Gas: I think women don’t talk about gas enough. No matter what I put in my mouth, it comes out my ass with the explosive sound of a nuclear warhead or a more delicate, ladylike puff of air. Just thinking of eating ice cream bloats me. And yet that doesn’t stop me from eating it. It just stops me from going out after five.
Snoring: I was on vacation with my son in Sicily when he was thirteen. We shared a room at a beautifully converted monastery in Taormina. The first morning after I had woken from a very sound sleep, I noticed my son staring at me. His face was white, and he looked like he hadn’t slept for days.
“Hey, honey, how long have you been up?” I asked.
“I haven’t slept, Mom.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, concerned. “What happened? Why?”
“‘Cuz you snored all night, Mom, and I couldn’t sleep.”
“What? I snore?” I asked, incredulous, not to mention mortified. “No one’s ever told me that.”
“This is how your snoring sounds, Mom: it’s like a freight train coming, you hear it in the distance and then it comes around the bend full force. Every two minutes you’d rev up, stop, rev up again, and then the freight train would arrive.”
“Oh, Jack, I am so sorry and so embarrassed. I don’t know what to do about it. Was my mouth open?”
“Yeah, Mom, you looked like you were dead, except snoring.”
“Okay, I’m getting you another room tonight.”
Call me superficial, but a woman snoring is not attractive. Did Sleeping Beauty snore as she was waiting for her prince? Was she drooling as he bent down to kiss her? Every grade school child would have been traumatized for life if they saw that. Like my son has been since witnessing his freight train of a mom drooling around the bend.
Arthritis: It’s really hard to disguise your age when your fingers look like Darth Vader’s: spindly, swollen, and your knuckles two inches in diameter. You can’t get your ring on and off unless it’s sawed in two by a friendly jeweller.
Hearing: My dad lost his hearing when he was fifty. He wore hearing aids until the day he died at age ninety-two. Without them he was totally deaf. I have inherited my dad’s hearing loss, even though I tell people that I lost my hearing playing in a band. That story just sounds better. But I won’t get a hearing aid. It really seems like the ultimate destination in getting old. Most of the days I am angry at young people who don’t articulate. The truth is, I couldn’t hear them if they sounded like Dame Judi Dench.
Here’s how I compensate. I read lips, but I have to be in a bright room. I can’t hear (read the lips of) my dental hygienist because she wears a mask when she’s cleaning my teeth. Luckily, I don’t have to respond to her questions, since she has a sharp instrument in my mouth as she’s asking them. I think she’s used to no response. She just keeps talking in her muffled way to distract me from the pain she is inflicting on my overly sensitive gums. And while we’re on the subject of gums, after my last teeth-cleaning appointment, the dentist confirmed the hygienist’s suspicions. “Andrea, I think the time has come for you to consider a gum graft.” Now, that term no one had ever mentioned to me, not one of my elderly parents, or friends, or late-night infomercials. There are ads for overactive bladders, but not yet for receding gums, thank God.
Feet: Every day I’m forced to look at my feet because it’s summer and I have cute little sandals on—until you really study my feet, and then my overpriced cute little Jimmy Choo sandals don’t look cute anymore. They look like receptacles for old feet.
That, and I have a hammer toe. That’s a pretty sight. Even a toe ring in the shape of a daisy placed strategically over it can’t conceal the hump. Instead, the daisy looks like it’s growing out of a crag.
Eyes: It takes me an hour to get my contact lenses in. I can’t figure out which is the wrong and which is the right side. And I need my glasses to see the contacts as I am putting them in my eyes. Why do they make the contact lenses so flimsy, like phyllo pastry? It’s like putting a lambskin condom on a penis, which I would definitely need contacts for. Both have their rewards. Seeing. And seeing a hard penis.
Wisdom: I hate people who say they like getting older because they have more wisdom. Fuck wisdom. Isn’t being stupid so much easier to deal with? You know what wisdom means to me? The undeniable knowledge that I’m going to die. Too much knowledge is wasted at my age.
