Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales (14 page)

Chapter Nineteen

There’s No Uterus Like My Uterus

P
regnancy. As soon as that pink stripe reveals itself, I am projectiling stomach bile like a dragon does fire. Some hormone allergy causes head spins and vomiting for six months non-stop. It’s disgusting, maddening, and I feel like I’m losing my spleen through all the retching. Luckily, in my second pregnancy, I found a Web site devoted to a support group for people with hyperemesis gravidarum (Madmums.com). Yes, I have a disease, and the disease has a name.

I got pregnant the first time right after my honeymoon. I assumed it would take months and months to conceive, and we would end up pacing up and down the creaking planks of an orphanage in Athens searching for a Greek Oliver Twist. They still line up for you, right? My in-laws will tell you that there’s never been a Greek boy in the history of adoption. The same way you would never find a Van Gogh at a yard sale. Anyway, I was pregnant. I never had a day of craving BBQ spare ribs or waking my husband up in the middle of the night for shepherd’s pie. Even an Arby’s all-you-can-eat ribs commercial would send me dry-heaving off the furniture. It’s important to note, we were married six months after meeting, pregnant soon after; the honeymoon phase was spent with my head in a toilet screaming, “Don’t you fucking touch me!” One evening George came home to our little newlywed apartment near Gramercy Park with a bunch of yellow tulips in his hand and a skip in his step. He was probably fantasizing us postcoital in white hotel robes sipping cognac in front of the fire, exclaiming, “Me too!” in unison at the end of each other’s sentences. Instead, he walked in to find me stark naked in a pool of my own vomit in the middle of the living room rug. And to make matters worse, our two dogs were so revolted by my behavior it caused them to throw up. A whole Persian covered in sick. “Honey?” I lifted my head, still tethered to my own discharge of bile by a thick stream of drool. I know, why wasn’t I ever on the cover of
Maxim
?

I was no better by my second trimester, just gaunter and more dehydrated. One of my most vivid memories is trying to shower with a bloody IV stuck in my arm and the metal IV stand, complete with drip chamber and plastic bag of saline fluid, in the tub with me. I’m sure George didn’t second-guess leaving his life of bachelorhood filled with nubile cupcakes begging for a whiff of him for one minute! Okay, there weren’t models throwing their panties at him at the news desk, but any pleasant, sensible gal would be more desirable than a shivering skeleton with a perpetual fur ball in her throat. In the ninth month, the illness subsided and I had a few weeks of normalcy until my water broke. And by normalcy I mean, I sat in a friend’s pool in East Hampton devouring whole watermelons and crying uncontrollably and screaming (loudly, for all the neighbors to hear), “What happened to me?”

I
t doesn’t matter how many DVDs of other peoples’ births you watch (and never do that while eating lasagna, by the way), you are never prepared for labor. My mother was not forthcoming about menstruation, conception, and other “down there” issues, so labor was the most covert, terrifying experience imaginable. I still can’t remember if I delivered vaginally or anally. The Queen or Kate Middleton should knight whoever invented the epidural. (And also the person who invented Skinny Cow ice-cream sandwiches.) I think the epidural should be administered just before consummation. Just keep a main line of numbing solution flowing throughout your system for months or even years. Why only for a few hours AFTER the pain has started? I see no harm, no foul, and I’ve never heard of a person checking into Promises Malibu for epidurals. Ah, a premenopausal girl can dream . . .

My water broke, I became hysterical, and George and I searched for the car keys. We never went to Lamaze or read books about labor—
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
was like a Stephen King novel to me. When George and I went for the first ultrasound, the technician couldn’t say definitively if our baby was a male or a female. The fetus’s hands were covering the genital area. That’s the WASP half. The nurse couldn’t detect a penis. Somehow this translated to George’s anxious mind that we were having a hermaphrodite. He was also reading the book
Middlesex
(about a hermaphrodite) and staying up late at night drinking too much roasted blend coffee and watching transgender documentaries. George was convinced I would give birth to a hermaphrodite. (Even after the baby was born, he kept grilling the nurse, “Does she have a penis? Does she have a penis?”) Finally we entered the driveway of the hospital, and George started to look for a space in satellite parking level G9. “Go to the emergency room!” I yelled while imitating the way pregnant women breathe in the movies.

