At the Kids Table

Ingredients

• Puff ball headbands
• Hour-long YouTube videos of someone else playing a video game
• The current Disney Channel
• Minecraft
• Desperately wanting glasses
• Those Harry Potter glasses that look like rubber
• 100s of Instagram likes
• Selfies as a form of communication

Instructions

Hello, my name is Anna and I am dating myself.

I don't mean relationship dating (although that, yes, is also true). I mean marking my age with a big fat date mark on a timeline so as to say I am older than some people. I know that I am not old. However, I am not the youngest by a long shot. And don't you dare call me a "Millenial" when the definition of the term includes those born into the early 2000's. That includes BOTH of the children I am currently babysitting-- we are NOT in the same generation!! GRR!! Worst term!! Fix it!!

I'll concede: writing the above list of trends/concepts engulfed by today's children & teens was not as easy as I'd imagined.-- Oh, yeah, that's what that list is, if it weren't already obvious: trends of today's youths that confuse me.-- The more I thought about the trends at which I chuckle or roll my "kids these days" eyes, the more I shrugged my shoulders and remembered doing something similar when I was their age (or older; usually older; these kids are advancing at an alarming rate and someone should tell the scientists). However, even after giving these under-18s some slack, some things still remain that I do not understand. I will list these for you as I sip a glass of Merlot with a quiche in the oven and Bon Iver in the background: 

1. 

Listen. I grew up during the time of bandana headbands and tattoo chokers (which are coming back in style noooooo!), so I understand the importance of extreme head(&neck)gear as a child. That doesn't mean that you can stick a giant POMPOM on top of a little girl! They all look like they belong in a Dr. Seuss cartoon-- not in the cute Cindy Loo Who way but instead possibly a tree.

Sad but Real Mid-90's to Early-00's Childhood Comparison: 

2. 

"Stampy" is a motha-fu$#in' celebrity.

I honestly have no explanation for watching videos of other people playing video games. Nor could I easily find it online; my lame Google & YouTube searches for "video game narration," "video game minecraft video," and "stupid videos kids watch" were shockingly too vague and unhelpful. I have no idea what you call these horrid wastes of time! For those who don't know what I'm talking about, picture a kid sitting in front of a computer watching a YouTube video of someone narrating a video game as they play it. Great-- that's it. That's all you have to picture! Minecraft, The Fantastic Four, Call of Duty-- you name it. Lively, animated commentators, many times in character (like Minecraft's "Stampy"), make these simple video-captures seem like animated short movies or even TV shows. Yet, at the end of the day, when you look at it, it's merely a video of a video game with poor audio quality voiceover.

Mid-90's to Early-00's Childhood Comparison: Can think of none. Yes, that makes me feel like a better person. (OK, fine: watching my sister play The Sims-- silently.)

3. Sure. This potentially breaks my rule of "if I had this when I was a kid, then it's understandable"-- No, no, I'm sorry. It doesn't. These shows are not the same. The acting is super heightened; feels like almost its own style now. The shows play for laugh after similar laugh-- probably because there are so, so many new shows made at once! Fun fact: If you look real hard only for a moment, you'll see that Disney Channel shows nowadays must have one of 2 things: A. a fabulous, attractive albeit unrealistic/unexplained multi-ethnically-ambiguous family or B. a superhero-like duo who serve as the most extreme foils to each other. 

Sure, sure all those hair colors. Less believable than the talking dog with a blog this is a real TV show a dog who talks and writes a blog that blog frames every episode.

I've never seen this one. Can you tell why. (Photoshopped LIZARD on head-- this cannot be the real ad.)

Twins Liv & Maddie could not be any less alike: Heaven forbid one of them is a teen-pop superstar and the other-- no, no-- anything else but-- but-- plays... BASKETBALL?! Celebrity and athletics do NOT get along, everyone knows that!! This one hits the duo and the multi-racial family, NICE WORK!

Went back and watched a few more snippets of this show and found exactly what I thought I remembered: 1 composed beauty and 1 neurotic ungraceful friend to balance each other out while both being silly and adorable-- but never as silly or adorable as the other. 

Le sigh. Where are the sitcoms filmed without a "live" (heavy air quotes) audience-- shows with some substance? Why is there this off-putting, heightened form of acting in which everyone looks like they're either playing for a laugh or about to scream? Where are the 2 new shows, as opposed to 4 or 5, that came out each year and included hearty animated series? Where is Even Stevens?! 

