Up For Renewal

by Cathy Alter

  His answers conveyed a brilliantly simple sense of satisfaction. Our foreplay was VERY DELICIOUS. And he recalled that The first time we had sex, we… THOROUGHLY ENJOYED OURSELVES and that The last time we had sex, we… THOROUGHLY ENJOYED OURSELVES.

  In the end, Karl’s answers functioned as my report card. I didn’t need to master the Celestial Cowgirl or spank my man with a spatula. I was already a sex goddess.

  “How did we do on the test?” asked Karl, who had moved behind me and was reading over my shoulder.

  “We could totally clean up on The Newlywed Game.”

  “By the way,” he said, winking and wandering off into the kitchen, “when is sex month?”

  MAY

  Living It Up!

  jane was the first to tell me it was over. Then, Marie Claire announced the news; then Lucky. They informed me that my year with them had come to an end, and they all were wondering the same thing: did I want to stay in the relationship?

  My answer was no. Partly because the thrill was gone. What had once been a guilty pleasure, taken at nail and hair salons, had since become a full-time job. I was not only reading fourteen magazines a month, I was actively participating in their content, checking in with faceless writers and editors at all times, and constantly analyzing the results. It was an exhausting way to live out a life, however successful the end result.

  More so, as my year progressed, I felt further away from the material. In the beginning, I had stood in front of that wall of magazines like a disciple. And I had heard the call. But now, I just didn’t feel as connected to these magazines anymore. And looking back over the past twelve months, I hadn’t even relied on many of them for help. Reading Jane, for example, usually made me feel like I was standing in the corner, watching all the other girls dance and flirt with boys. This wasn’t surprising. Jane’s target audience, according to their mission statement (which I had looked up on the Condé Nast website as a way to understand my alienation), was a twenty-something woman “who is the ultimate front-row influencer.” I was more comfortable taking a position along the sidelines, observing life from a distance. Which explained why, in my freelance writing, I preferred to comment on the action rather than take part in it, like Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who famously jibed, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”

  Lucky’s raison d’être, according to their mission statement, was “100% shopping and nothing else.” I’m sure for some of the magazine’s million subscribers that was the only mission. But for me, the more I read, the more choices in handbags (to clutch or to tote?), the more ways to wear the new cropped jacket, the more I started to yearn to wear a uniform. I had the same feelings of overstimulation with InStyle, plus my fascination with Jennifer Aniston’s preferred brand of jeans felt like a guilty pleasure with none of the pleasure.

  Even the magazines I had most relied upon, Cosmopolitan, for one, had worn out their welcome. In fact, Cosmo should consider offering three-month subscriptions, which was the loop their content seemed to take. How many ways could the editors repackage and sell the same sex tips? I remember my friend Dave telling me that before he moved to D.C. to work at our company, he had a brief stint at Hearst, in the research department. Part of his job was comparing buzzwords on covers of competing magazines. “I was just trying to find new ways to say the same things,” he told me. “It was ridiculous. I used to come up with my own cover lines—‘50 Ways to Decorate Your Uterine Walls,’ ‘How to Squeeze His Balls Until You Get What You Want.’”

  That was the problem for me. As an aspirant magazine, Cosmo was pretty schizophrenic, mashing together two competing ideals—feminism and femininity. Both rationales were empowering in a sort of “use your stiletto heels to confound and crush men—and then steal their corner office” way. But the end result for the reader, or for me, at least, was confusing. To be seen as a woman, went their message, was to be seen as desirable. But for me, being a woman also meant rejecting the trappings—the lacily attired 34Cs, the thoughtfully painted lips—that pegged me as one. These were seriously competing worlds and I was tired of trying to hold them all, let alone reconcile them.

  With its gentle tone and inviting layouts, Real Simple was a bit too mild-mannered to hang out with a potty mouth like me. It was the kind of reading material I’d be happy to see on my hotel nightstand or find abandoned in the seat pocket on an airplane. Occasionally, there was an excellent personal essay, the kind I wished I’d written, full of insight and forgiveness. But ultimately, the magazine was too nice for me, like the friend who is incapable of gossip and has never gotten shit-faced or enjoyed a brief whiff of schadenfreude.

