Sometimes, being a writer for money puts you in front of things you might not otherwise see.
Case in point: Last week, I was putting the finishing touches on a story for Bucks County Woman magazine. It’s a how-to for brides looking to get fit for their weddings. I interviewed a lot of people for the story. However, none made as big of an impression on me as did my very last interview—it was with a chiropractor (let’s call her Dr. G) who, along with her brother, runs a two-month wellness program (read intense) out of their Bucks County office.
When we spoke, I was just looking for a few quotables for my article, since Dr. G was my last interview, the story was due the next day, and I was already well through a first draft of it.
Little did I know, however, the association would provide me with much more than prose for my piece. Not right away, of course, because instant gratification isn’t my strong suit (for example, William Morris hasn’t called yet and I’m still not a supermodel).
What did happen immediately, however, was, a visceral dislike of Dr. G and her principles, despite the fact that I had never met her or them face to face. After all, she was confident if not defiant in her approach. For one, she insisted that we women only need 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. That we have no idea how much we’re eating and that’s why we’re overweight. And, for another, we only need one serving of starch (i.e., bread, pasta, potato) every 24 hours. For the rest of our lives. That’s it.
The nerve of her, I thought during and after our conversation. If everything she says is true, it directly violates everything I NEED to believe.
For example, I can’t live on 1,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even begin to account for any pizza (especially eaten whole) or dessert. And telling me I can only have one starch a day is like telling me I can only scream at the dogs once every 24 hours. Apply lip gloss once. Rearrange the pictures in the living room once. It’s just not possible.
Is she nuts? Did she shoot up this morning? Is she hallucinating?
As if that weren’t bad enough, in the second half of our conversation, she suggested we women engage in interval training—like, four momentary wind sprints or something equally unpleasant in the context of a moderately strenuous 30 minutes of exercise. Which made me think: ye gads woman. How do you ever expect to stay in business?
As she went on and on, all I could think was how much I hated her. How her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard—like Sol stopping to say hello while my dogs cut their teeth on the park’s metal trashcans. How I felt bad for the brides who would take my advice and enroll in her turbo-program for help getting into their wedding dresses.
How she had to be a descendent of Satan—or Susan Powter’s evil twin—disguised in fuller hair and a white lab coat.
Do no harm, my ass. You can’t fool me, Doc G, with your AMA code and your fancy words. Try to get one over, Karen B, I know you made out with Ricky M in the 10th grade, when he was my boyfriend and you were my best friend. I know it now and I knew it then. Word.
I’ve been around the block, as my mother likes to say, and I know better than to believe just anything anybody tells me about health and fitness.
And I know—the way you know that you’ll probably wait until the last minute to write that story, buy that airline ticket, and get out those thank-you notes—that even though my gently fortified Jenny Craig menu is working slowly, it’s working. Sort of.
That even though my dear Jenny Craig counselor Bette has taken to saying, “You haven’t gained that much this week,” those words are better than anything spoken by the devil.
That promoting the twisted have-only-one-potato-in-all-of-summer-2008 philosophies of Dr. G could very well crush readers’ hopes of laying on the sofa eating junk food and getting away with it ever again.
And yet, while Dr. G’s is a dangerous and punitive message, I still had to report it. That’s my job. So I grabbed for my second Jenny Craig brownie of the day and did it.
But I didn’t have to feel good about it.
————————————-
And then, just days after, with Mercury in Retrograde and Karma getting time and a half, Dan and I got in a car accident.
It happened on my niece Sloane’s birthday (hi Sloane – happy birthday sweetie!). We were driving home from a cake-and-coffee celebration at my brother’s house when a large oak tree, heaving with ice from the day’s sleet, dropped in front of us from out of nowhere.
With no time to brake or avoid it, our Honda Element jumped the trunk at 40 miles an hour. And like an ingenue in the automotive Cirque de Soleil, landed on the other side in one piece.
Tada!
After a few moments of just sitting there, I opened my eyes (because you’d have closed yours too) and noticed steam coming out of the front radiator. Dan turned off the ignition, which was somehow still running, and shifted towards me. I, on the other hand, clung to my crash position—sitting upright, back stiff as a brick against the seat, one hand clutching the door the other clutching a lipstick, looking straight ahead, wearing the same petrified look I do every week when I get on the scale for my beloved Bette.
“Oh my God,” he says. “One second faster, and we’d have been toast. That tree would’ve come right through our windshield.” I am silent. “There’s a bigger plan for us, babe.”
“Cake,” I whisper.
“Did you say rake?”
All I could think about was how I didn’t have a piece of Sloane’s birthday cake. I was trying to “be good.” And look where it got me. I could’ve gone out–ended it all–on a 230-calorie frozen chicken carbonara.
“Babe, are you okay? Do you have a head injury?”
I look at him and then out the window. Traffic is stopped in both directions and a woman in a nightgown and a parka is running our way. She seems upset. “I CALLED 911. ARE YOU OKAY? IS ANYBODY HURT?”
“Her cable lines must’ve come down,” Dan says.
I look at him. I love him. I want cake.
They say when you look death in the face, a white light appears and your whole life flashes by you. Me? I saw creamy white frosting, an entire year of Jenny Craig frozen meals, and a closet full of jeans that are too tight on me to wear out of the bathroom.
It was enough to get me to do the unthinkable: Call Dr. G.
That’s right. You read correctly. I called her office to sign up for her program, holistic, accelerated, and swell. Because, while I initially responded to her like somebody who’d been stung by a bee and gone into anaphylaxis shock, I knew that, at the heart of it, she is right.
What she was saying about losing weight and getting fit, hardcore as it is, is right. On the money. Bullseye. In the dead center of true.
And perfect for helping someone like me: desperate.
—————————————————-
So I call to schedule my spot in the program and Dr. G’s husband, a corporate America refugee, answers. And we get to chatting. Turns out, he’s been through the program himself. Lost 45 pounds during and 40 pounds after. And since then, has become a personal trainer and salesperson who works with program participants.
I tell him how I’m at my wit’s end. I need help.
So he tells me the story of how and why he decided to do the program. Apparently, he was coaching his kids, then in little league, when he remembered how his father coached him. And how, when he was 12, he died on the field from a heart attack.
It was a powerful and moving story. And so I thought about my own. Have I resorted to this boot-campy extreme because I thought of cake before my family when faced with my own mortality? Then I realized, no. It was deeper than that.
So, after some meditation, I finally tell him the reason why I’m doing it: “I just want to be hot.”
After all, when you’re in the vortex of a mid-life crisis, as I am, really, you just want to figure out how to get back to your youth – when you were, well, young and your metabolism was lot faster and nobody talked to you about menopause and you didn’t get applications in the mail for the AARP and you weren’t so obsessed with shrinking.
When possibility had no limits in terms of not only eating, but writing and dreaming.
When you were hot—or at least as hot as you were ever gonna be, whether you realized it back then or not.
“Well, then,” he says. “Everybody has their reasons. If it works for you, then go for it.”
——————————————————————
And so, like the car accident, once again, the universe gave me a sign—only this time, that aiming for hotness was the right motivation. Or perhaps, the best motivation. At least in this moment.
Here’s what happened: Yesterday, we celebrated Hanukah in lieu of Christmas at my parents’ house (since we hadn’t been able to get together until then). My mom made a big dinner and after, my snoopy sister-in-law-to-be-someday found an old picture of me that my parents had hidden on their bookshelves.
“Is this you?” she asks, passing around the photo, her disbelief palpable.
I look at the picture when it finally makes its way to where I’m sitting. It’s me alright, in my 20s, with long hair—the longest I ever remember it—wearing a halter top, black tights, and an open button-down jersey top that says “Margate” in big black letters.
I’m smiling. And why not? I’m a size 8. Tops. And HOT. Truly hot. Objectively hot. Even though, back then, I was convinced otherwise.
I make the mistake of putting the picture down, when my sis-to-be sends it back around, like a five-year-old on a Merry Go Round. Like it was a video she’d taken of George Bush being dropped into an active volcano.
“WOW,” Dan says, eyes popping out of his head. “Look at that hair.”
Look at it. “I’m so young there.” I want to die. Or at least vomit. Or at least eat the pie on the table with a spatula.
My father laughs. “Welcome to middle age!”
I shoot him a dirty look and am suddenly depressed. So much so, that not even the 12 green slotted spoons and plastic cutting board my brother and sis-to-be got me for Hanukah could cheer me up.
———————————————————————
Fortunately, I am married to a man who sees beyond the physical. Not that I need outside validation but, okay, last night, yeah, I did.
As we drove home from my parents house in our rented PT Cruiser (since our Element is STILL in the shop), I recount to my husband how despondent I am over that picture.
“But why,” he says, “you’re still beautiful.”
“Not like that! C’mon, admit it.” I point to my pocketbook, where I put the picture so I remember to burn it in the morning, when I look for my cell phone and find it there.
“Honey, I fell in love with you,” he says. “Not that girl in the picture. YOU.”
But I AM the girl in the picture. We’re all the girl in the picture. Or the guy. And I know that we all want to do our best. I do too. I don’t expect to ever go out in public in a spandex halter ever again, but I do expect to be an older version of someone I’m proud of.
And so, bring it on Dr. G. I’m more than ready. Just watch me.
Until next time.
  Share

