“Casey!” I shouted. “We can’t go.” My lanky (and slightly alarmed) heartbreaker was across the hall in a heartbeat.138
“Why not?”
“I have nothing to wear,” I whined.
He looked at the pile of clothes at my feet and on the bed, spilling out of the drawers, and draped over the chair. And he started to laugh. “Mom, we can’t go ’cause I’m grounding you for this room.”
“I know, I know,” I replied, embarrassed at behaving like a child in front of my suddenly very mature firstborn child. “All this stuff and no concert T-shirts!”
I looked up to see him looking down at me, slowly shaking his head, and pulling at his shirt. His New York Giants shirt. “Mom,” he said quietly, “I don’t have a concert T-shirt to wear, either. This is my first concert.”
Earth to Susan. It might have been all about you and your “No Nukes” tank top twenty-five years ago, but once the plus sign turned pink, that show closed forever. Now it’s all about Facebook, and iTunes, and Nazi Zombies, and some singer named Avril Lavigne whose first name I’m totally convinced is a typo, and of course Kevin, Nick, and Joe. Snap out of it, woman, and get your kid to the concert!
He was still standing there, staring at me. “Mom,” he prodded, “you’re being ridiculous. We gotta get going.” No, no, I thought. I am not being ridiculous. I am getting dressed and I am taking my son to see the Jonas Brothers, to experience the magic of live, loud music, to begin his descent, like his mother and father before him, into rock’n’-roll-induced deafness. And to purchase his first shamefully overpriced concert T-shirt.
I am not being ridiculous. I am being the world’s second-best mom. And I’m buying myself a little something to celebrate that fact when I get there.
At my age, it won’t be a belly shirt or a tank top. But if anybody’s hawking Jonas Brothers burkas, I’m so stocking up.
Chapter Twenty-six
SWAN LAKE? NOT SO MUCH. BUT SWAN POND SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT.
Crazy, isn’t it? I mean, why would a woman who has a hate/hate relationship with hens suddenly have a hankering for waterfowl? My guess is that it has everything to do with the water portion of the word waterfowl. I love the water. For starters, I’m a Pisces. You know, the sign with the two fish swimming in different directions. I like to think one is headed toward the Jersey shore,139 the other to a lake somewhere. And if there were a third, I swear it would be pointed toward a pond. Sure, there are other kinds of bodies of water, but since ponds140 are all I’ve got here at Nate’s Place, ponds are what I’m going with.141
Both our ponds are filled with fish and box turtles and toads, and complemented with an impressive assortment of bugs and, of course, black snakes.142 So as far as I’m concerned, they’re primed for water poultry, pretty water poultry like swans and ducks, and the geese that’ll probably swoop in and poop all over the place143 once word gets out it’s “game on” for water game here at our house.
Of course, just because I want swans and ducks and am okay with geese doesn’t mean they’ll be okay with me. In fact, if they call ahead to the hens and run a reference check, they might choose not to waddle around here at all. And that means that, of late, I’ve tried to get a little chummier with the chickens.
The other day I braved the humidity to give them fresh hay in their favorite laying box (you know, the planter on my front porch where they continue to blow me away with their mind-boggling output of barely an egg a week each). Then I combed the garden and the crisper drawer144 for dead and nearly dead veggies, which I cut up (along with a little roast beef and salami so they’d see whose side I’m really on) and topped off with a sprinkling of Craisins, crumbled Triscuits and Cheez-Its, and bits of yummy French bread. And then, as if this gourmet creation weren’t already worthy of a Twenty-one Feed Bags of Scratch salute, I served it with a nice big bowl of ice- cold FIJI water. That’s right. None of that crap out of the hose for my hens!
Did I gain their trust? Win them over to the Suzy side? Are you insane? It was like throwing pearls before poultry. Not five minutes after I served the meal of the year to our snotty bunch of banties, I overheard one of the fetid brats on her cell ranting about how you just can’t trust “the one with the yellow head and the high heels.” That does it. No more designer water for that little diva, and I’m taking all of our fowl off our family plan, too.
