A Brief Essay

So I’d like to talk to you about women’s underwear. I’m of the feeling that it just doesn’t have to be so darn complicated. Men have three choices: boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs. Women have so many choices, including briefs, bikinis, hi-cut briefs, boy shorts, thongs, with lace, without lace, cotton, nylon, and v-cut, not to mention crotchless and edible – it’s mind boggling! How is a woman to choose?

Then we have the upper body. Bras can be underwire, wireless (kind of like radios), low cut, full cut, minimizers, pushups, padded or not. With flowers, lace or little pearly things. Then there’s full coverage or sheer. And that’s another thing. What’s the deal with “full coverage?” Some of them actually have little flower-shaped extra padding so the nipples don’t show. Hey, we have nipples. So do men. So do apes. Who cares?

Then there’s a whole selection of lingerie. Teddies, bustiers, baby dolls (I’m not even going to go INTO that) and camisoles. A friend of mine sent me an email letting me know his wife received a sporting catalog that included a selection of camouflage lingerie. Now exactly what do they camouflage? (If it’s hips and thighs, I’ve gotta get me some.) But explain to me the point of camo lingerie – exactly what are you hiding and why? I mean, if lingerie is supposed to get your lover excited, what good is camouflage if it actually works? Let’s say you decide to have a tryst in your backyard, and you don your camo lingerie, and then your boyfriend can’t find you? I mean, how frustrating is that? What do you have to do then – whistle? My friend suggested perfume. Apparently he’d given the matter some thought.

Men make such a big thing about Victoria’s Secret (I still say Victoria’s secret is her older, fatter sister) and women’s undergarments. I say let’s give women a break. While it’s nice to have choices, ultimately, granny panties or g-strings, whatever comes between us and our Calvins isn’t that big a deal.

Timmy's in the Well?

(Published originally in the New York Times Long Island section, Sunday, Sept. 14, 1997)

Saturday, 6 P.M. I head into the backyard to replenish our rabbit’s food and water. I call to him, expecting him to hop to the front of the cage. No response. In fact, he’s nowhere to be seen. I circle the hutch and discover that the back wall crumbled in last night’s storm leaving one side of the cage completely open. Ariel is gone!

Our yard holds chipmunks, raccoons, squirrels and crows; our fluffy friend doesn’t stand a chance. Then I notice that one of my dogs, who was previously darting around the perimeter of the deck, is no longer in sight. Now I search the property for both the dog and the rabbit, but to no avail. What if Sybil has defeated the invisible electric fence and is roaming the neighborhood? Two pets lost in one day!

I hear rustling beneath the deck. The fact that the underside of the deck is inaccessible except through a shallow area behind thick evergreen bushes has me doubting that Sybil, a large apricot standard poodle, could have secreted herself there, but it’s possible. I position myself flat on the ground, my face inches from dirt, peering into the darkness. Can’t see a thing.

I go into the house to get a flashlight and again lie facing the deck, moving the beam of light from side to side. The deck is long with deep supports that separate the sections. I can’t see the dog, but there are sounds coming from the darkness and then I glimpse tiny tufts of white rabbit fur stuck to the evergreen branches just inches from my face. Ariel must be under the deck, and Sybil must be with him!

I call and call, but get no response, so I return from the house with a box of Milk Bones. I sit just beyond the deck shaking the box and offering biscuits to DooHickey, the terrier. Nothing.

Heavier ammunition is needed, so this time when I return from the kitchen, I’m carrying a package of fresh roast beef. DooHickey is delighted as I hand-feed him tidbits of roast beef and lavish praise for his being “such a good boy.” Jealousy is a powerful tool with dogs.

Not powerful enough. Ten minutes later I’ve exhausted the supply of roasts beef and all the enthusiastic affection for DooHickey I can muster. Another search into the darkness yields nothing. There hasn’t been a sound from beneath the deck, and I am beginning to wonder if I’m delusional. Maybe Sybil chased Ariel off the property and they’re both gone and the sounds I’ve been hearing are figments of my hysterical imagination. I ask my husband, Aaron, to search the neighborhood by car. I know that if Sybil is out there, the longer we wait the farther away she might be.