Sometimes, being a writer for money puts you in front of things you might not otherwise see.

Case in point: Last week, I was putting the finishing touches on a story for Bucks County Woman magazine. It’s a how-to for brides looking to get fit for their weddings. I interviewed a lot of people for the story. However, none made as big of an impression on me as did my very last interview—it was with a chiropractor (let’s call her Dr. G) who, along with her brother, runs a two-month wellness program (read intense) out of their Bucks County office.

When we spoke, I was just looking for a few quotables for my article, since Dr. G was my last interview, the story was due the next day, and I was already well through a first draft of it.

Little did I know, however, the association would provide me with much more than prose for my piece. Not right away, of course, because instant gratification isn’t my strong suit (for example, William Morris hasn’t called yet and I’m still not a supermodel).

What did happen immediately, however, was, a visceral dislike of Dr. G and her principles, despite the fact that I had never met her or them face to face. After all, she was confident if not defiant in her approach. For one, she insisted that we women only need 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. That we have no idea how much we’re eating and that’s why we’re overweight. And, for another, we only need one serving of starch (i.e., bread, pasta, potato) every 24 hours. For the rest of our lives. That’s it.

The nerve of her, I thought during and after our conversation. If everything she says is true, it directly violates everything I NEED to believe.

For example, I can’t live on 1,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even begin to account for any pizza (especially eaten whole) or dessert. And telling me I can only have one starch a day is like telling me I can only scream at the dogs once every 24 hours. Apply lip gloss once. Rearrange the pictures in the living room once. It’s just not possible.

