Egg on my Facial

You know that joke about toddlers, yoga pants and drunk people telling the truth? That joke should have included gym mirrors.

I spent most of my time at the gym looking at my skin. Is it supposed to fall like this? Is it gravity? Are big pores a sign of cancer? What is the difference between a freckle and an age spot? OMG all these age spots are cancer...

Whatever. My skin needed some attention.

I thought I had a pretty great routine going at home. But that schedule was definitely altered for the nights I fell asleep in a face covered in make-up and environmental toxins while watching Parks and Rec. Is drool good for skin texture? If so, I'll be fine.  I moisturize, exfoliate, derma plane, and stare at my skin in my magnifying mirror just PRAYING it gets better. But clearly, I could use a little professional help, so I booked a series of facials to get me on track.

Day of, I arrived and filled out the IRS style paperwork required to let a stranger touch your face. Seriously, is my "wind exposure" germane to rubbing lotion on my face? Probably. Paperwork complete, I waited for the tech to come begin the transformation of my skin into that of a newborn.

Which was MORE likely than I knew. This tech was 15-months pregnant. Which was fine. It was ok. This was just going to be a lot more physics than I anticipated.

She took me back to the room and we talked more about my skin. Seriously, who as  a child was like "No, playdoh is fun, but what I really love  to get my hands in is skin." We got a game plan and she turned down the lights and turned up the Enya and got after it.

Basic steps to begin; moving my cheeks up and down and pulling my chin up toward my forehead. But then she got to moving my neck around like a chiropractor. I am serious. At one point, I think I heard a pop. She kept moving and manipulating my face and head and spine and I was scared... and a little dizzy.

If you know me at all, you know that I am HORRIBLE at verbal directions. If you say "Katie, move to your left" I will almost ALWAYS move up and diagonal. I cannot process verbal instructions. Which is something I wish this tech had known when she said "Ok, now turn to your right." Which I did. In my mind. What I did with my body was completely face plant into her baby belly.

What is the penalty for hitting a fetus? Jail time? Some kind of registry?  I apologized profusely, but if I am being honest, I just don't know that you can come back from that. She assured me it was ok, but was it? I lie back down on the table trying to redeem myself, trying to educate myself on my skin and just relax...OMG, I hit a baby belly.

Relaxation was futile, because next she began to cover my face in what I can only assume was battery acid. With little to no warning, probably as a punishment for head butting her unborn child, she was just rubbing in something that smelled like varnish, a funeral home, the outskirts of Gary, Indiana and was that strawberry? Is this edible? It stung, HARD and  more sensitive the area of my face, the more it stung me to my core. So when we got to my upper lip, between my nose, it stung so badly I involuntarily lurched off the table.

I hit her in the bump again.

So, you add that to the previous hit and I am going to jail for a long time. And stuck in jail with beautiful skin none of my friends will ever see.

Here we go again with the apology tour and she keeps saying it's ok. It happens, she tells me, more than not. While we are waiting on the battery acid to burn off all my skin, she tells me she is going to give me an arm and shoulder massage. Great. I can't screw this up. She encourages me to just relax which is probably what they said to Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight before they burned off his face with acid, too.  I am relaxing, I am relaxing and she is rubbing my arm....kind of close to my armpit.... and I go to tell her how ticklish I am....  reflexes take over and my arm hits her. In the boob.

For those of you keeping track at home, that is 2 hits on her unborn child and a boob punch.

WHO AM I?!?!? Have I always been this awkward? Why wasn't any of this on the mountain of paperwork? "Are you ticklish? Are you super weird around professionals? Have you ever punched a baby on accident?" THAT IS YOUR SCREENER.

This consummate professional, who has endured my insane wrath now THRICE, casually tells me she is going to remove the acid/cement mix on my face and give me some moisturizer. This seems like a really kind way of saying "I am going to finish you up so I can get you the hell out of here." It was a blessing. She wiped and wiped and when she turned her back, I quickly wiggled my face muscles to make sure all my skin was still there. It seemed like it. I would need to double check in a mirror, but I thought I was still whole. She came back and put on the best moisturizer on the planet and said "Your skin is going to be as soft as a baby's butt."

Weird, but since I had accidentally started a fight club with her baby, I let it go.

Finally, she explained we were done and and she would leave while I got dressed and we could meet in the lobby. She told me to be sure to relax for a minute and just enjoy the quiet. Which she said the exact same way my Mom used to encourage me to "Sit here and think about my actions."

