Let’s flip your bodies over and examine all the shit that you could do but won’t, because who could possibly keep track of all this, to have a nice chest. I don’t mean your boobs, because they should be addressed on their own. I’m talking about that piece of real estate between your neck and where your boobs begin. Here’s how I take care of my chest: sometimes when I wash my face, but only after I’ve taken a shower, I’ll accidentally squeeze out too much moisturizer or put too much oil/serum into the palm of my hand, and, as I’m frantically looking around the bathroom trying to find some way of disposing of it that doesn’t include dribbling it all over the floor, it’ll dawn on me through my morning fog that I could just rub it on my chest and have a weirdly shiny breastplate for the first few hours of the day. I know that back acne is a thing, but I’m pretty sure I also have chest acne? I don’t know if that’s what it is, but sometimes I get these little bumps, and what the fuck did I survive puberty for if thirty years later I’m going be squinting in the Clearasil aisle at the drugstore trying to figure out which of the options available works best on a saggy thorax?
Your breasts are supposed to sit right up under your chin from the moment they unexpectedly sprout on your chest until your ninety-ninth birthday, but you know what? I can’t do it. I do not have perky tits, and that’s okay. I think my “pinning my nipples to the nape of my neck” days are over, dude. One of the things that I keep telling myself, over and over again like a mantra, is “people already know what your body looks like, so you don’t have to try anymore.” MY BREASTS ARE SHAPED LIKE SUMMER SQUASH. Just as I am unwilling to fight with gravity as it ravages my face, these large bags of wet sand hanging below my clavicles are no longer going into daily battle against physics.
Are they even? Are they lifted? Are they separated? Does the band fit? Is the cup right? Does the underwire dig? Is the bra flat against your skin? Does it create weird lumps under your clingy sweaters? Is it lacy? Is it breathable? Is it scratchy? Does it wick moisture? (I heard that’s a thing you’re supposed to want.) Wait a minute, what were we talking about again?
Theoretically, everyone loves a strong, broad shoulder, but no one tells you how to get one. So, I guess you either have to be born with them or that’s what those odd machines at the gym that make you look like a bird flapping its painfully heavy wings are for.
Michelle Obama is the gold standard for arms, and I’m sure there’s a BuzzFeed interview with her trainer on how they got that way, but life is fucking short. Invest in some nice cardigans. Put Vaseline on your elbows. Wear sweatshirts 365 days a year. Get arm definition lifting a coffee cup.
Armpit care and maintenance is a Whole Thing. You could, like I have, eschew all the possibilities and just let it go full lycan, occasionally spraying some herbal deodorant that doesn’t work into your dark arm cave to keep wild dogs off you. Or you could wax or sugar or depilatory or shave or laser the hair off, dab it with something to prevent in-growns (?), powder it, and deodorize it. Every day? Every couple of days? Weekly? I guess that all depends on what kind of hair you have and whether or not you are taking beauty vitamins. I definitely am, by the way, because I love an easy fix even if it isn’t real. The sheer number of available deodorants to choose from is staggering. I don’t know how a person could be expected to make an informed decision without getting a bachelor’s degree in chemistry first. It used to just be like, “Do you want to smell baby powder or cherry blossoms every time you raise your arm in class?” Now it’s, “HEY, WOULD YOU RATHER BE SWEATY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME OR DESTROY YOUR FUCKING BRAIN?”
My hands have been dry since 1987 no matter how much bag balm I rub on them, and for real, though, I don’t even touch that many people, so whatever.
I got a manicure a few days ago, which is a thing I rarely do because—we’re all friends here—I don’t give a fuck. But I was going to a party that night and you know how parties are, just a bunch of people standing around in sequined clothes scouring the room to make sure one another’s cuticles are pushed the fuck back. I walked into the shop midday on a Friday, and I had forgotten how bad it feels when you walk into a literal sweatshop of nails. I felt like I was actively participating in the oppression of another human being just glancing at the polish wall, and I’m not even a person who actually says shit like “oppression of another human being.” Once you’re in there, it’s hard to turn around and walk out, mostly because some white lady’s kid has wrapped his arms in a death grip around your legs while his mom dozes in the vibrating pedicure chair completely unaware, but also because they definitely need this twenty dollars in my wallet. I signed in and explained that there is not a universe in which I could actually maintain the shellac nails the manicurist was trying to upgrade me to then. I horrified him further by insisting he not snip my dry, ragged cuticles off because I didn’t want to turn his workstation into a damn crime scene. I sat in silence, squirming in discomfort as I gazed down at the hair I should have shaved off my fingers, which is another thing you could do to try to have an acceptable body.
