The Birds And The Bees
No one ever had the sex talk with me.
My mother once asked, while I was locked in the car (her preferred means of trapping me for uncomfortable conversations), clearly embarrassed herself, “Do you have any questions about sex?”
I, equally embarrassed and after a long pause, said, “Yes.”
“Do you have specific questions?”
I shook my head “no.” I was not prepared for this, although I did have a bad feeling when the lock dropped on the passenger seat door for our impromptu “fun trip to the mall.”
“Do you think you’d like a book or something?”
I nodded.
A few days later, my mom slid a large picture book under my bedroom door. (I was 11 at the time and hadn’t read a picture book since about the age of 5.)
Of course, I immediately dove into the picture book. I had had questions about sex for years (or two, whatever). When we went to my grandmother’s house, I used to grab the “S” World Book encyclopedia for her shelf and look up “sex” when I thought no one was looking. (I always kept a hand on another page like “Syria” or “sulfur” just in case someone would come downstairs and wonder what I was researching.) Unfortunately, the 1963 World Book only covered sex as a topic having to do with plant reproduction, so that was a quick dead end.
When I was six or so, a friend of mine told me what sex was as she’d learned from her older sister, but I had a hard time with her definition. In the end, she was right, but it sounded awfully made up at that point.
What I remember from the picture book were drawings of an overweight couple and mention of loving one another a whole lot, nudity and friction. It might be because I was a very shallow child, but the really overweight cartoons were an immediate turn-off. (I now think it was an excuse to keep from making the figures anatomically-correct. Those bellies covered a lot.) These people just disturbed me, and I was glad they had found one another, but I did not want to read about their expressions of physical love.
That book was the last mention of sex my mom made to me for another eight years.
We clearly had sex education in school, but our first sex ed program was a little extreme, and I think it scarred most of us for life.
At the beginning of the day, a woman stood before us with a pink paper heart. “There once was a girl named Jane. Jane met a boy that she liked. She thought she loved him. Jane decided to have sex with this boy – before they were married. Then the boy dumped Jane, and she lost a little bit of her heart …” At this point, a corner of the paper heart was torn off.
“Then Jane meets another boy, and she thinks that she loves him too …” she went on. Before long the entire heart lay shredded before us.
“By the time Jane wants to get married, she has no heart left to give.”
There was a later story along similar lines about a girl who decided to wear the special pearls her parents were going to give her on her wedding day before their special time. She snuck in to her parent’s room and stole the pearls to wear when she went out (which is what everyone does with pearls); so that by the time she received the pearls on her wedding day, they were brown and dirty. In short – damaged goods.
The latter story bothered me only because I knew from my mom that pearls needed to be worn to keep their shine. Something about the oils in your skin being good for the jewelry. I got where the woman was going with her story. I just thought she should have chosen a more accurate metaphor.
The day ended with abstinence pledges that were “our choice” to sign, but everyone from the program stood over our shoulders for extended periods of time while handing them out.
After the disastrous paper heart incident and poorly-chosen allegories, the school stuck to puberty and “our changing bodies.” When I changed schools, sex ed was led by someone who looked like the picture-perfect grandma, and after she said “fellatio” more than once with her lovely, I-made-you-cookies-dear smile, I think we were all traumatized in a different way. (If trauma was meant to counter raging teenage hormones, I suppose it was borderline successful.)
Cosmo was my new textbook, for better or worse.
It wasn’t until years later, when I was already in college that my father referenced the sex talk my mom and I had had when I was younger. My mother, my father and I were in the car on the way back from dinner.
“Sex talk? What sex talk?” I said.
“Your mother and I talked about it, and she agreed that she would be the one to give you and your sisters the sex talk. Surely, you remember that?” my dad said.
“There was no sex talk,” I said.
This is when my mother finally 'fessed up. “I couldn’t go through with it,” she said. “It was just too hard. I couldn’t do it.”
“Laurel’s mother!” (I don’t like to use real names.)
“You try it,” she said. “It’s not easy.”
“Clearly,” my father said, “but I think it’s a little too late for me to give it a shot.”
“You promised,” my father said.
“Well,” my mother said, "like you said, it's a little late."
Finally, the missing piece of my adolescence made sense. “So,” my father said after a few minutes, “where did you learn about sex?”
And that’s when I gave him the answer every parent wants to hear, “On the street, of course.”
Cat Update
For anyone still keeping track of the cat's name changes, here are the latest developments in Kitty Cat Jones' life.
