Category Archives: Jen & Lauren Chat

A Phunky Bitch and a Rustie Chat About Music Fandom

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Lauren | 6 Comments

This may be our most epic chat ever. Lauren and Jen discuss their histories as fangirls: Jen was a Phunky Bitch and a Phish fan, and Lauren was a diehard “Rustie” or Neil Young fan: these were online fandom communities during the early internet era.

We were both active fans around the same time: the late 90s and early ’00s (though Jen continues to see Phish live and Lauren can’t scrape up the dough to see Neil on his new tour). We include links to tons of fantastic songs and or videos and suggest you listen to each one full-length and use puppets to pretend Jen and Lauren are actually talking to each other. And lots of air guitar, obvsly.

We discuss our respective fandom experiences and communities, the reasons we got into the music and bands we did, how our fandom impacted our relationships, and Jen has a revelation about graduate school. Then, we briefly discuss our children’s budding music fandom (for the Fresh Beat Band). You don’t want to miss this! And if you’re a Rustie or a Phunky Bitch, please comment!! We miss you!

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Posted in Jen & Lauren Chat, Memoir, Mothering, Music, Pop Culture

Tagged ani difranco, concerts, fan, fan communities, fandom, fangirls, Fresh Beat Band, grad school, hippies, hipsters, jam bands, kids, kids music, live music, music, Neil Young, online communities, phish, phunky bitches, rock music, rusties, rustlist, snobbery, taste, widespread panic

Chat: If Our Daughters Want to Shave Our Heads, We Will Let Them (And other parenting lessons we learned from Will Smith)

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Lauren | 7 Comments

Willow Smith shaved her head recently, and when Parade Magazine asked him about it, Will Smith said this:

“We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.”

Inspired by Will Smith (a phrase I never in a million years thought I would type), Lauren and Jen talk about setting boundaries and answering tough questions.

Lauren: So, would you let Dorothy shave her head?

Jen: I shaved my head, when I was 19.

Lauren: Cooooool.

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Posted in Jen & Lauren Chat, Mothering, Music, Pop Culture, TV & Film

Tagged beauty, blogging, childhood, family, feminism, hair, home, identity, kids, make up, motherhood, mothering, parenting, real life, teenagers, Will Smith, Willow Smith

(Chat) The Push-Pull of Motherhood, Careers, and Other Grown-up Pursuits

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Lauren | 7 Comments

This week’s chat is our take on the whole Mommy Wars/The Conflict/work-versus-home dilemma we face. Ultimately, we agree that there needs to be less at stake for mothers who want to both be there for their kids and have a working life of some kind. We also wonder what alternatives there are to identifying through an occupation, and how do you become a “real” writer, anyway? Continue reading →

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Posted in Jen & Lauren Chat, Mothering

Tagged adjuncting, aspirations, budgeting, business culture, career, child care, Day care, decisions, dreams, family, feminism, grad school, Graduate school, higher education, home, Housewife, identity, income, kids, Life, lifestyle, maternity leave, mommy wars, money, motherhood, mothering, obama, organizing, parenting, real life, scheduling, teaching, the conflict, work, Writing

Jen and Lauren Chat: Sisterhood is Powerful

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Lauren | 11 Comments

Jen and I chatted this week about sisterhood, family, and babies. Conclusion: sisters are awesome. So is Eight is Enough.

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Posted in Jen & Lauren Chat, Memoir, Mothering, Pop Culture, TV & Film

Tagged best friends, Birth order, cheaper by the dozen, coming of age, eight is enough, family, home, Iowa, kids, Life, motherhood, mothering, Oklahoma, parenting, Sibling, sisterhood, sisters, tulsa, yours mine and ours

Muppet Babies and the Do No Harm Theory of Children’s Television Viewing

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Lauren | 10 Comments

This week, we are talking about watching TV with our kids. You will find that Jen and I are rather unabashedly pro-TV. Read on for Muppets, Dora, Kipper and more.

Lauren: I’m here and ready whenever you are.

Dude, 3 more hits and today ties our busiest day so far!

Jennifer: My kids are watching Dora the Explorer, and Tyler has pledged to supervise toothbrushing. I’m in!

