Last week I had my writers’ group over to my house. I was speaking to my uncle before my friends came over and he said I had to wear the present that he and my aunt gave me for my birthday. They gave me an apron. And while that doesn’t really seem like something one would wear to a writers group, because I am a good niece, I did.
So nice to know I’m classy!
You may wonder what one does at a writers’ group, so I will tell you. We drink a lot of wine and talk too much about things that have nothing to do with writing. (So it turns out wearing the apron was a good fit after all.)
Actually we do have an agenda. We chit-chat for about 30 minutes as people are showing up, we have a writing prompt and spend 10 minutes writing whatever that prompt brings to mind, we all read our prompts aloud, then we each have ten minutes to discuss our goals for the next month. We can also send over a piece we’ve been working on before the meeting for feedback. If we were orderly this would all take about two hours. It usually takes four. (Mostly due to the drinking and talking too much about non-writerly things.)
I was in charge of the prompt (which can be a word or a phrase or even a question) and I chose “things that are bad for you.” The great thing about writing prompts is the varied responses from everyone. I love to hear my clever and creative friends read their prompts aloud.
Kim did not like my prompt. She started to write a story that was very similar the piece she’d emailed earlier in the day for feedback, but she felt that story had already been told, so she crossed it out and just made a list. I thought her list was fantastic as it wasn’t really a list of things that are bad for “you,” (as in everyone), but rather things that were bad for her.
And with 2014 officially half over, on this 19th day of my 49th year, the year I am trying to make productive, trying to make count, trying to make matter, it inspired me to make a list of my own. Because I want to stop doing things that are bad for me. And I have always found that things are so much easier to achieve when I have a list.
Things that are bad for me
Staying up late
Time-sucking activities (Candy Crush I’m talking to you!)
Procrastinating
Being late
A third glass of wine. (Not that I ever have that!)
A second cup of coffee
Forgetting what the words “portion control” mean (What do they mean again?)
Not writing
Not working out
Not stretching
Not making lists
Chandler being gone for 5 1/2 weeks (though this is very good for Chandler)
Being forgetful
Being unorganized
Jealousy
Self-doubt
Lack of motivation
Being lazy (especially when my laziness becomes blazy, which is a term my writer’s group came up with that means being blasé about your laziness. We’d campaign to get the word into next year’s Merriam Webster, but that would take way too much effort, thus being the exact opposite of blazy.)
Excuses (see above)
I could probably go on and think of 20 things that are bad for me instead of only 19, but I’m blazy remember?. Besides, I feel myself bordering on negativity. And that’s not my style. Perhaps I will counteract this post with a post listing things that are good for me. (Like Bradley Cooper obviously.)
Yeah, I chose a picture of Bradley Cooper shirtless. You’re welcome.
Oh, and my kids, of course.
But as I said, another post.
I’d love to know… what are some things that are bad for you?
On the first day of my 49th year I woke up early like I always do. But I did not write. I was not productive. Sometimes I wonder why I get up before the sun only to be lazy. But because it was my birthday I allowed myself the indulgence of Facebook and Pinterest without guilt.
At seven o’clock I went for a three mile run. It’s been a while since I’ve run that far. I never stopped to walk, but it was hard. Really hard. The last minute was especially brutal. I end my run on an uphill. I felt dizzy. Like I was going to vomit. I’m pretty sure that’s not what they mean by the term “runner’s high” but if it is then I want no part of it.
You might wonder why I chose to run on my birthday if I hate it so much. I had friends coming over that night for appetizers and wine and knew I’d be eating a lot of cheese. A lot of cheese. Call it preventative maintenance.
I treated myself to a pedicure -after a shower of course- and then drove to The George Michael Salon in Beverly Hills. (No relation to 80’s pop star/90’s park bathroom lurker.) I’d won a long hair treatment worth $195 from a #Fabchat session on Twitter and my birthday was the perfect day to treat myself to such a luxury as my hair was definitely in desperate need of a little TLC.
This hair is in some desperate need of a little TLC. (BTW – can you tell I’m not very good at selfies?)
Salon owner, Jessie Martinez, definitely gave me that. She washed my hair and put on an intense moisturizing treatment and then sat me on a comfy couch for an hour with a heating cap on my head. I sat and read my new book for an hour. (Talk about indulgent!)
Afterwards she washed my hair and set it in big rollers and I sat under a hairdryer that looked like it came out of the Jetson’s for another 45 minutes and read some more. Oh yes, it was a very good day indeed.
It looks like something Jane Jetson would wear doesn’t it?
The result was smooth, gorgeous hair without the harmful chemicals of some other hair treatments (ahem, I’m talking to you Brazilian) or the drying and damaging effects of a blowout.
I left the George Michael hair salon looking like this:
Please ignore my lack of make-up and focus on my gorgeous hair!