1. We started calling Kitty Cat Jones by his initials, so we've been calling him KKJ for a few months now. Then, one day, while yelling "KKJ" across the yard, we realized some of the neighbors might think we're racists if they misheard us or didn't listen too carefully.
2. I was asking a friend of mine whether or not she thought our neighbors might think we were extremely prejudiced when she paused.
"You know that Kitty Cat Jones' initials would actually be KCJ, right?"
So, not only might we be considered the white supremacists in the neighborhood, but we can't spell either.
3. I went home and told the SO about our mistake, and he responded, "No, that cat is KKJ. End of story. I don't care what his actual initials are."
4. Despite Coco, Cocoa, Toonces, Kitty Cat Jones, KKJ and KCJ, we've actually just been referring to the fluffy little dude as "the stationary cat" because he does not move from the spot in the picture for days. And I mean days. Other than raising his head occasionally, I don't think he leaves the dog's bed for hours (in the multiples of 24 variety) on end.
5. Meet the stationary cat! (Sure to be TSC or some other bizarre incarnation by Spring.)
Thank you!
I'd like to thank everyone who has voted, RT-ed my tweets, commented on my blog, put up with my blog and liked posts on Facebook to help me in my quest to be Volvo's Biggest Fan of the Big East. I appreciate your support and patience, and I never could have made it through to the final four without you ... [Read more]
D.C. Trip Part One: In Which We Barely Make It Out Of The Airport
This past weekend, Volvo graciously sponsored a trip for me to return to my Alma mater, Georgetown, and watch one of the biggest games of the season, Georgetown v. Syracuse.
Our trip began with a two-hour delay due to winds in Baltimore ... [Read more]
My Trinity And Good Intentions (With Video)
I fully believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Of course, I’ve also always hoped the adage wasn’t referring to a literal hell. I just figured it was pretty obvious that we all get more than we bargain for when we try a little too hard ... [Read more]
911
A few years ago, the SO and I were in the car coming back from Atlanta when we saw a dog wandering down the median of the highway.
“Call 911,” he said. “We need to report this.”
“Report the dog?”
“Yes, report the dog. Call 911.”
Now, clearly I love dogs as much as the next person. If we could have stopped without causing an accident, I would have insisted on pulling over to rescue the poor thing. But call 911? I wasn’t so sure about that.
“Why aren’t you calling 911?”
“Are you sure we should call?”
“Yes, I’m sure we should call.”
“Really sure?”
“Really sure. Would you feel better if I called?” he said. “Even though I’m the one driving?”
“Yes,” I said, “I do think that would be better.”
The SO called 911 to report the dog, and then we had an extended conversation about why I wouldn’t call 911 and how I didn’t recognize that the dog could have caused a car crash at any second, etc., etc. (Sometimes I envy people who lived before the invention of motor vehicles because there was no such thing as being trapped in a car with someone – no matter how much you love and adore them. Not that I'm sure covered wagons going across the plains were all that much better, but at least you had buffalo, raids and other more pressing concerns to occupy your time. Incidentally, the car is also where my mother always chose to try and talk to me about sex, drugs and other teen issues.)
The problem I have is that ever since I can remember, I’ve had a terrible fear of calling 911.
In high school, I called 911 twice. Once because a woman in the store where I was working had a stroke and once because a friend and I drove by someone slumped over in his car. Both incidents required lots of cajoling.
In the first, an older man I worked with had to grab the phone from me and explain what was actually happening to the 911 operator. In the second, my friend and I agreed that if we drove by the same car twice, and the guy still hadn’t moved, we’d call 911.
On our second drive by, I made the call. “Yeah,” my 16-year-old self said, “there’s this guy in his car, and he’s like not moving or anything. He could be asleep or he could be, like, dead.”
“We’ll send someone to check it out.”
Then, I gave the female operator the address, and my friend and I went home.
It’s not that I was worried about the circumstances that could lead to such an awful call, or that I was afraid of accidents, it’s that I felt like the 911 operator would judge me if the reason I called wasn’t urgent enough or “emergency worthy.” I fear the judgment of a stranger on the other end of a phone line. Where this comes from, I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s related to my feelings about pizza orders and utility customer service.
“But it’s their job to take your calls,” the SO said. “And it’s their job to decide what to do in the situation?”
“Really?” I said.
“Really.”
