Back on October 1st, after a family vacation in California, a third birthday purposefully infested with ladybugs of the stuffed, cupcake and pinata varieties, and well-executed flower girl duties in Minneapolis, we moved into our first home.
We’d looked at about 40 houses. With. Stella. You get how astounding that is, right? As we drank champagne after getting news that our offer had been accepted, I realized I remembered frighteningly little about the abode we were about to drop almost all of our non-retirement life savings into. Because with Stella in tow, only half of my attention ever went to the house we visited. Maybe 60% on a good day when our real estate agent had luck distracting Stella with dandelions (God bless that woman). I’d say the record low was 15%, when Stella wouldn’t let me put her down and also insisted on snacking continuously. Try assessing property while holding a 35-pound human and balancing a small container of rice crackers—which, if they are food, are incredibly vulnerable and insecure, because they weigh nothing, are easily flung, and if you look at them the wrong way, they’re crushed. So, add the tasks of rice cracker protection and emotion coaching of a giant clingy toddler to the pressure of finding the right home and you’ve got a recipe for half-assing a momentous process.
I don’t think I ever opened a kitchen cabinet, in any of the homes we looked at. We managed to find “the one,” apparently mostly by gut feel. Way too late, I peppered Cody with hysterics along the lines of, “Was there some sort of weird pantry in the kitchen? Um. Doesn’t that place have a lot of road noise?” Sometimes my ignorance resulted in delight: “Wait. There are two bathrooms? And another unfinished one in the basement? Sweet!” And because Cody and I moved several times during our apartment-dwelling years and consistently failed to check on this crucial detail, with devastating effect on quality of life, I looked at Cody and he looked at me and we both had terrified expressions and no words were needed. We realized simultaneously that we didn’t know if the place had a dishwasher. It did. But a week into living there, we realized it was broken and we’d been eating off dishes that had been weakly rinsed in tepid water. Then we bought our real shared dream, a new dishwasher with features we never dared imagine after two years with half an ancient dishwasher on wheels that we hooked up to our sink all classy like. The new stainless beauty? It’s been sitting in the corner of the kitchen with the plastic still on the sleek handle, taunting us, because we simply could not hook it up to pipes that turned out to be corroded beyond belief. Water flow was restricted to the diameter of a human hair, then Cody touched it and its structure went from pipe to pile. Fixer-upper ownership is a rabbit hole of setbacks, with bursts of dizzying progress that illuminate how lame the rest of the house is.
This wonderful place with all its infuriating, fabulous potential was built in 1959, and has some classic mid-century style. And some of the ugliest 70′s light fixtures ever produced, and three layers of gross vinyl underfoot in the kitchen—held together by a seam of frayed duct tape. Those, for example, are the little touches most people pick up on during the search process. Thankfully there’s a lot to love. I adore the globe lights, the high sloped ceilings, the generous eaves that keep the place feeling cozy and protected in the rain. I love the beautiful wood floors with their new matte finish, and all the open space. We settled for a neighborhood we hadn’t initially sought out, and wound up with some very friendly neighbors who welcomed us with coffee, soup, and a My Little Pony. Score, score, and score.
Despite wanting so badly to move out of a rental that came to enrage me, I was shockingly sad when we did. Though technically not Stella’s birthplace, it’s where I became a mother. Its location, if not its living space, was to die for. My hope is that someday we’ll be able to afford a home we love in that neighborhood, but not yet. Not by a long, pathetically out-of-reach shot. That little blue craftsman is where for 48 straight hours my pregnant self worried psychotically about having eaten carpaccio, where I went into labor with Stella, where we brought her home for the first time, where she encountered and overcame painful feeding troubles (by now the sweet triumph overshadows the heartache), where she learned to walk and talk. From there we’d stroll to the park, cafe or grocery store down the street, once or more a day.