Mid-90's to Early-00's Childhood Comparison: Again, I find myself here--

--but only because I remember that, even as a kid, I recognized some weird acting choices. However, I stand by Lizzie McGuire as the first Disney show to establish their now recognizable colorful exaggeration of today's fashion. (Also, damn, man-- this show was real. Y'all know what I'm talkin' about.)

4. 

Do not get me wrong: I think Minecraft is the shit. Officially, it's "a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine." It's encouraging creativity and inspiring design and engineering skills, and I've seen kids build impressive structures on an iPad that I'd never have the patience or eye to create. Some kids even draw out their Minecraft blueprints in notebooks instead of playing the actual game! (Then they go play the game.) I love that kids find design cool! And yet. Minecraft confuses me. From an outside perspective, I don't understand how these kids who grew up with 3D TVs and hoverboards started playing a game that's PIXELATED ON PURPOSE. It looks like someone stretched out the bits of Mario! Don't get me wrong-- I'm 100% for harkening back to one's roots, celebrating previous decades, and embracing a nonconformist aesthetic. But look:

Straight outta nineties. Again, big fan. I merely don't understand how it succeeded-- solely based on today's high expectations of graphic quality-- so that's why it's on the list. Oh, and the fact that there's a mode where you can kill other players and zombies with the same old video game violence, but hey that's me.

Proud Mid-90's to Early-00's Childhood Comparison: Obviously The Sims. God complex fulfilled. (Putting my hand-vote in the air that Minecraft is better, though. Feel free to call me with questions/concerns.)

5./6. 

Glasses were not cool when I was 6 and threw a temper tantrum at the eye doctor's and my mom threatened to pick out the ugliest pair of glasses if I didn't choose one. (Guess who didn't choose one.) Now, my eye doctor tells me of children who try to lie and cheat their way to an eyeglass prescription. As someone whose demeanor and, dare I say, social ability actually changed when she started wearing glasses, I will never understand that. 

Yet, I am comforted when I see a certain style of kids eyewear, as I'm guessing these kids did not cheat on their eye exam:

 

I've seen an astounding number of kids, usually small & holding the hand of an adult on the Upper East or West Side, wearing these silicon flexy-looking Harry Potter glasses of a wide variety of colors. Perhaps there's a reasoning behind it. No way will they ever catch on.

(Don't quote me on that in 2030 when I'm wearing them on the cover of Vogue. Who knows how I got there.)

Mid-90's to Early-00's Childhood Comparison: To wanting glasses? I don't know, we voluntarily subjected ourselves to dial up internet? Is that a similarly long and confusing way to be cool?

7. 

My cousin (13), my mini-me (15), and one of my best friend's sister (16) each have Instagrams that receive an astounding amount of likes per picture-- astounding because I have no reason to believe they're being trolled or spammed to receive these likes, because they don't hashtag anything. It seems like the young have taken to Instagram at a more astounding rate than we took to Myspace or Facebook: each of these everyday, stupid posts have at least 50 likes and 5 comments-- minimum! My youngest cousin? Her minimum is 100 likes, 20 comments. Most of them are the types of photos we elders would post on Facebook-- the posed shots with friends, the poor quality yet high brag potential shots, etc.-- and, of course, the selfies. Maybe they'll never need Facebook. Maybe they'll never even need texting-- as I'm pretty sure they all communicate through selfies. This week I saw one of them sit in the same position taking a selfie for over a minute straight, and it was way too earnest and invested to not find annoying. This new species is confusing.

By the way, I removed the following off of my ingredient list:

• Egregious disrespect of the English language: "tbh imysm your mean but ily... bms duh" "frick u bc ur hot" "hmu sumtime" "u say thx to him but not mine smh"

Because, at the end of the day, I couldn't pin this on only today's kids... it's all ages, sadly. When I look at the jumbled letters above, I see jumbled letters (and the reason I'll always have a job as an ACT tutor). Plus, I remember-- if I dig deep into the caverns I've marked with "Deadly!" signs in my mind-- once upon a time using a whole lot of "LYLAS." I do believe I always capitalized it. I mean, if we're going to shorten English, at least treat it like an acronym and capitalize each letter. Or, hey, maybe capitalize simply the first letter of a sentence, or, you know, use some punctuation every now and then, or, hmm let's see, write a LEGIBLE sentence. If this is a time saving issue-- screw that, no way is it a time issue, having seen how fast kids type!! 

Haunting Mid-90's to Early-00's Childhood Comparison: Probably when we all stopped talking to people with our mouths and started communicating with Myspace. 

I felt immediate anxiety upon looking at this.

