Jerry Replies

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take exception to Mary's last post. She said we both preferred curling up with a copy of "Great Expectations" to jumping off a cliff overlooking rocks with a harness... Actually, I enjoy jumping naked off cliffs, although only in my dreams. And my naked Bungee-jumping dreams still have literary merit, since the Bronte sisters are watching and Camus is holding up a sign judging my leap as a perfect "10." (Since it's Camus, he probably should hold up another sign adding, "but who cares?")

I took a trip to Colorado shortly after our first contact. I didn't go to jump off cliffs. Instead, I engaged in riskier behavior: I spent time with my daughter April and a couple of her peers. Psychologists call it "quality time." I liken the experience to canoeing the Niagara River above Horseshoe Falls. Mary and I kept in touch while I was in Colorado, and it was during this exchange of emails that we first traded substantive information about our offspring. It was also when we realized that we both needed serious professional help.

Hi Jerry,

Oh, it sounds like you're having a blast! I am so thankful that your spirit is being renewed in what I am sure, most would refer to as "God's country."

Now that I have had a day to attend to errands, I have come to the

realization that there is a virtual deluge of paperwork on my desk,

threatening a tsunami at any moment. There, amidst the waves sits a

ship load (pun intended just for you) of filing and the sinking feeling I have is the reckoning that I have yet to do my taxes!

In order to avoid the impending quiet storm, I think I'll ditch it for the moment and run to Costco for some quick retail therapy and a tank of gas! By the time I return it will give me just long enough to run out the door for my 4 o'clock swim cardio class. Denial is such a good thing.But that will leave me a window from 6:30 to 9:00 to throw out the life raft and fish through the paperwork before settling in for the kill with Tony Soprano.

Hope your evening is half as exciting as mine.

Sincerely,

Mary

Dear Mary,

I agree that denial is a good thing. Once it gets past its larval stage, it's known as vacation. I don't even want to think about the deluge of paperwork awaiting me when I get home.Taxes? Haven't touched 'em yet.

As I write this, my day is just beginning. The sun is beckoning like Moby Dick for me to go outside and add to the "healthy glow" I acquired on yesterday's fishing trip. My daughter wants to open a bank account today. I think she secretly hopes that will start a cascade of events leading to a driver's license. Ha! I'm onto her little scheme.

Hope all is well.

Sincerely,

Jerry

Jerry, Jerry!

You crack me up! Must admit I laughed with respect to your daughter's "little scheme." Ha! Be glad you don't wear make-up. Just this week I reached for my industrial strength moisturizer, only to find it in my daughter's backpack! Of course it was in good company, with my hairbrush, comb AND mascara!!!!!

Must run her now to her karate class (I remind her that I still have a frying pan and know how to wield it) and then the club to swim again.(One would think I should have sprouted fins by now.)

Hey, how did the fishing go?

Carpe Diem,

M.

Dear Mary,

Just thought you'd like to know that I opened that bank account for my daughter today. I think the branch manager who helped us open it was a mole for Homeland Security. She was pleasant enough, but she forced me to supply two forms of identification and fingerprinted both of us. The only thing missing was a shoe inspection. Talk about family fun!

As far as the fishing trip goes--- the kids caught two fish apiece.

Naturally, they caught nothing while I was with them. As soon as I left to get them SausageMcMuffins, the fish started biting.

This is beautiful country, although it's easy to forget that the air is thinner in Colorado . A slow bike ride here is about as strenuous as Navy SEAL training at sea level.

Glad to hear about the moisturizer and other purloined goods. It sounds as if you're as neck-deep in parenthood as I am.

Sincerely,

Jerry

Good Morning:

I think you've missed your calling. Your material is top notch stand up stuff. Of course, you'd have to do a set at the PTA and the "I Killed My Teenager - Anonymous" meetings. But Jerr, you have a talent!

