Tightly Wound

Recently, at Parent-Teacher night, a young lady (high-school age?) came over to tell me that my grandson had left the room. I smiled, said thanks.
The thing is, I gave birth to that child. I have no grandchildren. I can't be the only 44 yr old mother to have a 9 yr old son.
What's going on and why has no one ever said something like that to my husband - he's 9 yrs older than me....

Love the blog, read it daily.

Heck, you only think you're old. Wait'll you get to be a paleoflatus like me!

The sad truth dawned on me when, seated amongst the nostalgic costumed theme days such as 50's Day and Tacky Day at my children's elementary school, was 80's Day. You know, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when. My children are now 12 and 10 and go to great lengths to point out my close proximity to fossilized status at age 36.

My daughter's school is having 80's day tomorrow. "What did y'all wear in the 80's?" I don't know. Jeans and a T-shirt. Same as now. All I can remember is preppy clothes and pink-and-green combos. Ocean Pacific, right?

Also, don't say "knees" to me. This week my child is battling chondromalacia patellae, which basically means her knees hurt. Celebrex, crutches, physical therapy. All these years I thought the knock-knees were cute. Well, this too will pass.

What's wrong with Andy Taylor??? HUH? I mean, John was my fave, but still!

I had the 45 to "Hungry like the Wolf". Now THAT is sad.

There's the words of Barthelme in _Snow White_

``Now think, I ask you, of all those women who are beyond the moment of splendor. They are depressed. The minister comes to call and recommends to them the things of the spirit, and tells them how the things of the spirit are more durable than the things of the flesh and all that. Well he is entirely correct, they are more durable, but durable is not what we wanted. The terrible poignance of this predicament is not vitiated by the fact that everybody knows it, in the backs of their minds. Ruin of the physical envelope is our great theme here, and if we keep changing girls every four or five years, it is because of this ruin, which I will never agree to, to my dying day.''

Or Lautreamont

``If I liken humanity to a woman, I shall not expatiate upon her youth's being on the wane and the approach of her middle-age. Her mind changes for the better. Her ideal of poetry will change. Tragedies, poems, elegies will no longer take precedence. The coolness of the maxim shall prevail!''

Fortunately man's needs are simple. He wants appreciation.

Gee, Ron, and here I thought men just wanted to see some big breasts, but thanks for the constant efforts to keep them women in their place.

Women make places, far from having one, as for instance in ``proper place.''

That, however, has consequences in the war of the sexes. Its poet is James Thurber, who is more of a feminist than feminists. (Dorothy Parker : He actually likes his difficult, bitchy women); on which see Vicki Hearne's essay on Thurber and feminism in _Animal Happiness_ ``Beware of the Dog.'' Or, in _Bandit_, the chapter ``Beastly Behaviors'' on an essential difference.

Hearne was annoyed by the feminist line and wrote about it a lot. Nobody pushed her around.

Wm. Kerrigan, writing in an issue of _Raritan_ I've just cited elsewhere (above? below?) against Random House Webster's College Dictionary (``a vast and organized neurosis'')

``We are men and women. It almost always matters which we are. Men and women are aggressive. Their regard for each other is clouded by grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcississtic postures. There's no scrubbing them out. The best you can hope for is domestication, as in football, rock, humor, happy marriage, and a good prose style. Jokes trade on offensiveness; PC is not a funny dialect. The unconscious is a joker, a sexist and aggressive creature. Our sexuality has always been scandalous.'' _Raritan_ XI:3 p103

``Men want to see big breasts'' is a reduction to something else, perhaps something that's easier to bitch about. My own summary is that what passes for feminism is a moment in the war of the sexes (something is wrong and man has to change to fix it; it's bitching without being married to the guy) and not a transcendent observation of the human condition. Man as usual adjusts. The problem is that this feminism doesn't describe what's going on. It's offensive, at least to poets.

Thurber on the other hand took pains to get it right.

Wow....well, I'm too stupid to understand any of that, and I don't have a whole bunch of quotes to do my thinking for me, so I'll just have to bow down and admit that what I've been seeing over time as a strange mysoginy with pretty words and fancy citations was just my inability to understand the transcendent.

Back to BAW's topic: I'm 49. I get EVERY reference in that song too, and my 13 year old sings it along with me in the car. As to being mistaken for the grandmother: ha!!! Two words: hair color. (Note to Dave'sWife - My hub, who is also 9 years older than me, was mistaken for the granddad once, when she was tiny and he was in his hometown, where people knew he had a son about the right age to have children. Otherwise, really, that stops happening. Of course, the hair color helps, :-) ).

I'm 46 and currently dating a 28-year-old. I have no point to make about feeling old or the war between men and women; I'm just boastful.

Never wrestle with an idea. You both get dirty and the idea likes it.

I'm turning 47 on Saturday, and I have a 9-year-old. She thinks it's a hoot when somebody mistakes her dad and me for his grandparents. After all, some of her classmates have grandparents younger than we are. Might as well laugh; keeps you from crying.

You're as young as you feel, the wise ones say. I'm still waiting to feel like a grown-up. My mom says she still doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up, and she just turned 75. one of her favorite sayings: "Don't look askance as the gray in my hair. Just remember the fun I had putting it there!" Way to go, Mom!