My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto (11 page)

To: stacey_at_home

From: jen_at_home

Subject: Welcome home!

Hey! Hope you had fun in New York! Since you’ve been gone, I’ve joined Twitter—here are all my very important updates you’ve missed:

going all
CSI
to determine the stink in the family room. Cats are at the top of my suspect list.

has located source of carpet stink. Culprit not identified, but dogs pretty much cleared; not capable of this kind of evil. Cats on notice.

initiating vacuuming and deodorizing sequence.

has informed cats of their rights and advised them not to leave town.

is queasy from Arm & Hammer fumes and currently being mocked by both cats and carpeting. On to the soap-and-water-scrub portion of our show.

is AAARRRGGHH! CARPET STINK IS JUST LIKE GREMLINS! NEVER ADD WATER! RUN! SAVE YOURSELVES!

has gone to DEFCON ONE—carting my lazy ass down all those stairs to get the Spotbot.

overheard cats by water dish whispering, “Steam cleaner,
pfft
. She’s going to need NASA to get that stink out.”

gives up. Cats-1. Jen-0.

can’t believe that even with the aroma of pies baking and briskets . . . brisketing that The Stink Abides. Maybe something did die in the wall?

I still haven’t determined the source of the stink. But aren’t you really anxious to come over now?

CHAPTER NINE

The Flavor of FAIL

“G
ross.”

“Double gross.”

“Yikes.”

“Sausage factory.”

“Boob-tacular.”

I’m in the master bedroom in front of my full-length mirror with a pile of clothes heaped up on the bed behind me. I’m headed out on book tour again next month and I’m having yet another wardrobe dilemma. I got all these well-fitted dresses to wear on tour last year and now . . . they don’t fit so well.

The truth is I kind of slacked off on my intensive exercise regime. I haven’t lapsed back into my old habits—at least not completely—but I’ve definitely back-burnered my previous level of effort. For example, I haven’t trained with Barbie since we moved. I’m only about three miles west of where I’d been living when I was so devoted, but now the trip to the gym takes an extra twenty minutes because of traffic, both ways. I mean, I meant to go see her, and we certainly chatted via e-mail, but I had a deadline and then I had to move and it took almost two months to completely settle into the new place and then it was the holidays and then the January editions of all my favorite shows came back on and . . . you know. Life got in the way.
¹⁰⁰

Yes, I’ve since realized the value of consistency. I did a solid run on the treadmill earlier today, but thirty minutes of a moderate jog isn’t enough to make up for six months of lethargy, no matter how well intentioned it may have been. According to the scale, I haven’t gained more than a few pounds, but I’m pretty sure that’s because I’ve lost muscle mass. Plus, I don’t feel my
strongs
like I used to.

I’m pissed off that I didn’t police myself better, although I can still get back on track. I could be all “Oh, no! I’m fat again!” but I already wrote that book and through it I figured out how to set myself right. I learned from the effort, which is actually why I have the tiniest of problems with folks like Bret Michaels and Miss New York and Flavor Flav. When I see them doing the same damn show over and over again—as much as I love ’em, can’t miss ’em, and plan my week around ’em—I have to wonder if any of them has even a shred of self-awareness. Do they not see their own patterns of relationship-destroying behavior?

Or are the checks just so big they don’t care?

Or is everything so far removed from reality that it’s nothing but show business?

As for me, I took the first step today—thirty minutes of them, in fact. And I’m definitely more energized for having run. I forgot how much I liked the feeling of my heart pounding (for a reason other than social anxiety) and the V of my T-shirt dampening (not in terror sweat). Plus, I finally have a great bathtub—seems like I’d want to go out and make my muscles ache so I’d get to really enjoy a soothing, effervescent soak.

The problem is I have less than a month before I leave, and given my schedule, there’s no way I’ll be able to work off what I’ve put on between now and then. So until I have the time to fully embrace fitness and clean living, I need to employ a little subterfuge. Maybe if I distract everyone by looking fantastic from the neck up, they won’t notice my embiggened
¹⁰¹
ass. I appraise myself long and hard in the mirror to assess the damage.

I don’t need a trainer right now; I need an esthetician.

And a dermatologist.

I peer at myself more closely.

And a cosmetic dentist.

And a hairdresser.

I glance over at the pile of discarded dresses behind me.

And possibly a seamstress.

As soon as I put all my clothes away, I sat down with my address book and began making calls and booking appointments. I figured that anything I got done would need time to settle in, so I planned a solid week of beauty rivaling anything you’d see on the now-defunct
Extreme Makeover
.
¹⁰²
Granted, my “journey” didn’t include a team of therapists standing behind me spouting positive affirmations because really? I already know I’m worth it. Also? No knives. I’m far too young
¹⁰³
for anything requiring stitches or general anesthesia.

My rigorous week of beauty boot camp is over and now I have six throbbing red bulges in my forehead from Botox. My lip’s not only inflated as big as the twelve-foot rigid raft I’d so admired, but also severely bruised from Restylane injections.

When I woke up this morning, Fletch actually screamed when he saw me. And then Maisy jumped out of bed and hid when she heard him because she hates conflict, so I had to give her all kinds of love and encouragement to coax her out of the closet. And then I saw myself and screamed and Maisy hid all over again.

The bruise starts out all purple and blue at the upper inner tube presently taking the place of my lip and has blossomed to the exact size of a fist across the right side of my face. The contusion begins to yellow about halfway up because I got injections in the nasal-labial folds around my mouth, too.

