Don’t Be Cruel
Years ago I was in love with an uncaring snob. (I called him Bluto in my post, “Kissing Frogs”; not because he was a bully like Popeye’s Bluto or gross like Belushi’s Bluto. He was oblivious Bluto.)
To say our relationship was one-sided is a pathetic understatement. I was in love. He barely remembered my name.
Bluto was very tall, with a posture that hinted of aristocracy, but really signified arrogance rather than birthright. (He smoked a pipe for god’s sake.) He had a PhD in something or other, but worked at an insurance company. Not that I have anything against insurance employees – that’s where half of Connecticut is employed. It’s just that...let’s not wave the PhD flag quite so obnoxiously; you’re a nine-to-fiver just like everybody else, okay? Of course, I never thought that at the time.
I was aware that Bluto wasn’t in love with me. I knew that he called me only when he had nothing else to do. I knew that he had no real interest in my life. (When I started a new job, I saw him that evening at a bar – not a date, naturally – and started to tell him about my first day, and he said…“Sure, great. Let me tell you about this phone call I had.”)
But I was sure that, at any moment, Bluto would realize how marvelous I was. Someday he would suddenly say, “What-Ho” (he wasn’t British, just affected), “I have this wondrous woman right beside me the whole time. She’s smart, funny, and pretty [enough]. I am so in love!”
That didn’t happen.
And I didn’t have a sudden realization that I was being used. Just a gradual awareness that I was wasting my love on a person who just didn’t care.
And now I have that one-sided infatuation again with the same type of uncaring, self-centered, egotistical snob.
Google.
Google cares nothing for my feelings. It throws me crumbs and keeps me hanging on.
Google insults and delights with equal carelessness.
My heart leaps each time Google reports that someone looked for ME. ‘Not Quite Old’ or ‘notquiteold’ or even, ‘Nancy Roman’s Blog’. Someone wants me. And I am in love.
But then of course Google tells me that the next search was for ‘not quite old enough pussy’.
I hate you, Google, and it serves that degenerate right who was looking for child porn and got a post on my mother’s new sweater.
I count up my search terms and hoard them like the tiny stingy compliments that Bluto would occasionally throw my way.
That my number one search term is some variation of ‘notquiteold’ is my consolation.
But my second-most searched term is’ Barnes and Noble’. Yes, I wrote a post about Barnes and Noble – how they have a paltry poetry section right near the restroom – but to get four clicks a day is somehow not right. Well, not somehow…I know why it is not right. Because although I took the poetry/restroom photo, the main shot of B&N is one I lifted. I don’t even remember who I stole it from. There are days when that photo – with the link to my blog – is on the top line if you search “Barnes and Noble” on Google Images. And now my post has had 800 views! I feel guilty and I would like to credit that photo…except that when I tried to find it again, I found six people using it. So I feel bad – but not unbearably bad.
On the other hand, when Google Images isn’t shaming me, it’s promoting me. If you Google-Image ‘Lizzie Borden Mugshot’, my cartoon of Lizzie is on the top line. And that is MY drawing. Original. Ah Google, I love you after all.
And Google sends people my way when they ask for the sweetest things: ‘Advice from Mom’, ‘Hip Yoga Clothes’, ‘1963 Lipstick’, and my favorite ‘Sheep in Field’. I wrote about the sheep farm on my road, and I took quite a lovely photo of some very content sheep. I like to think of some nine-year-old doing his homework and adding my photograph to his project. Please steal my picture, Ethan – I’ll feel so much better about Barnes and Noble.
And once – just once – I got a hit on ‘Beautiful Older Woman’. That alone was worth a month of suffering through ‘Sandals and Pantyhose’.
Yeah, I get a lot of ‘Sandals and Pantyhose’, and ‘Old Lady Brooches’ and ‘Orthopedic Ballet Flats’ and ‘Toe Straighteners’. But I accept my responsibility in this. I wrote about that stuff. And just like I continued to see Bluto even when I found someone else’s panties in his bed… I sometimes deserve what I get. If I don’t want anyone led to me by the term ‘enormous ankles’, then I should not have mentioned my own cankles.
