Bright Lights, Big Ass

by Jen Lancaster

  The worst part was I realized I was far more likely to vote for an American Idol contestant than a government official, as evidenced by my not walking next door to vote in the last local election because it was raining.

  After this realization, I was far more conscientious about what I put in my brain—I chose smarter books, read news and information Web sites, and watched a whole lot of PBS, much to Fletcher’s delight. Yet the day an Us Weekly accidentally fell into our shopping cart, I started to backslide yet again, especially when I discovered shows like America’s Next Top Model, Sorority Life, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. And at the present moment, I can’t think of the last time he and I discussed Kierkegaard. We’ve been back to the trendy Euro coffeehouse, but I spent the whole time sniggering about the bull ring in our waitress’s nose.

  I log off the Amish in the City message boards and vow to take action. Maybe if I keep track of what I do with my day tomorrow, I can find areas where I can improve myself.

  * * *

  Jen’s Daily Log

  8:45 a.m.—Remind self it’s brother’s birthday, and make mental note to call him later. Shower and do hair to get ready for hair appointment.12

  9:50 a.m.—En route for hair appointment.

  10:00 a.m.—Get hair cut and highlighted and have extensive conversation about whether or not Renée Zellweger has had Botox in between reading new People magazine.

  12:46 p.m.—Admire snappy new haircut in mirror in second-floor bathroom. Turn on TLC and leave on all day.

  12:51 p.m.—Scan all friends’ Web sites to see if they mentioned me in any of today’s posts. Nobody does. Bastards.

  1:25 p.m.—Admire snappy new haircut, only this time in mirror in third-floor bathroom. Want to see hair contrasted against green walls. Congratulate self on scoring a free cut and 15 color job on Training Day at the ultra-hip Art + Science salon in Wicker Park.

  1:30 p.m.—Wonder briefly if the $300 per visit spent each time at Molto Bene is worth it, considering that for $285 less, current coif looks exactly the same.

  1:31 p.m.—Cease line of thinking immediately for fear that brain may explode.

  1:59 p.m.—Admire snappy new haircut in mirror by front door. Is not vain because I had to pass by this mirror on way in the door.

  2:00 p.m.—Remind self to call brother. Watch few minutes of Fox News headlines. Briefly mourn George’s vote-off on Idol while on phone with Shayla.

  2:43 p.m.—Go to Costco. Vow to never hit Costco midday again due to being only person there not holding some variety of toddler. Renew previous vow to remain child-free as do not like to carry heavy things.

  3:59 p.m.—Remind self to call brother. Admire snappy new haircut in rearview mirror. Not vain or shallow because had not yet seen the color in daylight.

  4:00 p.m.—Unable to resist siren song of plant department at Home Depot. Feel compelled to spend the $12 skimmed off of household budget by buying cheap dog food at Costco on more flowers.

  4:15 p.m.—Unload car and plant purchases. Compulsively scrub dirt from under nails. Since can’t keep promise to not buy any more plants, must at least attempt to hide the evidence.

  4:30 p.m.—Remind self to call brother.

  4:31 p.m.—Pick Fletch up at work. Get busted when he detects smell of fresh soil in backseat. Shit, what is this, CSI or something?

  5:04 p.m.—Notice that while on patio, can see reflection of snappy new haircut and pretty, pretty container garden in glass doors.

  5:05 p.m.—Preen and admire.

  5:50 p.m.—Notice Vesuvius-like growth on cheek below eye due to clogged pore created by use of cheap wrinkle cream. Non-comedogenic, my ass. Take ibuprofen to stop throbbing. Remind self to call brother when done poking and prodding pitcher’s-mound-sized bump.

  5:58 p.m.—Boil hands and scrub off first two layers of skin.

  5:59 p.m.—Create lavish stir-fry dinner with seven kinds of vegetables and the carnivore’s version of tofu. (Also known as chicken.)

  6:18 p.m.—Eat dinner while watching Cops. Notice central theme in each segment that woman is willing to put up with domestic abuse because “he pays my bills.” Decide (a) paying bills is overrated and (b) most women on Cops are big dummies.

  6:49 p.m.—Wonder what ever happened to Ione Skye…she was a good actress.

  6:50 p.m.—Wonder if “Ione Skye” was her given name, or something she created.

  6:51 p.m.—Remembered that when in junior high and wanted to be an actress, decided stage name would be Shea Fields. Now realize would be better name for ballpark. Remind self to call brother.

  6:52 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.—Slip into apparent black hole, as cannot remember what happened. Maybe played with cats and dogs? Admired self? Ogled flower boxes? Oh, yes, watched reality TV. Is like catnip to me. Watching strangers yell at each other while competing for mystery prizes? Six beautiful girls stand before me but I only have five photographs? Will you accept this rose? Hell, yes, I’m there.

  10:31 p.m. to 10:59 p.m.—Watch Family Guy. During commercial breaks, try to badger husband into going out to buy me a Hostess Fruit Pie. Unsuccessful. (Prefer apple, but would have accepted cherry or chocolate.)