In the unbruised parts, my face is like corduroy, with alternating red and white stripes running up and down from microdermabrasion. Normally my skin isn’t so sensitive, but my face was terribly tender from having my mouth pried open for so many hours earlier in the week, first for the tooth bleaching and then with the new veneers. By the way, I can only drink room-temperature liquids at the moment, and I have to breathe through my nose because my gums are the consistency of a flank steak.

Did I mention the hair? My tour is eighties-themed, so I had hair extensions put in to better embody that time period. What I didn’t realize is that for the first week, all five hundred individual extensions feel like grains of wild rice digging into my scalp and that it will hurt so much, sleep’s pretty much impossible. So, even though I haven’t actually been given two black eyes, the deep, exhausted shadows replicate them nicely. Couple that with the eyeball redness and lid irritation stemming from the prescription lash-growing medicine I’ve been applying, and there’s officially not one part of me from the chin up that’s better than when I started.

Suddenly having strangers wondering if I’d put on a few pounds doesn’t seem so bad.

You know what? This is exactly why producers made all
The Swan
ugly ducks live in apartments without mirrors during their treatments. I’m seriously hideous right now. What’s funny is I wanted the enhancements to make me all pretty and polished and
Real Housewives,
and instead I’m much more scabby and bruised and
Flavor of Love
. Argh
.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go to the dealership today,” Fletch says, wincing every time his eyes light upon me. “We could wait until you’re less”—he waves his hand across his face—“whatever you call this.” He doesn’t say “terrifying”; he doesn’t have to.

“Are you kidding me?” I say. “We
must
go. Next weekend will be too late.” Today we plan to trade in the ten-year-old, dented, Maisy-scented
¹⁰⁴
SUV that I’m stuck driving, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m getting my first car. I mean, yeah, I’ve had a license for twenty-four years and I’ve owned plenty of other automobiles, but I’ve never once been the one to decide what I’ve gotten. The locus of control went straight from my dad to my husband.

Okay, technically I never actually
wanted
to pick out my own car, but still . . . Also, I kind of made Fletch do all the research and the cost comparisons, so I’m going to choose from the four models he hand-selected. But if I want it in silver, damn it, I’m getting silver. Also, since this’ll be my car, I can eat in it whenever I want. HA!

“Why are you insisting we go today? I mean right now you’re . . . wow. I think the kids call it ‘tore up.’ You really want to be outside like this?”

“Of course!” I’m completely emphatic.

“But
why?
” he beseeches. “You don’t get the mail before you put on your makeup. You look like you’ve gone three rounds with Mike Tyson, so what’s up?” Maisy’s been particularly concerned about me this week and I have to keep dodging her tongue. I guess she’s noticed that I’m all banged up and would like to heal me.

“Simple,” I declare. “It’s all part of my car-buying strategy. When the salesman sees my face, I’ll say,
‘Oh, please, sir, give me a good deal or my husband will beat me again!’ ”

“Excellent call,” Fletch dubiously agrees. “That can’t
not
work.”

“Exactly.”

While he heads off to take a shower, I try to decide what kind of sandwich I’m going to eat in my new car first.

I think maybe turkey.

You know what?

I should never be allowed to talk, ever. I should get surgical tape to slap over my mouth every time I leave the house. The second I opened my bruised cake hole at the dealership, I’m pretty sure I added ten percent to the price.
¹⁰⁵

According to my husband, Donald Trump, it’s poor negotiating strategy to squeal,
“I love it so much that I’ll do anything in my power to possess it!”
when out for a test drive.

But come on—there’s a refrigerated compartment in the console. I could keep cold sandwiches in there
all the time
.

How do I
not
get excited about that?

“You have fun at the museum?”

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed while Fletch changes out of his work clothes. “Sort of. I had trouble with the car.”

“What happened?”

What happened is I picked a vehicle because it had a refrigerated compartment, which I haven’t even used because what sane person drives around with a bunch of sandwiches in her glove compartment? Also, the new car’s way bigger than the old one, and I keep getting it stuck in places because I continue to underestimate its size. Today I got wedged in the wrong way in the parking garage and had to make a sixteen-point turn to get out. Then, once I finally made it onto the street, a bus stalled in front of me, and I got trapped in the middle of the crosswalk at the commuter train station. At rush hour. For five full lights. I can’t even begin to count how many people shouted at me. The crowds’ consensus was “moron,” although “asshole” made a strong showing as well.

“The usual,” I sigh. He nods; he’s ridden with me.

“As for the Art Institute . . . I was surprised at what I did and didn’t enjoy.” As part of my project, I’ve been hitting all the local museums. I’ve been to most of them before—the Field Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, Adler Planetarium, Museum of Contemporary Art, et cetera. However, I’ve never set foot past the gift shop in the Art Institute of Chicago until today. “I thought I’d be completely gaga for the Impressionist stuff, but I’ll be damned if Cher Horowitz wasn’t right. Up close, they’re a big old mess.”

Granted, there’s something a little amazing about being able to put my face
thisclose
to the actual pieces of canvas that van Gogh and Monet and Gauguin touched. But in the end, the pictures weren’t what caught my attention. Instead, I marveled at seeing the texture of the paints and the imprints left from the brushes they used. That’s a moment frozen in time forever. Had the decrepit old security guy not gotten all shout-y with me, I could have stared at the up-close detail all day. Given time, would I have spotted stray fibers or specks of dust or maybe even one of the artist’s hairs affixed for eternity?