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 "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.