A Note To My Younger Self About Her Teeth

Dear Younger Me,
Floss, please. Also, get that night guard when the first dentist recommends it instead of waiting ten years. Yes, it is expensive, and inconvenient, and extremely dorky. It is also better than a root canal. All those jokes about root canals? They’re true. Trust me. And yes, I know I told you never to trust anyone who says trust me, but you can trust me, I’m you.
Signed,
Your Dentally Challenged Future Self

Detoxed, Just Like Gwyneth

I did it, detoxed from Cozumel. I rid my gut of 24-hour free range Chez Whiz smothered fried tortillas and purged my liver of all-you-can-drink margaritas. Using Gwyneth Paltrow’s detox diet as a guide, I explored the health food store, learned a few good recipes (and the horrors of “pro-greens”), and dropped a few pounds. My tummy is flat. Kinda. And yet, the miracle detox failed to deliver the desired results. I did not grow eight inches of leg. I’m still brunette. Not hanging out with Robert Downey Jr. In short, I’m no Gwyneth. After reading about Paltrow’s bone disease, I couldn’t be happier.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a date with a Frito pie.

Haiku for the Health Food Store Clerks

Haiku is trendy, right? The sparse form seem appropriate for my venture into near-fasting last week. And no detoxing endeavor is complete without a trip to the health food store. Forgive me.

sullen tatted youth

gossip over the miso

while I search for kelp

I’ve Become My Mother In Law

It’s bad enough when we become our mothers. According to my children, I’ve gone a step further. I blame the dog.

My Italian Greyhound is very special. Very. And he has a sensitive stomach. Something must have gotten in there because he stopped eating, started vomiting, and ended up losing 6 of his precious 22 pounds. We can’t have that now, can we? The vet gave me two different medicines and suggested I try to give him some “higher quality” food. Whatever.

So there I am in the kitchen browning hamburger to mix with rice. For the dog. Just to nurse him back to health, mind you, then it’s Old Roy or nothing.

“Mom!” my daughter cried. “What are you doing?”

“It’s for Simon.”

“You’re turning into YaYa,” she said.

Yeah, there’s really no point to this story. Just wanted you all to know that I’ve become a woman who cooks for her dog. It can only get better.

What’s Wrong With This Advertising Model?

I have been in love with Pandora for a while. It is the ultimate running companion. Since I use the free version, after about 40 minutes an ad comes on. Then my music resumes and all is right with the world. I don’t mind the advertising. I wonder how they know someone listening to Ludacris is also in the market for laundry detergent, but it’s all good. Usually when I run I listen to upbeat pop or rap, but occasionally, when I am feeling extra one-with-nature I’ll turn on the Gregorian Chant channel. I turn the volume down low so I can hear the birds chirping and the wind rustling through the trees along with the voices of the monks (or studio musicians-whatever). I’m peaceful like that.

This morning I got my chant on. After 40 minutes a song ended and my internal reverie was interrupted by this too-cheerful message:

“That one always gets me going!” Followed by some pitch for soap or cleaning products or a nonstick something or other.

Pandora, one word: customization.

Top 10 Business Tips I Learned From a Stripper

I went to Las Vegas last weekend with some girlfriends. Of course, we had to take the Stripper 101 course at Planet Hollywood before we went to see Holly Madison in Peepshow. Of course we did.

While we thought we’d be getting some dance instruction and pole maneuvering advice, we got more — an education in how to separate club patrons from their cash. Turns out the stripping business is not so different than any other. I walked away from the class not only with bruised shins, but also these excellent tips, applicable to any business:

10. Always get paid up front.

9. Dont’ reveal everything all at once.

8. When the client gets aggressive, step back.

7. Be confident; you have what they want.

6. To make the most money you must believe you are better than your competitors.

5. Make your quotas!

4. When the money stops flowing, move on.

3. You don’t have to be good to make a lot of money; you just have to give the customers what they want.

2. Vomiting is never sexy.

And the number one business tip I learned from a stripper:

1. When you make a mistake, create a distraction by touching your breasts.

With all this new knowledge I’m starting a new how-to website for stay home moms under my stripper alias, Stretchmark:

Stripping For Fun and Profit During School Hours.

Me and Mt. St. Helen’s

Thirty years ago today I heard Mt. St. Helen’s blow it’s top. From a state away, the explosion served to encapsulate a moment. There I sat, in front of a mirrored wall at the base of the wrought iron spiral staircase that led to my room, where I watched Solid Gold (and later, the wedding of Charles and Diana) on a 10-inch black and white TV, where I taped magazine pictures of models to the wall and learned to measure the circumference of my thighs.

Did you hear it too?

Clubbin’ OKC Style

There we were, three forty-somethings looking for excitement at midnight in Oklahoma City. As the Embassy Suites bartender locked up the liquor and wiped down the counter one last time, he told us to hit Club Rodeo. “There’s bull riding,” he said, so of course you know what I pictured immediately, right? Dolly Parton and John Travolta, mechanical bull, starched Wranglers and shirts with shiny snaps.