Well, this little conversation was like being freed from a lifetime of 911 fear. I called 911 when I heard really loud noises outside my house at night. I reported a fighting couple outside of a housing project. I felt like justice was my mission and 911 was my weapon. I was on a tear.
Of course, like all good or bad things, this bent of mine eventually came to an end. This time it was after a particularly confusing conversation with a 911 operator.
I was driving home one night, when I saw a car pulled over in the parking area of a fire station that was being built. A man was laid out on the ground, and a woman was bending over him. (Now before you judge me for not acting in these kinds of situations, know that I don’t get out of my car for anything – especially after dark. It’d be lovely if we lived in a world where everyone could be trusted and no one used your desire to help someone in distress as a weakness, but we don’t. I’ll make a call for you, but I won’t unlock my door, at home or on the road.)
“911.”
“Hi,” I said, “I think there’s someone in trouble on 5th Avenue South.”
“What makes you think that?”
I described the scene.
“Where on 5th Avenue South did you see this?”
“Near 45th Street,” I said. “Across from that building …”
“What building?”
“Oh, it’s where’s 3rd Avenue and 5th Avenue split,” I said. “You know, where the new fire station is going to be.”
“Are you saying this man is going to be at this address?”
“No, the man is there. It’s the fire station that isn’t there yet.”
“When will this man be at the address?”
I had gone from savior to suspect because of what I’m hoping was a bad cell phone connection. In my best case scenario, she thought I was a drug user who was going to dump a friend having a bad trip. In my worst case scenario, she thought I was a murderer/mob king pin with a body to get rid of.
“The man is already there,” I said. “He’s there right now.”
“And where are you?”
That’s when I hung up, my fear of 911 returned and fully-realized yet again. I won't be rising to the title of the Savior of Avondale anytime soon.
My Top 5 Car Care Pointers
I don’t think this will come as a surprise to most people, but I am a very neat person. I love storage bins – easily identified thanks to my handy label maker. I enjoy doing laundry, and I might consider my steam mop more than just a cleaning apparatus – it’s kind of like an anti-bacterial friend ... [Read more]
Most Awkward First Dates
In my dating life, there have been a number of unfortunate moments. And I may or may not have once inadvertently forced some wait staff to stay long past their shifts were over because no one wanted to tell the crying girl at table 7 the restaurant was closed, but since I decided to limit this post to first dates, here you have it:
1. The World’s Shortest Date
Shortly after I graduated college, I met a man who was out with some guy friends of mine. He was in D.C. to interview for a job on the Hill. He asked for my number so he could call me when he moved to town. I gave it to him thinking, “I’m sure I’ll hear from this one.”
But, strangely enough, three weeks later while I was shopping in the Safeway, my phone rang. “Laurel, it’s Joe.”
Luckily, he was kind enough to give me some context clues because I had no idea who Joe was by then.
“Anyway, I got that job,” he said, “so I was thinking I could take you to dinner once I got up there.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, and we made plans for an upcoming Thursday.
Joe came to pick me up, and we decided to walk to a restaurant in my neighborhood for dinner. We ate, talked about what might have happened to Chandra Levy, and he walked me home. From doorstep to doorstep, it took all of 45 minutes.
“How about I give you a call this weekend when I know what I’m up to?”
“Sure,” I said, knowing full well that phone call would never come.
Maybe the real me didn’t match up to the memory, but I’m not sure what I did to warrant holding onto my phone number for three weeks only to end up being someone Joe didn’t even want to spend an hour with.
2. We Shouldn’t Have Talked About Music
Date #2, who we’ll call Dan, was an office fix-up. Now, in my opinion there is little more awkward than the office fix-up. It’s pretty hard to say “no” when Sue from HR or Tammy from accounting wants you to go out with their adorable nephew or wonderful son when they know you’re single. There’s never a good excuse (especially if you did not create a pretend boyfriend on day 1 of the job), and you usually just have to go. Also, if it goes wrong, as it usually will, you quickly go from being the cutest girl in the office to the evil heart breaker who thinks she’s too good for everyone.
While Dan was watching me eat nachos on our date (he couldn’t have so much food because of a recent surgery), I turned to the gold standard of dating small talk – music. Since “With or Without You” happened to be playing overhead, I said, “I really like U2.”
“What?” he said.
“I really like U2.” I even pointed upwards thinking he would somehow catch the music playing in the background even though he couldn’t hear me, and I was sitting right next to him.
There was a long pause.
“Oh, uh, I like you, too,” he said.
