Did. You. Get. This?” he asked in wonderment.
“I got it in the mail. At my parents’ house. In Massachusetts. In 1992. When I was seventeen.”
That issue had survived my adolescence from the day it arrived on my doorstep and my mom tried to throw it away, not wanting her seventeen-year-old daughter to admire two very obvious (to her) junkies who were wearing “rags” on the cover of a magazine.
“Jennifah, why does he wear that old gray cardigan? Your grandfathah had one of those sweaters. It doesn’t even fit him. And look at her hair. It’s like a rat’s nest that was left out in the rain.”
That issue survived my college years, moves to three different neighborhoods in Boston, one move to Brooklyn, and a move to Los Angeles where it found four different homes—to arrive safely on my glass display-style coffee table in West Hollywood.
“Man, I wish I had known Nirvana when they were actually around.”
I laughed. “What, were you not always this cool? Were you listening to New Kids on the Block or something?”
“No. He was dead.”
“What?”
Ryder’s words confused me even more than when I found out from Kurt Loder that “Kurt Cobain was found in the garage above his sun house with a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.” I was in disbelief. I had a twenty-three-year-old in my home. He was three when Kurt Cobain took his own life. Meanwhile, I was not three when Kurt Cobain took his own life. I had been getting my period for five years at that point. I was nineteen. TECHNICALLY old enough to have a baby. In fact I was sixteen when Ryder was born. I was old enough to have birthed Ryder TECHNICALLY if I had been some kind of Teenage Whore (nod to you Courtney Love/Hole fans out there).
This is where I differ from many guys. I don’t find it sexy to “teach” the kids about where I was when Kurt Cobain died. I didn’t want to be some baby boomer telling a girl who’s the age of his coworkers’ daughters about what Woodstock was like. I didn’t want to answer Ryder’s questions about what “the vibe” was like on April 5, 1994. I thought it would be much sexier to stop talking about a dead rock star and start getting it on. But I didn’t want to make the first move. I already felt like a cross between an alpha male and his great-aunt. I needed to submit a little. I offered him some wine, hoping to maybe lube him up a bit more, to bring him back to the moment when he had his hand on my knee at the bar. I asked what I thought was a simple question.
“Would you like some wine? I’m going to have a glass.”
Ryder looked around as if needing to see proof of this wine I was talking about.
“Wait. When did you get the wine?”
“What?”
What kind of question was that? Oh. Wait. Was my young date actually a little wine connoisseur? “Do you mean what vintage year is the wine?” I asked.
He said, “No. I mean how do you know you have any wine? We didn’t stop at 7-Eleven on the way home or anything.”
I wanted to hold him in my arms and protect him from the world. I wanted to say, “Oh, no, baby-sweetie. When you’re a grown-up, you can just have wine waiting at the house! You’re mature enough not to be tempted to drink it and sometimes you’re just so old and tired that the mere task of opening it seems too much and you just look at it on your wine rack—happy to know that it’s there. Especially when you live alone. It’s like having quiet roommates who you know will be a good time once you open them up. And when you’re all grown up you don’t have to buy wine at 7-Eleven or cash your work check there either.” But I refrained. I was nervous that he would follow me into the kitchen, see my wine refrigerator, and his mind would explode all over my white stucco walls.
He asked me if instead of pouring the wine into one of my goblets, I could just put it in a red plastic Solo cup. He explained that he didn’t want to drink out of the goblet because he was
“I got it in the mail. At my parents’ house. In Massachusetts. In 1992. When I was seventeen.”
That issue had survived my adolescence from the day it arrived on my doorstep and my mom tried to throw it away, not wanting her seventeen-year-old daughter to admire two very obvious (to her) junkies who were wearing “rags” on the cover of a magazine.
“Jennifah, why does he wear that old gray cardigan? Your grandfathah had one of those sweaters. It doesn’t even fit him. And look at her hair. It’s like a rat’s nest that was left out in the rain.”
That issue survived my college years, moves to three different neighborhoods in Boston, one move to Brooklyn, and a move to Los Angeles where it found four different homes—to arrive safely on my glass display-style coffee table in West Hollywood.
“Man, I wish I had known Nirvana when they were actually around.”
I laughed. “What, were you not always this cool? Were you listening to New Kids on the Block or something?”
“No. He was dead.”
“What?”
Ryder’s words confused me even more than when I found out from Kurt Loder that “Kurt Cobain was found in the garage above his sun house with a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.” I was in disbelief. I had a twenty-three-year-old in my home. He was three when Kurt Cobain took his own life. Meanwhile, I was not three when Kurt Cobain took his own life. I had been getting my period for five years at that point. I was nineteen. TECHNICALLY old enough to have a baby. In fact I was sixteen when Ryder was born. I was old enough to have birthed Ryder TECHNICALLY if I had been some kind of Teenage Whore (nod to you Courtney Love/Hole fans out there).
This is where I differ from many guys. I don’t find it sexy to “teach” the kids about where I was when Kurt Cobain died. I didn’t want to be some baby boomer telling a girl who’s the age of his coworkers’ daughters about what Woodstock was like. I didn’t want to answer Ryder’s questions about what “the vibe” was like on April 5, 1994. I thought it would be much sexier to stop talking about a dead rock star and start getting it on. But I didn’t want to make the first move. I already felt like a cross between an alpha male and his great-aunt. I needed to submit a little. I offered him some wine, hoping to maybe lube him up a bit more, to bring him back to the moment when he had his hand on my knee at the bar. I asked what I thought was a simple question.
“Would you like some wine? I’m going to have a glass.”
Ryder looked around as if needing to see proof of this wine I was talking about.
“Wait. When did you get the wine?”
“What?”
What kind of question was that? Oh. Wait. Was my young date actually a little wine connoisseur? “Do you mean what vintage year is the wine?” I asked.
He said, “No. I mean how do you know you have any wine? We didn’t stop at 7-Eleven on the way home or anything.”
I wanted to hold him in my arms and protect him from the world. I wanted to say, “Oh, no, baby-sweetie. When you’re a grown-up, you can just have wine waiting at the house! You’re mature enough not to be tempted to drink it and sometimes you’re just so old and tired that the mere task of opening it seems too much and you just look at it on your wine rack—happy to know that it’s there. Especially when you live alone. It’s like having quiet roommates who you know will be a good time once you open them up. And when you’re all grown up you don’t have to buy wine at 7-Eleven or cash your work check there either.” But I refrained. I was nervous that he would follow me into the kitchen, see my wine refrigerator, and his mind would explode all over my white stucco walls.
He asked me if instead of pouring the wine into one of my goblets, I could just put it in a red plastic Solo cup. He explained that he didn’t want to drink out of the goblet because he was
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