Jessie Martinez might just be my new best friend.
I stopped by Costco on my way home and battled the Father’s Day shoppers to pick up my favorite cheap wine -only the best for my friends- and returned home to a clean house (best birthday present ever) and our Happy Birthday sign on the wall. (We have a Happy Birthday sign that I hang for everyone’s birthday every year, but mentioned last year that it never gets hung for me.) I’m not sure what made my heart sing more – the freshly vacuumed carpet or the sign, but the combination made me so happy that I didn’t even get crabby when I saw the dust rag carelessly left in the corner on the living room. (Isn’t that what you do when you’re done dusting – just drop the dust rag at the bottom of the last thing dusted?)
I made fried olives, a recipe that I found here, and have been wanting to try for a year. They did not disappoint. I set up for the party, put on a dress that I haven’t been able to fit into for years, and welcomed my closest friends into my home.
Mmmm fried olives – delish!
The men went into one room and the women went into another. We drank wine. We laughed. We ate a lot of cheese. My friend Arlyne baked me a carrot cake from scratch. It was heavenly.
As birthdays go, it wasn’t anything grand, but it was quite wonderful.
Every day should be filled with recognizing the joy of simple pleasures…
Shirking off early-morning productivity to “catch up” on Facebook.
Feeling strong (albeit vomity) after a hard workout.
Taking the time to pamper oneself.
Reveling in the serene beauty of a clean house.
Enjoying time spent with close friends.
Indulging (okay, over-indulging) in wine and cheese.
The first day of my 49th year? No, it may not have been grand, but it was a damn fine day indeed.
When I was nineteen-years-old, a few months after my mom married my step-dad, we took our first vacation as a blended family – my mom, brother and me, together with my step-dad, step-sister, and step-brother. My uncle, aunt and cousin went too. So that would be nine of us, just in case you are mathematically challenged.
We rented a houseboat on the Delta in Sacramento and took my uncle’s speedboat as well.
This is not us. But it could be.
I was grumpy because I had to leave my boyfriend, Scott, for a week. This was 30 years ago (yes, I really am that old, shut up), before cellphones and texting and Skype, so being on a houseboat for a week meant no communication.
And if you were once an overly dramatic nineteen-year-old (aren’t all nineteen-year-olds overly dramatic?) who had to suffer the terrible awful horrible fate of being separated from your boyfriend or girlfriend for a whole entire week, then you certainly know how mean and unreasonable it was for my family to expect me to suffer this vacation with them. I can only imagine what a joy I was to be around.
My step-sister was seventeen, but I really didn’t know her well yet. (Nor I’m sure did I try to.) My brother was fifteen, my step-brother was nine and my cousin was eight. So obviously there was “no one to hang out with.”
I’m sure I let myself have some fun. I did (after many summers of trying) learn to water ski on that trip. (The trick was one ski instead of two and push that back foot down hard, hard, hard.) And I got pretty tan. Other than that I don’t remember much about the trip.
Except for this…
No one had ever driven a houseboat before. (Do you drive a boat? What is that called exactly? It doesn’t have sails, so I know you don’t sail it. Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah…) Coming in and out of docks could be a bit challenging, to say the least. The adults would get stressed out and bicker about not hitting other boats (or people) so I would always go lie on my bed and take a nap or go to the top deck and sunbathe to avoid the arguing.
One day we pulled up to a gas station/restaurant/dive bar to gas up the boat. Aha! My opportunity to escape from my captors and call Scott so I could complain about what a terrible awful horrible time I was having and how much I missed him. (Oh and that I learned to ski which was really cool and I was really really tan which was even cooler!)
I found a payphone inside, reversed the charges to my house, and spent ten glorious minutes – or perhaps it was twenty- talking to the man boy my nineteen-year-old self was convinced was going to be my future husband. (Spoiler alert – he’s not. But we are friends on Facebook!)
I reluctantly told Scott that I’d better get back to the boat before I got in trouble and went down to the dock where I saw our two boats. Except instead of being tied to the dock waiting patiently for me they were driving (sailing?) away.
Both boats.
Without me.
WHAT???!!!
I stood at the end of the dock and waved my arms and yelled, but they were too far.
“Oh my god,” I said to the gas station dude. “They left me.”
“That happens sometimes,” he said. “Once this guy got left overnight.”
Overnight?!
I guess I was talking to Scott a little longer than I thought. Whenever we left a dock the adults were always concerned about where the little kids were, but since I always retreated to my bed or the roof to sunbathe, they just assumed I was retreating. Apparently it didn’t take my mom long to figure out I wasn’t there (relatively speaking). She walkie-talkied the speedboat to see if I was on it and when she found out I wasn’t freaked out a bit. She wanted to turn the boat around immediately to go get me, but my uncle thought it would be best to dock the houseboat for the night (if you didn’t dock it early enough you wouldn’t get a good spot) and then go back for me with the speedboat.
