I have a confession.

"I peed in the pool, Father."

I’m just going to come out with it. I started taking swimming lessons. It’s been over a month and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I mean, is this not why we gather here? To sort through the awkward minutiae of just this type of torture? But I only just decided this week that I am definitely not going to quit. Definitely not. And yet---maybe. Maybe I’ll still quit.

My reasons for engaging in this chlorinated hell span the emotional, physical and mental.

Emotional: My mom was the strongest most beautiful swimmer I ever knew and I want to feel her while I’m in that water.

Physical: I think I’m turning the arthritic corner (and am taking it verrrry slowly). I can’t explain it, but you’d think I just ended my NFL run for how banged up I feel. I figured I’d go low-impact for a while (as opposed to all the triathlons I’ve been up to). But, get this---I think I have swimmer’s shoulder. Or swimmer’s arm. Or swimmer’s wussiness. Whatever it is, I’m gonna put ice on it.

Mental: As we know, exercise helps me stay on the not-so-Black-Swan side of sanity.

These were all my hoped for results. It was supposed to go swimmingly (I’m sorry) and I’d be all---hip, hip, hooray, I found my sport! And it was supposed to be easy.

Not so. Not so!

I know if I had told you I was thinking of doing this, you would have warned me.

You would have said, “Lola, you know it’s the middle of winter, right?”

And I might have said, “Oh, yes, that’s true isn’t it?”

You might have said, “Are you sure you’re going to want to stuff your raw chicken skin into a bathing suit this time of year?”

And I would have said, “Well, you have a point there.”

And you most definitely would have given me a stern “No, Lola. No!” when I told you I scheduled these lessons for 6:30 in the morning.

Dan did not say these things. It’s kind of his fault in that way.

I can’t pinpoint what pisses me off more---setting my alarm for 5:50am or the skinny gym types (those toned-assed sprites!) who are working out at that hour. Did you know that even in this most mild winter, our cars still have frost on them at 6:30 in the morning? My lessons are on Wednesdays and the night before every one---every one---I am like a despondent kid whose parents are trying to discern why their child seems to get a stomach ache every Tuesday evening.

But I push on (because Dan refuses to let me quit since he’s kind of a smiley sadist) and get to the gym locker room for 6:20am. Oh, the naked. SO MUCH NAKED! As always, I am entirely uncomfortable with this and wish people would keep their nakedness to themselves and their dentists. I, of course, have everything on beneath my sweats (which sometimes look remarkably like pajama pants and maybe are). I rock board shorts and a tankini top for the lesson---a mid-winter’s stomach reveal? No suh.

The reason I opted for 6:30 lessons---the only reason---is because I figured nobody else would be there. But, guess what? That’s when the real swimmers show up. So there I am chugging along on my little kick board like a motorized bath tub duck while Greg Louganis is doing the fancy flippy tumbly thing off the wall in the next lane.

Now, I do know how to swim; the kick board is for length strengthening. The floaties? That’s a matter of safety. I’m actually a pretty strong swimmer despite the fact that I inexplicably started to avoid the ocean, pools and clogged tubs at some point in my teenage years. But if there is any sport I can say I’ve done since I was a kid, it’s swimming. Yet this is suuuuuch a stretch. I was a hack, a beach kid---not the goggles and swim cap type. More the you’re-lucky-if-you-get-suntan-lotion type. Saying that swimming was my sport as a kid is a little like saying I was the captain of the Tag Squad or that I was a born Hide and Go Seeker. Still, the fundamentals are there. Though, last week we did work on breathing and floating so apparently I’m not quite gold medal material just yet.

The first thing I have to do once I get there---it’s a gym rule---is rinse off in the poolside shower so that people don’t catch my grossness. The shower water is really hot so I tend to linger because going from the steamy shower to the tepid pool water is entirely unpleasant. They say they keep the pool between 82 and 84 degrees but I’m pretty sure they’re stupid lying liars. I was so reluctant to get in the water at my first lesson that the instructor asked me if I felt safe enough to go in alone.

My instructor---oh, she is so lovely. But sometimes I have to hate her because every time I see her it’s 6:30 in the morning and she’s in the same room as I am. She is nothing but supportive and patient and kind but the moment I first get into that pool I feel such an urge to grab her by the head and dunk her. Thankfully for both of us she stays outside of the pool and stands along the edge for our lessons. This is my favorite part because it makes me feel like an Olympian except she doesn’t have a a stop watch. Maybe I should buy her a stop watch. I like pretending I am a real athlete and she is my coach even though it is nothing like this whatsoever. I keep hoping she’ll do coachly things like lecture me about steroids or ask me to join her in the shower after practice.

We work mostly on my crawl stroke. I am apparently missing some technique. I strain my neck. My breathing is inconsistent. I point my hands down which causes my body to follow therefore making me strain my neck to take inconsistent breaths. Basically I swim like a dying whale with goggles. (Yep, goggles. Cuz I’m fuh real.) My instructor spends much of our lesson trying to figure out new ways to help me understand things she has already explained several times.

