They say yard work can't kill you, but why take a chance.

Do you remember in college when you had a car and your friends would ask for a ride, so you'd say, “Cash, ass, grass, or pass - nobody rides for free.” Well, at forty, that phrase doesn't mean anything even remotely close to what it did back then. These days it means that you pay thousands of dollars to an asshole who landscapes your yard, which causes you to suffer a small stroke, because you spent so much fucking money on actual grass. That’s what it means. And, that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that the yard he planted is full of weeds and the neighborhood association is going to fine us if we don’t get it under control. In other words, I have to start doing yard work… which doesn’t just irritate me… it genuinely horrifies everyone around me… and with good reason. The last time I tried to do it, I sent the following text to my best friend:

mkromd, “OMG. I broke the hot tub. The side wall thing fell off.”
TB, “HOW in the HELL did you break your hot tub?”
mkromd, “With the lawn mower. Hellooooo. How else do you break a hot tub?”
TB, “Do you need me to come fix it?”
mkromd, “No, I need you to come and cut the fucking grass. We’ll call a handyman to fix the hot tub.”

Honestly, I hate doing it so much that it makes me cry. Granted – not as much as it makes the neighbors cry, but still – there are tears. It’s so bad that passersby rapidly usher their children past our home and the people on our street won’t even make eye contact with me when I’m in the yard. And that’s where our story begins.

You see, this month, DB went fly-fishing in Montana, so for the first time since we moved in, the yard actually has fallen to me, and I know that’s wrong. I do. I know that we’re partners and the work should be more evenly distributed. I get it. But it’s one thing to process that logically. It’s a whole different ball game to process it emotionally. Because honestly, you might be surprised to know what I’d do for a Klondike bar, but you’d be downright horrified to learn what I’ve done to get out of yard work.

So, there I was, resolved to take the high road and do my part, when the automatic sprinkler system went off and nailed me. Thank GOD I wasn’t wearing white shorts… just a white tank top. Yup. Once again, my life was like, “Girls Gone Wild,” the mid-life crisis edition. Next time, I’m going to do it in a Burka. Why not? After all, like my dad used to say, “Dear Lord, please give me a sense of humor. If you give me strength, I may need bail money to go with it.”

Talk to you later.

For God's sake, get me to the chuch on time.

A few weeks ago, DB and I headed home to Appalachia for a wedding, which - unless you're a local - is like nothing you've ever seen before in your life. Because, not only are the Blue Ridge mountains home to the world's best Bluegrass music, they're also a Mecca for blue eye shadow consumers and preachers who handle snakes... all of which you're likely to experience if you're there for a special occasion.

Now, don't get me wrong. Where I grew up is honestly one of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. So-much-so that the natives say they only inbreed to, "keep outsiders from coming in and ruining it." But, like everything in life, it has its pros and cons. Pro... mountain people definitely know how to party. I've actually attended receptions where the bar served homemade moonshine then handed the empty jugs over to the band so the music could start. Con.. after too much moonshine, I've played the jug... on stage... and there's a fine line between being so drunk that you go blind versus being just drunk enough that you're willing blow "whoo whoo... whoo whoo" into a bottle while a large bearded stranger in overalls sings, "Billie Jean is not my lover." Yes. Really.

That said, the saddest part of this post is that you think I'm joking. Actually, scratch that. The SADDEST part is that it didn't just happen to me in Appalachia. It also once happened to me in Mississippi at a barbeque festival. Though I remember neither incident, I've been told that I'm a natural. But I digress. The point is that two weeks ago my sister and I had to get our seventy-two year old mother ready for the wedding. However, before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first.

My mom is my hero. Several years ago, during open heart surgery, she acquired a Staph infection that landed her in a coma for three months. After "coming to" and spending a year in physical and occupational therapy, she was able to breathe, talk, walk, and live without assistance. Any lesser soul would have given up or died trying. She has done neither. But clearly, she’s not at the top of her game physically.

My sister is a school teacher who is built like a Barbie doll and suffers from Pollyannaism. She is annoyingly positive. Me, not so much. I’m short. I’m chubby, and I’m cynical, but only on the inside where it matters. So there we were - the realist, the optimist, and the pessimist trying to plan the work and work the plan. And that’s when it happened. My sister and I were no longer grown women. We were seven and fourteen again… playing rock-paper-scissors… in front of our mother... figuring out who was doing what.