Stella loved her home, and we loved its location, but it wasn’t sustainable or financially prudent. It was small (too cramped to welcome family, all of whom live very far away) and dumpy and needed a lot of work and as renters we weren’t about to do it ourselves. I’d gotten to the point where I blamed that place for all my ills. It was unfair. Though I’m pretty sure the house could be indicted for crimes against Feng Shui, as in: Having to use a hamper for a closet-blocking side table and spilling my chamomile through said hamper for the tenth time (I just know someone smoked there back in the day because I could smell it when the floor got wet), a closet that made our clothes smell like a rotting consignment store, ten inches of usable (admittedly cluttered) kitchen counter space, the need to again clean any pot or pan to remove possibly lead-containing wood-paint dust before use (though it did add a nice smokey flavor to stews), wanting to have people over but always refraining due to over-the-top insecurity about the burnt vinyl floor that looked disgustingly dirty even when clean, worn raw floorboards that creaked maniacally, and menacing plaster that appeared to bubble and drip from the walls like sad lava. We’d worked hard and saved money and we were tired. Mainly from the parenting demands of toddlerhood, but also from challenges including eye patches. Sheer exhaustion that threatened to eat us whole. Especially given a completely lack of grandparents, aunts and uncles around to help with Stella, we knew we needed more of a refuge. A place we could make work for us, and provide comfort for us. We’re still tired, because of all the DIY needed around here, but Cody and I are more hopeful and less stuck now. And there’s something energizing about that. Stella is witnessing our efforts to build, improve, and create something we’re proud of. That’s got to be better than hearing her mom yell at utensil drawers with road-rage intensity.
There’s a bit of an underdog element to the story of our first home. We beat out four or five other offers, two of them all cash, thanks mostly to a pre-inspection and partly (maybe?) to a letter I wrote. The elderly owner had died, and his children wanted to sell the house as quickly as possible, preferably to a family. We served up a very solid down payment, excellent credit scores, and a pre-inspection that told them that we weren’t going to back out. Of course, I like to think that my writing helped us get this house, not just through earnings that helped make the down payment possible but by sheer force of charm and skill. I love that there is now a bit of legend associated with the purchase, a tale I can flagrantly exaggerate as the years pass.
We’ll overlook the fact that 10% of our renovation budget was spent removing dead trees–one of which fell on our neighbor’s house two hours after we officially took ownership. That’s right, 120 minutes in. A month before we even lived there. Turns out several trees, about 60 feet tall, were suffocated by swarms of ivy. But. While we were told that a new roof was in order, and so we’d mentally allocated thousands to that cause, a well-regarded roofer told us we had five to ten years on our current roof. It seemed to balance out. The kitchen needs to be replaced, though the footprint can remain just about the same so maybe that will downgrade it from outrageously expensive to mindblowingly pricey. The decrepit main bathroom features metallic wallpaper with “exotic” topless women in a tropical setting. While far less tantalizing, the master bath also needs to be completely updated as well. The toilet in there is frumpy. Cheesy, too. I didn’t think this was possible, but it’s the toilet version of a boxy Christmas cardigan with snowmen around the mid-section. It’s way wider and dumber than any toilet I’ve ever seen and whoever designed it should be ashamed.
Whenever the toilet gets to me, or I feel like this was too much to take on, I think about those two cash offers and how they saw the value but in the end were told to suck it. And I smile. This place was a good find. We’ve painted. We’ve replaced some doors. The electrical has been completely updated. Cody is re-plumbing the place, and one day, we’ll throw a party to welcome our new dishwasher. After a tutorial from my dad during my parents’ visit, Cody replaced the windows. My dad got rid of an exterior door, transforming a previously unused area of the kitchen into a space for what I supposed you’d call a breakfast nook—you know, with a booth. We got rid of fabulously horrendous wallpaper, so gloriously bad that I felt a tinge of remorse. That stuff had balls. The original oak floors look new. There are sky lights in the kitchen that make gray Seattle days a bit brighter. Several times, Stella has caught sight of the moon through them with the excitement of someone who discovered it for the very first time, and in those moments I feel 100% sure we made the right decision.
While the location isn’t my first or even second choice, it’s convenient and in-city, and the upside is immense. Stella took some convincing, however. Of course. This is a big adjustment and when we feel dead tired for no reason we blame it on the stress of moving. Stella was going to have an adjustment period, we knew. During the transition, she was “off.” She wasn’t herself. Very emotionally volatile, and I even saw her eyes cross once–with her glasses on. Stella was stressed out. And no wonder, as she began her first foray into preschool just before the move. During a visit from grandparents, Stella hit rock bottom. A traffic-laden ride home was the last straw on the camel of a rocky day, and she threw the biggest tantrum I can recall. Ever. The screaming was so intense, so visceral, that I started to think something was seriously wrong. Like medically and/or mentally. I frantically scanned my brain to figure it out. And then Stella yelled, in pained fashion, at the top of her overworked lungs: “I WANT TO GO TO THE OLD HOUSE!” Oh.
