Tell me the truth. How are you doing on the Resolution? You know which one I mean. I make it every year when I look in the mirror on New Year’s morning. My face says I partied like it was 1999 when the reality was I fell asleep at nine p.m. Unfortunately, the rest of me matches my face.

It’s time for desperate measures. It’s a New Year in just a few days, and time for fresh starts, for getting serious. It’s time to Get In Shape. At least I have a lifetime membership to the local gym, whether I want it or not. The average new member lasts only thirty-two days before quitting. I promise myself that won’t be me. 2010 is going to be different. 2009 and 2008 were going to be different too, but this time is…uh, different.

Some backstory: I bought my membership for the enormous sum of $300 when I was 21. At the time, I was punching a timeclock and barely making rent. My dad ranted at my financial stupidity. He predicted they’d shortly be out of business and I’d be both gym-less and too broke to pay my phone bill.

He also predicted John Travolta would never make it beyond “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Got any more good advice, Pops? Actually, he was right about the gym. I went a few times, then quit for years on end. That should have been the end of the story. But a big chain bought out my gym.

A couple of years ago, they had the gall to build a fitness center right on the way to my kids’ school. Talk about guilt. Every time I sat at the intersection of Golden Lantern and Del Avion, I felt like sweating. It was almost enough to make me gas it through the yellows, but I’m not eligible for traffic school for another fourteen months. So here I am at the gym.

I am learning there is a reason the words “jungle” and “gym” go together. You may already know this, but I was frankly shocked to discover there are the posted gym rules and then there are the “real” rules—the rules of the jungle. In case you are just starting back like me, here is the lay of the land:

Gym Rule: There is a 20-minute maximum time limit on all cardio equipment if people are waiting.

Jungle Rule: Me Tarzan. Treadmill Mine! Elliptical Mine! Stairmaster Mine!

If you want to fit in, follow jungle rule. It requires strength or stealth. Most gym monkeys use stealth. To stop your cardio LCD clock from booting you to the back of the line and making you late for work, artfully drape your towel to obscure the entire display. Wear headphones to avoid pesky loudspeaker reminders and never make eye contact with the poor slobs who are wishing for you to pull a hamstring so they can get your spot.

Gym Rule: The floor must be free of all personal articles.

Jungle Rule: Me Tarzan. Free weights mine! Exercise ball mine! Space on floor mine!

Again in order to fit in, follow jungle rule. Claim as much territory as possible with your personal possessions. Plop a sweatshirt and a newspaper on an open Precor and go soak in the spa to loosen up for your workout. Your equipment will be waiting for you when you are ready. Or save a spot for your pal with a bottle of water and set of keys. If anyone complains, and almost no one will, simply protest loudly that you or your friend were only going to be a minute.

Gym Rule: Please do not monopolize or linger on equipment.

Jungle Rule: Me Tarzan, King of the Jungle! TV mine! Abs bench mine! Make good bed! Tarzan hot! Tarzan sexy! Tarzan walk around naked in locker room! Tarzan make you not know where to look!

Jungle rule means never having to say you are sorry. If you don’t like what everyone is watching on TV, grab the remote. Take cuts when you can. It’s invigorating. It’s good to start the day with assertiveness. An excellent warm-up for the road rage you’ll encounter on I-5 as you head to the office in just a few more reps. After all, it’s a jungle out there, and you are prepared.

Happy New Year and good luck with the resolutions. Maybe I’ll see you at the gym. If you get there before me, save me a spot on the Lifecycle.

Signed,

Jody Payne

Mom Living Out Loud

www.momslol.com

I married a geek before geeks were cool. Now suddenly they are hot stuff. I don’t know when exactly the tide turned. Was it the underdog appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, achieving the impossible in The 40 Year Old Virgin, or the childlike appeal of Will Farrell?

The tide has turned into a tidal wave. Geek is hot. And I am married to one. Woo-hoo!

If you are like me, you are thinking the time is ripe to embrace your inner geekness. And yes, girls can be geeks too. Don’t believe me? I have two words for you: Ugly Betty.

So what exactly is a geek? In high school, I would have said a geek is socially a step behind, an outsider who didn’t keep up with the crowd. Now I wonder if geeks weren’t actually a step ahead, not bothering to follow the crowd because it simply held no allure.

