I was thrilled when Jessica guest blogged on my site, writing a fantastic song. Now, I’m so excited to return the favor. The segment’s title alone—On the Scene with Nice and Mean—makes me feel super cool. But, I’ll let you in on a secret. I wasn’t always the starlet before you. I know it’s a shocker, but such is the world of girls. Boys will tell you what they think to your face (unless you’re dating them; then they play games—but that’s another post altogether). If a guy dates his friend’s ex, they may come to blows with their fists. Or, he may just tell him, “Dude, that’s not cool.” They’d have a few other choice words, and end of story. But not girls. Girls may have it out with you too, but just when you think everything is fine, poof and abracadabra. The mean girls appear.

The first time I experienced this was when I was in sixth grade. I hung with the cool kids then (that is, they would become the cool crowd). We had sleepovers. I got invited to their parties. I played spin-the-bottle (although we didn’t really do anything when the bottle landed on us). We went to the local luncheonette for lunch (here, I knew I was part of something big because leaving school to go out to lunch was not something everyone did). Then, about midway through sixth grade, they stopped asking me to go out to lunch with them (they told me later, “Oh, we didn’t think you’d be allowed to go”). They told me my clothes were weird. The big thing then was that the color of your socks had to match your shirt. Mine didn’t. When a new girl entered our grade, I was really excited. We became friends, I invited her to sleep over. She never showed up. The mean girls adopted her. She told me later, they told her I wasn’t allowed to do anything fun at my house. They ended up ostracizing her too. By the end of the year, not only were we not friends but none of those girls were friends with her either. She signed everyone’s autograph book with the same phrase: “Sorry about all the fights.”

In high school, the mean girl thing happened again, only this time it was worse because I thought these girls would stay my friends forever (What? That’s how high school girls think. That’s what those BFF necklaces mean, so must be true.) Then, there was a guy. Isn’t there always? And a misunderstanding. Everyone stopped talking to me. The “friends” who were supposedly friends with both me and the girl in question (let’s call her Stella), said they understood both sides (they also knew what really happened) but did nothing to help the situation. One of them left Stella “real friends” in our senior will.

Why does this happen? Who knows? It taught me things, though. I’m not going to wax poetic and say I’m happy for all that happened, but the friends I got in college were true friends. I knew what to look for, could read behind the false exterior and see when people were really being friendly or setting me up for a fall. I talk to a few people from h.s., but mainly on facebook, and am only really close with one person from back then. Not surprisingly, it’s a guy. And other than a minor argument in high school, we’ve been good for years. Were things perfect? Nope. But if there was anything amiss, we talked it out. I never had to worry that he would tell a friend who’d tell a friend who’d tell a friend that he hated me.

On teen shows, though, everyone becomes friends—mean and non-mean girls alike. I wonder if that’s how it is now or is this just an alternate lovey dovey reality. On the original 90210, Kelly hooked up with Dylan while Brenda was away. Majorly hooked up. And Brenda and Kelly found a way to be friends in the later episodes. On the new 90210, Naomi and Silver totally ostracize Annie, and now she’s forgiven them all and they apologized and everyone is happy happy. One Tree Hill? Peyton dated Lucas behind Brooke’s back. They patched it up. Granted, it took a psycho killer to bring them together, but still.

Maybe that’s the answer. If you have girls, sit them in front of teen soaps, and have them take notes. Tell them real friends make things work. And if you become a mean girl, there are ways to reform.

Margie Gelbwasser

www.margiewrites.com

INCONVENIENT, Flux, November 2010

This would be me.

Hey there ravenous readers! I’m Susan Robertson, of Wastepaper Prose, and you are On the Scene with Nice and Mean.

I met Jess a few months ago at a book signing and apparently made an impression because she asked me to guest blog while she is away on her honeymoon (where I hope she’s having a blast). I was thrilled when she asked, but I can’t help but wonder if my being here is not a product of a brief lapse in her sanity. Regardless, I am here to fill her super-fabulous blogging shoes.

So far my On the Scene colleagues have brought you tales of niceness and meaness that have warmed your heart, made you laugh and possibly caused your high school PTSD to flare up. My story has less humor to it (my apologies for that upfront) and it’s the first time I’ve shared it publicly. But first you need a little background…

I have malformed digits. Translation: I have nubbins for fingers. The amniotic bands broke and were trapped inside my mother’s womb with me while I was still becoming Susan. They got wrapped around my fingers and toes and caused my birth defect. I never knew there was something wrong until some mean kids (and some who just weren’t very smart) decided to use that birth defect to insult or belittle me.

“What’s wrong with you?” “You’re a freak.” “Is that contagious?” I heard every insult a little kid could come up with and I cried over more than one of them. In high school, it only got worse. Mean girls carried on the trend of calling me a freak. They also called me a “fingerless witch” or at least something that rhymed with it.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that adults tend to say the most idiotic and hurtful things. While working at a bookstore in college I had more than one adult notice my fingers and tell me they would pray for me, as if I hadn’t been living with it for nearly two decades. Perhaps the most hurtful are the people who automatically assume the birth defect is my mother’s fault. “Is your mother an alcoholic?” People can be cruel, even if they don’t mean to be.