But I ask you, Cruel, Fickle, Mean-Spirited Google –
Do you have to connect to my blog when someone searches:
“I thought I was a good dancer, but I’m not”?
Taking My Own Advice
It’s time.
Time to go to the beach.
In my bathing suit.
Saturday was hot and clear, and so my husband and I got up early. I blew off my Zumba class and put on my new bathing suit. (This is tricky -I need the class in order to wear the swimsuit, but if I go to the class, it will be too late in the day to wear the swimsuit.)
We put the top down on the convertible and went to the beach.
Our little sportscar has a miniscule trunk but we managed to fit: one umbrella, two beach chairs, blanket, cooler, and one big duffel with towels, a change of clothes, sunscreen, and books and magazines. None of the stuff in the duffel will my husband ever use. He won’t go in the water, so doesn’t need the towel. Since he won’t get wet, he won’t need a change of clothes either. He’ll say “Later” on the sunscreen and then fall asleep before he opens his magazine. And of course he’ll come home sunburned (because he will put up the umbrella but won’t lie under it). But it makes him feel better to have all that stuff. Just in case.
All this shit has to be schlepped from the car to the beach, but we’re good at it. Especially because we stop every thirty feet and rest.
Then there’s big decision. What spot on the beach do we take? Being childless, we tend to enjoy watching kids play, but on the other hand, the little monsters can be so LOUD. But if we pick a spot with no kids, then for sure within the hour a family of screamers will park next to us. The best thing to do is to try and fit in between people who have just one kid. Kids don’t yell too much without brothers and sisters.
So my husband spears the umbrella down like Columbus claiming the sand for Spain. I look around. I like what I see. Middle-aged people.
“Perfect,” I say.
I wrote a serious essay two weeks ago – reminding women that they need to enjoy life. “Put on your swimsuit.” I said. “You’ll never be younger or more beautiful than you are right now.”
And these words rang especially true as we all lost wonderful Nora Ephron this week. Nora said, “Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don’t take it off until you’re thirty-four.”
Thank you, Nora. I believe that and I said so.
But practicing what I preach is not always easy.
I want to wear my bathing suit no matter what I look like. But what I want to look like is: GOOD.
This is hard to do amid all the young tan slim beauties in bikinis.
So I don’t want to be near any. (My husband may feel differently.)
I feel much better amongst lumpy thighs and loose upper arms and round bellies. I am glad that the beach is full of imperfect bodies. I’m glad that women are taking my advice and donning their bathing suits and enjoying the beach. But I confess that the petty side of me is glad only if it makes me look better. On the outside, I rejoice when women of all sizes celebrate their bodies. On the inside, I am glad that some of those bodies are older and chubbier than mine.
Mean-spirited it may be, but I felt so good, I walked down to the water. No cover up. And to the bathroom. That pretty much means that I was seen by everyone on the beach. I was tempted however to stop at every blanket and say “I’m sixty-one,” to put my body in context, so to speak.
But then the inevitable happened. A family plunked down their stuff just in front of ours. Mom, teenage daughter, and two young children.
They spoke Russian. I recognize this language well – I’ve watched a lot of Russian mob episodes of “Law and Order.”
My guess – and I always make up a history for everyone I observe – Mom from Russia was one of those mail-order brides. She was now in her mid 40’s. Still attractive, but a little pudgy all around. This is not an ethnic stereotype – just a typical mom stereotype. The teenage daughter was about 18. She was from Mom’s first marriage. The other two kids – a boy around seven and a girl around five – were progeny from Marriage #2. Both husbands are now gone. Mom likes it this way.
It was the eighteen-year-old who caught my attention. (Although now that I think about it, she was most probably seventeen. If she were eighteen, she would have had at least one decal…er, tattoo. Navel piercings don’t count in judging age – I think you can have one as soon as you give up your Dora The Explorer beach towel.
