Stephanie Dolgoff's Blog, page 3

Have my people call your people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Things For Which I Wish Someone Would Invent a Solution department: We need something—anything!–to make multi-person conference calls less excruciating.

I had one yesterday with Lions Gate, the studio that (yay!) has optioned My Formerly Hot Life and plans to make it a fabulous TV show that will launch a thousand catchphrases and fashion trends and eventually, after many years, have people arguing about whether or not it has jumped the shark. At which time it will be syndicated and have sent the children of all involved to college.

(If my therapist Carol is reading this, I want you to take note of my terrifically positive attitude!)

There were, like, 8 or 9 or so people scheduled to be on the call, only a few of whom I’d ever met in person. I dialed in.

[Click, blip, echo noise]. “Um, hello, this is Stephanie,” I spoke into the void.

A woman said she was Person X for Persons Y and Z at the studio.

Meaning, while I am sure her mother loves her, Person X was relatively unimportant as compared to Persons Y and Z, and so she could afford to sit and listen to me breathe.

“Hi there,” I said perkily. [Weird speakerphone pause.] “Hey,” she answered. [Awkward silence. ] To my credit, I resisted the urge to talk about the weather. There’s nothing worse than weather talk with people from L.A.

After a minute or two, a male voice, Kevin, said he was “for Rebecca and Christy,” my agents here in New York.

“Hi, Kevin, it’s Stephanie!” I said. [Weird speakerphone pause with no sound so you’re not quite sure if he said anything.] “What?” I asked.

“Hey. I said Hey!” he said.

“Oh, ok. Hey.” [Awkward silence.]

I was fast learning that only only losers make their own calls, or for that matter, speak directly into the handset, as I was doing. I should have had one of my daughters call in and announce that she was “for Stephanie” and hold the line while I sat there and read Us magazine, instead of doing it myself.

I said as much and neither of the important people surrogates laughed, or if they did it fell into the weird speakerphone pause void.

I vowed not to say another word. I sat for a few more minutes, flipping pages and hearing clicks and people going on hold and coming back. Occasionally someone called roll like in first grade, determined that all the actual important people were still not there, and then went off the line again.

Eventually Rebecca dials in,  and [click, echo, noise] announces herself. “Are we all here?”

The two surrogate people announce that their actual people were ready to go whenever three other people called in. “I’m here! Hi, Rebecca!”

“Hey,” she said. Rebecca is a friend but it’s not like we could have a real conversation with other people listening, so we just sat there in [awkward] silence.

Five more minutes go by and I can’t stand it. Why do I feel like I need to make it comfortable for everyone else, whom I’ve never met, who are probably not uncomfortable at all because they do this all the time? But I do!

“So…what do we all think of men wearing buns?” I toss out. “I’m looking at Us magazine, and, like, Bradley Cooper has a bun.” Rebecca chuckles. “Not a good look,” she says.

Then for what seemed like 45 minutes, no one said anything.

Finally: “I don’t think about that.” That was one of the Important People Surrogates.

Apparently only losers actually speak when they’re on the phone.

Rebecca, bless her, tries to go high brow and asks if anyone has read this funny post going around Facebook about white male writers. “Oh, I did! Omigod that was hilarious!” Rebecca said something about wanting to know more about the writer, and I agreed that she was funny.

[Silence. Even more awkward for us having tried to relieve the awkwardness. Lots of putting us on hold to check where the important people were by their surrogates, a few more rounds of roll call.]

Eventually everyone got on the call—happy to be working together, this is going to be great, etc.–and it was all good, despite lots of weird speakerphone voids where something critical may or may not have been said but I’m sure I’ll catch it next time.

See, I’m learning about this whole Hollywood thing. And if it doesn’t work out, I may just invent a drinking game that people can play while they wait for everyone to arrive on a call so they don’t gouge their eyes out.

 

Photo by Quinn.Anya CC

Sugar is sweet

How do you know if you just gave your kid an eating disorder? I think I may have.

So here’s what happened: A few months ago I collected an empty water cup from the shelf above one of my daughter’s loft beds.