Is she nuts? Did she shoot up this morning? Is she hallucinating?

As if that weren’t bad enough, in the second half of our conversation, she suggested we women engage in interval training—like, four momentary wind sprints or something equally unpleasant in the context of a moderately strenuous 30 minutes of exercise. Which made me think: ye gads woman. How do you ever expect to stay in business?

As she went on and on, all I could think was how much I hated her. How her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard—like Sol stopping to say hello while my dogs cut their teeth on the park’s metal trashcans. How I felt bad for the brides who would take my advice and enroll in her turbo-program for help getting into their wedding dresses.

How she had to be a descendent of Satan—or Susan Powter’s evil twin—disguised in fuller hair and a white lab coat.

Do no harm, my ass. You can’t fool me, Doc G, with your AMA code and your fancy words. Try to get one over, Karen B, I know you made out with Ricky M in the 10th grade, when he was my boyfriend and you were my best friend. I know it now and I knew it then. Word.

I’ve been around the block, as my mother likes to say, and I know better than to believe just anything anybody tells me about health and fitness.

And I know—the way you know that you’ll probably wait until the last minute to write that story, buy that airline ticket, and get out those thank-you notes—that even though my gently fortified Jenny Craig menu is working slowly, it’s working. Sort of.

That even though my dear Jenny Craig counselor Bette has taken to saying, “You haven’t gained that much this week,” those words are better than anything spoken by the devil.

That promoting the twisted have-only-one-potato-in-all-of-summer-2008 philosophies of Dr. G could very well crush readers’ hopes of laying on the sofa eating junk food and getting away with it ever again.

And yet, while Dr. G’s is a dangerous and punitive message, I still had to report it. That’s my job. So I grabbed for my second Jenny Craig brownie of the day and did it.

But I didn’t have to feel good about it.
————————————-

And then, just days after, with Mercury in Retrograde and Karma getting time and a half, Dan and I got in a car accident.

It happened on my niece Sloane’s birthday (hi Sloane – happy birthday sweetie!). We were driving home from a cake-and-coffee celebration at my brother’s house when a large oak tree, heaving with ice from the day’s sleet, dropped in front of us from out of nowhere.

With no time to brake or avoid it, our Honda Element jumped the trunk at 40 miles an hour. And like an ingenue in the automotive Cirque de Soleil, landed on the other side in one piece.

Tada!

After a few moments of just sitting there, I opened my eyes (because you’d have closed yours too) and noticed steam coming out of the front radiator. Dan turned off the ignition, which was somehow still running, and shifted towards me. I, on the other hand, clung to my crash position—sitting upright, back stiff as a brick against the seat, one hand clutching the door the other clutching a lipstick, looking straight ahead, wearing the same petrified look I do every week when I get on the scale for my beloved Bette.

“Oh my God,” he says. “One second faster, and we’d have been toast. That tree would’ve come right through our windshield.” I am silent. “There’s a bigger plan for us, babe.”

“Cake,” I whisper.

“Did you say rake?”

All I could think about was how I didn’t have a piece of Sloane’s birthday cake. I was trying to “be good.” And look where it got me. I could’ve gone out–ended it all–on a 230-calorie frozen chicken carbonara.

“Babe, are you okay? Do you have a head injury?”

I look at him and then out the window. Traffic is stopped in both directions and a woman in a nightgown and a parka is running our way. She seems upset. “I CALLED 911. ARE YOU OKAY? IS ANYBODY HURT?”

“Her cable lines must’ve come down,” Dan says.

I look at him. I love him. I want cake.

They say when you look death in the face, a white light appears and your whole life flashes by you. Me? I saw creamy white frosting, an entire year of Jenny Craig frozen meals, and a closet full of jeans that are too tight on me to wear out of the bathroom.

It was enough to get me to do the unthinkable: Call Dr. G.

That’s right. You read correctly. I called her office to sign up for her program, holistic, accelerated, and swell. Because, while I initially responded to her like somebody who’d been stung by a bee and gone into anaphylaxis shock, I knew that, at the heart of it, she is right.

What she was saying about losing weight and getting fit, hardcore as it is, is right. On the money. Bullseye. In the dead center of true.

And perfect for helping someone like me: desperate.

—————————————————-
So I call to schedule my spot in the program and Dr. G’s husband, a corporate America refugee, answers. And we get to chatting. Turns out, he’s been through the program himself. Lost 45 pounds during and 40 pounds after. And since then, has become a personal trainer and salesperson who works with program participants.

I tell him how I’m at my wit’s end. I need help.

So he tells me the story of how and why he decided to do the program. Apparently, he was coaching his kids, then in little league, when he remembered how his father coached him. And how, when he was 12, he died on the field from a heart attack.

It was a powerful and moving story. And so I thought about my own. Have I resorted to this boot-campy extreme because I thought of cake before my family when faced with my own mortality? Then I realized, no. It was deeper than that.

So, after some meditation, I finally tell him the reason why I’m doing it: “I just want to be hot.”

After all, when you’re in the vortex of a mid-life crisis, as I am, really, you just want to figure out how to get back to your youth – when you were, well, young and your metabolism was lot faster and nobody talked to you about menopause and you didn’t get applications in the mail for the AARP and you weren’t so obsessed with shrinking.

When possibility had no limits in terms of not only eating, but writing and dreaming.