Of course, if she convinced the two trumpeter swans and four white-crested ducks I ordered to do their swimming someplace else, I’m really going to be ticked (and she’s going to be teriyaki-ed 145). I was joking about the ice-cream parlor and the pot dealer, but I was serious about wanting to give the ponds a sort of Central Park–meets–Washington Square feel. If the waterfowl don’t show, what am I going to tell the homeless guys I bused in to play chess and drink gin out of brown bags all day? I can’t expect them to make do with just the mime.
And I can’t make do with just black snakes, toads, big fish, and little guppies in my overgrown mud puddles. I need elegant, long-necked swans and ducks with fluffy white plumes, and yes, even perpetually crapping Canada geese, and if I have to step up the sucking up to get them, then so be it.
So, hens, here’s the deal. I’m bringing in a Sabrett stand and a pretzel vendor, and I’ve reconsidered my position on the ice-cream parlor,146 too. You’re going to be fat, happy, and high from brain freeze. And that’s because you’re going to be bunking with the waterfowl in a veritable amusement park for poultry.
Beats the heck out of that window box, huh?
There’s just one catch. You need to pick up the phone and take back all that smack you said about me. I want those ducks and swans here stat. And believe me, you want them, too.
Get in the way of my Washington Square–ing and Central Park–ing this place up, and I’ll have to find something else to do. I already exercise and read, tickle the ivories, scrapbook, and occasionally play with my camera. So to my way of thinking, that leaves finally learning to speak Italian,147 or learning to cook Italian. After all, I’m just one meal away from being able to go a whole week without doubles. And I’d be happy to practice on every last one of you malcontents if it means eventually making the perfect chicken marsala.148
Tell Me You’re Kidding with the Cankles
TO: Friends and family
FR: [email protected]
Date:Wednesday, 3:15 p.m.
Subject: Fit to be tied
I have a confession to make. I may inflict bodily harm on whoever came up with “Cankle Awareness Month.”
To the best of my knowledge, it originated at Gold’s Gym, and my guess is that it was the brainchild of some promotion-seeking sycophant in the marketing department. And I know promotion-seeking sycophants. Hell, I was a promotion-seeking sycophant. In several marketing departments.
And I can just imagine how the meeting went.
“Okay. We’ve maxed out the muffin top and moob scare stuff, and Dimpled Thigh Days don’t start until September. Third-quarter membership sales are slumping. We need to do something now! I hate to say it, people, but the situation calls . . . for the cankle.”
Thanks, Gold’s.That’s just what we women need.Yet another body part to pick at, obsess over, and feel inferior for.
“It’s so unfair, Francine. I’ve got chunky ankles and a flat chest. Do you think standing on my head would help?”
No, but a smack to the skull of the guy who gave us this campaign would work wonders. And it had better be a guy. Because, ladies, if we’re helping perpetuate this self-loathing in any way, we’re lost.
Look, I’m not anti-Gold’s, and having spent the better part of my career as an advertising copywriter, I’m the first person who’ll try to sell you something.149 But I’m tired of these ploys that play on body image. I already know I’ll never have legs like Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, or even Maggy and Molly, the two purebred Clydesdales that call Nate’s Place home and that could give the Rockettes a run for their money. But up until I l
ogged on to the Internet this morning, I was okay with it. I could wear a skirt, or shorts, or go barefoot on the beach without a shot of liquid courage with my lunch. Or breakfast.
But now?
Now I’m considering a pair of Frye Billy Pull Ons or Ugg Classic Talls to hide my tree trunks.And that makes me wonder: Maybe Gold’s is in cahoots with boot manufacturers.You know, I have seen an awful lot of women pairing winter footwear with sundresses this season.
Of course, the most fitting thing about Cankle Awareness Month is that there’s nothing Gold’s or any fitness center can do to cure the condition. In fact, the only exercise that really works is one you can do wherever there’s a stair. Simply dip your heels, then come up onto the balls of your feet. It’s easy, fabulously convenient, and best of all, it’s free.