Kids Say the Darndest Things was hilarious to adults in the 1960s who couldn't believe what came out of these kids' mouths, which was mainly adorably naive mistakes about names of presidents, biblical stories, or what their parents did. Unfortunately, this show doesn't need to exist anymore, seeing as we are bombarded 24/7 with stupid things kids, teens, and everyone in the entire world says online. It's probably for the best, though. It'd have a hard time competing with much better unscripted reality content like "Couples Watch Themselves Kiss In Slow Motion."

Kids are confusing. But so are we. (I just learned what Coleco was.)

Wedding Cake with My Tears

Ingredients

• October wedding
• October wedding shower
• February wedding
• Spring wedding shower
• Spring wedding shower #2
• June wedding week
• July wedding week
• A bulletin board solely for save-the-dates
• 4 invites with the words "plus Guest"
• Open bars

Instructions

Some of my absolute favorite people in the world are getting married this year! It's super exciting and I couldn't be happier for them. I truly look forward to all of the crying and all of the cake. Not to mention all of the plentiful and professional options for a new Facebook profile picture.

However.

My poor fridge cannot handle any more save-the-dates; I fear the magnets are losing their magnetization under the heavy weight of cardstock. My travel calendar is multiplying by the day. Anyone in New York should plan on not seeing me between the months of February and July, due to the "I'm in the wedding" excuse I'll be exercising to fly more than usual to Ohio and Georgia. Finally, my ability to casually dismiss "plus Guest" is diminishing, because by the 4th invite it simply seems mean.

They told me it would happen-- the proverbial "they" being everyone 2+ years older and thus lightyears wiser than me: the wedding years. I was so safe for 2 whole years post-graduation, and then BAM: 4 weddings, 2 of which I'm in. Wow! OK, let's go! These weddings take place in 4 different states, in 3 seasons, covering both of my families. The engaged include 3 cousins and my stepsister. The 2 weddings I'm in? 2 weeks apart.

The Proverbial They imparted their pedantic "your time will come" wisdom down on me as a warning, as if the start of wedding invites and bridesmaid dresses was the beginning of the end. Is this the real end of my adolescence? Did college graduation mean nothing? Is this what actually crosses me over the line between fun young adult and suffering lonely young woman? Will people finally stop seeing me as a kid when they see me in wedding party photos-- with the sight of my hair professionally done and the knowledge that I sat through a wedding and contemplated my own maidenhood? Should I have spent the last 2 years basking in childlike innocence and shouting, "I'm single and it doesn't matter!! No one cares!!" 

I thought the annoying part would be the scheduling and traveling, but good GRACIOUS I love my family and I love any excuse to leave NYC, especially if it involves a beach! The dresses? Oh, sure, my 22-year-old stepsister and gorgeous cousin are gonna pick out some real taffeta monsters. The money? Ha ha ha. No, I'm still unemployed with parents. 

That's it! These are family weddings. Even if I didn't love and like these engaged folk, I'd be familial-ly obligated to go. I'll know the majority of people at the weddings, so I'll always have somewhere to stay and people to hang out with. Plus, my parents help out with the costs! If these were friend weddings... that'd be a different conversation in itself.

I don't want to go to there-- let's go back to what we were talking about...

I suppose I now officially join the ranks of the Proverbial They, so here's my take on the warning: Once you're first asked to be in a wedding, or once you start getting invited to 2+ weddings a year, you realize the world isn't your world. Not everyone does things the way you do. Your way isn't the highway. Some people are getting married-- you're not, but some people are. These people may get pregnant in the next year-- you can't imagine starting a family right now, but some people can. Your social calendar is not as important as celebrating the special day (definitely multiple days) of someone you love. You will stand in the background of many photos, be the least important person in many rooms, be the last in line for dinner at the reception. Over and over and over again. Nothing magnifies the positive attention on someone other than you like a wedding-- and you can't deny how happy that makes you! For a whole day, a few days, maybe even a week, you are selfless and feed the spotlight on someone else. Whether or not you like their location, decorations, or bridal party matters 0%. Think about it: When choosing a college, we're forced to write essays about and weigh school options based on our dreams, likes, and dislikes. In college, we're encouraged to develop our voice, our own personal style, wants, and needs. After college, we're taught to stay true to our ideals and follow our individual paths. Joining the Proverbial They shakes us out of that extreme self-centeredness and reminds us that what we believe is best isn't always so. 

[Guys, I have a real problem: I really love punctuation. I have a problem with semi-colons and there are a lot of em-dashes going on, as well. I only... I want you all to read it like I'd say it? But I also want it to be grammatically correct! It's really hard sometimes to follow the ACT/SAT grammar rules that I teach; I've wanted to incorrectly use the word "just" at least four times so far in this post!! If someone can help me, or knows someone who can help me, I'd really appreciate it.]