Then an even longer silence set in – partly because I was embarrassed and partly because I really didn’t know where to go from there. I also didn't like him that much, so half an hour into our "relationship," it was already based on a lie.
When he walked me to my car after I made up an excuse to go home before 10, I literally said, “Good luck with everything” and gave him the double pistol shoot with my hands to make sure there was plenty of space between us as I got into the car.
If there’s ever a biopic of my life, I’m hoping that moment of social genius doesn’t make the cut.
3. There is little shame like the shame of being judged at the Olive Garden
My first date was a double date with another couple. While I’m sure the other couple was brought along to make the situation less uncomfortable and awkward for me and my date, well, we all know what they say about the best-laid plans.
The couple my date and I were doubling with had recently gone through a break up due to some cheating but had gotten back together.
After our 45-minute wait at the Olive Garden, we were seated. We ordered our meals. Things seemed to be going well. Then, the trouble began.
I’m not sure how the cheating came back up, but as the waitress was delivering our food, my friend said, “You know Mike, if you aren’t happy with what you had, you’re welcome to send it back for something else.”
“No, I’m perfectly happy with what I have,” he said.
“Well, you certainly don’t act like it. Maybe you’d like something newer and more interesting.”
“No, no. I like what I have.”
This conversation went on much longer, but my date and I were able to finally signal to the bewildered waitress that she could deliver the food and walk away. (The metaphor was not nearly as clear to her, and she kept offering to ask for changes in the kitchen.)
The fight culminated when my friend slapped her date. In the middle of Olive Garden.
You’d think it’s impossible to bring everyone to a dead halt in a chain restaurant, but just like that, you learn that it isn’t all that hard after all. Everyone was looking at our table. The room was silent.
My date and I spent the rest of our meal staring into our plates of spaghetti. On the ride home, my friend and her date “made up” in the back seat for most of the trip. Needless to say, we didn't go out again.
Not to point any fingers, but this may be one of the reasons it took me about 15 years to get a better handle on the dating thing.
Proposals
I have never been proposed to. Considering that I’ve never been engaged and/or married, I didn’t think this was at all odd. Proposals = engagements = weddings, right?
Then, I was out with a single friend who mentioned “one of the guys who’d proposed to her.”
“One of the guys?” I said. “How many people have proposed to you?”
“Three, I think,” she said.
“You think?”
“Three sounds right.”
“How long had you been dating this particular guy?” I said, going back to the original proposer to try and make sense of it all.
“A few months, but he had the ring before he met me. He was looking for a wife. He wasn’t necessarily looking for me.”
Fair enough. We discussed the other two proposals, and life went on.
A few weeks after that, I ran into someone else who talked about her engagement rings. As in plural.
“How many people have proposed to you?” I said.
“Just the two,” she said.
"Just two" still seemed high to me (not in a bad way, just an unexpected way). I mean, having zero proposals under my belt, I’m easily trumped by any number, but still. Two drunken boyfriends (at different times) each said, “I’m gonna marry you,” but I don’t think that counts when you consider how many beers were involved.
Admittedly, my type before the age of 25 was unemployed and emotionally unavailable, but I still had no idea so many men were running around with diamond solitaires out there. (Is this what EHarmony is for?)
Mulling the subject over for the bit, it finally hit me – I had been proposed to! The only problem was that I was nine at the time.
In third grade, our elementary school welcomed a new student, and he became rather instantly smitten with me. (I only wore red, black or white and had a perm. I’m sure you can imagine what a catch I was.) Years ago, I vowed not to use real names in my writing, and you have no idea how much that is killing me right now because this particular boy had one of the most awesome names ever. I hate having to replace a rhyming name (complete with alliteration) with Harry, but a rule is a rule.
What I remember about Harry is that he loved to wear a yellow Starvin’ Marvin t-shirt, and he had no qualms about making his love for me known. He referred to me as his future wife on the playground and brought me lots of gifts like erasers and colorful pencils.
One day, before lunch, he asked me to marry him. Now, before you dismiss this story as not counting as an actual proposal, I need to add one key detail – he had a sapphire and diamond ring with him. And that ring was far more impressive than the plastic happy-faced ring he’d presented me with the day before.
I was all set to give my usual “no” when I saw the sparkles. “That’s nice,” I said, instantly entranced.
“Please, please marry me,” he said.