Suddenly, there’s rustling. And panting. I throw myself on the ground. Ariel comes hopping toward the light, and peers at me, nose twitching, then quietly returns to the darkness. I am bubbling with glee when I hear Sybil’s “yip” as she goes after the rabbit. Hallelujah! Both beasts are found! I call Aaron on the cell phone and relate my discovery.

Forty-five minutes later, we’re growing hoarse from calling Sybil’s name. I’m able to locate the sound as coming from the deepest corner of the deck, closest to the house and farthest from the opening. No one has been rescued, and now Sybil is crying. Any minute I’m going to burst into tears.

Where’s Lassie when you need her? All they had to do was tell Lassie to take them to Timmy, who had, yet again, fallen in the well, and she would. “Hickey!” I say, enthusiastically. “Sybil’s in the well! Go get Sybie!” DooHickey appreciates the attention and licks my knee.

Time for desperate measures. We’ll have someone come tear up a part of the deck and rescue Sybil from above. I call the SPCA, the Humane Society, my contractor, his assistant and my father, none of whom are home. I call my sister, who suggests the fire department. “They save cats up trees, don’t they?” When I offer this plea to the Melville fire department, the man laughs and says, “In my thirteen years in the fire department, I’ve never rescued a cat.” But he’ll check into it and call us back.

While I’m waiting for his call, I remember there’s a window in the basement that looks directly into that corner under the deck. I go down to the storage room, wade through cartons of books and winter clothes and perch precariously atop a cooler I’d forgotten we have. I’m able to remove the glass, but there’s a window-well I cannot move or see beyond. I call to Sybil, coaxing, pleading, sending kisses into the darkness. I’m hoping she will move close enough to see me, and then decide to jump into my arms. I am aware this will probably seriously injure us both, but I’m willing to take that chance. It isn’t necessary. There’s movement and breathing, but no appearance.

Back upstairs, Aaron informs me the fire department is on its way. I breathe a sigh of relief, but Sybil is crying again, and I decide to try, one more time, to lead her to the opening. Flat on the ground, peering into the long, empty spaces, I search for the dog. My flashlight catches the gleam of Sybil’s eyes. “Come on!” I cry. “You can do it!” For the first time I see her face and she seems so far away. In the background I hear sirens, as I coax Sybil toward me. The encouragement in my voice eggs her on. She crawls on her stomach, maneuvering under long, low beams, toward my cooing and clapping and kissie noises. She slithers past the opening, through the bushes and into my arms just as the fire truck, sirens blaring, stops in front of my house. A firefighter in full regalia – boots, turnout coat, helmet and ax – heads toward the backyard.

Mortified, I have half a mind to shove Sybil back under the deck. Another man in civilian clothing pulls up in a Jeep and steps onto the driveway. “Is that the dog?” I nod sheepishly, as if I’d falsely pulled a fire alarm. (I didn’t expect sirens and fire hats! Just Dudley Dooright shouting, “I’ll save you, Nell!”) The firefighter turns without a word and goes back to the truck. I pull a $20 from my pocket and offer it as a donation. I’m embarrassed, but grateful they responded. There is kindness in the world after all.

Ariel comes out of hiding first thing Sunday morning. My father and I buy coated chicken-wire to cover the opening behind the evergreens that leads to beneath the deck. It is nearly impossible to move the bushes away from the opening. It takes quite a while, but after much tugging and hammering we are done. My father gathers his tools to return them to the tool box while I check to make sure the edges of the barrier are secure. “Hey!” I yell, stopping my father in his tracks. I point, and we both stare in disbelief as Sybil’s nose pokes through one of the chicken-wire holes from the other side. We have securely enclosed Sybil under the deck. At least this time I know how to get her out.

You Want Toast with That?