When you were hot—or at least as hot as you were ever gonna be, whether you realized it back then or not.

“Well, then,” he says. “Everybody has their reasons. If it works for you, then go for it.”
——————————————————————

And so, like the car accident, once again, the universe gave me a sign—only this time, that aiming for hotness was the right motivation. Or perhaps, the best motivation. At least in this moment.

Here’s what happened: Yesterday, we celebrated Hanukah in lieu of Christmas at my parents’ house (since we hadn’t been able to get together until then). My mom made a big dinner and after, my snoopy sister-in-law-to-be-someday found an old picture of me that my parents had hidden on their bookshelves.

“Is this you?” she asks, passing around the photo, her disbelief palpable.

I look at the picture when it finally makes its way to where I’m sitting. It’s me alright, in my 20s, with long hair—the longest I ever remember it—wearing a halter top, black tights, and an open button-down jersey top that says “Margate” in big black letters.

I’m smiling. And why not? I’m a size 8. Tops. And HOT. Truly hot. Objectively hot. Even though, back then, I was convinced otherwise.

I make the mistake of putting the picture down, when my sis-to-be sends it back around, like a five-year-old on a Merry Go Round. Like it was a video she’d taken of George Bush being dropped into an active volcano.

“WOW,” Dan says, eyes popping out of his head. “Look at that hair.”

Look at it. “I’m so young there.” I want to die. Or at least vomit. Or at least eat the pie on the table with a spatula.

My father laughs. “Welcome to middle age!”

I shoot him a dirty look and am suddenly depressed. So much so, that not even the 12 green slotted spoons and plastic cutting board my brother and sis-to-be got me for Hanukah could cheer me up.

———————————————————————
Fortunately, I am married to a man who sees beyond the physical. Not that I need outside validation but, okay, last night, yeah, I did.

As we drove home from my parents house in our rented PT Cruiser (since our Element is STILL in the shop), I recount to my husband how despondent I am over that picture.

“But why,” he says, “you’re still beautiful.”

“Not like that! C’mon, admit it.” I point to my pocketbook, where I put the picture so I remember to burn it in the morning, when I look for my cell phone and find it there.

“Honey, I fell in love with you,” he says. “Not that girl in the picture. YOU.”

But I AM the girl in the picture. We’re all the girl in the picture. Or the guy. And I know that we all want to do our best. I do too. I don’t expect to ever go out in public in a spandex halter ever again, but I do expect to be an older version of someone I’m proud of.

And so, bring it on Dr. G. I’m more than ready. Just watch me.