No matter how many years I’ve been driving, how much knowledge I have, I’m really bad at driving now. I’ve actually turned into one of those women who I used to make fun of. First of all, I’ve shrunk. So my five-foot-three frame (which is still nothing to brag about) is now five foot one. When I drive I’m hunched over the steering wheel, all the way forward, with my head just barely seen above the wheel. When I make a signal, I move my head so much in every direction to see if there is an oncoming car that I look like a Muppet. I’m the stereotype of an older driver, anxious, impatient, slow. Yelling at cars, not good at directions, not wanting to drive at night. I cannot tell you how many times I make a wrong turn during the day. I was never good at directions, but now I’m worse even with the navigation system I have had installed. I can’t program it. I need tech support just to get in the car.
Memory: I don’t have one. Although my memory now is better than it was at the beginning of menopause and for that I’m grateful. Those were hideous years. Covered in sweat. Unable to remember my sister’s name. Now I’m cold all the time. Fortunately, I love knitting. So that’s nice. It gives me a project. Makes me feel useful and warm. Keeps my arthritic fingers moving. It enhances my eye health. The sweater I’m making covers my skin tags. Knitting is good. Knitting is this sixty-five-year-old’s best friend.
Gratitude: Anyway, my body. Here’s what I’m grateful for. I’m healthy, my insides seem to be working, and most of what makes me feel old no one else can see.
So, I’m gonna make the most of what I have. I’m going to use my new eyebrow pencil, which cost a reasonable $48, to draw in some lovely eyebrows. I’m going to put a hat on my wiry curls and gloves on my arthritic fingers. I’m going to put on some loose-fitting sweatpants. And I’m gonna go out for a run. Then I’m going to loudly and gleefully pass gas each time my Nikes hit the ground. The body is a terrible thing to waste.
*Overused title.
Crazy
I am no expert on mental illness, and yet I could be, I’ve been called “crazy” so many times in my life. Not the Sinead O’Connor shaved-head scary kind of crazy, but the charming, spontaneous, unpredictable, cute kind of crazy. Think Diane Keaton or Goldie Hawn.
As a comedienne, I’ve been able to hide the varying degrees of anxiety I’ve suffered with all my life. Yup, I’m just a funny, wacky kind of gal. No need to run away. I won’t hurt you.
I have managed my disorders successfully over the years, with exercise, therapy, family, close friends, children, a career, and humour. They are no longer debilitating. My mental-health issues now seem to be more the garden-variety, everyday neuroses that just come with living with myself twenty-four hours a day. But for millions of people who suffer with mental illness, the prognosis is more uncertain and less kind. There is still a stigma attached. We want to avoid anyone who looks and acts strange. We have little understanding and patience for people who are not like us. We are frightened to make eye contact with someone whose behaviour is different. We lack true compassion and insight. We turn away and go about our business, hoping we don’t come in contact with someone who looks crazy.
Recently, I took my boots into a shoe-repair shop. They needed new rubber heels. I had never been in the store before. The tiny shop was filthy and in disarray. There were Post-its scattered all over the floor, empty bags of potato chips and candy wrappers jammed into one corner, and in another corner, I noticed what appeared to be a pile of wood shavings and sawdust. In fact, there was no section of the floor that wasn’t littered with trash. There were heelless shoes piled high on a shelf in no particular order. The walls, which looked like t
hey had been used to itemize the inventory, were marked with pencil and pen. There was no space on any counter to put my boots. The man who worked in the store was dressed fairly neatly in a black turtleneck and faded, saggy black jeans. He was in his fifties, bald, missing a few bottom teeth, and overweight. He averted his eyes as he spoke to me. His speech was halting, his manner distracted, and yet he seemed friendly enough. I couldn’t hold back my shock at the state of the store, but tried.
“Wow,” I said in a high-pitched voice, the customary tone I use when I’m nervous, or lying. I tried to find a place to stand. “You don’t have a lot of space in here.” He made no apologies, like, I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to clean up or I’ve been so busy, I need to pick these things up off the floor. He just stared at me as he stood among the worn-out bags and tired shoes and zipperless leather boots. I wanted to turn around and walk out. How could anyone in her right mind leave anything to be repaired with this man? There was no indication that he had ever repaired anything. Every item looked like it must have when it was dropped off, only now dirtier and older. The store was a disaster area. And yet I handed him my boots.