I did the only logical thing – went right back into the bar and called Scott again and talked until they came to pick me up a few hours later. Well, that might be a bit over-dramatic. It was probably only one hour. And fortunately it wasn’t overnight.
*This blog post is especially for my Uncle John (as this is, by far, his favorite story), who reads all my posts and complains that they are too girly and that he has to go do “man stuff” after reading them.
GOOD LUCK with the college visits. My heart is soaring and sniffling for you, my friend Julie emailed me before we left for our Memorial Day weekend college tour road trip. She nailed it. (As she always does.) In one year and two weeks Chandler will be graduating high school. Two months after that he’ll be heading off to college. Out of our home forever. Or at least until Thanksgiving break. My heart is indeed soaring and sniffling all at once.
Teaching him how to tie his shoes, how to cook (or at least how to make a grilled cheese sandwich), and (especially) how to properly clean a toilet has all led up my casting him off into the world to survive and thrive outside of our household. It’s enough to make me want to vomit. Happy vomit of course. If there is such a thing.
Thursday afternoon, right after the kids got home from school, we left on a 1400+ mile, three day road trip to visit three universities. Go big or go home right? (Or rather stay home in this instance.)
First Stop UCSC
Chandler wanted to start off driving so I buckled down in the back seat with a semi-cranky why-do-I-even-have-to-go-on-this-stupid-college-tour-trip Marley. We battled Santa Barbara traffic, chowed on Double Double’s in Atascadero, and arrived in Santa Cruz about six hours later.
Hangin’ in the back.
We can’t afford two rooms -in fact this was a budget travel trip with coolers packed full of sandwich-makings and our rooms booked on Priceline– so we slept boys in one bed and girls in the other since our children refuse to sleep together. We weren’t expecting much from our $50/night 2-star hotel, but it was clean, had enough towels, and the free breakfast included a make-your-own waffle station, so we deemed it a success. (Even though the coffee -if you could even call it that- was incredibly weak.)
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the university and didn’t know if Chandler would really like it or not. We chose UCSC because of the D3 athletic program (Chandler wants to compete in college athletics, but isn’t sure he want to at a D1 level), the majors it offers, and the beautiful location. But it has a reputation for being a bit of a hippie school and Chandler is 0% hippie. Well, he’s an environmentally-minded liberal, but a buttoned-down, rule-following, environmentally-minded liberal.
The campus was amazingly beautiful. It felt more like a mountain resort than a university.
This feels more like a vacation than school!
“I think going here would be great,” Chandler said to me halfway through the tour. “I love everything about this school, except for this view.”
Yeah, this view sucks!
“You’re crazy,” I told him. “The view is amazing.”
“Yeah, but the school looks like it’s in a forest and the view of the ocean doesn’t really fit.”
(Have I ever mentioned that Chandler is a little quirky?)
Trees like this cover the campus of UCSC.
In my world forest meets ocean equals perfection. But apparently in Chandler’s world forest meets ocean breaks some kind of rule. And as I said, he’s a rule-follower. Wow, is college going to be an eye-opening experience for him.
Second Stop Humboldt State
You might think that taking our 0%-hippie, rule-following, buttoned-down, quirky son to Humboldt State with its reputation of schooling hippies with a capital “H” an odd choice. Possibly. But we do want Chandler to consider a state school. And since he has expressed a possible interest in environmental studies, apparently wants to go to school in some sort of forest, and would like to attend college out-of-state, we though that Humboldt -which is an environmentalist’s wet dream, has a 20,000 square foot forest attached to it, and is closer to Seattle than to Los Angeles- deserved a look. Plus we thought the idea of embarking on a seven hour, 356-mile journey that included driving through San Francisco at 5PM on the Friday of a three-day weekend sounded like lots of fun.
The two things (semi-cranky why-do-I-even-have-to-go-on-this-stupid-college-tour-trip) Marley requested of this trip was to see the Golden Gate Bridge and to swim in a hotel pool. Of course it is our goal in life to bitterly disappoint her (just ask her), so we made sure that even though we had to cross the bridge she couldn’t really see it.
We arrived in Arcata close to midnight, two hours after the pool closed, screwing Marley once again, and headed straight to bed.
Our tour of Humboldt didn’t start until noon, so after more waffles and weak coffee we decided to check out the town of Arcata and happened upon the 45th Annual Kinetic Grand Championship taking place in the town square.
What is that you ask? It is a 3-day, 42-mile bike race over land, sand, mud and water. Which means one must convert their “bike” to be able to successfully handle land, sand, mud and water.
And the crazier the conversion, the better.