So why join the gym, particularly one that woos you by making fun of your full ankles? Take the fee and put it toward boxing gloves and a bag. That’s what I’m going to do. It’s a great way to get in shape and work out my anger issues. Which makes it cheaper than (more) therapy, and a whole lot safer for that promotion-seeking sycophant in Gold’s marketing department.
Love,
Susan
Chapter Twenty-seven
FORBIDDEN IN FAUQUIER
“I have bursts of being a lady, but it doesn’t last long.”
—SHELLEY WINTERS
Knowing what I do now, it was bound to happen. And if I’d kept my eyes open and truly been the observant, opinionated chronicler of life in the backcountry that I claim to be, I would have seen it coming. But I didn’t. I never saw the signs or read the tea leaves. Never noticed the writing on the barn wall or that my local library, while bursting with every single book on today’s bestseller lists as well as the latest issues of Newsweek, Time, Psychology Today, Popular Science, and Better Homes and Gardens, had just one old (I’m talking Christie Brinkley–on-the-coverand-actual-cigarette-ads-inside old) copy of Cosmopolitan on its magazine rack, and that torn, dog-eared tome was available only occasionally. Where it would disappear to, I don’t know. Maybe they’d loan it to one of the other two libraries in the county, or maybe somebody writing a tellall about the cast of The Breakfast Club or a thesis on the rise and fall of Love’s Baby Soft and Bonne Bell Lip Smackers borrowed it for research purposes. All I know is that sometimes it was there, and sometimes it wasn’t. If I’d given it a moment’s thought, it might have dawned on me that a lone, decrepit copy of Cosmo most likely meant folks found its content crude, distasteful, even downright vulgar. And if I’d realized that, I’d have known without a doubt that my days as a local columnist were numbered. Because frankly, if you’re not a fan of Helen Gurley Brown’s baby, it’s almost guaranteed you’re going to hate my stuff.
But, busy as I was tracking the here-today, hidden-tomorrow routine of the aforementioned ancient copy of my favorite racy read, I never did stop to consider its deeper meaning. And as a result, the counterfeit farm girl has real embarrassing news. I’ve been banned in Boston. Or, more accurately, forbidden in Fauquier.
Time was when my column ran in the Fauquier County weekend paper almost every weekend. And then every other weekend. And then every three weekends. And then once a month. And then, maybe, every six weeks or so. And then, well, not at all.
In fact, one weekend there was a column in the paper about me penned by my dear friend Jenn, the aforementioned twenty-first-century Renaissance woman who sews, knits, gardens, cans, cooks from scratch, owns her own set of Craftsman tools, shops all year for Christmas gifts, which means that while the rest of us are still running around, she’s done wrapping, fixes her own car (with the Craftsman stuff, of course), changes her own blown fuses, air-conditioning filters, and stripped washers (while doing the wash, I should add), and oh, yes, just happens to be a wonderful writer. But to my way of thinking, it’s just not the same as seeing a piece by me.
“Suz, who cares? It’s the local paper,” said Hem, adding insult to injury by staying glued to a copy while giving me his little pep talk.
“I care,” I whined. I sipped my coffee and glanced at Jenn’s sweet, smiling face staring up at me from her hysterical story about a birthday dinner she and several of my girlfriends gave me. It was such a great night. We laughed and ate and drank mojitos and too much wine. Okay, I drank too much wine and then behaved questionably with a huge barbecue fork. I was lucky it didn’t make the paper I can’t seem to make. Oh, wait; it did. Damn.
“They used to like me,” I moaned. “Why don’t they like me?”
“Maybe they’re giving other people a shot. Relax. I’m sure they’ll run your stuff again.”
“They haven’t run anything in ages! Why didn’t you tell me my new stuff sucks?”
Hem stopped reading and looked at me over his glasses. “And now it’s my fault.”
