Stephanie Lessing

Whole Foods

So I’m standing on line at the Whole Foods prepared foods counter asking for one faux chicken breast when the man standing next to me asks me, “Have you had those before?”

“Yes,” I answer.

“How are they?” he asks.

“Good,” I answer.  I would have said more but I already don’t like him. 
“I guess you’re the only one in your family who likes them,” he says, “Seeing as how you’re only buying one.”

 “My husband is out of town and my son is eating out with his friends tonight,” I answer.  I want to punch myself for giving him so much information, but I knew he would have squeezed it out of me sooner or later anyway. I always end up telling everyone everything.

He smiles as though he thinks I’m lying, which makes me even madder at myself because now I know I’m going to continue talking.

But I don’t start spewing right away.

I wait until I’m sure he’s following me all around the store.

Just as I’m taking some Organic Homestyle Tortillas out of the freezer case, he asks me, “You think those are really organic?”
“I do, yes,” I say.  “I don’t think they can write organic unless it’s actually organic.”
“Organic what though?  They’re tortillas.”
“I guess the flour is organic,” I say.  “I’m the only one in my family who really cares about that sort of thing.  There are four people in my family.  Altogether.  I also have a daughter. She’s in college. And we have a dog.  Yellow Lab.   She’s on a raw diet. “

Dammit.

A few minutes later, he’s at the checkout line with me and I’m very tempted to switch lines, even though it’s almost my turn.  The more questions he asks me, the more I think he thinks I made up my whole family and the more I defend myself, the more I hate him.  I keep looking all around me as though I find everything in the store fascinating.  Every FEED bag, every magazine, everything and anything but him.  It’s almost like I’m seeing for the first time, that’s how much my head is moving.

“Jesus this place is expensive,” he says, looking at a container of nuts that I’m holding. 

I want to tell him that it’s wrong to talk to strangers and that no one likes it, but instead, I sneeze, pee in my pants, and then drop everything I’m holding.

I can’t even bend down to pick anything up because I’m wearing thin, cotton, drawstring shorts that show everything.  And I’ve peed quite a bit.

I don’t know what to do so I sort of turn my back to the checkout counter and slide down to pick everything up, but of course he bends down with me and there we are, face to face, him delighted that we’re forced to continue our relationship and me mortified that this horribly annoying person, whom I detest, will judge me for having just peed in my pants out of the blue.

“I can pick up everything myself,” I say.

“It’s no problem,” he says. 

“No seriously,” I say, a little firmer. 

He puts his hands up and backs away as I fling everything back on the counter facing sideways. I manage to check out without turning around and try to tuck my hips under as I glide toward the door at an astonishing pace.

As soon as I reach the door it starts pouring, and once again I thank Helen Todd for forcing me to believe in Jesus Christ.  Clearly, he’s watching over me.  If I can get myself outside, without anyone seeing what I’ve done, I can just stand out there for a few seconds until I’m totally soaked and the whole thing will just blend in.  I walk in front of my cart pulling it behind me and rush out into the rain, which, of course, stops almost immediately.  So I sit down on a soaking wet bench and say, out loud to no one, “Oh, God, I sat on this wet bench!”

As I’m running to my car, I pee a tiny bit more (one day you’ll understand) and then take a beach towel from the trunk of my car and sit down on it.  As I’m pulling out of my spot, the man I hate walks by. He doesn’t acknowledge me or anything.  He just walks on looking straight ahead.  At first I don’t think he sees me, but then I realize he definitely looked right in my window.  He’s just acting like he doesn’t see me.

And then, just like that, I don’t hate him anymore.  I like him.  I think it’s because he knows what I did, but he’s purposely ignoring me so I won’t feel ashamed. He’s a good, good man and I never should have treated him the way I did.  After all, the only thing he was looking for was some pleasant food shopping conversation, a food buddy, if you will. And I treated him like a bum.  And then, when I was down on my luck, he had the decency to walk by my car without laughing, or pointing, or calling me a baby, or anything.

I never realized how different the world is once you’ve peed in your shorts.  It’s a very humbling experience. Of course I wouldn't want to do it everyday, but perhaps every time I leave the house I should imagine that my whole entire ass is showing or something. I think I’d come across as a much friendlier person. 

One last word. . .until September

I wasn't going to write anything until my make-believe trip around the world was offically over (I'm thinking sometime in September) but I'm in the midst of reading, "How It Ended," by Jay McInerney.

I'm on page 216 knowing I only have 115 pages left. I've already read the note on the author and the note on the type -five or six times -to stop myself from finishing the book.

