back to school with judy blume: then again, maybe i won't

Dear Judy Blume,

First, let me say that I’m sorry to hear about your recent bout with breast cancer and that I’m terribly glad that you were on the mend so quickly! And also thank you for writing about it with your usual honesty and good humor. You are as wonderful as ever.

Second, I read Then Again, Maybe I Won’t this week and it was nearly as enjoyable as Margaret. Granted, it is Margaret except with Tony’s boners, and wet dreams for Margaret’s periods and bras. And the central struggle with religion replaced with sudden wealth. Tony even moves to an unfamiliar suburb! Though for entirely different reasons than the Simons do.

Had I read this when I read Margaret, I would’ve been obsessed with boners and peeping on the neighbor girl and wet dreams because I was obsessed with boy things as a tween and teen. I know what periods and bras are like! I’ve been wearing a bra since I was, like, ten. But I’ve never had a boner! (I do remember the first boner I saw. I was in sixth grade. In high school I heard that he had three testicles. Three!)

As an adult though, I really loved the stuff about Joel constantly shoplifting and how much it upset Tony. When I was twelve or thirteen, one of my best friends shoplifted a bracelet from the dollar store at the mall and when she showed it to me I made her take it back! Because I too was completely outraged. She took it back and unlike Tony, it didn’t occur to me that I might look uncool or that she might be mad at me. I was just so shocked she’d take something! I was totally not cool. And I’m okay with that, I think.

I was also particularly interested in/upset about Joel’s mother changing their maid’s name because she couldn’t pronounce it. I was actually aghast and gasped out loud. And then when she did it to Tony’s mother! I would’ve been even more outraged than Tony was if someone had done that to my mother and especially to have her accept it so readily in the name of fitting in. I know that lots of versions of this have happened and likely continue to happen. I know that changing a servant’s name is an act of subjugating and othering them, alienating them from their identity and self. I know all of this historically and logically, but damn does fiction bring stuff home. Thanks, Judy. Bless.

The Kirkus review on the back of the book talks about Tony’s problems not being “magically resolved” but I was sort of aching for that by the end. Tony goes to therapy! And starts to learn to deal with his anxiety and stress, which was great and also kind of refreshing! Joel gets busted for stealing, which is also great. But the one problem I wanted to see a happy ending to was Tony’s grandmother. I was so angry at Mrs. Miglione for not standing up to Maxine and getting her mother back in the kitchen where she was happy. Infuriating to my bones! But Kirkus isn’t wrong, it’s not a bad thing that some of Tony’s issues go unresolved. That’s what life is like, right? Even when it’s frustrating as hell.

I might not have had this one as a kid, but thanks for it anyway, Judy.

– Ash

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

back to school with judy blume: are you there, god? it’s me, margaret.

It’s not my original, but it’s the exact edition. It even feels the same. Gawd bless the internet. Gawd bless compulsive vintage buyers. Gawd bless Etsy.

Dear Judy Blume,

I don’t remember a time before Margaret. This isn’t saying much, really, since I can’t really remember much of anything from any period of my life, regardless of age or importance. I remember getting high for the first time and the first boner I ever saw, though, so I guess there are some things that last. Regardless, I don’t remember a time before Margaret and even if it isn’t saying much, it’s saying something.

I must’ve read it for the first time around eight or nine, maybe even younger, and I have the vague feeling that my paternal grandmother gave me that mythical first copy that I was so intent on owning again. I have the vaguest memories — as ethereal as smoke or steam, impossible to grasp — of reading about Margaret on the patio of my grandparents’ vacation home in San Diego. They’re insubstantial memories, but what little I can grasp makes me very warm and very glad.

Part of that quest to own this very particular copy was because I knew they’d changed the book from belted pads to the adhesive strips of the modern era and though the change was made and approved by you, the thought of rereading it with the wrong kind of period supplies unsettled and alarmed me. I grew up on adhesive pads. I’ve heard stories from my very enthusiastic and delighted mother that as a little kid, desperate to emulate my much older sister, I used to put those adhesive pads on upside down. I still use adhesive pads! They’re terrible! But still better than the hooked belt that I desperately feared before my own period finally came. I needed to reread those belted Teenage Softies. I needed to cringe and remember.

And, lord, Ms. Blume, did I remember. What I remembered about Margaret was plentiful: the Teenage Softies and the Learning About Your Body movie that was really an ad for sanitary supplies (the Private Lady of Margaret’s New Jersey was the Always of my Los Angeles suburb), the party at Norman Fishbein’s and loafers with no socks, the weird anticipatory terror of waiting for your first period and how badly you wanted it to happen already.

I got my first period in sixth grade on March 12, 1997. I was at school and had just been abandoned by my friends during lunch recess because they were being dicks for whatever reason that twelve year old girls are often dicks. I walked into our classroom where they were sitting, threw my jacket down, and huffed out of the room. Gawd bless me for this adolescent drama because one of my friends followed me into the bathroom to see if I was okay. I had just sat down to discover bloody underwear. I had just turned twelve. And, thankfully, that friend was able to save me because my wonderful sixth grade teacher (Mrs. Hoeger! One of my biggest life heroes.) had stashed a box of pads in our Earthquake Preparedness Trash Barrel. She covertly stashed it in her jean shorts and returned with four other girls who were so excited. I learned I was one of the last. This still gives me weird flashbacks of adolescent anxiety. Ms. Blume, you really, really nailed that one.

