J.A.P. Just Another Person

As my daughter starts middle-school this year, I’m facing the daunting task of figuring out how we’ll handle her Bat Mitzvah. My parents weren’t religious so I find it hard to pass along traditions that weren’t passed along to me. My brothers were Bar Mitzvahed, but I don’t remember my oldest brother Ed’s shindig because I was only 3. I remember my brother Carl’s Bar Mitzvah (I was 8), at least I remember dancing and eating dessert, which came in a dish made of chocolate, as all meals should.

My daughter is just about the age I was when the term J.A.P. started getting thrown around. As if the onset of puberty wasn’t bad enough, I attended a junior high filled with a bunch of really nasty kids. Seventh grade felt like Lord of the Flies with spiral notebooks. I guess you can chalk it up to raging hormones. Those kids, especially the boys, scared the hell out of me. Lockers were slammed, freshmen were tripped, and insults were hurled like stones from medieval catapults (or cows if you’re a Monty Python fan). On top of the space in my teeth, my unruly thick hair (which actually became a plus during the big hair 80’s) and my skinny frame, I had the whole Jewish thing going for me. I began to hear the “J” word fairly often, along with the old favorite, “Carpenter’s dream, flat as a board and easy to screw.” Lovely.

The whole J.A.P. thing threw me into a heck of an identity crisis. A Jewish American Princess was an upper-middle class girl who was spoiled and pushy. Granted, you would have to include well-dressed and impeccably groomed, but still, it wasn’t anything I aspired to, except for the fancy outfits and expensive makeup.

Yes, I was Jewish, and I would have liked lots of pretty clothes, but it wasn’t in the budget. My father was a machine shop foreman who had a hard time holding down a job and my mother worked as a bookkeeper. We had a small house on a canal on a dead end street. As a small child, this was heaven! There was water to swim in and empty lots to play in and hold funerals for dead birds (someone had to do it!). Besides, as a rule, 6 year olds don’t size each other up when it comes to fashion. My point is I was fine with what I had.

But then you get a little older and the outside world starts tempting you with newer, better and more…everything! The kids from homes with lots of money began to notice the difference between them and the kids from homes with less money. To make matters worse, not far from our modest home in a middle class neighborhood was a wealthy Jewish area. The homes were large and they had built-in pools and two car garages. Naturally, there was some resentment in my non-Jewish neck of the woods. The resentment led to name calling. I would hear the word J.A.P. shouted at me fairly often.

Calling me a J.A.P. wasn’t just mean, it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t shopping in expensive stores and I was far from spoiled. My mother worked full time, back when it wasn’t common, and sometimes even looked down upon. I would come home and have to clean and sometimes cook dinner for my father and brothers. This is where I perfected my passive aggressive skills. I would usually burn dinner, thus feeling some sort of twisted power over my oppressors.

The worst part of being called a J.A.P., was that real J.A.P.s wouldn’t even glance down at their Chanel watches to give me the time of day. It made me feel ashamed of being Jewish. I got all the flack but none of the benefits. I definitely lacked the “Princess” part of the equation. I really liked it when people didn’t know I was Jewish. I was often taken for Irish, probably because of my fair skin and light green eyes. Those days are long gone; I’m not fooling anyone anymore. I’ve started to look so much like my Eastern European Jewish relatives, that one shopkeeper on the lower east side of Manhattan talks to me in Russian! It seems that we all get more ethnic as we get older. I may have passed for a nice Irish girl in my youth, but now I look like I just came back from the Kibbutz!

By the time I got to college the expression J.A.P. had been thrown around so much that it lost most of its sting, but I was still sensitive about it. One friend of mine insisted it was a compliment. He thought Jewish American Princesses were pretty and refined. I did like that part, but I remembered how mean so many of them were to me in high school. I knew in my heart that I had nothing in common with those girls except my religion. Even if I did have money, I would never be accepted into that particular sorority (Alpha Delta Nu?).

Gotta Have It

I can’t stop thinking about it. Trying to avoid it only makes the need stronger. I’m craving it, jonesing for it. It’s my drug of choice and I’m helpless before it. I’m not talking about crack or heroin; I’m talking about sweets, the worst offender – chocolate.

I’m a cancer survivor and a lot of people have given me advice about what I should do to stay well. Friends and family have suggested everything from acupuncture to shitake mushrooms. A couple of people suggested macrobiotics. I’m an open minded gal, so I went to a seminar on starting a macrobiotic diet. I entered the lecture hall and saw a very frail man with sallow skin. I assumed he was a cancer patient who was there for the same reason I was. Then he got up and began the lecture! He was the expert in macrobiotics! Since I have no desire to resemble Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, I quietly snuck out of the room and headed for the nearest Burger King for a Whopper and a chocolate shake.