Natasha (as I had already named her) was skinny. Really skinny. She showed up in a short ruffled skirt and her baby sister’s undershirt. I was also wearing a little skirt (my tankini is skirted, as befits my age, but no flounce, also befitting my age) and I thought for a moment that she had a tankini too. Then she peeled off her outer layer.
Underneath was the tiniest of bikinis like clear merlot. And beautiful, perfect skin. Lightly tanned.
She was gorgeous. And sullen. But then again she was a teenager. I don’t understand Russian, but I am quite sure she was rude to her mother.
Full of herself, I thought. Out to flaunt her loveliness to all of us ordinary humans. God, I hate young people.
But then the weirdest thing happened.
Natasha turned to lie on her back and I saw that the highest part of her was her jutting hips.
I know someone who had hips like that. Me. I had hips like that. Bony hips.
And I remembered that at seventeen, I had a bikini too. But I wasn’t flaunting my youth. I was trying to seem like a normal teenager. When what I really thought I was… was: Hideous.
If I want women to celebrate their bodies, why wouldn’t I want this girl to rejoice in her loveliness? I wish I had known back then how beautiful I was. I was suddenly certain that Natasha was as self-conscious and insecure now as I was back then.
And I said a little apology to Natasha.
In my mind, of course… why would I ever apologize to a teenager?
Mirror, Mirror
Yesterday, I went to my mother’s for our weekly dinner together.
It’s my treat, and we alternate between two of her favorite meals – McDonald’s and Subway. This time she chose McDonald’s. Not good for my diet, but certainly okay for my budget. I bought two McDoubles (boy, do I hate those silly names) and one small fries to share. Total: $3.39. My mother is a cheap date.
Although we sit at her kitchen table to eat our cheap burgers, I usually dress up a little on the night I go over to Mom’s. I like to wear something special, including cool shoes and a pretty necklace or bracelet. And I make sure my hair and makeup look good. My mother is pleased if I look nice. I want her to think she raised me well – I’m a job done right.
With my burgers nice and warm via the passenger side seat-warmer, when I stop at the light near her house I check my makeup in the visor mirror.
I look great.
Then it dawned on me.
I always look great in the car mirror. Every time I snap that visor down, this soft pretty image looks back at me. Even the side-view mirror. When my husband drives the convertible, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the side-view mirror – with the sun on me and the wind whipping my hair – I like what I see.
What is it about car mirrors that give me such a good reflection? The natural lighting? No. I like my reflection at night too. Is there some kind of distortion? Maybe only being able to see a seven-inch band of your face is a flattering way to look at yourself.
Certainly there are good mirrors and bad mirrors. The ladies’ room mirror at work is really bad. Unless I have had my color done the day before, I have an inch of gray roots. Which matches the gray shadows beneath my weirdly puffy eyes. And I don’t want to even think about the marionette lines from nose to mouth. I’ve warned my co-workers about that mirror. “Don’t look when you go in there,” I say.
Then there are mirrors that I know are deliberately distorted. I’m fifteen pounds thinner in the dressing room at TJ Maxx. And although I’m aware of it, it still makes me buy more shit there than I should. (And so more returns – after I try it on at home and ask myself, ‘What was I thinking?’)
And speaking of trying stuff on at home, I shopped a long time for the full length mirror in my closet. I look good in that mirror. But not too good. I want to be able to fix myself before I leave the house.
So if there are good mirrors and bad mirrors, how do I know what I really look like? Am I the tired wreck in the office ladies’ room? Or the radiant-skinned young beauty in the car? How do I know?
Photos are no help. I point the camera at myself and click away. One photo is wretched, the next is wonderful. And I haven’t moved, except for my finger on the shutter.
I do know one thing about photographs. Looking back at old pictures, I was a lot prettier and thinner than I thought I was.
I’m sixty-one years old and I’ve just realized I don’t know what I look like.
I think I will go with my mother’s opinion. She thinks I’m gorgeous. And a snappy dresser.
Oh, The Irony!
Yes, my husband complained about the hardships of preparing a sandwich, while I was cooking dinner. (“Let’s Put It In Context“)
But writing about that little incident reminded me that my husband isn’t alone in failing to recognize bad timing.
