Nice Work, Chris Kutcher

Sunday night, after returning from a quick weekend road trip, my sister, 10 year-old daughter and I collapsed on the couch, flipped on the TV and landed on the Teen Choice Awards. I had possession of the remote, so I could have moved on to something much more intellectually stimulating, but I'm a sucker for awards shows. That, and my daughter kind of lost her mind seeing her favorite Disney actors tottering around in neon stilettos. Pair that with some flashy lights, annoyingly catchy summer tunes ("Blurred Lines," anyone?), and we had an instant Teen Choice Awards viewing party.

As a mom, I struggle with some of our viewing choices at home, and the Teen Choice Awards is no exception. I'm certain that my husband Tim and I don't always use the best judgment when it comes to what we let our kids watch. But we're also not a very typical family. We're very open, for better or for worse. I'm the parent who happily rented Team America: World Police when my stepchildren were way too young, asking the greasy-nosed kid at the movie store, "I mean, how bad can it get with puppets?" 

If you don't know the answer, it can get VERY bad. I'm betting the greasy-nosed kid shared a good snorty laugh with his coworkers after we left. Good-natured, blonde stepmother corrupts young kids with dirty, foul-mouthed puppets. High fives all around.

Also, while I'm admitting our flaws, we are pretty heavy on the TV watching at the Arndt house. I'm totally going to blame Tim for that. When Tim was in elementary school, he was a latch-key kid in the afternoons, and I get the feeling he watched a lot of television as a result. He liked Flipper. He loved watching the old westerns. When Tim went to the horse stables with friends when he was a little boy, his friends asked him where he learned to ride.

"I've never ridden a horse before," he answered, hopping on and riding like a pro, "I learned it on TV!"

This made me scratch my invisible beard, pondering this strange and interesting social experiment. Based on this, could it be that a contributing factor to my husband's vast intelligence was because he watched so much TV? Was this television education Tim received the first kind of e-learning? 

My television upbringing was a completely opposite situation. Growing up, the TV was rarely on at our house. When I was very little, I could watch half an hour each day, and that was usually public television viewing. As a result, I've committed several seasons of Sesame Street to memory. I didn't learn to ride a horse by watching Bonanza, but I can do the pigeon. I can also count to twelve, which comes in extremely handy at bakeries.

When I got married and became a stepmother, I had grand illusions of switching off the television and recreating an even more Utopian version of my childhood where the kids and I would be in our living room, decked out in smocks, painting masterpieces, listening to Vivaldi. That never happened (mainly because I hate crafts). I thought we'd be kayaking on Town Lake, singing in harmony like the Von Trapps. But I'm weird about dark water, and kayaks make me nervous. I thought we'd be baking organic vegan brownies together, but my stepdaughter Stephanie takes after her biological parents when it comes to baking, so she could bake me out of the kitchen by the time she was in second grade. And quite frankly, I am just not a homemaker kind of gal. So instead, we'd come home from a long day at work and school, and many of our evenings were spent cuddled up on the couch together, laughing at mindless sitcoms. We might not have been learning quantum physics together, but we were together nonetheless, and we were happy. And I'm not one to get all braggy pants about my kids, but they all make excellent grades, so Modern Family didn't mush their brains completely.

So my Utopian vision of what our free time would look like resulted in a lot more TV than I thought we would watch. And now that the kids are older, we have a TV in every bedroom. I know! We are awful people! Not to make an excuse, but we all have different preferences at this point. Tim watches political shows and city council meetings, so unless you want to sleep, stay out of his viewing area. I pretty much binge watch HGTV while I'm doing chores on the weekends, so I'm in the bedroom folding clothes, groaning at the Canadians for being unhappy with the size of the nanny suite. My stepdaughter watches NCIS-types of shows. My stepson's into car shows. And our 10 year-old is into Disney.

As a mother who fancies herself a feminist, I struggle with The Disney Dilemma. I know that some of my daughter's friends watch Disney and some don't, and I can understand the reasons why some kids are not allowed to watch it. It's pretty terrible. Disney is certainly a far cry from Sesame Street. It's obvious that Disney knows this, and is trying very hard to appear inclusive, multi-cultural, and responsible. But let's not fool ourselves, some of those Disney characters are materialistic, narcissistic and, for the most part, extremely irritating. Then you take something like Teen Beach Movie and it's catchy and fun, and has a strong message of empowerment for girls, and we're sucked back in again. Plus, I double dare you to watch Teen Beach Movie and not get up and try to dance along. I watched the dance-along version and I can bust out the main number like a champ. Was it awkward that nobody was home but me? Probably. 

So Disney has us where they want us, at least at my house. There was a point where my daughter began talking back without seeming to consider the consequences. This went on for a bit before my husband had a very interesting conversation with her about the kids she watches on Disney. Tim's take on it was that the kids on Disney may act a certain way, but that it's TV, where everything gets resolved in a pretty little 20 minute bow. Tim suggested that our daughter consider that choosing to behave like the kids on Disney doesn't work well in real life. And she got it. Lesson learned.

Back to the Teen Choice Awards. I allowed my daughter to watch, but I was with her. For me, this is key. I'm not with her when she watches every TV show, but I am around if I am unsure what the material will be. If I'm present, we can discuss together the fact that Miley Cyrus' 7-inch stilettos were a bad fashion choice, not because she's not old enough to wear them (because at 20 she can wear what she wants to), but because she's still unable to walk in them, and watching that tragedy unfold is a bit of a nail biter. (Ask my sister for her cardinal rule about heels: If you can't walk in them, don't wear them). We also talked about how some of the Disney actors who presented awards were showing entirely too much cleavage. There may have been some mild discussion around side boob, and again, how these young actors are influencing kids like mine, and how much of that is okay, and how much of that needs to be recognized as inappropriate for a 10 year-old. For me, it's the conversation that needs to take place. I understand that some parents will simply shield their kids from the exposure altogether, but the way I look at it, the exposure combined with an open conversation helps prepare them socially much more than if they weren't exposed to it at all.