Until next time.
  Share

In just a few short weeks, I’m going to turn 45. And while that may not be “old” to some people, it’s the oldest I’ll ever be. And as a result, I feel, well, old.
You know, my niece-is-going-to-college-next-year-my-husband-is-old-enough-for-a-colonoscopy-I-need-a-mammogram-and-a-fresh-set-of-tweezers-a-month old.
It doesn’t help that, at this age, married life is stressful and complex. Not that I’m complaining. I love being married—the commitment of a life together. And the joy of having the right partner. It really is awesome.
It’s just all the flotsam that comes with a joined life that can be exhausting—stepchildren and lawyers. A mutual bathroom. Realizing a collective set of dreams.
The expectation that, now married, you’re grown up enough to, say, host Thanksgiving dinner and, beyond that, be the bigger person—whether it’s your fault or not.
Add to that, the sometimes desperate writing for dollars, rising fuel costs, dieting for naught, dry skin issues, a revolving door of house guests (albeit beloved), the holidays, two shelter dogs, and the constant need to pack 10 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack and what do you get: Old. Aching bones. Torn muscles.
Mall brain.
I don’t like it for the obvious reasons. But also because feeling old distracts me from negotiating all I want to do in this second act of life. Like finish a book proposal and then a book and then find my way to the New York Times bestseller list. And stay there.
Or just keep up with the massive growth of new chin hairs and mind-bending versions of Microsoft Office (yep, Vista, I’m talkin’ to you).
And yet, since I’m not one to sit around and let the ravages of time eat away at my flesh like a vicious strain of e-coli, the other day I decided to soothe myself with a haircut. And, while at the salon, book a massage and a facial for the day of my birthday.
What the heck. I know one facial ain’t gonna erase the parentheses starting to form just under my nostrils, but denial truly is the most beautiful gift one can give to oneself.
And, hey, I deserve it.
———————————————
After Cheyenne rids me of two solid inches of frizz, I approach the 22-year-old 125-pound receptionist with hair like French tassles and skin like a fresh bottle of Windex to book my other treatments. I tell her I want a Swedish massage and a triple-duty facial. To which, she says, “Time to get that glow back, huh?”
What is this an interrogation?
“Please. I’m not that optimistic,” I say, rummaging through my pocketbook for my credit card. “I’m just trying to stay off the slinky going down.” And it’s true, I’m starting to think that what I’ve already got is possibly the best I can hope for.
She and the other anatomically-correct receptionist who’s now joined her behind the desk smile politely. Still, I know what they’re thinking. Thank God I’m not as old as she is. So I allow myself the quiet consolation of knowing that someday they, too, will be old like me, exhaustion and dry skin sneaking up on them like a pair of anorexic joggers.
I know, that’s kind of mean spirited. But I can’t help it. I’m too tired to be contrite about my jealousy.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m happy about it. I’m not. Who wants to be so exhausted anyway? To have to drop on the couch with a steaming cup of Swiss Hazelnut once Oprah comes on at 4 o’clock every day? To wake up without ever feeling fully rested, despite three consecutive cups of French Roast (brought to her, I might add, by her saintly husband and inhaled like a triple-play of fine whiskey)?
As if general poopedness isn’t bad enough, I’m losing my vigor for the one thing I could always count on—vanity. Yet, as the years pass, I’m growing lax about moisturizing, painting my toenails, plucking my eyebrows, everything.
In fact, I’m starting to question what it all means anyway?
Why just the other day, I was watching Oprah, who did an entire show on what not to wear. It was the do’s and don’ts of, among other things, bras, blue jeans, and shoes. At every age, no less.
As I watched, I couldn’t help but wonder, “When I’m lying on my deathbed, looking back at my life, will I really feel bad about wearing too much blush? Too few low-rise boot cuts?”
Which then brought me to the question of what I would be thinking about, which is probably, sadly, food. And wishing I’d had more of it. Which, of course, makes me hungry. (Leading to, naturally, too many pretzels and the dreaded carbohydrate coma. Not good.)
As if my longing for carbs, my chipped nails, and consistently dry T-zone aren’t enough, I’m cranky. Once a week I accuse my husband of not putting his dishes in the sink, not telling me I’m a hottie, or asking me to stop dieting because I’m simply looking too thin.
Men just don’t get it. The way to keep us aging females happy is to buy us flowers—as many as you can find and for every occasion, even Columbus Day—and LIE.
Especially to those of us who are sluggish and on the precipice of 45.
——————————————
That said, my crankiness is not confined to the family. Why, just the other day, I was out walking the dogs, when an older gentleman approached us with what looked like a puppy Golden Retriever. Before he got too close, I did what I always do when I see other dogs coming and want to avoid a Michael Vick: I pull my eager and sometimes-temperamental dogs off to the side of the trail and make them sit until the other dogs and their owners pass us.
Unfortunately, this man, let’s call him Sol , decides that instead of passing, he’ll stop right in front of us to chat about his new puppy. All while my dogs re-enact the Pearl Harbor scene in Saving Private Ryan.
“Hey, yeah, my dog’s a puppy,” Sol says, oblivious to my dogs going ballistic. “Only six months. Cute, huh?”
“WHAT?” I shout to be heard over the barking, groping their leashes like a rescue swimmer attached to a rope and a helicopter. “SHUT UP YOU TWO. HEAL!@”
Is Sol blind? Can he not see the foam starting to form on Winnie’s mouth?
While his puppy calmly sniffs his shoe, he says something else, but I can’t hear him. So, instead, I curse him to Hades. And promise God I’ll never eat a whole pizza again if he drop kicks Sol to the other side of the park—and quickly.
After a few more minutes, my dogs are in two-part bad harmony, barking and shrieking like they’re being skinned alive. I’m doing all I can to hold them back, knowing that it won’t be long before my wrist snaps off my forearm like a twig.
While I still have some use of my hands, I string Elvis up by his prong collar to try to get him quiet. Instead he squeals like a pair of faulty brakes on an 18 wheeler. Fortunately, Winnie stops barking, but only long enough to snarl, bare her incisors, and generate a noise that would’ve made an effective soundtrack to The Exorcist.
