Krista was four inches taller than me, had long, super curly, black hair with blond streaks. The streaks used to be bright pink but faded to a pretty blond color. Krista had begged me for pink or purple streaks for a year.
"Why not blond or light brown streaks? Pink is not a hair color," I said.
"That is why I want pink, cha," Krista answered.
I wanted pretty. She wanted bold. She wanted a difference.
"What's the big deal?" Luke my then boyfriend asked when I told him what she wanted. "It's only hair, not drugs."
My rules were: No drugs, no smoking, no cigarettes, no sex, anything short of the was allowed. If a teen was not doing drugs, smoking, drinking, or having sex, that in itself was an achievement, especially if they were also getting good grades-which Krista at the time was. Teens are going to do weird things and their abnormalities are the norm. But when I came to the above conclusions, I didn't think about her riding in cars with boys, laying down in the middle of the road, getting in trash cans at school, lighting fires or staying up all night and being a bitch all the next day. And I did not think about purple and pink streaks in the hair. Luke had a point though, pink hair wasn't drugs. Teens need room for important growth, and it is important to be tolerant. Before I had teenagers, I had glib ideas about the importance of independence, self expression, and experimentation with life as the child grew into an adult. Now these ideas are being tested. The best parents with the best ideas and solutions are those with no children. The same could be said about the stages of childhood. The best parent to a teen is a person who has a toddler. For me to have said that I knew what raising a teen would be like before I had one was like someone saying they knew what working construction in the summer sun was like because they had sat drinking margaritas by the pool in the sun at a Country Club. Finally I agreed to the streaks.
"Suzie it'll be $110 for me to streak her hair and don't try it yourself then come to me to fix it," my hairdresser said when I told him about Krista's plan to color her hair pink.
Krista thought she should have it professionally colored.
"Hell no I'm not spending over a hundred dollars on your hair," I said.
Luke chimed in, "I'll do it. I used to color all of my friends' hair. My Mom was a hairdresser. I know what I am doing."
Krista was ecstatic and now I had no way out. Luke and Krista bought dark, hot pink hair color, bleach, hair paint brushes, tin foil, and rubber gloves. Luke colored her hair in the kitchen while I nervously cleaned the top of the fridge. Luke layered the hair and separated sections with tin foil. He painted on the bleach, waited, rinsed, and then did the same with the pink hair color. It turned out beautifully. I loved it and so did she. She had a gorgeous pink streak around her cherubic face and huge pink chunks in back.
"My Mom's young boyfriend streaked my hair pink. My Mom rocks. Luke rocks, cha," Krista told her friends.
She, in pubescent rebellion, wore long controversial band t-shirts, rolled up jeans with holes, aboriginal pen markings on her skin, and multi-colored socks. At the shoe store I bought her high top black leather Converse with gun-metal grommets, stylized batwings and sporty designed bottoms. I wear Birkenstocks. In case you have been billeted on Pluto for the past couple of decades, Birkenstocks are corky based, buckled, leather, open-toed sandals that are worn and designed specifically for the middle-aged, health and socially conscious liberal. The Birkenstock to a teenager is what the geriatric diaper is to the middle-aged person: iconic of everything old. Although she had long ago badgered me into updating my wardrobe to low-rise jeans and super long t-shirts, she had failed to embarrass me into giving up my Birkenstocks.
To get me out of my old outdated jeans she said, "Mom, you have long crotch and baggy bottom. If your pant waist were any higher you'd have a bra strap."
My cousin chimed in and said, "My what a long crotch you have."
But the Birkenstocks went unnoticed, or at least ignored, by Krista.
Then one day Krista said, "Mom Birkenstocks are way Old School; you are beyond vintage."
"Luke likes them," I pleaded.
"He's just being nice," she said dryly.
"No he was with me when I bought them, and he wouldn't have encouraged me to spend hundreds on shoes if he weren't sincere."
"Yes but did he know you'd wear them with socks?"
