if you think this website
looks decent, it’s because I finally got some professional help with it. Also because I barely resembled the old website photograph and my jokes about my hair’s turning blond with age were falling flat.
But, anyway. Over the past 25 years, I've written young adult novels, newspaper columns, magazine articles, humor books, and public radio commentaries. It's interesting -- maybe even therapeutic -- for me to pull much of this work together on a website.
Ever since our two kids fled the house, I’ve noticed I write much more about being middle-aged than about family life. There just aren’t as many people to fight with at home; life is great, but less dramatic. My husband and I eat quiet, civilized dinners at eight every night and nobody criticizes our cooking, our food choices or our topics of conversation.
But family life lingers on in funny ways, even beyond the holiday gatherings and childhood rooms bloated with books, trophies, outgrown clothes and illegal substances, for all I know. Recently, when my husband was out of town, I poured myself a stiff drink before I went to bed. Nothing happened. No effect whatsoever. I poured myself another drink, wondering when, exactly, I’d become an alcoholic.
"It was like there was no liquor in that bottle," I told my husband, after he returned. Nearby, our son – newly home from college – sat, listening to us. I watched as our son blushed to the roots of his red hair and started to laugh hysterically. The liquor-less liquor, it turned out, was a decade-old trick he’d learned from his older sister: Water down the clear stuff and the parents will never notice.
Not only was I not an alcoholic, I realized. The truth is, I hadn’t drunk anything for years. It’s got to be some kind of metaphor for something about family life. You’re never the same after you have kids. You’re just deluded enough to think you are.
-- Ruth Pennebaker
Ruth Pennebaker and her sister, Ellen Dlott, also known as the Fabulous Geezersisters, blog at www.geezersisters.com.
Snappy Quotes from Ruth Pennebaker, in case Bartlett's is Interested
ON PERSPECTIVE: My husband worries about immortality. I worry about next week.
ON MIDDLE-AGED CENTERFOLDS: You know what? This isn’t about looking good for
your age. It’s about looking good for your daughter’s age.
ON FASHION: I’ll give you a tip. My personal acid test is: If I wear this,
will I have to hold in my stomach?
ON HOLIDAY NEWSLETTERS: Stop bragging about your kids. Many important psychological
studies have shown that children whose parents yak about them in their annual
newsletters suffer from tragically low self-esteem, a startlingly high rate of
acne, bad posture, twitching and hats worn backward and, worst of all, they
have no chance whatsoever of getting into an Ivy League school.
ON HOLLYWOOD CASTING: I can do math. When a woman is in her 40s or 50s, her romantic
lead needs to be 30 years older. So, if I go to Hollywood and become a movie
actress at my age, the only men I could co-star with are already dead.
ON JOINING A SOCCER TEAM: I’ll never forget the first time we lined up on the
field for our very first game, facing the other team eyeball-to-eyeball. This is
emblazoned in my memory as the only time in my life I wished I weighed more.