“Why? This isn’t an emergency.”

It’s astonishing my husband was not castrated that evening. By this point I was white-knuckling the car door and his right arm—“When you go into labor, it IS an emergency, asshole!”

They placed me in a wheelchair, and a nurse who resembled Taye Diggs pushed me up to the maternity ward. I didn’t want pressure on my buttocks. “Can’t I get on all fours on a gurney?” I had been vomiting in downward-facing dog position for close to a year and had become accustomed to that posture. The pain became so intense, I tried to convince the nurse I needed general anesthesia. I could be in a coma, have the baby, they’d clean me up, maybe blow out my hair, and wake me the next day? Ladies, why isn’t this on our vision boards? Instead, an Asian man who looked like the maniacal, toothless bad guy wielding a syringe dripping with truth serum in every Schwarzenegger film entered my room with a rickety tray of potions and needles. After he’d poked me with the needle so many times you could connect the dots to form the Big Dipper, the epidural kicked in. All
namaste
in the world, and I was prepared to give birth for the entire island of Manhattan. Twenty minutes later two things happened: one, I gave birth to a six-pound nine-ounce fiery baby girl; and two, I decided men should pace in another room while women give birth, like they did in the 1950s. Nothing good can come from having one’s husband witness a placenta the size of a down pillow and the color of flank steak come spewing out of one’s vagina. And for the ladies that push a little too hard that they . . . how does that propel a marriage forward? My feeling is, Yes, you put the baby in, but if you can’t get the baby out, go to the commissary.

My body had transformed into a warehouse abandoned of sexiness and incapable of seduction. I was once the bone at the dog races, and now I was a bloated mass of maxi pads and breast pumps. Labor ignites the minute you have contractions, and it never stops. You labor to produce milk, you labor to work off the fleshy accordion of a gut that will never experience a tan again, and you labor to stabilize hormones until you’re hit with menopause. The only time a hospital stay is worth every insurance penny is when you’ve had a baby. There’s no talk of death, buckets of blood, people crying while clutching rosary beads, or missing limbs. It’s a happy ward full of balloons, pink carnations, and women walking like bow-legged cowboys as they make their hourly pilgrimage to the nursery. And if you forgo the creamed beef on toast and rice pudding and have a relative spring for take-out Chinese, it’s close to nirvana. You sleep as much as you want, with no husband, kids, or barking dogs to wake you, and you have an epidural drip you administer whenever you want. Add a few Rob Lowe movies and a chocolate fountain and, seriously, why ever leave?

M
y mother came to visit while I was in the hospital. This is the fundamental moment when a mother and daughter draw inspiration from their new roles as mother and grandmother. A time where only a mother can comfort a mother and dispense the intuitive wisdom passed down from generations of mothers. The only other experience that comes close is the preteen ear piercing at the local mall. My mother brought me trays of tuna salad and lemonade and reassured me that everything I was feeling was “perfectly normal.” She would put the baby down on her stomach, and I would sneak back into the nursery and reposition her on her back. And she made the baby as unobtrusive as she could for my husband. My mother still subscribes to a world in which babies aren’t meant to cause a man stress (the husbands need their sleep), and a woman breast-feeding in public is equivalent to a flasher on the subway. And my favorite, as I struggled with postpregnancy bleeding, engorged mammary glands, and postpartum blues: “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to fix your hair a little before George gets home from work.”

After my first child, my mother dispensed her philosophy on a women’s reproductive system: “Get it out.”

“What?”

“Get a hysterectomy. It was the best thing I ever did.”

“Mom, I don’t want a hysterectomy, we want more kids.”

And then my mother gave me the look she gives when she is very serious. Her lips get pursed, and her right eyebrow rises so high it almost joins the hairline. “Let me tell you something about your uterus.”

“Um, okay?”