I don’t au gratin. Or braise, blanche, fricasse, or cassoulet. I have been known to sauté, but those occasions are few, and far between. It’s not that I can’t cook, it’s just that, well, my repertoire is severely limited. I bake, broil and reheat. I can warm, simmer and boil. I’ve got breakfast down-pat. Toast– no problem. Cold cereal – aced. I can make eggs – fried, scrambled, omeletted – in fact, I make my own version of matzoh brei, using oatmeal instead of matzoh. It’s quite tasty and nutritious, and it was born of my own limited culinary imagination. (Until last summer I didn’t even know how to pronounce ‘culinary.’)

My biggest problem is the lack of a general sense of what the hell I am doing. Baking comes easily to me. I know what to put where and when and how to improvise. When I’m cooking, it’s all like a mystery of ingredients and timing that I somehow cannot grasp. My husband never really liked when I cooked, because he’d come home from work and I’d be cursing and throwing things across the kitchen. Substitutions are rare – what do I put in place of red peppers, which I hate? How should I know? Does it have to be red? So that recipe is out the window. And my sense of timing is always off. The vegetables come to the table 10 minutes after everything else, and occasionally, something doesn’t make it to the table at all. Once, I forgot I made garlic bread and left it wrapped in aluminum foil, only to be found petrifying in the oven the next time I made something (which, believe me, wasn’t all that soon.) Come to dinner at my house and the steak is tough, the peas are cold and the mashed potatoes are crunchy. (The salad is good, though.)

It’s not funny. I’m fifty years old and rarely feed my family from scratch. It isn’t even in my brain’s makeup to cook. Every morning comes and goes without my thinking of cooking, and every afternoon, when my daughter asks me, “What’s for dinner?” the question takes me by surprise. I’m thinking, “Damn, didn’t I just feed you yesterday?”

(She bought me a book for my fiftieth birthday – Basic Cooking Techniques. She’s a funny kid.) On the occasions I do cook dinner, my children want to know what’s wrong, and if, heaven help us, I cook more than one night a week, they know the apocalypse is nigh.

I do feed them. I am an expert reheater. The problem is, I have to have something to reheat. So original meals consist of buffet selections from Fairway, take out Chinese, or pizza. Lots and lots of pizza. I’m a bad mother, what can I say? (Hey, if you put spinach on pizza, isn’t that nutrition?)

My mother cooked when I was growing up. I just never paid attention. Once, I tried to be independent and take over making the egg salad. My mother said, “I’ve already boiled the eggs, just mush them together with some mayonnaise and chop in a little celery.” So I did. I took three eggs from the fridge, and followed her directions. It was a slimy, liquid mess. When I brought them to her I said, “This doesn’t look like your egg salad.” She sighed. “That’s because you used raw eggs.”

Ok, so that was my first hint. I actually screwed up in home ec. in seventh grade by mixing up the salt and the sugar. Let’s just say, salt cookies are not a tasty treat.

And my foray into Thanksgiving was a disaster. I don’t know what made me think I could pull it off, but my mother was ill and in no shape to cater or host, so the whole shebang came to my house. Almost time for dinner and I realize the oven isn’t hot and the turkey is only half cooked. Apparently, my oven wasn’t working, but I didn’t know that, seeing as how I never used the damn thing. Thankfully (since it was a day for giving thanks) I was able to jiggle the heating element and get it going again, but to say dinner was late is putting it mildly. Everyone swore it was delicious, but really??? My FIRST Thanksgiving and the oven conks out?

Oh, wait. I have to cut this short. It’s 5:47 and I haven’t the faintest idea what’s for dinner. . .

The Oy of Dating

I love dating. No, seriously, I do. There’s an excitement, an energy, a sexual tension that happens when you meet someone new.  Lots of smiling, a bit of flirting, a few double entendres thrown back and forth.  (“What’s your favorite thing to do?” “Standing up, or lying down?”) There’s the exchange of personal tidbits (“I have an older sister, I went to Hofstra. I procrastinate.”)