I'm so afraid for it to end, I've been dragging it around the house like an old doll. I keep imagining the moment when there's nothing but that one blank page left for me to stare at.  And then I quickly run my fingers over the remaining fat 115.  Thank heaven.  And while I hover there, three quarters of the way through this masterpiece, I am a genius who sees the world from the inside out.  I'm a virtual master of the human condition. A lucid, calculating, hardened orchestrator. I'm able to manipulate my tiny characters, dress them and undress them, exposing their spoiled egos, until there's nothing at all left to the imagination. I can even rearrange them on the page, making them appear and reappear at a moment's notice until my audience is so pliable I can almost taste their longing to be released from my skillful grip. And yet I can also smell the fear that I'll abandon them, sending them back to the deafening, blinding abyss that is their real life. 

And then I remember that I didn't actually write the book, I'm only reading it.

Oh well.

See you in September.

Must Travel World, Back Soon!

Okay, fine, I'm not really going anywhere. 

Tea for Two

So Kim invited me to this thing at Sarabeth's for her sorority, and by thing I mean mother/daughter tea.  A lot of people don't know this but Kim and I can't sit next to each other at a table. Not only do we look alike, but we have the exact same personality and the same nervous energy level, which is not suitable for side-by-side table sitting.  If there are any gaps in the conversation, Kim and I both swoop in to rescue the silence at crashing speeds. At all times, our heads and feet are moving, our hands are flailing and anything that's within a few inches of us is spilling.  We're a dangerous couple in almost any social setting; a mother/daughter tea is flat out asking for trouble.

Within two or three minutes after we sat down at the tea table, I looked over at my daughter and it was almost like she was sitting on a little trampoline.  I wanted to tell her to stop moving but I was spinning like a top in my own chair and having great difficulty managing my four flower juice.  We both should have ordered a soothing cup of tea, but there was no time so we both just kept drinking the juice as fast as the waiter could pour it. Between the two of us I'd say we had seven or eight glasses.  The mother and daughter sitting across from us were perfectly relaxed, lovely people.  You'd think that would calm Kim and me down, but no, we just kept talking frenetically and trying not to bump heads.  At one point it occurred to both of us that we were talking so fast we'd almost stopped breathing completely. We turned to one another with puffed up cheeks and let out a huge gust of air. 

"This is exhausting," I whispered to Kim.
"I know!" she said, looking at the time on her phone.
"How much longer?"  I asked.
"One more hour," she said, "What should we do?"
"Just keep talking!" I said. 
She nodded and off we went, chattering a mile a minute.

It wasn't just our own incessant babbling that had us so flustered. It was the fact that we were both so incredibly hungry.  Neither of us had eaten anything knowing we were going to Sarabeth's. Kim is used to being hungry.  She can go the whole day without eating. I think she once went a whole year without eating, but we can’t both be hungry at the same time in the same room.  Then the nervous energy turns into something else.  Something pathological.

All throughout our steady stream of funny little comments and stories, we both periodically jerked our heads around in search of some edible tidbit that might be coming our way. I spotted a silver tray of delicate little finger sandwiches on a table over by the garden window and kicked my daughter under the table.  I imagined the two of us, for one blissful moment, standing in front of the table, eating fifty or sixty of them, but no one else was going anywhere near them, so we had to pretend they weren’t there.  As we later found out, the mothers and daughters were supposed to have gathered by the window to enjoy the sandwiches while mingling, and then sit down for dessert.  But that didn’t happen.  Since the organizer of the tea wasn’t there, everyone just walked in and sat down instead.  There were little cookies at each of our place settings, but we were all afraid to eat them because we assumed they were for later.

Eventually a waiter came over to the table with the tray of sandwiches and we both tried not to clap. But then we of course realized that we could only take one. I daintily lifted a little triangle off the tray and stared at it. The longer I looked at it, the more it shrank and the more I felt my personality disintegrating.

“I can’t be friendly anymore. I’m too ravenous,” I whispered to Kim.

“I know. I’m this close to calling that woman with the fur collar an asshole,” she said.

“I have to eat another one of those sandwiches!” I cried.
“Me too!  When he comes around again, we’re both taking two, no matter what,” she commanded.

And then the waiter came by with the sandwiches for round two.  He held the tray out in front of both of us and we both looked at him and said,

“No thank you.”

When he walked away we both looked at each other. 

 

“What just happened?” she said.

“We panicked!!  That’s what happened!”

“I told you to take two!” she said.

“I know.  But I choked,” I whisper yelled, and then turned to the mother in front of me and smiled.
 

 

We tried to continue juggling several conversations with the other mothers and daughters, although it was obvious we were really pushing ourselves by that point.  Kim was hardly jumping up and down at all anymore and I think I was facing the other way.

 

And then it happened. 

The cupcakes appeared.  Perched, as they were, atop a three tiered cake plate like a glittering pyramid of fat, blushing ballerinas. I felt my eyelashes batting and pressed two fingers to my forehead. I typically can’t act normal in front of  cupcakes. If there are sprinkles involved, I have to talk about them the whole time.  But these cupcakes, they were something else.