After an hour of Teen Choice Awards, I was exhausted from the sensory overload and the Disney cleavage, and was about to change the channel when Ashton Kutcher appeared, accepting an award the "Ultimate Choice Award."  One of the first things he said was that he "felt like a fraud," and that name was actually Chris (his middle name is Ashton), and he revealed that his name was changed to Ashton when he was 19 when he decided to pursue acting.

I met Ashton Kutcher before he was famous, and likely before he'd changed his name. It was about 1998, and my sister lived in Los Angeles, and I went out to visit her. We were at dinner at a cozy but loud restaurant in Hollywood where the diners sit at long, shared tables. Ashton sat to my right opposite a woman who appeared to be his mother. He wore a knitted beanie pulled down so far it nearly covered his eyes. His hair was long and he was handsome, but to me, he was just any other guy having dinner with his mother.

Because we were sitting right next to each other, and because it was so loud, we chatted for a while. He had moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and he was with his mother, who was there visiting him. The restaurant was so loud that his mother, who sat quietly clutching her handbag in her lap, couldn't hear what we were saying. Ashton laughed and said, "She's from the Midwest, so she's scared someone is going to steal her purse." 

Ashton told me he'd just signed on to do a sit-com, and they were going to be working on the pilot. He described the show as a flash-back to the 70's. I remember thinking at the time that the idea sounded terrible, but that he was such a nice guy that I hoped things would work out. 

Obviously, things worked out just fine, and the rest is history. When I watched That 70's Show for the first time, I felt oddly connected to that tall, goofy kid who had so much ahead of him. It's been fun watching his career skyrocket, and fun to know that I met him before he made it became a household name and a huge star.

When Ashton appeared on stage at the Teen Choice Awards to accept the Ultimate Award, he laughed, saying he was accepting the "Old Guy Award." At 35, he's certainly elderly compared to the Teen Choice demographic. But I love this speech, simply because it proves that you can make it big and use that opportunity to inspire others to do good things. So perhaps watching TV isn't all that bad, as long as the messages you take to heart are about working hard, being a generous person, and learning that smart is sexy.

Nice job, Chris Kutcher!

Celebrating Stephanie

Over the weekend, my stepdaughter Stephanie graduated high school. She walked across the stage at Austin's Frank Erwin Center to wild cheers as many of her friends and family members celebrated the big moment.

I was introduced to Stephanie when she was four, and her brother Matthew was five. Fresh out of a tough experience from their parent's divorce, Matthew and Stephanie weren't exactly certain why I was in the picture. Though I'd fallen in love with their father, at 26, I wasn't exactly sure of things myself. Was I okay dating someone with children? Would they like me? Would it work out?

The first day I met the kids, Tim orchestrated a "chance" meeting where we met at the same restaurant. Tim and the kids arrived on bikes and I sat in my car in a red hooded sweater, excited and nervous all at the same time. The goal was for the three of us to have some time to get acquainted, and to take things slowly. We drew silly pictures on napkins. The kids told jokes. Tim did an amazing job making it all seem effortless. We were all okay.

I started coming around more often, and soon the kids learned that I was more than Tim's friend. The kids were terrific - smart, funny, creative -- but Stephanie terrified me. I didn't know it was possible to be afraid of a 4 year-old, but I was. I remember meeting my girlfriends for wine, and I would talk about how hard it was to connect with her. I was afraid she'd strangle me in my sleep. She seemed to peer at me with certain disapproval. Her dark, serious eyes met mine with doubt and mistrust.

I wasn't patient with this. Kids always loved me! But after time, things got better. We'd sit down for a movie at home and she'd be near my space, open to a little hair patting. If I were reading a book she might cautiously find a spot in my lap. One of my favorite pictures of us is when Stephanie was around 5. We're sitting together eating lollipops. Stephanie doesn't exactly look delighted to be there, but I love it because she's on my lap completely by her own choice. Stephanie doesn't do things any other way. Despite her inner conflict, she was willing to connect, even then. I keep that photo on our refrigerator to remind me of how far we've come.

Tim and I dated several years before deciding to get married. Because our wedding was completely non-traditional, I asked Stephanie to be my maid of honor. Matthew was Tim's best man. Stephanie took her role seriously and did an amazing job keeping me calm, looking beautiful in a pink chiffon dress.

Though the years, Stephanie has met every challenge with a determination I've rarely seen in others. She possesses intelligence that's quietly under the surface; she's never in your face about what she knows, but boy, does she know her stuff. She's most creative when she procrastinates. It's nothing for Stephanie to be awake well after midnight, sitting down to begin a paper or a project. For some, that would be unnerving, but Stephanie thrives under pressure. She's written amazing things at the final hour, studied for tests and aced them, created outstanding artwork, choreographed dances. She's at her best when she's doing things on her own terms.

When boys entered the picture, I did my best to listen and allow her to figure things out. My personal philosophy was to defer to Stephanie's parents for the big talks (convenient, right?), and to be there if she came to me with questions. Except lucky for me, most of those questions were answered one night when our hilarious family friend got tipsy and had a wildly inappropriate birds and bees talk while a pre-teen Stephanie listened on in horror. Here and there, Stephanie would share stories with me about the boys she liked, and when it came time to break up with her first boyfriend, she asked me for advice.

Stephanie was in middle school at the time, and I wasn't sure how I would help, so I gave it my best shot. We went to breakfast together, and sat in a restaurant brainstorming on the best way to break up with a boy without hurting him. I suggested that the standard, "It's not you, it's me," is a terrible idea, as is, "I just like you for a friend."  I even Googled break-up techniques, and found an article that said you should be honest without being hurtful, and, when possible, be specific about why you were breaking up so the person knows why things didn't work. It also suggested that you express empathy and apologize for causing pain.

I asked Stephanie why she wanted to break up with this boy.

"I know this is mean," she said, "But he's boring."

We sat and thought about ways to present this information to the poor boring boy. It got sillier and sillier, and finally, we came up with a break-up haiku:

You are so boring.
I have to break up with you.
I am sorry for you.

