I've Got Sand In All the Wrong Places

by Lisa Scottoline

  And really, who has the time to post a comment? I had to get back to answering my email from all the other companies that were totally in love with me.

  I had an email from Yelp, an app that Francesca and I had used to find a restaurant on tour:

  “Lisa, did you enjoy your meal at Elvira’s Pancake House?”

  Yes, and thank you for reminding me that I cheated on my diet. My jeans are telling me the same thing, so you two might be in cahoots.

  Later I got an email from Amazon because I had recently bought research books online:

  “Lisa, did you enjoy The Serial Killer Files?”

  Frankly, I enjoyed The Serial Killer Files as much as you can enjoy a book about serial killers, but it’s my job to read the occasional book about serial killers, so I’m not complaining.

  Thanks for asking, Amazon!

  You may remember the good old days, when you came home and somebody asked you, “How was your day?”

  And in response, you answered by telling them about your day, though you did not rate it, assign it one-to-five stars, or post a comment online.

  I seem to recall this is called conversation.

  It usually occurs face-to-face over a dinner table, but it also occurs on the telephone, in which case it takes much longer and usually devolves into a conversation about dogs, carbohydrates, or back pain.

  So it’s not really the worst thing in the world that corporate entities ask us the same question.

  I think of them like our corporate friends and family.

  And like our friends and family, they often ask us to help. They want us to recommend restaurants, movies, or books, so that more people will use their website, and they can make a living.

  I don’t begrudge them that. Because I love them back.

  However, I have learned to be wary of online reviews, because people tend to be harsh, especially in book reviews. You could write the Bible, and there would still be people who post:

  “I give it one star. Not enough action.”

  Or, “I give it one star. Too much action.”

  I don’t rely on online movie reviews either, because they can be quirky. I’ve loved movies that got a low rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’ve hated movies that got high ratings. Once, Bestie Franca and I walked out of a movie that had gotten a 98 percent rating. We got so bored waiting for something to happen that we made something happen.

  We left.

  I don’t post reviews of anything I don’t like, and I review only things I like. The same is true when I review a book for a newspaper. I always remember that there’s an actual human being at the receiving end. I follow that old-school motto, If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

  However, my beloved Mother Mary followed Dorothy Parker’s motto, which was, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.”

  So we differ.

  Why am I the way I am?

  Because life is too short.

  And at the end, I wonder if we’ll all get one last email:

  “Lisa, how did you enjoy your life?”

  Looking at My Garden

  Lisa

  This is the time of year that gardeners hate.

  Or at least, this gardener.

  It’s mid-October, and the leaves on the trees are turning gorgeous reds, oranges, and yellow.

  Unfortunately, my garden is turning brown and black, and I scan it sadly.

  The bee balm has dried into black pom-poms, like a cluster of punctuation marks.

  The day lilies that used to be a vibrant yellow have closed their leaves like a bankrupt business.

  The groundcover is the same color as the ground.

  The milkweed has morphed into weird pods that remind me of a science-fiction movie.

  The rosebushes have succumbed to the Japanese beetles who ate their leaves, making them as fragile as my ex’s ego.

  God knows where that thought came from.

  An ex-husband is the gift that keeps on giving, and every woman should have at least one.

  Even if your life is happy and peaceful, like mine is, and your thoughts are walking along, like mine were, you can catch yourself stepping into a puddle of bile and resentment, like unexpectedly wet ground, so that when you’re looking at a garden you used to love, which has now turned to complete crap, you find yourself thinking, “Oh, I remember him.”

  By the way, I’m not talking about Thing One. I’m talking about Thing Two.

  I’m always talking about Thing Two, for the simple reason that Daughter Francesca is the offspring of Thing One, so there is at least one good reason I don’t regret that marriage.

  I can’t say the same for Thing Two.

  I can’t say a single nice thing about Thing Two.

  And though I haven’t seen the man in ages, nor do I have any contact with him whatsoever, I still find myself remembering bits and pieces of weird things, and I think, Why did I put up with that? How could I have been so stupid? Why did I waste so much time, energy, and money?

  So you see, this story started out being about a garden and was about to segue into the seasons of the year, but has now turned into the seasons of a woman’s life, not all of which were deliriously happy.

  Other women talk about the One Who Got Away, meaning a man whom they loved and regret losing.

  But my One Who Got Away was a man whom I loved and regret not killing.

  Too dark?

  Just kidding.

  Kind of.

  It’s the kind of thought that sneaks up on you, and now that I’ve gotten older and seen winter turn into spring and back again more than sixty times, I know that life is full of light and dark, and it’s okay to acknowledge both.

  I’m not falling back on that old cliché that you need the dark to appreciate the light, because frankly, I’m not sure that’s completely true.

  I feel blessed and lucky every day.

  I wake up feeling grateful, merely because I woke up.

  You don’t have to read the obituaries to know that life is a gift.

  I know when a good thing is happening just because it feels so terrific, and there’s more than one time I’ve said to myself, Remember this great feeling, because this is as good as it gets.

