Hey, Upper Eastsiders

One of the really nice things about coming from New York is that you don't have to look very far to find movies and TV shows that feature your very own hometown. There's Blue Bloods, Girls, Elementary, How I Met Your Mother, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, CSI: NY and, of course, Sex and the City. The Good Wife is supposed to be set in Chicago, but it's filmed in New York, and if you think about it, Washington's Embassy Row in Madam Secretary looks just like Manhattan's Riverside Drive. 

Oh wait ... it is Manhattan's Riverside Drive.

Whenever I'm homesick, all I have to do is find You've Got Mail on cable or pull out my well-worn DVD. Meg Ryan's adorable "Shop Around the Corner" is quite literally around the corner from where I grew up. The whole movie is pretty much a love poem to my neighborhood (not surprising, it was Nora Ephron's 'hood too). I may live in New England, but I'm still an Upper Westsider.

Maybe that's why I don't get Gossip Girl.

Maybe you have to be from the East Side.

In the last two weeks, we've had four snow days (the first and only snow days of the year — so far at least). Once she slept in until 11, once her homework was (halfheartedly) done, once she and a neighbor and the neighbor's little brother went sledding, my daughter was b-o-r-e-d. Bored. Luckily, despite snowmageddon rounds one and two, we never lost power or cable service or WiFi. My high honors high school student — who has been exposed to fine art and world-class culture since, well, birth — did what any red-blooded American teen would do.

She binged on Netflix.

Did she watch documentaries? The Colin Firth Pride & Prejudice? Downton Abbey? The BBC's Little Dorrit? Of course not. She watched back-to-back (to-back-to-back) episodes of Gossip Girl.

Here's where I came in. I was getting some cabin fever of my own. Although most of my clients were working through the blizzards, it was fairly quiet. The Y was closed and the lack of sidewalks and 8-foot snow piles at every intersection kept me from my usual walks. So, I decided to settle in and watch with her.

"Hey, Upper Eastsiders," saluted the anonymous and oh-so-snarky eponymous narrator at the beginning of the show. She then proceeded to air all the dirty laundry of Serena van der Woodsen, Blair Waldorf and assorted other prep school pretties with preposterous names. Apparently Manhattan's elite high schoolers party very hard, wear multiple designer outfits each day and live in absolutely palatial apartments on Park Avenue. (Except for one artsy family that lives in a funky, though equally palatial, loft in Brooklyn.) There are affairs and intrigues and eating disorders. The mothers (all of whom look considerably younger than I do) veer toward the frowsy and slightly inebriated. Then again, they aren't the main event. Their kids are. They own Manhattan.

Just like we did back in 1979, right?

Um ... not!

I went to high school on Park Avenue myself, but my experience couldn't have been farther from that of Serena and Blair. We were a school full of brainy kids, and accordingly most of us were, shall we say, fashion-challenged. No designer outfits (except, naturally, my Calvin Klein jeans). No outrageous parties. No last minute trips to Rio with a new boyfriend. We did homework, and went to the library and violin lessons and play rehearsals, and babysat on the weekends so we'd have pocket money.

It makes me wonder if today's teen audience thinks that there are really people living the Gossip Girl life. Not many, I'd tell them. Not many, if any.

Then again, people still ask me if living in NYC is like Seinfeld or, worse, The Real Housewives. No. It's not. And growing up there wasn't like The Carrie Diaries either. 

Maybe someday I'll write a TV series about what it was really like. 

Then again, I don't think it would do very well on Netflix.

If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.  

How To Succeed ...

I'm going to start working on my acceptance speech. "Mother of the Year."

It has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

This all started several months ago when I read that Darren Criss, the adorable Blaine from Glee, one of our favorite TV shows, would be hitting the boards on Broadway for a limited three-week run. Criss, who had an enthusiastic and international YouTube fan base even before he became a "Warbler" on Fox's megawatt megahit, was scheduled to replace Harry Potter himself (Daniel Radcliffe) as J. Pierpont Finch in the classic show, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Never my favorite — oh, it's just a wee bit dated; with numbers like "A Secretary is Not a Toy," it makes Mad Men look downright feminist — I nevertheless did what I could to secure two orchestra seats. Unbeknownst to me, we would soon turn those two tickets into four.

"Mom, remember how you said I could bring two friends to see Darren Criss in New York?"

"Uh ... I did?"

Apparently ... I did. So, our mother-daughter excursion morphed into a tweenage pilgrimage. My role as friend, confidante, mother-who-looks-so-good-at-her-age-she-could-practically-be-your-sister, quickly devolved into adult-with-credit-card.