I was lying in the quiet and recounting all the stupid things I had done in the shortest/longest 45-minutes in recorded human history when I was suddenly super aware that the room was spinning. I had been in this room with all these chemicals and potions and I was acutely mindful that it smelled terrible and strong and was probably taking the age spots off my eyeballs at this point. I needed fresh air and I needed it fast. My eyes were watering and my stomach was queasy and THOSE are the last two  coherent thoughts I had.

The next thought I had was "What is that banging? "

OMG. It was her. On the door. I was slumped on the floor with my pants on, but my sweatshirt kind of just over my wrists. Where I had put my hands over my head, I had a blood rush and I went down HARD. Which she had heard from the lobby.  She was knocking and shouting "Katie... are you ok? Do you need help?" No. I am just a grown woman who came to get a facial and punched your baby, you and fell into the wall of your business. I should be fine.

When we finally met eyes again, I apologized. Again. Sincerely and profusely for all my awkwardness. She was a saint and told me it was fine. I paid, tipping her like a I get a paycheck from Bravo and went to leave. The final act of my performance was to try to go out the locked door. Seriously what was this place?!?!?! So I didi that whole song and dance of "Helps if you go out the right door!" I am sure critics everywhere would give the performance 4-stars.

Instead of booking the next 3 in the series of facials I bought, I think I will wait until her baby goes to middle school. I am sure a judge would agree with me.

Fradie Katie

The first time I saw a scary movie, it was at my neighbor Amy's house and I was in the 3rd grade. The movie was the Nightmare on Elm Street and it was was quite the ride.  I was equal parts high on the watching of a Rated R movie and the absolute horror of it all. The high, like the crash, was significant. I didn't sleep for days and finally had to come clean to my parents about why I couldn't sleep. You cannot convince me that they didn't dose me with Benadryl to get me into some Freddy Kruger free dreams...

But I still seek that rush.

Last week, because we have basically finished Netflix, I went back to Amazon Prime to try to find something great. I mean like deep down in the depths of Amazon great. There, in between a bunch of American Girl movies and a documentary about people who eat hair, was exactly what I was looking for.  It was a quasi-documentary  series called A Haunting of _____.  There were a few from which to choose so I just hit play on the first one and waited for the high to begin.

And did it ever.

Long story short, I really don't even remember what or who was haunted. There were a few ghosts that were discovered and different paranormal activity was substantiated. What was the BEST part was the main guy, let's call him Tony. He was the real show. He bosses his crew around about getting this meter so they can measure the energy or telling them he feels like he is being choked by a ghost. He, hand to God, threatened to physically (or spiritually?) FIGHT A GHOST. It was incredible. And I was tearing through them at a break neck speed.

And then night came.

I am a grown-up, adult woman who lacks the emotional intelligence to watch scary things on TV. I know (mostly) that ghosts aren't real. But once I have seen something like this, all rational bets are off and it is game on for "What the hell was that?"

It started out ok... I got into bed all melatonined up and actually drifted off pretty quickly. Of course also because I am a grown adult woman, I have to use the restroom in the middle of the night. As my feet hit the floor, I suddenly remembered EVERY scene from those shows. Every ghost, every specter, every phantom, every "lady in white," every mist like vision, every apparition, ET FREAKING AL. And now I am literally paralyzed by fear.

As I (or my bladder) finally found the courage to get up, I felt like the bathroom was in Indiana. And I had no idea we had so many ghost attracting things in our house. Have we always owned this many mirrors? When did I get a rocking chair? No lie, I literally have an antique doll in an old trunk in my closet (its a long story that mostly stems from me hiding it from myself out of fear) that I was CONFIDENT had escaped to kill me.  Sweet Lord, why did we buy a haunted house?

I came back to bed unscathed, but there was NO way I was going to be able to go back to sleep. I turned on my bedside light and thought I would read. But then I remembered in one episode, the ghost always seemed to show itself when the haunted was reading in her room. I turned on The Office, because everyone knows that comedy is the best way to ward off a ghost. Until I also recalled that one ghost in Maryland had a knack for turning on and off the TV.  I woke the dog up to console me but then I remembered another episode where the dog had basically tried to warn the family about the ghosts in the house because everyone knows kids and animals can see ghosts.

Now what?

Wake-up JD.

He does this thing where he is kind of half asleep and I will go to ask him a serious question like "Do we have enough life insurance?" and he will say things like "I will look at it tomorrow... when I get to math class. " WTF. I tried explaining to him that I needed him to get up so we could put our house on the market because it is clearly haunted.  No dice.

And so, I was just lying in bed. Waiting for the ghosts to come.