Coincidentally I went to this race with my mom and brother 31 years ago with a “why-do-I-have-to-go-on-this-stupid-trip-on-a-holiday-weekend” attitude and ended up having an incredible time, so I was thrilled to happen upon it again. Unfortunately Marley was even more determined than me (at the peak of my teenaged surliness, I might add) to hate everything about our trip and sat on a bench claiming the kinetic sculpture race lame. But she later told my mom it was “kind of cool,” so while not as big a win as make-your-own waffles, I’ll take it as a minor victory.
This sculpture was called “Bite Me.”
After our tour of Humboldt, Chandler met with a coach and liked him a lot. He also liked the dorms.
Yeah, I could see Chandler living here.
Marley loved Humboldt and decided she must go there. Plus we went to a really cool record store where she bought two posters (bonus – one of them I absolutely hate) and we both claimed the Ryan Gosling doppelganger who rang us up super cute.
Third Stop: UC Davis
After leaving Humboldt we drove three hours to Red Bluff with me taking most of the time behind the wheel. We got there in plenty of time to enjoy cheap delicious Mexican food from a place called La Corona (thank you Yelp) with a big ol’ margarita for me (hazzah!) and plenty of pool time for Marley after dinner. (So, Marley found her future college, talked to a cute -way-too-old-for-her- boy, and got to swim all in one day. Maybe Dave and I aren’t the worst parents in the world after all.)
It looks a little toxic, but it was pretty damn good!
Chandler popped out of bed at seven o’clock on Sunday morning ready to head down to the make-your-own waffle station before it got too crowded prompting us to get shaking and get started with our day. He was mostly excited to visit the Capital in Sacramento, but our first stop was Davis. I think he may have been overwhelmed by its size. And while there were plenty of trees, it was certainly no forest. He did not love it. But they have a viticulture and enology major (translation wine making), so it is my new goal in life to change Chandler’s mind and have him go to Davis. I think he owes me that.
The Mondavi Performing Arts Center at UC Davis
After touring Davis we took a tour of the Capital building and Chandler was in heaven. I know I’ve stated that he’s expressed an interest in the environment, and that is true, but he loves history so much, I think his calling is probably political science. With a minor in viticulture and enology environmental studies. Maybe.
After touring the Capital we had a (very) late lunch at a dive bar on the Delta called Wimpy’s where I was once accidentally abandoned Home-Alone-style by my family when I was a teenager. (That is a true story, but a story for another time.)
Then we headed home.
We’ve now toured five colleges total. I hope to have Chandler tour at least five more. This next year will no doubt, like his entire childhood, go by at warp speed. Six months from now his college applications will be complete. Ten months from now all of the acceptance (and rejection) letters will have arrived. Eleven months from now his decision will have been made. Fourteen months from now my son will be going off to college.
My friend’s son is applying to a private middle school. I’m in the process of high-school-junior-year-searching-for-college-stress, so I really do feel her pain. Of course her search is much easier. In the first place, it’s middle school. And she’s not even searching – her older son goes to the high school. I’m pretty sure her soon-to-be sixth grader is locked in – you know, legacy status and all.
But still, there are some steps they have to go through. Formalities. They have to fill out an application. There might be an interview involved. And her son has to write an essay.
Oh the dreaded application essay. I’ve been hyperventilating over contemplating the college essay prompts from the Common Application that Chandler has to choose from. All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not applying to college. Those prompts are hard.
For example, here’s one I’ll take a stab at:
Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
I experience failure all the time. You see, I’ve written a book. I think it’s awesome. My mom and all my friends tell me its awesome too. (Except for the part when my mom told me my protagonist was a bit whiny. Or maybe that was one of my friends. Whatever.) I’ve submitted it to several agents and they do not think it’s awesome. Most have rejected it outright.
A couple asked for a partial and one requested a full manuscript, but they ended up rejecting it too.
One very junior reader at a literary agency seemed to like it and passed it on to some senior staff members. They suggested she might be better suited for a career in retail. (Okay, I might have made that last part up.)
This affected me by making me dive face first into my secret stash of sea salt and turbinado sugar dark chocolate almonds from Trader Joe’s and chase it down with my not-so-secret stash of freezer vodka. Every time.
I’ve learned that dark chocolate goes better with wine than with vodka. And also that I must be a big dum dum who is quite possibly incapable of learning, because I keep querying that damn book and pairing dark chocolate with the wrong alcoholic beverage.
Hmmmm….
I think it’s a good thing I already have my degree.
But back to my friend and her son’s quest to be accepted to a particular private middle school (which for the purpose of this post we’ll call Awesome Middle School). She shared her son’s application essay with me and it is so spectacular that I told her I needed to share it with you. Here it is:
What gifts can you bring to Awesome Middle School?