  11:00 p.m.—Kiss husband good night. Dig through basket to find clean nightgown. Prefer yellow nightgown with coffee cups on it, but is dirty. Settle for lavender cotton with puffy clouds and little slivers of moon. Question usefulness of breast pocket, as do not customarily carry pens around in nightgown. Guess is nice to have the option, though.

  11:01 p.m. to 11:56 p.m.—Catch up on the latest celebrity news on ten bookmarked sites.

  11:57 p.m. to 12:17 a.m.—Record activity log.

  * * *

  I’m having coffee and reviewing my daily activity log and I cringe at the vapidity of the previous day. In addition, I realize I never called my brother to wish him a happy birthday. Now I’m a bad sister and a shallow person.13

  I yearn to be a woman of more depth, but I’m not so fond of the path I’d need to follow to get there. Yet I don’t want to always be the girl everyone looks at when they can’t remember the name of the chick who replaced Suzanne Somers on Three’s Company,14 hence my dilemma. Fletch is kind of an intellectual and I often wonder if he deserves to be with someone who’s more into the magazine Time and less Time Out. When there’s breaking news and I turn on Fox News, my first comment should not be “OMG, I love Juliet Huddy’s outfit today!” Given the choice, I’m always going to prefer Cosmopolitan over the Utne Reader, and even though I can discuss the Tax Reform Act of 1986, I’d rather talk about my hair.

  As I berate myself I hear Fletch moving around in the living room. He switches on the television, and moments later I hear the theme song to the cartoon show Super Friends. And suddenly I feel better.

  * * *

  To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

  From: jen@jenlancaster.com

  Subject: keep your laws off my pigment

  Hey, ladies,

  First, perhaps y’all can save the “I told you sos” ’til the end of the story.

  Setting: My snappy new tanning salon on Clybourn Ave, last week.

  Annoyingly Perky Desk Clerk: Hi, your name?

  Me: Lancaster—comma—Jen.

  APDC: (taps away at the computer, high blonde ponytail swinging back and forth) And…okey-dokey, there you are! Finger, please.

  My snappy new tanning salon employs a fingerprint recognition system, nice because it ensures no one else can sneak in on my membership. (BTW? If you own a place on Milwaukee Ave and you decide to cheap out and buy bed management software from your native country Poland? And you tell me my $100 worth of remaining tanning sessions are gone because the computer “makes approximate” and “sometimes she round off” and then when I politely show you tangible, irrefutable proof that I didn’t use them, that your software is flawed, and that I should be credited, you point a stubby Slavic finger in my face and declare, “No, ees jewoo who ees wrong!”? Well, don’t be surpr
ised when my head fucking explodes.)

  (Also, should I be concerned that my snappy new tanning salon provides better fraud protection than my bank?)

  APDC: Alrighty, which bed?

  Me: I want the ergonomic one with the water misters and aromatherapy. (Oh, yeah, it’s that kind of nice.)

  APDC: (tappity, tappity) Whoopsie! It’s 8:17!

  Me: Um…and?

  APDC: Well, I’m super sorry, but you can’t tan until 9:01.

  Me: What? I have unlimited tanning, so what’s with the wait?

  APDC: There’s an annoying state law that says you have to have twenty-four hours between tanning sessions and—

  Me: Whoa, hold the phone. Are you trying to tell me that the state is now actively involved with the tanning industry? Are you kidding me? What business do a bunch of pasty bureaucrats have dictating what I do or don’t do to my skin?

  APDC: I’m sorry, ma’am, but—

  Me: (growing agitated) You know what? I’m an adult with a college degree and I’m familiar with the dangers of UV rays, so I don’t need Big Brother sticking his nose in my personal business in a ham-handed attempt to keep me safe.

  APDC: It’s just that—

  Me: Sure, the twenty-four-hour waiting period is okay in theory, but the reality is that it’s incredibly inconvenient and inefficient for me to have to either sit here or drive home and back. What difference will forty-three minutes make? As long as it’s the next day, what’s the big deal?

  APDC: Maybe you’d be, like, more comfortable if you—

  Me: You know, if I want to do something stupid, destructive, and potentially cancer-causing to my body, that’s my decision. How dare the government spend time and money orchestrating laws which restrict my freedoms. My body, my choice….

  (pause as a lightbulb goes off in my dim little Republican brain)

  …oh. Wait a minute. This is why everyone’s up in arms about the new Supreme Court nominee, isn’t it?

  APDC: (cocks her head to the side) I don’t understand.

  Me: Never mind. I’ll see you in an hour.

  APDC: Bye-bye!

  So I thought you guys should be the first to know I get it now.

  Finally.

  Later,

  Jen

  * * *

  * * *

  To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

  From: jen@jenlancaster.com

  Subject: i don’t like mike

  What is it with the crazy people e-mailing me? I hope you all enjoy this message from today’s in-box as much as I did:

  hi there: very very sexy person i am older 47 live in the city i am still married looking for a friend/lover i am gng thru a pinfull divorce. I am 6* 200 brwn hair and brwn (bedroom) eyes I work out 5-6 times a week and I love golf-boating I own my business so if you want to see what happens let me know I know I am not for eveyone still being married. srry no pics until i am divorced shhhhhhhhhhhmike

  Like I’m not going to respond to this before blocking him from contacting me?