Before I tiptoed out of the lecture, I heard the anemic macrobiotics expert explain that sugar is a killer! He made it sound like the gangster of carbohydrates. He said it messes with your insulin levels and weakens your immune system. Say it ain’t so! Apparently there are people who believe that “Death by Chocolate” isn’t just the name of a tasty dessert, it’s a prediction.

A few weeks later another friend hooked me up with a medical intuitive (a psychic that specializes in health issues and healing). She had good news for me, she saw a complete recovery, but I would have to change my eating habits. She said lose the sugar. While I was happy to hear that she saw a healthy future for me, I was upset to hear that that future would mean no more Oreos or Twizzlers.

One has to address the quality of life issue. Is a life without Snickers worth living? Is there anything that can substitute for warm, freshly baked brownies? I know that there are people who have kicked some powerful addictions. You would think if Robert Downey, Jr. could stop getting high and sleeping in his neighbor’s kid’s bed, I could lay off the chocolate chip cookies. But how am I supposed to quit eating goodies when I can’t walk two blocks in Manhattan without passing a Dunkin Donuts or a Cold stone Creamery? Gourmet dessert trucks and cup cake bakeries are multiplying like apps for iPhones. Stop taunting me!!!

So where can I go to get this sugar monkey off my back? It’s not like I can go to Dr. Drew for Candy Rehab. Although, I would enjoy the group therapy, “Hello, my name is Barbara, and I’m a chocoholic.” “Hello Barbara.” “Before I came here, I was on an out of control sugar binge for two weeks. I hit Crumbs, Baskin Robbins and M&M World in one day! My husband had to drag me out of the Hershey’s Time Square store after I tried to jump into a fake vat of chocolate!” It would be so reassuring to hear from someone who was in it even deeper than me. Somewhere there’s somebody who has let gumdrops drag them down into the gutter where they’re laying face down surrounded by Nestles Crunch wrappers. Or even worse, there’s probably some poor slob who’s figured out a way to inject chocolate syrup right into his veins.

I would like to cut down on sugar, but I don’t think I could ever cut it out completely. It’s been like a friend to me, perking me up when I’m down. Granted, the perking up had to do with building up a pretty good sugar rush, but aren’t I entitled to one vice?

Hotel Starbucks

I dropped my daughter off at a play date, oh wait a minute, she’s eleven, so I dropped her off to “hang out” with a friend. I decided to stop into a Starbucks and treat myself to a fancy cup of coffee and hopefully get off my feet for a few minutes. Finding a Starbucks in Manhattan is easy; it’s like finding hay in a haystack. Within two blocks I was at one of the ubiquitous Starbucks that dot the New York City streets like freckles on Clay Aiken’s face.

Lousy economy or not, apparently people are still digging deep down in their pockets to shell out an extra few bucks for a little luxury in a cup. As always, the place was packed. I haven’t gotten a seat at a Starbucks since the first time Anne Heche was straight. I got my cup ‘a joe and looked around for a place to sit. As always, I was forced to walk past all those java squatters in their fluffy, comfy chairs and head over to the skinny bar by the window. Good for people watching, not so good for tired legs.

I noticed that the folks in the chairs seemed smug and self satisfied, like they had something I wanted, which was true. They slowly sipped their caramel macchiato, and I mean SLOWLY. It was clear that I wasn’t going to get near an open seat unless there was a fire drill.

Looking around I noticed everyone had large bags with them. They were the bags that had been filled with books, newspapers and laptops, which now covered their chairs, laps and tables. Then it occurred to me, “My God, people are living here!” It all made sense to me! They have everything they need, their computers, cell phones, food, yummy deserts, and of course, coffee. There are bathrooms and it’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You can “work from home” on your computer and you always have a place to meet your friends.

This must be what happened to all those people who lost their homes! They moved into Starbucks! It’s not that I’m not sympathetic, but when do I get to relax and enjoy my café mocha? The java squatters are forcing us to take our Latte’s to the street, or even worse, our own homes! That’s where we’re stuck with kids and spouses who bug us, where we can’t relax because every time we look around we see an unfinished project or something that has to be cleaned. When do our butts get their day in the sun? This trend will only get worse. It’s only a matter of time before Ronald, Mayor MacCheese and The Hamburgler aren’t the only residents of MacDonald’s!