Luck be a Lady

Bonk Bonk

Squeak Squeak

Bonk

Squeak

Bonk

Squeak Squeak Squeak

Bonk

OUT!

I love the sound of tennis.

I love the fuzzy yellow balls.

I love reaching for the sky when I serve and whizzing my racquet through the air. Whoosh.

When my husband and I moved to our new town, I wanted to find a few women to play tennis with, so I typed some magic words into Google and Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom, a Ladies Tennis Group popped up.

“Perfect!” I cried. “I’m a lady!”

Then I thought:

Wait.
Am I?
What is a lady?

When I think of a LADY, I think: Condoleezza Rice. Barbara Walters. Laura Bush.

I think: Mistress. Mother. Ms. Manners.

LADY conjures images of women who own their own homes, who excuse themselves to powder their nose, and who schedule things like mammograms.

LADY means mature (pronounced muh-tyoor).

I’m none of these things.

I’m 33, still renting an apartment, and most days I feel like a kid.

I don’t have children of my own (yet), and until I push a baby through my loins I don’t think I’ll ever feel muh-tyoor. Instead of marching up the steady steps of Corporate America, I’m living the eccentric and somewhat aloof life of a writer. I don’t wear make-up. I’m years away from subjecting my small boobs to a mammogram.

Also my manners stink.
I chew gum.
I prop my elbows on the dinner table.
I wear flip flops to church.

As I thought more about the ladies tennis group, I wondered if the word “lady” meant grandma-like lady.

I signed up for a round robin anyway.

When I arrived at the court, I was, indeed, paired up with a grandma for a game of doubles.

Whoosh

The serve flew over the net towards me.

Squeak, Squeak

Bonk

I hit a forehand and the rally began. As the ball returned to our court – whizzing straight at Grandma’s face – Grandma moved into position.

Squeak

Whiff

Plunk

Grandma wiped out. I rushed to her side and debated what to say:

Are you okay?
Do you need help?
Are you hurt?

(That’s what all the other ladies said when they arrived.)

I settled for, “Hey, nice dive.”

Grandma laughed and dusted herself off. After a water break, she returned to the court and ended up playing a fantastic game. Her shots were smooth and strategic. She was funny and energetic and kind. We lost, but in the end, Grandma won my admiration.

Later, I saw her driving away through the parking lot, her small frame and gray hair poking out of her black BMW convertible. She waved at me and I waved back. I hope if I’m ever lucky enough to be a lady, I’m lucky enough to be like her.

Hang on Vicky

The other day I was organizing our garage.

Not so exciting.

But then I came across my boxes and boxes (and boxes) of books. I’m saving them for the library I’m going to have one day – sigh.

One of the boxes contained my “young adult” novels.

Now there’s a genre I abandoned decades ago.

I didn’t mean to. But my high school teachers gave me books for homework – books that were different from the ones I wanted to read. In college I declared a literature major, so, again, I read the books that were “assigned.” Then law school – more required reading. When I finally returned to reading for pleasure, I was in my late twenties. I never crossed paths with the “young adult” section in the bookstore again.

In the garage, I took a seat on a plastic storage bin and started thumbing through the pile. I began to wonder if any of the authors of my childhood had continued to publish young adult books after I’d grown up. That afternoon, I logged onto Amazon.com.

Robert Cormier: He wrote The Chocolate War, Beyond the Chocolate War, I am the Cheese, 8 Plus 1, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. I remember those stories as if I’d read them yesterday. I can still quote some of the passages. Turns out Cormier has continued to write. One book is about a teenage serial killer. It had a whole row of yellow stars on Amazon’s rating system, but I think I’m glad I missed that one.

Cynthia Voigt: Homecoming, Dicey’s Song, A Solitary Blue, The Runner – Voigt hit up intense topics in her books, especially child abandonment. I found a bio on her and began reading up on her life as a writer and teacher. I wish she had a blog.

Scott O’Dell: O’Dell won a Newberry Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins. He died in 1989, but I’ll definitely revisit O’Dell’s books when I have kids of my own.

Francine Pascal: Admitting I devoured the Sweet Valley High series in Jr. High is like admitting that I read People magazine every week as an adult. Totally embarrassing but what the heck, I looked up Francine Pascal too. Her Sweet Valley High series is now a DVD series.

I saved my absolute favorite young adult author for the last search: Madeleine L’Engle.

I enjoyed all L’Engle’s books, but most of all, more than anything, I loved her Austin family series: Meet the Austins, The Moon by Night, and A Ring of Endless Light. I read those books until the binders broke, the covers ripped, and the pages came unglued. Vicky Austin struggled with the mixed emotions of love triangles, the difficulty of building character, and the frustration of being stuck between girlhood and womanhood. She was so real to me I think I thought I was her (or vice versa). Oh – and her love interest, Adam Eddington – I had a crush on him too.

Twenty years later, I began clicking through the books L’Engle has written since I was fourteen. I stumbled on Troubling a Star.

Oh
My
Gosh

It’s another book in the Austin family series.

As fast as my mouse could move, I hit “Search Inside.” Vicky had gone to visit Adam Eddington in Antarctica. She was stranded on an ice burg. I read quickly but slowly – do you ever do that? – savoring each and every word yet anxiously awaiting the next one.

Anyway, I flipped the next page (in the virtual sense) and was on the edge of my seat when . . . the excerpt was over.

AHHHH!

I ordered the book.

Hang on Vicky!

I’m on my way!

Ask a Blogger

Call me Ann (as in Landers).
Or maybe Abby (as in Van Buren).
How’s Emily (as in Post)?

Oh, fine, call me Jenny. Or rather, ask me Jenny. Starting this September I’m going to be an advice columnist. The topic? Ask a Blogger.

I’m a little over a year into my freelance writing career, so I thought it was time to ask myself where my writing is going.

Self? I said. What do you want do as a writer?

Easy. Myself answered. Write a column.

Yep. I want to write a monthly column for a magazine on daily life. Much like Mary Roach’s “My Planet” in Reader’s Digest. Speaking of Mary, she's on sabbatical working on a book – maybe I could be her replacement?

I wasn’t sure how to snag a gig as a columnist, so I e-mailed the one and only woman I know – personally – who writes one: UCLA professor Amy Friedman. I thought she’d give me a few pats on the back (oh, you’d be a great columnist!), point me in the right direction (see, it’s just waiting for you 10 years down the road!), and give me a contact (here, call Jane Doe, she also writes a column!).

Instead, I received a phone call from Amy’s husband. He’s launching an on-line publication called The Mad as Hell Club. He’s taking essay submissions on topics people are “passionate” about, and he’s also going to have 31 columnists – one for each day of the month – on various topics.

Ask a single guy.
Ask a musician.
Ask a Buddhist.
Ask a mom.
And, of course, Ask a Blogger.

Not exactly a “daily life” column, but I’ve gotta start somewhere.

“Amy said I have to hire you,” he told me.

That was easy.

“She’s never wrong about these things,” he added.

Let’s hope not. I took the job. Then I panicked.

“What if people ask me legal questions?” I cried.

“You are a lawyer,” my husband Ron said.

“Oh yea. But what if people ask me technical questions?” I fretted.

“Refer them to a techie,” Ron said.

So there you have it. I’m collecting questions NOW for my first column. You can post them in the comments section or send me an e-mail: jenny.rough@jennyrough.com. You can sign your first name, your full name, your initials, or anonymous. And if you have your own blog or know of a must-read blog, please pass on the link(s).

Okay, ask away – anything and everything. Well, as long as it has to do with blogging.