8:12 PM Lauren: Sweet!

What time is it where you live??

Jennifer: It’s 9:15. Normally they are in bed by now, but dinner was late so we pushed bedtime back rather than fight over changing the routine.

8:13 PM Lauren: WOW

If my kids aren’t in bed by 8:15 I’m like WTF YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY

Summer is definitely bumping everything back for us.

Jennifer: But yours get up early. Mine will sleep till 9 tomorrow morning.

Lauren: I was watching Dora the ‘Plowah with Holly at 5:15 today.

8:14 PM In the MORNING, I mean. Continue reading →

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Posted in Jen & Lauren Chat, Mothering, Pop Culture, TV & Film

Tagged Angelina Ballerina, Barbie, consumerism, Dora the Explorer, Education, family, feminism, funny, gender, Go Diego Go, home, kids, Kipper, media awareness, motherhood, mothering, Muppet Babies, My Little Pony, parenting, Phineas and Ferb, real life, sleep, Team UmiZoomi, television, toys, X Files

(Chat) Hunger Games: Powerful Feminist Fiction With Love as Its Centerpiece, and other YA recs

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Lauren | 12 Comments

Last week, we chatted about YA fiction of our youth, waxing nostalgic about the BSC, the Hunky Dory Dairy, and other books we read under the desk during math class. For this week, we decided to focus on contemporary YA fiction, and Jen read Hunger Games (and then Catching Fire, immediately, within hours) for the first time. With a few exceptions, we are over the moon for the trilogy, its heroine, and Suzanne Collins’ political stance(s) in the novels. Read on as we connect the Hunger Games to Trayvon Martin; contrast our fearless and complex heroine, Katniss, with the blah Bella Swan; and speculate about endings for the series (since Jen hasn’t finished it yet).

THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR HUNGER GAMES, CATCHING FIRE, & THE FILM ADAPTATION BELOW. Continue reading →

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Posted in Books, Jen & Lauren Chat, Pop Culture, TV & Film

Tagged Baby Sitters Club, books, Catching Fire, divergent, dystopian, feed, feminism, Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, matched, Peeta Mellark, Reading, ship breaker, Suzanne Collins, YA Lit

YA Lit of Yesteryear

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Lauren | 17 Comments

This week, Jen and I chatted about YA literature we loved in our youth, mostly late 80s and early 90s. Next week, we’ll discuss contemporary YA lit, with a special focus on HUNGER GAMES!!!!! WHICH JEN HASN’T READ BEFORE!!! OK I’m too excited.

We discovered this fantastic blog that reads/reviews novels and series that we read as kids, so if you’re looking for a bit of nostalgia, check out Nikki’s blog. She has it all broken down by category. Fantastic. This blog is also about awful series from the 80s (featuring one of my faves from youth, The Gymnasts!) and she’s just started back up, so that’s cool.

For snarky fun about the BSC, check this out:

OK, let’s get our nostalgia on! Continue reading →

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Posted in Books, Jen & Lauren Chat, Pop Culture

Tagged 80s, 90s, adolescence, anne of green gables, Baby Sitters Club, books, childhood, Goosebumps, nostalgia, Reading, series books, Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley Twins, teens, YA Lit, Young-adult fiction, youth

(Chat) PINTEREST: Thinspo-for-the-home or divine inspiration?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Lauren | 9 Comments

This is the first in a new feature on our blog, which I’m realizing as I type that we haven’t named. But whatever: it’s CHAT! Jen and I will get together once a week to talk about some topic on our minds, and then share it with you. We hope it’s just the start of a broader conversation.

This week: PINTEREST! Love it or loath it? Inspiration or desperation? Time-waster or under-ass-fire-lighter? Below, we wonder if some crafts are more like porn than creative acts, and if design boards are just thinspo-for-the-home. Continue reading →

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Posted in Jen & Lauren Chat, Pop Culture, This Is Not a Lifestyle Blog

Tagged Baby food, blogging, crafts, design, feminism, kids, lifestyle, mothering, organizing, parenting, Pinner, Pinterest, real life, social media, style, thinspo