  Dear Mike,

  Thanks for your thoughtful offer. However, I will have to politely decline for the following reasons:

  1) I hate golf-boating. So hard to get the ball to stay on the tee with all the waves.

  2) Sorry to hear about your “pinfull” divorce. Perhaps if you weren’t busy trawling for sex with strangers first thing in the morning, it may have worked out better for you?

  3) Were I to cheat on my spouse (which is never going to happen, BTW) it certainly wouldn’t be with someone who should be cited by the Grammar Police.

  I do not want to see what happens. And I am letting you know.

  Best,

  Jen

  * * *

  Loser? Yes, but Not the Biggest

  I’m a loser.

  Or, at least I’m hoping to be.

  I’m scheduled to go on a casting call for NBC’s The Biggest Loser program. This is the reality show where a bunch of overweight folks compete with each other to drop the flab and gain $250-large. But since everyone on the show sheds a ton of weight, there are no losers. Or, um, they’re all losers. Just not in the pejorative sense.

  So, I’ve been watching the show and each week I scream1 epithets at those I don’t think are working hard enough. For example, during a competition that involves climbing ninety flights of stairs, a contestant has a panic attack around floor thirty-four and has to be carted off in an ambulance. As I shout, “You big pussy!” at her image on the screen, Fletch reminds me I’ve been sitting with my legs crossed for half an hour since I’m too lazy to climb the stairs to my bathroom.

  Oh, yes. That.

  For as faithfully as I watch the show, it’s surprising I’d never considered auditioning before, especially since I’d be an awesome reality show contestant. I’d be the one to stir up trouble over some already-simmering issue and then neatly step away from it while I watched the other contestants implode. And then at the height of the crisis, in the midst of all the yelling and producer intervention, I’d say something so witty and sardonic, yet showing my humanity, that the message boards would explode with “Oh, my God, I can’t believe she went there” commentary and yet another battle would ensue between those who loved and those who hated me.

  The seed to audition was planted about a month ago after my last physical. My internist advised me to lose thirty pounds, even though my blood pressure was “outstanding”2 and my cholesterol was good, which is interesting considering the fact I’ve thought about adding butter to my coffee more than once. He instructed me to start logging what I ate, saying if I charted fat grams and calories, I’d make better choices and thus shed those pounds.

  I smiled and nodded, but inwardly rolled my eyes. The poor, deluded soul thought I didn’t know that lack of exercise and abundance of calories were making me heavy. I wanted to tell him, “Doctor, I’m an ex–sorority girl. There’s nothing you can tell a sorority girl about fat and calories she doesn’t already know. Shoot, half my sisters had some variety of eating disorder and the other half majored in dietetics. So great was our obsession with nutrition that any one of us could have taught the ADA a thing or two.” But I didn’t because I was trying to angle a way to get him to prescribe me some recreational Xanax and figured he wouldn’t if I acted like a jerk.

  Although people lose weight for a lot of reasons, my dilemma to this point has been that I haven’t been able to come up with one compelling enough to change my habits. Sure, the idea of being healthier sounds nice, but that’s an abstract concept and certainly not enough to get me off the cake and on the bike. And, yeah, the idea of living longer appeals, but by denying myself now, I rationalize I might simply be prolonging the adult diaper years. Plus, if Fletch doesn’t stop smoking he’s not going to be around to keep me company anyway.

  And speaking of Fletch, I’d never be one who was swayed by the whole “do it for him” argument. I truly despise the men I see on daytime talk shows who get Dr. Phil to intervene because “my wife ain’t skinny like she used to be.” Seems like if your marriage can’t withstand a couple of pounds, you may need more help than Jenny Craig offers.

  I’ll admit the idea of being thinner isn’t all bad. Perhaps I’d enjoy not sweating when I eat? If I weren’t plus-sized, I bet I’d be more likely to take advantage of some of the perks the city has to offer, like ice skating in Millennium Park. I just hate the idea of engaging in any public physical activity that makes me look foolish, and I’ve found myself avoiding things I used to like because I’m heavy now.3 For example, Chicago has dozens of cool gyms with pools and juice bars and climbing walls, and yet I can’t quite bring myself to join one of them because I’m vaguely embarrassed. I want to become a member, but, you know, not ’til I’m a little thinner. (This is the same specious logic that makes people clean their homes the day before the maid comes.)

  I talk over my weight-loss aversion with Fletch and we try to figure out what might motivate me. His theory is the onl
y way people lose weight is because something clicks inside them and they decide it’s time. He calls the impetus for the click “the X-factor” and claims the X-factor is what coaxes you out of bed to walk briskly with the dogs on a chilly morning and convinces you that an orange is a better snack than half a box of Twinkies. According to Fletch, the X-factor is more important than exercising or eating right because it’s what drives people to do so in the first place. The X-factor? Is all powerful.