He’s a Smooth Talker, Clearly
by Lela Davidson on September 20, 2011
in It's All About Me, Marriage
When I started representing Peekaboo Magazine on the morning news earlier this year, I immediately went to Target to stock up on liquid foundation and extra blush. On my assigned Mondays I have gotten up at 4:45, plastered on a TV-worthy mask, and tried to be perky for the cameras. It’s fun, I’ve learned a lot, including the fact that people who look small on TV are actually of the Elfin race. I now understand eating disorders and addictions to plastic surgery. Let’s just say hi-def keeps you humble.
The news segments continue to be a wonderful experience, but one thing had to change: the drag queen makeup. I had been toying with the idea of toning down the makeup for weeks and then I got the perfect opportunity. I had to work a shift for a school fundraiser immediately following my last appearance. I’d be sorting books in a dusty warehouse, with a bunch of moms I’d never met. I feared My Dancing with the Stars look would not be well received.
So I wielded a lighter hand. With the exception of a little extra blush, I wore the same makeup I wear on any other day. (Okay, the days I actually shower and get dressed in something more than yoga pants.)
As soon as I’d finished at school, I came home and watched the clip, which of course is not hi-def. I asked my husband later if he’d watched the news that morning.
“Yeah, depressing topic.”
“I know. How did I look?”
He knows the answer to this one. “You looked great.”
“Thanks, but did I look different?”
Flashes of terror, confusion, and decision moved over his face. “Yes,” he said.
“I’m not asking you to say I looked different. I want to know if I did.”
“You looked great.”
“But did I look different. Because I did my makeup differently.”
“Uh… yeah, you did.”
“What did I look like?”
“You looked… clean.”
As opposed to all those others times I’ve been on video looking like a dirty girl? “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. You just looked really clear.”
“Like I was in HD?”
“Exactly!”
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Anti-Resolutions
by Lela Davidson on December 30, 2009
in After The Bubbly in Print, It's All About Me
This is the January edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!
Self improvement is overrated. This year instead of vowing to be better and then letting myself down two weeks later, I’m taking a different approach. I’m making anti-resolutions. That way if I succeed I’m successful, and if I fail I’m successful too.
I resolve to gain weight.
This should be a fun one. Who wants to be skinny anyway? Just think of all the new shopping I’ll get to do when I can no longer zip my jeans—to say nothing of the joy of Brie and chocolate. And once I gain all that weight, I’m going to start a foundation similar to Locks of Love, except instead of donating hair to cancer patients, we’ll get lipo-sucked and donate the results to runway models.
I resolve to stop working out.
It might be difficult to find the time to not exercise, but a little determination goes a long way. Marathons of the Real Housewives on Bravo will help. And hello—double bonus, no workout clothes means less laundry! Who needs extra energy and long life?
I resolve to start smoking.
So many people smoke, I’m starting to wonder what I’m missing. Seriously, if it’s so hard to quit it must be pretty good, right? However, I’ve heard smoking helps keep the weight off so this could make my resolution to gain weight more difficult. I’m willing to take the chance. Besides, considering the state of my retirement account, a shorter life expectancy makes sense.
I resolve to up my alcohol intake.
Next year at my annual physical I’d like to move my answer from the 3-5 drinks per week to the 5-8 category. It’s a realistic goal. Combined with the weight gain, lack of exercise, and smoking, this resolution has the potential to make a real impression on my overall health—and my physician.
I resolve to mess up the garage.
I’ve been trying to organize our garage for five years. (Maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve been trying to get my husband to pick up his stuff and get rid of the junk he calls tools.) At this point I’m ready to give it up to the family of squirrels that have taken to eating the dog food the children drop on the floor.
I resolve to spend less quality time with the family.
Do you ever get the feeling your family takes you for granted? I do, and I think a little extended absence from Mama is what they need to make their hearts grow fonder. I’m thinking of a solo tour of Europe.
I resolve to decrease my tithe.
Okay, so I don’t actually tithe, but I can cut back on what I drop into that wicker offering basket. Aren’t I helping the world enough by spending money on my $4 cups of coffee and my 38 pairs of black shoes? All those unfortunate people don’t need the money like I do—Retrinol doesn’t grow on trees you know.
I resolve to decrease my vocabulary.
Some of the words floating around my brain have very little purpose in my everyday life and frankly I need to free up some capacity to stay on top of Facebook updates. Autumn for example—who needs it? Fall is shorter and more descriptive. Autumn, you’re dead to me.
I resolve to make less money.
This one needs some clarification. Let’s be clear that I don’t want to have less money or spend less money, I just don’t want to be the person who makes it.
Date Night Etiquette
by Lela Davidson on August 10, 2009
in Marriage
Have you been slacking off in the date night department? If your idea of romance includes any type of foldable chair and/or canned beverages, the answer is yes. Don’t worry, I’m here to hook you up with a primer on dating etiquette. What would you do without me?
Check out Chasing Date Night Goes Back to School in this month’s Peekaboo – or follow the link!
The Case of the Easter Bunny
by Lela Davidson on April 1, 2009
in motherhood, Rugrats, Tweens, & Other Offspring
I admit it: I can’t wait until the days when the Easter Bunny no longer hops by our house. It’s not that I don’t like holidays, I just can’t take the pressure of having to be responsible for making them happen. And the trouble with children is that you can’t pull much over on them, especially when they seem to be on the elementary school track for pre-pre-law.
This is the story of one Easter Eve a few years ago. I lay in bed trying to fall asleep amid some low level tension because something just wasn’t quite right. Suddenly I bolted up, frightening my husband out of a sound snore.