Let’s go back a few years… forty to be exact.
(Oh yeah, I still remember. It’s a scientific fact the tiniest little hurts go into a special place in a female brain that saves them forever.)
My last year of college.
I lived in a dorm that many years earlier had been a sorority house. The building was a bit bedraggled, but there was a vestige from the sorority days that was rare and wondrous. We were in possession of a fabulous cook.
Our cook made Lobster Newburg for lunch. Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding was standard fare for dinner. You wouldn’t find me going out for pizza. (I had no money, but that’s not the point.)
Most kids gain weight in college because no one supervises how much junk food they are eating. I gained weight in college because, although not a member of any sorority, I had joined one organization – The Clean-Plate Club.
I never missed a meal.
Until one day. I stayed late after my Mark Twain class (the professor was cute in that elbow-patched way), and I missed lunch. That had never happened. I ran back to the dorm as fast as my wooden hippie clogs could go without shooting them off as dangerous projectiles.
Kids were finishing up in the dining room, but the food had already been cleared. I went into the kitchen and asked our crazy but talented chef if there was anything left. There was not, but she made me a sandwich, which I devoured right there in the kitchen. (I’m a fast eater. I think it stems from my oldest sister always wanting to ‘neaten up’ my ice cream cone.)
The chef had more bad news. Not only had she made cheeseburger clubs for lunch (my favorite), she had made brownies for dessert. And they were gone too.
“But here,” she said, “Hold out your hand.” And she poured me a good handful of walnuts.
Back in the dining room, there were a few stragglers still hanging around, including my friend Franny and her boyfriend.
I sat down with them and ate my walnuts.
“Geez, Nancy,” Fran said, “Do you know how many calories there are in those walnuts?”
And she picked up her books and went off to class.
I was embarrassed and guilt-ridden. As I said, I had never missed a meal that whole year. And I had gained weight. My friend was telling me that I was getting fat. Yikes.
(Yes, I had gained weight. I had gone from a size 5 to a size 7.)
God, I felt terrible. Fran was so slim and gorgeous. She had no ass at all. And she had a tremendous boyfriend. Whereas I had a tremendous ass and no boyfriend at all.
Still sitting across from me, Fran’s tremendous boyfriend laughed.
“Ironic,” he said, and I was humiliated yet again by his laughter.
Until he explained:
“I don’t think Franny realized she was brushing off her brownie crumbs when she said that.”
1974. Getting fat on walnuts.
Let’s Put It In Context
Okay, I confessed to a few tiny little imperfections in my wifely role (“Bad Wife“).
Which reminds me of the only joke my very serious mother-in-law ever told me:
Several months into a very happy honeymoon, one morning the husband says to his wife,
“Honey, I love you so much. But now that we have been married for a little while, could I share with you a couple of your little faults?”
“No, Dear,” the wife answers. “Because if it wasn’t for those little faults, I would have been able to get a much better husband.”
##
Back to the subject:
Over these last several months, I’ve written quite a few times about my sweet husband. And everyone just loves him.
“What a great guy!” “He’s a keeper!” “You’re so lucky!”
All true.
However.
Lest you start to believe that my husband is perfect, and your husband is …..well…unfortunate; let me tell you three little incidents from just this week.
1.
He’s dieting. And he’s trying really hard – to very good results, I might add.
And two days ago, I come home from work and start dinner. As I am preparing a meal to fit his diet – hamburg patties, mashed sweet potatoes, and zucchini, he tells me that his diet is difficult.
“It’s a pain in the ass,” he says, “making meals on this diet plan.”
“So what did you make for lunch?” I say as I mash the potatoes,and saute the zucchini, and turn the burgers.
“A sandwich,” he answers.
2.
I had a big meeting at work this week.
I put in a lot of hours preparing for it. And it went extremely well. I came home pumped.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
So I started to tell him all about it.
Halfway through my story, he interrupted with a little “um- mmm” of understanding.
Only it wasn’t quite that. It was a snore.
3.