“I need to think about it,” I said. What I really needed to think about was how to get out of being betrothed before I got to junior high and managing to hold on to that ring. Mulling it over with my best friend, I said, “Can I say ‘no’ and keep the ring?”
Clearly, I was a sensitive child.
While I was still wrestling with whether or not to marry for money, Harry’s mom called the school. It seemed it hadn’t taken her long to connect the missing ring from her jewelry box to her son’s classroom crush. I guess Harry had (correctly) realized he wasn’t getting my attention with the trinkets he could afford – erasers, colored pencils and smiley-faced rings – and stepped it up a notch.
Unfortunately for me, before the end of the day, the ring (which was beautiful) was locked away safely in Mrs. Treater’s desk drawer until it was time for our parents to pick us up. Harry had some explaining to do when he got home, and my dilemma was over.
While I know I can’t count that as a real proposal, I am changing my number to a .5. It seems fair to me, and this is my blog. So there. (Oh, how the sensitive child has matured in the passing years …)
Staying Up Past My Bedtime, The Economy And Crepes
It turns out that a lot can change between a decade and a systemic economic collapse. Last week, Volvo challenged me to write about my top picks for late night eating near my Alma mater. While this would seem like a really easy topic for someone who likes both food and late nights as much as I do, let’s just say time and geography have not been on my side in this one ... [Read more]
Save The Skeet
When I was younger, we took a lot of family vacations that were combined with various lawyers’ conferences. At nine, I took my first trip on a plane, and we went to Disney World. It was awesome (and that’s only talking about the plane trip), and since my dad took me with him to pick up some papers in the hospitality area, I had some unexpected and treasured one-on-one time with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
For fourth grade Spring Break, we went skiing. I liked skiing, but what I remember most from that trip is boarding the chartered bus that would take us from the airport to our condos and being surrounded by attorneys demanding a stop to buy booze on the way. (I kid you not when I say there was an actual chant at one point along the lines of “li-quor store, li-quor store.”)
However, it was our trip to the Greenbrier in West Virginia when I was 11 that was my favorite vacation by far. It was July, and I loved everything about the place. There were huge indoor and outdoor pools as well as a bowling alley and movie theater in the hotel. (How is that even possible?) The Greenbrier is also one of the few places I know of where you can practice falconry even though my dad wasn’t handing over the money for that one.
Also, being 11, I was right at the cut-off age for the kids’ activity groups. (At lawyer conferences, it’s very important to separate the children from the adults as soon as possible so that networking and happy hour can commence immediately.) While at first I resented not being able to go with the 12 and older set, once I made a friend, we, armed with our respective sisters, ran the under 11 group. The popularity and power were intoxicating. People fought for the right to sit at our dinner table – where we enjoyed three-course meals and used all of the correct silverware so as not to shame our professional parents.
This was also around the time that the news was beginning to break that there might be bunkers for government officials built in various strategic locations throughout the country in the event of nuclear war. The Greenbrier was a prime candidate, and my sisters and I liked exploring the resort hoping to break the story wide open.
“I think I see a tear in the wall paper over there.”
“Does the wall sound hollow to you?”
Superb detectives we were not. Good shuffleboard players? Yes.
At 16, we went back to the Greenbrier, but it wasn’t quite the same experience. By then, the Greenbrier had admitted to its underground bunker, so it was very cool to actually tour it. On the other hand, trying to reconnect with my lawyers’ conference friends from five years earlier didn’t exactly go as I had hoped, and I was full of the expected teen angst.
I spent most of the week lounging by the pool and reading The Virgin Suicides.
My father did want us to participate in one day outing as a family, and it happened to be skeet shooting. He figured it was one of the safest ways for us to learn to use a gun. (Even though we’re not gun owners, as anxiety-driven people, we do feel compelled to know how to do all things in case an emergency should ever arise. The killer drops his weapon? Be prepared to take charge of the situation. Not that a shotgun is often used in burglary and/or stalker-confrontation moments.)
Anyways, being as I was, full of teen angst and toying with vegetarianism, I was fairly dead set against not going. I looked my father straight in the eye and said, “Doesn’t anybody think about the poor skeet? Why should they be sacrificed for sport? The poor things.”
“Laurel,” my father said, “skeet are clay pigeons. Clay.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I guess you’re coming with us?”
“I guess so.”
I’m sure my father has never been more proud that he paid for all of that private education.