I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to hold on to them. And yet, there Sol stands. Oblivious. Like somebody who has no idea he’s walked onto the stage in the middle of the play–with toilet paper on his shoe, no less.
I, on the other hand, now highly agitated like my dogs, am worried about the legal ramifications of unleashing a spontaneous running of the canines. And going from cranky to angry. Until finally, while I still have some feeling in my thumbs and forefingers, say this:
“MOTHER OF GOD ARE YOU BLIND HOW LONG DO YOU EXPECT ME TO KEEP THESE WRETCHED BEASTS FROM TURNING YOU INTO CHOPPED SIRLOIN??”
Sol looks at me as if I’ve just told him his dog is really a cow. And with a “Harumph” I can actually hear, he marches off, shaking his head, and muttering to himself.
I stand there, waiting for my animals to reground themselves in good behavior and the feeling to return to my hands. Sure, I feel bad about yelling and good riddens goodnight Sol simultaneously.
Which brings me to another byproduct of aging. Confusion.
————————–
At this point, it’s not only emotions I’m grappling with, but the disheartenment I feel in response to my being doomed to this size 12 body until they drop me in the dirt. If I’m LUCKY, that is, a slowing peri-menopausal metabolism notwithstanding.
What I would give for just one two-pound weight loss in a week at Jenny Craig just so I can say, before I die, that I’ve had the experience. I’d also like an Egg Nog latte with no after-effects, but I now know that both are about as likely as my husband’s ex-wife calling to say how much she likes me.
It ain’t happenin.
See, because while some people have human stalkers, I am being stalked by my own flesh. It simply won’t go away.
Never was that clearer than the other night, when after two solid months of dieting, I lay belly up on the bed, trying to button the jeans I’ve had for a year. The task had me sweating, belting out an acid-rock rendition of four-letter expletives that required my husband and stepdaughter to evacuate the building.
Albeit temporarily.
————————————————–
After finally resorting to a pair of black pants with stretch, Dan, C and I leave to meet my best friend Lorrie and her family for a night of burgers (salad for me, of course, sans dressing, cheese, olives, chick peas, avocado, and anything with flavor) and bowling. Once there, the situation gets immediately worse.
See Lorrie just lost 26 easy pounds (that she didn’t need to lose, by the way) on Weight Watchers. Easy in the sense that she went on a diet and, lo and behold, her body shrunk.
Imagine that.
“Hey,” she says, pulling me to the side once we arrive. “Check this out.” She pushes her coat aside to reveal the tag on a new pair of jeans. They’re a size two.
A SIZE TWO. I look at her, as if she just unveiled a penis.
“I know, can you believe it? I saved the tag,” she says, “because I wanted to show it to the one person who’d understand.”
Oh, I understand all right. I understand that I could starve myself from now until the winner of the 2008 presidential election is sworn into office, and still never be a size two.
I could go off into the wild, like Alexander Supertramp, and die on the vine. And, then, when they find me months later and wrap a tape measure around my decomposing body, I’d still be solid size 10. Okay, maybe an eight. But a size two? No way.
No friggin way.
So I say, “That’s great, Lor. Must be nice.” What a crappy friend I am, so sarcastic and bitter. And really, I hate myself for it.
Yet, I want to cry. From why-not-me-what-about-me-why-is-it-easy-for-everybody-else frustration that really has nothing to do with Lorrie.
I want to drop to the floor, right there in front of the teenyboppers in their painted-on denim who are the Saturday night mall crowd at Dave and Buster’s, and swim a hysterical freestyle on the dirty carpet.
“I know, it’s frustrating, Jill. I’m sorry,” Lorrie says, her goodness making my badness even uglier. To make matters worse, she puts her arm around me in comfort. Around cranky, hungry, tired, lay-down-and-die-I-no-longer-get-vanity, dry me.
Even though, I really don’t deserve it.
—————————————-
Now I know what you’re thinking. The same thing I thought the entire way through reading “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. Please, good God, let something GOOD happen to this man. And in his book nothing does.
But in my blog, well, all is not lost. See I did manage to buckle up that night and bowl a solid 63. Enjoy myself. Get some of my fighting spirit back. And learn an important lesson through the allegorical experience of sport.
After my mini meltdown, Lorrie encouraged me to take my frustration out on the lanes and throw the ball as if it were nine pounds of fat from behind my thighs going into a big dark hole. Never to find its way back again.
And so I did, which manifested into a series of gutter balls. To which Lorrie’s husband Frank said, “Do you want us to put up the bumpers?” He points to his kids (11 and 14 respectively) and Dan. “We’re all using them. It’s okay, really.”
What a bunch of wussies.
I look at Lorrie, who shakes her head “no” and gives me a you-can-do-anything smile. And she’s right.
“No thank you Frank. I think I can manage without the bumpers. After all, I’m almost 45 now.”
It was then I decided that if all I could muster up, for now, were gutter balls, well then, so be it. They’d be the best gutter balls this side of state lines.
Instead of trying to fight them, I’d embrace them. Use them to practice my swing. Find grounding in consistency. Remind myself that there’s always room for improvement and that’s a good thing.
That gutter balls, like the birthdays and exhaustion and being crabby and lacking moisture and suffering from the clawing feeling of time, don’t define me.
I get to do that.
—————————————————
Here’s how: Today, I found my way into the Gap looking for a little something to take the edge off. I picked up a few scarves and a cream-colored cable knit sweater and took them into the dressing room.
Cable knit isn’t always so flattering when you have robust biceps (she says, diplomatically), but I went for it anyway. And as I stood there, in front of the mirror, pulling the thick woolen material over the chubby arms I inherited from my favorite grandmother, I looked in my own eyes and said this:
Jill, this is it. Never mind losing weight, gaining weight, getting taller, shorter, thinner, dumber, or smarter. This is it. This is you. And it’s good. It’s all good. Time to embrace it. There’s no time left to be so selective and precise. It’s half gone. This life. Getting shorter. So just shove it all into your grab bag and run. Step into 45 with a renewed sense of vigor and joy. And love yourself. Already. It’s time.
And by the way, you look great in that sweater.
Until next time.
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In just a few short weeks, I’m going to turn 45. And while that may not be “old” to some people, it’s the oldest I’ll ever be. And as a result, I feel, well, old.