I rarely make the climb, because I usually smack the back of my skull against the ceiling and what’s more, it’s their little tween universe up there and I feel like I’m invading their space. Rainbow Loom bracelets strangle plush toys, socks that have been kicked off collect at the foot of the bed, and gushing One Direction quizzes in fanzines cause me to briefly fear for the future of the human race, which, considering I was a Shaun Cassidy freak back in the day, makes me feel old old old.

But we were running out of cups so up I went, and I saw a bunch of candy wrappers stuffed between the wall and the bed.

Here’s where my mind went: Secret eating! Hoarding food! Turning for solace to Fun Size Snickers because she feels unloved by her mother, who despite best efforts is a stressed out single mom who sometimes uses compound curses and maybe is thinking about the dry cleaning she forgot to pick up while her daughter is confiding her innermost truths!

Not rational, of course, but then food has never been a completely rational subject for me. I had been bulimic for about a decade starting when I was just a few years older than my gals (and managed to hide it from my parents). My girls are healthy and fine and like yummy food but show no signs of issues, but of course I’m vigilant about it to the point where they’ll probably be off doing something far worse with some as yet uninvented substance and I’ll miss it because I’m so relieved they don’t talk about how fat they think they are.

Thus we have the former bulimic (who still sometimes has some lingering weirdness about food herself) trying teach her kids moderation and to keep sustenance and satiety entirely separate from their emotional lives… so far so good. No absolute restrictions that can backfire, but I try to set limits that don’t smell like weight control, which my kids don’t need. It ain’t easy, especially when the world is so much more craptastic than when we were children.

So I take the daughter in question aside, sticky, crumpled evidence in my hand, and ask her about the candy. There was a bit of hedging about the origin of the Butterfingers in question, some intimation that the candy was consumed in compliance with our treat-of-the-day framework, insistence that the wrappers weren’t “hidden” per se so much as just not thrown away.  But there were so many that it was pretty obvious that they’d been snuck.

“Sweetie, I’m not mad but sneaking candy worries me, and here’s why.” I proceed to explain in one long breath about my own eating disorder (heretofore touched upon only briefly in the context of Demi Lovato’s rehab stay), how when I was anxious or upset I’d binge on sweets and make myself throw up and how eating in secret is a hallmark of a problem, and that candy isn’t the devil but that too much is no good because your body needs foods with nutrients to function properly and if she has any FEELINGS she wants to express it’s better to do it verbally rather than eating  to make herself feel better because it doesn’t work and is so unhealthy and…

She, of course, just stared at me. Finally she said, “Mom, that’s completely gross. I don’t have an eating disorder. I just wanted more candy and knew you’d say no.”

I.e., perfectly normal, age-appropriate candy sneaking which signals only that she’s got a sweet tooth and a brain. Meanwhile, I had just given her an instructional manual for what to do should she decide to become bulimic, treating every Sour Patch Kid like a gateway food to the hard stuff.

Yet another iteration of the They Are Not You lesson parents need to re-learn every so often, but it did make me wonder how—with a hot-button issue, like food is for me—how you help them learn from your experience without planting ideas in their heads or making them nuts? It’s not as if when we have kids we somehow wrap up all the problematic stuff we sorted out in our teens and 20s and are good to go.

Thoughts welcome, as always.

 

Photo by Nomadic Lass CC 

 

 

Back from the brain dead

Lemme get this out of the way:

It’s been–gasp!–over a year since I last posted, despite supportive reader/friends and editors and agents making careful and polite inquiries as to why the radio silence.

Things like, “Are you OK?” and “Um, how’s the book promotion going?” “Did the TV show ever happen?” And oh, and “WTF, Stephanie? You are squandering an audience that many authors would kill for by not keeping your brand alive!”

Yes, well. Short answer: divorce, divorce, divorce, and all the tentacles of stress and uncertainty that wrap themselves around you when your life, your children’s lives, your finances and your sense of self are radically upended in a short period of time.

Never mind that it was the right thing. Never mind that it’s what had to happen. Remember tether ball, from summer camp? I felt like the ball, smacked and kicked this way and that, all day every day, and unable to bounce away to deflate in safety.

Obviously, when you the human being are also “your brand,” it’s hard to write funny.

BUT!

Three years after my split (which happened right when the book came out), and one year after the JOD arrived in the mail, my girls and I are good, and their dad and I are doing what we always did best–loving them, denying them cell phones, and making sure they’re appropriately insane 5th graders who sometimes eat green vegetables and empty their pockets of lip gloss before they put their jeans in the laundry.

