty new Blackberries to text they're going to kill themselves.
My kids sometimes joke about me being a "wino" because I like a glass of Malbec with dinner. This changes to a "beer-o" if I have a beer with my chili.
The irony is that as an adult, I drink wine and beer mainly as a compliment to food. But as a teenager, it, as Monty Python would say, Something Completely Different.
As a teen, I had little appreciation for the exquisite marriage of fine wine with gourmet cuisine. Nah, back then, it was all about the buzz. Thankfully, I never resorted to drinking Thunderbird or Mad Dog 20/20, but some Ernest and Julio Gallo Hearty Burgundy might have been consumed.
The probably was, as with many teenagers, moderation wasn't in my vocabulary. Drinking back then was in binges, often with unpleasant results.
I'm not alone in this. According to the Surgeon General: Adolescents Drink Less Frequently Than Adults, But When They Do Drink, They Drink More Heavily Than Adults.
Not only that, teens use alcohol more frequently than they do all other illicit drugs combined, according to the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Rates of current alcohol use in the survey were 3.5% among children aged 12 and 13, 13.0% among 14- and 15-year-olds, and 26.3 % among 16- and 17-year-olds. More than one million adolescents needed treatment for an alcohol use problem, although the vast majority did not receive it.
The worrying thing about alcohol use among younger teens is that, according to the Surgeon General, teens who report drinking before the age of 15 are more likely to have other substance abuse problems during adolescence than those who start later; to engage in risky sexual behavior; and to be involved in car crashes, unintentional injuries, and physical fights after drinking, both during adolescence and in adulthood.
(photo: Greenwich Time)
The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence has declared April Alcohol Awareness Month, in recognition of alcohol's pervasive influence among adolescents, adults, and families.
Did/Does alcohol pay a role in your high school experience?
Boy, are we lucky today! We've got Aimee Ferris, author of WILL WORK FOR PROM DRESS with us to share her very own working for prom dress stories. By the way, if you haven't checked out WillWorkForPromDress.com yet, go there as soon right after you've read this post. It is HILARIOUS. You might even see some awksauce 80's prom photos of people you know...Anyway, without further ado, I give you...AIMEE!
I watched the new Grease reality show a few years ago with interest. I spent much of my Midwest childhood on stage at a local community playhouse. When I scored my first speaking role at fifteen, I was sure that I was on my way to Broadway. The fact that the role consisted of five words, none of them in English, didn’t faze me. As Liat the island girl in South Pacific, I wore my overly spray-tanned orange skin with pride. After the very not “nice” and not “easy” temporary black dye I used for my hair malfunctioned, stylists spent two days removing all the pigment from my hair before dying it back to brown. This didn’t take away from the glory of my role. I was suffering for my art.
Somehow, Broadway overlooked my performance.
A few years later, I knew I’d arrived. A guy in the theatre I’d had a major crush on (partly because he’d lived in NYC and once played a bit part on Law & Order) called, in need of a stand in for his show. Ideal timing as prom was coming up and I needed some cash. The small venue wasn’t exactly Broadway, but I was going to act in a real live dinner theatre! I was going to be a professional actor! With my official check in hand, I was going to apply for my SAG card!
(I was going to be a dead body.)
The night of my debut, I stared down at my plate, waiting for the cue. Without asking, a dieting friend I’d brought switched my dressing-free salad plate for hers. So at the moment of my “death”, when the spotlights all slammed into me, I believe I had a very convincing look of horror before accepting my fate and falling face first into a pool of Ranch.
The last hour of the show went quickly. This might have just seemed so since Ranch is surprisingly comfy and with the spotlights still on me, I fell asleep. I jumped rather un-deadlike when one of the actors picked me up for the finale, a Weekend-at-Bernie’s style comedy dance where they tossed my “lifeless body” around like a sack of potatoes. It took a moment to remember why there were two hundred people staring at me. And why I had lettuce stuck to my cheek.
Despite all of my dreams of Broadway, I’m guessing I’m not the one that they want. But I still had that fifty bucks to put towards prom…which I took right past “Claire’s” to the Glamour Shots at the mall to help buy head shots instead. Just in case.
So let’s hear it – prom’s coming up, gas isn’t cheap, lots of great new books out there to scoop up…who’s got some terrible high school job stories to share! What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to earn money?
Neesha Meminger and I share a dirty little secret with Jasbir (aka, Jazz) the protagonist of her latest novel, JAZZ IN LOVE. Don't tell, but we love bodice rippers. I'm so embarrassed by my collection that I keep it in a box in the crawl space. Oh. But now the Internets know. Oops.
