Pam Anderson is a million dollars richer today, and Rick Salomon is a lot happier … because we’ve learned they got divorced.
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When I say “peer pressure,” I can feel you mentally side-eyeing me, thinking, Kay, Mom, I’m pretty sure I learned how to say no when I was in diapers. I hear you! But peer pressure isn’t always Creepy Guy Trying To Shove Cigarette In Your Face.
Sometimes it’s your BFF trying something you’re pretty sure is illegal — and urging you to join. Sometimes it’s your whole crew bashing on something you secretly love. And you’re just hoping no one notices the WTF-look on your face as you get stuck in your head with two thoughts: (1) Is this real life, and (2) What the what am I supposed to do now?
That’s what we cover in Choices: We break down the most common ways you might be pulled under the Friendfluence, and how to sidestep sticky situations without making things weird. And with the help of Scholastic’s Choices mag and our hilarious teens at the YMCA of New York, we’ve put together a video to tell you exactly what to say (literally, word for word!) when you’re put on the spot.
Not sure how to push back on a pressure-y friend? Want to see how our teens fared when put to the Friendfluence test? Check out the video below — though I hope no one you meet is as creepy/awful/bad as the “Friendfluencers” I pretend to be — and share this with anyone who might be feeling the same struggle. You’ll want to stop the stress before it gets scary: Read about how peer pressure can become dangerous, or even deadly, in our “The Danger Lurking in Just One Drink” feature for this month’s issue of Choices magazine.
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What the hell happened to bowling?
Last weekend, my wife boarded a plane to Boston for some quality time with her sisters. As you married men will attest, there’s nothing like a good mancation.
Falling asleep on the couch, with a blaring TV, a half empty bottle of bourbon and the ugly remains of a Pregnant Burrito still on the coffee table. That’s living.
I also took the opportunity to get some chow with a buddy of mine, grab my brother and head over to the Westchester Bowling Lanes across the street from LAX. I hadn’t been to a bowling alley in years. And after this experience, may not for return for another decade.
For starters it was unrecognizable.
The long artificial fluorescent lights have been dimmed and replaced by swirling lasers and purplish neon.
The J-shaped booths have been replaced by cheap Euro-trash plasticine chairs that were bought from Ikea and bolted into the flooring.
And the scorer’s table, once large enough to accommodate the unwieldy scoring sheets, a few pitchers of beer and a couple of overstuffed ash trays are now a tiny table no bigger than a TV tray, barely large enough to fit a Cinnabun.
And then there is the music.
If you want to call it that.
I hate to be cliche and step on the Old Man Griping Pedal here, but seriously, what is that crap coming through the speakers?
Glocks and cocks.
Hoes and bitches.
Motherfuckers and dicksuckers.
On what planet, or bowling alley, does the qualify as music? Moreover, on the lane next to us, there were five 12-year-old girls with loose hips and the dreaded selfie stick, “dancing” to the constant thumping, while their mother captured it all video.
“Can you girls keep the gyrations down? I’m trying to pick up a tricky 8-5-10 split.”
Naturally, we all lamented the changes and yearned for the good old days of stubby pencils, big black beat-up 16 lbs. balls and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Not unexpectedly, we all bowled miserably, barely cracking into the three digits. The computerized screens wouldn’t even let us enhance our score. Or take a Mulligan.
But it wasn’t a total loss. I beat my brother at both games.
And the sweet taste of victory that one sibling lords over the other will never change and will always stand the test of time.
See more at http://roundseventeen.blogspot.com.
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My ex-MIL and I had a terrible relationship. It was the cause of many fights between my ex-husband and me and created great stress. I’m not here to write about those old stressors, problems, and issues or air any dirty laundry. It was difficult to go through and hurt me that my MIL did not like me, but I made my mistakes too, and besides that time is over.
When my ex and I separated and he went back to his parents to stay for a while, I worried that my relationship with her would be worse than it was before. I fretted about how much his parents must hate me since we were splitting up. I figured there would be comments left and right about me, the terrible mother and person. “My daughter would end up not liking me,” I thought, letting the worst thoughts run through my head. How could this go well?
Guess what… It did.
Sure, there were a few rough moments in the beginning, and we don’t always agree on stuff, but what happened after that was beyond what I could have hoped for. They say that who shows up during the roughest times in your life are the ones you can truly count on. I thought it would be other people in my life coming to my side to cheer me on, but those people haven’t showed up yet. I never imagined in a million years that one of the people who would step up to the plate would be my ex-MIL.
When my ex and I divided our daughter’s life in practically half, I wondered who would take her to school on “my days” and pick her up? I could do before care and after care, but that would add up, and since I’m a mom who’s just gone back to the workforce, it would be a tough expense.