I bring a few gifts to Awesome Middle School, such as my strength as a leader, my athletic abilities, and my level of knowledge. The reason I said I am a good leader is because everyone is afraid of me, and it’s not my fault, it’s my height. I mean it’s not my fault that I’m five four, but it comes in handy sometimes telling people to be quiet. Also I’m not that scary once you know me. I have a good sense of humor, and am decent all around at sports playing defense. Defense is my best position in most sports except football, where I play offensive line. My grades are good all around and I have a love for reading an am really good at it.
The kid is obviously a shoo-in. Even without the legacy status. Maybe we can have him come over and help Chandler with his application essay. It couldn’t hurt.
My mother is trying to clean out the clutter. She’s pretty determined. I think she might actually succeed.
One of her projects is going through old slides and home movies that were my grandfather’s. During our Easter celebration this year my mom brought out dozens of photo albums and boxes upon boxes of slides and home movies. After my kids hunted for their Easter eggs (yes, my 13 & 17 year old still love to hunt for Easter eggs) we settled down and had a good old fashioned slide show.
Yes, I do realize this is a movie projector and not a slide projector. (The slide projector is behind it – see?)
The slides were set up chronologically and my grandfather made titles of the events out of alphabet refrigerator magnets.
CHRISTMAS 1965
“Best Christmas this family ever had,” I shouted out. (Obviously, as it was my first Christmas.)
CHARLENE TURNS ONE
Already multi-tasking – feeding myself a bottle and opening a present at the same time.
EASTER 1967
CHARLENE TURNS TWO
If my grandfather was alive today he’d be rocking the Power Point presentation like nobody’s business.
I should mention that I was the first grandchild and the second one didn’t come along until 1969 so there were quite a lot of slides of me. In fact some of my petty and jealous family members started calling it the Charlene Show. (And the problem with that is?) My kids were bored to tears. I thought it was great!
It’s possible that my mom, my uncle and I -the only three people in the room who actually lived the memories in the slides- were the only ones who truly enjoyed it after the first five or ten minutes. It was fun for us to try to figure out who the people were in the pictures and where the pictures were taken. I loved looking at the fashion. At the different era. There were slides of a dinner party my grandmother threw for her girlfriends where she set the table with her wedding china and fine silverware upon a crisp white table cloth. (As opposed to when I entertain my girlfriends with paper plates and cocktail napkins with martini glasses and snarky captions about being drunk.)
So many little snippets from my childhood.
My parents were so young and beautiful.
My mom teaching me to walk – check out her awesome dress!
A family vacation to my great grandmother’s lake cabin that was hit by an avalanche and destroyed when I was eleven.
That’s my paternal grandfather on the left (doesn’t he look cool), my paternal grandmother next to him, my maternal grandmother in yellow & two mystery people.
My paternal grandparents white Christmas tree.
My maternal grandparents overly tinseled Christmas tree.
My rocking horse.
The sandbox my grandfather built for me.
After a while we moved on. We watched a home movie of my mom when she was a baby. We started looking at photo albums. My grandfather was an excellent record keeper. Our family historian.
Damn I was cute! Who wouldn’t want to watch hours upon hours of slides with this cute baby?!
I found this picture of me holding my cousin when she was a baby. (You can see by our age difference why she didn’t want to sit through the slide show until she showed up.)
What are you more jealous of – my hairstyle or my granny dress?
And then yesterday this picture was taken of me holding her son. (And please don’t ask why I had to take a picture of my phone – let’s just say technology is not being my friend today.)
History repeating itself with a new medium.
Now instead of setting up a projector or opening a cherished book we click through our computer screens, swipe our phones. It’s easier. More convenient.
But, like using paper plates when we entertain our dearest friends instead of our fine wedding china, it’s become a little too everyday and maybe not quite as special.
Throwback Thursday – This post was originally published on March 21, 2011 on skirt.com.
The other day as I looked at my pretty friend on the computer screen – tan and fit with her long blonde hair flowing down her back, I began to wonder about her life…and about mine. Somewhere between high school and Facebook she moved from Los Angeles to Miami. We were really only acquaintances in high school – I was better friends with her brother a year older than us – and now we are acquaintances through the world’s largest social network. I see photos of her fabulous single life and she sees photos of my rather suburban one (if she even bothers to look).
In her photos she sits courtside at a Miami Heat game, drinks umbrella drinks on the beach, and wraps her arms around equally tan and fit singletons at bars and barbeques. In my photos I’m trying my best to look cool mom funky rather than suburban mom frumpy.
At 45-years-old she still looks amazing in a bikini. Of course that’s probably a lot easier to do when you are blessed with the combination of being born with good genes, never experiencing the wondrous body-changing magic of childbirth, and have nothing but time on your hands to go to the gym before heading out to the local pub to meet your latest conquest on Match.com face to face.
I wonder sometimes as I stare at her beautiful face smiling at me if she is as happy as she looks. I consider myself happy in this life I’ve chosen for myself, but there are days when I trip over my husband’s shoes in the bedroom or get an aching back from doing eight loads of laundry on a Sunday that I wonder if I would be even happier if I had never married, if I had never had kids, if I had never given up my career to stay home with my children. If I only had to be accountable to me…what would my life be like?