Here's the flap copy:
Jasbir, otherwise known as Jazz, has always been a stellar student and obedient, albeit wise-cracking, daughter. Everything has gone along just fine - she has good friends in the "genius" program she's been in since kindergarten, her teachers and principal adore her, and her parents dote on her. But now, in her junior year of high school, her mother hears that Jazz was seen hugging a boy on the street, and goes ballistic. Mom immediately implements the Guided Dating Plan, which includes setting up blind dates with "suitable," pre-screened Indian candidates. There's only one problem: Jazz has her sights set on the very UNsuitable new hottie at school. When Jazz makes a few out-of-the-ordinary decisions, everything explodes, and she realizes she'll need a lot more than her genius education to get out of the huge mess she's created. Can Jazz find a way to follow her own heart and still stay in the good graces of her parents?
With her characteristic humor and pitch perfect teen dialogue (loved "Bindibos" - Bimbos who sport a bindi) Meminger explores the age-old struggle between traditional parents and a teen who wants to be more "modern". Jasbir is from a Sikh family, and although her best friend Jeevan (Jeeves), the boy whom she was seen hugging is also Sikh, he is from a lesser caste and thus deemed "unsuitable." And as for Tyler R, the incredible hot guy who makes Jazz want to rip her own bodice, even though he's Indian,he's from the Caribbean, so fuggedaboudit!
Lyn Miller-Lachmann, author of the excellent Gringolandia and editor of the Multicultural Review, reviewed Jazz in Love for Readergirlz:
Meminger offers a fascinating window into Punjabi-American lives that also weaves in cultural information seamlessly and offers opportunities to compare and contrast one’s own cultural limits and expectations. Readers who share the cultural background of the characters will recognize the generational divide between traditional parents and children who have adopted the ways of the new country, as well as the diverse experiences of an Indian diaspora that includes England and the Caribbean...While the book begins as a romance, it takes some unexpected turns that lead readers to examine the difference between love and lust...Those looking for a fun, smart read will be well served by this novel
When I was going through my miserable and prolonged case of second book blues, my Mom found this photo of me on a family sailing trip in the Caribbean, circa 1977:
As a forty-something year old woman, my first thought upon seeing that picture was, "Wow! I had a pretty good figure back then."
But within seconds - and I mean SECONDS - other, less kind thoughts kicked in. The thoughts of the girl in the picture. A voice that said, "Fat. Ugly. Fat. Fat. Defective. Fat. Fat. Damaged. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Useless. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Ugly. Fat. Fat.Fat." I could go on, but you get the idea, and why torture us?
This was despite years, and I mean YEARS of therapy. After distorted body image and disordered eating in high school manifested itself into years of active bulimia as an adult in my thirties.
I took that photograph with me to the writing retreat, Kindling Words, where Ellen Wittlinger was leading a workshop on Inspiration. It became the basis for my second novel, PURGE.
In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Millions more are struggling with binge eating disorder
Eating Disorders are complex conditions can kill. But even when they don't, the effect on our lives are overwhelming and painful.
Not only that - when I look back and think of how much energy I wasted - WASTED - worrying and stressing and obsessing about my weight - energy that I could have put to more positive use like - well, writing. Or learning to play the bass so I can be the John Paul Jones of my nursing home. Or tap dancing, because I always wanted to be able to do that Ginger Rogers thing, and now if I even mention the possibility of taking tap classes my daughter gives me the "OMG, you are The. Most. Embarrassing. Person. Alive!" look.
Here are some great YA books that deal with body image/eating disorders:
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is February 20-26 2011. Can you think of something to do to raise awareness and start the discussion in your community? And let's not just stop with eating disorders. What about all the ways we mess ourselves up thinking about food and weight. According to NEDA, more than one in three "normal" dieters ends up progressing on to pathological eating. Pretty scary, huh?
I think part of the reason I'm a young adult novelist is down to a particularly dramatic- and traumatic - change of school environment that I experienced when I was twelve years old.
When I was seven, my family moved to England, in the middle of the school year (always fun). I finished that year out at the American School in London, which if any of you have lived in London, wasn't in the new (well, now it's not so new) building in ST. John's Wood. It was in the old buildings in Regent's Park.
But then my parents decided we should go for the full English experience, so I was admitted to the City of London School for Girls - what the Brits in their charming makes not one iota of sense way call a public school but is actually a private school.
