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Episode 24: Mother Courage
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
For a long time my favorite piece of literature was this play called "Mother Courage and Her Children." I couldn't really relate to the literal story (among other things, it is about war), but I loved the name. The play was written in 1939, by the German dramatist and poet Bertholt Brecht and I always remember it around this time of the year because I think on Mother's Day it is particularly apropos. This is why.
It all started with the man in the grey suit. Actually, it started the day before, when Jeffrey the home wrecker called to remind me Mother's Day was right around the corner. Now, Mother's Day has never been a big thing in our household. Oh, the boys make me little cards with ink blots that are supposed to be butterflies and bring home painted flower pots filled with seeds that in any other home would grow and blossom. (Of course, in the polluted environment specific to my ex-husband, they just wither and die.) Over the years, I came to expect nothing more than this and the day would come and go with little fanfare or discussion. (Which was fine, considering the holiday was created sixty or seventy years ago by a bunch of Camel smoking men in a Hallmark boardroom who, I'm sure, were all cheating on their spouses and thought, "Hey, let's cash in on a day when we can buy our wives flowers and gifts to make up for treating them like shit the other three hundred sixty four days of the year.")
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TechnoratiEpisode 23: Breaking The Rules
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
There is nothing predictable about being in the middle of your life. I've learned that much, if I've learned anything. (Well, except for flabby upper arms. That, apparently, is pretty standard. And chin hairs made of graphite. Don't forget those.) So when one day your college boyfriend shows up, out of the blue, and says he's never really gotten over you — well, there is no rule book on how to handle that one. You could say, "You're a mixed up son of a bitch," which is what you wanted to say twenty years ago when he scaled the walls of your dorm and hung by your fifteenth story window. You might say, "This Romeo and Juliet act is so... Shakespearean," which is what you tried to spit out when he threw your "diverse backgrounds" in your face (you from Connecticut, him from Westchester — despite an Ivy League pedigree the boy was a moron.) You'd probably say, "That ship has sailed, Popeye," which means more or less nothing unless you understand what it is to be a guy who works out five hours a day and thinks his muscles are God's gift to a just-lost-her-virginity, boy crazy freshman. And yet you say none of these things. Instead, you stutter, "Geez, Danny, you look exactly the same," and stare at him, kind of hungry, like you did when you were twenty and all you could think of was how his ripped-to-the-max swimmers body (Eighties lingo, for you youngsters) would look naked in your dorm room.
read more »Episode 22: Mr. Charisma Meets Obi Wan
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
It was bound to happen. The space-time continuum would suggest that it was inevitable. Like the full moon, the rising tide, like me being late for carpool over and over again, it was written in the stars. The men in my life were going to meet one another and when they did — it wasn't going to be pretty.
read more »Episode 21: Breast Intentions
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
I have to admit, my boobs have always been a big part of my life. Literally. They showed up late — I was fifteen (kind of apropos for me) but once they appeared they almost instantly had a personality all their own. You know how it is. (Well, if you've ever had double D's you do.) The boys gawk at you. The men whistle. Your friends say they're jealous but are secretly relieved they can go breezy and braless. (In the seventies, the cute sundress, no bra look was really in, remember?) Of course these days, Oprah devotes entire hours of television to how important a perfectly fitted brassiere truly is. (I always knew this. But I never had a syndicated television talk show to help me preach that particular gospel.) I am sure, however, there are many well-endowed women who are fully indebted to Oprah for getting this important information across. I myself have been known to run out and purchase the Oprah bra of the moment, and let me tell you — the fit (when done by a proper bra fitter — don't forget that part!) is always spectacular.
I know I have good boobs. I had good boobs when I was a teenager, when I was in college, when I had a breast reduction (double D's, remember) and I've had them since. They've almost never failed me. My boyfriends always liked them and so did I. Size, shape, the whole nine yards. (Jeffrey was perhaps the exception. This might make one wonder further about our relationship. He always said he wished I'd left them bigger, as if a C-cup wasn't big enough. This is of course metaphoric on a number of levels. I never got a good look at any of his prostitutes except for my Super Fan — she had whoppers — but I'm pretty sure he was getting some gazangas when he hired them.)
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I know I have good boobs. I had good boobs when I was a teenager, when I was in college, when I had a breast reduction (double D's, remember) and I've had them since. They've almost never failed me. My boyfriends always liked them and so did I. Size, shape, the whole nine yards. (Jeffrey was perhaps the exception. This might make one wonder further about our relationship. He always said he wished I'd left them bigger, as if a C-cup wasn't big enough. This is of course metaphoric on a number of levels. I never got a good look at any of his prostitutes except for my Super Fan — she had whoppers — but I'm pretty sure he was getting some gazangas when he hired them.)