“Oh crap!” I said, “I’ve got to do the Easter baskets!” I got up, turned on lights, rummaged through the guest room closet for baskets and candy, and set about making the sweetest little tokens of love from the Easter Bunny. I put them in the kids’ doorways and went back to bed, where the father of my children was sleeping just as peacefully as before my crisis.
In the morning the kids came to our room to show us their loot. My then six-year-old daughter looked up at me with genuine curiosity. “I wonder why the Easter Bunny gave us the same baskets as last year?”
Note: If you’ve been reading this column long, you already know that the Easter Bunny is a touch stingy. She doesn’t really see the point in buying new baskets year after year, and this was the year she decided to test her theory that the kids wouldn’t really notice anyway.
“Mom?” my daughter asked, “Are YOU the Easter Bunny?” Leave it to the little one.
I shook my head and offered up a little snort. “Do I look like I’ve been out all morning hopping around dropping off Easter baskets?”
She eyed me, weighing whether or not to push the matter. She was holding a bag of sugar after all. Finally, the little lawyer-in-training just wouldn’t let it go. “It’s just that you said the Easter Bunny was a girl AND the Easter Bunny knows what kind of books we like AND —-“
Maybe Mommy needed a basket full of Midol. I snapped. “I’m not the Easter Bunny. Okay?”
Everybody backed off the bunny.
When they asked later why the Easter Bunny didn’t give them very much candy this year, I told them maybe she knew they’d be getting a lot of candy at the Easter egg hunt that afternoon.
“Not that I would know,” I added. That was my fatal mistake. If this were a Grisham movie, there would be a close up on me as a bead of sweat made it’s way down my nose.
“Are you sure you’re not the Easter Bunny?” my son asked. His eyes narrowed. “Because usually when people say ‘not that I would know’ it means they know.”
It’s getting hard to come up with smart remarks, but not impossible.
“And usually when a kid asks too many questions about a basket of candy, it means they go to bed early and a monster comes in the night and eats all their candy.”
Case closed.
Image Credit: ButterflySha, Flickr
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Dating Advice For Old Married People
by Lela Davidson on March 9, 2009
in Uncategorized
If you’re in NWA, you can read my pearly wisdom every month in the Chasing Date Night column in Peekaboo. (In addition to After the Bubbly, of course.) And if you’re far away, or if you missed a few, or you just don’t leave the house long enough to traipse into your local Starbucks, here’s a sample:
Top 5 Ways to Date Yourself – And before you even comment, let me remind you this is a family publication.
Taking the Scary Out of Halloween Date Night – Out of season, but one of my favorites anyway.
Top 10 Stupid Date Night Ideas
Making Babies…. Oh the Glamour!
by Lela Davidson on March 3, 2009
in Uncategorized
I had my last baby when I was thirty. And when I say last, I mean that’s it. I won’t be one of those women taking prenatal vitamins and Boniva at the same time. I don’t have the energy. I waited until the ripe old age of twenty-eight to have my first child, then followed up with a second only twenty-two months later. I had to work quickly because way back then we were afraid to get pregnant after thirty-five. A lot has changed in the last ten years. Pregnancy over forty has become accepted and, if you believe the celebrity photos, easy.
As I inch toward forty, the biological clock still ticks. Instead of have-a-baby-have-a-baby, it now says just-one-more-just-one-more. I fanaticize that if I had another baby, I’d do everything right this time. I would coordinate perfect outfits, put on makeup, and shower every day. I indulge this dream for about a minute before I remember the sleepless nights, continuous feeding, and far-flung emotions. Between post-partum, PMS, and peri-menopause I can’t imagine what older moms are going through. I’m pretty sure if you knocked on their doors at nine in the morning, they wouldn’t be red carpet ready.
Despite the reality of baby rearing, glitz and ease is exactly what we see in those magazines we peek at in line at the grocery store. People may complain that Hollywood glamorizes young pregnancy by holding up Jamie Lynn Spears and Ashlee Simpson as role models, but I’m more offended by the forty-is-the-new-twenty-two celebrities that are selling us regular women a bill of goods.
- Gorgeous Naomi Watts recently gave birth to a second son at age forty. She claims to have lost all her baby weight breastfeeding. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the live in personal chefs and trainers.
- Forty-year-old Australian actress Rachel Griffiths plays an American on Brothers and Sisters. She’s pregnant with her third and like our homegrown celebs, she has a penchant for unique names. She has a son named Banjo. Let’s hope age has wised her up. If not, she may end up with a cute little Fiddle or Harmonica.
- Desperate Housewife Marcia Cross gave birth to twin daughters at age forty-five. Seriously? At least she’ll be able to use her AARP travel discount to take them on their senior trip.
- Supermodel Stephanie Seymour recently had another baby at forty. Paparazzi caught her frolicking in the surf. Is it wrong to hate her? There’s not enough Pilates in the world to get me into a bikini post childbirth – and I started ‘young’.
- Perhaps the wisest is none other than the daughter of the King himself, Lisa Marie Presley. She welcomed twin girls last year. She was forty, but she was prepared. Ms. Presley had two other children 16 and 19 years ago, so now she’s got live-in childcare. That’s what I call planning ahead.
Show me these A-listers at nine o’clock in the morning. Show me these beautiful people frantically chasing down a toddler, trying to get neon poop out of the carpet, and dripping in spit up. Then I’ll be impressed. My advice? If you’re planning to get pregnant over forty, do yourself a favor and cancel your subscription to People magazine.
Seeking Birthday Tales – Good and Bad
by Lela Davidson on November 25, 2008
in Uncategorized
Peek at Me in Peekaboo
by Lela Davidson on August 20, 2008
in Uncategorized