Your belly is going to be whatever it is, especially as you creep ever closer to the grave. For me, the most I can do is to maybe put lotion on mine. What else are you supposed to do, keep your belly button clean? I could lie, because no one is ever going to check, but that’s not what this is about. I sometimes neglect my navel. One of these days, mushrooms are going to sprout in there.
Okay, no matter what you got, your privates have to be long or short, wet or dry, thick or sleek, and rough or smooth. I’m sure I could fill an entire book with all the ways you’re supposed to keep your shit clean alone, without even getting into hair sculpture and removal and care. At this point in my life, I do nothing, which is apparently a theme. It’s too much! How could I possibly keep up! I used to be young and optimistic and willing to shave hours off my sleep time and devote them to the preservation of my corporeal form, but now I enjoy “reading” and “lying very still not doing anything.” I got a Brazilian exactly one time, in a cramped and overheated room in the back of an Ulta in Skokie, Illinois, and I involuntarily shit on the table when the woman yanked a giant strip of hot wax and cotton off my taint. What a fucking legend—she didn’t even flinch, just wiped it up and handed me a giant wet nap, then went back to work while I chewed a handful of Advil, dry.
The man at whose behest I was re-creating The 40-Year-Old Virgin on my bush was fine, he was perfectly nice, but I was only going to all this trouble because he was flying in from out of town, and I wanted to do something nice because he was staying at my apartment, and I don’t know shit about stocking a pantry. The most I’ve ever been asked to do before fucking a woman is shoo the cat off the bed beforehand, but I digress. Ugh, you have to mainline yogurt to kill off yeast, eat a whole cranberry bog to fend off UTIs, soak in a tub of vinegar to keep everything tight and balance your pH, drink a gallon of water a day, and after all this you’re supposed to think about your eyebrows, too?!
My anaconda don’t want none
Unless you got buns, hon!
I feel like smooth thighs are only possible for middle schoolers. Cellulite creams and washes and massagers seem like marginally fun wastes of money that you could otherwise spend on a jumbo buttered popcorn at the movies for all the good they’re going to do for your cellulite. Do you wash your legs? Here is an act of radical transparency: sometimes when I’m running late, I just wash the parts of my body that stink, which means—now hold on to your butts—that I don’t always wash my legs. I mean, they get wet, but I don’t necessarily scrub them. Is that gross? I can use that extra minute to tap some pointless cream under my eyes with my ring finger (a thing you are apparently supposed to do) or stand next to the tub dry-brushing myself to help my circulation (yet another thing to add to the never-ending checklist). I start washing at the top, get real intense around the middle, then let the suds rinse off the rest. I know that is horrifying to you, I do, but have you ever considered this counterpoint? Your legs really aren’t th
at dirty. I don’t know that the skin on my calves has felt the rays of the sun upon it in the last five years, so how could it possibly be dirty? Sure, it could stand to be exfoliated every now and again, which I haven’t even gotten to yet despite how often I’m told that my entire outer layer of my epidermis should be grated off like Parmesan once a week, but does it actually need to be cleansed every day? I hate even talking about this lest anyone confuse me for a hippie when what I actually am is EXHAUSTED, but this is a hill I’m willing to die on. With filthy legs.
Head, Shoulders, HOW MANY GLUCOSAMINE DO MY KNEES NEED TO STOP SOUNDING LIKE A SHATTERING WINDSHIELD EVERY TIME I STAND UP, and Toes.
Is there ankle care? I’m not sure what ankles are supposed to be other than “delicate,” but, bitch, I have a heart problem, so my ankles bulge like hot water bottles at the end of the day. The most I can muster energy to do for them is buy the good kind of compression stockings.
