Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault Read online

  Why is it, I wonder, changing back into clothes as fast as possible, that the more power women have gained, the skimpier swimwear has gotten? Great-Grandma, in the 1800s, had zero say over anything. Swimwear covered her from the neck to the ankles. Grandma, in the 1920s, got the right to vote and got swimwear that exposed her knees and calves for the first time. Mom, in the 1940s, had the responsibility of helping keep the whole country functioning while the men went to war. Swimsuits bared her thighs. My generation, in the 1970s, marched in the streets, loud and proud, for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Swimsuits revealed our belly buttons. My daughter’s generation is empowered in every single area of life. Swimsuits display it all. They make the most powerful generation of women in the world the most naked.

  And now, in a great big reduction of logic, the sexy suits that are the symbol of women’s right to be seen and heard wind up silencing a lot of women who try to wear them because we’re no longer supposed to admit we might not be totally happy with our beautiful shapes. Now we need to squash ourselves into the swimsuits and squash our feelings in there, too. We have the world’s blessing to reveal everything except insecurities. Show everything except that we might be a little bit self-conscious about all those womanly curves. The wonderful new freedom to love myself exactly as I am makes me feel lonelier and a little bit worse because I’m not supposed to admit it when I don’t.

  I used to write that all women have two main figure problem areas—the top half of our bodies and the bottom half of our bodies. But a lot has changed. A lot of us really do feel pretty good about ourselves a lot more of the time. We really aren’t tormented by the images of “perfect” bodies like we used to be. Our main figure problem areas now are places like the swimwear department, where we have to face all those contradictions in the mirror. Where it’s us all alone, staring at our reflection and trying to figure out how to wrap all those mixed messages around our lovely selves and be part of the contemporary world without feeling strangled or defeated.

  I’m completely dressed and mostly recovered. Just in case anyone’s still watching from the surveillance room, I’ve hung all the swimsuits back on their little plastic hangers. I’m proud of myself for facing the swimwear department today, but even more proud that I can finally declare I’m done with this place. I am never going to change swimwear. I refuse to conform to what it continues to expect of me and I see absolutely no reason to ever subject myself to it again.

  I stride out of the swimwear department with my head held high. I’m striding right past the evening wear department, which is next to swimwear, when I’m stopped in my tracks. I watch, stunned, as my right hand plucks a sequined black stretch-velvet floor-length mermaid gown off the rack. From someplace deep within I hear:

  “Look! This one might be cute!”

  25.

  THE DAY I DIVORCED MY PURSE

  We need to talk, Purse.

  “I don’t love you anymore. If I’m totally honest, I’ve fantasized about dumping you for years. I’ve only kept hanging on because I wasn’t brave enough to try going solo.

  “I got my first version of you when I was three years old and started practicing to be a woman. Pink and plastic, with a ladybug stuck on the front. Everyone said it made me so grown up and I started believing I was incomplete without you. By the time I was a teenager, I couldn’t leave the house if you weren’t on my arm.

  “But I’ve changed, Purse. Everything’s moving and shifting in my life, and honestly, you’re just weighing me down. It isn’t only that I feel obligated to take you everywhere, but that you need so much attention when we get home. You were perfect in the beginning, but now you’re aggravating and disorganized. You hide things from me. I spend half my life trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on inside you. I resent how panicked I still am if I don’t know where you are.

  “It isn’t you. I’m not leaving you for a bigger purse or a more attractive purse. I’m not interested in starting over. I’m divorcing the whole category. I want to walk out into the world unencumbered for once. Just myself. Zero baggage.

  “Watch me do it! I’m taking the phone, driver’s license, and credit card you make such a big production of carrying . . . taking them away from you and tucking them into my back pocket. And now I’m walking out the front door! Just like that! I’m leaving you on the kitchen counter! I’m slamming the door behind me and walking toward my car without you!

  “Look out the window if you can, Purse! Look at my un-weighed-down arms stretch out for the first time! Look at my liberated hands and fingers wiggle, my shoulders relax! I’m free for the first time since I was three years old! Look at me twirl on the walkway! I can’t believe I’ve missed this wonderful feeling my whole life!

  “Now that I see how easy it was to walk away, I can’t believe how much I dislike you! I resent how much of my life I wasted thinking we always had to be together!

  “Now that you’re locked inside the house and I’m standing here by the car . . . now that I’m looking down the street and imagining the whole, glorious, unburdened, liberated life I have ahead of me . . .

  “Now . . . now . . . now . . . now . . .

  “Now what I really hate, Purse, is that somewhere deep down inside, you have my car and house keys.”

  26.

  STOP TRYING TO UPGRADE YOUR MOTHER

  Dad calls from the living room. “It’s time for the news!”

  “On my way!” Mom answers, scurrying in from the kitchen, as she does every single day at 6:26 p.m.

  I stand in front of my parents’ chairs, facing them, my back to the TV, and beam. I have no big plans to organize or overhaul on this visit. No car trunk full of supplies to try to transform their home. But I did think of one thing I could add to their lives that could really make a difference.

  “You’re blocking the TV, sweetie!” Mom says, waving urgently toward the chair next to her. “Have a seat!”