And they didn't. I don't think. I either eventually fell asleep or they did come, scared me to death and then revived me back to life like nothing had ever happened and no memory of the event. There is just no way to know.

The next day, I spent most of my time removing all the ghost attracting items from our home and saging, but like any addict, I needed a hit.  I got to my Amazon Prime and could basically feel the centrifugal force pulling me into episode 5.

It was daylight, my family was home and I hadn't been accosted by ghosts the night before, so this safety checklist is complete. I kept watching and watching and even opted out of a family dog walk because in episode 7, they had to bring in an interpreter BECAUSE THE GHOST WAS GERMAN!!!! Can you even imagine?!?!?

And then, I was home alone.

And if I had learned anything from episode 6, it was that ghosts are terrible at knowing day from night. As all that sunk into my brain, I swear, the temperature in my house dropped 15-degrees.

I grabbed my iPad and sat on the front porch playing Jeopardy! online. Neighbors passed by and wanted to chat and that was great as long as they never suspected that I was a grown woman sitting outside because she is afraid to be alone in her own house.

JD came home, took one look at me and said 'You're afraid to be in there alone, aren't you?"

Yes, but if he would just understand that I am basically a paranormal PhD now, so I know things about things not of this world that he couldn't possibly understand. And also, we have to move because I am too scared to live in this house.

Of course, he thought that was stupid so I made him watch an episode with me. Ghosts have to know that if you have someone protecting you WHILE you watch a scary show, they can't hurt you, right?  The first few minutes, he was into it. Episode 9 really brought the heat with some actual voice recordings of a ghost who said "back off" and "get out." This ghost also would open the freezer door. Which made me think of my Dad as a ghost who would just be shouting things like" Quit letting out the bought air."  This was good. And when I looked to see how incredibly happy JD was that he had agreed to go on this journey with me.... He. Was. Asleep.

And then, the night came.

Here we are again, in this haunted house with who knows how many spirits just waiting to mess with me or tell me to "back off" or unfreeze all my Trader Joe's orange chicken.  Waiting, in the dark for the otherworld to make its way into my bedroom and give me a full heart attack.

And then, Bee is yelling.

I only knew it was Bee after I deduced it was not the sounds of some 1800's girl ghost looking for her father who died in the Civil War. It was my kid. And she was very much alive in her room, upset and UPSTAIRS.  Bee's room is upstairs and I was going go have to go from downstairs to upstairs to save my child who was probably being tortured by a ghost (also episode 6).

My feet hit the floor and I summoned all the courage of a ghost hunter to go up what felt like flights of stairs. It was like a firefighter scene from a movie- where you see them in the blaze and you can see flames all around them and they don't know what is around the other corner. It was like that, but instead of flames, it was ghosts.

I got upstairs to a child who was still screaming in some kind of fever dream. She does this every so often, but hadn't done it in a while. I got her up and immediately asked if she had seen a ghost.

She said no, but that set into motion a new set of fears and now the two ladies of the Sanderson Haunted House are both scared to death of ghosts.


All this to say, that was my rock bottom. I knew I had to detox and admit that I can't handle the stuff. It is just like my relationship with cheese fries; it fulfills me at the time, but I pay for it later.  No more scary movies, shows, podcasts, books or me just walking around my house shouting "if you're a ghost, please leave."

In other news, Bee has been sleeping in my bed and JD has deleted Amazon Prime from my phone.

God? It's me, Margaret. But I go by Katie.

This is my life right  now.

Yes. Lucky me. 

The quarantine hit about the same time the "girls over here, boys over there" classes did too. Which means, as a newly minted homeschool teacher/guidance counselor/director of student activities/ and nurse, this curriculum landed STRAIGHT in my lap. (You really might think about playing Britney Spears Lucky while you read that.)

This. THIS whole topic was my literal nightmare growing-up. Had this book existed "in my day," I would have read it cover-to-cover to avoid all the awkwardness that comes from a foundation of sex education knowledge forged from the western Kentucky public school system brain trust. 

I vividly remember the day my fourth grade teacher split the girls from the boys and rolled the TV and VCR into the classroom. I thought "Finally, they are going to catch us up on Math and Science." No. Instead, we were treated to a videoTAPE about our changing bodies. And on a day that the cafeteria served spaghetti... It was awful. And there had been no notice. Which was kind of my Mom's MO in those days; letting me be ambushed by information I wasn't ready to handle. I rushed to her classroom after school knowing she would be as outraged as  I that such filth had been shown just one floor below her at school that day. I ran into her room and said "You are NEVER going to believe what Ms. Brown let us watch today." My Mom looked at me like I was insane and said "Oh, that's right. That was today." 

