May
1
May 1, 2007
I was looking at my naked belly in the mirror this morning, because that is just the thrilling sort of life I lead, and I couldn’t help but notice that while there is actual muscle in my abdominal area now (okay, some muscles. A few. Okay, one. I call him Fred) thanks in part to that beshitted “boat” yoga pose, my midsection is not smooth and taut like a crisp Westin bedsheet. Instead, it’s kind of wrinkly and saggy like something you’d find at a Motel 6, although without the sort of stains you might find with a blacklight, thank you very much.
Even if I hold my breath and contort myself into what appears to be the most flattering angle possible—with Fred all flexed and shit—it is apparent my belly once grew several times its own size. Like the Grinch’s heart. Or one of those spongy dinosaurs you drop in water and it becomes a much larger spongy dinosaur. Or, did you see the movie Akira?
Now that my larval passenger has been vacated for 19 months and counting, it seems like my skin should have returned to its previous condition, which is to say: less discount motel-ish. But no. It’s like a stretched-out shirt, permanently attached to my body.
And my ungrateful son, for whom I have forever rendered my body unfit for all but the most demure of two-piece bathing suit options (we shall lovingly embrace the suspension of belief necessary to assume I ever would have worn a revealing bikini anyway), had the nerve to yell at me this morning—just like a pissy, emo-listening TEENAGER— when I wasn’t instantaneous enough with His Master’s juice cup, and when I handed it to him he yanked it from my grip, issuing a dismissive “Tan too” over his shoulder as he motored off.
“For this I have a Motel 6 belly?” I shouted at his retreating, midgety form. “TAN TOO DOESN’T CUT IT, MISTER.”
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Have any of you ever used that crazy expensive La Mer stuff? What on earth is it made out of, heroin-stuffed, blood-diamond-encrusted Beluga caviar?
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A conversation the other day:
JB: “Hey, do you want to go to the cabin for Mother’s Day?”
Me: “For Mother’s Day. So my Mother’s Day gift would be a weekend involving a fourteen hour round trip drive with an insane screaming toddler and a husband who refuses to give up the driver’s position because of, let me see if I can remember this right, ‘a need to be in control while the car is moving’?”
JB: “. . .”
Me: “Remember last year when you dropped the ball completely and said you didn’t think you had to get me anything because Riley wasn’t old enough to help pick it out? The only way I could have a lamer Mother’s Day than that is if we drove to the goddamned cabin.”
I know, I know, I am a giant bitch. But I ask you.
Apr
29
April 29, 2007
Since reading the comments on my last post, I’ve been daydreaming about a spa vacation. I’ve never even considered such a thing before, because I always assumed they cost hojillions of dollars and were only accessible to the Botox’d rich and famous—but after doing a little searching I see there are packages that are actually sort of affordable. I mean, they seem comparable to a resort-y type vacation, anyway.
I can’t quite picture going to a spa alone, even though that seems like the whole point. I’m stupidly shy and I have a crippling fear of enforced social activities like group lunches where you don’t know anyone and you have to pick one of the crowded tables where everyone is already becoming bosom buddies and laughing heartily and offering to donate kidneys to each other and you plop down with your meal and your robotic smile and your wild, darting eyes and you have to make small talk. “So . . .” you begin, with desperation, wishing with every molecule in your body that the ground would gape open beneath your table revealing the earth’s molten core below and you could slip casually out of sight, happy to be engulfed by flames because at least you wouldn’t have to finish that fucking sentence.
Uh. Yeah. Issues.
But oh, I love the idea of a whole vacation all to myself, a few days of total pampering and a bunch of services I’d never normally indulge in. Facials. Skin wraps. Hot stone massage. I want it all, and I want relaxing zenlike music and some beautiful countryside and a delicious dinner (consumed in furtive, intimidated solitude, of course) featuring local cuisine and flatware I don’t have to clean. And chocolate afterwards. Savored while lying in the bed with an outlandish, positively illegal thread count.
That all sounds particularly fantastic this morning, since thus far I have 1) followed Riley around cleaning little dribble-puddles from the cup he refuses to let go of and I haven’t had nearly enough coffee yet to deal with the screaming meltdown (“Joo! JOO! JOOOOOO!”) that will ensue if I take it away, 2) picked about a thousand of these sticky little motherfuckers out of various textiles in the living room including Riley’s pajama-clad bottom, and 3) spied Cat hunched in Eminent Hurl Position and galloped like Barbaro to the front door which I flung wide open, revealing my half-dressed self in all its 8 AM glory to the bevy of roof workers hanging out in front of my neighbor’s house who turned as one to stare at me literally throwing my cat—mid-barf—several feet through the air to land precisely on the welcome mat, where she immediately and loudly produced the entirety of her breakfast, while I swept back inside cursing my inability to aim her at the easily-hosed concrete and the roof workers cackled something in Spanish (Quién es esa muchacha estúpida y su gato el vomitar?) to each other.
Well, perhaps someday I’ll visit Canyon Ranch, in the meantime, I’ve got these repulsive mounds of cat puke to deal with. Maybe some relaxing zenlike music will help.
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