Category archive for: Columns

Sex, politics, fashion and everything else a gen-X everygal loves to dish about.
Published bi-weekly, 2 or 3 times a month

In Praise of My Eyebrows

Published by Starshine Roshell on July 14, 2011

I’m turning 40 soon. Let’s not discuss how soon. It’s a “big” birthday, the official gateway to “over the hill” or, alternately, “the new 18,” depending on whether the person uttering it is under 40 and smug or over 40 and in serious denial.
It’s also a birthday that inspires people to inquire about my mental state. “Wow, 40, huh? How ya feeling about that? You okay with it?”
I can’t say I’m okay with it, no. I don’t relish diving into the very age pool in which my own parents swam when I was in college; I understood then that they were old and I understand now that I am not old, so the logic of the situation makes me woozy. And one should never go swimming when one is woozy.
I’m not thrilled to relinquish my chance at being featured in the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” issue or even Fortune’s half-as-discerning “40 Under 40.” Anything accomplished before 40, it seems, is miraculous; after 40, it’s about damn time and what took you so long?
Decade-cap birthdays are like utilitarian rest stops on a far-reaching span of highway; you stop obligingly, stretch, pee, and have a look around whether you feel the urge or not. Reflexively, unenthusiastically, you take meticulous stock of your life, inventorying recent gains and losses in the professional, domestic, and — gulp — corporal arenas.
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Circumcision: Cut It Out?

Published by Starshine Roshell on July 7, 2011

Actor Russell Crowe railed against circumcision in a profanity-laced tweet last week, calling the ancient and still-popular practice “barbarism.” This month, Colorado becomes the 18th state (California among them) to stop funding circumcision with Medicaid. And in November, San Francisco residents will decide whether to outlaw the procedure outright when they vote on the “Male Genital Mutilation” bill.

Once the norm in the United States, the practice of slicing off a boy’s foreskin shortly after birth has become less common, and more controversial, in recent years. On the one hand are Jews and Muslims with religious and cultural reasons for making the cut, and statisticians convinced the practice reduces the likelihood of urinary tract infections and HIV. On the other are outraged “intactivists” stumping for “genital integrity,” arguing that lopping off the penile hood violates infants’ bodies, reduces sexual sensitivity, and was only popularized in this Puritanical nation as a (clearly futile) means of discouraging masturbation among naughty boys.

Outside the United States, circumcision is prevalent only in Muslim nations, Southeast Asia, Israel, and South Korea. It’s rare in Europe, Latin America, and most of Asia.

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Downloading Self-Control

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 30, 2011

I’m a writer. That’s my job title. But it’s a funny description for someone who does what I do: spends her days grasping for any excuse not to write.

You see, I have the discipline god gave a golden retriever. I’ve read about writers with fuel-injected work ethics, devoted scribes who lock themselves in mountain cabins for weeks at a time to expunge their souls onto the page with no interruptions.

Me, I welcome interruptions. No, I crave them. Focus is hard; interruptions are easy. When I hit a bump in my work — a lay-there lead, herky-jerky transition, or wussy ending — I slip out of writer mode like soap from a wet palm and find myself hunting for online distractions.

Email. Twitter. Google News. I’d like to blame modern technology for my short attention span, but the real menace is me and my diabolical reluctance to concentrate.

“It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.” Buddha said that. I would have said it myself if I hadn’t been so busy not researching column topics or negotiating editorial deadlines, but rather diving down the rabbit hole that is YouTube, searching for old friends on Facebook (who, at this point, it’s safe to assume, don’t want to be found), and checking Weather.com for the next 10 days’ forecast — not because I’m planning a wedding and may need to order a tent but just because the ‘Net allows me to see the future and how cool is that?

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Giving Birth: A Laughing Matter?

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 23, 2011

I’m not into pain. Not even a little bit. A fitness trainer once instructed me to push through my searing muscle ache, assuring me that “pain is weakness leaving the body.” My response: “This is me leaving the weight room and signing up for Zumba.”

Life’s full of pain. Why invite more?