After best-out-of-three devolved into best-out-of-five, and I STILL lost, my beautiful, perfect sibling got to help our mom into her silk suit while I got to get her into her pantyhose. Ironically, my mom and Aunt had to do the same thing for our grandmother years ago, and that’s when she let us in on a family secret. Booze doesn’t just help you take your nylons off, it also helps you get a pair of nylons on. So, after a bottle of wine and an hour of laughing until we cried, the three of us were ready to go.

The moral? Whether the glass is half full or half empty... there's still room to add alcohol - at least according to my mother. No wonder she's my hero. Talk to you later.

Nad's Hair Removal ©

Let me say this, I'm Irish. We are not a hairy people. In fact, we're so NOT hairy, that the two times my brothers attempted to grow beards, they simply looked like they had mange. Me? Not so much. I would honestly look like Frida Kahlo tomorrow if I stopped tweezing tonight.

No really, it's true. Without a diligent daily hair-removal regimen, I could grow a uni-brow that a Chia pet would envy. It's so bad that, even though I get my eyebrows waxed every five weeks, I still have to pluck them every evening. It goes something like this… I wash my face... brush my teeth... crawl onto the bathroom sink... stare into the mirror... and manically attempt to maintain my mono-brow for ten minutes straight... all the while hearing Rod Serling do Beat poetry in my head, "landscaping your face is a journey *pause/tweeze* to the land of the different *pause/tweeze* the bizarre *pause/tweeze* the unexplainable *pause/tweeze*… a journey that knows no limits.”

And that's where our story begins. In the space between our master bathroom (where I very recently had my first truly psychotic thought) and the salon (where I honestly just learned that men actually get Brazilians), a space, no doubt, eerily reminiscent of the Twilight Zone.

However, before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first.

The other night, as I was reading about electrolysis, I accidentally stumbled across a blog for women who suffer from Hirsutism, a rare condition of extreme hairiness. And, although it was mostly one heart-wrenching post after another about expensive and painful procedures that failed to produce permanent results, some of the stories were simply bizarre… including one about a woman who became so obsessive-compulsive that she took tweezers to work so she could go into the bathroom and pluck all day long. At which point, I found myself thinking, “That woman’s brilliant.”

Now… just for the record, I fully understand that wasn’t the appropriate response. I do. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t even the worst mental note I made. That went something like this, “I’ve been tweezing since I was twenty, and I probably pull five to ten hairs a night, every night. To do the math, that’s three-hundred sixty five (days) times twenty (years) times ten (hairs)… or 73,000 pieces of eye brow that I have removed from my skull.”

And instead of thinking, “Go me! I should have been an Algebra teacher because I rocked that word problem.” I thought, “Imagine if I’d put each one of those hairs into a jar. It’d be the size of an Ewok by now.” At that moment, the world slowed to a pause, and I realized that I was only one traumatic life event away from having become a serial killer. Because, let’s be honest… they’re the ONLY people on this planet who think about storing hair in jars. But… that’s still not the worst part. This is… I actually wondered, “If I HAD a jar of hair, to whom would I bequeath it when I died and what would the note say?”

The list of possibilities was long but distinguished.

Later, when I was at the salon, telling my stylist about it, we agreed that it was a slightly fucked up thought but definitely agreed that the world was an unkind place. Men… men can get blue boner pills for things that damage their self-esteem, but women… we just have to deal with waxing and tweezing. Minus Xanax, there is no magic pill for our problems. And that’s when it happened. A man began screaming at the top of his lungs. Every woman in every chair in that salon immediately stopped what she was doing and looked at each other wondering, “What the hell was that?” Until my stylist, whom I adore said, “He’s getting his nuts waxed.”

The universe may be unkind but at least it’s just. Talk to you later.

This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.

So, last week I got my wisdom teeth removed, and I almost died – and not because of the drugs... but because I'm an idiot. You see, after the surgery, I went home, took a nap, woke up starving, and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Turns out, my tongue was too numb to let me swallow and my jaw was too sore to open wide enough to let me scrape the food from the roof of my mouth. So I stood at our kitchen sink wondering if this was how it would end, if this was how I'd meet my Maker (or at least the paramedics) – unshowered, slightly stoned, and wearing a Clash t-shirt with drool all over it… a fear that I honestly have not had since college.

