Battle hymn of an aggravated reader

Endings are hard for us mere mortals. The end of a job. The end of a relationship. The end of summer.

It’s no different when it comes to writing. After wading four-fifths into a feature story about growing organic coffee in Brazil or a personal anecdote about how I hate my hair, I often find myself thinking, “Okay, you’ve come this far, now how the heck are you going to end this thing?”

In journalism, we call it a kicker — that last sentence of a news story or broadcast that ties it all together, leaving you with one last thought or sentiment. It’s like you’ve brushed, flossed, rinsed and spit. The kicker is what leaves the minty taste in your mouth. It’s the reader’s reward for sticking with a writer past the jump in a newspaper or magazine article or through all 225 pages of a novel.

It can make you smile, make you cry, make you think. Sometimes it leaves you wanting more. But in a good way. They’re hard to write. Even harder to write well. But that’s a writer’s job.

That’s why I was aggravated when I got to the last chapter of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Have you heard of this book? Sure you have, it’s all over the talk shows. The author, Amy Chua, even went on The Colbert Report to recount her memoir about trying to raise her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, the “Chinese Way.”

When Chua, a first generation Chinese immigrant, married a white Jewish guy named Jed, they agreed that their children would be raised Jewish but parented Chinese. As a Chinese mother, Chua instituted rules like no sleepovers, no playdates, no TV or video games, no school plays and no grade less than an A. It also meant they had to play either the violin or the piano and practice six hours a day — even on vacation.

Ever wonder why the Asian kids do better at math? Why they’re always the child prodigies playing Carnegie Hall? Well, here’s your answer. It’s because they had a Chinese mother standing over them, threatening to donate their beloved dollhouse to the Salvation Army piece by piece until they had mastered a complicated piano composition (a true story in the Chua household).

Harsh by Western standards, which is why it struck a major nerve among American parents and shot to No. 4 on the New York Times Bestsellers List. 

It’s a rich, timely topic: Eastern vs. Western parenting styles. I don’t begrudge Chua’s ranking on the bestseller list for a minute. What I do take issue with is that the final chapter of the book is a total cop out.

I liked the story well enough. While taking us through her reasons for being a Chinese mother, what that looked like on a daily basis and the effect it had on her daughters, both good and bad, Chua raises some very important issues about the purpose of parenting and the meaning of life (is it to strive for excellence in everything we do?)

But after Chua’s younger daughter, Lulu, refuses to submit to her will in a dramatic, climatic scene, Chua loses steam. She agrees to let Lulu, then 13, quit violin and play tennis instead. It’s a monumental victory for Lulu and a major strike against Chinese parenting (and widely recounted by Chua on the talk show circuit so don’t blame me for giving away anything).

After that happens, Chua is at a loss for words. Literally.

Her last chapter basically goes like this: "I don't know how to end this book so I'm going to tell you what it was like for me to write this book, recount conversations I had with my daughters about the fact that I don’t know how to end this book, tell you their reactions to drafts of the manuscript I circulated before publishing this book, throw in something about my dying sister, say I don't know the meaning of life and then try to make a joke about getting another dog."

Yuck. Talk about failing to bring it home.

Plus, it’s a major violation of the Sausage Principle. People love sausage but they don’t want to know how it’s made. In the book itself, I don’t want to know how hard it was for Chua to write the ending. I don’t want to hear about her daughters' reactions. That’s the backstory behind the story — the one she can recount in interviews on the Today Show, but not to readers who have come this far with her on her journey only to watch her stall the car.

I get it that writing the ending was hard. I really do. I’ve been busted by members of my own writing class for speeding up to the end because I didn’t know how to wrap things up or leaving the ending “artfully” vague (only French filmmakers can do that well).  And I’ve deserved to be busted. Readers know when they haven’t gotten their money’s worth.

I’m just surprised that Ann Godoff, Chua’s editor at the Penguin Press, let her get away with it. Clearly, she isn’t a Chinese mother.