The most obvious trait of geekhood is a ferociously passionate interest in something. Whether it’s computers, vintage pac-man games, obscure poetry, or baseball stats, geeks dive in and don’t surface—often for a lifetime. I knew one woman who devoted her entire life to the study of one of Shakespeare’s comedies. Not all of them. Just one. She was an “As You Like It” geek. Presumably, she still is.

My husband, on the other hand, is a car geek. And since geeks are by nature specialists, that means that while my husband enjoys car races, he’s not a Nascar or a Formula 1 geek. He just loves the cars themselves. He subscribes to at least six car magazines. When he dreams, he can’t remember who showed up or what they did but he can tell you what car they were driving. For him, there’s no better fun that driving interesting cars, talking about cars, reading about cars, and best of all—contemplating the next car in the garage.

Another geek quality is a lack of interest in keeping up with the neighbors. Geeks aren’t trendy. Not only do they not care about Paris Hilton; they care even less what bag she is carrying. If the geek in question is wearing a really cool vintage Pink Floyd T-shirt from “The Wall” tour, it is because he has owned it for several decades and it is still in the rotation. So they don’t have a BMW in the driveway to impress you. If they have one, they are a car geek. Then, they may have four.

When I was going to college, I worked at Sav-On in Laguna Beach. Several years ago, an older man would regularly come in to shop. He would buy 3/$1.00 toothbrushes and drive home in his beat-up station wagon that probably hadn’t seen a wax job since 1975. I would not even remember him except for one thing. He was my boss, Sam Skaggs, the founder of retail conglomerate American Stores. You sure wouldn’t know it from the items in his basket. He wasn’t purchasing champagne and tooling down PCH in a Ferrari. Instead he was busy buying salmon on sale and donating $100 million dollars to the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Clearly, Sam definitely qualified as a geek.

Howie Makler, owner of Howie’s Game Shack in Mission Viejo hangs out with gaming geeks all day and long into the night. What he found is that geeks have gone mainstream. “Being a geek is no longer considered geeky,” said Makler. “I’ve got jocks that are geeks.” Makler also notes that video gaming geeks are not nerds with useless, overdeveloped skills but rather consummate problem solvers. “I’d go out of my way to hire gamers because they have the skill sets that I, as an employer, want. Gamers are less frustrated because they know there are a hundred ways to complete a task.” Translated: geeks don’t give up.

The stereotype of the geek living in his parent’s garage is really a myth. Geeks are generally highly skilled and successful in their fields.

Even though my husband was wearing a mom-knitted sweater when I met him, he was driving a vintage Corvette with a 454 engine. I eventually got rid of the sweater and most of the dweeb wardrobe. He sold the car for triple what he paid for it. Sure we have 35 years of Road amp; Track magazines out in the garage, but it’s a small price to pay to keep my geek happy.

Who knows? Maybe our kids will turn out to be geeks.

Signed,

Jody Payne,

Mom Living Out Loud Who LOVES the Geeks in her life!

The Internet is a useful tool. Sure, everyone knows it’s great for breaking news about celebrities in rehab. But when I get enough dirt on Britney’s eternal quest for self-improvement, there are lots of great sites where I can focus on my own.

I stumbled across a site that offers a quiz that is supposed to tell my “real age” as opposed to my actual age. Dont believe me?  “Real” meaning how many miles I’ve got on my odometer so to speak vs. the number of hours I’ve got on the clock. So in theory, a person can be 40 going on 72 or 40 going on 34. Take your pick.

The quiz has so many questions that I aged noticeably in the time it took to finish it. The various categories snooped into my eating habits, exercise regimen, lifestyle choices, and degree of stress. Now I know how Brangelina and TomKat feel.

Paparazzi-like, it scrutinized my education, my bank account, my marriage, even my love life. It went so far to ask about that pimple on my chin. I still maintain it’s just an allergic reaction. Thankfully, the program is not sophisticated enough to factor in that double-chinned photo of me digging in at Christmas.

At the movie theater recently, the ticket-seller kid asked me if I wanted the senior discount. Sure, I was probably old enough to be his mother but not his GRANDMOTHER. That’s one reason why I was a little concerned going into this test. Do I really look 65? My mother doesn’t look 65!