  And I loved Oprah, I really did, but frankly, I was just tired of seeing her face month after month.

  And so I decided not to renew any of my subscriptions, except for Self, for which I continued to freelance. Maybe with some distance, I’d learn to read them for enjoyment again. Maybe with some perspective, I’d be able to distinguish their collective work on me and, more significantly, take credit for the work I’d done on myself. As June issues started to straggle in, I put them all facedown in the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. I did not have to read another magazine for as long as I lived.

  However, before I could begin my monthly detox, I had to get through May. I considered rewarding myself with a free-for-all buffet of shoes and eye cream. But after spending a few days tearing out photos of Jimmy Choos and two-hundred-dollar wrinkle erasers, these outward pursuits seemed pretty trivial in comparison to the strides I had made that were more personal and less showy. Since I had worked so hard to create a better place for myself internally, I wanted my outside world to appear just as put together.

  “Karl,” I said one night. “Let’s paint the living room.”

  Our apartment had no color scheme—unless wood counted as a color. Compared to Jeanne’s brownstone, a Middle Eastern bazaar of amethyst, oxblood, and burnt ocher, or Richard’s bungalow, which was like stepping into a Noël Coward play, Karl and I lived in the land of the bland. After a lifetime of antiquing, I had some great pieces—a French deco coffee table, a mid-century modern teak credenza, and a hard-won collection of English art pottery—but it all disappeared against the backdrop of apartment rental beige.

  Real Simple chastised another couple, Patti and Todd Bender, for allowing a boring color scheme to rule the roost. “White walls do nothing to define or enliven a room,” wrote Sara Bliss, perfectly named for an article on domestic harmony. In an article called “One Room, One Weekend, One Easy Makeover,” Bliss documented how the couple turned their lackluster space “from blah to beautiful” with a few coats of paint.

  The Benders’ used Benjamin Moore’s China Blue, which was about three shades paler than a Tiffany box. This same blue hue was touted in the decorating sections of multiple magazines this month. InStyle used it on the walls of “The Nester,” and Glamour’s “How to do Anything Better Guide” featured Benjamin Moore’s Icy Blue 2057-70 as an example of how to “bring a little nature home.” Even Oprah, in her “Here we go!” letter from the editor, posed against a sky-blue backdrop.

  In every layout, this eggshell blue was teamed with chocolate brown. Glamour thought the pairing looked sophisticated, yet rustic. And InStyle explained that a “limited color palette works best in a room you spend lots of time in.”

  They don’t call it a living room for nothing. I looked around ours and noticed that sitting on our brown couch were two silk pillows in blue and brown stripes. And above the couch hung a Danish silkscreen of a bejeweled woman reclining on a curlicued chaise. Vanitas, the title of the picture, was printed in, I was sure, a Benjamin Moore shade of blue. Without even realizing it, I was already riding the blue/ brown trend. I was reasonable enough to know that I’d never have Scarlett Johansson’s lips or Jessica Alba’s ass. But looking at the Benders’ living room, I thought, for the first time ever, that I could actually make my physical reality match what I saw in a magazin
e.

  In the past, I had flipped right past all the home improvement articles in magazines, finding the idea of painting or rearranging furniture too overwhelming and costly. Back then, I would rather have spent the extra cash on myself, especially after my divorce, when I was buying diamond huggies and eight hundred dollar custom-made cowboy boots. But nesting, really nesting, was bringing out my Suzy Homemaker side. It was the difference between pleasure seeking and deep and true gratification.

  On the brink of marriage, I was finally ready to fully embrace the trimmings that went along with domestic life. And once again, the magazines were reminding me what that life looked like—at least on the outside. It was up to me to create a real home, the kind of safe haven that I knew, from last month’s sex survey, was truly where Karl’s heart resided. And that’s why blue, like calm water, was the perfect color.