In other news, My Formerly Hot Life has once again been optioned, this time by Lions Gate, who brought you Mad Men and Nashville and Orange is the New Black and lots of other freakin’ amazing shows. These people know what they’re doing. Very very beginning stages, so nothing to report other than that, but please cross everything that can be crossed.

And I’m percolating another book.

So bear with me, and if you’re still with me, send up a flare!

With love, Steph

 

 

 

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Clog-a-log

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting much lately is that I haven’t had that many Formerly Hot moments. I’ve kind of moved through the whole shock and horror at finding myself no longer young and have settled into this new, rather happy, peaceful state of being. No drama, no trauma…just an OK-with-45 mindset that is, well, not that funny.

But once in a while, as happened today, I have a good old fashioned Formerly moment I feel compelled to share.

So as my friends know, I have a bit of a clog problem. I have maybe eight or nine pairs, including two pairs of clog boots. It’s a problem mostly because there aren’t enough days of the week to wear them and I love them so much this causes me mild to moderate distress.

I think I’m attracted to them because they manage to be both cute and orthopedic at the same time. People like me, who can no longer wear heals without cursing our big, gnarled, 45-year-old feet, can be comfy in clogs. Meanwhile, cute young 20somethings doing the retro ’70s thing have made them cool again. I’m riding this wave as long as it lasts. It’s like a solar eclipse–a rare overlap between two apparent opposites that’s briefly beautiful.

I stopped by No. 6, one of my favorite clog sources, and I saw them (pictured here, except I lusted for the dark, rich, chocolately brown). It was love at first sight–like in the movies, the background fell away and it was like me and the clogs were alone in the room. I moved tentatively toward them. We were destined to be together. I was sure of it.

The groovy blonde saleswoman, 26 or 27 tops, explained that they didn’t have them in my enormous size (41 or 42) and brought me a few similar pairs to try. I tried them all on, but determined that I wasn’t ready to have her non-refundably order them for me without actually trying the precise ones I wanted, because I’ve been burned before by ill-fitting shoes I couldn’t resist. It’s heartbreaking to sell your perfect-but-for-the-fact-that-they-deforming-your-feet clogs on eBay.

“I’m confident that a 41 will be fine,” she said. I thanked her and said would just wait until she had them in to try. “I do this all day,” she said. “You’ll be fine in the 41.” I choose to believe she wasn’t pushing, but that she truly wanted me to be united with my true loves. But still, I held off, and asked her to call me when they came in again.

She shrugged, and there was something in her resignation–this middle-aged lady doesn’t know what’s good for her, fashion-wise and she chooses not to heed my excellent advice so I’m going to move on to someone in whose life I can make a real difference–that prompted what came next: I felt an uprising of older person’s Tourettes, words coming up out of my mouth seemingly without my control.

“I mean, my feet used to be a regular ten, until I had my children and now it’s like, a real problem to find shoes in my size….” I blathered on about how one foot is bigger than the other, how pregnancy screws with your feet and, like, the bones spread out, and yoga doesn’t help either, and on and on in this, honey, let me tell you kind of tone. I think a part of me wanted her to know that once, a long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was just like her–someone who didn’t mind if my feet hurt, as long as they looked good. Someone who would put fashion before function. Someone who, well, wasn’t old. Or old-er. Or as old as I am. Which is to say, not that old!

When I finally stopped talking, I saw that my diatribe had the opposite effect. I went from potential clog buyer to weird lady who thinks fabulous, young, skinny fashionable people care about her podiatric problems!

“Wow,” she said. “That sucks.”

“Um, yeah, kinda,” I said, before showing myself out.

I told my friend Andie about this exchange and she likened it to talking to pregnant women about what it’s like to be a parent–they cannot fathom that anything will ever change. They will be exactly as they are forever, except with the adorable accessory of an infant, who will also never get older and pimply and difficult. This woman has no idea that she will ever be my age, no longer able to wear a trash bag with an obi and look fabulous, with feet issues that one earns after pounding the pavement for decades and all of that.

Well, I do hope for her sake she gets to be my age someday, because–footwear limitations notwithstanding–it beats the alternative.

Photo from No. 6, which really is an amazing store.