That was weeks ago. Since then, she’s mentioned the old house several times. Stella’s vision has been assessed and is fine. Her toe-walking is still increased, after having been reduced with help from vision therapy, but she’s definitely herself again. Stella is currently hooked on red beans and satsumas. She is incredibly sweet. She frequently tells us she loves us, she enjoys school, friends, and gymnastics, and delights in everything about Christmas, even the otherwise forgotten paper ornament at the back of the tree. By now we’ve decorated (partially), developed new rhythms and pathways and chasing rituals, walked to the nearby school playground in zig zags, taken the bus to the store, and put up a Christmas tree–and then another tiny tree just for Stella. We got a pair of alien-looking, yet clearly very comforting (to Stella) night lights for her new room that she loves. We made, frosted, and ate cookies, patted pizza dough, cleaned up the yard leaf by leaf, snuggled up and read dozens upon dozens of new and old books. We’ve done the million little things that make a place feel cozy, happy, and familiar—even houses with oozing walls, splinter floors, and style-challenged toilets.
Just yesterday on her way out of the kitchen, Stella suddenly stopped, turned to me, and said, “The new house is my home.” And that’s how it became official.
Prom bomb, un-edited because I’m not sure I can survive re-reading it
Recently, after complaining on Facebook about how a prom-related copywriting project evoked cringe-inducing memories, a friend from across the globe presented something of a dare. He said that if I agreed to write about my prom horror story, he’d share his as well. Kind of like “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” but more revealing. Because actual nudity doesn’t compare to this sort of naked emotional ridiculousness. Of course I accepted the dare, then regretted it, much like 90% of my middle and high school experiences.
The 10% I don’t regret include hilarity with two of my best friends/fellow comics from that time: Alison and Tony. We were obsessed with “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective” and when I say we watched it 300 times, that’s a conservative estimate. I still know the whole film by heart and quote it often, if only in my head. I usually can’t find my keys or phone, for example. And in the midst of one gut-wrenching search for my stupid-ass phone, the phone I’d held in my hands earlier that same morning, intolerable frustration almost swallowed me whole. But Ace was there to rescue me. And so instead of punching myself in the face, I posted my mental dialogue on Facebook:
“Couldn’t find my phone and found myself quoting Ace Ventura. ‘SO FAR… no signs of aquatic life… but I’m going to find it. If I have to tear this universe another black hole, I’m going to find it. Because I’ve… GOT TO, MISTER!’ Sadly dorky, ay? Still love that movie.”
People (including Alison) replied with other quotes and all I could do was hit the “Like” button but I’d have hugged them if I could.
The other component I don’t regret is my basketball career. I also played softball for about a million years, mainly because my mom played softball so it felt like I was carrying the torch. For unknown reasons, I ran cross country, after quitting soccer despite a call from the varsity soccer coach asking me to reconsider, a gesture I blew off so arrogantly that I still wince when I think about it. Despite being a pitcher, albeit who lacked speed and subsisted mainly on a super slow change-up that blew batters’ minds in that no pitch could possibly be that slow and lame, and tying for first place in my inaugural cross country race against snobby Wellesley thanks to a potent mixture of anxiety and adrenaline, I didn’t give a shit about either sport. And in many ways it absolutely showed. Presumably by default, I was captain of three sports and I still feel guilty about that. Because I only had eyes for basketball. The rest of my athletic career amounted to half-assing, filling time, and fulfilling perceived obligations and so-called potential. BORING!
Come to think of it, my entire high school experience amounted to half-assing it. All of it. Sure, I earned straight A’s my freshman year, but by senior year, I had some C’s and a big fat D in the mix. Most of the homework and 99% of the reading I skipped completely. And trust me, this all relates to prom. I’m getting there!
I was unsettled.
It’s the best word I can find to describe myself at the time. Never in the moment. Never truly engaged–except when watching or quoting Ace Ventura because that shit was HILARIOUS. Okay and there were other times with those two aforementioned friends when I was fully alive and engaged. Other times I was an asshole, and less often friends and acquaintances were assholes to me, but some of that unkindness is par for the high school course and part of growing the hell up, yeah? What’s not standard or expected is the debilitating fear and anxiety I carried around with me. The level of aversion I had for any remotely meaningful or potentially real interaction. I was a turtle who recoiled into her GAP-swaddled shell at the threat of any positive or negative emotional engagement. It was all terrifying to me. But I could hit three-pointers, so at least that was something. Basketball kept me going and better yet, it was something I could practice obsessively on my own, without dealing with any pesky people or feelings. Without my jump shot, and those laugh-out-loud good times with Alison and Tony, I may not have made it through. In short, I was a mess.