And that made me think of whippits.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, you’ve probably never been to a Grateful Dead show… and you could not only pass a drug test… you probably never actively studied for one… unlike some of the people I knew when I was a sophomore at Penn State, but I digress. The point is that a whippit is when someone sucks nitrous oxide out of a can of whipped cream to get high. They call it hippie crack, but you probably know it as laughing gas, which is what oral surgeons give to patients to relax them before and while their wisdom teeth are being removed. Having had it last week for the first time, I honestly don’t understand how people become addicted to it. Really. It may not have ruined my life, but it damn sure ruined one of my favorite albums for me, Appetite for Destruction.

However, in order to tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first.

Before my appointment, everyone said, “mkromd, you’re a coward. Take your iPod and listen to music. The drugs will stop you from feeling the pain, but the music will stop you from hearing the dentist’s drill.” So, I not only listened to them… I listened to Guns N' Roses… at full volume… before, during, and after the procedure. Now, if you've never had your wisdom teeth removed, it goes something like this: they put the nitrous oxide mask on your nose, they put numbing sticks in your mouth, they inject four shots into your gums (one by each tooth) and another shot into the roof of your mouth, then – after fifteen minutes or so - once you’re completely numb, they start the extractions. So there I was, insanely stoned, with very little jaw control and absolutely no self control, singing Welcome to the Jungle at the top of my lungs, while I waited for the doctor to get started. No. Really. Imagine a talentless Axl Rose, totally baked, with a horrible lisp, screaming, "you're a very thexy girl thath's very hard to pleath..." It was like MTV Unplugged meets Kafka, the Home Edition.

Honestly, the whole experience was utterly horrid… for everyone. I can only imagine small children in the waiting room, crying, and begging their parents to take them home and creepy sadomasochist patients like Bill Murray in Little Shop of Horrors saying, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

At any rate, it was awful but at least it's done. And, with that, talk to you later (even though it hurts to do it).

Powder to the People

I once read that if more people skied, there’d be less war. And, as crazy as that sounds, I believe it. In fact, just last week alone, we went to Steamboat and broke into someone’s condo, and no one was even mad about it let alone hostile. However… before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first.

You see, even though I lived out West and have been fortunate enough to ski most of the major resorts in North America, I’d never done Steamboat, which was definitely a mistake on my part. Now, I love it - and not just for the elevation or the powder, but because of the culture. Sure, Aspen gets the X Games, but Steamboat is becoming the new Mecca for winter biathletes, people who participate in a sport that combines cross-country skiing with target shooting. To quote the guy in the gear shop, “folks trudge through the snow, stop, shoot a gun, and keep going.” It’s like Chicago… with mountains. 

That said, please don’t get me wrong. I do NOT cross country ski. I wouldn’t even do it if I lived in a smaller country. I downhill, period… but I also digress. The point is that the locals there love their mountains, and I cannot blame them. I would move tomorrow if the stars aligned. As for breaking and entering, this time it wasn’t my fault. 

Unlike previous years, DB and I took the kids and met his mom, his sister, and her family at the resort. And, because they aren’t cheap, the four of them flew directly into Hayden and arrived at 3:00 PM as scheduled. However, because I am, we flew into Denver, got into the rental car, and hit a blizzard on the way to Steamboat. After a six hour drive… through the mountains… in a white out... we made it to the main lodging office, checked in, got the keys, and headed to the condo. Sadly, it wasn’t ours. No really. They gave us the keys to someone else’s condominium. 

Luckily, they weren’t home. We know because we walked through each and every room trying to figure out why we were given a dirty condo that was filled with Jesus art… until finally, after fifteen minutes, I called the concierge who profusely apologized and told me, “Whoa, you’re not in unit 32. You’re in unit 23. Sorry man, my bad.” 

You know, ever since that night, I’ve caught myself wondering what those poor people thought when they got back to their condo. Did they think that someone gently broke in and took something, and did they spend the rest of their vacation trying to figure out what it was? Honestly, I almost took a six pack of beer just to give them some peace of mind. That way it wouldn’t have been so… random. That way they could’ve opened their fridge and screamed, “What asshole steals someone’s beer?” And it would have been over for them. But I didn’t give them that closure, and now they just have to wonder… forever. On the up note, I didn’t break in and leave anything on the counter just to fuck with them either, so they should thank me! 