It’ll come as no surprise, then, that my position on pain management during childbirth has always been an unequivocal “YES, PLEASE.” Upon arriving at the hospital to deliver my children, I told every human being who would listen, including the valet who took my car out front: “I’m going to need an epidural. A big one. Soon, probably. I’m one of those women. Just so’s ya know.”

I got my epidural — twice. And it even worked — once. The other time it failed and had to be re-administered late in the game. Which is really the only good reason for an anesthesiologist to be holding a long needle inches from a shrieking woman’s spine, instructing her to “hold very still” during body-quaking, soul-rattling contractions. But I digress.

My point is that labor and delivery are brutal. They’re absolute misery; I don’t care what anyone tells you. I did lots of unpleasant and involuntary things in the delivery room. I wept. I vomited. I may have soiled the delivery table; my husband has the good sense to deny it, and I have the good sense not to keep asking.

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Glossy and Glam, with Girth

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 16, 2011

I no longer read fashion magazines. I don’t subscribe to them. I don’t impulsively buy them at the grocery checkout aisle. Unless I’m at the salon, bored stupid while waiting for abrasive chemicals to work magic on my mane, I steer clear of glossy beauty rags altogether.

They endorse a pristine level of personal maintenance that makes me feel — in lax contrast — like a wrinkly, flabby savage in outdated pants. And I try never to feel like that.

But there’s a magazine out this month that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. The June issue of Italian Vogue boasts a lush and provocative cover featuring … wait for it … plus-size models. That’s right: The cover and a generous interior spread celebrate four stunning women with hips, thighs, and hindquarters that don’t hide from hotshot photographer Steven Meisel’s leering camera. In black-and-white 1960s cinema style, the voluptuous ladies lounge in lingerie, sprawling half-nude on divans, crawling cat-like across tables, cuddling up to fur coats (how desperately do you want to see this right now?).

The headline: “Belle vere.” Real beauty.

I’m not one to defend the fashion industry. It’s fickle, it’s shallow, it’s fiendishly (and intentionally) out of touch with reality. Case in point: It trumpets grasshopper-thin girls as paragons of glamour, but has lost five “successful” young models in as many years to anorexic deaths. The youngest was 18; the smallest weighed just 73 pounds.

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Lost: One Father

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 9, 2011

I always knew I’d speak at my father’s funeral.

It’s a morbid thought, I know. But I was sure I’d deliver his eulogy. See, he’s a fascinating man — passionate and charismatic, the kind of guy who seems to have lived several lives in the space of one. A dozen careers. Hundreds of adventures. Thousands of friends.

And my father taught me how to write. By turning me on to cunning authors and forcing me to rewrite shoddy school essays, he helped shape my voice. We share a love of style, an ear for rhythm.

So I assumed that when the time came, I’d need to squelch my own sadness, stifle my tears, and sum up the substantial capacity of this man’s character. The notion scared me half to death myself. I spent years wondering what I’d say to honor such a life and whether I could do it justice.

But I don’t wonder that anymore. Now I just wonder if anyone will tell me when he dies.

Technically, he’s not my dad; he’s my stepdad. But he was a real father to me for 30 years. He coached me in table manners and protected me from bullies. He donned a grass skirt to man the grill for my Sweet 16 backyard luau. He wrote a poem for me and read it aloud at my wedding.

That day — the day I got married — he was already one year into a secret love affair with a woman who was not my mother. The liaison lasted 12 years before Mom discovered it.

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Don't Say 'Gay'

Published by Starshine Roshell on June 2, 2011

It’s the love that dare not speak its name — especially if you’re in Tennessee, where it could land you in jail.

The state’s Senate just passed a bill that would make it illegal to teach about homosexuality in public schools from kindergarten through 8th grade. No gay-marriage chatter. No gay-rights banter. No gay gayness of any gay sort.

Dubbed the “Don’t Say ‘Gay’ Bill” by opponents, the measure insists that any instruction or materials provided to students on the subject of sexuality must be “limited exclusively to natural reproductive science.” Teachers who violate the rule could be fined up to $50 and sentenced to as many as 30 days behind bars.