It did meet all the check boxes:  Here is why I'm breaking up, this is what I'm doing about it, and I am sorry. After we quit laughing hysterically, we decided this wasn't the best approach. We headed home. Stephanie asked me to be in the room when she made the phone call. We faced opposite directions of the room, fearful that we'd get tickled and ruin it by laughing. She spoke gently to the boy, telling him that she wasn't sure she was ready for a boyfriend, and that she wanted to remain friends. Afterwards, she cried, and I did my best to comfort her, proud of her for breaking up in a mature manner, but remembering how painful those middle-school break-ups can be.

I continued to watch Stephanie grow into a gracious and kind person. She embraced friends of varying backgrounds, and as a result, grew into a person who appreciates diversity and a wide variety of interests. She excelled in school, quietly making grades that blew us away. And while she didn't completely miss the age of being a sassy teenager, honestly, Stephanie was a great teenager to be around.

And then came Billy, the handsome and kind boyfriend Stephanie met in her school's PALS (Peer Assistance Leadership Students) program. During football season, it was fun watching Stephanie in the stands, dressed in her drill team outfit, cheering for Billy.

A few weeks ago, Stephanie and Billy were in a parking lot, and Billy opened the car door for Stephanie. An elderly woman stopped Billy and commented that she never sees that kind of behavior any more, and how pleased she was that Billy opened her door. And despite my feminist qualities, I must admit that I enjoy knowing that Stephanie has a boyfriend who respects and cares for her.

Weeks before prom, Billy met with Stephanie's drill team director, asking her if he would be willing to cancel practice on a specific Monday, and if she would grant him access to the mat room. The director cancelled practice, and told Stephanie that there was a senior meeting. Stephanie entered the mat room to find Billy holding flowers, and this:

From there, it's been a whirlwind of senior activity. Billy and Stephanie were voted prom king and queen (how cute is that?). From prom to honors ceremonies to graduation activities, Stephanie has had a huge cheering squad of people supporting her success.

I am so thankful to Tim and Stephanie's mother for having such an amazing daughter. And what a great combination of her parents she has become -- she has her mother's beauty and her father's height, her mother's discipline and her father's kind and selfless spirit, and both of her parent's intelligence. I'm so blessed to have been a part of most of Stephanie's life.

Stephanie, thank you for sharing your life with all of us. Thank you for welcoming me as your stepmother. Because of my relationship with you, I was awarded the privilege of learning how to be a parent before I became a biological parent myself. We've been through struggles, fights, awkward silences, some killer road trip singalong sessions, huge laughs, silly dancing moments in public places, and yet, through all of it, we've worked on our relationship, and now it's one of the most important relationships in my life.

I cannot wait to see what your next chapter brings!

(Senior Photo courtesy of Kristi Wright http://www.kristiwrightphotography.com)

Tubas and Letters to Playboy: The Resolution

At long last: a resolution to the story of the mystery letter!

For those of you not following along, a brief recap:

On April 11, while walking home from work, I found a letter on the sidewalk at UT. The letter was addressed to Playboy and had not yet been mailed. I picked it up and took it with me, unsure of what to do about it. I was wildly intrigued and found this to be an extremely exciting situation. Friends offered various suggestions on what to do with the letter. I was shocked at how many people wanted me to open it. Though I had no problem kidnapping a random found letter, I refused to open it. It just felt too naughty.

Okay, now you're all caught up.

Because I am a lazy slowpoke, I took a while deciding what to do, and it took me a while to take action. That, and I kept forgetting about it, then I'd see it on my desk and slap myself in the forehead and say, "Mystery letter! What am I going to do about you?"

The best suggestion that didn't require me to potentially put my life in danger (after all, it would be weird just to show up and someone's doorstep with their unopened mail, right?) was to drop the mystery letter in another envelope and mail it back to its rightful owner.

To protect the identify of the sender, the sender's name will be called "H" from here on out.

Here is the letter:

Dear "H",

This is perhaps one of the oddest letters you will ever receive! Bear with me while I explain.

Several days ago (actually, Thursday, April 11), I was walking in the UT campus when I saw the enclosed letter on the ground. At first, I snapped a photo of it, then wondered if perhaps it included a check, so I was a bit concerned about leaving your mail unattended on the sidewalk. I looked around for an owner (or a hidden camera!), and didn't see either. I was unsure what to do – I tried finding you online to give you a call, because I felt unsure about dropping it in the post (what if you didn't want to mail it until a certain date, changed your mind, etc.?)

Given the rather “sensitive” address, I considered bringing your letter to your address, but wondered if you might want this private – who knows?! Knowing that opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense, I kept the mail with me in safekeeping (though my husband did attempt to peek inside and I stopped him!)

I’m a writer, and curious by nature, so I took the letter home with me, and wrote about it. You are welcome to check this out on neverwearanyoneelseshat.blogspot.com. To protect your identity, the information was hidden in the photo. You must admit this is a curious story and quite hilarious!

I am sorry that I have had it with me for nearly 2 weeks, but I simply didn't know what to do until one of my readers suggested that I mail it back to you. Brilliant!

I have one small favor. I would love to know the actual story if you are willing to share it. There are obviously many theories here – is it a simple subscription renewal, job application, hate letter? – I’d love to know the real story here if you’re willing to share it.

Best regards,

Amy Arndt,

Austin

I included my email address and the return address of my office, just in case the letter writer got really angry at me for kidnapping their mail, I would have a security guard at my disposal. Except our security guard looks like he works halftime as our building security guard and halftime as the tenor member of a barbershop quartet, so I'm unsure how much he could protect me if it came down to that.

By this morning, I had given up hope of ever hearing back from "H." And then, this afternoon, an emailed response!

I will not disclose the identity of the writer, but I will tell you what I suspected all along -- it was a woman! That tell-tale girly handwriting gave it away! Also, it's evident that this Miss "H" is not my age, because these young whippersnappers bust out with a lot of "lols." I would peg her to be in her early to mid 20's, as my cousins are this age and they do a lot of "lol"ing as well. Just an observation.