  I felt that way when Francesca was born.

  I felt that way when Francesca took her first step, and when she graduated high school, then college.

  I feel that way every time she and I are laughing together about some memory, or something goofy that we both do, or saying to each other what we call our audio “drops,” our shared language of phrases we remember from movies we’ve loved, some twenty years old.

  I also feel that way when I meet one of my readers at a signing, and I even feel that way when I get an email from one of them, saying that they enjoyed my book or that it got them through a hard time in their life, the illness of a loved one or their own chemotherapy.

  I feel that way about my friends, and the editor of this very book.

  I’m grateful for the people in my life.

  I feel that way every time I hug one of my dogs, or when they wag their tails, or when they lick my face in the morning.

  I feel that way anytime I’m riding Buddy, my paint pony, who at the age of thirty-two, has seen the seasons of life himself.

  I even feel that way about my cat Vivi, who sheds gray fur across my legs, which luckily matches my sweatpants.

  I’m grateful for the animals in my life.

  And I feel that way when I take a walk and look around at the countryside.

  Nature evokes feelings of gratitude and grace, even as the leaves turn color and fall away.

  So it’s only the blackness of my dead garden that reminds me of my second marriage.

  It’s my own personal punctuation mark, my little black hole of negative emotion.

  Permit me my dark places.

  Maybe you have them, too. Maybe you don’t.

  Whether they do us good or not,
I don’t like to pretend bad feelings away.

  I’d rather prove I’ve moved past them.

  After all, everything casts a shadow.

  But the great thing about a shadow?

  You get to leave it behind.

  Pop Goes the Pill

  Lisa

  More advancements in medical research, to benefit women!

  The hits just keep on coming, don’t they?

  I’m talking about a banner week in women’s health, in which two news stories were only apparently unrelated.

  The first news story concerns a breakthrough for women, in that modern medical science has developed a pill to increase our libido.

  Thank God!

  This development obviously counters all those critics who say that modern medicine does not devote enough time to women’s health.

  Here’s your answer, ladies, a pill to increase your sexual desire!

  By the way, there is no pill yet that will cure breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or a variety of other life-threatening illnesses that women get. Nor is there a pill to cure any other cancer or illness that both women and men get. There is however, a pill to increase male sexual desire and a pill to increase female desire.

  Which should teach you, above all, that sex sells.

  Drug companies know this, and I guess a few people have to die so that a few others can have sex more frequently.

  Honestly, it’s a small price to pay, isn’t it?

  At least for the people having sex.

  I’m not one of those people, as loyal readers may know.

  And since I’m not having sex, I don’t really miss it.

  I’m here to tell you, if you don’t use it, you do lose it.

  But the real truth is, you don’t miss it.

  In fact, I hadn’t realized that I had an illness that needed curing until they came up with a pill.

  Which puts me in an unusual position.

  No, not that position.

  Get your mind out of the gutter.

  My problem is I’m too busy to miss sex.

  And I don’t think I’m the only middle-aged woman who feels this way.

  I’ve been writing, reading, riding bicycles, playing with my dogs, trying to get my cats to love me, pulling out weeds, going to movies with my friends, and generally enjoying my life.

  What am I supposed to do?

  Take a pill so that I don’t have any fun anymore?

  Who will finish writing my novel? Who will weed my garden? Who will be rejected by my cats?

  It’s a pill that poses problems for single women, namely, where do you find a man to meet your pharmaceutically enhanced needs?

  This would be the sexual equivalent of being all dressed up with nowhere to go.

  Especially if you take the pill and then start prowling, which could make you vaguely desperate, and we all know how much men love that.

  But I’m thinking the solution to the problem came in another news story this week, that of Ashley Madison. You may have heard that Ashley Madison is a website for married men and women to cheat on each other, but a recent hacking exposed that the website has about 3 billion men registered and only twenty women.

  I could’ve told you that.

  Women are too busy reading novels, weeding gardens, walking dogs, and enjoying their lives to go on a stupid website like Ashley Madison.

  Plus women are too smart to enjoy hook-up sex, and no pill is going to cure them of that.

  You know why?

  Because there’s nothing wrong with them.

  It ain’t broke, so it doesn’t need fixing.

  I don’t like the idea of a pill that makes you want something you didn’t otherwise want.

  I don’t know why you would take it, unless your man is taking one, too, and he wants you to want what he wants.

  He probably wouldn’t want it either, if he weren’t taking a pill.

  So maybe it’s time to stop popping pills to make us pop.

  God might’ve intended everybody to cool their jets in middle age.

  Look at nature. Even the moon isn’t full all the time.

  To everything there is a season, and can’t we all just slow our roll?

  Isn’t anything allowed to wane in our youth-obsessed, nipped-and-tucked, filled-and-injected culture? Must we look and act like we’re twenty-five, until we keel over dead?

  I think we should mellow out and enjoy our lives, and if we’re lucky enough, enjoy the company of whomever you love. If you feel like hopping in the sack, great. If you don’t, go walk the dog.