“Can I pick them up tomorrow?” I asked.
“You’re the first person who has ever said they know when they want to pick up their shoes,” he replied suspiciously. “I always ask and everyone says, ‘I don’t know, whenever.’ So sure, you can have them tomorrow.”
He tore a corner off a newspaper that was lying behind the counter, wrote down #10 and $10.00 on it, and handed it to me as a makeshift receipt. Was I the tenth customer that day, or ever?
“Umm, do you think you could clean the suede at the same time as you repair the heels?” I asked tentatively.
“No, it wouldn’t work,” he replied without any explanation.
“Okay, well, new rubber heels would be great, then. What time should I come back?”
“Whenever you want,” he said impatiently.
He was agitated. Customers not specifying what day or time of day they wanted to pick up their shoes was obviously a trigger for the shoe-repair guy, his Achilles heel.
“Well, how about three,” I suggested randomly.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Okay,” I said, more cheerfully than was necessary, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at three.”
He was no longer looking at me. His attention was on a rubber band he was trying to put around my boots—The boots I might never see again, I thought. Tomorrow I’ll come by and the store will be shut down by the city as a health hazard. Or maybe it’s really not his store. It’s a deserted shop and he just dropped by, broke in, and was pretending he owned the place. Wow, I’ve seen way too many movies. The Fisher King comes to mind.
Why did I leave the man my boots and not take them to another shoe-repair shop? Because I was overcompensating for my discomfort at being in the presence of someone who was, and yes, I’m projecting, mentally ill. Not that he wasn’t functioning, showing up for work, and able to make a living. Of course, I know nothing about this man other than the brutally quick judgment I made based solely on his appearance. Just because this man’s store was filthy and he couldn’t look me in the eye didn’t mean he was insane and was going to beat me to death with a sandal. Maybe he was just quirky and was happy in clutter. For all my talk about tolerance toward the mentally ill, I am just as uncomfortable as the next guy when I’m in contact with someone who doesn’t appear to be “normal.” I didn’t want to show any discrimination toward this man, so I left my boots with him. I was going to prove to myself that I am a compassionate soul who would go out of her way to help someone troubled and less fortunate. The point is, I’m a hypocrite.
I loved the therapist character Patricia Clarkson played in the movie Lars and the Real Girl. The therapist believed that unconditional love and acceptance could heal even the most tormented and fragile soul like Lars. And in the movie, they do. She and the whole town rally around Lars and accept his delusional behaviour, until finally he feels safe enough to be able to let it go. Of course, I want to believe, as David O. Russell’s film Silver Linings Playbook illustrates, that there is someone for everyone, and when that person finds the right person, love conquers all, even mental illness. Look, I’m not naive. I know that falling in love isn’t going to cure schizophrenia, nor can it stop a deranged person with a gun. But television and film are now making it “acceptable” to talk about mental health. They are removing the stigma. I admired Robert De Niro’s courage as he broke down and cried on Katie Couric’s show when he acknowledged his son was bipolar. Howie Mandel was a guest on CNN recently and shared openly his lifelong struggle with OCD. Just like Michael Moore did in his film Sicko, where he exposed the injustices in the US health care system, filmmakers are helping us look at mental illness in a kinder, educated, more compassionate way.
The next afternoon, punctually at three, I picked up my boots. They looked really good. As I was handing the gentleman my $10 I asked him if he was the shop owner. “Yes,” he said, “since 1978.”
As I was leaving, I noticed a sign in the window: John’s Shoe Repair Shop—The Longest-Running Shoe Repair Business in the City.
Some Things I Think About but Don’t Say Out Loud
I don’t trust fat therapists.
I pretend to like all wild creatures.
I could watch gorillas pick bugs off their heads for hours.
I can’t stop looking at JLo’s ass.
I obsessively buy books and don’t read them.
My headshots are airbrushed so much, even I think I’ve had work.
I can’t wait to get my bathrobe on.
I can’t read a script without falling asleep.
I talk to myself out loud. It’s reassuring and keeps me company.
I judge people by the colour of their teeth.
