Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions (23 page)

The website also defines the “Sugar Lifestyle,” in which “users are on the same page,” don't have to “read between the lines,” and “know what they want.”

I thought it would be simpler, being called the Sugar Lifestyle.

I myself already live the Sugar Lifestyle, and it involves … Sugar.

The small print says that relationships are easier when “goals and starting points are already set forth before entering said relationship.”

How romantic.

I went to law school, which was sexier.

According to the press release, there are 2.95 Sugar Daddies per one thousand males who live in Philadelphia.

I'm kind of wondering about the leftover .05.

I seem to recall dating him.

 

You're Just Some Appliance That I Used to Know

By Lisa

There are joys to empty nesting, and they increase as the nest gets emptier.

I just realized this the other day, when I was walking through my kitchen and there was a large object on my right that I barely recognized.

My oven.

It's big and boxy and has four burners in the top, and I remember standing around it, doing something called cooking.

But that might be a thing of the past.

Because right now, I can't remember the last time I cooked.

I looked at the oven and wondered if I could yank it out and replace it with a TV.

Or better yet, another refrigerator.

In other words, an appliance I really love, instead of one that I used to love.

I think I broke up with my oven.

It might have become my ex-oven.

In fact, we have found Thing Three.

It wasn't always thus.

When Daughter Francesca was growing up, I used to love my oven very deeply and I really did enjoy cooking.

I'm not Mother Mary's daughter for nothing.

Cooking is part of my DNA. The Flying Scottolines have tomato sauce in our veins.

And in the early years after Daughter Francesca flew the coop, I had fun cooking hot meals for myself, at least twice a day. I made a goat cheese and spinach omelet for breakfast, a nice arugula salad for lunch, and I always cooked fish, veggies, rice, or whatever for dinner, even though it was just me.

I made a point of this, for my own psyche.

I was proving to myself that I still mattered even though I lived alone, which was completely true, and I believed that somehow the trouble I went to for myself was proof of my self-worth.

What a bunch of crap.

I'm at the next stage of life, which is when you stop proving dumb stuff to yourself.

You stop proving stuff altogether.

You officially have Nothing to Prove.

You don't do anything unless you want to.

You decide exactly how and when to spend your time.

You stop doing things out of obligation, even to yourself.

You realize that salmon is not related to self-worth.

I think this is called maturity, and I wish it hadn't taken me fifty-nine years to attain.

Better late than never.

Anyway, it's not like I made a conscious decision to stop cooking, but all of a sudden I started thinking that salad would make a good dinner, or yogurt and honey, or a cheese sandwich.

Now the way I see it is, I have so much self-worth that I should not put myself to the trouble of cooking for myself. It's a strange thing, considering that cooking was so much a part of my life, but on the other hand, I have more free time at night to read, work, or watch TV—mainly, the Food Network.

Now that I've stopped cooking, I watch more cooking shows than ever.

Watching other people cook is the new cooking.

But I watch the cooking shows differently than I used to. I don't try to remember the ingredients they're using or the things they're doing, because I have no intention of ever making the recipes.

I'm not taking the course for a grade anymore.

On the contrary, I'm barely auditing.

Yay!

The only downside to my new life is that once you decide that you don't have to cook a proper dinner, then all bets are off.

If there's a slippery slope, I'm sliding to the bottom.

Last week for various dinners I had Fiber One cereal, Honeycrisp apples, roasted red peppers, leftover Stacy's Pita chips with cheese, and a massive bag of popcorn. Dessert was Hershey's Kisses with Almonds and gummi vitamins.

Yum!

But not exactly healthy eating.

Hmmm.

Somebody needs a mother.

But I've flown my own coop.

 

Women's Rights and Wrongs

By Lisa

Everywhere you look you can see enormous regard for women, especially among big business.

I'm talking about two great new products.

The first is the wine rack.

No, not that wine rack.

Not that shelf with the holes that hold wine bottles.

Silly.

I'm talking about a bra that has two plastic bags, one in each cup, and you can fill the bags with wine, which you can drink through a tube attached to the bra.

The “wine rack.”

Get it?

It's so punny!

Anyway, what a clever idea, right?

I'm sure that every woman has wondered whether she could drink wine out of her bra.

That is, everyone but me.

Although to be fair, I have wondered if I could eat chocolate cake out of my bra.

Then I could have cup cakes!

See, I can think of stupid puns, too!

By the way, I don't know where your breasts go if the cups of your bra are occupied by wine bags. Evidently, you can't be picky when your underwear doubles as a beverage-delivery system.

And who doesn't want their wine warmed by body heat?

In any event, it's good to know that American business is constantly thinking of innovative ways to meet the needs of women.

Alcoholic women.

In fact, if you look up the wine rack online, they call it “every girl's best friend.”

Really?

More like every girl's best frenemy.

Because, let's be real. It's a bra.

Every girl's best friend is going braless.

Amazingly, in addition to the wine rack, I came across another genius product for women, called the Shewee.

Yes, you read that right.

According to its website, the Shewee is a “urinating device that allows women to urinate when they're on the go.”

In other words, if you have to go while you're on the go.

I'd like to describe a Shewee to you, but good taste prevails.

For a change.

The bottom line is that it's plastic and it's shaped like—well, it's for girls who have penis envy.

In other words, no girl ever.

Only a man would come up with the idea that women have penis envy. Because anybody who has ever seen a penis knows that no woman would want one.

You know what's in men's pants that we want?

A wallet.

To stay on point, the Shewee is the “the original female urination device.”

Copycats, beware.

Accept no substitutions.

Like a Tupperware funnel.