We had a terrible thunderstorm Friday afternoon. We lost power about 5:00PM.
We live out in the country, and my talented husband installed a generator. It’s a huge generator, and so lots of our necessities (like toilets) keep going even in an outage. But we have a big house and lots of ‘stuff’, so not everything runs.
Power was still out Saturday morning.
Our stovetop is propane anyway, so I made some poached eggs. My husband salted his eggs, but not much salt came out of the shaker.
“This is a little clogged,” he remarked.
I said, “Yeah, it’s probably because it’s hot and humid in here with no air conditioning.”
“No air-conditioning?” he howled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
##
Now don’t you feel a lot better about your husband?
Bad Wife
When I was a little girl, I lived in a pretty crowded house. Mom and Dad, two sisters, one brother, and Grandma – all in a two bedroom apartment, in a two-family house with my cousins downstairs. Privacy was rare.
Sooner or later (I think when my brother doing his math homework in his crib), Dad finished a little attic apartment for Grandma, and she moved upstairs. The best thing about Grandma’s place was the little enclosed staircase constructed as an emergency exit. Like Nancy Drew’s hidden staircase. You could access the steps from the back of Grandma’s bedroom closet, and they ended up on our back porch.
I quickly found a way to pry up the inside latch on the porch door, so I could secretly access those stairs. I’d sit there in the dry heat or freezing cold. A bit of light filtered in and the dust would dance around. It was quiet. I was alone. I was very happy there.
When I was a teenager we moved to a nice-sized house, and I had a room of my own.
My roommate in college traveled quite a bit, and I had more privacy than most dorms residents. Not too bad. But after one year post-college with a difficult (fussy, but not in an endearing way) roommate, I moved to a place of my own.
And I was on my own for the next fifteen years.
Then I acquired a husband.
After so many years alone, it wasn’t easy. I kept waiting for him to go home. But he was home.
But I love him, and I got used to it.
I am an excellent wife. A saint really, as I have recounted numerous times.
But there are some bits about cohabitation that are just not my favorite bits.
– Like breathing.
Specifically, I have never liked the feeling of someone else’s breath on my skin. I remember a teenage boyfriend breathing gently in my ear, hoping to get me in the mood. I got in the mood to go home. Don’t get me wrong, I love the feeling of my husband’s big warm strong body next to me in bed. I just don’t like that little draft. (That goes for you too, Merlin. Cat breath is not welcome.)
– Like dirty laundry.
I don’t like touching someone else’s dirty clothes. Luckily, my husband does his own laundry. (I hate bleach; he hates fabric softener. A match made in separate-load-heaven, if you ask me.) But sorting sort of grosses me out. So, last year, as we hit our twentieth anniversary, I treated myself to my own hamper. “Why do we need this?” he asked. “So you don’t accidentally bleach my underwear,” I said. (and so I don’t have to touch yours, I didn’t say.)
-Like channel-surfing.
I don’t like anyone else to control the remote. If I feel like watching three programs at once, that’s because I can multi-task. Other people channel surf because they have no attention span. And some (who shall be nameless) people’s timing is so awful that we are channel surfing from commercial to commercial.
And while I am at it… I don’t like comments, either, when I am watching a show. I was shushing folks in the movies when I was still in kindergarten.
-Like body sounds.
I don’t care for throat-clearing, stomach growling, nose-blowing, or farts. It’s natural, I know. Cut it out.
I also don’t like sharing my own body sounds. I am as close to perfect as a woman can get, but I do have one tiny bad habit. I crack my knuckles. When I go to bed at night, I like to give every one of my finger joints and nice relaxing pop. Having someone in bed with me puts a crimp in my crimping.
-Like illness.
I know, I know. I said, “In sickness and in health”.
The thing is… I didn’t really mean it.
I don’t have any patience for someone else’s flu, or headache, or sprained ankle. And believe me, I tried. I actually was in nurses’ training for a semester after high school. I was bored. And if you’re sick, I’m still bored. And annoyed.
When I am sick, I like to be alone. I crawl into bed and hibernate until I emerge all better. If I just have a cold, and have to work anyway, I take some medicine, and keep a low profile.