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Episode 20: When To Kiss a Kennedy
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
Here's a question — if you were given the chance to marry the same person that you had married ten, fifteen, twenty-five years ago, would you? Would you be willing to re-live all that shit to end up where you are now? You would imagine that the obvious answer for someone like me would be "No." You would think that after prostitutes and porn (and pot and plagiarism — that's another story) that the answer would be clear. You would think that plain old infidelity would have put the toe tag on that corpse once and for all. But I have come to learn that there are no clear answers and that even when you think a corpse is good and dead, a body can be resurrected. And this is why.
It's the Botox. Seriously. Annabelle called me in a panic the other day saying she had just read how Botox can leak into your brain and she is going to need a lobotomy or at the very least some electroshock therapy to deal with the problem. I assured her she was over-reacting but then I heard someone on the Today Show talking about how Botox can move from the injection site into your central nervous system and I started to wonder. I know they say the stuff can take years off your age by paralyzing your facial muscles, but I started to think, if it can do that, what else can it do? Is it possible that Botox injected into a corpse can bring it back to life again? Dr. Frankenstein harnessed a lightening bolt to reanimate the dead. Can a plastic surgeon with a hypodermic be just as effective?
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It's the Botox. Seriously. Annabelle called me in a panic the other day saying she had just read how Botox can leak into your brain and she is going to need a lobotomy or at the very least some electroshock therapy to deal with the problem. I assured her she was over-reacting but then I heard someone on the Today Show talking about how Botox can move from the injection site into your central nervous system and I started to wonder. I know they say the stuff can take years off your age by paralyzing your facial muscles, but I started to think, if it can do that, what else can it do? Is it possible that Botox injected into a corpse can bring it back to life again? Dr. Frankenstein harnessed a lightening bolt to reanimate the dead. Can a plastic surgeon with a hypodermic be just as effective?
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Episode 19: How To Dress Your Age
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
Not too long ago I turned on the television and on one of those talk shows that you know you shouldn't watch because they put all these bad ideas into your head ("I'm too fat," "I'm too thin," "I should have a better career," "I shouldn't have anything") I saw a segment called "How To Dress Your Age." On this show the hosts did a lot of "Ooohing," and "Aaahing" as a bunch of "real life models" (don't get me started on that one) pranced down a makeshift runway showing the studio audience (mostly mid-life women, some with deliberately unfortunate hair and clothes) how they were supposed to dress.
What I took away from that eleven a.m. fashion show was this: a woman over forty is supposed to wear belts. Now, I've never been a big fan of the belt (I don't have much of a waist to begin with, plus there's the aforementioned "menopot" to contend with) but the fashion experts on this show insisted that the belt was the savior of all mankind (or at least, of all womankind) especially women "of a certain age." (When, by the way, did forty become an age of such "certainty?" Did I miss the memo? When the fuck did that happen?) Anyhoo, the belt serves many purposes, apparently. It holds things in place. It gives the illusion of a waist where there is none. It reminds you not to eat pasta at lunchtime. (And the wider the belt, the less noticeable the "overhang.") It shaves years off your figure.
Episode 18: Missionary Position
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
I was going to call the Concubine. I meant to do it right away, before I chickened out, or lost focus, or got strep throat courtesy of Roo's germy school classmates. I was going to call her before I remembered that she had once been my really good friend who I swapped shoes with (pre the Saks Laboutin incident), before I remembered that one night, when I was out of town promoting my comic creation Willa the Tail Girl, she had shed her Agent Provocateur cami in front of my fetish happy husband. I was going to call her because Jeffrey spent one hundred grand putting his penis into hookers. I was really going to call her because I may be many things (kind of like Sally Field in Sybil), but I am not a girl who wants even the ex-friend who blew her husband to get some pestilence-like centuries-old disease. I was going to call her but one thing happened, and then another (pipes burst, aforementioned strep throat, Raoul taking an unannounced three week vacation and leaving ripped up linoleum in my kitchen) and then before you know it, it was Easter.