The website says that the Shewee is perfect for “camping, festivals, cycling, during pregnancy, long car journeys, climbing, sailing, skiing, the list is endless!”

It doesn't say anything about being middle-aged.

Too bad, because I'm pretty sure that if you're middle-aged, you'll want one of these babies. Even if you don't camp or go to festivals, and your days of pregnancy are behind you.

We know why, don't we, ladies?

Do I have to spell it out for you—in the snow?

I myself am about to order a gross.

Because it's gross.

My favorite thing about the Shewee is that it comes in seven different colors.

Oddly, there was no yellow.

If you ask me, that's a no-brainer.

Get your marketing together, people.

My favorite color was “Power Pink.”

Because nothing says empowered like being able to pee where you want, damn it.

Sayonara, rest stops.

I'm gonna pee in my car!

Woot woot!

So with the holidays around the corner, now you know the perfect gifts for all your girlfriends.

If you get them the wine rack, I guarantee they're going to need the Shewee.

 

Hot or Not at the Gym

By Francesca

Getting started is the hardest part of any growing experience.

I can tell you it gets better, because I'm on the other side of it now. But in the beginning of any fitness journey, you're going to feel bad about yourself. Even when you're working out at the gym, you'll feel bad. Especially when you're working out at the gym. It's a cruel trick.

Because when you feel bad about how you look, everyone else looks great. I never notice more thin people than on those days that I feel fat.

This is the definition of neuroses.

But it's amplified at the gym.

Those first months working out at my new gym were brutal.

Naturally, I was convinced it was the gym's fault.

It's in downtown Manhattan, home to fashion models and gay men—the two most beautiful demographics statistically.

I'd pass the mats and always see some lovely, lithe woman stretching out her spider limbs. Or some gorgeous man making squat sets look like B-roll from
Magic Mike.

Maybe I just tell myself the men are gay because I can't have them.

But these people were just too fit to comfortably exercise with.

In other words, this gym was too effective.

Everyone there seemed so purposeful except me. I felt conspicuously clueless wandering around the machines, so my solution was to take a lot of group classes instead. But that plan wasn't without its drawbacks.

See, I work best with positive reinforcement, and the mirror was being kind of a jerk.

During Barre Burn, for instance, I'd see myself in the mirror and feel like Santa in line with the Rockettes.

The other girls' tank tops pulled only across their breasts like comic-book heroines, while my tummy pushed at my shirt.

My jumping jacks were more jumping jiggles.

And thank God I got to face away from the mirror for downward dog.

I didn't even have the right clothes. There was a uniform among the women of trim black yoga pants and cute strappy sport tops. I typically wore an oversize T-shirt and puffy basketball shorts.

My mental spin on this was that I'm simply too down-to-earth to buy nice clothes to sweat in. But after a couple weeks of avoiding my own reflection, it occurred to me:

They're not showing off; I'm hiding.

So I bought some new, flattering tank tops, slimming pants of my own, and a sports bra that showed tasteful, workout-cleave instead of binding my breasts into the dreaded mono-boob.

And I felt a little better about myself.

Money
can
buy you self-love.

But the locker room was a fresh hell. Who are these women who wear such beautiful underwear to the gym? Matching sets, lace,
thongs.

Squats in a thong? Ouch.

Lunges? (Shudder)

I saw one woman in such elaborate lingerie, I can only assume it was Dita Von Teese without makeup.

Personally, I work out in drugstore granny-panties, and I don't apologize for it.

I just need a pair that say, “My Other Underwear Is a G-String.”

And there's always that one show-off in the women's locker room. Like the woman who blow-dries her hair in the mirror while standing stark naked. Or the one who lathers her body in moisturizer with more sensuality than Cinemax after midnight.

Your nipples aren't that chapped, dear.

But the steam room is my oasis.

It's the antidote of the see-and-be-seen nature of the rest of the gym. There's a collective understanding that if we're all going to be naked in a little room together and have any hope of relaxing, we must suspend our judgmental and self-critical impulses and allow ourselves to just breathe.

Bodies of all ages, shapes, and sizes are equal in the foggy eyes of the steam room.

I give myself all sorts of mental pep talks in there. I work out plot twists in the novel I'm ever editing. I envision meetings with agents going well. I say positive affirmations about what I like about my body. I plan out date outfits whether or not I have a date. And I always leave feeling detoxified.

Which is why I dislike this one young woman. She always struts in the steam room completely naked, not even the gesture of carrying a towel to lie down on.

That's just unsanitary.

Now, is she beautiful? Absolutely. She looks in her early twenties, blond, and in perfect shape. She's stunning and she knows it. Am I jealous? You bet. But I swear this isn't sour grapes. I'm not taking issue with her beauty. I'm taking issue with the performance.

This is her routine. First, she makes a big show of standing and posing as she rakes her fingers through her hair before twisting it up.

Please, now you're making it unsanitary for us and getting your hairs everywhere. And I speak as a curly-haired shedder myself when I say, keep it outside.

Then she begins to stretch. We're talking full-on-naked lunges.

The general etiquette in the steam room is a benign disregard between women. So when The Hot Girl started her naked yoga near where I was lying down, I resisted the urge to move away so that I wouldn't offend her. But as she did a full bend right by my head, I wished for more steam to cover my eyes.

I saw more of her than I've seen of myself.

And let it be noted that she doesn't do the awkward stretches. You know the ones, where your belly folds, or your one hand behind your back blindly gropes for the other hand. No, she only does the sexy stretches—those combinations of sun salutations and Playmate poses.

My point is, it kills the vibe. You can feel the collective shift of the other women to cover themselves when she enters.