I took the test. It was a relief to have my “real” age come back a decade younger than my driver’s license. One possible explanation is I lead an exemplary life when it comes to health, fitness and wellness. Another possible explanation is that I lied. I couldn’t help it. I really am not ready for ten percent off senior day. In fact, I’ll pay ten percent more if you card me and act like you mean it.

So I felt compelled to figure the psychology behind each question and work it to my advantage. For example, different ethnic backgrounds may be at higher or lower risk for various conditions. But which one should I choose? My mind went blank. All I could remember was the bestseller French Women Don’t Get Fat. That was no help. Even I know that French is not a race. It is more of an attitude.

My mouse hovers over the Native American box, hesitating. I could click it and not be completely fibbing. I’ve got a few drops of Native American blood but not enough for a piece of any Indian casino pie. It’s got to be a trick question. I sigh and check “Caucasian.”

Next it wants to know how many friends I have? Another pit of vipers. Is it a good thing to have a lot of friends or does that make me shallow? Do I have too few? Am I anti-social? How should I define friend? I decide it depends on a multitude of factors. If it’s time to sell Girl Scout cookies, then each and every one of you is my friend and it is $4 a box. If you have a boat and will let me borrow it, you are my best friend. If my kid likes your kid, then I will at least be friendly. But there is no gray area. The choices are numerical, so I randomly pick five.

Stress is a category unto itself. Have I been seriously ill? Does seriously irritable count? Job change? Nope, still unemployed. New baby? Not that I noticed. But after watching the news about the full-term surprise, I’d better check to make sure. Lawsuit? I won three hundred bucks in small claims. Does that count? Deaths? Only Anna Nicole Smith that I can recall.

I think I knocked off a few years with the Stress Category. It would have been a whole different story if they had a “Remodel” box to tick or “Special Assessment by HOA” or even “Lives with a Preteen in Low-Rise Jeans.” My recent favorite, “Major Pipe Leak” was also absent. That’s the one where four months of water drains straight to the ocean in about four days. Technically, if it isn’t on the list, I’m not stressed. I’m on a roll now. I eat tons of veggies, exercise strenuously, take my vitamins, and never yo-yo in my weight. I hit “Submit” and the years melt away. Wow. I feel younger already.

Signed,

Jody Payne
Mom Living Out Loud

Life is too short to spend on envy. For the most part I don’t covet other people’s stuff. It seems like too much work.  So Rhonda’s going to Costa Rica? Have a great time! Patti got a cool new designer handbag? You go, girl. Sharon bought a stunning new piano? Play on, baby. But then Karen had to go and ruin my Zen-like approach to life.

She got a cleaning lady! Of course, I had to act like I’m happy for her. But really, I was so green with envy I could spit. I wanted a cleaning lady too. I wanted a cleaning lady bad. I wanted someone else to do all the time-consuming and unappreciated grunt work around here that I do for free.

Karen explained how this new cleaning lady was going to dust baseboards, wash the blinds, change the beds, and even clean the fridge. Plus, she brought her own supplies. Double Plus–she had a team.

I envisioned a team cleaning my house too. My vision looked just like a operating room with the surgeon and core group working in symphony to kill germs and put everything back together the way God and design magazines intended. “Toilet brush, stat!”

I was loving it until I realized my little fantasy was Karen’s new reality. I wished she hadn’t told me. Now every time I’m at her house, I’ll notice how much cleaner it is than mine. I’ll come home disgruntled. It sucks wanting what you can’t have.

I started screening Karen’s calls.

Just kidding. I really wouldn’t stoop that low. It’s only she might have called right when I had my head stuck in some disgusting porcelain fixture and I couldn’t hear the phone ring.

Finally, after I found my fake cheerful voice lodged between the Comet and the Pledge, I called her back. “So how did the cleaning crew work out?” At the very least, maybe I’d get a good housekeeping hint out of the conversation.

Karen was livid. They were late, for starters. While they didn’t dust behind the picture frames, they did scratch the tub. The team must have coordinated their efforts because each member of the crew made a bed but left the clean sheets neatly stacked at the foot.

Even her teenager mentioned the floors looked dirty. Everyone knows that if a teenager mentions the filth level, then it has to be to be in the “toxic” zone.  Clearly, the team either forgot the floor or had a follow-up crew of toddlers to restore natural order.