Supporters say the bill allows parents, rather than teachers, to decide when and what (and, er, if?) their children learn about homosexuality. As if they didn’t actually learn all they need to know from watching Modern Family.

But to me, the whole gay gag just looks like a bunch of uptight Republicans trying to squash a squirrelly little slice of reality that makes them terribly uncomfortable. And maybe just the slightest bit tingly.

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I Want Camp

Published by Starshine Roshell on May 26, 2011

Considering the mess on my desk, and the muddle in my head, you’d think we were applying to college. My checkbook cowers beneath too many glossy brochures. My brain stews in conflicting data: dates, deadlines, and deposits, reputations and recommendations …

But it’s not college-application time — it’s summer-camp scheduling season. When I was a kid, that meant two choices: cot-sleeping at overnight camp or handball-playing at day camp. The most I learned at either was how to treat sunburn and skeeter bites.

Starshine Roshell

Times have changed. The summer-camp industry has exploded like a red ant hill under the trouncing cleats of World Cup Soccer Camp. Or like a failed soufflé at Kids Cook! Culinary Camp. Or like a rocket ship at Destination Science Camp.

These days you need a spreadsheet to sort out your kids’ endless options. Summer camps are a $12-billion-per-year industry, according to the American Camp Association (ACA), and there are more than 12,000 camps in the U.S. Unlike the offerings of my youth, today’s camps seem exceedingly specialized and impossibly — even unreasonably — fun.

Determined to cultivate kids’ hard-won confidence and spark their blossoming imaginations (or at least hell-bent on convincing the paying parents that’s what they’re doing), camps cover every conceivable interest under the searing summer sun. The ACA boasts camps for caving and clowning, fencing and farming, rafting and riflery. There’s rock rappelling, tap dancing, and “lamp working” (really?). There’s even a Secret Agent Camp, where mini wanna-Bonds learn stealth tactics, martial arts, and code-deciphering. All of which are invaluable in middle school.

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Better Blind Than Fat?!

Published by Starshine Roshell on May 19, 2011

One in seven women would rather be blind than obese. That’s what researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) found when, in a study of how “obesity spreads socially,” they asked 100 women to choose — hypothetically — between obesity and other socially stigmatized conditions like alcoholism and herpes.

One in four would rather suffer from depression. Severe depression. It’s a sick question, really. But the responses say a lot about our culture — and the ways in which we’re unfathomably stupid.

It’s interesting that it comes down to a comparison between body proportions and eyesight, when it’s our society’s fixation on looks that fuels the great Fear of Fatness. And it’s funny to me that these imaginary scenarios, if rendered real, would leave us obese but not depressed about it, or svelte but unable to admire ourselves in a mirror.

Let’s remember that “obese” doesn’t necessarily mean “Biggest Loser”-sized. A full third of adult Americans fit the definition; many are your friends and family members. You may fit it yourself: 5’4″ and 174 pounds, 5’9″ and 203. Six feet, 221. Sound familiar?

Obese people are not starring in big-screen rom-coms, not modeling Victoria’s Secret’s new Sexy Little Things Supersmooth Cheekinis (yes, they’re real). But they’re everywhere else. And they’re doing just fine.

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Online Grades

Published by Starshine Roshell on May 11, 2011

The house is finally quiet, the kids gone. She pours her coffee and slides in front of the computer. Pulse quickening, she grabs the mouse, clicks the bookmarked page, clacks out her password — and steels herself for what she’ll see.

“I actually get this adrenaline rush as it’s loading,” said the mother of two. “It’s like you’re watching the stock market. I’m almost holding my breath going, ‘Is it going to be good?'”

She’s peering at her kids’ grades via an online gradebook, where today’s students — and their hand-wringing parents — can monitor scores for every assignment, in every class. More and more middle schools and high schools across the nation are adopting these grade-reporting systems. And it’s churning up anxiety among parents I know.

“I checked obsessively when I first had access to it and cursed those teachers who didn’t update regularly,” confessed a friend on the school board. “Then I realized the system administrator could see which parents were accessing their child’s grades morning, mid morning, noon, afternoon, evening, midnight, and at 2 a.m. — and I backed off in shame.”

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