Monthly Archives: June 2011

A few months ago my Rheumatologist added Plaquenil to my drug cocktail. Before beginning Plaquenil you have to get an eye exam where they do some sort of baseline measurement of your peripheral vision. I went to UCLA and filled out the necessary paperwork while waiting to be seen. There was a little box that asked when my last eye exam was. I left it blank. I’m pretty sure I’ve never had an eye exam.

The doctor was a little surprised that I’d never had an exam and explained to me that in our early forties our eyes lose their round shape and begin to elongate, hence the need for “readers”. She said that it would probably happen for me within a year or two and that I shouldn’t be particularly surprised when I find that I need a set of readers.

Naturally I hurried home to tease my husband about his advanced age and elongated eyeballs. I figured the doctor was was a little off base on the old lady eyes and that I wouldn’t be wearing glasses any time soon.

Last week I was teasing Mr G once again about how terribly old he is. I put on his reading glasses so that I could further mock him, and I bent over to pick up my iPhone when something unbelievable happened. I realized I could see. Angry Birds Rio has a really detailed background, I thought it was a solid blue, uh, no there are ripples in those waves. When I put on the +1.25′s I could see. I ran to the mirror and took a good look at my skin and realized I was way past due for a facial.

I still haven’t dragged myself out of the house to buy a pair of magnifying readers, but I do borrow Mr. G’s. All of a sudden we’ve become that couple. The couple that’s so familiar with one another that I sit in bed, crack open a book and say, “Honey, can you please pass the glasses?”

Recently the world had a collective tantrum when a mother pretended to us all that she was injecting Botox into the face of her eight year old daughter. There was the anticipated media frenzy as well as a full-fledged social media firestorm condemning the mother, condemning the pageant culture and calling for law enforcement to protect the child.

It was the reaction everyone expected. Children should not have Botox. End of story.

There are things that we do as adults that children cannot or should not do. We drink alcohol, we smoke cigarettes, we get Botox, Restalyne and Juviderm. Some people get tattoos, others spend a good amount of money removing them. We pierce our ears and we pierce our faces. There are implants to enlarge breasts, hips, buttocks, and penises. Vaginal rejuvenation is a popular surgery, though I remain puzzled by it.

When I was 27, newly married and trying to get pregnant I stopped smoking, I quit drinking soda, coffee and most processed food. I ate and drank only organic and I felt good about the decisions. My children were both born healthy and had robust first years.

As the children separated from me physically I gave them organic baby foods, used nontoxic cleansers , guarded their sleep time and slathered them in sunscreen. I wanted to give my children the best possible chance to be physically well. At the same time I was sucking down coffee, sneaking cigarettes and never getting enough sleep.

I love my children. We love our children and we protect them. If only we could love ourselves.

At 35 I started noticing that my eyes looked a little tired and I started hearing women refer to “marionette lines” around the mouth. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone 35 looking back at me. I looked at my girlfriends and they looked refreshed.

Two years later they didn’t look just refreshed, they looked startled and fluffy faced. I’m not really sure how to explain what happens to a woman’s lips when they’re overly puffed up. It changes her face and as she loses clear definition of her philtrum (Cupid’s Bow) she begins to look ape like and distorted. At the same time she looks more and more like actresses of a certain age, and since they are celebrated for their beauty, this must be beautiful. We believe.

Now at 41 my phone rings. Not once or twice but a half dozen times my girlfriends call, they are planning tummy tucks and breast lifts. I suggest a really expensive bra and a girdle, but they talk about how having children ruined them and that they want to wear a bikini again. I suggest kindly that a full life can be had without wearing a bikini or that they should wear one anyhow. No one cares what we look like, we just think they do. No one listens to me and they make appointments to carve up their perfectly unbroken bodies.

Reaching utter exasperation I finally risk it all with a friend. One evening at night I let loose and lecture her. “I need you to do me a favor and go to your daughter’s bedroom. I want you to look at her while she sleeps in her bed and imagine now that while she is sleeping a doctor will cut a line around her midsection, discarding her belly button and then he’ll pull her loose skin up like a pair of pants and sew it all back together.”