I was very calm. Soothing, even. The last thing I wanted was for Karen to know how happy she was making me. I asked her what she was going to do next. She was adamant. There would be no re-do. The cleaning lady and her entourage were history. Fired. Out of my life, I mean Karen’s.

Balance had been restored. The next time I dusted, I deliberately did not pick up a single picture frame. I’m thinking if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get fired.

Signed,

Jody Payne
Mom Living Out Loud

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. I thought I was. But now, I’m not so sure. I’ve got a fifth grader and it is causing a lot of undue stress. Every day I feel like I have to explain something complicated, something I’m not even sure I understand myself. “What does explicit mean?” “What’s a primary?” “What was the Trail of Tears?” It never stops. Now the fifth graders are tackling persuasive writing. Finally, something I know. Persuasive writing is simply talking someone into something that if they were thinking clearly, they would never do. But if the words are lined up just so–like tequila shots in a Tijuana bar–everything will seem like a very good idea. Ole! Anyway that’s how it’s supposed to work, although it is not actually worded that way on the state writing exam.

My 5th grader’s assignment was to write her parents a letter of request. Apparently some of the kids were so persuasive the parents actually forked over the desired items: trips to Hawaii, BMWs, Botox Spa days, rehab with Britney…My kid asked for a kitten. She can forget it. She should have gone with the Botox option. I might have been persuaded, especially if they offer a “two-fer” discount. She made all the same old arguments kids have tried for a thousand years. I’ll feed it! I’ll take care of it! I’ll pick up poop! Yeah, sure. My husband, supposedly allergic to cats, read the kitty letter and said one word, “No.” I told him he needed to comment on the quality of the writing, the strength of her arguments, the thesis statement, not the cat issue. My daughter only wanted him to comment on the cat issue.

The next step was to submit the letter to a website that grades student writing and attempt to get a score of 6. If she got a 6, would they give her a kitten? I didn’t have to worry. She got a 4.2, barely proficient. The good news was she could get editing comments, revise, and resubmit her work as often as she wanted. She revised it 27 times. But she could only get to 4.8. We fixed some errors, added details and pulled it up to a 5.2. I was starting to take it personally. My husband helped too. Unfortunately, he dropped it back down to a 4.8. I called my sister, the fabulous 4th grade teacher, and asked how to cheat, how to beat the dealer. She suggested adding multisyllabic words, longer sentences, and sprinkle in some similes. We were back to 5.2 and exhausted. My daughter turned it in to her teacher. It was a done deal, but I couldn’t let it go. I needed a 6. For me, just to prove I could. I used her password and polished to the point where I was desperate for a kitten too. Finally I hit “submit.” 5.4. It’s clear I may need to repeat fifth grade.

Signed,

Jody,
Mom Living Out Loud

Hanging out in middle school is like traveling to a foreign country you didn’t really want to visit. The culture is mysterious, the language is strange, and the people dress funny.
And as I learned recently under the pulsating strobe lights of the Marco Forster sixth grade sock hop, they don’t dance like us either.

If you are like me, you haven’t been to a sixth grade dance since…well, sixth grade. I bet you haven’t missed it either. Back in August, I ticked “Chaperone Dances” on the PTA volunteer form. How hard could that be? It’s not like I had to bake anything.

One nice lady clued me in on the golden rule: NO bumping and grinding. If I were to see any B&G infractions, I was to separate the culprits posthaste. I immediately felt comfortable since I figured this would be no different than a Friday night at Renaissance Cafe.

It was kind of dark without the fluorescent lights, which was worrisome. How was I going to spot illicit body contact if I couldn’t see anything? The music thumped, thumped, thumped as background to a maniacal bouncing DJ with knees like duelie shocks. He was busy whipping the kids into a frenzy by throwing cheap Mardi Gras type necklaces into the crowd. I leaned against the wall, smug in my lack of desire for plastic beads.

Then he shouted, “This is for all you M&M fans!” I perked up. I thought he was going to throw candy next and maybe I should be chaperoning closer to the stage. After all I am a big M&M fan. Snickers, too. But he didn’t throw anything. He and the students just bounced along to rap music. Then I got it: Eminem, the musician. Oh.