  I had never seen the inside of a Home Depot. It’s exactly the kind of place I hate, in the same circle of hell as bulk club warehouses and computer stores. Wandering the cement floors, listening to a surreal mix of the Pretenders and 50 Cent (music that was occasionally interrupted with breaking news like, “Shoppers, if you come up front to the registers, we’re offering a four-piece patio set with two lounge chairs for eighty-nine dollars.”), I was convinced that Home Depot was really a controlled study, and that the people in the orange aprons were all socioanthropologists or some form of research assistants. On this particular Saturday afternoon, everyone here fell into a category—the Know-It-Alls, who stood scrutinizing hundreds of jewel-colored electrical wires like they were appraising diamonds; the Time-Killers, who maybe had come in for a circuit breaker but wound up spending an hour fantasizing in the outdoor grill aisle; the Wanderers, who either didn’t have anything in mind to buy, or did and just refused to ask for help (these were the same people who wouldn’t pull in to a gas station to ask for directions); the Masochists, who had a child or other family members along just to spread the torture to greater numbers.

  Karl, one of the Know-It-Alls, loved this place. Before we had even set foot in the paint aisle, he had gotten caught up in a Sophie’s Choice between 4 mm or 3.98 mm bolts.

  A Time-Killer stood next to him, looking at acorn screws like he was deciding what Godiva chocolate to eat. “If I knew what I was doing”—he chuckled to himself—“I’d be dangerous.”

  I had brought along my articles and insisted on buying a three-inch Performance Select brush.

  “But this one is cheaper,” noticed Karl, pointing to a Home Depot brand.

  “I want the brush InStyle says to get.” This was the first time I had put Karl, instead of some silver-panted salesperson, through the magazine rigmarole. Like those who came before him, Karl accepted the rules.

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “We can get the InStyle paintbrush.”

  As per Real Simple’s checklist, we also picked up a can of latex primer, four rolls of blue painter’s tape, a drop cloth, two paint rollers, and a paint tray for each of us. Then we had a brief negotiation over paint color. Karl liked Benjamin Moore’s Jamestown Blue, a “deep, dirty turquoise” from InStyle, but I preferred Moore’s Icy Blue from Glamour’s “How to Do Anything Better Guide.” “I want to bring a little nature home,” I told Karl, pointing to the article.

  “Fine,” he said, grabbing the Icy Blue. “Glamour wins.”

  “Isn’t it exciting to do home stuff?” Karl remarked, organizing our purchases in order of use.

  Real Simple had provided a weekend timeline, breaking the living room renovation into bulleted three-hour tasks: tape, prime, paint, and, at 3:30 PM on Sunday, “Kick up your heels. Then put up your feet and enjoy.”

  But as soon as we returned from Home Depot, at 7:30 PM, Karl wanted to get right to work.

  Being stucco, the walls in our apartment look like the ropy veins of a hundred old hands. Karl made the executive decision to paint the smoother surfaces of the window moldings and the trim around the doors. “Accent walls,” he chirped, stealing a phrase from Real Simple.

  Even though he agreed to act as my assistant, as soon as we began to work, Karl immediately took charge, first showing me how to scrape off the flaking paint along the windowsill, then patiently teaching me how to place the blue tape along the aluminum window frame, and then, when I got more tape stuck on my arm than on the window, impatiently finishing the job himself.

  Jeanne phoned to confirm our Sunday-morning walk, and in the five minutes I took to talk to her ( joking that I was planning on painting the blades of the ceiling fan a nice pin-stripe), Karl had hung a plastic sheet like a stage curtain. Half the room was under wraps; the curtain extended around the window, over the couch, and covered the credenza, the television, and the stereo.

  “Hey,” I said after I hung up with Jeanne. “You have to let me do something, or else it won’t count.”

  “It’s time,” Karl said, “to prime.”

  This was like invisible painting, a smooth base that would soon be covered up. But Karl still watched me paint my section like a hawk.

  “Not too thick,” he said. “Like this,” he said, walking over to his side and demonstrating his even strokes.