Here is the response. I changed one minor area to protect the workplace of the writer and the type of car they drive. Otherwise, here you have it:

Amy,

I must say, I am absolutely amused by the fact you found my letter to Playboy and even bothered to return it to me. I also found your blog about it absolutely hysterical! (I will also be following your blog now, if you don't mind.) :)

I don't wish to disappoint you, but all it is is a subscription with a check enclosed. I found a coupon for a year's worth of Playboy for $12 (and you returned it to me just in time, too, as it expired at the end of April! lol). Who could turn that down?! I could save face here and say that I was subscribing to it for my fiance, but I'm rather blase about such topics and will totally own to the fact that it was for my benefit, as well. I do enjoy the articles and find the beautiful, au-natural ladies gracing the pages to be an added bonus, as does my fiance too, I'm sure. lol 

I do actually work here at UT and park along where I assume you were taking a walk. I had the letter in my hand when I walked to my car so as to not to forget to mail it and didn't realize until I got home that I had lost it. (And to think I was being all efficient that day. Dammit! There went that! lol) When I realized that I must have lost it somewhere on campus, I had a vision of someone finding it and wondering about the Playboy address. Lo and behold, I get your package in the mail a few weeks later! 

Feel free to blog about my response if you wish for those that may want an update on the situation. 

Thanks for returning the subscription/check to me. If you want, I can send you a complimentary issue for the trouble you took to return the letter to me. ;) LOL
____

As you can imagine, I love this girl. She had me at "I'm rather blase about such topics," and won further admiration for being that type of gal who can subscribe to Playboy as a heterosexual female and not feel weird about it in the least. I have another friend who used to subscribe to Playboy before she started popping out babies. I always admired that, because the raciest thing I subscribe to is Bazaar. Not that I don't get a little tingle at the "Bath of the Month" section in House Beautiful, but I have a thing for huge showers.

The past few weeks have brought me several random adventures - the tuba incident, the mystery letter, and the girl I accidentally pocket friended on Facebook who accepted my friend request after we realized we already have a ton of things in common. I figure that's just the Universe delivering me things to write about, and that makes me happy.

So I suspect, and I hope, that I will someday meet this "H." Given that she's engaged to be married, at the very least, I hope "H" shares this story with her wedding party, and that someone tells this story in a toast at their rehearsal dinner. And that the happy couple has Playboy subscriptions in their future for years and years to come.

Tubas and Letters to Playboy

It's been a very unusual week.

Wednesday over lunch with colleagues, one of my coworkers told us that a neighbor in her condo community called her the other day, apologizing for practicing the trumpet. Lucky for the neighbor, she called a wildly open-minded person, who happily offered to get together with the trumpet-playing neighbor and have her over for a jam session (my coworker sings and plays the guitar). This resulted in a lot of trumpet-music-based questions such as, "What happens if she comes over and only knows the complete works of John Philip Sousa?" and "What if she only knows how to play 'Taps?'"

As those kind of conversations go, this led to another coworker telling us about when he was growing up, a neighbor kid was learning to play the tuba. The kid was around 10, and his mother made him practice the tuba on the back porch. Not that I blame the kid's mother, but this took place in West Virginia, so I can't imagine that kid had warm fingers when he was pounding out bass lines in the dead of winter.

I put all talk of trumpets and tubas behind me, and went on about my week. And, despite the fact that my father played the trumpet, we own a trumpet (and I don't actually remember why), I don't go around thinking about brass instruments on a regular basis.

Yesterday, while walking home, I was deep in thought. I was asking myself why I keep procrastinating on a book I'm trying to write, when I looked far down the sidewalk and did a double take. Coming towards me on the sidewalk by the stadium at UT was this guy:

That's pretty random, right? What is even more random was that I was completely okay with stopping him and asking to take his picture, while breathlessly telling him about the boy who was forced to practice the tuba outside. He's laughing in this pic because I asked him to play a few notes for me. While he played, I did a little dance that one does while listening to an outdoor tuba solo. Not exactly sexy.

I walked on, looking down and texting the picture of Tuba Boy to my coworkers, laughing to myself like the crazy person I am.  Because I was focused on looking down, I happened to see this:

I'm sorry that the picture is blurry, but I wanted you to see the proof. Sitting proudly on the sidewalk was this plain white envelope with a fresh stamp, addressed to Playboy.

On my walks, I've found lots of interesting things on the sidewalks of the fine institution known as the University of Texas at Austin. One morning I found a huge pair of grey flip flops, as if the owner just took them off, set them neatly on the sidewalk and said, "Flips, it is time we part ways." That same huge pair of flip flops stayed there for a good two weeks. So weird. Where WAS that barefoot guy? Another morning I found -- in this order -- an empty bottle of cheap whiskey, an empty Red Bull, an empty condom package, and an empty package of Cheetos. I wanted to photograph it and title it "A Good Time Was Had By All." Except that I wasn't sure that everyone in that scenario had a good time.

The letter to Playboy was, by far, the best find to date.

I looked around for a camera crew, figuring this was some kind of "What Would You Do?" taping. When the coast was clear, I bent down to snap a photo and thought I'd move along. Except I didn't. I picked it up, looked around for a possible owner, and carried it with me. I'm not always up on the current laws, but a few laws have been ingrained in me for a very long time: Don't speed in a school zone. Don't pick bluebonnets in Texas (we'll shoot you). And for the love of God, don't open anyone else's mail. So I kidnapped someone else's mail, which may also be a federal offense. But I took my chances.

From there, I had a strong urge to talk to someone. A UT student, or possibly young professor type, came walking down the sidewalk. I walked toward him cheerfully and said,

"I'm sorry to bother you, but something very strange just happened and I'm hoping you can help me decide what to do."

"Okay.." he said, looking skeptical.

"I'm a mom," I said, feeling that would make me appear less mentally unstable, "and I walk this route almost every day. I was just minding my own business when I found THIS on the sidewalk."

I displayed the letter for his review while pointing to the sidewalk where I discovered it. Also, I often find that in random situations, if you tell someone you're a mom, it makes them feel comfortable. I don't think this was the case this time.