It was the kind of school where you wore a uniform. A uniform that had to be purchase at HARRODS. A uniform that was so regimented, it even had regulation UNDERWEAR.
(Me, on my first day of school, Sept 1970)
It was hard at first. The uniform thing didn't bother me so much, but the fact that I went from being surrounded by other Americans to being the only American did. During my first year, the song AMERICAN PIE by Don Maclean came out. It's a great song, but can I tell you how many times girls with English accents tortured me with that song by singing it every time they saw me?
I grew to love that school though. I was young enough that I adapted by "going native." Lost the American accent pretty quickly and soon, if you saw me on the Tube, you wouldn't be able to tell me from any of the other little English schoolgirls - well, except maybe I had better teeth because my parents took me to a dentist that practiced American dentistry because UK dentistry in those days was notoriously bad.
(Before I got the bad news)
In 1975, I was 12 and practicing for my Bat Mitzvah. I'd been accepted to a special youth program at one of prestigious London music colleges for my cello playing. And then...my parents told us we were moving back to the States.
And thus my YA novelist career was born. I was supposed to go into seventh grade at Cloonan Middle School in Stamford CT, but my British private (sorry public) school education meant that I was a year ahead of my peers in most subjects. The school argued with my mom about moving me ahead until they tested me and then they just shut up and put me in 8th grade.
After being in sheltered, all-girls school with regulation underwear, life in a very mixed catchment area middle school in 1975 America was MAJOR culture shock. First there was the bus. People were smoking cigarettes and pot in the back of the bus. I hadn't even HEARD of pot until I got on that bus. (Yeah, I know, sheltered. Seriously sheltered.) Gangs of girls hung out in the bathrooms smoking cigarettes. I was so scared of them, I would literally hold it in all day.
Then there were the other things, like clothes. I'd been wearing school uniform five days a week, so I didn't have that many clothes. Suddenly, clothes really mattered. People gave you a hard time about your clothes.
And then there was my accent. I'd come back from my years in England, sounding like a proper English schoolgirl. Kids would come up to me and bark, "TALK!" as if I were a performing animal. "Say Peaches and cream with strawberries!" was a popular request.
Needless to say, my desire to fit in was WAY stronger than my desire to keep my English accent, so I lost it. FAST.
But trauma from that radical change of schools - that horrific one year of middle school and the four years of high school that followed - form the basis, the inspiration, and the heart of my career as a young adult novelist.
(Okay, maybe I don't look so traumatized here, but trust me, I was!)
How about you? Did you ever change schools? Was it for the better or for the worse?
I'm very happy to welcome debut author Lena Roy to The Contemps as a guest blogger to talk about such an important topic for today's Hot Topic Tuesday. Her debut novel EDGES came out in December 2010.
Addiction is not easy to write about or to talk about. It is slippery, amorphous, chameleon-like. And intensely personal. A huge part of addiction can be the denial of it, and yet true recovery comes from self-reflection. So of course I have to explore it by writing a novel, and introducing myself to you on this Hot Topic Tuesday. My first novel, Edges was published four Tuesdays ago by Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Edges takes a look at both sides of addiction through two narratives – we start out with Luke who has fled New York City and his alcoholic father for a youth hostel in Moab, Utah. Later, we meet Ava at an AA meeting in the city, who at 18, thinks she just might be too young to need to get sober.
My uncle died of cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism. I was a wild party girl myself as a teen and through my early 20’s, until I watched drugs and alcohol destroy lives, relationships. A friend’s boyfriend was abusive when he drank. Then two of my friends O.D.’d on heroin. A few friends got sober through AA. I went to grad school for psychology and I thought: I’d better clean up my own act. I went on to become a drama therapist specializing in drug and alcohol treatment, with a focus on teens. Just this past year, a friend’s young son, 26, ostensibly clean and sober, getting his life together and going back to school, relapsed and died of a heroin overdose. My friend found him slumped over in his bed. UGLY TRUTH.
We live in an addicted society – to consumerism, drama, war, food, money, celebrities, excitement – not to mention a propensity for drugs and alcohol in our search for happiness. These addictions can give us a sense of wholeness for a while, but end up making us feel emptier than ever. What we need is a true sense of connection. Why do you think another word for alcohol is spirit? We are looking for spirit, we are seeking to transcend, transform, our humdrum experience.
Alcohol and drugs can change our body and brain chemistry. Teens and those in our early 20’s are particularly vulnerable to addiction because we are still growing and developing, Scientists recently discovered that the brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25!