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Episode 17: Eliot Spitzer Stupid
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
Guess what? I have a "contrecoup" concussion. This means my brain is all shook up. It happened, just like everything else in my life seems to, by accident last Sunday. I was standing on an embankment opening the car door with my super power arm strength (courtesy of that new thirty minute workout Annabelle's been pushing), when it happened. Needless to say, the kids were going at it, I was trying to call order, no one was listening (really, do they ever?) and before you know it, I smacked the door of the SUV into my hapless forehead. What a moron. I didn't see stars or rainbows but I did end up with a giant, yellow lump, a feeling of just general off-centeredness (nothing new for me) and a whopping headache at the base of my skull. That's where the "contrecoup" comes in. (It's French, but in English means a bruising of the brain caused by a blow, appearing on "the opposite side to that on which the blow was struck.") Which is a fancy way of saying you can get blindsided at any moment.
Case in point. I'm standing in my bedroom, post-trauma, in front of the full-length mirror (what a mistake that over-priced purchase was, and by the way, it was vain Jeffrey's idea) surveying my body and the bright yellow bump on my head. It's late in the afternoon, Roo is asleep (Daylight Savings — what a rip-off. It doesn't save me anything except the chance to catch up on some much needed zzzzz's, while at the same time sending my children into weird coma-like naps and even for them, unusual tantrums) and Mr. Handsome is at Chess Club after school. (I don't play chess, by the way. Jeffrey does — and not just on a game board — you'll see what I mean.)
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Case in point. I'm standing in my bedroom, post-trauma, in front of the full-length mirror (what a mistake that over-priced purchase was, and by the way, it was vain Jeffrey's idea) surveying my body and the bright yellow bump on my head. It's late in the afternoon, Roo is asleep (Daylight Savings — what a rip-off. It doesn't save me anything except the chance to catch up on some much needed zzzzz's, while at the same time sending my children into weird coma-like naps and even for them, unusual tantrums) and Mr. Handsome is at Chess Club after school. (I don't play chess, by the way. Jeffrey does — and not just on a game board — you'll see what I mean.)
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Episode 16: Sexercise
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
Having sex is like exercising a muscle. (Discussion re: what it takes to still have muscles at the age of forty-five—irrelevant.) If you don't exercise, your muscles disappear. If you don't have sex, well, apparently your vagina shrivels like a prune. I mean, we've all been fed that phallo-centric myth that estrogen cream is the new, "female Viagra". But take it from the walking wounded...fuck estrogen cream. The real issue is just not doing it anymore. (By the by, have you ever noticed that unlike big words like "phallo-centric," there are no fancy names for "vagina"?)
Seriously, who are you supposed to have sex with when your husband leaves you for a Concubine? (Not a rhetorical question here.) Mess around with the handyman and your re-model is at risk. Drool over Hot School Dad and your integrity, not to mention your reputation (such as it is, no comment), could go waltzing out the door. Suddenly, the days turn into weeks, the weeks to months and for lack of a cuter, testosterone-fueled alternative, you're shopping for Crème de la Femme and a vibrator. I'll be the first to admit (and Annabelle will confirm because she's the one who turned me on to Crème de la Femme in the first place) this was starting to be an eency problem.
read more »Episode 15: Body Art
by Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
In case you were wondering, I didn't have sex with Raoul. Oh, I may have wanted to lunge at him right then and there, his ripped "I'm a handyman and don't you forget it" t-shirt, the indecipherable longitude and latitude tattoo, the chest (really muscle-y, by the way) that was pressed up against mine, all of it—but as the owner of a house in the process of the most important re-model of its forty-plus-year-old, mid-century life (kind of like forty-plus-year-old, almost mid-century, in need of some minor remodeling, me) I managed, somehow, to exercise some self control.
That doesn't mean I didn't think about it. A lot. After Raoul took off (the dining room, still not painted, I might add. What's up with that?) I consumed most of what was left of a velvet heart-shaped box of chocolates (a misplaced gift from an apoplectic Jeffrey after the Sonya incident - could he be any more of a loser?? I mean really, how could chocolate, even twenty dollar a pound, gold flecked Brazilian cacao, ever make up for walking in on my half-naked ex-husband and a hooker), downed a half-bottle of Muscato D'Asti (that sweet, sparkling Italian stuff that makes you believe that a bike-riding vacation in Tuscany may still be in your Liposuctioned future), whipped out my new, bedazzled iPhone (yeah, I got one) and called Annabelle to tell her to get the hell out of bed pronto because I was getting inked.
Now, it is important to note here that the tattoo thing had nothing to do with Raoul. I want to make it perfectly clear that I don't do things just because I may or may not be lusting after some dude, who happens to have a kick-ass tattoo of his own. (At least, not usually. There was the "buying fifty heads of lettuce incident" which just possibly might have had something to do with that adorable Whole Foods produce boy...)
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