"Okay..." he said, twisting his wedding ring uncomfortably.

"I know! It's crazy! Did you see the address? It's to PLAYBOY!" I said excitedly, "It was just sitting there, and the owner is nowhere in sight! Now, I bet you think you're on some kind of reality show right now, right?"

"Um, yeah." This guy was quite the conversationalist. He looked around for cameras.

"Don't worry, you're not," I assured him, "Unless of course we both are, because I just found this letter a few minutes ago and I have no idea why I picked it up. But I have some choices to make here. I could leave it where I found it, but what if it has a check in it? Or, I could drop it in the mail, but what if the owner wasn't ready to send it just yet? Or, I could track down the owner, but it's not like it's just an everyday letter. I mean, it's kind of awkward subject matter. Like is it a subscription renewal? Or maybe it's a hate letter. What should I do with it?"

By this point, the guy was fake laughing like he was laughing at his father-in-law's bad joke. He was not catching my drift, or even remotely excited about this awesome situation.

"Yeah, I don't know what you should do," he said, clearly walking to safety, "Good luck with that."

And with that he was off. I walked on, still clutching the letter, wishing I'd come across someone with more personality and gusto for life and its random happenings, and wondering why this letter was suddenly in my care.

I walked quickly home to share the story with my family, who all found the letter to be extremely entertaining and mysterious, thank goodness. My husband Tim tried to hold it up to the light to review the contents. Then he wedged his finger in the corner of it and blew, trying to peer in, until I got very protective and ordered him to stop. After all, I am the temporary guardian of this strange letter. I need to guard and protect it. (Some of you will get that reference, which makes me happy.)

Tim doesn't like it when I'm bossy, so he quickly lost interest, adding sarcastically that it could be filled with anthrax. I suggested that his decision to blow in a stranger's anthrax-filled letter was probably not a great idea, and he better watch himself.

From there, I spent entirely too much of my free time researching the letter writer's name. Because they only put a first initial and last name, tracking this individual down was nearly impossible, and I am very good at research. I tried the UT staff listing. I did all sorts of name searches, tried LinkedIn, Facebook, and even tried tracking the return address to the home owner. Right as I was identifying the owner of the home (a different name from the letter writer), my stepdaughter came home, and I told the story again.

To set up the mysterious letter story, I started with the tuba story. From yesterday. It's just how I tell stories.

Over dinner, we considered the options:

• I could drop the letter in the mail. Except somehow I've missed the memo on the fact that you can't find a simple mailbox anywhere anymore unless you go to the post office, and I feel a little weird about showing up with a letter I didn't write addressed to an establishment that features naked ladies. And I know, I know, people subscribe for the articles, but I am unsure of the intentions of my mystery letter writer, so this is an unusual situation.
• I could mail it from home, but again, do I want to be associated with this letter if it's in any way threatening?
• Also, if I mail this letter, what if the sender was debating whether or not to send it? What if it was an application for employment, or some kind of private letter to an employee? What if! What if!
• I could drive to the address on the envelope (the one in Austin, that is) and tell the person who answers the door that I found this letter. Except what happens if the letter was written by a male (with girly handwriting), and the person's wife or girlfriend answers, and is then upset at the fact that their partner subscribed to an adult publication without their knowledge?
• I could go and put the letter back where I found it. No. That's even weirder than picking it up in the first place.
• There was brief discussion about putting the letter in the freezer, a technique that evidently opens letters? I'm not sure how my stepdaughter knows this technique. Hmm.

Decisions, decisions.

I hope you're not waiting for a climactic finish to this story, because I still have the letter in my possession, and I have still not figured out what to do with it. I slept restlessly, dreaming about driving up to middle school band on a motorcycle, a tuba on my back, and all the while, worrying about a missing letter.

Rest assured, I'll keep you posted on what happens next!

In Support of Marriage Equality

Today, like many others, I changed my profile picture on Facebook to the symbol for the Human Rights Campaign. I live in Austin, a delightfully open-minded place, so pretty much everyone I know did the same - from my gay friends to my gay relatives to my straight friends and my straight relatives -- all the way to my fearless 65-year old mother who lives in my otherwise conservative home town. I'm proud to be part of a vast network of people who support our friends who don't yet have the legal right to marry the person they love.

When my husband Tim noticed I changed my picture, he replied with a perplexed, "????" 

Now, before you start thinking I married a homophobic man, you haven't met my husband. The man sews. He wears cuff links. Long before I married Tim, I worked with him, and I thought he was gay because he owned and boldly wore a mustard yellow linen suit. But lucky for me, he's a boob man, so we're all good. It wasn't that Tim was questioning my support of marriage equality; he simply didn't recognize the symbol and was momentarily baffled by it. I joked on Facebook that for a brief moment, Tim thought I was moving to Sweden. 

I then explained that I also wasn't familiar with the symbol until a few months ago, when I spotted a blue and yellow sticker on the car next to me at our neighborhood grocery and actually wondered if it had something to do with Sweden. The kid driving the car was an Austin hipster in skinny jeans who smiled at me.

"What does that sticker mean?" I asked.

He explained that the sticker was the symbol for the Human Rights Campaign, and that it was connected with supporting marriage equality. 

My 9-year old daughter was with me, and since he was getting in his car and I wanted him to know I wasn't just your typical straight SUV-driving mom, I said enthusiastically, "Rosie and I support you! We watch Glee!"

And then, I snorted a big fat nerd snort and got in my car and drove off while he rolled his eyes at me. 

Okay, so I failed to adequately convey my support at that point. I made a huge, important human rights issue seem silly by comparing it to letting my daughter watch a prime time show with gay jokes and characters. So today, I'd like to try again. Or, better yet, let some somebody more qualified do it for me.

Enter Jean Podrasky, cousin of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., who was present at today's US Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8. This is what Podrasky had to say on the matter of marriage equality:

“Everyone in this country has a family member who is part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community…,” she wrote. “As a Californian, I want nothing more than to marry my wonderful girlfriend. And as a tax-paying citizen, I seek basic fairness.”