  Mom and Dad are doing wonderfully well on their own, but I want to make these years the very best they can be. It’s hard to watch them be diminished even a little by all the parts of themselves and the world that don’t work the way they used to. I can’t stand the loss of control I know they feel, and I want to help.

  “Sit!” they order me. “It’s time for the news!”

  I don’t sit. My moment has arrived.

  “Ta-da!” I say, pulling a remote from behind my back. “While you two were at the eye doctor this morning, I had TiVo installed!”

  “We’d love to talk about your day later,” Dad says, picking up the remote he keeps next to his chair. “But the news is starting!”

  “You don’t have to watch the news when the news is on anymore, Mom and Dad!” I say excitedly. “You’re in charge!”

  Dad’s too busy pressing buttons on his remote to hear. Mom’s too busy leaning over to help Dad for my words to register. “Something’s wrong with this thing!” Dad laments.

  “You have a new remote now!” I say, holding up the one in my hand. “Your old one is finished! Your new one has different buttons that will change your life!”

  Mom and Dad stop. Their eyes flash from their old remote to me. They look stunned, as if I were the nightly news anchor and have just announced a hostile invasion of their living room. As though my words—new remote, old one is finished, different buttons—were little bombs I dropped on their world, not the happy, empowering surprise I intended.

  “Look! With this . . .” I start.

  “No time for talking!” Dad interrupts, shaking his head vigorously and poking at the buttons on his remote. “Let’s get the news on before we miss the whole show!”

  I put the entire room on pause and mute for a minute so I can think.

  Have I just barreled into my parents’ world with yet another brilliant invention that will ruin their lives? Me? Their self-proclaimed protector?

  Su
rely this is different.

  This isn’t like the day the simple sewing machine that was Mom’s pride and joy finally broke and got replaced with a new one that was so complicated she quit sewing.

  This isn’t like when Dad’s perfect one-button camera became obsolete and was replaced with the new “user-friendly” one that was so hard to use he never wanted to take pictures anymore.

  This isn’t like the computer that replaced their nice reliable typewriter and ruined everything. Ruined self-expression. Ruined letter writing. Ruined expense keeping. Ruined list making. Ruined filing. Ruined nice-looking envelopes. Ruined ever being able to find anything.

  Is it?

  I’ve seen Superman wrestle a blister pack of printer ink cartridges to the ground to pry it open, only to have the printer flash a “cartridge not installed properly” screen. I’ve watched my gentle Mom beat her little fists on her new high-efficiency washer because “It keeps trying to wash my clothes with no water! It won’t let me put in enough soap! It locks the lid with no warning!” I’ve seen them huddle together trying to get a human on the phone or find a troubleshooting guide online. I’ve seen the next generation of everything from cars to can openers make them feel less competent and less connected to the world. As if enough, at age ninety, isn’t already slipping away without their permission.

  I can’t stand how valiantly they’ve tried to change with the times and how often they feel frustrated by modern life. I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t allow one more thing in this house that could make them feel inadequate in any way. I didn’t just do it. Did I? No! I got them TiVo because it will give them control, not take it away! It will put power in their hands!

  I look at the new remote in my hand. At all those new buttons. I look at Mom and Dad . . .

  They sit quietly. Stoically. They gave up on the remote they were trying to make work, as well as all hope of watching the news tonight, several minutes ago and have simply been watching me. Their initial stunned look has settled into the gentle, world-weary gaze of the Greatest Generation. Full of patience, resilience, tolerance, and an unbelievable willingness to try to be grateful for improvements they wish someone wasn’t trying to inflict upon them.

  The Gracious Generation. That’s what they are. I forge ahead, determined to prove that this unwanted improvement will be different. I un-pause and un-mute myself, raise the new TiVo remote in the air, and play the highlights of my presentation.

  “You’re not missing the news, Mom and Dad!” I say in my most enthusiastic voice. “It’s being recorded right now by TiVo, without a videotape! You can watch the news anytime you want!

  “You can start watching the news from the beginning even if the news is half over in real time!

  “You can watch in real time, but if you need to leave the room for a few minutes, you can hit pause and then resume watching without missing one second!

  “You can skip past the commercials! You never have to watch an irritating ad again!

  “You can record all those great PBS shows you circle in the paper that don’t come on until nine, when it’s too late to start watching anything!”

  Even as the words leave my mouth, I’m thinking this sounds worse. Worse than their incomprehensible new microwave. Worse than their new twenty-five-function blender. TiVo won’t only be tricky to learn. It will destroy some of the things they can still count on to give structure and purpose to their days. Printed TV schedules. Clocks. Calendars. The reason to be a certain place at a certain time. Things that ground them in a kind of security that’s already just a faint memory to my generation—an emotional safety net of a regular, predictable order of life that my daughter’s generation will never know.

  Mom and Dad gaze at me sweetly anyway as I explain the thing I’ve brought that will ruin all of that. The wonderful new invention that will help make the precious rhythm of life obsolete.

  “Well! Thank you!” Mom says, getting up, smiling politely. “What a lovely gift. We’ll have to study it.”