A few years ago, when my husband unwillingly went from the security of fulltime employment to get-it-when-you-can-find-it contract work, I took a job at an elementary school as an aide in special education so that I could give my family the extravagant gift of health insurance. As an instructional assistant I have been bit, hit, kicked, pinched, spit at, peed on, and had my life threatened. And sometimes I even get to clean up poop! As an added bonus the pay is terrible. Of course I do get summers off and every December and June parents shower me with Starbucks gift cards to thank me for my patience with their little darlings.
But if I didn’t have kids, where would 15 years in the career world have taken me? I picture myself dressed in designer clothing checking my Blackberry as I tap my pedicured toes encased in $300 boots waiting for the valet to come with my Mercedes that only seats two so I can hurry from my business lunch to a very important meeting. My “what if” wardrobe seems a bit more stylish than my usual attire of jeans and tone-up sneakers sadly worn for function rather than fashion so my heels don’t sink into the grass as I attend my kids’ soccer games or so I won’t trip as I race around town running errand after monotonous errand.
Speaking of monotonous, my husband and I have been married for seventeen years. We’ve had our ups and downs, but all in all we have a happy marriage. He is a good partner and a good friend; we are very compatible and I feel like I’ve chosen well. Even during our toughest times the thought of divorce has never crossed my mind.
But what if we had never met? If I had never walked down the aisle, would the rush of experiencing first date jitters be greater than the joy experienced from the comfort of a long marriage? Would I choose to experience firsthand the phenomenon of online dating instead of only experiencing it vicariously through my friends? I am rather curious to know how many text exchanges with a man you’ve never met face to face it takes to get a photo of his penis in your inbox. And like many of my still-single or again single friends, would I also have a nice, incurable dose of HPV?
I look at my suburban tract home in a neighborhood known for its good schools. In my “what if” life I envision myself in my two bedroom condo in a much more urban part of town decorated Pottery Barn chic – no roses to dead head, no lawn to water or mow. There are no socks on the floor, no Lego’s to be stepped on, no princess toothpaste smeared on the bathroom counter. If the song “I Still Want You” were to play on the 80’s station of my satellite radio as I was cleaning my condo on a Saturday afternoon I’d probably think to myself, “Whatever happened to The Del Fuegos?” having no idea that front man Dan Zanes went on to be a Grammy Award winning children’s artist.
If I’d never had kids I would probably still think that Lindsey Lohan’s drug addiction and downward spiral is a terrible tragedy, but the true tragedy would be missing both her and Jamie Lee Curtis’ fantastic comedic performances in “Freaky Friday” because what kind of designer-boot-wearing, two-seat-Mercedes-driving, online-dating-still-hot-in-a-bikini-after-the-age-of-forty single girl sees a movie like that?
If I were single I wouldn’t have to share the covers in my bed, give up half my closet space, or watch NASCAR. If I were childless I wouldn’t have to make sure there was always milk in the fridge, referee ridiculous arguments, or worry about how the hell I’m going to pay for college. (Shit. How the hell are we going to pay for college?)
I look at my friend’s pretty face one last time before clicking off my computer and joining my family for popcorn –crumbs of which I will inevitably have to vacuum off the floor tomorrow- and the latest episode of The Simpsons. I snuggle with my daughter under the Snuggie she and her brother gave me for Mother’s Day last year and laugh a deep belly laugh as Bart tortures Homer.
If only my two lives were a Gwyneth Paltrow movie and I could watch them in parallel to see which path was better. But the truth is I really don’t have to wonder. I already know.
Throwback Thursday. This was originally posted on skirt.com on January 3, 2011.
“You cannot blog about this,” my girlfriend said when we met a few weeks ago for drinks.
“Blog about what?” I asked innocently.
“This story I’m about to tell you. But I’ll only tell you if you promise not to blog about it.”
Shit, I hate when my friends make me promise that. They only make me promise that when the story is really, really good.
“What if I promise not to use your name and swear to never tell a living soul your true identity?”
She rolled her eyes and let out a deep breath. “Fine! But if you tell anyone it was me I will deny it and then I will fucking kill you.”
Awesome, this story’s gonna be good.
She took a look around the bar and moved in a bit closer to me, “Last week before Jake* and I went away for our anniversary I got vajazzled.”
I almost choked on my olive. “What the hell is vajazzled?” I asked even though I was pretty sure I already knew.
“Vajazzling is just like bedazzling, but for your whoo whoo.” she said.
That’s right – my girlfriend had bling bling applied to her vajay-jay!
“No freaking way! Where did you get it done?”