I'm one of those people who has a family member who is part of the gay community. And I agree with Podrasky, chances are, we all do (whether we know it or not, or whether that person has felt safe enough to share that often difficult reality with their loved ones). Lucky for me, my mother raised us to be open to all kinds of things that society deems as "different," so having a gay relative was, and always has been, a non-issue. Until now.

I want my relative to be able to have a legally-recognized marriage with his partner of 20+ years. I get to marry my partner, why can't he? I want my dear, childhood friend -- a boy I spent most of 7th grade trying to get to kiss me and who caused me to develop a complex until I learned he liked boys -- be able to marry his partner of 16+ years so that they can grow old together. 

If nothing else, I want my LGBT friends to have the same rights to get married, so we can all share the same jokes about marriage. Like, for example, when Tim and I tell people that when we got married, we said, "Divorce is not an option. But homicide is." Or, when Tim says, "The only thing worse than being married is being single."  After all, shouldn't we all have the same rights to be miserable when our spouses don't shut the kitchen cabinets or leave the salad dressing lid just a little bit loose? Every time? (And, for the record, that's me, not Tim. I leave salad dressing lids loose. I am sorry. We won't mention who leaves kitchen cabinets open..)

There are some who feel passionately that the institution of marriage is strictly for a man and a woman. While I personally think that is utter hogwash, I am also very sorry they feel that way. I am especially sorry for people who feel that way, marry a member of the opposite sex, and then decide to have a child. And then, that child grows up and finds the courage to say that they are in love with a person of the same sex, and is faced with having to figure out how to tell their parents the truth. Because it happens all the time, and only the tolerant survive those situations, look back, and wonder what all the fuss was about. The one thing that gives me hope is that I know people have the ability to grow and change, and to be more accepting.

I simply cannot understand people wanting to put restrictions on love. We should all be free to love and marry whomever we want. I personally don't care if you want to marry a guinea pig as long as it makes you happy. 

So I'll close with this, a quote from the lovely Cynthia Nixon of Sex and the City fame (because by now you know that I have a certain need to associate important issues with gay-friendly TV shows):

"When women got the vote, they did not redefine voting. When African-Americans got the right to sit at a lunch counter alongside white people, they did not redefine eating out. They were simply invited to the table. That is all we want to do; we have no desire to change marriage. We want to be entitled to not only the same privileges but the same responsibilities as straight people." 

Chapter One on Judgement

A few months ago, one of my girlfriends was in the waiting room of her vet's office with her children in tow. She has three of the yummiest, most fantastic kids ever -- a 3-year old girl, 2-year old boy, and an infant boy. As she describes it, her infant was in his car seat, being an infant and doing nothing, and the two older kids were playing quietly beside her. Everything was cool. 

My friend goes out with all three kids all the time, never batting an eye. It's not always a calm scene, like the other day, when her 2-year old was at the top of a playscape and decided to remove his pants and Pull-Up and sit naked on his older sister's face while the infant began howling for his bottle. Yet my friend handles it all with the greatest of ease.

On this particular day, on top of three kids, she had a large dog in the mix. An older woman in the waiting room observed my friend and her children, looked at my friend and said, 

"I think it's time you stopped having kids."

Wow.

When I heard this story, I was absolutely livid. The nerve!

"What did you do!?" I asked,  "How in the world do you respond to something like that?"

My friend is polite to a fault and simply smiled and said nothing, probably the best way to handle a bitter old bat like that. And while she surely came up with a lot of responses after the moment, in the end, she simply ignored it and went on with her day.

This reminded me of when my daughter was an infant. Though I'd had lots of practice with children because I have two stepchildren, I didn't enter their lives until they were 4 and 5, so going out into the world with a newborn was extremely intimidating to me.

When my daughter was about 2 months old, I was shopping and minding my own business when she began to cry. Never one to let a baby cry it out, I grabbed her out of her car seat and began to pat her back and try and comfort her. A woman (perhaps the exact same woman my friend encountered at the vet's office), approached me and said, 

"She's hungry. That's the kind of cry they cry when they're hungry. You should feed her."

What this ballsy woman didn't know was that I had been having a terrible time with breastfeeding, to the point where our daughter was actually losing weight instead of gaining. It was scary. She was born right before Mother's Day, and to this day I will not show anyone the photographs my husband took of  my exhausted, overwhelmed fake smile as I held our frail, underweight baby. It's just too painful.

What this ballsy woman also didn't know was that I was unknowingly moving around in a pretty serious state of postpartum depression. So when she came to me and gave me instructions to feed my daughter, I didn't respond with the grace that my good friend used at the vet's office.

"Really?" I asked, biting and sarcastic, "She's hungry? Well breastfeed her yourself, then!"

Looking back, I'm kind of proud of myself for being crazy and quick enough to respond in that manner, but at the time, her remark struck a painful chord that just made things seem worse. And now that it's been nine years and I can reflect on how difficult that time was, it makes me realize just how much judgement awaits us when we become parents.

I label this post "Chapter One on Judgement" because I can't address all of the levels on judgement in one piece because there is so much of it out there. So for today, let's just consider the judgement placed upon the parents of infants.

I read very few parenting books before having my daughter for a variety of reasons -- time, fear, stubbornness -- but the primary reason was because there was so much information out there it felt overwhelming. So when the baby came, I ventured out on walks in the neighborhood, and learned a lot about parenting from other mothers with babies. One of my neighbors was that enviable kind of mother who pops out a kid without drugs (I had a scary emergency C-Section), loses her baby weight the same day she delivered (I have baby weight 9 years later), and produces enough breast milk to fatten up her happy little baby and have enough left to donate to the Mother's Milk Bank so 16 other babies could eat as well. I kind of hated her.

One muggy afternoon at the park, I sat with my friend and some of her other marathon-running moms, cross-legged and sweaty as my baby cried the "I'm hungry" cry. My friends gracefully whipped out full, non-sagging breasts ripe with nourishment, and their plump babes ate peacefully while my daughter screamed and grimaced as I shoved an empty boob at her red, angry face.