But some people (also nameless) want sympathy. Boy, have you come to the wrong place.
I’m not talking life-threatening illness. I just mean the trivial aches and pains that we all occasionally have to live with. Live with it.
Don’t misunderstand.
I love my husband. I love marriage. I love companionship. I love intimacy.
But just not all the intimacy.
Like breathing.
Yuck.
I Hope There Are Windows In Heaven.
When I was young, my father loved cigars.
A while ago, I wrote about Dad smoking cigars in the car (“Riding In The Car with Daddy”). I sat up front between my father and my mother – basically because my sisters would not sit next to me. I was nauseated most of the time. And nobody ever attributed this to my dad’s cigars. They just figured I was a puker.
Well, okay, this was sort of true. I still can’t sit in a car going backwards (even the length of a driveway) without my stomach turning over. And until recently, I used to go to New York once a week on business. I’d take the train. God forbid I didn’t get a forward-facing seat. Of course, as I turned greenish, the gentleman opposite me would often generously volunteer to switch. Wasn’t that sweet?
And forget amusement parks. I am okay with skeeball – that’s about it.
But I think my motion sickness is a Pavlovian response to all those years in the car with Daddy. All I need is to feel vehicular momentum and my body reacts: ‘Okay’, my autonomic nervous system says, ‘Vehicle in motion = Let’s get queasy.’
After all, the other stimuli elicits the same response. ‘Cigar smell = Let’s throw up’.
But the cigar response is more complex. Sure the waves of nausea are like the incoming tide. But there’s also another beachy reaction – Sheer delight.
To this day, the smell of a cigar fills the air with images of my father (along with the stinky smoke).
My mother always hated cleaning ashtrays. Her solution was easy – she never put any out. Dad would sit and watch TV in the evening, with his hand cupped under the cigar.
And there would often be a half-smoked cigar perched on the edge of the end-table near his chair, or on the lip of the sink. “Don’t throw that away,” he’d say. “I’m going to finish it later.” And so the unsightly (but not too unsightly – he didn’t chew the end) would sit, patiently waiting for the next evening.
(I think he got that habit of saving his stogie from his old relative – not an uncle – I’m not sure how exactly we were related – but this old guy would leave his cigar perched on the step at the door of our church. He’d pick it up after Mass.)
When I was a teenager, I remember my mother wanting to hang some new sconces on either side of the picture window in the living room. My father put up the first one by measuring the distance from the window with his cigar. He popped back into the den for a few minutes to check the game. Then he went about putting up the second sconce also by measuring with his cigar. “But your cigar is shorter now, ” complained my mother. “Don’t worry,” said my father, “I’m allowing for the ash.”
When I was in college – I took my first big trip. I flew down to Mexico. (my first plane trip, and I did it alone. To another country! And I didn’t throw up on the plane – I waited till 2:00 AM at the hotel. Pretty good, I still think.) Anyway, I had a high school friend at the University in Mexico, and we met up and went to Acapulco for the cheapest Christmas Break adventure ever experienced.
Cuban cigars, though contraband in the U.S., were available in Mexico. And I bought my dad one. One. It cost the equivalent of six dollars. Which was about 30% of what I spent that whole week. Given the exchange rate at the time, I think the price on the label was about $40.00… this was what I liked best about the cigar. When I gave it to my Dad, he was impressed. “I’m going to save this and smoke it at your wedding.”
I didn’t get married right after college. I waited a few years. Like twenty.
And at my reception, my Dad took from his pocket the twenty-year-old Cuban cigar and lit up. We practically had to evacuate. But it was one of the highlights of my day.
As my father grew older, he cut down on his cigars, and eventually in his old age, he gave them up completely.
I’d like to say I miss them – but honestly…no.
But I do miss Dad.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. I hope there are lots of cigars in heaven.
But for God’s sake… (LITERALLY, Dad!):
Open a window.
My Dad and Me on my wedding day. Behind my head is the cigar-aligned sconce.