So far, no dirty dancing. In fact, I was hard-pressed to see anyone actually dancing with another person. The best way I can describe the scene is a massive bouncing throng following Tigger the DJ, or whatever his name was, like he was the pied piper.

“You guys know how to swing?” Tigger screamed. I quietly snorted in disbelief. I can’t even swing. How could they? But the crowd roared an enthusiastic “Yeah!” Does swing involve physical contact? Should I prepare to tear apart true lovers? The music started. I soon realized what swing means to eleven-year-olds: take your partner by the hand, and swing them around as hard as you can. Unceremoniously let them go. With luck, each partner goes catapulting off into the crowd hoping to knock into as many dancers as possible.

So that was what they meant by bumping. Now I understood.

Then Tigger played a slow song. For about twenty seconds, there was a mass “deer in the headlights” reaction. E very kid on the dance floor wanted to bail. One brave couple on the periphery attempted a very stilted waltz. A boy on stage started waving his hands over his head. Every sixth grader immediately followed suit until it looked like the stands at an Angels game. We were all relieved to have something to do.

After the fourth song sung by someone impersonating Minnie Mouse on helium, I realized the only grinding I’d be encountering was the grinding on my eardrums. This was music? I didn’t know these songs. I couldn’t dance to this stuff. Even my kid had deserted me, off bouncing with her friends somewhere, I thought morosely.

Tigger must have picked up on my funk. “Now I’m gonna take you back to 1985!” The crowd cheered. But I knew now that every hurrah simply means, “I’m not in math class!” Still, I was heartened. Finally, at the very end, some real music. Who would it be? Springsteen? The Stones? Lynard Skynard? Fleetwood Mac?

Turns out it was a new song called, believe it or not, “Back to 1985.” Figures. I slumped against the wall. Quickly, I straightened up and pasted on a smile for my daughter who was finally headed my way after ninety minutes of relentlessly avoiding my chaperoning.

I knew I must look like a harbor in the storm to her. She was probably tired, hungry, and overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of her first school dance. I bent down to hug her and she shouted words of comfort.

“Don’t forget, Mom. You owe me ten bucks.” The techno pop was blaring so loud; I had trouble hearing her. I’m sure she was telling me how much she loved me.

Signed,

Jody

Mom Living Out Loud

Yes, it’s that bad. The requests stagger in. My child needs a 1.5 inch binder for this class, a 2 inch binder for that class. One teacher requested a four inch binder. A four inch binder? What’s my kid going to do with it? Copy down the Collected Works of Shakespeare?

A four inch binder is like a six inch high heel. It looks impressive and sounds good in theory, but the reality is all show and no go. For one thing, it will take a crane to hoist that four incher into an already overstuffed backpack. The kid will need traction after lugging it around, and I’ll need a new SUV with lots of cargo space.

It would stand to reason that one four inch binder would be more cost effective than four one inch binders. Wrong. The price was more than double, costing each student at least an extra ten dollars. Start multiplying that number by the number of students and I begin to suspect that teacher owns stock in Staples.

Another required item is the mini pencil sharpener. Apparently some of the classrooms no longer have “real” pencil sharpeners. That concerned me. What is next? Will parents be attending time share presentations for use of the desks? Will we get a free pizza if we bring our spouses? Soon, it will probably cost extra to upgrade to a window seat.

But back to the pencil sharpeners. At least that wouldn’t require a home equity line of credit. Those puppies were selling for a penny a piece during those lazy days of summer. Not that I needed them then because we must have about 27 of those little guys left over from last year. But according to my children, all school supplies must be new.

I would have argued, but who cares at a penny a pop?

It turns out that cost doesn’t matter when every store is out of stock. Rumors swirled through the office supply store. Customers bonded over their Wal-Mart and Target school aisle survival stories. It was like we’d experienced The Big One together and had lived to tell the tale. Mini pencil sharpeners had disappeared off shelves like batteries or toilet paper in a catastrophe.

I had a fleeting idea to buy a $20 battery operated desktop pencil sharpener. It would fit next to the four inch binder in the back pack that would now be so big and heavy that if it were luggage I’d have to check it and pay the excess weight fee to boot. For twenty bucks, I could have bought 2000 mini sharpeners just weeks ago. Ugh.