"You're having a tough time with breastfeeding?" my neighbor asked, concerned.

I nodded shamefully as I fought back tears and my daughter wailed, and briefly considered begging her to breastfeed my baby just to give us both some relief. She gave me some tips, suggesting that I try to relax first (yeah, right), and invited me to join her at a mommy meet-up group. I know that she could see I was desperate for help.

I put off going to the meet-up group until I worked out the breastfeeding issue, and after several lactation consulting home visits and doctor's appointments, learned that it simply wasn't in the cards for me and that formula was a better solution. Though I felt like a failure in the breastfeeding department, things were getting much better at our house, and the baby was gaining weight like a champ. So I decided to venture out to the meet-up group and spend some time with some moms. I didn't ask questions before hand. 

I should have asked questions.

I won't reveal the name of this particular group, because that's ugly, but I learned quickly that I was out of place in a big way. I arrived with my daughter in her car seat, completely unaware that nobody else had a car seat in sight, as if their babies flew there on magic hippie love clouds. After settling in, I noticed that everyone wore a sling. I'd already given up the battle of the Baby Bjorn, so a sling was nowhere in my vision of how to schlep a baby. 

The topic of the day was toys, with tips and advice on where to find wooden toys. I swiftly buried the plastic teething ring underneath a blanket in the carseat and listened while I learned how terrible plastic toys are. Don't get me wrong; I knew very little about BPAs and the dangers of plastic then, and if I could go back I would make some different choices, but at the time, my biggest concern was getting my baby to eat, so banning plastic toys was really low on my priority list.

While I learned about wooden toys and resisted the temptation to ask, "But what about splinters?" I looked around to see all sorts of full breasts feeding all sorts of rosy-cheeked babes. And toddlers. And kids that might have been a little old for the breast? But if I'm discussing judgement, I guess I shouldn't be judging.

I prayed that my daughter would wait to cry her "I'm hungry" cry until the meeting was over. Of course that didn't happen, so I sheepishly whipped out a plastic bottle full of formula and began feeding my happy baby.

"Oh," said one of the moms, eyeing me with a mix of sympathy and distate, "You don't breastfeed?"

"No," I said, "It just didn't work out for me..."

And with that, I began to cry. I apologized for crying, scooped up the baby, carseat, plastic teething ring and bottle full of formula, and excused myself and left. And I never returned. And for me, that was a good thing.

It's so easy for all of us to judge. I do it constantly. In the car the other day, I told my husband that more than one bumper sticker on a car is a good indicator of a crazy person. But the problem with rushing to judgement? I have one school bumper sticker on my car now, and another one waiting to go on for my stepdaughter. As soon as I start judging, I have to turn around the finger I'm pointing and point it at myself.

So what became of the frazzled mother, riddled with postpartum depression, guilty for turning to formula and plastic toys?  Once she gave up breastfeeding and stopped worrying about what other people thought of that, she turned out just fine. And most of all, so did the baby.

A Professional Makeover

My entire career - which has spanned several decades and has included a wide, random variety of jobs - has been spent in a customer-facing role.

In my early 20's, I worked as a cashier at my hometown's local music store. The store is family-owned, run by a traditional, hard-working East Texas family, and has always been a bit of a time capsule. The male employees dominate one side of the store, selling guitars, drums and joking around with the customers, while the women on the other side of the store wear aprons and sell sheet music to the legions of piano teachers who live in East Texas. My mother is one of those teachers, and I would never have gotten the job without her connection, so I'm not complaining, but I was never a great fit there, mainly because I was a distracted, often overwhelmed employee, and one of the youngest people who worked there. There was nothing I could do to avoid looking elderly wearing that stupid apron. But while I didn't mind helping my customers, I was much more interested in the teenage boy customers who came in to murder "Stairway to Heaven" on every guitar in the store.

I would have been a great employee if it weren't for the cash register and a little thing they used to call making change. Our boss, a painfully shy and serious red-faced man, felt it was extremely important for his employees to know how to count change. When a customer would come up to pay, I would carefully key in their items and pray they would write a check. (For you who kids under 30 who don't know, people used to write checks and pay in cash.)

"That will be $19.52," I would say, beads of sweat forming at my hairline, "Will that be cash today?"

The customer would hand over a crisp $20, and I would start counting with my fingers (math is totally not my thing), frantically trying to figure out the proper change, when out of nowhere they would shove a nickel in my hand, and throw a complete wrench into my change-counting. It was torture.

To keep my job and thwart a nervous breakdown, I avoided the register whenever possible. Then I discovered a switch on the register that would tell you how much change to give back. Amazing! This system worked flawlessly for about a day, until our boss discovered that someone had messed with his register. I fessed up, and he became so angry he clenched his teeth, flushed into an unhealthy maroon shade, and promptly wrote me up.

Those extra pennies and nickels ultimately marked my decision to leave retail for good. Yet, somehow, despite my inability to count out change correctly, the customers loved me. I would patiently listen to endless stories of their little students, and go out of my way to find back copies of books we thought were out of print. At an early age, I learned that to win a loyal customer, the key is to win that customer's heart.

The same went for waiting tables. I've said this before, but I believe firmly that anyone who dines out should have a restaurant job at least once in their lives. For starters, it will make you a lifelong good tipper, but it will also give you the right to have an opinion on the level of service, because let me tell you, that job is not easy. It will earn you the right to judge if the server did a great job, or if they were terrible.

For the most part, I was beyond terrible. I required assistance constantly. My skinny spaghetti arms weren't strong enough to carry large trays of food, so I had to get the busboys to help. I had to write everything down in my illegible handwriting because I could only retain a few orders without spinning into a mental frenzy. I couldn't open a bottle of wine without shoving it in between my legs and yanking on the corkscrew until I turned purple. Because of this, I convinced the owner, a beloved Chinese man named Tommy, that I needed him to present the wine to the customers because they enjoyed the attention. And the customers did love it, which was great, because it helped my tips.