I’m not sure how blocks of calloused skin housing blood and tiny little bones are supposed to also be supple and smooth and impeccably groomed at all times, especially when you just shove them into sweaty gym shoes all day and immediately put them in slipper socks at night, but here we are. My friend John runs a foot fetish porn site called Feetishes™, and when he told me about it, I wasn’t grossed out or anything, because I would masturbate to two grandfathers fucking at a bus stop. I imagine how much intensive labor it would take to preserve perfectly fappable feet. Clipping and squaring up the toenails, filing down the heels, figuring out a way to seal that crevasse that always opens up on the ball of the foot, thoroughly moisturizing the webbing between each toe … And that’s just what’s expected of a normal person getting their barking dogs ready for flip-flop season! I can’t even fathom what a nude foot model has to go through. Attaching tiny barbells to their phalanxes for daily strength training? Hanging upside down like bats while they sleep? I really just need these hooves to get me around from place to place every day and not hurt. I can’t also make them beautiful. I mean, I can get a kick out of watching a woman wrap her impeccable soles around a slippery erection as much as the next guy, but what slobs among the rest of us has that kind of time?
I ordered vitamins, from Instagram, because that is the kind of thing I have the emotional bandwidth for. I don’t take them every day (who do you think you’re dealing with?), but I sometimes catch sight of the bottle on the kitchen counter and go, “Oh, yeah! A self-care thing I could easily do!” as I’m walking out the back door on a mission to Burger King. I’ve purchased many fancy water bottles while lying to myself that I would drink more water if the vessel it was served to me in cost eighty-seven dollars and Busy Philipps had the same kind. I’m trying out a new Vitamin C serum that’s supposed to make my face light up like a fucking quasar because I heard the new trend is to be so distractingly shiny that no one can see all the things wrong with your hideous beast face. I tried to start using a facial roller, but using it was too embarrassing even when I did it at home by myself. I got some cream with acid in it from my sister-in-law who might have been trying to tell me something, but you rub it on your rough patches and it just dissolves the scales? Listen, I’m not a scientist, but my feet feel softer and look more pink, so I think it’s working.
I got some bloodwork done and found out I’m deficient in Vitamin D, which I already knew because of ~extreme depression~ thank you so much. I don’t even have time to get into all the shit you need to be doing for your dumb blood. And your organs, which you shouldn’t even have to worry about since you can’t see them. At least I might catch a glimpse of my back in a multi-mirrored room, but tell me, pretty please, when I might ever get a look at my pancreas? Folic acid! Potassium! Calcium! Turmeric! Zinc! B12! Sodium! Magnesium! There are not enough hours in the day for all the motherfucking beans you need to be eating. The bananas, the kale, the eggs, the blueberries, the walnuts, the oats, the salmon, the broccoli, the oranges, the bell peppers, the plain yogurt, the cherries, the brussels sprouts, the flaxseeds, the celery sticks, the spinach, the tomatoes, the nineteen cups of unsweetened green tea. I need to know how to get some extra cow stomachs to hold all the shit that’s going to keep me alive plus all the shit I actually want to eat.
Who are these people who somehow get the correct serving of carrots every day? Where do these positive bodies find time for all that sauerkraut and avocado? I know I have the same number of hours in my day as Beyoncé, but do I really have the same number as a person who manages to consume both a beneficial number of almonds and perform an adequate amount of cardiovascular exercise? I don’t believe I do! All I could muster the energy for today was two sips of green juice (haha jk it was Diet Coke) and some accidental SPF.
Loving yourself is a full-time job with shitty benefits. I’m calling in sick.
country crock
Before we got married, I thought that my soon-to-be wife and I could pioneer a new type of marriage situation that some “relationship expert” would eventually dissect in The New Yorker, the kind of marriage in which she could continue to hang laundry on a line and churn her own butter in rural Michigan, while I spent the days counting down to my early death in a small, refrigerated apartment in Chicago. She could keep withering under the blazing sun while picking her own blueberries to make homemade jam and knitting socks to sell at the Christmas bazaar, while I ordered seventeen-dollar cocktails at swanky rooftop bars and waited four hours for a brunch table downtown. We’d meet up occasionally to talk about married shit (property taxes? which big-box retailer has the best deal on economy-size containers of powdered soup?!) and pretend we’re still interested in having sex. Sounds like a dream, right? But, oh no, fam, apparently marriage involves a little thing called compromise, a concept I’d been previously unaware of while withering on the single-person vine. Compromise for my lady meant having to wake up next to a framed photo of Jheri curl–era Ice Cube on her bedroom wall, but for me meant GIVING UP EVERYTHING I EVER LOVED.