Closet Miracles
God wants me to have lots and lots of clothes.
He has proven this to me repeatedly.
(I am tempted to say ‘She’ when I refer to God, especially as related to fashion. But I know better. I have been certain for a long time that God is male. How do I know? Periods. Let’s face it, if God were a woman, She would have come up with a more convenient fertility technique than menstrual cycles. Every month? For about forty years? Come on.)
Anyway, God wants to me have lots and lots of clothes.
There are the obvious reasons, of course:
– He gave me exquisite fashion sense, and an infallible talent for choosing just the right cami for the right cardigan.
– He gave me a nice-sized disposable income.
– He gave me a husband who built me a closet the size of Rhode Island. (This was reciprocal – he got a garage the size of Vermont.)
And just this week, God performed actual miracles as proof of His love.
His love of my wardrobe.
Over the past few months, I bought several new jeans, cardigans, and workout clothes, so my closet is a little tight. Even Rhode Island can get congested in high season.
(I also bought four new swimsuit pieces – two tankini tops and a panty bottom and a skirt bottom – but I am proud to report that they don’t take up quite as much room as I feared they would.)
So I decided it might be time for a “purge”. Yes it’s closet-cleaning time.
I took out two large garbage bags and started on the pants side of my closet.
And that’s when the miracles started happening.
Everything I tried on was fabulous.
Of course I know that if I bought it, it must have been wonderful at one time. But I was sure some things wouldn’t fit, and some things would be out-of-style, and some stuff just too worn out.
But it was all perfect.
Some pants that I thought would be too big fit well. This would have been disconcerting, except that the pants I thought would be too small also fit great.
And the dated wide-leg corduroys looked funky and cute.
I found elastic waist pants that would make good jammies now.
And ski pants that were so warm and comfy, they’d be perfect for the next time I got the flu.
And then the biggest miracle of all:
Two years ago I bought an amazing pair of gray jeans. I live in a touristy town in Connecticut, and I bought them in the shop where tourists buy stuff, not locals. Which means they were wildly expensive. (Because it is the duty of a “destination” locale to soak the intruders serve the wealthy visitors.) These jeans were the best jeans I have ever purchased. Perfect.
Until about two months later, when I got this big grease stain on the thigh. (I should not eat in expensive clothes. I know better. I didn’t eat one bite at my wedding.) I felt horrible. But these pants were so pricey…how could I just throw them away? So I hung them in the back of my closet.
And Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
I put on the pricey pants and there was no more grease stain. Anywhere. I searched the thigh where the stain had been. Then I searched the other thigh – just in case the stain had migrated over time. Stains can travel. I checked the seat. I turned on an extra light. These pants are perfect.
God healed the grease!
I had nothing to throw away.
My garbage bags are still empty.
And my closet is filled.
Just the way God wants it.
Worth Saving. They’ll be back in style real soon.
Swimsuits. Seriously.
I described my last post – Sharing Swimsuit Secrets – as serious. But as usual, it was silly.
However, I do have something serious I want to say on the subject. There will be silly stuff in here – I can’t help myself – but actually, this is one of the most earnest little essays I’ve ever written.
Several years ago, my husband and I threw ourselves a party. We had spent a good portion of our married life building our dream house, and we wanted to share it with everyone we ever met. So we dragged out our old wedding invitation list, added it to our Christmas card list, and had a huge summer picnic.
In our backyard we have a hot tub. It’s a really nice hot tub (it sort of fell into our tired, house-building little laps), and it can accommodate about a dozen relaxing bodies.
So on our invitations to our picnic, I reminded everyone that we have this fabulous hot tub – and that they should all bring their bathing suits.
But no one did.
I asked my husband’s cousin why she didn’t bring her swimsuit, and she said, “It’s too embarrassing at my age to be seen in my bathing suit.” And my other friends and relatives all nodded emphatically.
Let’s flashback even further.
Eighteen years ago, my husband and I went on a vacation to Cancun. It was sort of a delayed honeymoon, as we didn’t have much money when we got married a few years earlier. Mexico was amazing: Beautiful beaches, fabulous food, wonderful weather.