“When you get older, it becomes a huge, heavy sponge.” I clutched my middle. “You remember our basset hound, Celeste? Remember how she used to drag her stomach on the floor? That’s what happens!” Silly me: I had always assumed this was due to the fact that Celeste had six litters over the course of her life. And don’t all parts of a basset hound drag a bit? Should I get my ears taken in?

I never had a hysterectomy. I’ve always felt possessive of my innards, and have never been clear on precisely what one does with the extracted ovaries. Have them bronzed and made into bookends? I rarely second-guess my decision, but every once in a blue moon when I’m at the dog park, I’ll see an aged, paunchy beagle and think, “Oh lady, you should have had a hysterectomy.”

Chapter Twenty

Well-Mannered

M
y mother instilled in us exemplary ethics and manners: always, she taught us, be gracious, grateful, and good. We would have our thank-you note written and stamped before we even finished unwrapping the gift. In this age of global technology domination, we still hand-scribe our much-obliged sentiments on monogrammed stationery, as opposed to the toneless and detached e-mails that butcher gratitude with “thx” or the revolting LOL. I can’t imagine Babe Paley or Diana Vreeland sending an OMG to Truman Capote the morning after the Black and White Ball. We were taught a basic rubric of appreciativeness: thank-you notes for dinners or event invites; a large bouquet of flowers if the dinner honored you; if the party was smaller than ten, a petite bouquet. Hostess gifts were as follows: if you were a guest for one night, linen hand towels or a set of seashell hand soaps; a weekend stay, something more deluxe like a case of wine or tortoiseshell salad tongs. Once we fully absorbed the etiquette manual, it became second nature, like flossing and changing underwear. Everyone in my family has personal stationery and says thank you whether we’ve received something or not and please whether we want something or not. My children panic about their birthday lists based on the sheer number of notes they’ll have to write the next day; it’s almost worth saying “no gifts,” but even then they’ll have to thank their friends for attending.

I
had just moved back to Washington after nearly a twenty-five-year hiatus. I was not happy about relocating to a city where people barked like seals about Gallup polls. I left Los Angeles, the city of sycophancy to fame, for a city of sycophancy to power. After many years in Hollywood, my relationship with manners was rusty. It’s a culture of thank-me, not thank-you. A place where you expressed your gratitude by allowing someone to take a percentage of your salary and were beholden to others only during awards season. Washington is not so blatant; there are politics dictating how you handle politics.

The first winter back in D.C., my husband and I were invited to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Christmas party. (Washington is a small town, and like in kindergarten, if you invite one person, you have to invite them all.) My mother has always said, “The chicest thing to wear when you’re unsure is black pants, a black turtleneck, and black flats.” My wardrobe at the time consisted of sparkling Hollywood mini dresses that made me look like one of Beyoncé’s back-up dancers. Not knowing how to dress for a Republican holiday cocktail fete, I went with my mother’s advice. It was beyond understated; all in black I looked like part of an off-Broadway tech crew.

The party was festive; senators were sipping hot buttered rum, and Condoleezza Rice was admiring my daughter’s princess shoes from Target. I kept checking to see if Cheney was hoarding all the pigs in a blanket. All accompanied by a high-pitched yapping from downstairs. It was a familiar yelp in an unfamiliar place, so I inquired about it. “It’s our dachshund Reggie, and we have a new puppy, Chester,” Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld answered, beaming with pride. It was fascinating to think that the defense policy adviser who had declared a global war on terrorism was being guarded by a beast the size of a mango. He took me downstairs to meet his beloved sausages. Since I grew up with dachshunds and was an active member and recipient of the Dachshund Friendship Club newsletter (I have the dachshund snow globe, key chain, and stemware), I understood the extent of his allegiance to the breed. And there they were, in a basket with a Rudolph fleece throw in the laundry room. They were curled up like a gingerbread Bundt cake. The secretary of defense’s face was uncharacteristically joyful as he helloooed his canine friends in a high-pitched voice, a voice I’m sure he never used during heated calls about Saddam Hussein. We cooed and petted, and before Reggie was worked up into a tinkling frenzy, we returned to the party. As a silver tray of endive and Roquefort passed by, Rumsfeld confided, “You know, there’s a great essay about dachshunds by E. B. White.” I was only familiar with the children’s book
Pretzel
and the barking hot dog named Waffles in the film
Manhattan
. I was excited to have another literary reference added to my dachshund repertoire. I thanked him, then followed a tray of chicken satay into the other room—again, to see if Cheney was hoarding all the pigs in a blanket. Assuming the hot dogs could actually be found in all the flaky pastry as Cheney was so sure they would be.