We have rain - well, actually more of a mist this morning, the kind the Irish call a "soft morning." I've seen it hang in the air before, that beautiful air borne dew - then I realized it was my extravagant signature fragrance, Angel. That's right, when I opened the door to the laundry room, it wafted from behind and yet it was oddly not my perfume. What in the world? Then it hit me, that the underlying scent was no longer vanilla or chocolate, there was now a rank undertone that made me forget that I should have been perplexed that the Maytag and its closet's contents were whispering Angel. What the hell was this...my nose whiffed it, and then it hit me...cat shit. It appears that my daughter Sunny decided to use it as an "air freshener" in lieu of actually changing her cat's box. Well, if she lives long enough, maybe she can march her fanny into Nordstrom's and pitch her idea, Angel scented cat box liners, or Angel scented plastic scoops, or Angel scented cat litter...but of course she would have to change the name...hmmm..At $150.00 per ounce, it must be French in derivation, so maybe "Parfum de Merde de Chien" would be catchy. I'm sure there's a whole new market out there. I wonder how you translate English to French in saying, "Sunny, get your butt in here, now!"

It's a good thing my taxes haven't been touched. I just got my corrected 1098 from the bank, proving that I have thrown a first year's college education fund down the toilet in mortgage interest. Ya gotta love the American dream.

Well my friend, I hope your day is great. I have some prep work to do in the house as a friend of mine is coming to spend the night after we old timers rock out with Rod Stewart tonight. Don't worry, I promise not to sing Maggie May while filling out my AARP application.

Make it a great one,

Mary

Dear Mary,

Thanks for the kind words. And let me return the compliment: your material is a riot. The bit about Angel was especially good.

I was glad to hear you're familiar with "I Killed My Teenager - Anonymous," and I gather you're a member as well. It's been quite therapeutic for me.The only unpleasant moment came when another member (I can't use names) accused me of locking my daughter in a broom closet. You can imagine my outrage. I retorted angrily that I had never confined her in anything smaller than the pantry, where she has a cot between the Ramen and the bottled sauerkraut.

Actually, I don't think those Dickensian measures work anymore. I can imagine a kid in the Victorian Era, emerging after six months in a turret, shivering with contrition and saying, "I'm sorry, Master. I will never again forget to shovel out the stall." Nowadays, kids are too tech-savvy, and they can turn any confined area into their own personal cyber cafes. You can ground your kids, but when you decide they've had enough, you're bound to find them listening to illegally-downloaded music, IM-ing with their friends and probably hacking into NORAD.And so it goes. Here's to more "soft mornings" and Angel in the air.

Sincerely,

Jerry

Great Expectations

I don't recall if we "winked" or sent each other the "ice breaker" or a "shout out," first. But everytime I asked the computer to match me, the tiny black and white photo and profile of "malibunewsman" would come up as an 85% match. It's hard to ignore that number, and like I already said, he could write, which is a huge turn on to me. Guess it has to do with that first junior high school love affair. No, not the one with my first love Steve who now lives in the south of France. No. The first and foremost loves were Samuel Clemens, J.D. Salinger and Camus. Show me a man who can write, and I'll show you a man who can ponder the birds, bees, and yes, birdseed. Nothing to sneeze at, 85%. Yup. It turned out that neither one of us preferred cobras over collies or gerbils over German shepherds. We both would have rather spent a night curled up with "Great Expectations" than jumping naked off the side of a cliff overlooking rocks with nothing on but a harness painfully jammed up into body parts that only specialists get to really take a close look at and even probe. Go figure. And so here's how it started:


Dear Twilightime:
What a pleasure to read about you. I would love to know more. May I give you a call?
Sincerely,
Jerry (malibunewsman)



Dear Jerry:
Sure. Why not. Catch me on the cell during the day. Feel free to leave a message if I'm not able to pick up. I'm in the middle of shooting a kids' show this week and often have the phone turned off. Here's my number _____________.
Sincerely,
Mary

He called and I picked up. It was a pleasant conversation. My heart was not racing, nor did I feel the gushing girl in me awaken. But I gave him points for using the words petulant and tautegorical in the same conversation. Like I said, it was a pleasant conversation. I responded.



Hi Jerry:

Just a note to tell you how nice it was speaking to you the other night.

So, tell me, are you still in Colorado and having a great time? I'd
love to hear all about it.

We wrapped last night for a week of hiatus, but before leaving the
studio got to see the very first unofficial episode of the show! Now, I
am thrilled to be a part of the project. It's so well done and the
humor is both subtle and outlandish. Something for everyone. I'm very excited.

I have many errands to catch up on today, so I'm going to have to run.
Have an incredible week and enjoy the life out of your family time!

Warm regards,
Mary



Dear Mary,
It was great speaking with you as well, and I'm looking forward to meeting you when I get back to L.A.