You'll never hear me complain that my beloved Rupp cousins, 2 beautiful & cool sisters that both my sister and I looked up to since we were born, are getting married this year. (Not to each other. I know you'd never think that, but you could've read it that way.) I literally just (proper usage) Facebook messaged my other cousin Jessie to tell her how excited I was for her brother's wedding-- her brother being the one of only a few cousins (out of 15) to be in the same generation as me, and baller enough to forgive my sister and me for breaking his new toy train set at Christmas and eating all of his Easter Candy. I will not ever curse my step-sister, who I have known since I was 6, lived with in two homes, vacationed with to Mexico & Florida islands & Virginia Beach, and nicknamed "Watermelon-ie" and "Melonious," for asking me to be in her wedding. The weddings themselves are not annoying or cause to complain. How they make me FEEL...

... is another story. Perhaps I will get used to it once I myself am married. 

Nooooo no no no-- that did NOT help! 

To those getting married this year, who've felt the unnecessary pressure to hand-make save-the-dates and who've outdone each others' engagement photos, thank you for sharing your wedding day with us. We wish you a lifetime of joy. To the other previously-still-pediatrics crossing over with me into the Proverbial They this year, the best of gained perspectives to us all. Cheers to our lively celebration of another human's dreams and ideals. Let each of us follow the decree of Marie Antoinette, and "let [us] eat cake." 

"Yes, And..." Pizza!

Ingredients

• Saying what you mean
• Making a genuine connection with strangers
• Making a genuine connection with your friends
• Fake crying 
• Crying for real
• Pizza Suprema
• Calming down
• Jumping on a grenade

Instructions

If you've ever thought you were funny, take an improv class; you'll soon find you're not.

If someone's ever told you that you were funny, take an improv class; they'll owe you $400 (running cost of a class, mates!).

If you've ever wanted to gain confidence, take an improv class; you won't survive without it.

If you've ever wanted more ownership over what you say, take improv; you have no choice but to say what you think as they will force it out of you with the jaws of life.

If you've ever felt lonely, take improv; you'll be surrounded by people who want to laugh with you.

If you've ever wanted to be a better listener, take improv; you will find others' words are filled with gifts. 

If you've ever been told you need to be more agreeable, study improv; you'll learn how much easier and more fun it is to connect to others with an open mind.

If you've ever wanted to be fearless, study improv; you'll witness the value of jumping out onto an empty stage and committing to speaking a foreign language you don't know, playing a sport you've never played, or simply speaking words that you've never said.

If you want to diminish your ego, study improv; it works every time.

If you want to take improv because you think you're funny, you won't get far. Through my $2020 of almost 9 months of improv classes, I've not gained an inch of insight into whether or not I'm funny. That's because whether or not I'm funny isn't relevant. I wish I could say, "There's no I in improv!" but then I'd sound stupid and you'd miss the point. Instead, I'll ask you to think of the last time you saw a solo improvised show. If you've somehow seen one, or two, or more recently, then screw you; you're touring the country looking for them. For the rest of us, our answers are probably, "Uhhh...," or "Wait-- subtract 2, carry the 4...," or "Never," because we're used to seeing improv with at least 2 people. More often than not, we see improv performed by a team. The magic of improv is watching people create worlds and relationships out of nothing. It's seeing people listen and agree. It's so damn satisfying to watch a group of people all do the same thing-- no matter how simple-- at the same time! Why? Because it's so hard. Guys it's so hard today that sometimes we cry real tears (in private) (and actually I haven't, but I've heard of people who have, and I get it). 

Everyone walks around life with their own ideals, fears, and dreams, but how often do we share those? Or ask to hear others'? I recently heard a seasoned improviser point out: In improv, everyone comes in with their own stupid ideas, but they're not interesting or funny until they put them together with someone else's-- if it's only you up there, with your ideas, it's stand-up. Nice! Improv isn't stand-up! An improviser can't exist up there with another person if she's only spouting what she thinks is funny, or interesting, or important. No good scene exists in which the people onstage separately say what they each want to say, not listening to the other person or people, and carrying on with their own personal plans. You have to follow the golden, famous rule: "Yes, and." Listen to your scene partner, accept the scenario he's presented to you-- even if it's in the opposite direction of where you wanted the scene to go-- and then to add to it. Respect your partner by adding more information, a gift of sorts, to what they've said. Imagine what life would be like if we did this in real life...