What. The. Hell. 

She had known I was going to be shown a video talking about un bike wreck related bleeding and she didn't think a 10-year-old might need a little head's up? 

But that was how it went. We NEVER talked about any of the Fourth Grade Health Curriculum for Girls at my house. EVER. It was completely out-of-bounds. 

Side bar: My teacher in 4th grade was as cool as the other side of the pillow. She was FRESH out of UK and everything she did was awesome. She chewed gum in class, she wore chunky jewelry, she had incredible hair out of a Pantene ad and she drove the most important car of all cars... a Suzuki Sidekick. She was also my tennis coach and she would drive me home from lessons and I would just pray to GOD that someday, I would be cool and drive a Suzuki Sidekick.  I also would have died from Toxic Shock Syndrome before I would have asked her a question about anything from the video that day. She was so cool, she probably didn't have to get a period. 

Anyway, we never talked about anything body related in my house growing-up. In fact, now that I think of it, we still really don't. I am very sure that if you asked my Dad, he would only partially admit that I have ever had sex. And I have had a baby. Of my own. From my body. Please do not ever ask my Dad if he thinks I have had sex. See also, my brother. 

Which is kind of fine. It is so uncomfortable for anyone, much less a 10-year-old. But there were times in my life when I had real, legit, medical based questions that I needed and wanted answers on. To that, my Mom would take me to the pediatrician. On one such visit, I distinctly remember him asking "When my last bowel movement" was. I replied "I haven't started yet." No, really. So you see, I didn't even have the right vernacular to have an intelligent conversation about having a period and going to the bathroom. 

And then, this gem.

I do not remember where or when or from whom this came, but it was probably God because it was exactly what I needed. It was real girls with real issues and I could relate to ALL of it. My word, my name is even Margaret. Could this have been more tailored?!?!? No. I read it no fewer than 25 times. Judy Blume is someone I will continue to nominate for sainthood until the Vatican takes out a restraining order on me. 

More than anything, I didn't care about the biology of it all. I cared about the social part of what was happening. If I wind up in a situation where a boy wants to kiss me, do I let him? Am I legally allowed? Or should I get a rape whistle?  Did other girls my age wear bras from the old lady section at Dillards? Yes? Ok. I'll allow it.  The 28-day cycles and the fallopian tubes of it all are really not that important in the grand scheme of things. That is for the doctors to know and me to not worry about. What IS important is how to handle your changing body socially and emotionally. The day I got my period (at school, no less) my Mom literally dropped a brown paper bag of "supplies," in the office where I had to be called down to get them. It looked like my Mom had dropped me off a second lunch. Not even a purse or a backpack. Just a brown paper bag like there was a tall boy inside. 

So now that I am a full-blown Nurse and Pediatrician and Obgyn and Child Psychologist and Master Class instructor on Judy Blume, this is my entire syllabus and I shan't stray from it. 

We have started with the American Girl book which, also a godsend, has laid out all the biology of it. If I am being honest, I have learned a few things myself. We go through this about once a week in the few parts I have the courage to work through. The rest of it we may have to get to when bars open back up. 

As a companion, we are reading Margaret. B thinks it is amazing because it has my name in the title. Duh. It is. But also, it has explained so much more of the emotional and social and given her a little comfort and confidence to ask or clarify questions. The first night was rough. We both wound-up in tears. JD was at a boys night (conveniently) and got some pretty colorful texts in the process. When he came home, he walked right past me and said "I figured out how to pay for college... this one is on you." 

Ugh. 

I think we are going to make it.  I already feel like she has a better foundation than I ever did. I got started off in western Kentucky public school, moved to a public middle school in Louisville that was basically The Bachelor of middle schools. I then transitioned to all girls Catholic school which, shocker, was a little more fear based when it came to chatting about sex and finished up in Wyoming where sex was based in pick-up trucks and rodeos. It is a wonder I have made it as far as I have. 

This was a lot. Probably more than I intended to share. Definitely more than I should have shared. But this is where we are in life and in quarantine. 

Just a head's up... if you ask B how this is going, you better be able to take a punch. 

Mono Ew Mono

One thing that is important to know about me is that I was a SUPER fat kid. 

Don’t worry about remembering it because I will remind you every chance I get. 

When I say fat, I was. It wasn’t like “She’ll grow out of it.” It was more like “Should you get her thyroid checked?”  I’m painting this too broad: It was a cross between “My 600-pound life and Chunk from Goonies.” Perfect. 