At any rate, after all of that, we went back to the front desk, got new keys, went to our own condo, then met up with DB’s family. I’m pleased to announce that a fabulous time was had by all. The white out was worth it because the powder was to die for, and trust me about Steamboat. It’s amazing.

There's no accounting for taste...

First, the good news… last month, mkromd crossed the five thousand reader mark. It’s taken me two years and fifty-four posts, but I’ve done it. No, I mean that literally - over half of those hits were probably me visiting my own site. Sure, I selected Blogger’s, “Don’t track your own page views,” but I once put black electrical tape over the 12:00 that kept flashing on my VCR because it was the only way I could make the fucking thing stop blinking at me. So who knows?

Now for the bad news… which, interestingly enough, is connected to the good news AND last month’s post. One of those five thousand readers is one of my three closest friends in the world… and she had absolutely no idea that I was blogging… or that my karma ran over my dogma existed… even though I have written about her… ad nauseam. Yes. Really. Seriously though, in my defense, what the HELL are the odds of that happening?

Turns out they’re about 1 in 5248… give or take a few.

At any rate, before I can tell you why, I have to tell you this part of the story first... I’ve not always had the best of luck writing. In fact, in a previous life, I had another blog. It was also anonymous, but it wasn’t always kind, and people got hurt. Very hurt. As a result, I immediately killed the site, made three deeply sincere apologies in an attempt to make amends, and did some serious soul searching. Unfortunately, the damage was done, and it was irrevocable.

Afterwards, people encouraged me to blog, but I couldn’t. I honestly had nothing to say. Days turned into weeks which turned into months, and - no matter how much I wanted to write, nothing would come out but tears. Don’t get me wrong, I deserved it. I knew better. My father used to say, “A joke isn’t funny unless everyone in the room laughs.” Well, at some point, I forgot that, and getting even was more important than getting better… which was the whole reason that I started writing to begin with. It was therapy for me.

Then, one day, I had to get new tires, and it was a complete disaster, but it was funny. And, what started out as an e-mail to friends, rapidly devolved into the first post that I ever published on this blog. Too bad I failed to mention some of the people who got me from there to here:

DB, who encouraged me to write but reminded me to, “First do no harm."

My mother, who (even though I'm forty) said, “I don’t care if we debate, so long as you do what you’re told.”

My oldest friend, who told me, “No one can take your voice unless you give it to them willingly.”

A reader who once candidly posted, “My mom is dying of cancer. And, in a world of unfunny things, you made you made us laugh until we cried… the good kind of tears. Thank you.”

And Zoey, who wrote a million e-mails, sent a billion texts, did a zillion lunches, and drove a trillion miles – all the while saying, “Write!” To which I would simply reply, “Wrong.”

So what the hell does all of that have to do with the post, “Forty, it's not the new thirty they promised you. Thank God!” Well, everything. In the spirit of full disclosure, what I didn't tell you is that, after my divorce, I was so angry… and so lost… and so bitter… that I refused to do anything which required me to leave my couch let alone take the highroad. In fact, I’d probably still be hiding at home today, except that Zo staged an intervention. No really, it’s true. She e-mailed our other friends and bullied me into the very dinner that I wrote about last month. And, when I finally got to the restaurant, I had a panic attack that was so awful that she had to come to my car to get me, which wasn’t easy considering that I was lost and refusing to answer my phone. I’m not proud, but there you have it - the truth.

This is a woman stuck by me and not only propped me up but cheered me on... through everything, and a thousand times I wanted to say, “I’m blogging!” Instead, I always simply replied, “Wrong” when she said, “Write.” Well, Zo - though this post wasn't funny at all, it is sincere, and I am sorry. I’m glad you found it. I’m glad you read it. I hope you know how dearly I love you and – more than that - how deeply I appreciate you. With that, I'm heading to out West to ski. As always, the flights are ghetto but the fare was simply too good to pass up. I mean really... how bad could it be?

Forty, it's not the new thirty they promised you. Thank God!