After an hour of pleasantries and many cocktail napkins filled with baked ham skins and shrimp tails, we decided to leave before our toddler melted down and spat hazelnut Yule log on Colin Powell’s shoes. In the car ride I was pleased to conclude that there was very little difference between Democrat and Republican Christmas parties, with the possible exception of plaid blazers and a higher caliber of booze at the latter. And the irony that the man who declared the existence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction adored the dogs bred to flush badgers out of holes.

I
devoted the next morning to my routine errands, picking up a chicken and aromatic lavender bath salts at Whole Foods and Good Humor chocolate éclair ice-cream bars at Safeway. And the
Economist
(okay fine,
Us Weekly
) and Crest white strips from CVS. I had my pile of mail to send, including a cream Tiffany thank-you card for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As I passed Barnes & Noble, I recalled our conversation about E. B. White and quickly parked in front of a hydrant. I could hear my mother: “What a perfect, personal thank-you gesture.” I quickly located the book, an Ina Garten cookbook for my husband, and the revised
Joy of Sex
(which I’m glad they revised, because the first one is still confusing). They gift-wrapped the E. B. White book in paper that featured tiny globes, which seemed apropos. It was that or baby jungle animals.

I drove a hybrid SUV that was sullied from a long winter of dirty snow and beaten up by my husband’s novice navigational skills. He’s one of those men who believe road rules don’t apply to them. I once asked him how many times a day another driver gives him the finger, to which he answered, “Enough so that I take cabs.” The trunk was filled with spilled groceries, there was a baby seat covered in mushed animal crackers, and an abundance of empty Starbucks cups were scattered on the floor. I wore my daily uniform of jeans, Tretorn sneakers, and a black down jacket. And, as usual, no makeup and hair pulled back in a ratty knot. Always a before, rarely an after.

I pulled up in front of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s handsome brick mansion, which had an American flag hanging from the second-floor balcony. Keenly aware of the ice cream in the trunk, I grabbed the book and the card and skedaddled across the street. I assumed the secretary wouldn’t be home; it was a workday, and we were, after all, at war. I didn’t want to dally, exchanging pleasantries with a housekeeper or dachshund sitter. I contemplated ringing the buzzer at the side gate, but I’ve never been partial to screaming my name into a faceless battery-operated box. So I tucked the card inside the Barnes & Noble bag with the book and gently tossed it over the gate.

Within seconds I was surrounded. The gardener, the phone repair man, and two guys in sunglasses sitting in the black Suburban, all packing heat, circled me like we were about to play a mean game of Trust. I instantly threw my hands in the air, one of the many important things I’ve learned from television. “I’m just dropping off a gift! It’s a gift! It’s a book. It’s an essay about a dachshund.” I was stuttering like a guilty person. The two men in black snatched the package and sped off with it in the Suburban.

I found out later that the book was whisked to McLean, Virginia, to be inspected and X-rayed. I apologized profusely to the undercover agents and asked them to please go back to pruning the magnolia trees. Apparently, I was lucky; I wasn’t strip-searched in the basement of the CIA or detained in a terrorist holding pen. How heinous would that have been? Don’t forget, I had ice cream in the trunk.

When I tell people this story, they laugh uproariously at my stupidity and naïveté. Yet as preposterous as it was to throw a package over the gate of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s home during wartime, at least he received a handwritten note and a thoughtful and personal gift the next day. As Fred Astaire once said, “The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.” I only wished my mother had been there to see it.

Perhaps if I asked politely, they might give me a copy of the security tape. . . .