Karen Bergreen's Blog

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            I don’t like to think about death, but it keeps happening to people. Friends, acquaintances, celebrities.  I’m not good at it.  I know people who are.  They say things like, “we’ve all got to go sometime,” as if that was an agreed upon term. In the movies, the dying wife always tells her husband to find love again after she goes.  I don’t know if that’s how I would want it to play out.  He would get to live and fall in love all over again. Insult to injury.  Maybe they could fall in love and she would be a shrew.  Needy.  Chronic halitosis.  They would have to sleep in separate beds her breath was so bad. That way, he could fall asleep thinking of me.

 

I am in the throes of book promotion.  It’s an uphill battle.  My book, though fun, isn’t especially important or helpful.   You wont get rich reading it—you probably won’t get skinny either—I certainly didn’t when I was writing (a euphemism for eating). I wish I knew how to write bondage.

 

 

A close friend of mine wants to help me. She’s abuzz with ideas: have a tweeting party, troll the blog posts, your book has moms—it’s back to school (I’m going to use that one). She’s generous and savvy. She’s great.

 

“I got you an interview,” she screamed into my phone. It’s on satellite radio, they have millions of listeners.  Easy. Just be funny.:

 

I hadn’t heard of the host. He is famous in the radio world, a world I don’t know. I’m a TV person at heart but I am willing to become a radio person.

 

How much am I willing?

 

I looked him up.  His demo: 18 -35 year old single males.

 

Not exactly readers of woman’s fiction

 

But I filled out the forms anyway, throwing in a few witty lines and promising a riotous exchange.

 

Two days later, my friend called me—panicked.

 

“I’m trying to save the interview.”

 

Apparently, I lost the interview.

 

“I’m all ears.” I was, in fact all ears. This was my chance. Without this interview my chances of oblivion are significantly higher.

 

“It turns out the host doesn’t want a book about moms or post partum that’s boring. They don’t care if it’s funny or a mystery.  The guy doesn’t like books. I think they will do it if you trash women.”

 

I felt sick.

 

“Aren’t there horrible women in your book?”

 

“Yes, but ultimately it’s about a woman trying to get her power back.  It’s about moms losing their identities upon having kids.  This isn’t a woman bashing book.”

 

 

“Would it be possible for you to bash a few of them?”

 

We both knew the answer.  My friend just extricated herself from an abusive marriage and is raising three kids on her own. She wouldn’t have been able to do it.

 

I couldn’t either.

 

So

 FREE FREE FREE

Want to win a free copy of Following Polly?

I know you are thinking: Free?  But Following Polly can cost as much as twenty-something dollars. Am I reading this correctly?”

Yes.  You are reading this correctly.  I am incredibly generous.   

And there’s more where that came from.

One WINNER Will be chosen EACH WEEK between now and July 17!

1. Share a tweet or Facebook post similar to the one below

2. Let me know below or through FB and twitter that you shared the post.

BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR Twitter username and/or Facebook link to where shared the post

Here are some ideas for TWEETS:

If you like Susan Isaacs, you'll love Following Polly. The NYT and O Magazine did http://amzn.to/Ir1TwY

satisfying #romance #funny story #great characters Following Polly http://amzn.to/Ir1TwY

It's like Comedy Central picked up Law & Order for an episode Following Polly  http://amzn.to/Ir1TwY

 

Ms Bergreen is clearly New York's female Woody Allen and I hope she is just as prolific . http://amzn.to/Ir1TwY

 

Here are some ideas for FACEBOOK POST:

Hey friends, So excited to read Following Polly.  The author is nuts—but in a good way.  She is a NYC comic with two kids and she spends way too much time watching television and eating snacks.  She has another book coming out soon, but this one seems great. Look at the Amazon reviews.

http://amzn.to/Ir1TwY

 

All winners will receive a signed copy of the book—I will personalize if you want and will write something weird and sassy if  you like  but if you seem too strange I may deny request.  I will pay for postage unless you live in a foreign country—you people have more money than we do. 

 

 

I love television. I watch television.  I’m not going to apologize for it. I love the one-hour dramas, the ones in the hospitals, the police stations, the courthouses, and the living rooms.  I’m a sucker for Blue Bloods, Parenthood, The Good Wife, all of the Law and Orders and, in a pinch, will watch Desperate Housewives. 

It is a pleasure.  And not a guilty one.

And I’m open about it.  When I was in college, I owned a 40-dollar black and white T.V. It was the most expensive item in my dorm room—including my clothes.  I was the subject of ridicule.          

These days, when I talk about my shows with complete candor, people react ardently, their emotions on display from admiration to disdain.

“I love that you admit it.”

“How do you find the time? I’m so busy?”

 “Don’t you think you could be doing something more productive? Like going outside?”

Going Outside?  Going Outside?  Going Outside!

I don’t want to go outside. McDreamy isn’t outside and neither are Kalinda, Crosby, Brie or Addison.  If I go outside, I won’t learn why the rape victim won’t look Olivia Benson in the eye.  If I go outside I might never learn if Karen gets to play Marilyn in the musical.