An incident with an adult – a teacher – almost drove me away from my passion. She was a keyboarding teacher at my middle school and keyboarding was mandatory. I was more than willing to try, but our first lesson was on “home keys,” and that one lesson started it all. The instant my teacher saw my fingers positioned over those keys, she decided I would be a keyboarding failure.

Using the home keys, your fingers home base on the keyboard, I was horrible at the keyboarding exercises. My words-per-minute count was pitiful. I tried to adapt and use my own method, but I was promptly told that if I couldn’t type properly then I would fail the class.

It wasn’t the first time that I had been told my hands and/or feet would keep me from doing something. But it was the first time it had been reiterated it so many times that I started to believe it. I started to believe that I wouldn’t ever be a writer because writing was all about typing and word counts, right? If my teacher thought I couldn’t succeed, it must have been true.

That was when my parents got involved and called on the principal for help. All I remember about that part was that there were numerous meetings and, when all was said and done, my teacher didn’t say much to me during class. I found out she was under strict orders to let me adapt, and she couldn’t stand to let me type my way. Somedays it looked painful for her to watch me.

Now, nearly 15 years later, I’m an award-winning journalist. I type everyday, using the tried and true method I developed in order to survive keyboarding. Two hands. Four fingers. My index, pinky and thumb on the right, and all the one on the left really does is hit Caps Lock, but it’s involved so I’ll give credit where credit is due. And I fly across the keys, though, admittedly, my speed stemmed from the discovery of instant messanging and not a desperate urge to become the fastest typist in the east.

So the moral of this story is three-fold, and you’ve heard it all before. 1. Believe in yourself because you’re the one who has to want it. 2. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something because they may not know how amazing you can be, especially when challenged. 3. Never let off the gas. If you want something, go after it with everything you have in spite of the doubt and negativity around you. Those people, who doubt your ability and spout insults aren’t you, and you are all that matters when it comes to what you want in life.

Leave a comment below and share your tales of  niceness and  meaness. Tomorrow our final guest blogger, young adult author Margie Gelbwasser , will be her to share hers with you, so remember to stop back by!

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Zu is  both.—  adapted from E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)

When Jess asked me to guest post on her blog I admit a little thrill went up my spine. Nice? Mean! How fun to expose bad deeds and ill will… but as the date for my post approached I knew there was only one topic I could write about – the genuine embodiment of a true friend and a good writer- the nicest person I know- Zu Vincent.

Zu and I met at Vermont College and became fast friends. Her prose is spectacular, her yoga poses divine. Her novel THE LUCKY PLACE is not to be missed. But most of all I can count on my friend Zu, not just to do the right and good thing. Zu consistently goes way above and beyond, to do the very best thing.

Three weeks ago the impact of Zu’s kindness came around again… a story that started long ago and far away… once upon a time… when my picture book biography Soar, Elinor! was just a twinkle in my editor and my eyes. “Go to California and find Elinor Smith! Comb through every photo! Find something great!” my editor commanded and I was quick to comply. But there were yards of scrapbooks, and photo albums, and mementos. Boxes and boxes. I needed help.

Zu lives hours- time zones, practically- from Santa Cruz where I found Elinor’s son and her treasures, but Zu was there at the airport to pick me up, to drive me, and to help me comb through the pioneer aviatrix’s belongings. We scanned every scrap, then Zu filmed hours of interviews while Elinor and I talked and talked and talked. Elinor and her son loved Zu on first sight. Of course.

Is this woman nice? It was just the beginning.

I knew from the start that this book would take a long time. Picture books work that way, especially when the art is exquisite. I also suspected Elinor Smith didn’t have a lot of time. She was a spry 95 when Zu and I visited her, but 95 is, well, 95. Finally last summer I received the mechanicals (sort of a preliminary color proof of a picture book) It was gorgeous. I couldn’t wait to show Elinor.

But I couldn’t leave my ill mother in Vermont. By this time Zu had become as close to the Smith/Sullivan family as I had. Without skipping a beat she insisted I mail the picture book to her so she could drive half a dozen hours to Palo Alto and present it to Elinor herself. This seemed like a crazy plan, but I mailed the package, and Zu made the drive, and she read the book, leaving a framed copy of the cover she made for Elinor. They both cried. I did, too, hearing their report, back at my house in Vermont. It was Elinor’s 98th birthday.

Of course, we hoped Elinor would hold the real hardcover in her hands- when I’d first contacted her she insisted she’d be ready for a book tour when it was time! Sadly, that won’t happen. The book will be published this October 12, but Elinor passed away on March 19, finally receiving the press and fanfare she deserved, attention she’d been denied in the eighty years since her many record breaking flights. Attention that Zu gave her, spontaneously and with no self interest. That’s the kind of nice that’s deep and good, genuine and true.

E. B. White was right. It is rare to find someone who’s both a good writer and a true friend. In my book, Zu Vincent is one of a kind.

~Tami Lewis Brown

These days, Zu and Tami are part of a group blog that focuses on the craft of writing for children and young adults, Through The Tollbooth. Zu’s posts always inspire Tami to be a better writer and a better person. She’s not saying they always work!