Colorado is great. Colorado Springs is at the foot of Pikes Peak, and we've had spectacular vistas of the mountain almost every day. Blue skies and L.A.-like temperatures have predominated, although it's a little chilly at night. Home for the kids is a turn-of-the-century log cabin in a highly-forested part of town. (It is so forested that bears are problem in the early fall.)
I know I may be sounding like a tourist brochure, so be assured that most of my "adventures" with the kids have been highly pedestrian. Today we went shopping, and I was razzing my daughter mercilessly about how she was chipping away at Daddy's wallet. We had a great time. Tomorrow I'm taking her brother and a kid down the block fishing.

Happy to hear that the show is going so well. It sounds as if you have some good chemistry going among cast, crew and writers.

I plan to be back in L.A. next Sunday, but let's keep in touch in the meantime.
Sincerely,
Jerry

Kids? As in plural? Yikes. Now what do I do?

About Jerry

I have a theory about the divorce rate. When my parents and others in the Greatest Generation got married, it was traditional to throw uncooked rice as a sendoff for the happy couple. It was serious rice, too, tough and about as biodegradable as stucco. Sure, raw rice left a mess, but the marriages that began during the era of rice-throwing lasted for decades. Fast forward to the '60's, when someone got the bright idea that it would be more appropriate to throw bird seed at weddings, since it was more "natural" and pigeons could clean it up. So, yeah, bird seed was more convenient, but when guests at weddings started throwing it instead of rice, the divorce rate spiked. Many of the marriages that began under showers of bird seed didn't last until the Tuesday after the reception.

I married the love of my life in 1982, but our guests threw bird seed at our wedding. The marriage lasted only six years and about two months.

I went through all five stages of grief after my marriage tanked. During the anger phase, I filed a lawsuit against Hartz Mountain in a vain attempt to link the bird seed thrown at our reception to the pain and suffering triggered by my divorce. The judge said the suit was "without merit." During the depression phase of my grief, I turned to music. I believe music is uplifting, a sort of freight elevator for the human spirit; and I have a rather eclectic collection of CD's. They include:

"Drew's Blues" --- A bootleg recording of the famous "Bel Air Sessions," featuring Drew Carey and fellow bluesmen Wink Martindale, Sid Caesar, Robert Schuller and Dick Van Patten.

"Strawberry Intermezzo and Sweet Potato Pie" --- Martha Stewart's musical homage to Billie Holiday.

"Farm-Fresh Concerto" --- Avant-garde composer John Cage's masterpiece for piano and rototiller.

"Duet for Harpsichord and Dog Whistle" --- Critics with high-end hearing loss have mistakenly described this groundbreaking piece as a "brilliant solo."

"You're Interrupting My Dinner" --- Luciano Pavarotti sings the transcript of an unwelcome call from a telemarketer.

The music helped during the depresssion phase, but Internet dating helped even more. I spent years browsing and searching. I dated Tina, the host of the well-known public access TV show, "Cooking on a Unicycle." I also dated Bernice, who used to swat herself and say, "It hurts, but it makes me go faster." And then along came Mary. Finally, an intelligent, literate lady who was still coherent, even though she was the parent of a teenage girl.

With Mary I reached the acceptance phase, and now I am at peace.

About Mary

I was a Stay At Home Mom, in between the acting gigs in Hollywood, chauefeurring the kid to and from karate, the orthodontist, after school activities, picking up stiff white shirts from the dry cleaner, Trader Joe's, Ralph's, Costco, and the nail salon, hair salon, bank, gas station, post office, Staples, the occasional hell-like trip to Home Depot and anywhere else my husband might throw in - since I was, after all, the one without a real job.

Then he died. Just that quick. A bicycling accident right near the Gene Autry Museum. What nerve. We had been together 20 years, only had one or two hellacious (is that even a word?) fights with each other and always, always made up, laughing about it later. In that same year I also had to take my dad off life-support and my sister. The hits kept coming and I lost my godchild in an accident, lost two friends in 9/11, the cat got cancer, the dog ran away (we got him back), my mom moved across country and so on. I was left alone to raise Sunny Teresa, the only child we adopted from our herd of 16 foster daughters.