She gasped. I continued, “Everything you do to your body your daughter will do to hers. Every time you disfigure yourself at the doctor’s office your daughter is watching. Does she look imperfect to you? Does she need to be fixed?” And then I went on to tell her that she was perfect and beautiful and valuable and that she needn’t hack her body to bits.

A year later she got the surgery.

Jane’s Outward Bound application is officially complete. Yesterday she had a ten minute phone call with someone from their staff. She stood in the courtyard at school on my phone shuffling her feet, smiling, laughing and saying things like, “I’m kind of nervous about that but I’m excited too.” and after a lot of yeses and nos she kicked her heels in the air, handed the phone to me and sang out, “He said to tell you that I’ve been accepted.”

So Outward Bound is official and now I’m nervous about the flight. 10 days in the wilderness under a tarp doesn’t worry me but LAX to SEA is where I feel like things could go horribly wrong. I’m sure it’s just a feeling.

I had another interview this week with a landscaper, and it didn’t go as well. When you drive around Los Angeles there are these fabulous sun gardens that are full and bright and change with the seasons (few things change with the seasons here). Some of his most beautiful displays have little signs with a phone number on them. I called the number and was informed that I had to not let my gardener near the area, it would be a $1,200 install, $200 a month maintenance and they’d come out to examine the property and see if there was an appropriate place for the mini garden.

I shuddered a little at the cost but figured my husband would enjoy the pretty flowers  and he probably wouldn’t mind too much (although in writing this I realize he probably would). So I yes’ed my way through the phone interview and threw two very important men right under the bus. Mr G would have killed me for spending thousands of dollars a year on an annual garden, and Pedro would never be okay with another man tinkering in my garden, he gets irritated when I put in my own spring plantings.

The swank landscaper showed up and immediately looked annoyed. I have redwoods out front, and don’t I know that an English Garden requires sunlight? In the back I had something more loathsome, more appalling than redwoods. I have animals.

The interview didn’t go well. My garden and I were rejected, and we’ll have to be ordinary, non seasonal and covered in succulents, though I’ve recently discovered that Hostas love the space under the trees. At least Jane got what she wanted.

I’ts overcast and humid here. The kids are winding down school and the June Gloom is welcoming. I can play tennis without heat exhaustion and we can still use the jacuzzi without feeling like we’re ingredients in a bowl of soup.

Today is the last day of school. Tomorrow is a half day followed by parties and sleepovers and movie nights. The kids have their summer reading lists,which are refreshingly modern and interesting. Camp begins for Alexander next week and Jane is ambivalent, she wants to attend starting the second week. I’m not sure why.

Both kids have two sleepover camps scheduled, Jane will be surfing for 5 days and canoeing for 10. Alexander has two five day sessions planned at a typical hold hands and sing kumbaya camp.

It’s just June.

Twenty years ago while I was a student in Colorado I heard that a local sculptor was was looking for nude models. He was an established bronze artist looking for women who wouldn’t mind being cast in plaster for $100 an hour. In a town where a two bedroom apartment rented out at $425 a month this was an incredible opportunity. I called him, gave him my measurements and was delighted when he gave me instructions and hired me for a few hours.

The sculptor was David Dirrim, and his workspace was a huge warehouse in the wrong part of town (as warehouses tend to be). I showed up and was surprised by David, he looked more like a welder than an artist. The artists I knew were thin but fit men who wore mismatched socks and crumpled shirts. Dave was tall and strong and, perhaps because of the locale, looked decidedly blue collar.

I was to pose with a twist in my torso so Dave had built a place for me to stand where I could grip a bar above my head. I’d be covered in plaster for as long as it took for it to dry, the room was warm so hopefully the plaster would dry quickly.

I felt less naked in that artist’s warehouse than I did in a bikini on the beach. We found the perfect position for the bronze, marked where my hands and feet needed to be and he proceeded to cover the front of me in plaster from chin to knee. Standing still, breathing shallowly and holding a pose was more difficult than I’d imagined. Although there was ample heat I felt a chill go through me just before the plaster hardened and began to separate from my body. We breathe through our skin more than we could ever imagine.