When I was writing that prom copy I mentioned, I googled around for prom content online to get into the zone. I found some clips for teen movies about prom romance. What always boggled my mind about such films, even back when I was their target, was the ability for the kids to handle their emotions, whether sadness and embarrassment, or happiness and connection. I thought, “Like, how do they just sit there feeling sad? How are they so calm?” Or, “WHAT?! They actually pursued and then kissed the person they actually LIKED? Whoa. WAAAAAAY too intense for me to fathom! Maybe the Celtics are on. Ah, that’s better.”
So my prom experiences were lame in just about every conceivable way. I attended both my junior and senior proms and in essence, I had a date for neither. I may have superficially lamented this fact, but not having a real date was nice and safe and therefore “totally cool” (did we actually used to say stuff like that non-ironically?).
You know what? I’m just going to combine both proms into one. They were fundamentally similar. I didn’t mature at all from one year to the next. In fact, I am still probably six years behind, maturity-wise, so for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say it was one giant prom fail. Then again, when you consider that I was only 11 and 12 years old mentally and emotionally, it’s not as bad. I got my period at the same age as girls in the 1800′s, around the age when a typical modern-day girl gets her driver’s license. I was playing with the neighborhood boys (whom I babysat and would constantly come to our home’s back door and ask my mom, in unison, “Can the girls come out?”) until age 15 or so, long after my younger sisters had abandoned games like war and laser tag. Okay, that doesn’t help at all. Next!
Let’s start this stroll down prom memory lane with a note about the preparations: Tanning, dress shopping, and then, finally, the day-of hairstyling. All were fucking disasters. My skin doesn’t belong anywhere south of Scotland, so it sure as hell didn’t take kindly to fake baking on an accelerated, procrastination-fueled timeline. It’s sad because part of me really believed I could become perfectly bronzed in a single week. But, I persevered and managed to achieve a lush shade of pink in time for the big night.
Dress shopping was a joke. I didn’t have breasts then, and barely do now, so it was like a ten-year-old playing dress-up in a pageant queen’s closet. I carefully chose dresses with wiring to support ample bosoms, and so basically wound up walking around with two empty boob tents on my chest. I simply was not capable of choosing a dress that actually fit me, because that would mean I accepted myself as I was. Hoo boy! I fooled no one. By now I’ve accepted my body. I truly have. But, and this is actually sad and not so hilarious, I absolutely hated it then. I could never stand in a natural, unselfconscious pose, for fear my flatness would be too obvious. This worsened my unsettled nature, my inability to connect authentically with people. It’s hard to really tune in to someone when half of your brain is devoted to devising the perfect positioning in order to conceal your entire upper torso. I absolutely loathed my lack of cleavage, the way I now loathe the idea of healthy women cutting up their bodies to fit loathsome ideals. If a movie was made of my high school experience, it would be “Loathing in Las Natick.” Or possibly, “Dazed, Confused, and Flat-Chested.” This particular insecurity was crippling and resulted in architecturally inappropriate prom dress choices.
The hair. Oh, the hair. The tale of my prom ‘do is wrought with suffering. I had major issues about my hair. At the time, it probably seemed pathological. But the hair-related agony makes sense to my current self, enlightened by time, therapy, old fashioned soul searching, my husband, childbirth, and motherhood. In that order. Hair was something I could control. In my unsettled mind, I’d lost the body lottery. It was crap. I lost big-time there, clearly. So, where could I win? Where did I have some control? My stick straight blond hair! I put an insane amount of pressure on my hair (and to a lesser degree my clothes, which I also obsessed over unhealthily–and pointlessly, as witnessed by many days of wearing all denim and my mom’s too-small shoes), which resulted in a problematic phenomenon of “trying too hard” and therefore “looking like an ass.” I’m going to gloss over the years involving volumes of aerosol hair spray that would make the EPA gasp and curling iron burns on my face. The years when I appeared to have run into a wall at high speed. I’m going to try to focus on my prom hair, but please note that this is just one example of many frightening anecdotes.
I didn’t do a trial run. I showed up a couple hours before the prom started, at what I considered to be a very fancy salon called Paradiso. The exotic name and soft, flattering lighting evoked Hollywood glamor. It was downright chic compared to the place I’d been going throughout childhood, for hair cuts preceded only by a wetting-down with an old spray bottle: Beautyrama. No, I’m not making that up. That was the actual name, and it was nestled within a tiny, ever-unpopular and depressing mall with horrible, un-Paradiso-like lighting, that also contained a Burlington Coat Factory and some looming storefront that I never could identify but based on appearances was an abandoned and looted Sears.
