Tragically Unhip
The following entry was written for Mommybloggers by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. It has been a joy to pass over the reigns to her today.
My daughter is much cooler than me and she’s two. Yesterday she wore cammo pants with a red tutu – and she pulled it off! People stopped to take her picture. Believe me I had been worried about her future because her mother is a failure in that department. No one’s ever stopped to take a picture of me in my banana clip.
You may not know at first glance that I’m not hip. I mean, I’m wearing my “vintage” shirt, but, unfortunately for me I didn’t pay 35 cents for it at a thrift store or 3,500 at Fred Segal. No, sadly, I got it at Wet Seal, the store that caters to the 11 to maybe 18 set. I’m 40. I actually do a lot of shopping there. I know. it’s true. I’m a member of a club that would never admit it’s own existence. But, I’m coming out of the closet. I’m one of them. The tragically unhip. I’m not nor have I ever been uncool enough to bring it full circle and be geeky in a hipster way. I’ve slipped through the cracks.
And I’m not one of those people who cool doesn’t matter to. You know, a Wall Street type who’s mad for Dave Matthews and knows the world is on his side on this one or someone who calls Dr. Laura introducing themselves as “Hi Dr. Laura, I’m My Kid’s Mom” or uses the phrase “Ah ha moment” with serious purpose. No. I’m not oblivious to my unhipness. I wish I was. What I am is so much worse. I’m a dreaded wannabe.
It started in early grade school. In our studio apartment, my mother collected green stamps like it was her job and my clothes were ordered for me from the Sears catalog. But here’s the catch, I liked it. Yeah, I didn’t groan like a future Janeane Garafolo, I looked forward to the delivery of my purple polyesther pants suit with white fringe and the daintiest 100% plastic flowers surrounding the turtleneck white collar with glee. Oh yeah, I used words like glee.
In sixth grade I made an early attempt at hip. I begged and begged to get a “real” professional haircut by a real professional hair dresser. Up until that point, my mother thought it was perfectly fine and a great money saver to pull out the old Singer sewing scissors and chop away until I had a straight wall of bangs well above my eyebrows. Finally my mother relented. Only, it wasn’t at a “salon” it was a friend’s mom who cut hair out of her house on the cheap while enjoying a few gin and grapefruit juices – but hey, I thought, at least it wasn’t MY MOM. The hairstyle I wanted, naturally, was the infamous Dorothy Hamill - the haircut of the pre-pubescent ice skating, gymnastic, freshly ear pierced set. But the “hairstylist” may have been more familiar with the work of Olga Korbut. The result didn’t look cute and girly on me, hitting my jawline just so and flipping up delicately. No, I just looked like a boy. Possibly a cute boy. But a boy. I didn’t become aquainted with layers until my twenties.
After that, there were Toni home perms that went awry (are there any other kind?), Sun-In, self tanning lotions that made me look jaundiced at best and other misfired attempts at hip. It seemed to always be my fault too, seeing as the other girls in class managed to pull it off. And, I swear over twenty years have gone by and the self-tanners still turn my skin colors not found in nature. But I’m still trying.
Shorty after the perm incident that went awry, I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. Okay, not exactly a friend. More like a girl’s whose mother made her extend an invite to all her 6th grade classmates. I obsessed on what to get her for her present and decided on a record, not just any record but my favorite record. Janis Ian. Even my mother thought it might not be a great idea but I loved Janis Ian. Not just the song “At Seventeen” but all the poignant, angst filled songs that I cried and sang along to in my room wishing I was a folky, 20-something, unruly haired singer who could literally make people’s hearts ache with a specific chord change. And pull off a beret.
At the birthday party, I presented my gift with bated breath waiting to finally be accepted, perhaps even celebrated. My heart swelled with pride while she unwrapped it. But the recipient, Debbie Shindower, gave me a look of pity I’ll never forget. I’d gotten it so wrong and they all knew it. Smirks gave way to laughter and exclamations of “Who the fuck is Janis Ian?” Debbie went on to open Shaun Cassidy, The Bee Gees, Olivia Newton John and other far less navel gazing lesbians, apparently more appropriate for a 10- year-old girl.
In another misguided attempt to fit in with the cool kids in my semi-tough neighborhood, I played along with some clumsy sexual games in the alley behind my house. A few of the girls had gathered and were daring each other to rub up against the 5th grade boy who lived across the street from me. Not wanting to do it and not wanting to refuse, I participated. This escalated to making him pull his pants down and one of the girls suggesting we touch his flaccid penis with a leaf. Then we were dared by our leader to “touch it” which I did for a millisecond (it felt like sand paper). So, years later I found out that the boy had been mildly retarded. So if semi-molesting a mentally challenged 5th grader made me cool then score one for the home team!