When I was thirty-seven years old, I packed a suitcase full of clothes that require dry cleaning and my unclean houseplants into a mid-size SUV with four-wheel drive, and drove through Indiana’s industrial ghost towns to the sticky-sweet Southwest Michigan fruit belt, immediately regretting my decision to move to the town my girlfriend lived in as I drove past billboard after faded billboard advertising AM Christian radio stations and upcoming casino performances by smooth jazz has-beens. I grew up in a Very Liberal Suburb just north of a Politically Progressive City. My family did not have any money for frivolous things that might make childhood worth surviving (LOL, what is a lunchbox?) and qualified for every government assistance program in existence. My parents had the foresight to apply for section 8 housing in a Chicago-adjacent mid-size city where there were music classes and art classes available to me, and, sure, I might have gone to school wearing some classmate’s dad’s old work shirt because it had been in a donation bin at the Salvation Army, but at least when I started wearing all black and got really into Ani DiFranco junior year of high school, not a single one of my forward-thinking classmates was like: HA-HA, LESBIAN, GO KILL YOURSELF. I was lucky enough to grow up in a Super Nice Town, where it was okay if you dyed your hair purple and wrote mopey song lyrics on the white parts of your knockoff Chuck Taylors. It was a Culturally Accepting Haven where (Jewish or not) we learned about the Holocaust and got Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off from school, a Promiscuity Province in which part of my sex education included the golf team’s coach sternly watching my fingers as I carefully rolled a lubricated spermicidal condom down the rigid shaft of a lunchroom banana.
I can maybe give a rudimentary explanation of how evolution works (dinosaurs are birds!) and sing a nursery rhyme in Swahili if pressed, but I didn’t learn any useful small-town shit while I was busy trying to look smart reading Vonnegut and pretending I was interested in skateboards. I didn’t take home economics in high school. I took gender studies and shaved my head and started spelling women with a y. All these things are
well and good for someone nestled safely between mid-rise buildings. But how are any of the limited number of skills I’ve acquired, like hailing cabs at midnight without falling into the street from too much tequila or having artisanal cupcakes delivered to my apartment before noon, going to translate in a place that has roving deer brazen enough to just walk up onto your porch and sort through your junk mail while waiting for you to toss the compost out. I get nervous being in places that are dark, without street lights, and where you can’t get a pizza after 9 p.m. I do not possess the handiness to make myself useful around a toilet I’m responsible for fixing if it breaks. And okay, sure, pseudo-country life has its perks. Gas costs approximately thirty-seven cents a gallon. You can buy shoes at the grocery store. You’re never going to stand shivering in your high heels outside in the cold trying to get in the club after midnight. The farmers’ market is full of actual farmers instead of bearded hipsters in distressed flannel bloviating at you about peak asparagus season while criminally overcharging you for Pink Lady apples. These are all pros!
It sounds cute and all, but I am living in an actual nightmare. I hate nature! Birds are terrifying flying rats, and the sun will fry you and give you cancer, and large bodies of water are made up of mostly garbage and liquified human waste. I am a blue-state city slicker to my very core, content to ignore the outside world in favor of convenience apps and cable television. Everything here is dangerous and/or irritating: mosquitoes the size of a fist bite me through my practical long sleeves and leave itchy, egg-size welts in their wake; loud-ass frogs live in our backyard pond (why do we even have that?) and croak all goddamned night; bats hysterically flap their leathery wings while trapped in a woodstove; maniacal squirrels aloft in the branches over the deck hurl walnuts at our heads as we mind our human business grilling farm-stand corn for lunch. Sick raccoons fall out of our trees, fat groundhogs burst through the fence to eat the okra and tomatoes I refuse to help harvest from our garden but am pleased to know exist, and field mice scurry across the basement floor, sending chills up my spine with their scratchy-scratchy nails. This season on Americana Horror Story.
Wow, No Thank You. Page 12