My Top 5 Road Trip Play List
Being tone deaf and a huge nerd, my iPod is an embarrassment or riches – if you really love show tunes, Shakira and soulful girl ballads about break-ups. (When I was going through some old CDs from the mid-90s, a friend commented, “I didn’t realize you were a lesbian in high school.”) I have been making mixes titled “Mellow Music” since I was about 14 ... [Read more]
One Resolution I Won't Be Making
As we all know, I tend to think that we all have limited supplies of certain virtues or abilities, like patience, and every so often, we need a refill.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling that way about my creativity. No new ideas. No outside-the-box thinking. Not even adjectives with more than two syllables. I kind of figured I’d run out of this year’s supply and would probably need to wait for 2011 for some good stuff – knock on wood. (Or mediocre stuff. I’d take either at this point.) So far, I haven’t had much luck.
Fortunately, the SO, in a lovely show of support for my writing, gave me a box full of journals, pens and other fun stuff for Christmas. (He also included The Art of War for Writers, which would only be his fifth attempt to get me to read anything related to Sun Tzu, earlier versions including the plain old Art of War, Art of War flash cards, a mini-book/abbreviated version of The Art of War and The Art of War for Women at Work. Do you think he might be trying to tell me something?)
Moving on, one of those gifts is a small book shaped like a block called, wait for it, The Writer’s Block. (How I love those clever marketing gurus.) It comes complete with 786 ideas to jump-start your imagination – and a hilarious attack on The Bridges of Madison County, which I might have appreciated more than the ideas.
The first prompt I turned to was a jump-start word. So, with that in mind, here we go with “diet.”
I have never been good at dieting. Of course, until I was 19, I didn’t need to. I could eat whatever I wanted. I was that person with a naturally high metabolism that I now despise. I’ve covered this before, but since I lost 15 pounds my freshman year and ended up with a sunken in face, I actually needed to gain weight in the summer of ’99. Luckily, I took a job at a Mexican restaurant, so between that and my boyfriend’s all carb/athlete diet, I gained back those 15 pounds and about 15 more. For the first time in my life, I was overweight, so I turned to Slim Fast.
I gave myself two weeks to get rid of the weight, so I was on a bit of Slim Fast extreme. I remember sitting at Chili’s (a family favorite back in the day; the Mills love an awesome blossom) with my head on the table. “I’m just so hungry,” I said. “So, so hungry.”
But, I wouldn’t give up, and by the time I got to Georgetown to start my sophomore year, I was back to my self-imposed ideal weight of 118 pounds. (Just writing that number is hard for me right now.)
I was fine again (mainly because I spent too much of my budget on clothes rather than food) until I took my first office job. That’s when I learned the hard way that if you sit all day and make regular trips to the vending machine, you will not exactly stay thin.
When I literally split a pair of rather expensive capris ($105 is a lot to pay for pants that are going to take both your money and your dignity), I looked myself in the mirror and decided it was time to take action.
Unable to afford a gym, I went back to Slim Fast for breakfast, Lean Cuisine for lunch, a piece of toast as a mid-afternoon snack, some kind of dinner and hour-long walks around my neighborhood. Most of my waking moments were devoted to the thought, “I’m so hungry,” but after a few weeks, I got the affirmation every woman wants:
“Have you lost weight?”
(One thing I don’t allow in my house is a scale. I go by the way my clothes fit. Scales just depress me, and I make the nurse hide my weight at the doctor’s office, too. I have only seen my weight twice in the last seven years, and both times were by accident.)
I was content again, and sure that I would remain my lovely size four self forever. A few years later, when I gained some depression weight, my father got me a personal trainer. (Yes, I used to work out six days a week. Strange, but true.) It seemed that there was always a simple solution.
Then, I turned 25, and my metabolism died. I also realized that I was faced with a choice. Having an addictive personality is not always the most fun. I can speed through jigsaw puzzles, but when it comes to food and exercise, addictions can be ugly.
During the days when I worked out six days a week – hours of cardio alternated with weight training – all I could see when I looked at food was a number. A bowl of soup wasn’t a tomato bisque, it was x calories and required x number of minutes on the elliptical to take it off. Gatorade was 120 calories. Worth it or not? And don’t even get me started on desserts. I started to realize that I could either enjoy food or actually remain a size four for the rest of my life. I admire people who can stick to regimens. (Really, it's more awe than simple admiration.) I had to make a different choice.
These days, I’m a pretty content size eight, and I like it that way. Plus, a nice mini quiche on a holiday party platter looks like a delectable snack without the number 220 (or worse) floating above it.