A while ago, I went to dinner with four friends whom I dearly love, all of whom I've written about at one point or another. And - as I sat there, it dawned on me why Steve Jobs genuinely enjoyed people his own age. Of the five women at our table, all of us are in our forties... at varying stages of our careers.. and marriages... with children who are ours and/or our partners'... and we have all lost at least one parent. We have laugh lines and wrinkles. Highlights and gray hair. Personal trainers and nagging ailments. Retirement accounts and college funds. And stories that make us interesting. Really interesting, actually.

Ironically, next to us was a table that also had five women, all of whom were in their mid-twenties to early-thirties. Beautiful women who were young and athletic and who had not yet looked at their budgets or their consciences and wondered about Botox. I mean really wondered. Women who, more-than-likely, had just finished graduate school... landed their first real jobs... gotten married... and maybe had their first child.

When I pointed them out, one of my girlfriends laughed and said, "Those poor souls have absolutely no idea what's about to hit them." And she's right. We should know. When we met fifteen years ago, we were those women. So, we played a game. Which one of them would end up like each one of us? Which one would end her marriage because she was actually a lesbian? Which one would make Senior Partner at her firm, only to quit and be a stay-at-home mom? Which one would simultaneously have a child in college and a child in pre-school, both from the same husband? Which one would make CEO one week and watch her oldest child go off to war the next? And which one of them would go through a devastating divorce?

As we did our round-robin, my friends unanimously picked the woman who reminded them the most of me at that age. She had a pixie haircut, wore a cashmere turtleneck, and had a boisterous laugh that you either loved or you hated. There was no middle ground. Judging by the ring on her finger, she was married. And, although everyone else at the table was having a glass of wine, she was drinking a beer. I instantly adored her. She had the exuberance of youth and more than that... she was still innocent. Sure, she was probably sarcastic but she wasn't cynical yet, and I silently prayed that she'd stay that way... that, regardless of what life threw at her, she would always like her life like she liked her music, "louder than everything else."

At any rate, after we said good-night, I called my mother on the drive home and asked her what I was like at twenty-five. To which she replied, "Thankfully, you weren't experienced enough to know that you couldn't possibly do the things that you were actually doing."When I figured out what she meant, I realized that she was right. I was unsustainably over-the-top in everything I touched. I wanted to change the world, and I actually tried... one cause at a time. I not only said, "til death do we part," I genuinely believed that I would die without the man I'd married. I idolized Geraldine Ferraro and wondered if George Stephanopoulos ever debated in the nude... and, more importantly, if I'd ever get to see it.

Now... I still want to change the world, but I daydream about decorating it with environmentally-friendly Pottery Barn furniture, too. I love my partner. I love him immeasurably - more than I ever knew I could, but I cannot ever love someone with everything in me ever again. There's a part of me that's reserved only for me, and I accept that it's the tragic collateral damage caused by a terrible divorce, but that doesn't make it less true. And though I miss Geraldine Ferraro, these days I fantasize more about picking Lawrence O'Donnell's brain than playing the spoons on George Stephanopoulos' abs. OK, that last one's a lie. Why choose?

Anyway, where does that leave me and where does it leave that beautiful young woman from the other table? 

At forty, I've figured out that I want to write and I'm trying to get published. I've fallen apart, looked at the pieces of myself, and taken inventory of the parts I want to keep and the parts I need to toss. And I've tried to do it. As for her? I want to give her some great advice that Baz Lurhman gave to the Graduating Classes of 1997 - the year that I was out of graduate school... had that first real job... and first marriage... when I was her. Here it is, "If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind, you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in twenty years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked... You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind. The kind that blindside you at 4pm on a random Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing!

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss! Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead. Sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive. Forget the insults... If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters, but throw away your old bank statements. Stretch! Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at twenty-five what they wanted to do with their lives, and some of the most interesting forty year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium, and be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40. Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, but so are everybody elses.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. DO NOT READ BEAUTY MAGAZINES. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You’ll never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go but for the precious few you should hold on to. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel!

Accept certain inalienable truths: price will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders!

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time its forty, it will look eighty-five.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen.”

I know we’re all probably old enough to remember the speech, but it’s honestly the only advice I’d give to her – or anyone else. I'd also tell the women my age to visit this great new blog that I've fallen in love with. It's called womenatforty. It's not the womenatfortyisthenewthirty either. It's a forum of women for women by women our age, and it's fabulous. I hope you check it out, and not just because I might be a guest writer (keep your fingers crossed), but because it's just a really great blog.

Talk to you later.