Yet somehow, even though I was the worst server in the place, I figured out how to keep the customers happy. I had a trick where I would remember the salad dressing and adult beverage choices of the regulars. That way, as long as I got those two things right, the rest would work itself out. Mrs. Lanier, for example, a woman who lived next door to my parents, will forever be associated with Parmesan Peppercorn on the side, and a glass of White Zinfandel. And even though my service was less than adequate, the regulars began to ask for me.  For some reason, the personal touch made a difference.

Through the years, no matter what the job, I would work hard to ensure that my customers were happy. Then somewhere along the way, people became angrier, and more vocal with their frustrations, and I was forced to learn how to handle unhappy people.

My first experience with angry customers was when I was in my mid 20's, and worked as a telephone operator at a medical answering service while I was finishing up my degree. The hours were flexible, the pay was good, and we got discounted Six Flags Fiesta Texas passes, one of the most hilarious perks ever.

The job sounds easy but was definitely one of the most challenging of my life. Medical answering service operators spend their days fielding calls from worried, frazzled parents calling pediatricians, mentally ill patients calling from the day rooms at state mental health facilities, begging to be released, petrified husbands calling their wife's obstetricians when the first signs of labor appear, and the occasional country bumpkin who saves their bowel movement in a Mason jar to show to their family practitioner. That really happened! Once, a woman called in and asked to page the doctor because she had a "shadow in her panties." Don't ask me; to this day I still have no clue what that was about.

The nature of a medical answering service job is that your day has stressful peaks and valleys. Office opening and closing times were the busiest. These were the days when doctors wore pagers only, and few carried cell phones, so we paged the doctor with the telephone number they needed to call. For medical answering service operators, your customers are the patients,  but your customers are also the doctors and nurses who rely on your service as well. 

One particularly stressful day, I had many calls on hold and was struggling to keep up with the pace, and in the chaos, paged an incorrect number to a doctor who specialized in critical care. Unfortunately, he had a reputation for being a bit of a hothead, and it was no wonder, given that his job was tremendously stressful. He called in, asked to speak with the person who paged him, and proceeded to cuss me out while I sobbed/begged for forgiveness.

Months later I was promoted to supervisor, and one of the operators on my shift made a mistake with the same doctor. Stepping to the operator's rescue, I offered to take the angry call, and listened while he cussed and yelled. But this time, I didn't let him get to me. I knew by that point that when you encounter an angry customer, the best thing you can do give is them time to say what they need to say. Angry customers need to feel heard.

After the doctor stopped yelling, I calmly apologized and assured him that I would speak with the employee. He said another few choice and unpleasant words, and hung up the phone.

A few days later, the same doctor called in to pick up a page. By this time, he remembered my name, and after he jotted down the notes, almost meekly asked,

"You must really think I'm an ass, huh?"

I resisted the temptation to shout, "Totally!" Instead, I admitted that he could be intimidating, and that his strong reactions were not easy to take. I also added that because we had a phone relationship, that we should all be reminded that a human was on the other side of the phone. I was pretty candid. From there, we had a pleasant conversation. The doctor apologized, and admitted that his job was hard because he saw so much death. After that, our relationship was a much better one. By the time I finished my degree and put in my resignation, the doctor offered to write reference letters for me.

Fifteen years later, I'm still working on fine-tuning my customer service skills. I recently switched roles from a sales position to a customer success role at my company. My job is to ensure that our customers are happy, and that they remain customers for life. I love this job, because most of my day is spent helping educate customers on why our product, a sales enablement software application, can make their jobs easier. I'm constantly being challenged by unique situations, different customer needs, and I get to problem-solve and help companies discover strategies to meet their goals by using our product.

The other day, I spoke with a customer who wanted to cancel his service. Because I was new to the account, it was a unique situation, because we didn't have an existing relationship. The customer wanted to set up a call to discuss the cancellation that Friday, and no later, as he wanted to finalize things, had upcoming travel, and was unwilling to drag it out. As luck would have it, I was fully booked with scheduled customer meetings, and was therefore in something of a professional pickle. I managed to cut one call short and shuffle things around to accommodate the customer's schedule, and holed up in a conference room, prepared for a tense conversation.

My goal was to listen more than talk, and given that I am chatty, this is always a challenge. But I bit my tongue as the customer explained the various reasons for his decision to cancel. The reasons varied -- some were legitimate frustrations, and others were more of a misunderstanding and lack of communication on the part of both parties. I waited for the customer to finish, and channeled the energy of one of my former sales managers, a woman who had a unique talent for disarming even the angriest customer by using her smooth Texas drawl.

"Do you know what I like to do in my personal time?" I asked. "You're going to think this is silly, but I like to watch makeover shows. I absolutely love to see a transformation."

He sat silent. I could feel him rolling his eyes through the phone.

"So here is what I'm going to propose. I would like to make-over your company. I want to help transform this experience and do everything I can to help your team see the value in our product. I want to hear about their frustrations, and help offer advice to make their experience a better one. I commit to taking great care of them, if you will give me a chance to makeover this situation."

This cheesy makeover analogy certainly wasn't planned. I must admit, it's actually quite goofy, and I wondered if I was going to make the tense situation even worse by using such a silly comparison. However, by the end of the conversation, the customer had agreed to take the weekend and sleep on it. By Monday, he emailed me with plans to let me speak with two of his sales reps about their experience, with the hopes that I can help work on a solution to their problems.

For me, this was a big victory. My job title - Customer Success Manager - is a perfect description of what I'm tasked to accomplish. I want my customers to be successful. But most of all, I want them to experience excellent customer service, because more and more, I find that customer service is on the decline. I believe firmly that our product is the best solution on the market, but I also believe firmly that part of why we keep our customers is because we take such great care of them.

I'm not really offering up a big moral lesson here, but perhaps the way to deliver stellar customer service is actually quite basic. To some level, we all have customers - whether they are external or internal ones - so perhaps it's worth noting that even if at some point in your career you're just a few levels above being a mediocre employee, that if you focus on allowing the customer to feel heard, that customer is likely to stick around.