Eating and living healthier? Always a worthwhile goal. Personally, I just prefer to stay away from the "d" word -- I don't need another avenue to show my OCD tendencies.
The Wig Collection Exposed
When it comes to this blog, I try not to talk about my relationship or work. (Imagine trying to exclude these two things from your life and see what kind of topics you end up with for those of you who’ve noticed that some entries aren’t exactly thrilling.) Sure, I let the SO appear in certain stories, but he’s there more as a character to show a reaction to what’s happening or provide context. I do not want our true personal life on the Internet. Plus, just because he dates a writer, it doesn’t mean he signed up for full disclosure of certain parts of his life on the web.
As for the work thing, I will talk (occasionally ad nauseum) about working from home and my frustrations with writing/life, but you’ll also notice that I never name my clients or what I do for them. That’s because I want to keep my clients, and I want to keep the SO, too.
However, I do feel that this one story warrants the SO playing a slightly larger role than he normally does, so please bear with me and we’ll see how this goes.
The SO and I met at an improv comedy practice. (This probably isn’t all that surprising.) I was there with a friend who’d mentioned that she might want me to collaborate with her on writing some comedy sketches, so I tagged along to see what her group was like. Little did I know, I’d leave with a crush, too.
Dating someone in improv means that I attend a lot of comedy shows. Some shows are in the style of “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” and some are longer form. For the longer form shows, the SO has to develop a character he’ll be throughout the evening. For his last performance, he decided to play Scott Bakula’s brother Trent, whose mild obsession with his brother’s fame meant that he thought he was continually leaping through time and space.
Now, if there’s ever a role I was qualified to help someone prepare for, it’s this one. Does anyone know more about Quantum Leap than me? Doubtful. I own the soundtrack for God’s sake. So, being the girlfriend that I am, I decided to help the SO get ready by watching episodes of the show with him and pointing out some of Dr. Sam Beckett’s most outstanding characteristics.
Choosing which episode to start with was the first obstacle. “Should we just go straight to ‘The Leap Home’ when Scott jumps into his younger self and plays his own father? Is he ready for the Beth episode? Maybe we should start with something more basic. Glitter Rock?”
“Can we please just pick a show? It’s getting late.”
Oh, but how to pick just one.
Since my disk with ‘The Leap Home’ wouldn’t play – something I have yet to deal with because of the emotional trauma – the SO insisted that we just watch whatever was first in line on the next disk.
“Now, every time Sam leaps into a new person, he says ‘Oh, boy,’” I said as I began our tutorial.
“Is he always blue when he leaps?”
“Of course he’s always blue when he leaps? Have you even seen this show before?”
Then, I went on. “Al is the hologram, and he’ll spend most of the episode giving Sam info from Ziggy, a super computer. There’s also Gushy, who has really bad breath, but I’m probably getting ahead of myself.”
“He just said ‘Oh, boy,’ for like the fourth time this episode.”
“Well, that’s not standard,” I said. “Let’s get back to Al. He’s been married five times and is always chasing women …”
Eventually, the SO fell asleep, and strangely enough, he said “he was good” with the one episode, and we didn’t need to complete our study through “Private Dancer,” “What Price Gloria?” or any of the other episodes I suggested.
On the night of his performance, whenever the SO decided it was time for his character to leap, he’d turn around, make a strange sound (once shouting, “It feels like childbirth”) and put on a new wig to be a new character. Then, another performer would bring in a mirror of some sort so that he could figure out who he was. (I was so proud he knew about that already.)
At intermission, the SO’s character was much discussed, and the conversation seemed to revolve around his wigs.
“Where did he get so many wigs?” someone asked.
“He borrowed them from me,” I said.
“He got them from you?” Long pause. “Why do you have so many wigs, Laurel?”
“Well …”
“Laurel’s wigs,” a friend chimed in. “You really don’t know about those? She has tons.”
“Tons? You mean there’s more than what I’ve seen on stage?”
That’s when I decided that I wanted the conversation to be over. Yes, I have a wig collection. Why? Because I think wigs are fun. That’s really all there is to it.
When I went on a bachelorette weekend in Nashville, I knew that I was fading fast on the drive up. I also knew that I was going to have to rally because a big night of bar-hopping lay ahead of me. What to do? I put on a wig and decided to wear it out. Something about it lifted my mood. Plus, I was in a different town and the wig was so ridiculous, it gave me the push I needed to stop yawning and get with the program. (The program being shots and hitting up Coyote Ugly.)