You walk up to the customer service line in Kohl's (yeah, I am gonna ignore the fact that you've never shopped here, because it's insane). The associate looks you in the eyes, focuses her attention on only you, and says hello. You tell her that you forgot to use your 30% off coupon on this comforter you bought and you'd like to apply it now. Also, you just waited in this line for 20 minutes and you're in a big hurry. The associate ensures that she will get you out quickly and adds that she'd have liked to use a 30% discount on such a purchase, as well. She is never defensive about the line wait but instead recognizes your hurry and situation. You both exit the interaction swiftly, without any altercation. Hey, I guess customer service ain't so bad after all!

People! Can you seriously deny $10 of Kohl's Cash?!

You're holding a team meeting at work. You introduce your proposal for a new graphic, but then Marc with a C presents an idea that goes in a totally different direction. You distance your brain from your ego by hearing his prospective with an open mind. You say "Yes, and" by opening up his idea for discussion from the rest of the team. Instead of instinctually saying "No," you let go of your original plan and honored Marc with a C's creativity. Alright, team meetings don't have to be the pits! 

Suuuuuper cool meeting format, sure.

You and your boyfriend are fighting over at which restaurant to have dinner. You want to try Veeeeeal, a farm-to-table restaurant where your friend works, because said friend invited you to come in for free food, drinks, attention tonight. Your boyfriend wants to dine at Get in My Belly (which he insists is really nice), yet you know it's only because it's close to the Oklahoma State bar and he wants to meet his buddies there by 8pm for kickoff. You label his motivations early on without any judgment; it makes sense that he wants to celebrate 2-game Oklahoma's winning streak alongside $1 shots. You ensure him that you get it, then, before moving on, wait for his response. He softens and thanks you for understanding, then returns the gesture: he sees why you'd be jazzed to get free Veeeeeal and is appreciative you'd be taking him along. You promise you'll do everything in your power to get the two of you down to O'Flannigan's by 8pm. Since you both practiced an open, positive approach to your possible conflict, you avoided a huge argument and now have time to get spoiled with fresh, organic food and slam frat football beers. You know, disagreements don't have to end in Seamless in separate apartments! 

But what if the football players ran the farm-to-table...

These interactions seem idyllic and corny, but I wasn't picturing any of them going down with smiles. Not one smile. Maybe when they agree on a time to leave and kiss, or when the meeting is released for lunch, or when the customer says "have a good day"-- but that's it. It's not about plastering a fake obnoxious grin and pretending to care; you aren't giving up your stance and completely conceding to someone else. However, you are conceding to being open, listening, and recognizing another person's perspective. Sure, in improv you're encouraged to "jump on the grenade" (/fearlessly do it), but you're also reminded to calm down. That's the only way you'll be ready and open to listen. Did I already mention it's so hard? I can do a scene with one of my best friends and still forget to look him in the eyes. Seriously, we don't do this in real life because it's hard.

Sooooo has anything in the above addressed being funny? Nah. It has addressed being truthful and a good scene parter, though, and that's how it starts. Scenes are always so much funnier when they're based in truth: you start with some sort of reality, a true connection, and then, inevitably, because you're 2 humans making up words onstage, something weird or unusual will happen and it will be funny. There's this rockin' book called "Truth in Comedy," and it's like the bible to improvisers. In class, we never talk about how to be funny, but we do learn a lot about being truthful and a good listener.

Oh, btw-- I'm most certainly no improv expert, ain't pretendin' to be. Though, I do listen to the very nerdy & informative UCB Long Form Conversation weekly podcast and have a great memory for large general concepts drilled into my head for 3 hours every week for 9 months. I am not, as of yet, a great improviser, but I'm quite OK with that-- not only because I've only been taking classes for less than a year but also because I've found that being a phenomenal, top-notch improviser isn't the only outcome of studying improv. I've become a better conversationalist! And a better listener! So, let's just put it out there-- a better person! Shyeah! I like looking at "Improv Artvice," a Tumblr by an artist named David Kantrowitz who posts known quotes & mantras related to improv, and seeing how almost each and every one of them can apply to my life in general:

 

 

       

That's the kind of stuff you learn if you study improv, guys: how to fire your therapist and gain friends! Or... eh, no guarantees. Oh, and if you study at UCB then you'll inevitably, at some point, learn about Pizza Suprema, which is "the best pizza in NYC." How can you tell it's "the best?" Because "municipal workers eat there." (It's good; I don't know; try it.)  

If you haven't taken an improv class and you can, what are you waiting for?! You get to jump on grenades and make mistakes and bear your soul and maybe even cry for real and not learn if you're funny and spend thousands of dollars. But at the end of the day... pizza.