 

Besides, why do we have to be productive? Aren’t we entitled to a pleasure that isn’t world-changing or self-improving?  Don’t think I don’t get it.  Watching TV 24 hours a day isn’t a good thing. Money has to be made, kids need to be looked at, the counter needs a wipe   But after doing all of that and then some, I want to experience someone else’s life for an hour or two—ok, three. 

 “Um, you could read.” The way my friends say this can only be described as snotty.

I have to tread carefully in response to this, since I’m not only a voracious reader, but  also a writer.  So I’m sympathetic to this point  of  view. But it would have to be expressed differently. 

“Would you think more highly of me if I told you I do read. I read the TV Guide. I have since it was small like the Reader’s Digest. That’s reading.” 

Truth is I buy about two hardcover books per week and devour them, but I will never admit it to my critics.  I refuse to give in easily.  Or, more correctly, at all.

Reading is a different experience from T.V.  I read when I feel like reading, I watch T.V. when I feel like watching T.V.  And, when I feel like spending 11 dollars a ticket plus babysitting and a snack for something I can watch for $ 2.99 in a month or so, I go to the movies.

A world of pleasures.  And only one of them completely free.

I’m done.  Carry on.

Recently, the gals on The View were discussing a disturbing trend: the surge in parents’ forgetting their children and leaving them in the car.  Apparently a lot of parents have, for more than a brief moment, neglected to note that their kid is in the backseat of the Honda even though these are the people who most likely placed the baby in the backseat in the first place.

           

            Barbara showed restraint.  She suggested that parents put the diaper bag or purse in the backseat with the baby.  That way, when Mommy reaches for the bag, she will have a gentle reminder.

 

Barbara!!!!!  What are you drinking?  I’ve seen you judge others with appropriate harshness.   Why not here?  And where is Star Jones – the prosecutor! – when we need her?

 

Personally, I find the notion that one might be more likely to remember her purse than her infant upsetting.

 

 

Now—I ‘m not organized.  At all. 

 

It’s true. My husband can’t take it, my friends want to send the contents of my purse to Extreme Makeover, and I have been known to forget a diaper or a snacking food on a longish outing.  I empathize with the violin virtuoso who leaves a Stradivarius in the backseat of the cab and am grateful that  I don’t play an instrument.

 

I’m just going to say it.

 

How in God’s name do you forget your kids? 

 

            Here’s a tip for the childless.  If you are considering having a baby, ask yourself one question: could I possibly forget my kid in the car? If your answer is in the affirmative, stop!  Buy a box of condoms.  And a wheel of birth control pills.  And a diaphragm.  Do they still have a sponge?  Put one of those in there as well.

 

            If your insurance won’t cover it, I will.

 

            As to the parents of real-live children who have been left behind, I know there used to be debtors’ prison.  Maybe even loiterers’ prison.  I believe now is the moment for Idiots’ prison.

 

 

“Why wouldn’t you want best results?” My husband asks.

 

I have no idea what he’s talking about. 

 

He brings the toothpaste tube over to me.   It is bulging at the top and bottom, and skinny in the middle.  It looks like a free weight.

 

“They tell you to squeeze from the bottom, “ he says, ”to get best results.”

 

I will never get the most out of my toothpaste.  We have tubes all over the house, misshapen vessels with dried-up toothpaste that will forever be imprisoned in the tube.  No matter my intentions, I squeeze from the middle.

 

This irritates my detail-oriented husband.  We have been together for almost thirteen years —during seven of which we have used separate toothpastes.  Now we don’t fight about it. 

 

I’m my way.  He’s his.  I leave every cabinet open, every cap off and every door ajar.  We used to fight about it. “I’m sorry,” I would say as I took out the garbage and left the top up.

 

He has his things too.  He is a snooze abuser.  He sets the alarm forty-nine minutes prior to his wake-up time.  He presses snooze seven times before he gets out of bed. 

 

This would never occur to me.  The alarm buzzes. I get up.  I have been doing this since I had my Panasonic alarm clock, back when all four Beatles were alive. 

 

“This is very selfish,” I used to say.  “It is rare I get to sleep later than you and you are ruining it for me. "

 

“That’s the way I do things,“ he says.

 

The man doesn’t wash a dish.  He minored in women’s studies in college, and leaves his dirty dishes in the sink.

 

“I kind of like it when you wash my dish,” he says.

 

If Gloria Steinem weren’t alive, she’d be turning in her grave.

 

When I argue, he’ll bring up the toothpaste and the cabinets.

Then I’ll bring up the snooze button.

 

I’ve come to see that it’s not worth it.

 

And that’s how I get best results.

 

 

False Modesty

 

 

 

 

Am I supposed to feel bad when a successful gorgeous star says, “People used to make fun of me in high school? I wasn’t pretty by their standards. I was too skinny, my boobs were too big and my long shiny hair didn’t fit the mold of the short perm?

It was also hard because my parents didn’t support my career. They kept saying things like college and unemployable.  But. . . .

 

Look at Me Now.”  And the applause resounds, whether in the studio audience or on the page or in the head underneath all that hair.