  Intimacy takes many forms.

  Talk to each other.

  Read to each other.

  Weed together.

  In fact, come to my house and weed my garden, you crazy kids.

  Now that’s my idea of a threesome.

  Those Who Can’t Date, Set Up

  Francesca

  One of my best guy friends is the most eligible man I know—he’s successful, brilliant, handsome, funny, and gay.

  Damn it.

  After a decade of friendship, I should be used to that last one, but it makes me mad every time. To quell my disappointment that I can’t date him myself, I’ve taken to playing matchmaker for him.

  Those who can’t date, set up.

  And although I’ve found him some pretty great guys, I think I’ve gotten more out of the process than he has.

  Every woman can learn from playing wing-woman for her gay guy friend.

  It’s good for everyone’s love karma to help potential couples find each other. But I’ve found that a good set-up is a little problematic with my heterosexual friends.

  For instance, I’m always skeptical when one of my single, straight girlfriends wants to set me up with a guy she knows. I usually accept, but the entire first date I’m consumed with trying to figure out why she didn’t want to date him herself.

  It’s like the opposite of a treasure hunt.

  Red-flag football.

  This ethical quandary is why I can’t often set up my girlfriends. I’m single myself, and if I meet a terrific single guy, I want him. And if I don’t want him, there’s probably something wrong with him that would disqualify him for my friends.

  I only make matches in good faith.

  Setting up my straight-guy friends is difficult in a different way. I do have a few male pals who are terrific people, friend-zoned by fate, whom I would love to see happy with someone. But straight men are just so hard to read. Whenever I set up a straight male friend with a girl, this happens:

  If he liked her, he’ll tell me, “She was great!” and call her again.

  If he didn’t like her, he’ll tell me, “She was great!” and never call her again.

  So 50 percent of the time, the girl comes to me upset and confused, and I can’t give her any info. Plus, I’ve learned nothing about my friend’s taste to improve the algorithm and make a better match next time.

  Cupid Fail.

  I think the problem lies in that my straight male friends aren’t comfortable criticizing a date, because they’d fear—or know—that I’d identify with the woman. He’d never just tell me he didn’t like her body, or she talked too much. It’s too awkward to discuss.

  I probably wouldn’t understand their reasons anyway.

  “You didn’t like her? But did you see her adorable shoes? She has amazing EQ!”

  And I’m crap at guessing at women’s attractiveness, because I’m not sexually attracted to them.

  Look, if I knew the key to heterosexual dating, I wouldn’t be single.

  My gay friend offers me matchmaking redemption. It turns out, when I’m not considering a man for myself, I’m way better at evaluating them as a potential mate. My friend tells me I consistently recommend his most quality suitors.

  Take that, Tinder.

  And although my aim was truly altruistic, I’ve learned a ton about myself in helping him out. Our opposite genders but mutual attraction to men has provided ideal test
conditions for me to identify my own romantic neuroses.

  Lesson 1: Don’t be afraid to toss back a good fish.

  One time I set up my friend with a guy I thought would be a slam-dunk. He had an education dripping in Ivy, a job in finance but interest in the creative arts, funny but not funnier than my friend, and he looked like he walked out of J.Crew’s fall catalog.

  They don’t make straight men like this.

  My friend liked him, but he didn’t love him. He said there was some chemistry missing. Close, but no cigar.

  He didn’t obsess over it, he just trusted his gut.

  I think of this when I’m trying to talk myself into another guy just because, objectively, he’s a “catch.” Love, of course, isn’t objective, it’s the most subjective force in the world. The notion that just any good guy would spell “Happily Ever After” for every girl is insane.

  And yet women get pressure to deny their gut feelings all the time. We hear, “Don’t be picky,” or, “Let a nice guy win.”

  How many rom-com plots follow this narrative: girl hates boy, girl learns her lesson, girl settles for boy.

  We don’t trust our female leads to choose wisely, so why would we trust ourselves?

  But my gay friend doesn’t carry that sexist baggage. Watching him let go of a great guy who wasn’t great for him has reminded me to trust my gut.

  Lesson 2: Sometimes the kindest thing is not to go out again.

  My next find for him was a man who was funny, smart, and kind—just like my friend. I thought their personalities were well-matched and encouraged them to meet.

  They did, and afterwards my friend reported back at brunch. He said I was exactly right about the date’s great personality—but, unfortunately, he just wasn’t physically attracted, so he wouldn’t be seeing him again.

  He told me the guy had texted him that he was going to be back in the city the following weekend, but my friend replied only, “Have a nice trip.”

  “Ouch, that’s cold,” I said.

  My friend shrugged. “The attraction issue isn’t going to change. Better not to string him along.”

  He’s right.

  My girlfriends and I often talk about how every guy leaves a date with us thinking he knocked it out of the park, regardless of how we really felt about them. But is that really so “nice”? Without meaning to mislead anyone, I reflexively hide my feelings of disinterest. I would never want to be rude to a date, but my people-pleasing tendencies probably cause more confusion than necessary.