 

Often, the conversation revolves more around the man and his life, than it does around you. That’s something men do. They like to talk about themselves. It’s a definite plus if the guy actually asks about you and bothers to listen to the answer.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First you have to actually meet someone, which is much easier said than done. Oh, of course you run into the guy with the creepy smile who follows you through Barnes and Noble, and wants to talk about this new book he found on empowering his inner winner. And the one with the wrap-around hair who asks you how to choose produce while squeezing mangoes in the vegetable aisle at Fairway.

 

You could go to singles events, but I have this fear that some shlub is going to latch onto me and I’ll be stuck with him for the evening. I never really learned how to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” or even, “Buzz off, I’m not interested.” I just smile and nod and pray for a fire drill.

 

Oprah magazine told me to put myself out there, TALK to people, make connections. Now, my kids already accuse me of being that crazy lady who talks to everyone whether she knows them or not. I talk to people on elevators, on line at the deli counter, in the bathroom at Fridays’, and I like to be funny, so half the time I say something that strikes me as witty that no one else understands, and they just look at me with this combination of discomfort and pity. But I was in Costco a few months ago, and this great-looking guy and I kept making eye-contact, and smiling and saying, “Hello” as if we already had some kind of prior relationship. Aisle after aisle we kept bumping into each other and I thought, “Hey! This is what Oprah is talking about. Put yourself out there, make a connection. So I did, I said, (trying to be funny), “You’re really going to have to stop following me.” To which he replied, “But you’re such a nice person to follow!”

 

Bingo!! Oprah, you’re a genius. So we get to talking and make that connection, and I end up giving him my number (not that he asked for it, but I was all gung ho at this point), and when I get home I’m so excited because there’s a message on my machine from  him saying hi and he’d like to talk to me some more, but he doesn’t leave a number and the caller id says, “Restricted.” This happens once more and I’m getting a little frustrated. I mean, how am I supposed to call him back. . . unless. . . and the thought creeps into my head that there’s a reason he doesn’t want me to call him back. And sure enough, the next time he calls, we connect, and he admits that he’s married. MARRIED! I mean, what the hell?? Connection schmection! Great advice, Oprah.

 

So I’m back to trying to meet men. I’ve been online, on those dating services. There are so many of them. I started on JDate, but I think I used up all the jews in a twenty-mile radius of my neighborhood, so I moved on to another service, a nonsectarian one. It took me three and a half days to fill out their in-depth questionnaire and then it took them three weeks to send me the names of two guys they believed were my harmonious matches. One if them was 62 and lived in Connecticut (I’m 50 and on Long Island), and the other was a motorcycle enthusiast (I’m terrified!) from New Jersey. So that was great. I waited another three weeks and they sent me the name of a guy with two cats (I’m deathly allergic) who was also a cigar aficionado (P. . . U. . .)  All that in-depth research certainly paid off.

 

Onto another dating service where I went through search after search of all the criteria that interested me: good-looking, not-too-tall, around my age, no boat, rich . . .

 

Each profile has a banner, one line that sums up that person’s outlook on life, or dating, or occasionally, inexplicably, boating. Mine says, “Sanity is overrated.” I came across a member whose banner reads, “You are my density.” Hmmm. He’s either dyslexic or suffering from osteoporosis. I mean, I’ve heard of looking for someone to fill you up before, but that’s a bit ridiculous. I contact another man who interests me because his profile says he’s Native American. We chat. Turns out he’s Portuguese. From Brazil.  So that’s almost Native American. Not.

 

I’ve been contacted by 26 year olds. I’m fifty. Seriously, what’s the point? I know Demi and Ashton are having the time of their lives, but exactly what will we talk about? I’ll quote Dylan, he’ll rap a little Fiddy – where do we go from there? Anyway, I’ve noticed the young ones are only interested in sex. I guess they figure since I’m so old, I know what I’m doing, and I’m probably desperate to do it.

 

And some of the men choose to wink at me. They send me a virtual wink to let me know they are interested -- so interested they don’t have the ability to string together a couple of sentences to send me an actual email??? Yeah, THAT’s the guy I want to go out with.