  I had helped to paint a few apartments in my day, all belonging to former boyfriends who had all given me the sort of insignificant painting, a touch-up or an outlet, that I couldn’t possibly screw up.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I insisted, a well-timed blob of primer dripping on my shoe.

  While the primer dried, we took a break and watched the season finale of Little People Big World, a reality television show about a family where the mother, father, and one of their three children were dwarves. Karl and I idolized the father, Matt Roloff, and loved to discuss how Matt always managed to get everyone around him to carry out his big plans—from building a pumpkin-tossing trebuchet to pulling up a thousand square feet of old carpet—while he sat back and supervised. Watching Mr. Roloff in action also allowed Karl to dwell upon one of his favorite fantasies—of being a little person himself. “Can all this,” he said, pointing to his own brain, “actually be shrunk down to a smaller size?”

  About halfway into the show (and halfway into the drying time) Karl got antsy and decided to put on the first coat of paint. I didn’t make a move to help (the Roloff twins were going to their first prom!), and before long, I had a glass of wine and a bowl of tortilla chips in front of me.

  Karl regarded me from above, as he stood balanced on the radiator and painted the top of the window frame. A swipe of blue, like war paint, lay across the bridge of his nose. I ate a chip and put my feet up on the coffee table in an exaggerated display of repose.

  “Typical,” he said, shaking his head.

  When he finished with the window, we hung another plastic tarp in front of the window, draping it carefully around the sides. The effect was that of a fallen sail, tipping into an invisible swell.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” said Karl upon reflection, when we went outside to breathe some fresh air. It was a little past midnight. Considering he had done most of the work, it really wasn’t so bad. “Tomorrow,” he said, pointing his finger at me, “you’re painting all the door trim. Alone.”

  While Karl spent the day tooling around Northern Virginia with his gang of gentlemen riders (designer leathers and Italian bikes), I threw on an old T-shirt and a pair of Karl’s frayed chinos, and using Real Simple’s timeline as my guide, began my artistic endeavor.

  Cover door frames and trim with painter’s tape; put down drop cloths (90 minutes)

  I was having a hard time taping off my territory. The bumpy stucco wall caused the blue tape to warp and pucker. I predicted great calamity later, when after painting, I peeled off the tape, only to find that the blue paint had migrated underneath it. I imagined having company over for dinner and, looking up and seeing wavy blue lines everywhere, one of our friends asking us why we had hired a painter with Parkinson’s disease.

  But after nearly two hours of botched taping, I was dete
rmined to continue. Not for my benefit, however. I had just spent a whole year impressing myself with my grit and determination to see things through: I had ensured that Bruno would be my last jerk, worked hard to understand and redefine the relationship with my mother, ventured out into the wilds of a Porta-John and into the uncharted territory of my kitchen. I had hurdled over so many personal obstacles; I wasn’t about to let Karl come home and find me crying and heaped on a plastic drop cloth.

  Paint trim with a brush (45 minutes)

  Paint was flying everywhere; even though I had put drop cloths down, the paint merely used the drop cloth as its launching pad, bouncing off the plastic and turning our hardwood floor into a Jackson Pollack. Karl phoned in the middle of all this, and when I crossed the room to pick up his call, I made even more of a mess by stepping in a puddle of primer and tracking my ghost prints all over the living room as I paced around. “Everything looks great,” I assured him.

  But once I got all the paint up and the tape off, I wasn’t so sure about the eggshell blue. It was sort of a wimpy putt-putt steam color. I recalled the day my brother painted the bathroom of his East Village studio entirely in metallic silver, like what the restrooms must have looked like in Andy Warhol’s factory.

  “Maybe we should have gone more peacock,” I told Karl. I was standing in the center of the living room surveying my work when he arrived home, dirty with miles of open road plastered to his neck.

  “I disagree,” he said, setting his helmet down and joining me. He used his hands like a conductor, pointing out how the room seemed more tied together, how the eye danced from blue pillow to blue door to blue vase.

  “If Real Simple doesn’t put us on their cover next month,” he said, moving over to the window for another vantage point, “fuck them.”