“No. It’s just—”
He cut me off. “Your new stuff’s fine. It’s funny.” He paused. “It’s not you, okay? It’s not personal. It’s business. Remember business?”
I shrugged. “The editor doesn’t even respond to my e-mails.”
“Don’t do it, Suz.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t let this paralyze you.” He folded up the paper, added it to the pile on the porch, and put on his Giants cap. “It doesn’t matter what I say,” he continued, bending to give me a quick kiss. “You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of therapy, Suz, and you still rival Richard Lewis for who has less self-esteem.”
“I only wish I had as little self-esteem as Richard Lewis,” I replied, half laughing, half crying. “Look at how successful he is! Seriously. I’m a published author and I can’t get picked up in my own paper? It means I suck. Right? I knew it. I suck.”
“Paralyze, paralyze, paralyze.” Hem teased, shaking his head and walking out the back door toward the tractor and a day spent blissfully Bush Hogging and not wondering why the hay has it in for him.
“That’s not going to happen,” I shouted, knowing full well it already had. Even as I said the words, I felt that big pause button in my little blond brain go off and that was it.
You know the expression “Pride comes before a fall”? It’s true. And right before pride comes crippling insecurity and the fervent hope that when you fall, you’re killed on impact. ’Cause writer’s block is a bitch to live with.
It’s been at least four weeks now and I still cannot string two words together, let alone two sentences. And nothing, I repeat, nothing I write is the least bit funny.
At this point I have tried several methods to bust my block. For starters, I stopped reading the local paper. This resulted in my not knowing about a terrific sale at one of my favorite shops; the opening of a new restaurant that I intend to try on my next birthday, as I understand that 1) the house chardonnay is J. Lohr and 2) there isn’t a barbecue fork within fifteen miles; and the fact that the kids’ schools were closed on a day I sent them, or at least I thought they went, so where they spent seven hours and ate lunch is something I really must look into. And I will. As soon as I write something funny.
I also tried changing when and where I write. For a while, instead of writing at five in the morning at my desk, I was writing—or, more accurately, attempting to write—at four in the afternoon in one of the Adirondack chairs we have in our backyard. But writing in the company of the chickens and the goats and the “girls” in the great outdoors, at the end of the day, made me want a drink. Which in turn made me drunk. This was great because for a short while I was sure I was Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and Richard Lewis funny until one morning when I reread what I wrote. And then I cracked open a fresh bottle of Baileys, put two shots in my coffee, sucked it down, and chased it with two more. Not good. And definitely not funny.
I also bought several books of prompts: ideas designed to help writers get the creative juices, and hopefully words, flowing. “Write about lust,” one said. I’m a wife, mom, advertising copywriter
, columnist (at least, I used to be), PTO president, and unlikely gym teacher. I have laundry to do, a house to clean, dinner to make, and homework to oversee. I have ads to write, clients to call, pieces to post, and lesson plans to convince Cuyler to come up with (for a fee, of course). Unless they mean lust for sleep, servants, or a little cottage on the water to which only I have a key, I’m unsure I have any experience with the topic.
“Write about a phone call that never came,” said another. Ah, this could work! I could write about the motor vehicle department in New Jersey that refuses to respond to my calls inquiring whether my check for a whopping parking ticket I got while visiting the Garden State arrived or if it didn’t and they’re issuing a warrant for my arrest. Now, that would be something for someone to write about. But not me. I have writer’s block.
“Write twenty-five hundred to three thousand words on anything, anything that comes to mind, however insignificant, and go for quantity, not quality,” said still another. Are they insane? All that comes to mind is that nothing comes to mind, followed by the sinking feeling that it’s distinctly possible nothing will ever come to mind again, and if, by some lucky chance, something does pop into my head to write about, there’s no way I’ll eke out twenty-five hundred to three thousand words, and the only thing funny will be watching me pull my hair out in tufts while I try.
500 Acres and No Place to Hide Page 13