Why not?

The $6 cover charge fostered high expectations. But what was that smell as we walked in the front door? Manure? Nah.

The size of the dance floor and all those decades-younger-than-me people moving in synchronized steps was mesmerizing. So was the variety of music – from Brad Paisley to Eminem to Michael Jackson, with an assortment of twenty-two year olds to match. Before I could fully absorb the diversity of the crowd, that hockey rumble remix song came on and the people dispersed, revealing the livestock gates that held back a real live bull. Authentic looking guys with numbers pinned to their chests lined up to ride it.

There’s bull riding. Oh, that’s what he meant.

And then there was the dancing. Let’s just say that without certain pole-worthy moves and a Rohypnol buzz, my companions and I were not sought after dance partners.

“I think we’re doing this wrong,” one of them said.

But we were doing it just fine. Any differently and we would have needed lawyers and antibiotics. As it was we only required moderate chiropractic adjustments.

Youth is But an Afternoon Away

Ah, youth, that fleeting feeling of being immortal, invincible, even irresistible. Short of things that are against the law, abjectly amoral, or just really bad for us, how do we recapture that feeling? Cosmetic procedures, that’s how!

In my inbox today, advertising for all the youthening I can afford:

Botox
I have yet to try this new old standby, though I have actively been trying for a year to get my neighbor, who is an ear, nose, and throat doctor, to let me host a party where we gals drink mojitoes and he shoots us up with botulism. So far, he’s not biting. Not a very good friend, that one. I mean, so what if the toxin can spread away from the injection site, causing everything from breathing problems to loss of bladder control? No who would believe I am perpetually calm anyway.  My friends would think I’d been replaced by an alien. Or a robot.

Organiceuticals

This is the latest marketing spin on youthful potions that are supposed to erase all the lines and somehow reverse the effects of gravity. Made with ingredients like coffeeberry, these sound more like breakfast food than magical elixir. And why so pricey? I’m thinking of whipping up something in a compost pile out back. Come on over.

Laser Hair Removal

The offer of the day is “Buy One Area Get 2nd Area For 1/2 Price”. Of course, the 1/2 price is for the “equal or lesser value” area. How exactly is this determined, this valuation of my hairy areas? Is it the quality of the hair? The quantity? And how does one get a handle on that before committing to the procedure? Is there an appraisal process? Does someone drive by the house and snap shots of me in unfortunate postures? Is there a hidden camera at the yoga studio perhaps?

So much to ponder. It makes my brain feel tired, and old.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Push-Up Bra

I’m late to the party on this one, but apparently men like breasts. Shocking, I know. All those Victoria’s Secret catalogs should have been a clue.

If you have small breasts, as I do, you’re actually at an advantage over those busty broads. You have more options. You can live with them the way they are (some men even profess to prefer the smaller variety, but they are mostly liars); you can have augmentation surgery; or you can wear bras with strategically placed foam, water, or silicone inserts.

First option – think Kate Hudson. She rocks the flat chest, no? If you are young and haven’t breast fed, the braless, nipple-showcasing look can work. However, it’s not for everyone. More women opt for implants. In fact, lately, it seems that everyone I meet has them. I don’t live in L.A., or even Texas, and yet here I am surrounded by baggies in bras. Why all the fake breasts? Refer to my opening.

Anyway, a lot of my friends have been encouraging me to have my breasts done. Everywhere I go, perfect, round tits taunt me. And they could be mine too, in any number of easy payments. But I resist for several reasons. First there is always a risk when going under anesthesia. I’d hate for my husband to have to explain to the kids how Mommy had a heart attack on the table because she wanted men to notice her chest.

Aside from my irrational fear of death by face mask, there is a more practical reason I opt out of saline or silicon. They don’t last forever. It was huge news to me when a forty-something friend told me that she was having hers replaced. Replaced. Like an A/C unit. Turns out breast implants need updating every twenty years or so. I’m forty now. To face another surgery at 60, and then again at 80? (Because who doesn’t want to be hot in the halls of the nursing home?) Thanks, but no thanks.

You may have figured it out by now. I am a fan of the push-up bra. It is the best of all worlds. You can be ballerina-flat-and-perky in a tank top one minute, and busting out like a corseted stripper the next. For years I resisted the push-up because, as a small-breasted woman, I always felt the foamy look was false chest integrity. I reserved cheater bras for special occasions. Anniversaries, New Years’, slutty Halloween costumes. Then I got over it. I bought a few and started experimenting. You know, NOT on holidays. I watched men turn stupid in a way my A-cups had never inspired. I was ogled; I liked it. And then I took off my pretend boobies and went for a run.

Ladies: if you doubt the power of a push-up bra, take yourself down to the nearest discount retailer. (My latest acquisition set me back $5.99.) Pick up a lacy camisole to accent your faux cleavage. Then go somewhere, anywhere, and observe human behavior.

Men: you are being deceived. Enjoy.

Now, if only I can find a push-up bikini top for the lake this summer, I will be a happy woman.

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