The next day as everyone was getting ready for lunch, one of the girls I didn’t know turned to me and said, “You have such pretty hair. You really don’t need the wig.”
It didn’t occur to me that anyone would think I was wearing the wig for real. It was cheap and magenta. If I were going to go Wendy Williams, I’d put a little more money into it. This Halloween, I did pull a Star Jones and buy a wig to go with my costume an hour before my Halloween party because I realized I wouldn’t have time to do my hair, but that really was a one-time thing. I swear.
In college, on bad or boring nights, I’d pull out some wigs for me and the roommates, and the mood in the apartment was instantly lifted. I repeat, wigs are just fun.
I started buying wigs to go with my Halloween costumes years ago. (One of which was a washed-up country singer who had one hit with “Why did you have to ruin my credit score while you ruined my virtue?” That wig is not attractive – imagine Reba McEntire with alopecia.) And like anything you have more than one of, people assume you’re collecting whether you are or aren’t. A friend leaving a job gave me all of the wigs that had gone with her promotional activities, and before you know it, I was in the 20+ range.
So, yes, it’s weird. But I also challenge you to give it a shot. Bad day at the office? Stuck in traffic for too long? Too many bills? Grab a wig and pour yourself a glass of wine. The secret is that it’s nearly impossible to take yourself too seriously in a cheap wig, and that’s exactly the point. The shear ridiculousness of it all should have you in a better mood before long. After all, as someone much smarter than me once said, life really is too short to be taken so seriously.
I Already Gave At Home
I have often discussed the pitfalls of working from home – my inability to apply makeup, thinking of black yoga pants as business casual attire, sometimes prioritizing the shape of my eyebrows over a writing project – but even with the downside, there is one thing I will never miss about working in an office.
That thing, my friends, is co-workers trying to force their kids’ school fundraising catalogs down your throat.
Maybe that seems overly angry to you. Maybe you think I don’t like children. Or fundraising. But, the truth is, and I think any honest, sane person would admit the same, that I am sometimes sick to my stomach thinking of the $15 cheesecakes, rolls of $8 wrapping paper that only cover two gifts and Mary Kay blushers I’ve been guilted into purchasing.
It always starts innocently enough. “I’m just going to leave this brochure in the break room.”
But when sales get sluggish, the cubicle-to-cubicle approach kicks in. “Knock, knock.” (Not that I’ve ever had an actual office door.)
“Hi Linda.”
“I noticed you haven’t placed an order for any amaryllis bulbs yet. Would you like to get some now?”
“Oh, gee, Linda. I don’t have any cash or checks on me.”
“That’s OK. You can always pay me when the order comes in.”
“Well, I’ve really got to get this project to the boss before 5:00.”
“That’s OK, too. I’ll just leave this on your desk for awhile.”
“No, really, you can take it.”
“Oh no dear, I’ll be back for it later. Take your time.”
And we all know that if you don’t order something, said co-worker will only return later with a more powerful weapon – the uncapped pen and hover. I have tried to slip catalogues into mail boxes, I have refused to go into the office kitchen and I’ve even lied about allergies I don’t have, but somehow, I still end up buying something from one of those booklets.
“I’ll just put you down for two [fill in the blank],” Linda and all the other nameless, faceless office mates have always said.
And don’t even get me started on the holidays, when everyone in the office has a kid with at least one fundraising project. You can spend $100.00 before lunch if you’re not careful.
There is only one acceptable food for your child to sell and that is Girl Scout cookies. Girl Scout cookies are tasty. They cost $3.00/box. I would probably sell some of my relatives for a case of Thin Mints. This is a worthwhile and reasonably priced fundraising item.
Giant tubs of cookie dough, dream catchers and cheese baskets – at a 75% mark up – are not.
Worried your child will be disappointed that he or she isn’t the top seller in the class? Life is tough, and guess what? The electric company doesn’t accept scented candles as a form of payment. I would rather go to the Dollar Tree and buy your child a tub of sidewalk chalk or sheet of stickers that is probably comparable to whatever shiny item is being dangled in front of a second grader as a reward for selling enough pineapples to get that soccer team to a tournament in Selma than fill out one more form.
I am childless, and I pay property taxes – there’s my contribution to our schools. Please keep your entertainment books full of coupons only valid on Tuesdays between 2:00 and 2:30 to yourself.
But if you have Tagalongs, well, then we can talk.
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