  Dad gets up too, gives me a hug, and whispers in my ear, “So thoughtful, sweetie, but she gets a little confused by new things. After this nice gift, maybe we should stop trying to upgrade your mother.”

  “But . . .” I say as they walk out of the room. I click the TV on and cue up the recording of the nightly news. “But . . . look, Mom and Dad!” I call to them. “The news is on! The exact same news that was on at six-thirty is on now! Your new TiVo saved it! Don’t you want to watch?”

  I don’t have to hear their answer to know it. Know it and suddenly agree with it. I look at my watch. It’s 7:08 at Mom and Dad’s house in Florida.

  I click the TV off. It isn’t time for the news.

  27.

  ODE TO EYELINER

  Thank heavens for makeup, that’s all I can think, staring at my un-made-up reflection in my bathroom mirror back in Los Angeles. I’ve aged a little, but I don’t have to succumb to this. Absolutely no reason to resign myself to the stoic, au naturel look for tonight’s dinner party. I’ve earned the right to use a little magic to look as fabulous on the outside as I am on the inside.

  I smile, pulling out my tray of tricks and laying it on the counter. I know exactly how to perk up these faded eyes, lips, and skin with a few minutes of eyeliner, mascara, foundation, blush, and lipstick.

  I lean into the magnified makeup mirror to start.

  I recoil.

  Recoil at the 10× magnification of truth that stares back: I already have on eyeliner, mascara, foundation, blush, and lipstick. I put it on an hour ago. Not only is the old lady in the mirror me in full makeup, but the old lady completely forgot she already did her whole beauty routine.

  “SHOULDN’T YOU BE GETTING READY?!” I yell out the bathroom door, directing my frustration toward the den so my voice can be heard over the Golf Channel. Not the one in my house. The Golf Channel in my house was disconnected the same day the man who used to be planted in front of it also disconnected and moved to a den in a different part of town. My yell is in general to all men in all dens all over the universe. I yell to be heard over all Golf Channels and every single smug male voice that calls back:

  “I’ll jump in the shower when you’re five minutes from being ready!”

  What it must be like to be male and have your face look the same every single time you look in the mirror?

  To have no dinner-party version of your face to create.

  No work version.

  No Saturday-morning version.

  No Saturday-night version.

  No lunch version.

  No beach version.

  No wedding version.

  No breakup version.

  No holiday version.

  No five-pound evening bag full of versions to get you through a two-hour date.

  I remember watching a young woman in the ladies’ room of a restaurant, frantically redoing her face. So insecure, she apparently couldn’t stand for her date to see her with un-touched-up eyeliner. As though he’d want to marry her if she got the mascara just right. Oblivious to the fact that he might actually be more attracted to her if she’d stayed at the table so he could eat his twenty-six-dollar entrée while it was warm.

  I pity her.

  Then I remember that the young woman was me.

  “SHOULDN’T YOU BE GETTING READY YET??!!” I yell out the bathroom door again at all the invisible men.

  What must it be like to be male and leave the house without—as my mom’s archaic generation calls it—“putting on your face”? The injustice makes me crazy, but not crazy enough to go to tonight’s dinner party without putting on my face.

  I apply another layer of makeup over the faded one I forgot I put on an hour ago. Carefully. Too little makeup, and I look dead. Too much and I look desperate to not look dead, which my daughter has pointed out is even worse.

  I stand bac
k from the 10× magnification mirror. Happy. Restored. I look like myself again.

  I walk into my Golf-Channel-free den and take a moment to sink into a my man-free love seat before I leave for tonight’s event. I feel good about myself. I feel good about all of womanhood—about the ridiculous conformities and contradictions with which we make peace. About the fact that even with the thousands of extra hours we spend preparing to walk out the door, we still go so far and accomplish so much. I celebrate the grace and beauty our extra efforts add to the world.

  My dog—ever in sync with my emotions—charges toward my happy aura, bounds onto my lap, and joyfully licks my contented, confident face. Licks the last fifteen minutes of eyeliner, mascara, foundation, blush, and lipstick right off.

  I’m ready for so many, many things in life. Leaving the house for a dinner party tonight, not so much.

  28.

  WHAT KIND OF FRIEND HAS NO WI-FI IN THE POWDER ROOM?

  Hi, Cathy! Nice to see you!”

  “Nice to see you, too!” I bubble.

  We hug. Kiss cheeks. Hell begins.

  Neighbor? Teacher? Sister of the hostess? Marcia? Fran?

  “How’s your daughter liking freshman year?” she asks. I have no idea who this woman is, and she remembers that my child started college this year.

  “And how are those darling dogs?” she adds. She remembers everything.

  “First I want to hear about yours!” I lean in, deflecting it back to her. “How are yours doing?”

  “My what?” she asks.

  I lean back out. Dogs? Cats? Children? Tropical fish?

  “Your little ones!” I say.

  “Oh, they’re not so little anymore!” She laughs.

  I hate this woman. She’s giving me nothing. Either we’ve had such a connection prior to this that it doesn’t occur to her I don’t know who she is, or she knows that I don’t know and this is how she amuses herself at dinner parties.