I’ve seen Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia three times and still don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
Wait, why is King Lear upset? ‘Cause he’s old and can’t trust his daughters?
I would like to have sex with every boy who works at the Genius Bar.
Dogs wearing shoes make me happy.
I used to tie my poodle’s ears together. He liked it, really.
In the ’80s, I danced nude in my living room but it took a Quaalude to do it.
I love going to a really depressing foreign film at three o’clock in the afternoon. It feels good to cry with ten strangers over age sixty.
Tina Fey mentioned me in her book, and it boosted my self-esteem. For a minute.
Why So Angry, Ms. Martin?
Here’s what a contemptuous flight attendant with a patronizing attitude just announced over the intercom: “Look outside your windows now. What do you see? Clouds. That’s exactly what you’ll be seeing for the next four hours. So lower your shades so that everyone can see the TV screen.”
First of all, Ann Coulter, I like looking at clouds. And second, I paid as much as everyone else on this flight and I’m keeping my window shade open, thank you very much.
And another thing, why can’t I use the first-class washroom if I’m flying coach? I have a first-class vagina and I pee like everyone else. Do I really have to pay more to empty my bladder?
I take a deep breath. This trip is leading me to serenity.
Twice a year, I take a flight cross-country to Escondido, California, where I spend seven glorious days at the Golden Door. Some might call it a spa. I call it a spiritual rehab, a physical reboot camp. However you slice it, by the time six months roll around again, I maniacally count the days till I can get back to my precious Golden Door.
I’m on a JetBlue flight from JFK right now. It’s been over nine months since I visited the Golden Door this time around, and I am in bad need of a fix. This is my first opportunity for a vacation since opening in Pippin on Broadway seven months ago. After performing eight shows a week on a trapeze, I’m worn out. My nerves are shot. My body aches. My back is in spasm. My feet have corn
s from dancing in boots. My hair has no lustre from wearing wigs. My skin is wrinkled and dry from applying makeup nightly. I look like an apple doll.
I can’t wait for the next seven days: hiking, meditation, sun, yoga, fresh vegetables from the Golden Door’s organic garden. I’m kinda even looking forward to the chocolate mousse cake, which is, incredibly, prepared with avocado. No cream or flour in that baby. Healthy and yummy. Everything tastes good at the Golden Door because someone other than me has made it. And this week is a special focus week, a bonus. It’s Inner Wisdom Week, and besides the exercise, massages, and facials, I will have the opportunity to sit with ten other women in a daily Wise Woman Circle and learn invaluable happiness skills as I look within. Who thought it took skill to be happy?
Two loud, whining, hyperactive kids sit in the seats next to mine. Their mother sits in the same row, on the other side of the aisle. She is playing Fruit Ninja on her iPhone and is ignoring her kids. They are hitting each other. The younger kid cries as the older one pushes him off his seat. They want attention. Give me that iPhone, I want to say to the mother, I’ll show you how to slice a watermelon. Get back to your children. They need you.
Funny, having raised two kids of my own, how little to no patience I have for other children. I want to stuff my almond croissant, the one I purchased for $5 back in the terminal, down their squealing throats to shut them up. I remember the many trips I took with my kids when they were little. I guarded them as if I were an FBI agent.
My kids never spoke above a whisper. They never kicked the seat in front of them, or repeatedly unlocked the food tray, or constantly hit the seatbelt buckle against another person’s armrest, or played ball in the aisle, or poked a loud video screen of mindless games for hours on end. I kept them entertained for the duration of each and every flight. I brought Cheerios in little resealable bags that kept them occupied one Cheerio, one happy moment, at a time. I brought stacks of colouring books and crayons. I read to them. I helped them build little men and the little men’s horses out of Lego. I sang to them, held them, rocked them, escorted them to the bathroom, and cleaned up after every spill. They were quiet and well-mannered and felt excited, not entitled, to travel. Yes, I was drained after a day of flying, but it felt good knowing my kids and I helped to ensure that the other paying passengers had a stress-free flight. And I came off heroic. Who doesn’t like that? The passengers were grateful. And that was worth it to me even though I looked like the living dead as I crawled off the plane.
Lady Parts Page 12