 I was desperately trying not to openly admire them, but it was like trying not to pick up a puppy. The problem was I did a quick count and there definitely weren't enough to go around.

I looked over at Kim, who sensed I was hyperventilating.
"Don't cry.  They're only cupcakes," she said.
"I know, but did you count them?" I asked.
"Of course I did. That's why I said, 'don't cry.'"
"What should we do?" I begged her.
"Just wait a few minutes," she said and slipped her hand into mine under the table to try to calm me down.

  Finally I saw a girl at the other end of the table take a cupcake and put it on her little plate. I nudged Kim in the ribs.

"That girl took one!" I said.
"I know. I saw," she answered, patting my hand again.
"What if I take one and cut it in fours and put it the middle of the table?" I whispered.
"Good thinking," she answered under her breath. 

So I nonchalantly slid a cupcake off the tray and quickly put it in the middle of the table as though it wasn’t the single greatest moment of my life.  And then I took my knife and cut it into four perfect pieces.  You had to see this cupcake to understand why my hand was shaking.

"Dig in, everyone," I said, sliding a quarter of the cupcake onto Kim's plate and another quarter onto my own plate. My daughter smiled at me and we both took a bite. I let the sweet, buttery pink fluff fill my entire mouth and I kept it there for a really long time.

“You should swallow,” Kim said.

“Don’t make me,” I mumbled.

Just then someone asked the mother sitting across from me where she went to college.

"Harvard," she answered, as I swept my finger across my lips to get the left over icing.
"Rea wee?" I said. "That's a good school."
"I mean it, Mom.  You have to let it go," Kim whispered calmly.
"It won’t go down,” I lied, my cheeks smiling.
"But you're talking and eating at the same time."
"Sowwy," I said, and politely wiped the corner of my lips with my napkin.

 There were fifteen minutes left by that point, and since I’d gotten what I needed, I was able to savor every one of them. I let myself sit back and listen to Kim talk.  I couldn’t help admiring her.  The way she made everyone around her feel so comfortable, while making sure I was taken care of the whole time. I realized she turned out to be everything I could have ever dreamed of in a daughter. Smart, funny, polite, and more real than anyone I’ve ever known. In the end we met some more of the mothers, talked some more, and then some more, had our picture taken (which you can see on Facebook), and then, before we knew it, Dan was waiting for us outside with the car.

"How was it?" he asked, as soon as we drove away. We both turned to look at each other and said,

"Pretty good, because we had each other,"

… at the exact same time.

Twitter me this

I'm writing an entire book on twitter. You will have to read it backwards of course but I think it's working!

Robin & Me

All my life I've copied my sister.  I liked whatever she liked, ate whatever she ate (and then some) and wanted everything she touched. I could see her doing her homework from my room and used to sit at my desk pretending I was studying when I was five.  “I guess I’ll have to erase that one!” I’d call out, thinking I had her fooled.   If she killed a bug, I’d wait for her to walk away and then shove it in my pocket. If my mother and I were out shopping, and I refused to buy, say, an umbrella, all my mother had to say was, "Robin wants one," and the next thing I knew, I was walking around the mall proudly twirling a yellow patent leather parasol humming, "Singin' in the Rain."  I don’t know why little sisters copy their older siblings. I certainly don’t copy her now. I can’t even relate to her anymore or understand the way she lives. For instance, I only have one dog and she has five.  I have a Yellow Lab.  That’s it.  Just the one dog.  She has a Rottweiler, a Poodle, a Golden Retriever, something that resembles a coyote and a Yorkie/Poodle mix.  She prefers these animals to people and has long, intimate conversations with them.  Everyone in the family whispers behind her back about the fact that she has so many dogs and that she thinks they’re communicating with her, but we love her anyway, because she's a very, very nice person.  So, the other day I meet her at the park to walk the dogs.  As she's walking toward me, I hear her say to the coyote, who is pulling her into the bushes, "Bandit, we talked about this in the car. And don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. What happened the last time you went in there? Remember how you felt afterwards?.  .  . Exactly!” The dog looks up at her and smiles, and I roll my eyes and once again try to explain to my sister that Bandit is hard of hearing.  We walk the dogs for a while and eventually she leaves, but I continue on because my car is parked just beyond the woods.

     As Mikki and I wind our way around the trails, I hear something that sounds like a large animal rustling around in the trees.  Of course I assume it’s an alligator and start shaking.  I realize I am very far away from any kind of water where an alligator might live, but I'm certain I'm about to be eaten alive.  In fact, I’ve been anticipating this moment since the day we moved to Florida.  I knew I was going to die here. It was just a matter of time.  Everyone dies here. I just didn’t know whether it would be an alligator or a poisonous frog. Fortunately my dog is still on her leash so I bring her closer and whisper,

"Don’t say a word.  Just start running."  She accidentally misunderstands me and continues sniffing around.
"Run," I say again with my teeth clenched.  "I hear an alligator." 