"Alone" doesn't really sum up the feeling one has in the night, when finally allowed to grieve after the laundry is done, the pool swept, the remainder of his clothes donated to charity, the bills paid, the school lunch packed, the dog poop picked up and the trash cans brought in from the curb. "Alone" connotes a certain stand-offish quality. I was left so alone that I felt shunned by girlfriends who fear you might actually want the husband they have spent the last two years pissing and moaning about. As if. Alone meant no one to share an adult laugh with, a hug, a tear, a question about the home owner's policy that needs renewing, the computer slowing down, or someone to ask if this dress makes your ass look fat. I was simply, alone - with a daughter to raise, alone to "stand guard like a good soldier," and wonder if that noise you just heard was an intruder or the wind. I knew I needed human contact with another male when I thought about paying a guy to just lay down and hold me so I could get one good, decent cry out of my system.

In lieu of actually giving away some cash dough which I really would rather have "invested" in a quart of Ben and Jerry's Dark Cherry and Chocolate Grief - a flavor I designed over and over in my mind - I opted to go online to one of the newer dating sites. Let's just call it Senior Hook-Ups.
I had to choose a moniker, an alias, a user name. What to call myself? My mind reeled at the possibilities; "inneedofabreakdown," "inneedofalay," or my personal fave "mamaneedssomelovin." I opted instead for "twilightime," a phrase from my wedding song, Stardust.

It's there where I met Jerry, aka "malibunewsman." I read his profile and was relieved to find that there was indeed such a thing as a man who could utilize upper and lower case appropriately and wouldn't dream of dangling his participle. And so the introductions began...

About "MustLoveTeens"

Webster's Dictionary defines a teenager all wrong. It should be re-written to read as (1.) "a highly-flawed prototype of a human being, characterized by rebellion, mood swings and rooms so messy they provide empirical proof of chaos theory", (2.) "a Darwinian dead-end that sprouts hormones before it sprouts a brain" and (3.) "an organism that sends its parental units screaming for Valium."

Teenagers are some of the most amazing beings on the planet. For example, they seem to possess two brains. One of those brains has a flawless memory and can remember to the millisecond when a parent promised use of the family car. The other brain cannot remember when to take out the garbage. The first brain can compute how to transform a rusting 1981 Chevette into a cutting-edge sports car, with chrome wheels, warp drive and an exhaust pipe that resembles a refinery pilot light. The second brain can't remember how to change the cat's litter box.

Raising a teenager is enough to send both Mom and Dad to Dr. Phil. When a single parent is doing the rearing, the task is enough to render said parent certifiable. We know. We are single parents. We are Mary and Jerry, two single Los Angeles based parents who began an extraordinary e-mail correspondence about our lives and our kids months ago ---shortly after we met on an online dating site. Mary is a film and television actor whose credits include some big time movies, network TV and a well-crafted character on a very popular cable show for kids, as well as a singer and an artist. She has a 14-year old daughter, Sunny Teresa. Jerry is an Emmy-nominated, Golden Mike Award winning broadcast journalist with a 17-year old daughter, April Samantha. Together, they have since written the screenplay, "The Tough Times of Leroy Lard." But we're jumping ahead. Let's flash back to a time when they needed the help of God and e-mails to survive inspections of their teenagers' rooms, wet sneakers in the dryer, teen lingo (in which the only intelligible word is "like") and the total disdain of their own children when it comes to high technology, among other traumas. They are the revenge our parents prayed for when we returned to their homes with a daisy garland crowning a mass of tangled hair, open fingers in a V, flashing the peace sign and proclaiming "Make love, not war." Mom picked up her martini glass and snarled, "I hope you have one just like yourself in fact, make it two!"

We would like to share our ongoing correspondence with you in this blog, "MustLoveTeens." If you've ever searched for the love of your life on the Internet, you probably understand the title. Many pet lovers who populate online dating sites use the caveat "Must Love Dogs" to warn away any prospects in whom any contact with their flea bitten mutts might trigger fear, loathing or a severe allergic reaction. We have found through experience that the same principle applies to contact with our kids.

For the moment, we are surviving the trials of teendom, but we can both feel our sanity slipping away in the face of our kids' puzzled stares, slamming doors, loves, dreams and disorganization. This blog may be our only hope. We hope you will allow us to share our traumas and triumphs with you on an ongoing basis.

We parents spend our waking hours tearing our hair out and then buying expensive products to restore it, and trying to maintain both our hairline and sanity at the same time, we are left scratching our head and wondering when it will all end. We could all use a good laugh, couldn't we? Pass the Valium.