“That’s actually the funny part of the story. I saw it advertised on one of those Groupon sites. Well, it wasn’t Groupon, but one of those sites just like it. The description went on and on about the esthetician and how experienced she was and blah blah blah and since we were going out of town for our anniversary I thought it would be a fun surprise.”
“And was it?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah!” she answered again with the eye roll. “But wait, that’s not the story. So I call the number on the certificate and some dude answers the phone. ‘Hello,’ he says. No, Vajazzling by Virginia or Bling Bling Whoo Whoos R Us, just ‘Hello.’
“I’m thinking to myself, what the hell kind of shady place is this that some dude is answering the esthetician’s phone and not even giving the business name? I’ve never gotten a wax without a referral and now I buy one on a local website and it’s totally shady. I was so shocked I didn’t even reply. I’m thinking to myself that I don’t want to do it and wondering if I can get my money back and the dude again says, ‘Hello?’
“So I just stammer, ‘Uh I think I dialed the wrong number. I was trying to call my sister.’ and hung up the phone. I don’t know why I said that, I was just so flustered and so embarrassed. I mean I didn’t want to say, ‘Hi, I was calling to get a wax and vajazzle’ to some dude who just answers the phone Hello.”
“Did you just misdial?” I asked her.
“No.” she said. “I was hoping I did, but I checked the number on the certificate and I definitely did not misdial. I was too embarrassed to call back since I gave that line about calling my sister so I figured I’d just call back the next day and hopefully she’d answer her own freaking phone.
“The next day I call back and I get a voicemail message from the dude. It’s not even her phone! What the hell kind of services is this off-brand-Groupon site selling? I mean I can tell by the address that it’s on a commercial street and not some residence so I’m totally confused by the whole phone thing. Obviously there’s some kind of mistake.
“So I sit down at my computer to check the certificate online to see if maybe there is a correction on the number. There isn’t. Then I check 411.com and see if I can find the number that way – not listed. Great! So I call 411 and it’s not listed there either.
“Now I’m weighing my options – do I call the dude back and see if it is the right number and if it is do I want to be waxed by some chick who doesn’t even have her own phone or do I write an email to the site telling them I want my money back.
“Then the 411 operator asks if I know where the business is and he can maybe look it up that way. I give him the address and luckily he was able to find the number that way. The waxing chick rents a space out of a salon and uses her cell phone which is why I couldn’t find the number. Fortunately it’s a salon I’d actually heard of with a good reputation. And it was a mistake – the site did have her number wrong.”
“So is it still there?” I asked. “Can I see it?”
“No it’s gone. But what did you want me to do, lift up my skirt and show you and the rest of the bar?” she snorted.
“Well, I was thinking of going into the bathroom,” I said seriously. I mean, I was pretty curious. “What did it look like?”
She laughed. “I got little crystals that said ‘Wild’ and a little pink heart.”
“No way! Would you do it again?”
“Yeah, I’d totally do it again. Maybe for Valentine’s Day. But like I said, you cannot blog about this.”
“Oh I’m blogging about it,” I told her. “But don’t worry your identity is safe with me!”
So those of you who know me, don’t ask me who it was – I’ll never tell!
*Jake is obviously not my friend’s husband’s real name!
Friday night I went out with three of my closest girlfriends. We are coming up on knowing each other for 30 years (not sure how that’s possible) and being with them always makes me happy.
We’re all different and at different stages of our lives.
Trixie will be celebrating her 5th wedding anniversary this year. She has two step-children in their twenties, but no children of her own by design. She lives in a fabulous designer home, has a very successful entertainment lawyer husband, and a fast-paced, interesting career working for a concert promoter. She receives “thank you” gifts from people like Halle Berry and goes to parties at places like Norman Lear’s house. As you can imagine she always has the best stories.
SkinnyBitch (so named because she has always been my skinniest friend – and I live in LA, so that’s saying something!) became an empty-nester last fall when her only child (her daughter and very best friend) went off to college in New York. She is a therapist and always gives us useful, welcome (and free) advice.
Simmah is single and has no kids. She’s never married (though she could have – she’s been asked), but she’s had a couple long-term, live-in relationships. She went through a tough break up recently and is making peace with being alone right now. She spends her free time going to the gym, hiking, playing tennis, being with friends. She might envy my family life (or she might not), but I’ll tell you, there are times when I envy her solitude. Her freedom. Her incredibly clean house. Her space.
Our group wasn’t quite complete. Trixie’s sister lives an hour away (in no traffic) – too far to come out on a Friday night. And Heidi was unable to make it due to some wifely/motherly duties at home. She’s never been as good at ditching her family as I am.
What do my very different friends have in common? You know besides their awesomeness, and good taste in suburban-mom friends? They’re all smart. They’re all beautiful. And they’re all funny as shit! My husband makes me laugh every day, but no one makes me laugh harder or louder or longer than these ladies. No one.
