Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never by Lancaster, Jen (e books free to read .txt) 📕

When I get out, the sodden suit material now reaches my knees and is so heavy that I have to hoist myself up the steps, staggering under its excess weight.

Then as I settle into my chair, I’m swaddled in mounds and mounds of damp bathing suit. Within minutes, I’m shivering despite the eighty-degree temperature because I feel like I’m trapped under a load of drenched sheets.

I last another five minutes before I go inside, step out of this soaking wet albatross, and step back into one of my unliberating, unforgiving, thigh-revealing tank suits.

And I have to wonder if the great ladies in history couldn’t have accomplished a little bit more if they weren’t weighed down in thirty pounds of swim skirt.

My girlfriends have come to my house for our annual long weekend. I’m here in my thigh-revealing tank suit and they’re all done up in their adorable, flippy swim skirts. I watch as their suits engorge around them, and they’re suddenly surrounded by circles of sodden Spandex.

When we get out of the pool to eat lunch, the complaints begin in earnest.

“Jesus Christ, it’s freaking cold out here,” says Angie.

“I feel like I’m wearing a wet diaper,” says Wendy.

“There’s just so much fabric, I can’t seem to dry off,” says Poppy.

One by one, they peel off to put on regular clothes to finish their lunches.

And there I sit in my girlish one-piece, smug as a bug in a rug.

Oh, tank suit… I shall never forsake you again.

Reluctant Adult Lesson Learned:

“Everyone is doing it” was a lousy reason to go along with the crowd in eighth grade and it’s a lousy reason now. If the whole carpool wants to jump off a bridge, then demand they drop you off at the office first.

C·H·A·P·T·E·R F·I·F·T·E·E·N

How Do You Talk to Girls

“You know I feel so dirty when they start cooking cute; I want to tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot.”

I finish dicing the last of the celery for the mirepoix while I wait for the pancetta to finish browning. Oh, crispy pork fat, you’re the most delicious pork fat of them all.

As I survey the rest of my mise en place ingredients, I’m overcome with a sense of satisfaction. A couple of years ago, I was content just to shove a couple of naked pork chops under the broiler, splash on some preservative-laden barbecue sauce, and call it a meal. But now? I’m creating a culinary masterpiece, slowly building flavor one layer at a time. In two hours, this is going to be the most beautiful Bolognese sauce anyone has ever seen, and that is not an exaggeration.

“’Cause she’s watching him with mirepoix!”

I giggle and toss the celery in the pot.

“And she’s lovin’ him with that carrot, I just know it!”

There go the carrots.

“And he’s sautéing golden brown late, late at night!”

And finally, the onions. I grab my spatula-microphone to belt out the next verse. “I wish that I had Bo-lo-gnese! I want Bo-lo-gnese! Where can I find a fresh sauce like that?” [What, you don’t change the words when you sing?]

My interest in cooking neatly coincided with buying my first iPod. Turns out I don’t get so bored with all the scrubby-peely-choppy tedium if there’s music involved. Yeah, we have a decent stereo, but Fletch has a tendency to overcomplicate home electronics, so the path from “off” to “The Smiths” requires a master’s degree in sound engineering. Also, I’m far too impatient to listen to a whole CD at a time and I tend to go all MC JazzyJen, [My DJ name.] and having to switch artists every three and a half minutes is exhausting. Cooking’s one of the few situations in which I can multitask [Notable failures include driving while talking to passengers, swimming while cocktailing, and running while breathing.] and I’m totally over eating cereal for dinner, so it’s all worked out nicely.

As I stir and shimmy and slaughter the lyrics, I feel a presence. I glance up to find Fletch frowning in the doorway.

“What’s up?” I ask, removing my snappy new replacement earbud.

(Libby ate the last set.)

(Libby, bless her heart, is kind of an asshole.)

He looks grim. “Did you know Rick Springfield is dead?”

What? No! Noooooo! Not Rick Springfield! Rick, also known as Dr. Noah Drake to General Hospital fans, was my first real musical love. Before he came along with his velvet-revolver voice, feathered hair, and stunning assortment of Members Only jackets, my interest in music was strictly secondhand, an offshoot of my brother’s esoteric band du jour. [With a brief but intense dalliance with Andy Gibb. But I was only in fourth grade back then. No one really understands true love until middle school.] Much as I tolerated the Marshall Tucker Band and Jethro Tull, nothing about their songs really spoke to me. [The flute doesn’t rock as hard as one may think.]

Rick Springfield’s one-two punch of talent and good looks had me smitten. I’d sit in my bedroom, tape recorder at hand, listening to Kasey Kasem’s American Top 40, ready to hit RECORD the second I heard the opening notes of his melodic stylings. And every week, I’d buy Tiger Beat or Teen Beat, basing my purchase decision on whichever magazine featured more pictures of him, and, please, Jesus? Let him be shirtless.

I found out recently one of my friends harbored the same kind of crush on our boy Rick. Except she grew up in Beverly Hills and she and her wealthy friends would pool their allowance to hire a limo driver to cruise past his house whenever they could. To this day, she can recite his old license plate number. I thought I was a committed fan when I framed his Working Class Dog album cover, but clearly not. Also? I suspect her allowance was higher than mine.

“Jessie’s Girl” was one of the first videos I ever, saw, too, and Rick tore out