However, my daughter was happy and what else could I desire? Soon, she and her friends would be in the presence of Glee-ful greatness. All was right with the world.

Plans had to be made. Typically, my daughter and I stay at my mother's apartment on the upper westside. However, when our party doubled in size (and octupled in noise level), I realized a hotel would be a better option. A suite hotel, if possible. All I asked was a door between myself and bedlam. (Thank goodness for discount websites and off-the-beaten path accommodations!)

I also had the brilliant brainstorm that a bus from Boston to New York would be much smarter. Five hours behind the wheel of an adolescent-packed sedan gave me pause. And, with the price of mid-grade gas and mid-town parking (especially the parking), we would save tons of money. And, to top it all off, the girls could sit across the backseat of the bus while I settled into a single up front with some work and some magazines. They could pretend they didn't even know me! (And, vice versa.)

While I was making arrangements, the girls were making their own plans. A pre-excursion sleepover would facilitate our very early-morning departure (and, in hindsight, prepare them for the sleep deprivation ahead). Visits to the Converse superstore and Urban Outfitter's would be mandatory. They decided that they would not only meet Mr. Criss at the stage door after the show, get autographs and cell phone photos, but they would slip him their names and numbers.

Say what?

(For the record, if I had the slightest worry that Darren Criss would actually call one of "my girls," I would have nipped this particular plan in the bud. I was, however, less than concerned.)

And the trip went off without a hitch! Well, without a hitch unless you include a blinding snowstorm, a bus without heat, a three hour delay, changing in the basement ladies room of some random hotel (not ours), frantically hailing a cab, swinging by my brother's "Hell's Kitchen" high rise so we could fling our luggage at him, scarfing a piece of pizza on the sidewalk, racing up 45th street, foregoing a stop in the theatre restroom (despite anticipating an incredibly long first act), and settling into our seats just as the lights went down.

Did ya see any hitches here? Nah, me neither.

The show was fantastic and Darren Criss proved himself to be more than another Hollywood celebrity set-up to sell tickets. The genuine article: singing, dancing, acting — and that cute cute cute smile. If it weren't for the fact that I could easily (easily!) be his mother, I would have been swooning alongside my more youthful companions.

Post-show, the girls sat at the edge of their seats through the curtain call, politely and perfunctorily applauding until I gave them the "All right, go ahead ..." nod. They raced from the theatre to wedge their way into the throng of girls standing at the stage door.

After several minutes of breathless anticipation, the backstage doorman kindly informed the crowd "Ya know, Darren doesn't come out after the matinee. If you come back tonight, you can see him." My life, or at least the next several hours, passed before my eyes. En masse, the girls turned their pleading, pathetic, practically Dickensian little faces toward me. 'Oh no,' I thought, 'There goes my relaxing evening at the hotel.'

As a native New Yorker, it always kills me when tourists visit Times Square and only Times Square. When they forego the more than 23,000 Big Apple restaurants in favor of "Olive Garden." So, guess where I spent my evening? In Times Square at "Olive Garden." Audible sigh.

We were planning to kill some time at "Forever 21" and "American Eagle Outfitters" (yes, really), when we received an urgent call from my brother. He had walked into Times Square and passed by the Hirschfeld Theatre where, more than an hour before the evening performance would end, there was already a huge crowd. We dropped everything and raced to meet him. The girls, posters and playbills in hand, joined the freezing throng. (Did I mention it was freezing? It was. It was freezing.)

Not wanting to take a place away from some other lovesick tweenager, my bro and I waited behind a police line across the street. He has worked backstage on Broadway for the past twenty years, so he knew the drill. With his advice, the girls were able to acquire and — more importantly — retain prime meet-and-greet real estate. It was actually fascinating to hear him narrate the crowd control choreography. It took my mind off of my toes, which I could no longer feel. (Did I mention that it was FREEZING?)

Finally, a mere two-and-a-half hours after we got there, Darren Criss came out. The crowd roared! Our girls caught a glimpse, a photo, and captured his John Hancock on their posters. They also emerged from the riot relatively unscathed, with all of their appendages intact. Broad smiles, bright eyes.

Success!

We returned to the hotel with thoroughly frozen fingers and feet (DID I MENTION IT WAS FRRRRRRRKIN' FREEZING???), clutching precious autographed mementos tightly in hand. I had promised the girls that they could stay up as long as they wanted, watch TV, eat junk food, relive their brief encounter with the beauteous Blaine ad nauseam. After no more than five minutes of chatter, I heard silence. I peeked my head in; they were out cold.