Anyway, I showed up to Paradiso with complete confidence that they would transform me into a better, more beautiful, curly-haired version of myself. A new “me” that could star in a predictable but irresistible teen movie as the awkward, overlooked and/or ridiculed girl whose last-minute makeover transforms her into every guy’s desire just in time for the dance. I left Paradiso with the mental stability of current-day Charlie Sheen.
I didn’t have any direction for the stylist. No opinion or vision. After some unsuccessful attempts to engage me, the woman went to town. And from the moment she picked up her comb, it was an out-of-body experience. Part of me–the part that clung to a sliver of hope that I was not in fact hideous and disfigured, if only my hair could be styled properly–died that late afternoon. With each twist of the curling iron, and each layer (and there were many) of Aqua Net, my fragile but previously marginally optimistic prom spirit crumbled. I walked out of there with what amounts to a large helmet-like crust of hair, an up-do that was sprayed securely into place after sagging and puffing out away from my head, with a single lonely curl on each side of my face–curls that were in no way different from the long side curls, or peyos, seen on male Chasidic Jews as dictated by the Torah. There were no loose, curly wisps common to Hollywood starlets. There were two tight-ass ringlets dangling from my hair spray helmet, framing my (by the time I reached my car) furious, beet-red face. Oh, but my bangs were straight and practically untouched, adding an odd nod to my everyday look (so as not to disorient people with my breathtaking Paradiso hair makeover?) while enhancing opportunities for prom-night ridicule. It was pure magic.
To my credit, I paid in silence, and didn’t unleash my rage until I was in my car. Not until I had driven half a block away did I scream at the top of my lungs while tearing the helmet apart ruthlessly. Like a caged animal. For several minutes I roared, leaving me hoarse. Some portions of the helmet remained intact. Others were left looking like vertical eruptions of frizz, the hair spray not allowing my hair to behave under the normal laws of physics.
Long story short, after a frantic phone call and deep breaths at home, I headed over to Beautyrama to eat crow and endure the spray bottle. I walked out with a style that was eerily similar, but less encrusted. It was awful, but less so, and I only messed with it for an hour before deeming it acceptable. My hopes crushed, I proceeded to don my boob tent dress and Payless shoes.
My date. In both cases, there was someone I should’ve gone with. Okay, I’ll seperate the two years of prom for a moment. The first year, I really liked and wanted to ask a sophomore kid who’d taken me waterskiing. But I actually liked and was very much attracted to him, and he’d told a friend that he’d say “yes” if I asked him, so that meant he was out of the question. I asked and attended prom with another sophomore guy, one that I pretty much regarded as a douchebag. Someone I didn’t even know. Someone who’d casually insulted my hair not long before. He was perfect! I spent very little time with him at the event, which is exactly what my unsettled self wanted. BUT I had a moment of prom-movie inspired weakness. Toward the end of the night, during the one slow dance we indulged in, I put my head on his shoulder. Because why not? It was prom! I didn’t want anything more than that moment with this douchebag. While my head rested there on that rented shoulderpad, I saw him look over to his recent ex-girlfriend, who was dancing with her older date as well, and shrug. They were both clearly horrified. I found out later that evening that they’d gotten back together right before prom. My humiliation in that moment was intense, but private. I don’t think I ever told anyone about it. After all, what did I expect? That kind of emotional distance and awkwardness is exactly what I sought out and secured for myself. Phew!
The following year, Tony asked me to go to the prom and I was an enormous bitch and flat-out turned down his earnest prom proposal. Even though I wanted to say, “Yes! That would be fun!” You see, we were close! In a “We’re such good friends and could very easily be more” kind of way. So, again, he was out of the question. Honestly, in addition to my many other regrets, I’m so sorry for how I treated Tony. I was a scared jerk, and he was very funny and impressively resilient. Functionally, in how the night played out, we were prom dates, anyway. Along with Alison and co., we hung out and laughed and danced together at some point. I actually had fun that year. Boob tents, unsettled mind, and all.
I don’t remember any post-prom activities except one, and I’m not sure whether it took place after my junior or senior prom: Shooting baskets at the gym alone. It’s the only place I felt really comfortable at that time. It sounds sad, but to my 12-year-old (mentally) self at the time, it was where I belonged.
So, there you go, Aadhaar. I’ve risen to your challenge! I did it in one shot. Yes, I lied about having started it earlier, just to reassure you because I felt bad. I’m sorry. But what you see here is the truth. Or at least the highlights of a fuller more boring truth. And if I survive this level of sharing, I will be an emotional rock. So thanks for that.