 

So here I am, stuck in this conundrum: I love dating, but can’t get a date. I guess I shouldn’t complain  -- I’ve been married twice. The first was a psychotic episode I don’t care to talk about. The second was an amazing relationship with my soulmate, whom I met through the New York Magazine personal columns. (He passed away six years ago). So, you CAN meet people, true love IS out there, you just have to keep trying. Maybe I should walk around Barnes and Noble carrying that book on finding my inner winner. . .

 

 

My Body

I know, I’m supposed to love my body. Oprah says so. Well, I’m trying. It’s just that there are so many things I wouldn’t have put my stamp of approval on if I’d been there when it was put together.

 

My neck, for instance. I don’t really have one. My head basically sits about an inch above my shoulders. Seriously. Turtlenecks – not happening. I mean, if I put on a turtleneck, I could rob a bank with no worries whatsoever of being identified. Choker necklaces? Kind of like nooses, strangling included. I am so envious of those women with swan-like necks who can wear stand-up collars, and scarves, and long earrings!! On me, long earrings become a necklace.

 

Moving down, we have my boobs. I have the breasts of a much taller person. Maybe if I were 5’6, or so, I could carry them off. As it is, when I look at myself, I see boobs galore. I mean, they’re nice and everything, and men seem to like them, there’s just so much of them. And needless to say, after 50 years, they’re not exactly where they started out. And when I put on my bra, the nipples end up in different places. One’s pointing east, one’s sort of southwest. People with normal-sized boobs don’t have to worry about nipple misalignment. I’m fairly certain of this.

 

And then we have my waist. Or not. It’s not that I don’t have a waist. I’m pretty curvy as far as that’s concerned. It’s just that my waist is a couple of inches below those glorious boobs. There’s no real space to accessorize. If I wear high-waisted pants I can carry my breasts in my pockets – they’re just a little off to the sides. If I wear a belt, I don’t need a bra. It’s efficient, but it’s just not all that comfortable.

 

I’m just realizing that most of my problems have to do with height, or lack thereof. If I were taller, my neck would be longer, my waist would be lower, and my chest would be more in proportion with the rest of me. Sagging might still be an issue, but there’d be more distance to my bellybutton. It’s a question of esthetics.

 

Height has always been an issue for me. When I was young, and always the smallest in my class, my mother used to tell me to wait. “Just wait,” she said. “You’ll grow.” I remember being enamored of the new girl, Missy Molina. Not because she was such a nice person, but because she was actually shorter than I was -- a miracle! Then she moved to another town. There I am, line leader once again. Then, in fifth grade, when my best friends were a head and a half taller than me, I was still waiting, and mom would say, “They’ve already got breasts. They’ll stop growing and you will catch up and be taller than they are.” She lied. Oh, they stopped growing, but I never really started. Where’s the justice?

 

(I might not mind it as much if everyone in my family were short. Then, I wouldn’t be such an oddity. But my father is normal height, as is my mother, sister and brother. No, I got to take after my paternal grandmother’s side of the family, who are short, fat and buxom. Go genetics.)

 

See, when someone asks, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” the answer is seldom, “taller.” But I always thought I’d grow UP when I grew up. Never happened. I hit 5’ in ninth grade, squeaked out another ½ inch, grew boobs with a vengeance, and that was that. I still can’t reach the top shelf in grocery stores, have to order THROUGH the deli counter, and suffer through subways and crowded elevator rides amidst a sea of armpits. Really. Think about where your head is in a crowd. Now mine. Somewhat less pleasant, isn’t it?

 

 Mom once asked me if I’d date a man who was shorter than me. I said, “There are no men shorter than me.” On the plus side, I do have a wider range of dating possibilities, although dating really tall guys becomes a question of, “His face isn’t that familiar, but I’d know that bellybutton anywhere.” Holding hands feels like a little kid walking with daddy. It’s just not conducive to feeling sexy-- more to feeling short, puny, runt-like – you get the picture.

 

So, Oprah, here we have it. No neck, no waist, big boobs, abreviated stature. Ok, I’m trying to love my body, I just wish I’d had some say in the design.