 

I’m going to go out on a limb: I don’t feel bad.  At all.

 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a stone.  I feel bad for the person who was beautiful in high school and is now kind of plain.  They got a little big in the bottom.  One day an unsightly—but not dangerous-- growth sprouted from their neck or face.  Maybe they relied a little too much on their looks back in the day and thus never cultivated a personality or a brain. They are little Norma Desmonds, but not interesting enough to be Norma Desmond.  Each year they drift farther from the excellence they achieved at fourteen.  Worse, they see the gawky, booby, shiny-haired losers from high school plastered all over People Magazine dining out on their unpopularity. 

 

Worse yet, the people who were mocked in high school and are mocked worse as grown-ups.  They might, at a young age, harbor  that the torment will end but when they never seem to meet society’s standard of beauty or coolness the hope disappears.  That truly sucks.

 

 

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“Apparently our son Nathan is gifted,” reads the first line of a former (very former) colleague’s holiday newsletter, “and to think, we always believed Tabitha to be the precocious one.”

As a stand-up comedian, I love family newsletters. I am giddy when they appear in my mailbox, as they give me a good laugh. And to great satisfaction of comedy club crowds, I incorporate them into my act.

Why do these letters strike a chord with the audiences? Because we all get them, and because they are ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong. I am often tempted to recount on Facebook the fact that my older son spoke Danish, Mandarin and Kiswahili before the age of three and that the little one walked off the delivery room table without any assistance and fixed himself a healthy sandwich immediately afterward. I am, however, able to exercise self-restraint. I remind myself that not everyone really wants to know this information, especially people I haven’t seen or spoken to in over five years.

It’s not just the newsletters; for some parents child boasting is a daily habit. Over coffee with the preschool moms, I hear that Martha is exceptional, that Truman is a force of nature and Liam, at four is reading at a 5th grade level. Often, I want to throw in a superlative about Danny and Teddy just to keep up, and then I picture comedy fans jeering at my hypocrisy.

We would never brag about our own achievements to this extent. I can’t imagine Liam’s mother proclaiming that she has a powerful mind or Martha’s mother crowing about her perfect physique and Truman’s mother would rather die than compare herself to Marie Curie.

Why, then, do we feel free to go on and on about our kids?

We have finally progressed to a point where society acknowledges that parenting is a job. Oprah says it, politicians say it and experts on everything say it. In the working world, we are promoted and validated frequently for performing well. We make vice president or master chef or regional manager; even the selfless are praised with plaques and peace prizes.

We get to say, “I’m a mom.”

Although the mentally healthy among us are quietly satisfied, the rest may need to get that extra pat on the back. It would be nice to get an ooh and an ah every now and then.

There’s one more reason I also don’t like getting these letters: they make me feel inferior. While Liam is lecturing on Chaucer, Danny and I are struggling with Mittens Takes a Bath Instead of feeling impressed with my friend’s kid, I am thinking about my need for a phonics kit from an infomercial; I have failed.

The fact is we want to talk about our kids. We are around them a lot. They say funny things, they confuse us, annoy us. We love them.

It’s my job as a comedian to make people laugh with me not at me, I fancy myself an expert on engaging people not enraging people. So I am sharing some of my strategies to keep myself from alienating my friends (plus the scores of strangers whose email I happen to have).

If I need to brag, I do so with the husband. When you learn that Jackson at four has made significant contributions to quantum physics scholarship, share a bottle of champagne and toast each other over and over for birthing a little genius.
Once my husband tires of the kiddy talk, I call the grandparents. They tend to take even more credit than we do.

I find that my childless friends are perfectly happy to hear or pretend to hear my perceived successes. Do this somewhat sparingly though. You can invite “Aunt” Caroline only once to Percy’s violin performance at Carnegie Hall.
Really close friends will put up with a lot. There is a difference between sending an email blast to 500 people and calling up a close friend and sharing with her your dream for Meg to be in the Olympics.
When I do describe my kids to not-so-close friends, acquaintances or work colleagues, I am more apt to supply them with an anecdote that reflects my kids’ personalities rather than their myriad achievements.

A couple of years ago my sister-in-law was recounting some of the highlights of a family airplane trip: When the captain announced that the plane reached its cruising altitude, four-year-old Emma asked my brother when they were going to see God. I hadn’t seen my niece in a while and that sentence reminded me of what a smart and quirky kid she is.

Another friend recently sent around a mass email entitled “And you thought you were having a bad day.” Attached was a picture of her one-and-a-half-year old standing proudly in her crib, which she had covered thoroughly inside and out with her own excrement. It was hard not to be impressed with the kid’s stick to-it-ness forecasting a lifetime of success.

Another friend always has her kid decorate her baked goods, providing an opportunity to show the world her daughter’s aesthetic independence.

My three year old achieved popularity when I proudly spread the word that at the thanksgiving table he expressed his gratitude for hot dogs.

These details tell us more about your children than ribbons, test scores and newspaper articles. Instead of being filled with feelings of inferiority and a spot of Schadenfreude, we want to hear more.