I rested a few moments while he made sure that the cast would work, took some sips of water and prepared for the back. Dave explained to me that our spines release a lot of heat and that sometimes people don’t feel well with their entire back covered. He asked me to let him know if I thought I might pass out. I assured him I would let him know if I felt weak.

The plaster on my back felt heavier and hotter than the plaster on my front. It went on wet and cold and almost immediately began to warm but not harden. Dave stood behind me and we talked about the process, about his work and about standing absolutely still even when my arms tingled and shook. I felt cold again and then a wave of nausea, I opened my mouth to speak so I could tell Dave that I was worried about fainting and I could hear the words in my head but they didn’t leave my lips.

Strong arms were holding me ever so gently and peeling the cast from my shoulders. I slipped to the ground and lost consciousness but there wasn’t a single crack in the plaster. Both Dave and I were pleased.

Many months later Dave called to let me know he’d cast me in bronze and if I wanted to see it I should feel free to stop by the studio. I remember walking in the doors that day and looking at my bronze. I was bigger and smaller than I’d thought I was. I touched the torso and wondered aloud if it was really me. He explained that it was and I felt strange. I had no real sense of my own size and I didn’t realize that I was beautiful. I knew I was sexy in the way that every young woman is, but I didn’t know that my body was actually beautiful.

I felt like a thief for taking Dave’s money. He’d given me what a thousand hours of therapy could offer no one. He allowed me to see myself as the world sees me. Kindly.

This weekend as I lay in bed with my stomach gurgling as food poisoning stole my day I thought of just one thing. Get on the scale so you can see how much weight you lose. Which is not okay. The reality is that 20 years and a full lifetime later I’m close to the same size. True my breasts require a sturdier bra and there is a small but definite crease on my bottom that hadn’t been there before. It’s unlikely that my stomach will ever be as flat as a board, but it wasn’t flat when I was 22. It was firm, but not flat, because that’s simply not the body I was meant to have. I wasn’t fat, in the absence of illness or pregnancy I’ve never been truly fat. I’ve just been a woman.

I’m searching for that bronze. Five of them were made and sold in the Southwest and I’m determined to find one and own it.

Jane Devin has written a book. It is without a doubt the best book I’ve read in at least a year. I’ve not read the ending so I wouldn’t be able to tell you if it’s one of my top five, but assuming that Jane nailed the ending it will be.

You see, I can’t finish the book slowly enough, let me explain.

In January I came across a post titled Snooki Makes Me Want to Off Myself: My Rant About Simon & Schuster Dipping Into the Celebrity Cesspool. I’m reasonably certain that Annika or Nina shared it with me, and this post made me fall in love with the author’s writing style. I went through her archives and sent her a note begging to be one of the people who could read her book when it was done. I might have even connected her with an agent, but I don’t think that worked out all that well. Too bad for the agent.

Several weeks ago Jane sent me a zip file with her book in it. Because I don’t pay very close attention I started reading it, got a hundred pages in on day one, and sent her an email saying, “My gawd, you really do punish the protagonist.”

Jane replied to me, “It’s a memoir.”

I gasped, because I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading, but I couldn’t not believe it. I’m totally engrossed in the story and Elephant Girl has made me believe in the goodness of people while making me wonder if evil fills vacuums.

The writing is mesmerizing and the path is glorious filled with small victories and larger defeats, but somehow makes me feel alive and empowered. One of my favorite books of all time is The Color of Water, and Elephant Girl reminds me of this so much both in that it’s hopeful without being silly and because of that I’m unwilling to finish the book.

When I read James McBride’s memoir (and tribute to his mother) I stopped reading about thirty pages from the end and started reading a page a day. This way I was able to make the book last longer. I’m 30 pages from the end of Elephant Girl and I absolutely refuse to finish it in a timely manner. I’ll be reading a page a day for the next month. I’m not ready to put it down.

So Jane, this is my apology to you. I’m sorry that I can’t hurry and give you feedback about your book. Thus far it is magnificent and I love it about a thousand times more than I could ever love your blog. I found one typo, but the execution is flawless. Offering you writing tips would be as outrageous as tidying up a Picasso.