As I write this, the exhausted fan club is asleep in the next room. I can only assume they are dreaming of him ... of Darren (they're on a first name basis now) ... those soft eyes, that sweet smile. As for me, I'm tired and stiff and my eyes are bloodshot, which is rather unfair if you ask me, because it's not as though I partied last night. Nevertheless, the weekend was, by any measure, a success. Except I have one question ...

Perhaps we should have seen a different show? The Drowsy Chaperone.

Driving Miss Daughter

I was born and raised in the greatest show on Earth ... New York, New York. The city so nice they named it twice. In New York, there are myriad ways to get from point A to point B. You can walk, hail a taxi, take a crosstown bus or jump on the subway. Traveling by car is not high on anyone's list. The traffic, the gridlock, the exorbitant parking fees (the exorbitant parking tickets).

New York is many things to many people, but it just ain't a driving town.

Consequently, most people in the Big Apple don't own cars. And, most NYC high schoolers miss out on the rites of passage of their peers in suburban and rural areas. Sweet sixteens come and go without learner's permits or driver's ed.

This boggles my husband's mind. To this day, one of his favorite things to tease me about (and to tell anyone within hearing) is that I didn't get a driver's license until I was 28. But, even at that ripe old age, I beat several of my hometown friends.

In my book, driving was, is and will always be a necessary evil.

So, imagine my surprise when I realized that "Driver" is one of the many jobs I've picked up over the years. Please note: I say, "Driver" and not "Chauffeur." I am not paid, I am not treated with respect. I do not get a cool little bachelor pad over the garage or a spiffy uniform. There's no soundproof glass between me and my passengers. Oh, how I sometimes wish there were!

The passengers are typically my tween daughter and one or more of her cohorts. Destinations vary. I might be driving to and from school because of weather, to a movie, to a party, to the Y, to the mall. Most of the time, I'm driving to and from the stable where my daughter rides. When I was her age, I was very comfortable coming and going via New York's public transportation system. I was independent. Living where we live, my daughter unfortunately is not. She needs me if she is going to go anywhere.

You would think this would make her want to stay on my good side, wouldn't you? Ha ha.

When she was younger, my daughter and I used to enjoy car rides together. Or, at least I did and she hadn't realized how uncool I was yet, so she did too. She'd fill me in on the latest grammar school gossip. We'd stop for popcorn at an old honky-tonk arcade in the next town over. We'd play Broadway show albums and sing along at high volume and less than accurate pitch.

These days, my daughter is otherwise engaged. She is either otherwise engaged with her iPhone or otherwise engaged with her friends. And, while I used to take advantage of car time to talk with her, I've realized that the quickest way for a tween's mom to shut down a tween conversation is to attempt to participate. So, now I just keep my mouth shut and drive. Sometimes they forget I'm there and I actually overhear interesting tidbits about who said what, who did what, or who likes who. I have to be careful though ... one well-meaning question and they clam up, fast.

They do occasionally acknowledge my presence though, and I guess I should be thankful for that. Let's see ... they often ask me to turn up the volume on the radio if there's a song they like. Or to stop at McDonald's for an Oreo McFlurry. See? I'm not completely invisible.

Sometimes, when I'm waiting at a red light or sitting at a train crossing, I find myself asking, like David Byrne of the Talking Heads, "How did I get here?" Have the girls in the backseat seen my impressive resumé? Do they know that I graduated from an excellent university, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa? Do they realize that I actually had a fairly interesting life before they were born?

Do they understand that I was just like them once — thirteen years old and the center of the universe?

At at no point did I ever think, "When I grow up, I hope I can spend all of my limited discretionary time driving my daughter and her friends and a carload of smelly horse tack back and forth to a distant stable with Taylor Swift's insipid (and literarily inaccurate) 'Romeo and Juliet' on the radio."

But, can I tell you the funny thing about it. For the past several weeks, my work schedule has been significantly busier than my husband's. So, he kindly volunteered to take over the stable route on Tuesday afternoons. The strategy worked. I've met some tight deadlines; I've had more time to work with my team; my clients are all happy.

Next week, my husband has a meeting in town and won't be back in time. So, I'll have to wrap up everything at my agency early and get a whole day's worth of work delivered by 2:30 or so. I'll have to load all the stinky tack in the trunk, collect my daughter and her fellow equestriennes, drive 40 minutes north to the riding center, wait in the car for 90 minutes, then drive 40 minutes back.

Y'know what? I'm kinda looking forward to it.