It can turn into an addiction because drug and alcohol abuse causes drastic drops of serotonin levels in the brain – and the only way to get them back up is to have more of the substance. (There is also a genetic factor to consider. Those with addiction in the family are even more susceptible.) But at this point, other things might start to go awry. Changes in personality, sleep habits, weight, relationships, grades, concentration. Poor impulse control, actions not matching values, engaging in risky, harmful behavior, the list goes on.
Have you, or somebody you know, been affected by addiction? Can a person be “too young” to get help?
If you have any questions, you can find me on my blog at www.lenaroy.com and we can either have a private or a public discussion.
Edges is available on-line everywhere, at independent bookstores, and at Barnes and Noble in the tri-state area.
For more information about alcoholism, AA is a great place to start: http://www.aa.org/lang/en/subpage.cfm?page=1
For families, check out Alanon/Alateen: http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/
When I picked up my daughter and her friends from the local First Lights festival last weekend, they got in the car and I became privy to MAJOR SCANDALE. A classmate of theirs at the high school had been drunk. The kid could barely walk and was ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwvomiting publicly. The tone of their conversation was was appalled and disapproving.
I listened like a good invisible chauffeur should, thanking my lucky stars that my daughter seems to have her head screwed on so securely. But I couldn't help thinking back to myself at her age; how I was making different and considerably less wise choices.
*Enters the Wayback Machine*
It was a different time. I was in high school in the late 70's, before Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No!" campaign (check out this PSA from the 80's)
and before the advent of Drug Education programs like Project DARE.
I mean seriously. We were watching movies like this:
Can you imagine a trailer like that being shown at your local multiplex these days? I can't see it happening. Times have changed.
My daughter is in her first high school play next weekend. And that's another thing that's weirding me out. I was a drama geek in high school and I smoked my first joint ever at a cast party. The kid who handed it to me wasn't a total stoner loser who ended up doing heroin and spending time in the slammer. He went to Harvard and has had extremely successful career in the financial world.
My kids know I was no angel in high school. Maybe being honest with them has helped them to make better choices. It's certainly given them ammo in arguments: "Well, at least I'm not as bad as you were, Mom!"
So how how about you? Were you a good girl/boy? And if you're old enough to have kids, are you honest with them about it?
My son is a senior in high school right now, as I'm busy naggingencouraging him to get his college applications done. I've been telling him how much easier he has it than I did, because the seven colleges he's applying to all use the Common Application, so he doesn't have to write seven different essays and then type them on one of these antiquated devices:
like his antiquated mother did.
Except that I didn't actually have to type SEVEN essays. Only two.
Yes, you heard that right. Because in my foolish, naivete I only applied to two (count'em, one, two) colleges. Duke and the University of Virginia. Fortunately for me, I got into Duke early action, and that's where I went. UVA rejected me.
As I've been carefully guiding my son through the college application and visitation process (you can read more about the visitation process here) with the help of a special college adviser hired by his school, his guidance counselor and his teachers, I've thought back to my own college application experience and I'm actually amazed that I made it to college at all.
I was clueless. As I've been going around all these awesome liberal arts schools with my son, I keep thinking, "Why didn't I consider a school like this?"
Probably because I was so desperate to get out of the Northeast, where most of the kids in my high school were applying to college. I really wanted to go to California, but my parents ixnayed that idea on cost grounds. So I looked southbound.
I can't remember a thing my guidance counselor told me about applying to college. But I can't believe she didn't call up my parents and say, "Do you think it's a bright idea to allow your insane kid is to apply to two only colleges?"
All's well that ends well, I suppose. But I'm just glad my son is getting better guidance.
How about you? Are you getting good guidance in your college search if you're applying now? Or did you back when when you applied to college?
*who may or may not be related to me **but whom I just so happen to think is extremely bright and not to mention handsome. But yanno, that's just me. Totally unbiased me.
*** billions might be a slight exaggeration, but we'll chalk that up to teen hyperbole.
Please. Like the Bright Handsome Kid says: Don't squander your gift. Get out and VOTE tomorrow.
Time for another edition of Too Real Thursday, when authors share a moment in their lives that got a little too real for comfort.
Today we welcome Janette Rallison, author of such popular YA novels IT'S A MALL WORLD AFTER ALL, HOW TO TAKE THE EX OUT OF EX-BOYFRIEND, MY FAIR GODMOTHER and JUST ONE WISH. WARNING: If you haven't yet experienced the pain miracle of childbirth, please, don't be put off for life by this!