You know, my niece-is-going-to-college-next-year-my-husband-is-old-enough-for-a-colonoscopy-I-need-a-mammogram-and-a-fresh-set-of-tweezers-a-month old.

It doesn’t help that, at this age, married life is stressful and complex. Not that I’m complaining. I love being married—the commitment of a life together. And the joy of having the right partner. It really is awesome.

It’s just all the flotsam that comes with a joined life that can be exhausting—stepchildren and lawyers. A mutual bathroom. Realizing a collective set of dreams.

The expectation that, now married, you’re grown up enough to, say, host Thanksgiving dinner and, beyond that, be the bigger person—whether it’s your fault or not.

Add to that, the sometimes desperate writing for dollars, rising fuel costs, dieting for naught, dry skin issues, a revolving door of house guests (albeit beloved), the holidays, two shelter dogs, and the constant need to pack 10 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack and what do you get: Old. Aching bones. Torn muscles.

Mall brain.

I don’t like it for the obvious reasons. But also because feeling old distracts me from negotiating all I want to do in this second act of life. Like finish a book proposal and then a book and then find my way to the New York Times bestseller list. And stay there.

Or just keep up with the massive growth of new chin hairs and mind-bending versions of Microsoft Office (yep, Vista, I’m talkin’ to you).

And yet, since I’m not one to sit around and let the ravages of time eat away at my flesh like a vicious strain of e-coli, the other day I decided to soothe myself with a haircut. And, while at the salon, book a massage and a facial for the day of my birthday.

What the heck. I know one facial ain’t gonna erase the parentheses starting to form just under my nostrils, but denial truly is the most beautiful gift one can give to oneself.

And, hey, I deserve it.

———————————————
After Cheyenne rids me of two solid inches of frizz, I approach the 22-year-old 125-pound receptionist with hair like French tassles and skin like a fresh bottle of Windex to book my other treatments. I tell her I want a Swedish massage and a triple-duty facial. To which, she says, “Time to get that glow back, huh?”

What is this an interrogation?

“Please. I’m not that optimistic,” I say, rummaging through my pocketbook for my credit card. “I’m just trying to stay off the slinky going down.” And it’s true, I’m starting to think that what I’ve already got is possibly the best I can hope for.

She and the other anatomically-correct receptionist who’s now joined her behind the desk smile politely. Still, I know what they’re thinking. Thank God I’m not as old as she is. So I allow myself the quiet consolation of knowing that someday they, too, will be old like me, exhaustion and dry skin sneaking up on them like a pair of anorexic joggers.

I know, that’s kind of mean spirited. But I can’t help it. I’m too tired to be contrite about my jealousy.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m happy about it. I’m not. Who wants to be so exhausted anyway? To have to drop on the couch with a steaming cup of Swiss Hazelnut once Oprah comes on at 4 o’clock every day? To wake up without ever feeling fully rested, despite three consecutive cups of French Roast (brought to her, I might add, by her saintly husband and inhaled like a triple-play of fine whiskey)?

As if general poopedness isn’t bad enough, I’m losing my vigor for the one thing I could always count on—vanity. Yet, as the years pass, I’m growing lax about moisturizing, painting my toenails, plucking my eyebrows, everything.

In fact, I’m starting to question what it all means anyway?

Why just the other day, I was watching Oprah, who did an entire show on what not to wear. It was the do’s and don’ts of, among other things, bras, blue jeans, and shoes. At every age, no less.

As I watched, I couldn’t help but wonder, “When I’m lying on my deathbed, looking back at my life, will I really feel bad about wearing too much blush? Too few low-rise boot cuts?”

Which then brought me to the question of what I would be thinking about, which is probably, sadly, food. And wishing I’d had more of it. Which, of course, makes me hungry. (Leading to, naturally, too many pretzels and the dreaded carbohydrate coma. Not good.)

As if my longing for carbs, my chipped nails, and consistently dry T-zone aren’t enough, I’m cranky. Once a week I accuse my husband of not putting his dishes in the sink, not telling me I’m a hottie, or asking me to stop dieting because I’m simply looking too thin.

Men just don’t get it. The way to keep us aging females happy is to buy us flowers—as many as you can find and for every occasion, even Columbus Day—and LIE.

Especially to those of us who are sluggish and on the precipice of 45.

——————————————
That said, my crankiness is not confined to the family. Why, just the other day, I was out walking the dogs, when an older gentleman approached us with what looked like a puppy Golden Retriever. Before he got too close, I did what I always do when I see other dogs coming and want to avoid a Michael Vick: I pull my eager and sometimes-temperamental dogs off to the side of the trail and make them sit until the other dogs and their owners pass us.

Unfortunately, this man, let’s call him Sol , decides that instead of passing, he’ll stop right in front of us to chat about his new puppy. All while my dogs re-enact the Pearl Harbor scene in Saving Private Ryan.

“Hey, yeah, my dog’s a puppy,” Sol says, oblivious to my dogs going ballistic. “Only six months. Cute, huh?”

“WHAT?” I shout to be heard over the barking, groping their leashes like a rescue swimmer attached to a rope and a helicopter. “SHUT UP YOU TWO. HEAL!@”

Is Sol blind? Can he not see the foam starting to form on Winnie’s mouth?

While his puppy calmly sniffs his shoe, he says something else, but I can’t hear him. So, instead, I curse him to Hades. And promise God I’ll never eat a whole pizza again if he drop kicks Sol to the other side of the park—and quickly.

After a few more minutes, my dogs are in two-part bad harmony, barking and shrieking like they’re being skinned alive. I’m doing all I can to hold them back, knowing that it won’t be long before my wrist snaps off my forearm like a twig.

While I still have some use of my hands, I string Elvis up by his prong collar to try to get him quiet. Instead he squeals like a pair of faulty brakes on an 18 wheeler. Fortunately, Winnie stops barking, but only long enough to snarl, bare her incisors, and generate a noise that would’ve made an effective soundtrack to The Exorcist.

I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to hold on to them. And yet, there Sol stands. Oblivious. Like somebody who has no idea he’s walked onto the stage in the middle of the play–with toilet paper on his shoe, no less.

I, on the other hand, now highly agitated like my dogs, am worried about the legal ramifications of unleashing a spontaneous running of the canines. And going from cranky to angry. Until finally, while I still have some feeling in my thumbs and forefingers, say this:

“MOTHER OF GOD ARE YOU BLIND HOW LONG DO YOU EXPECT ME TO KEEP THESE WRETCHED BEASTS FROM TURNING YOU INTO CHOPPED SIRLOIN??”

Sol looks at me as if I’ve just told him his dog is really a cow. And with a “Harumph” I can actually hear, he marches off, shaking his head, and muttering to himself.