I remembered, vividly, “I must, I must, I must increase my bust.” I remembered it from my childhood reading of Margaret and I remembered it from my week of hazing/induction to the Alcyonians, the girls service club at my high school. I remembered, acutely, standing on the stage outside of my gym adjacent to the quad, a sign around my neck declaring my name and things I liked alongside a glittery butterfly and screaming at the top of my lungs with a dozen or so other girls, “I MUST, I MUST, I MUST INCREASE MY BUST. THE BIGGER THE BETTER, THE TIGHTER THE SWEATER, THE MORE THE BOYS WILL LIKE ME.” Some things are enduring. The horror of adolescence is one of them. Margaret is proof of that, I think.

The things I didn’t remember before rereading are the things that I now realize were probably the most important to me — simmering low, just under the surface, and shaping me while I was identifying with Margaret’s waiting-for-her-period woes: the religion stuff.

I honestly actively remembered nothing about the premise of the book. I’d long ago forgotten that Margaret’s story begins with her exile from New York City and into suburban New Jersey and with that, I’d also forgotten about her family’s lack of religion and her distress over whether she’d join the Y or the Jewish Community Center.

I was pretty confused religiously as a kid. Well, less confused and more apathetic. I was raised areligiously. I hung out at the Methodist church with my best friend and watched her get baptized and took communion once — it was pita bread dipped in grapeseed oil and that shit was delicious — and was mostly there for the teen group activities — broom ball! watching the grunion run! madcap scavenger hunts through two counties! — but I never had that Moment, the one that Margaret was looking for, the one that I think a lot of people go to church in search of. Margaret’s relationship with God is one that I empathized with as a kid and I respect as an adult, even though I was never able to form something similar. I became an atheist at 13, but Margaret’s relationship with God is one I’d wish on anyone. It’s so healthy. And I remember, now, her religious identity being very comforting to me as a youth — I wasn’t anything either! And neither was my family. And the Simons helped to let me know that nothing was a perfectly okay thing to be, no matter the pressures exerted on you for it.

Lest you think this letter is all about me, Ms. Blume, I want to tell you that I felt as much pleasure reading this book as an adult as I did as a kid. It was warm and it was refreshing and it was honest. It brought back so many familiar heartaches — the first time you realize a friend has lied to you! the first time you do something terrible and realize it immediately! the desperate desire to not seem weird! — and it reminded me of how much being a voracious reader in my youth made me want to write. A reminder I really and truly needed.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart for this one, Ms. Blume — Judy! We must be friends by this point, yes? You know all about my period! — because it helped me so much back then and it’s made me feel so much again now. Young girls and young women are reading this book still and finding a truth they desperately need: you are not alone.

– Ash

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

face off, “year of the dragon”

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welcome to nodak

I live in North Dakota now! It’s weird!

I’ve been here for about a month and a half and it’s starting to feel like “home” even though I’m having a hard time calling it that?! Like, every time we’re out somewhere I say, “Are we heading back to the house now?” or whatever and if I talk about L.A. I say “home” — so that’s a thing.

But regardless of what I call it, the house is very comfortable and we have furniture and stuff put away and we’ve been unpacked for almost a month and just bought the last piece of furniture we needed for our living room, so that’s wonderful. We still need to buy a bed/frame and boxspring, but that’ll happen eventually and until then I guess we’ll continue to survive with a mattress on the floor like some sad college sophomore that lives with eleven other guys. 27 is too old to get up from THE FLOOR every morning! The noises my joints make! YOU WOULD FIND THEM ALARMING.

North Dakota is weird and very small (comparatively) and there are SO MANY grasshoppers/katydids/cricket creatures EVERYWHERE which are the kind of bug I am the most afraid of so that’s been great. Also, our neighbors are pretty rude?! So that North Dakota nice thing seems like a lie. Although everyone kind of waves at each other when we pass on dirt roads, so… I don’t even know where to go with it. The lesson, I think, is that there are some nice people and some shitheads everywhere, no matter what. People are terrible! Shocker.

Other Things: no one has backyard fences, construction sites are just littered with totally theftable shit at all hours whether people are there or not and there is never security, oil drilling in the Bakken produces a LARGE byproduct of natural gas, but there’s only so much that can be harvested/contained so all the oil sites have these things called flares which are either large holes in the ground or giant potbelly stove looking things that are just ON FIRE all the time, there are dirt roads that you just have to drive on to get to places sometimes, almost no one is from here and the people who are don’t seem all that enthused about the people who aren’t, food is EXPENSIVE, there are almost no chains whatsoever for anything including food and consumer goods, Hardee’s is NOT like Carl’s Jr. no matter what anyone tells you, Pita Palace is the bomb, milk tastes better here just like it did in Kansas City, most stretches of the “freeway” (it’s… not… a… freeway…) are only 2-4 lanes total, we pick up our mail from one of the local radio stations, Frank’s/3 Amigos is also The Bomb, there is only one theater in town and it’s not a chain, Canada is REALLY close, and nobody can drive worth a shit.

WHEW let me tell you it’s been a weird month. » more: welcome to nodak

face off, “pirate treasure”

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