We had dinner at a French restaurant. Blue crab cakes and muscles with pommes frites, two bottles of wine, stories, advice, a little bit of celebrity gossip, and a whole lot of laughter made for the one of the best evenings I’ve had in a while.
I drank too much wine and slept over at Simmah’s. She completely gutted and remodeled her house a couple years ago. It’s gorgeous. I want to live there. We used to be roommates. Maybe I could leave Dave and the kids and shack up with her again. She does have a guest room.
In the morning we sleep in until about 7:30 or so – late for both of us, she’s an early riser too. She made breakfast. Eggs and chorizo with tortillas, hash browns and bacon. Oh my god, she makes the best bacon.
We talked and laughed and talked and laughed some more. One of the things we talked about is how grateful we are for our long friendship. We both realize how quickly time is passing and that time spent with girlfriends laughing and talking and even crying is not only precious, but necessary for a happy life.
I lingered until 11:00 or so before getting back to the chores and errands and family at home waiting for me.
I wish for so much for my children when they are adults. I wish them success whatever that may be for them. I wish them health. I wish them happiness. And I wish and I hope and I pray that they are as lucky as me when it comes to finding lifelong friends.
My weekend started with a trip to Costco on Friday night after work. I met my mom there because we like to split things. We hadn’t been in a while so we did quite a lot of damage. A take-and-bake pizza and nice bottle of wine was one of the many things inside the jumbo-sized shopping cart filled to the brim with food. As we unloaded the cart into our cars one of Marley’s friends met us in the parking lot and I took the girls to the high school for a comedy show. Chandler was already there watching a hypnosis show in another building. Dave and I enjoyed our pizza and wine kid-free and caught up with each other, then hung out with our favorite anti-hero Walter White. We only have a few episodes left and the shit is really hitting the fan. (In case you didn’t know drugs are bad people, very very bad.) When we’re done it’s on to House of Cards, then Downton Abbey. Who needs dinner and a movie when we’ve got take-and-bake pizza and binge TV?
On Saturday Marley had a lacrosse tournament at the Rose Bowl. Dave had to work in the morning so it was just Marley and me. We had a great mother-daughter talk on the way out. I’ve always found that kids will tell you things in the car they won’t tell you anywhere else. Probably because they don’t have to look at you. Marley played goalie all three games and did a great job even though she got pretty beat up the second game (and has the bruises to prove it). Dave was able to meet us there after the first game. The weather was perfect. It was a good day. As we were driving home I got a text alert. I asked Marley to read me the text. It was from my friend Rita.
Marley read me the text and asked me if I wanted her to answer.
“No, I’ll do it when we get home,” I told her.
Sometimes my texts with Rita are a bit blue. We act a little silly. (Or a lot silly.) I wondered if Marley had scanned up and seen our previous texts. I think she would have been pretty mortified. Of course I see her Instagrams and am pretty mortified. (She doesn’t post inappropriate pictures, but she says the F word a lot.) I wonder what’s more mortifying – a daughter reading her mother’s inappropriate texts or a mother reading her daughter’s inappropriate Instagrams? We’ll call it a draw.
I made a good dinner and afterwards, as Chandler was putting condiments away in the fridge he came up behind me and gave me a giant hug. He knows exactly how to make my heart go pitter-pat. I don’t know how I’ll bear it when he goes away to college next year.
After dinner I received a text from my friend Juliana. She and Carol decided to meet at Stonehaus and run around the lake instead of meeting our run club for our Sunday morning run. That would have been fine (the coffee at Stonehaus is FAB), but run club was only supposed run two miles and the run around the lake is four. Any runner will tell you (or someone who pretends to be a runner like me), that running is 90% mental. Well, I had only mentally prepared for 2 miles! And in case you’re bad at math four is twice as many as two. I’d take four dollars over two dollars. I’d take four (dozen) French fries over two (dozen) French fries. But what kind of idiot runs four miles when their run coach says they only have to run two?!
Apparently me.
Stupid run club friends.
Amazingly, I ran my best time ever. I ran 4.23 miles in 40:07. Chandler smirked at my time (I like him better when he’s hugging me), but I don’t care. I still say I kicked ass!
After the run (and more importantly coffee) I went to a memorial service for my aunt’s brother. It was at the beach and it was lovely, but I am heartbroken for my aunt and her sisters. They’ve lost their two brothers in less than two years. It’s so cliché to say life’s too short and often too cruel, but the thing about clichés is they’re usually true.
This is why still get a warm fuzzy feeling from enjoying simple pleasures with my husband. Why I delight in my talks with Marley. Why I I savor my hugs from Chandler. Why I celebrate a 9:29 minute mile.
Because it’s the little things in life. Small moments from a relatively uneventful suburban weekend that make this short cruel life so beautiful.
Charlene Ross 