I stand there, waiting for my animals to reground themselves in good behavior and the feeling to return to my hands. Sure, I feel bad about yelling and good riddens goodnight Sol simultaneously.

Which brings me to another byproduct of aging. Confusion.

————————–
At this point, it’s not only emotions I’m grappling with, but the disheartenment I feel in response to my being doomed to this size 12 body until they drop me in the dirt. If I’m LUCKY, that is, a slowing peri-menopausal metabolism notwithstanding.

What I would give for just one two-pound weight loss in a week at Jenny Craig just so I can say, before I die, that I’ve had the experience. I’d also like an Egg Nog latte with no after-effects, but I now know that both are about as likely as my husband’s ex-wife calling to say how much she likes me.

It ain’t happenin.

See, because while some people have human stalkers, I am being stalked by my own flesh. It simply won’t go away.

Never was that clearer than the other night, when after two solid months of dieting, I lay belly up on the bed, trying to button the jeans I’ve had for a year. The task had me sweating, belting out an acid-rock rendition of four-letter expletives that required my husband and stepdaughter to evacuate the building.

Albeit temporarily.
————————————————–

After finally resorting to a pair of black pants with stretch, Dan, C and I leave to meet my best friend Lorrie and her family for a night of burgers (salad for me, of course, sans dressing, cheese, olives, chick peas, avocado, and anything with flavor) and bowling. Once there, the situation gets immediately worse.

See Lorrie just lost 26 easy pounds (that she didn’t need to lose, by the way) on Weight Watchers. Easy in the sense that she went on a diet and, lo and behold, her body shrunk.

Imagine that.

“Hey,” she says, pulling me to the side once we arrive. “Check this out.” She pushes her coat aside to reveal the tag on a new pair of jeans. They’re a size two.

A SIZE TWO. I look at her, as if she just unveiled a penis.

“I know, can you believe it? I saved the tag,” she says, “because I wanted to show it to the one person who’d understand.”

Oh, I understand all right. I understand that I could starve myself from now until the winner of the 2008 presidential election is sworn into office, and still never be a size two.

I could go off into the wild, like Alexander Supertramp, and die on the vine. And, then, when they find me months later and wrap a tape measure around my decomposing body, I’d still be solid size 10. Okay, maybe an eight. But a size two? No way.

No friggin way.

So I say, “That’s great, Lor. Must be nice.” What a crappy friend I am, so sarcastic and bitter. And really, I hate myself for it.

Yet, I want to cry. From why-not-me-what-about-me-why-is-it-easy-for-everybody-else frustration that really has nothing to do with Lorrie.

I want to drop to the floor, right there in front of the teenyboppers in their painted-on denim who are the Saturday night mall crowd at Dave and Buster’s, and swim a hysterical freestyle on the dirty carpet.

“I know, it’s frustrating, Jill. I’m sorry,” Lorrie says, her goodness making my badness even uglier. To make matters worse, she puts her arm around me in comfort. Around cranky, hungry, tired, lay-down-and-die-I-no-longer-get-vanity, dry me.

Even though, I really don’t deserve it.

—————————————-
Now I know what you’re thinking. The same thing I thought the entire way through reading “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. Please, good God, let something GOOD happen to this man. And in his book nothing does.

But in my blog, well, all is not lost. See I did manage to buckle up that night and bowl a solid 63. Enjoy myself. Get some of my fighting spirit back. And learn an important lesson through the allegorical experience of sport.

After my mini meltdown, Lorrie encouraged me to take my frustration out on the lanes and throw the ball as if it were nine pounds of fat from behind my thighs going into a big dark hole. Never to find its way back again.

And so I did, which manifested into a series of gutter balls. To which Lorrie’s husband Frank said, “Do you want us to put up the bumpers?” He points to his kids (11 and 14 respectively) and Dan. “We’re all using them. It’s okay, really.”

What a bunch of wussies.

I look at Lorrie, who shakes her head “no” and gives me a you-can-do-anything smile. And she’s right.

“No thank you Frank. I think I can manage without the bumpers. After all, I’m almost 45 now.”

It was then I decided that if all I could muster up, for now, were gutter balls, well then, so be it. They’d be the best gutter balls this side of state lines.

Instead of trying to fight them, I’d embrace them. Use them to practice my swing. Find grounding in consistency. Remind myself that there’s always room for improvement and that’s a good thing.

That gutter balls, like the birthdays and exhaustion and being crabby and lacking moisture and suffering from the clawing feeling of time, don’t define me.

I get to do that.
—————————————————

Here’s how: Today, I found my way into the Gap looking for a little something to take the edge off. I picked up a few scarves and a cream-colored cable knit sweater and took them into the dressing room.

Cable knit isn’t always so flattering when you have robust biceps (she says, diplomatically), but I went for it anyway. And as I stood there, in front of the mirror, pulling the thick woolen material over the chubby arms I inherited from my favorite grandmother, I looked in my own eyes and said this:

Jill, this is it. Never mind losing weight, gaining weight, getting taller, shorter, thinner, dumber, or smarter. This is it. This is you. And it’s good. It’s all good. Time to embrace it. There’s no time left to be so selective and precise. It’s half gone. This life. Getting shorter. So just shove it all into your grab bag and run. Step into 45 with a renewed sense of vigor and joy. And love yourself. Already. It’s time.

And by the way, you look great in that sweater.

Until next time.
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