"I don't know nuthin' bout birthin' babies!"
Over to Janette:
When I think about it, pretty much my entire teenage life consisted of a string of embarrassing moments. I can’t blame fate for all of my humiliation though. A lot of it was due to the clueless way I blundered through life. In the long run, these events actually proved useful since they provide me plenty of fodder for my teen novels.
But my most embarrassing moment didn’t happen in my teen years and wasn’t even my fault.
It was my husband’s.
I had just given birth to our son, and like any proud father he was snapping pictures of our newborn baby nestled in my arms. I hate to be graphic here since many of the blog readers haven’t given birth yet and don’t know all of the charming intricacies of the event. So I’ll just say the doctor was still sewing up a part of my body that any normal woman wouldn’t want photographed.
But my husband inadvertently did photograph it. And he got the pictures developed without ever realizing how much one of those photos revealed.
Then he took the photos to work to show all of his colleagues.
I didn’t see the photos until the next day and I was horrified that he had a picture where I flashed the camera instead of the other way around.
“How could you take a picture of me like this?” I demanded.
He looked at the photo, seeing all of it for the first time. “Oh. Sorry.”
“You showed this to your co-workers?” I asked, hyperventilating.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re all engineers. They probably didn’t notice.”
I hope he’s right about that. Still, every time I go to one of his office functions, I wonder.
Sarah here: My favorite part of this story? Hubby's response - "They're all engineers. They probably didn't notice." My ex-hubby trained as an engineer. I was ROTFLMAO!
Anyway, y'all will be happy to hear that Janette forgave her hubby for his inadvertent attempt at making her the office porn queen. As she says: "Janette did not kill her husband and in fact subsequently had three more children. Her husband was considerably more cautious with his photographs."
Contemp April Henry's gripping novel GIRL, STOLEN hits the shelves today. You'll be hearing much more about this suspenseful page-turner tomorrow in our Spotlight Wednesday feature.
But briefly: 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is resting in the back seat of her stepmother's Cadillac Escalade, ill with pneumonia, while her stepmom runs into the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for her. When Griffin carjacks the Escalade as a gift for his father, Cheyenne, who is legally blind, ends up a hostage who must rely on her own devices to try to save herself.
April says: "Cheyenne might have saved herself if she trusted her instincts and jumped out of the car first thing."
I don't know about you guys, but it's taken me a LONG time to learn to trust my instincts. I can't tell you how many unfortunate situations I might have avoided as a teenager - and as an adult - if only I'd paid attention to that nagging feeling in my gut. The one that warned, "Oy, Sarah, there's something not quite kosher about this," or "Saraleh, use your kop.(head) This isn't the smartest thing you've every done." My gut talks to me like a Jewish mother. It must be in the genes.
The face of my Gut Instinct. Yes, my gut sounds kind of like Golda Meir.
Like when my cousin from the West Coast encouraged me to use Sun-In so I could get California Girl highlights. Despite the gut misgivings, I allowed her to spray half a bottle of the stuff on my long, brunette locks. At the end of the day, I ended up with seriously brassy hooker hair. Growing it out took forever and it wasn't pretty. My parents finally paid for me to have it dyed dark again because they didn't want me to look like a slut at my cousin's bar mitzvah.
(Okay, maybe it wasn't quite this bad, but it sure felt like it)
Even as an adult I've stupidly ignored my better instincts. When I started trying out the whole on-line dating thing after separating from my ex-husband (there's a book in that someday - a comedic horror novel) I could have avoided the Date from Hell with Bleeding Ear Guy had I heeded the rumblings of reservation in my tummy. Instead, I was too worried about being impolite and hurting the feelings of some psycho, who yes, really did have blood pouring from his ear when we met for our date.
There were a few times I did trust my instincts, and it was the right decision. Like when that guy I had the wildest crush on in high school was trying to get me to give up my virginity to him at the State Drama competition. I trusted my gut when it said, "No, bubbeleh. This should be something special with someone you really love." Boy was I glad later that night, when I saw him making out with my best friend at the cast party. Well, maybe glad is pushing it. Truth be told, I cried hysterically for hours and might have ended up having a teensy bit too much to drink. But the good news is that I didn't make a HUGE mistake.
How about you? Have you managed to avoid a bad situation because you trusted your guy? Or did you end up in a sticky situation because you didn't?
Spill all in the comments.
EDITED: Here's a further, somewhat more serious discussion about Trusting Your Gut over at my blog. xo Sarah
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