My ex-in laws stepped up to help me. It was for the greater good — for our child’s good they said. Never once do I hear a complaint. Never once am I told this is an inconvenience.
When we decided to put our daughter in play therapy — but I realized that my job is incredibly far from her therapist and her school — my ex-in laws agreed to meet me and my daughter at her therapist after the sessions are over so they can bring her back south to school and I can head north to work.
Never once did they say, “Figure it out,” or “So what? So you’re already coming into work late at 10:35. Make it 11:30. Too bad, lady.”
Never once did they say, “Why do we have to help so much?”
The other day my ex told me that in order to avoid ruining his credit completely, he would have to sign over the deed on the marital house to the bank in which I am living. I understood. Firstly, I’m not on the mortgage and don’t feel the pain of a foreclosure or missed mortgage payments. Secondly, while this isn’t optimal for him a foreclosure would be worse and I believe in the school of thought that says both parties in a divorce need to move on and thrive. I want both of us to be okay. Never once do I wish for my ex’s demise. I want him to be happy — that’s my daughter’s father!
But when I heard I had 73 days to leave the house, I cried. I just started a job eight months ago. My other second job I started seven months ago. I am not financially on my feet and this puts me in a very bad position, but unfortunately, even if we aren’t ready for life, life is always ready for us.
One evening I asked my in-laws to watch my daughter after school instead of aftercare so I could look for homes. Did they complain? No. When I came to pick up my daughter, my ex-MIL could see the stress on my face. Just one day before this, I had sent my ex-in laws a card and in it I said how much I appreciated them, their efforts as grandparents and that their support makes all of our lives, especially our daughter’s, easier. I hadn’t heard yet if they had received the card and so I was anxious. Not to mention I was overwhelmed. The house hunt was awful. I told myself it was day one but in my head all I could think was, ” Just 70 more days.”
“I got the card,” she said to me, while my ex-FIL played with my daughter.
“I really appreciate everything you guys have done for us — for her. Thank you.”
As she asked me about the house hunt, I started to cry. That’s when the woman who hated me reached in for a hug. And as she hugged me she said to me in my ear, “You will always be her mother. That will never change. I will never do anything to hurt that. And I’m sorry for everything. I know we are different, but that’s behind us.”
I told her I was sorry too and that I hoped the past could stay where it belongs — in the past.
When I went home that night, something changed between me and my ex-husband. His mother and I had finally given him the gift he had wanted for so long — a truce, but more than a truce. It is a mutual understanding that even though we are completely different and may not always walk to the same beat, we both have the same goal: a happy child and grandchild. Two happy coparents. Yes, my ex lacked in helping his mother and I get along when we were together, but that doesn’t matter anymore. The old injuries are not to be tallied.
Instead I count all the blessings they have given me, my ex-in-laws.
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To ensure a locomotive pulling a heavy load has enough grip when a winter’s blast covers the tracks in ice and snow, engineers at GE’s transportation division have spent the last five years perfecting what can be described as a supersonic hair dryer that blasts tracks clean just inches in front of a train’s front wheels.
Completely deleting something from the internet is like corralling drunk, feral geese after setting them loose: Damn near impossible. But there are ways to conceal the web content you don’t want anyone to lay eyes on. You can hide all sorts of webpages with what’s essentially a “Keep Out” sign for search engines: a special file called robots.txt.
I gushed about CameraBag 2 for OS X, and for good reason. It’s powerful, easy to use, and one of the best desktop photo editors around. The same team responsible for that desktop app also have a mobile photo editing app in Fotograf. Silly name, but Fotograf wants to be taken seriously in a competitive, crowded space. With apps like … Continue reading
It may be a fraction of Netflix’s size, but Hulu is no small fry when it comes to the online video business. At an advertising conference in New York, the company has revealed that it has won the exclusive streaming rights to Seinfeld. It’s a big dea…
So much for hopes that TAG Heuer’s first smartwatch will cost less than its conventional counterparts. Jean-Claude Biver, the head of TAG’s parent company LVMH, says that the Android Wear timepiece will cost about $1,400 when it ships in October or N…
Futurama fans can now get their hands on a set of Funko POP vinyl figures of characters from the show. You can’t buy up the whole crew, but a few of the main characters are here.
You can get Bender, complete with a bottle of beer and his shiny metal ass, Fry, Leela, and the Robot Devil. Bender was always my favorite character.
Each of the characters stands about 3.75-inches tall and have the beady black eyes (or eye) that you expect from a Funko POP action figure. ThinkGeek has each of the four characters for $9.99 each. Hopefully, we’ll get more of the characters soon. The world needs a Funko POP Zoidberg.
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