But she doesn't run.  She continues poking her nose in a little pile of leaves.  I curse her for not knowing what an alligator is, and try to drag her away, but she won’t budge.  In fact, she starts dragging me further into the woods toward what I now imagine to be a Kimoto dragon.

I decide I will have to wrestle the alligator/dragon.  I imagine myself desperately biting and punching him, stabbing his leathery skin with my car key as my dog looks on cheering. Suddenly I lift my head and spot a tall figure kneeling in front of me.  As God is my witness, what I thought was an alligator was actually a tall, curly-haired woman in a jogging suit making a doody in the woods. This is a true story by the way. Somehow I didn’t scream.  I stayed perfectly calm, muttered a barely audible, "Mornin'," and backed away.  When we were safely back in the car, I looked at my dog and we both got hysterical laughing. Afterwards she rested her elbow on my shoulder and we both sighed. I guess neither of us ever expected to meet someone with our exact same sense of humor.  Really, what were the chances?  I wonder if I should get one or two more dogs to keep her company when I'm not home.  I guess I could just ask her. 

Saving Facebook

Between facebook, twitter, my blog and email, all I ever do is talk about myself. It's gotten to the point where I can't even look in the mirror.   Yet another opportunity for self-reflection is just overkill. I didn't think it was possible, but I'm actually bored with me.  I know everything I'm going to say before I even think it.  I'm the equivalent of an old boyfriend.  Speaking of which, there are a lot of those on facebook.  I've only met one so far, but I hear they're everywhere.  What could be worse?  Who even thought of this nightmare?

  At first it was fun screaming "OH MY GOD!" every time some familiar face from eighth grade popped up. But then I remembered that the people from my past actually know me.  My adult friends have no idea what a little brat I was.  But those kids from Ms. Manton's class, not to mention my old boyfriends; they saw everything.  The whole thing is just awful.  What's worse is you can see your friends writing on other people's walls!  Who wants to see that?  I only want everyone to write on my wall. And if they don't write on my wall, I like to assume it's because they've been in a terrible accident.   I want to be the most important person on there, to everyone, or I'm not staying. The problem is I don't know how to get out of it.  It would be like quitting show business.  Admitting I'm a washed up, facebook failure after only a few weeks. One glimpse of my former self, that's all it took.    The whole thing just reminds me of me.  I can't even think about it anymore. I have to go twitter.

    

I was going to quit, but then. . .

Another husband popped into my store!   This one is a real cowboy.  Seriously, he's a cowboy.  He lives in Texas and has a family ranch and everything. Can you even imagine such a thing?  Anyway, way back when I was in eighth grade my family went on the QEII for spring break and the whole ship was filled with teenagers.  And one of them was this guy.  And let me tell you, he was a real heartbreaker.  Turns out he never married! And his mom is just dyin' for grandchildren.  (Sorry, but I still can't turn off the granny accent. I think I might be stuck like this.)

I wanted to quit matchmakin', I really did, but then this hear Texan came along on facebook, and I just couldn't resist.  The only other thing I know about him is that he lived in Alcapulco for a bunch of years and that he's on some kind of tennis team that tours the whole darn country. Lucky for you, he'll be in Florida before you know it.  Then I can check him out real good.  In the meantime, if any of you live in them parts, let your ole' granny know and I'll see what I can do.  Ya hear?

 

Well, hello there Stephanie

I’m on Facebook now!  Unfortunately I don’t know how to use it so I keep sending messages to myself.  I might have to shut the thing down before it becomes a huge source of embarrassment.

Getting Even with Me

A lot of people take Pilates and learn how to strengthen their core, how to maintain proper balance, how to breathe and how to improve their posture.  Here’s what I learned:

The right side of my body is frighteningly strong.  It’s confident, athletic, flexible and hard as a rock.   I guess you could say it’s even a little conceited.

The left side of my body is a whimpering, weak, pathetic, insecure freak with no friends.

Neither of these two sides of my body like each other, and rightly so.  My goal as a Pilates student is to teach the left side of my body that it needs to toughen up so it can kick my ass (the right side I mean).  I haven’t told my instructor this yet, but I’m planning to secretly stop using my right side altogether and only work out my left. I believe this new way of training will bring me an inner peace that I would have never been able to achieve with traditional Pilates.  I will finally learn to love the side of myself that constantly humiliates and sabotages me.  I will become, for the first time in my life, a whole human being. There’s also an excellent chance that I will fall and hurt myself very badly.