On the pencil aisle, a lady with a list as long as mine leaned over and asked me where to find the twistable colored pencils. I didn’t even know what those were. She explained they were pencils that never needed to be sharpened but they cost four times as much as regular ones.

Hmmmm. Tempting. Very tempting. But it looks like we are going used–I mean vintage–this year.

Signed,

Jody Payne
Mom Living Out Loud

Dear Parent or Guardian:

I would like to welcome you and your student to John Richard Henry Marco Luis Denzel Washington Toshiba Elementary School and the second grade. This year we were named a California Distinguished School In part, we earned this honor because everyone else already got it last year, but also because of your continued support of our high standards. In order to assure a quality learning environment, please discuss the following rules and requirements with your child.

The parent must excuse absences and tardies immediately. Excessive absences or tardies win result in a sharply worded letter shaming your parenting skills and addressed to your employer OR a loss of credit. I, on the other hand, expect to miss approximately 20-40 days due to in-service training, prep time, mentoring, etc. If a qualified substitute teacher cannot be located at the nearby Starbucks, students will be reassigned to other classrooms. Due to district mandated student/teacher ratio requirements, students may be dispersed to any classroom regardless of grade level. Please note: students are still expected to complete all work assigned.

Grades will be made available on a trimester basis. Your student’s performance will be based on standards so convoluted that a translation of academic expectations will require a separate parent/teacher conference. Please give 30 days written notice of such a request. Because of the enormous teacher workload, no requests will be honored after September. Generally, expect your student to “need improvement” at the first grading period, “show improvement” at the second, and have “mastered” the curriculum by year-end.

The district dress code will be strictly enforced this year. Please help us by being aware of our requirements and reminding your student. A general rule of thumb: your son may dress like Brittany Spears, but not your daughter. Your daughter may dress like a “gangsta” but not your son. No student shall exhibit more body art, i.e. piercing, tattoos, than parental custodians combined. All students wearing court mandated magnetic tracking devices must not sit within a five-foot radius of the teacher’s paper clips, tacks, and/or staples.

First Trimester Content: Prepare for the Standardized Tests
Second Trimester Content: Administer Standardized Tests
Third Trimester Content: Make excuses to parents and local media for downturn in Standardized Test scores OR brag to parents and local media about rising scores and spend cash bonus allocated by state for test gains.

For a fee, your student may enroll in after-school reading, science, math, art, music, and foreign language courses. These classes meet on campus but are not district affiliated.

Please send the following supplies with your second grader during the first week of school:

1. one dozen #2 pencils
2. six pencil cap erasers
3. one gallon industrial strength lice and nit remover with comb
4. twenty-four rolls of toilet paper or twelve Charmin Ultra Double rolls
5. One box 175 ct. tissues i.n September, sixteen boxes in February (note: matching boxes to seasonal classroom decor a plus!)
6. Three washable thick black markers. Makes graffiti clean up a breeze.
7. One Toshiba Satellite 3005-S303 Notebook w/ Intel Pentium JJ1 processor 850 MHz. (New preferred).
8. One bulk package paper towels. Please fill in cell phone # where you can be reached to clean up any bodily emissions from your student. L) (__) ____” ________
9. One 120 ct. pack of grading stickers. Donations of good behavior rewards of candy, pencils, erasers, and gift certificates to Starbucks, any denomination over twenty dollars are appreciated.
10. One child-size bulletproof vest to be worn during school hours. Contributions towards one adult bulletproof vest will be gratefully accepted.

The loading/unloading zone in front of the school has become too congested. The administration requests that you drop your child off at Denny’s. The l.5-mile walk will help compensate for the loss of PE time. If you must unload in front, please keep to the fifteen second posted time limit. Uniformed officers will be writing parking tickets ($37) to parents digging for lunch money or prolonging good-byes.

It is my intention to make this year as pleasant as possible for your student while maintaining a high level of performance. My address, home phone, e-maiI, and classroom number are unlisted. If you have any questions, please direct them to the school secretary. To cut costs, this will be my last “paper” communication with you. Please check the school web site frequently for important updates. Those of you without Internet access may conveniently log on at any public library.

Sincerely,

Your Child’s Teacher