I just re-read Just as Long as We’re Together by Judy Blume. This is one that I remember loving as a kid, like seriously adoring, although when it came down to it all I could remember is that it’s the one about the girl (Stephanie) who has a best friend (Rachel) and then gets another best friend (Alison) and they try to all be best friends, but one is always left out and there is a big fight. Which certainly does happen, but there’s also a rather major parents-getting-seperated plot. This results in Stephanie, our protagonist becoming depressed and using food to comfort herself while striking out at her mother and father.

There were odd little things I remembered from the book, like Stephanie and Alison going to Alison’s Grandmother’s house to bake brownies and then the Gran teaches them how to dance the rhumba. Or the bit where Rachel and Stephanie have a screaming fight in a dressing room. Chelle? This is the one with the boy with the apple shampoo as well. So I’d remembered those small things but not the overall plot.

I enjoyed it very much, anyway, and am looking forward to the other Judy Blume books I got out from the library.

I suppose this all ties in with my fascination for tween-teen girl psychology (re: Mean Girls, Queen Bees and Wannabees, Best Friends. When I was about ten I had a very Just as Long as We’re Together kind of thing happen. My best friend of many years called me up one day and told me that she wasn’t having Best Friends anymore, that it wasn’t fair, so she was just going to have Close Friends. But then the next day at school she had a new Best Friend. I was just kind of left out. I eventually found an awesome new Best Friend, but it still hurt like crazy at the time.

I would dearly love an answer to the question of how and why girls get so very mean around the 9-13 age…it can’t just be hormones can it? I kind of think it has something to do with all those years of ‘playing nicely’ and ‘being good’ and ’sugar and spice and all things nice’ and gaining your independence from it. Then there’s that theory that girl Best Friend relationships are like trial romances…all the intensity and closeness, and then you have to break them off in order to experience a proper romantic relationship. Does anyone have any other theories? I’d love to hear them. Especially since I want to remain Cool Auntie Jenni and be supportive of my various nieces when the girls in their classes start to get bitchy.

PoF: Oscar the recycler
CO: Three year anniversary plans