The summer of 1989, ALL this chunky preteen wanted in my whole life was a monokini. You know, the bathing suit that looks like a one piece that someone die cut a circle out of in the middle? Like a bikini, but still with the sides attached? YES. That was it. They were fashion forward, exciting and this fat kid HAD to have one. 

I began the slow beg to my mother right after spring break. I had seen some beautiful monokinis while we were in Destin. In fact, if you were in Destin around 1989 and felt visually assaulted while wearing a monokini, I apologize. Somewhere in my psyche, I really felt like this was a viable alternative to for me. It had more material than a bikini, but wasn't the full one piece circus tent I was forced to wear because I was carrying a pesky  60 extra pounds. It was me literally having my cake and eating it, too. Which is the only metaphor for this situation, a cake based one. 

My mom was pretty big on incentivizing us to realize our dreams, so when the monokini summit actually took place, she told me that if I could lose 10-pounds between then and summer, it was mine.  That wasn't harsh in like a Dance Moms way. It was entirely necessary and if we are being honest, she should have said 30. 

I bought enough Walkman batteries to burn off 10-pounds as I walked our neighborhood to the sweet sounds of Janet Jackson and her Rhythm Nation. I didn’t just lose 10-pounds, I lost 11. 

That next week, my Mom proudly loaded me up into our Lincoln Continental barge and drove to the only kids boutique in our small, western Kentucky town to get my very own monokini.  

We arrived at the store and after what felt like hour long pleasantries with the owner, we got down to business.  “Where are your monokini’s?” 

“Oh, gosh. I think we have a few left. Let’s go see…” 

Slight setback. The battle, not the war.

“Here we go! We have a size 4/6 and a 14/16.”

Surely 11-pounds wasn't going to be the difference in those two sizes. I grabbed the 14/16 and ran to the dressing room. If I had ever run that fast before, I might have lost 12-pounds. 

It was even more beautiful in the fluorescent-lit dressing room. It was the one I had been eyeing ever since they had put it out right after Christmas. I had dreamed about wearing this most oddly designed bathing suit EVERY SINGLE DAY of the upcoming summer. This would be it. It would be my coming of age summer. Boys would notice me, girls would hate me and I would get more babysitting jobs than I could handle. (Because parents would think "If she looks that great in a monokini, she must be fantastic with children?)

Pure adrenaline was running through my veins.. this was it. 

MonokiniKatie.  

Oh. My. God.

This was the most hideous thing I had ever seen. I mean, I was a fat kid, but even this was bad. It LITERALLY highlighted my worst feature; my gut. It was like a plastic surgeon had circled where to do the lipo. Or like I fell in vacuum stomach first. The bathing suit was pulling all my ample gut fat to the front and putting it on parade. I could have highlighted it with that pink zinc oxide from the 80’s like a highlighter. And that was after the 45-minutes it had taken me to even get it on. It was like a swimsuit made of riddles. Self-esteem had never been my strong suit, but it was a better suit than this one. 

I was defeated. Dreams dashed. Just like that, the coolest summer I was ever going to have was gone. And it wasn't even entirely about my weight; it was just a REALLY bad fashion choice. 

My poor mom always knew when clothing had bested me. I didn’t even show her the suit that made me look like the front end of an airplane.  She put her arm around me and we walked back to the car. I was deep in thought that all this sadness could probably get me a trip to Dairy Queen when my mom said “You know,  I got a new catalog at home with some cute suits. It’s called Lands End. Let’s see what they have…” 

We skipped DQ adding insult to injury and while I ate a Slim Fast bar, my Mom pulled out this catalog and we began the swimsuit sojourn again. Pages and pages of mix and match, one, two and somehow three piece suits? The possibilities were endless. There were matching cover-ups and flip flops and not a single model under the age of 30 to be found. And 1989 30-year-old model is like a 60-year-old model today. It was Chicos. I was basically 11 trying to get a bathing suit from Chicos. But this is the hand I had been dealt and I would find a BEAUTIFUL suit with spandex and a tummy hiding ruffle or just a fancy cover-up. The suit my Mom pushed the most was black with like a faux white, almost like a turtleneck? As an adult and a mother now, I feel like it was the bathing suit form of a nun's habit. To that, I say "Well played, Mom." 

Land's End was who I was now. Time to embrace the end of the land. 

Then there it was. Shining like a light on the last page.  

The tankini swim skirt. The answer to all my problems. And the glimpse into all my future summers.