All I want is Jennifer Aniston hair

My hair is the great unfinished business of my life. Not to be dramatic or anything. For years I’ve worn it long and straight. In high school, I ratted my bangs, using a comb, mousse and a curling iron to make them look like a wave just about to break on the shoreline (which in this case was my forehead). My hair was pretty blonde because I spent my teenage years in the California sunshine but sometimes I tried to help it along with Sun-In, giving it an unnatural orange tint.

After college, when I was waiting tables and trying to figure out what to do with my life, I cut it off and had it layered like Jennifer Aniston’s. It was the mid-90s and “Friends” was the most popular show on TV. A lot of women in their 20s were getting “The Rachel” cut, including me. 

It was like when every woman in America got the Dorothy Hamill wedge cut after she won the gold medal in figure skating at the 1976 Winter Olympics or when British women drove their hairdressers crazy requesting the “Princess Di Do” after she married Prince Charles in 1981.

At the time, I thought my Rachel cut looked fabulous. It was much easier to maintain than my longhaired surfer girl look. Cheaper too. Just think of all the money I saved on shampoo and conditioner. My grandpa, however, did not agree.

I was over at my grandparents' house, sitting on the couch in the den. Like always, golf was on TV and my grandpa was playing solitaire at the card table, glancing up to watch the golfers swing. I felt his gaze on my profile.

“What did you do to your hair?” he asked.

“It’s the latest style,” I said, beaming and touching the back layers, flattered that he’d noticed.

“Did you get into a fight with a pair of hedge clippers?” 

I sighed. He’s too old to understand fashion.

Like most trends, “The Rachel” cut came and went and I grew my hair out again. Not down my back like I had it in high school, but a couple of inches past my shoulders. Since then, I’ve never been quite happy with it. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for having long golden locks (I pay a small fortune every two months to keep them golden) but the truth is, I have too much of it. Every time I go to see a new hairdresser I warn them.

“I have a lot of hair.”

“Ok,” they say dismissively, rummaging through their drawer looking for that fat, round bristle brush they all seem to use.

Halfway through my blow dry, when they’ve lost all feeling in their arms from pulling section after section of my hair toward them with the round brush and running the blow dryer over it, they say the same thing: “Wow, you have a lot of hair.”

Told you.

The problem is, my hair doesn’t grow straight out of the top of my head, cascading down my shoulders like a lion’s mane. No, the bulk of it grows straight out the back ridge of my noggin. And it’s wavy, giving it this very unattractive poof.

The fact that I have curl in the back drives me crazy. Even when I blow dry it, losing the feeling in my own arms as I try to extract all the moisture out of the sections in the back, I end up with mushroom head. It just doesn’t lie flat. Even using a flat iron, it’s not entirely straight. During the humidity of Chicago summers, it’s at its worst.

So what do I do? I pull it back into a messy bun or ponytail. I think that look is more slimming on my face than letting it do its puff-mama thing. But it always looks unfinished. I could be wearing the sharpest designer suit for work or the perfect dress for a spring wedding and my question always is: What am I going to do with my hair?

I’ve got my makeup routine down and I know which styles of clothing look best on my figure. Years of trial and error really have gotten me somewhere there. But my hair? Forget it. Most of the time I’m in the bathroom trying to straighten it enough to wear it down, or pulling it halfway up, then giving up and pulling it all the way back like I always do — exasperated.  

And don’t try to talk to me about product. I’ve tried them, believe me. Anti-curl shampoo, anti-frizz conditioner, straightening styling cream, relaxing gel. I once paid $500 to have my hair chemically straightened. It looked great for a couple months until the curl started growing out in the back again. It was pretty damaging for my hair, which I was already treating with chemicals by highlighting it to keep it blonde instead of its "natural" dishwater color. I may have too much hair, but I wasn’t interested in going bald. Plus, talk about expensive.

So back to Jennifer Aniston. Her hair looks great these days, doesn’t it? Long, straight and healthy looking. The perfect compliment to her tailored, feminine style. Whether she’s wearing jeans and a tank top around town or a silver Valentino gown on the red carpet, her hair is simple and elegant. Polished yet effortless. Oh how I wish my hair could look effortless.

