I was just reading in March's lovely issue our feature called Teen Scene. It's a beaut story about decorating a space so big kids can hang out, work out and study. It's fabulous! But the reading pleasure was short lived; really, how long would it stay like that? My little toe was still throbbing and turning purple from coming into sharp contact with my son's XBox. It had been casually tossed inside a sack, perched confidently on top of a mass of clothes, messed up with wet towels, books, CDs, food and possibly live animals in there somewhere - an obstacle course of admirable proportions - where else, but just inside the entrance of his bedroom? And no amount of discussions, praising or threatening changes the state of that room. I hear it of other kids too.

So there must be an adolescent 'blindness' - can't they see the mayhem? Not to mention 'deafness' - can't they hear the pleas? The condition, it seems, has no cure other than age! And while I pretend to you dear readers, that I am a homemaker of some ability, not true. My son's 'illness' has won the day. So all I can say is enjoy the magazine which everybody else on the staff has so capably and beautifully put together: I am but an interloper.

Julia

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