She had me there. I had my own doubts about the Birkenstock/sock combo. It had been a thing I had not wanted to admit to myself. I had been in fashion denial for some time. Sock and Birkenstock wearing forty-one year old women are not attractive. I may as well put those damn grown-up diapers on my feet and shout to the world, "I never want to get laid."
I have chunky, blond streaks in my hair and wear plenty of make-up to cover many of my aging imperfections. I have big boobs dammit. But allow your eyes to relax and travel downwards inch by inch and prepare for the horror and doom of the worst kind: Middle Aged Beauty Neglect.
"Claire, don't let the children look, but that woman over there is wearing Birkenstocks with socks," strangers said.
Middle-Age Beauty Neglect ruins minds, has destroyed sex lives, torn apart marriages, and driven sensible men to affairs. People get it bad when they are married. Mrs. Garter is my age, a mother of Brook's friend, and balding. In case you were dozing while reading, I said, Mrs. Garter is balding. And she is allowing it. There are plugs, drugs and wigs, but she is allowing Female Balding to take root. Male balding is okay; men can shave their head and it is expected, but female balding is worse than ovarian cancer. Mrs. Garter has terrible yellow stained teeth, is overweight, and wears no make up. Her husband is a very tall, ugly professor who studies environmental pollution. The Garter's have enough money for plastic surgery, teeth bleach and Covergirl. Mrs. Garter's husband is irreparably geeky, and it is not that polyester wearing, slump-backed, buck-tooth men aren't attractive, it is that that is the best man you'll get if you have Beauty Neglect. When I thought of Luke and compared him to Mrs. Baldy's husband, I realized I will do anything to keep from falling into that dark, deep abyss. So thanks to Krista, I bought blue Converse shoes and wear them faithfully. When I first got low-rise jeans, my fat stomach hung out because my t-shirts were too short. My gut was white and mushy; it folded out and over the top of my pants in the same manner that Mrs. Garter's teeth cantilevered out over her bottom teeth.
"Longer t-shirts Mom. That's gross," Krista said grimacing while trying to unglue her eyes from my belly.
"Longer t-shirts it is," I said.
The Abercrombie Kendall tank top worked lovely, but since the low-rise pants held tight to the hips and squished my fat up and over the waistband and there was nothing around the waist to hold the fat in, the belly looked even puffier than it already was. The shape of my belly button, a remakably deep cavern, was further delineated by the bulging fat surrounding it. My belly was a doughnut and the belly button was the doughnut hole. For months I went to the grocery store, my morning tea cafe, and Luke's house wearing the low jeans and tight, thin t-shirts with doughnut belly before realizing I needed a girdle. Twenty-four year old, low-rise jean wearing girls (for whom this style is meant), do not need a girdle. But when one is forty-one years old and wearing teenager clothing, one must adapt. The first girdle was heavily boned and had thirty-five tiny hooks to strap the fat down. It was much like a corset. It was beautiful. I looked great. It went from just under my boobs down to my hips, way past aforementioned belly button. No cavern showing through; no fat lapping over the edge. I proudly wore it to the mall. It was super tight and I felt sick in the car on the way there.
"Mom once you are standing it will be fine," Krista said and I believed.
We walked around the mall with my shirt getting tucked in at the top of the girdle. The belly button was hidden, but the boning showed through my thin shirt, and people stared. The girdle rode up. It rode down. I couldn't breathe and almost passed out six times until I unhooked the top hooks and found relief. I wanted to rip it off but was too vain--now that I looked so good--to go back to how things once were. Once home I took that fucking girdle off and relaxed my traumatized, soft belly. I decided to can that damn $45 girdle, and bought a body suit designed to gently hold in all the mush. It was made from tight, thick lycra fabric. It worked great except for the three hooks at the crotch that poked and pinched. Aside from making it difficult to pee, it was uncomfortable and it left imprinted indentations on my important parts. But I will wear it just so I can look hot. That is, as hot as a forty-one year old, middle-aged woman with a muffin top belly trying to dress like a skinny twenty-one year old girl can get.