Come to think of it, my hair does look effortless. Effortless in the sense that I don’t put any effort into it. But I want it to be the other kind of effortless. Has anybody seen my hedge clippers?

Don't mess with Mother Nature

We're having a blizzard in Chicago. Maybe you've heard? My grandma, who lives in Southern California, sure did. She called me earlier today to thank me for the wedding photos (so glad that project is done) and to ask if I was safe. I assured her that I was home on my couch, watching the snow drifts through the living room window as the wind picked up speed.

The blizzard reminds me of when I lived in Miami and I used to lay on my bed and watch the thunderstorms. My studio apartment, barely 500 square feet, had floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls, which gave it the feeling of living in a fish bowl. But in a good way.

The windows overlooked thick bunches of palm trees and the clear blue Florida sky (except when it was raining) so I never had to worry about catching a neighbor naked or putting on an inadvertent show of my own. I had both privacy and sunshine, a winning combination in my mind. 

My studio apartment wasn't much to look at, but it was cheap and on South Beach within walking distance of the ocean and nightlife. It had white-tiled flooring that made it look like an over-sized bathroom, shower doors that were rusted and screeched and a kitchen you couldn't really call a kitchen. It was more like a couple feet of counter space, some cabinets and a sink.

Oh, and I had cockroaches. At first I thought it was gross and squealed like a girl when I saw one. After awhile I got used to them and would interrupt phone conversations for mini assassinations.

"Hold on a sec," I'd say, pulling off my flip flop. I'd hover over the intruder, take aim, then SMACK! I'd wipe it up with a paper towel, toss it in the garbage, put my flip flop back on and sit down.

"Okay, I'm back."

"What was that?" the friend or family member I was talking to would ask.

"Oh nothing, just a cockroach," I said. "If they're going to live here, the least they could do is pay rent."

But anyway. Back to the rain. The storms in Florida were amazing. It never just rained, it poured. That tropical rain that is a force of its own. I'd listen to it thwack the leaves of the trees outside my windows and watch the lightening flash across the technicolor sky. Thunder would follow with an ominous boom. I'd lay there for an hour, my hands tucked behind my head, humbled by the beauty and power of it all.

Weather has a way of doing that, you know. Putting us in our place. We humans think we're so powerful with our cars, computers and big fancy jobs. But when it comes to weather, real weather, Mother Nature is still in charge. Floridians learned that the hard way when Hurricane Andrew blew through in 1992. From what my Miami friends told me, no one paid much attention when newscasters started pointing out a fiery red ball making its way up the Atlantic Ocean toward the Gulf of Mexico.

But ask Miamians about Hurricane Andrew now and you'll see them exhibit sure signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. It leveled entire neighborhoods, causing mass destruction everywhere. One friend told me she rode out the storm in her bathtub, where she had pulled a mattress on top of her and clutched her radio.

The only company she had was the voice of a meteorologist at a local radio station. The meteorologist, Bryan Norcross, became famous for his 23-hour marathon broadcast during the storm, when he guided South Floridians through the worst of it with his calm, steady instructions -- their only lifeline to the outside world. 

By the time I experienced my first hurricane warnings in 2002, Floridians weren't messing around. There were long lines at Home Depot to buy plywood (to board up windows) and runs on the grocery store for bottled water and canned goods.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of watching the storms from my bed. Each time I had to evacuate, especially during the crazy hurricane season of 2004, when they just kept coming one after another: first Charley, then Ivan and a bunch of others whose names are a blur.

The best part of the hurricane, of course, was getting days off work. It was sitting with friends watching the storm approaching on TV with nothing to do but make a sandwich, pop open a beer and hope the storm windows hold. There was nothing to do but wait until it hit, wait until it passed, then go outside and assess the damage.

It's the same with this blizzard. Sometimes there's nothing left to do but sit on the couch, let Mother Nature do its business and wait. At least this time there are no cockroaches in sight.