Why kids need to be mortified

Hi, all,

It has been an outrageously long time since I’ve posted. I have been crazy busy and digging out and just trying to enjoy my kiddies but if there’s anyone out there still checking in, I will be back at it at some point. Trying not to make myself nuts.

In any case, enjoy, this from LHJ’s October issue. Click HERE for the full monty.

Embarrass Your Kids, It’s Good for Them



Of course my daughters think I’m weird. But isn’t it my job to show them that being yourself is actually okay?

By Stephanie Dolgoff

« Previous |  1 of 1 | Next »

Recently I was walking one of my fourth-grade daughters to school. We were holding hands, swinging them as we strode, and I was quietly singing the Bangles’ “Manic Monday.” We’d sung it together loudly many times in the car. But apparently this was neither the time nor the place for a 1980s flashback. “Mom, stop it!” she hissed as we saw a cluster of her friends up ahead. In fairness to her, I have a terrible voice, and I was fully prepared to cease and desist, but I felt like it was my job as a mother to give her a hard time first.

“But why? I’m happy. I like to sing when I’m happy.” She rolled her long-lashed blue eyes and looked at me imploringly. I saw a touch of desperation behind her cool-kid facade, so I smiled and said okay. I stopped singing and we kept walking, hand in hand.

I remember my own mother singing in the street when I was young, and me begging her to please oh please just…don’t! When she wouldn’t stop, I’d fall back and walk way behind her, trying to disappear into my Flashdance-style cropped sweatshirt. We joke about it today. But my mom, who was single and struggling to raise me and my autistic brother, was under a lot of stress. I now know that I should have encouraged any expression of joy on her part.

Rest of the article is HERE and lotsa other good stuff.

From BestLife.com

Confessions of a Hobby Hobo

I’m a hobby hobo. Salsa dancing, painting, jewelry making, cookie baking, photography…I’ve done it all, briefly and not particularly well. The fact that I don’t have a hobby I’m passionate about, like scrapbooking, gardening, or collecting, like that guy who has a warehouse for everything Dolly Parton has ever breathed near, is something I’ve come to accept about myself.

It wasn’t always so. I went to a college where everyone seemed to have an expertise, something tangible, like swimming or acting, which they couldn’t wait to dig into when the work of the day was done. READ MORE HERE!

Success!

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By Stephanie Dolgoff

An Office Where Funny Business Is Encouraged
Why workplace teams that share laughs do better and more profitable work. (Yup, office yuks have been studied!)

One morning around a dozen years ago, I walked into the bullpen of the magazine at which I worked, and sitting in my boss’s chair was a cheap, inflatable sex doll, one of those latex ladies in a garter and panties with a startled, round-mouth expression. We all knew who put it there: the office stinker, a truly hilarious and much-loved senior person. He was one of the few who dared to joke with my boss—a notoriously talented but formidable woman who could reduce junior editors to tears—let alone in such a blatantly inappropriate way. What was particularly funny about this was that she’d recently cut her hair, and the doll’s stylized, Betty Boop bob made her and the doll look like twins.

Everyone sat there, tittering nervously, waiting for her to walk in and splash her double nonfat latté all over her Prada pencil skirt and pointy pumps. My office was in the back, but I loitered nearby—there was no way I was going to miss this. The tension was thick as Jell-o. The culprit sat coolly at his desk near hers, typing away as if nothing was amiss.

Check out the whole story at SUCCESS.com

Great line

IVY WROTE: Formerly a martial artist. Formerly a belly dancer. Formerly designer. Formerly an actress. Formerly a legal secretary. Formerly married, and, I thought, loved. No longer any of those things, just broken and wondering what happened. Ironically, my face hasn’t changed much; I looked 35 at 17, I look 35 at 54 - that 1950s pale Dior brunette. I appealed to guys with white hair, still do, but I’m just a whited sepulchre these days. I’d get attention from guys in their 20s and tell them, “Look, I’m not interested in adopting.”

The circle of life

My mom was (and still is) petite.  We wore the same size when I was in high school in the early 1980’s.  She used to pass really cute clothes or shoes over to me by saying “It’s too young for me”.  Now, here in 2012, I find myself passing on some of the cutest clothes by saying “It’s too young for me”.  Dammit!