It was truly a perfect vacation.
Until I got home and had my photographs developed. (Yeah, this was before digital. You couldn’t see whether you had a good time or not until you got home.)
Oh my God, I was so fat.
My thighs were hideous.
I hid the photos. (I hid them really well…I still can’t find them.)
But here’s what I learned in the subsequent years: That I would give anything now to look like I did back then. I wasn’t hideous. I was gorgeous.
Because it was who I was then.
And I’m gorgeous right now, because this is where I am now.
To my dear cousin who’s embarrassed to be seen in her bathing suit, I say:
“Right now is the best you will ever look. Because tomorrow, you’ll be older.”
I’ve been working very hard lately to get fit and look young. But however successful I am, I’ll never look 21. Or ever 41. I’m 61. And this is the youngest I will be. Tomorrow I’ll be older.
So even if you are not fit and not trying to be: Here’s my serious advice.
Put on your swimsuit anyway.
Stroll on the beach. Lounge by the hotel pool. Get in that hot tub.
Enjoy the fact that you are the youngest and most beautiful you’ll ever be. Right this moment.
You’ll never be younger.
Enjoy your beauty.
Good … Better … Best?
Shhh…I’m Sharing Secrets For Successful Swimsuit Shopping
And I sell seashells by the seashore.
But seriously; this is serious stuff.
Shopping can be fun. Bathing suit shopping – not so much.
That’s why I haven’t shopped for a new swimsuit for six years.
So imagine my surprise that I have just endured this process and I am still partially sane.
And I am generously sharing my secret.
I started my swimsuit search two weeks ago by spending several hundred hours in internet research. I thought it would make sense to see what options I had…styles, brands, prices.
This is not my secret. Except to advise you not to do this. I read sixteen thousand reviews. Bleeding colors. Poorly made. Stretches when wet. See through. Weird bra. Too long. Too Short. And mostly – TOO SMALL.
After looking for several days, the satanic web-stalker then followed me wherever I went. Words With Friends, Yoga philosophy, and political editorials were (and still are) decorated with bathing suits. They’ll probably still be lurking around in November.
I did make one decision based on my web searches though. I decided to stick with the same style I have worn for the last six years. What is rather inanely called a Tankini. Separates that meet in the middle. No bikini for me. My gallbladder scars are tiny but my belly is not.
For you men (I have at least two males readers) who are now confused: put on your sleeveless undershirt and your underpants. You are now wearing a tankini.
I like this style because I can choose a top and a bottom separately. Separates work very well for me considering my top and my bottom were certainly on separate people in a previous incarnation.
Just before I headed out to shop, my mother told me a story.
Not long after they retired, my parents went south for a little vacation. On one particularly nice day, they decided to spend some time at the hotel’s pool. My mother was lounging by the pool and a young woman walked by. She froze – completely stricken – in front of my mother. She was wearing the same bathing suit as my sixty-three-year-old mom.
My mother laughed as she related this moment. “That young girl must have thrown away that suit the same day!”
The thought that I am close to the same age now as my mother was then, and that I could possibly cause some young skinny girl to cry…well…it cheered me right up. I cranked up my James Taylor CD and drove to the store.
I decided to shop at a big store known for its eternal ‘specials’.
The back of the store had been converted to a huge swimsuit department. All the suits were half-price, and there were racks and racks of Juniors, Misses and Plus all jumbled together. If one suit was a size six, the next one was a 24W.
Bathing suits run small. It’s like the manufacturers want to make sure you feel as rotten as possible. As if standing untanned under fluorescent lighting in bulge-revealing skimpy material isn’t enough. They want to make you need a really big size too.
And that’s when it hit me.
The secret of successful swimsuit shopping.
I went into the dressing room with suits three sizes too big.
And I worked my way down.
I felt great.
And I bought TWO tops and TWO bottoms – in sizes much smaller than my original selections.
I’m ready to ruin a teenager’s day.
I hope her boyfriend sees me too.
I need a smaller size!
notquiteold 