“Like you’re climbing a ladder,” she says, trying to reiterate how I should reach and then push through my stroke.

But in my head it’s all--- “I wonder if it would be weird if I said, ‘See ya, Coach,’ at the end of our lesson today.”

I also get to work with all the fun pool tools that I should be too embarrassed to use. In addition to the kick boards, we also work with those foam dumbbells that make me feel like The Rock and rubber flippers which make me feel like a newborn mermaid with cerebral palsy.

And then our half hour is up and I make my way through The Frigid Hall of Doom. This is the hallway which connects the giant, echoey pool area to the locker room. And it is cold. And when you are wet, it is glacial and could make you cry. And then your tears would freeze and weigh down your cheeks and you would look like Droopy. That’s exactly what The Frigid Hall of Doom is like. So it is absolutely necessary after The Frigid Hall of Doom to pop into the sauna. I’ve only ever been in the sauna alone and I pray it stays this way. I’m just not the “let’s take a steam,” type of gal and don’t even get me started on how I would react to a naked infiltration. I go in there because I think it’s supposed to open my pores or or increase my blood flow or just do something that benefits me while all I do is sit there. (This is my favorite type of self care.)

But then it gets ugly. Shower time. There’s no way around it. I am wet and I am cold and a shower is what the circumstance necessitates. Fortunately, we are dealing with a stall situation. It is entirely private and since there is a small changing area before the shower stall, there is a two-curtain barrier between me and any potential passing human. My walls are fortified. I wear flipflops---because my mama raised me right---and I even use their “Luxury Shampoo” which is also body wash, a concept that has always baffled me. I dry off in my private stall and dress in my private stall (because that’s where such things should be done!) as quickly as I can. Last week I was in such a rush to get dressed---lest I be naked for one second more than necessary---that I put my pants on backwards and walked out of the gym with my drawstrings swinging behind me. Lola “so cool it hurts” Mellowsky at your service.

Before I know it, I’m home with a well-earned latte in hand. And like the kid with the belly ache, I roll in to our apartment so enthusiastic and proud of myself for what I’ve done.

And Dan says, “See? Now that wasn’t so bad was it?”

And I say, “No! I was so brave!”

But today is Monday and tomorrow will be Tuesday. And I’m certain I feel a plague moving in.

Dear Mom

I miss you today. So much. I want to know what you’d think of Whitney Houston’s death. Would you have cared? I just want to have a superficial conversation like that. Are you going to watch Idol? Have you had lunch with any of your friends lately? Any run-ins with old classmates of mine at the grocery store? You know, the kind where someone tells you to say hello to me but you can’t for the life of you remember what his or her name was. I want to hear you laugh when I make fun of you for this.

I want to see you at the kitchen table having your coffee. I want to see you with your glasses low on your nose, flipping through cards and receipts stuffed into a too-small wallet. I want to see a purse strap over your shoulder and your uneven gait walking to your car. I want to see your socks scrunched down to your sneakers. I want to see your painted toenails in flip-flops. I want to watch you watch the river. I want to see you lick your finger before turning the pages of a gardening book. I want to see you jotting down notes. I want to see your notes, your handwriting--- “birthday card to Cherie”, “breakfast with Betty.” I want to see you chatting with Dan, the way you guys loved each other. I want you to chat with me, the way you loved me.

I want to tell you your eyes are beautiful. I want to tell you I love your smile. I want to hear you say, “My girl, my Laura.” I want to smell you. I want to see your hair wrapped in a towel after the shower. I want to watch you brush your hair in the bathroom mirror. I want to see you rinse foamy tooth paste down the drain. The way your hand cupped the water before splashing it around the rim. I would watch your hands all day. Then mascara, then lipstick---the way you put on lip stick, the hollowed curve in its middle and thinness at the tip.

I want to see you bend to pick up a sock and sit down to sew a button. I want to see you hose off the deck on a hot day. I want to see you close all the windows before a heavy rain.

I’m waiting for you to tell me the crocuses are popping, the tiny blooms of violets rising through heart-shaped leaves. Where will we do Easter this year? You never did like ham. Remember when you, Dan and I spent the whole day on the newspaper’s Easter word scramble? Wanna do that again this year?

I want to see you on the floor playing with your grandkids.

I dreamt of you the other night. Two nights in a row actually. One night we hugged. The next you asked me what I love so much about you. More than everything, Mom.

I miss you being of this earth. On this earth. I like thinking that you’re out there but I get so scared that you’re not. That you’re gone forever---your face underneath dirt and grass---and I will have to live an entire life without you.

I don’t know why today. Why today is a harder one. Usually it comes at night---it’s early today. I heard someone say that when you think of your lost loved one---when a little thing reminds me; graham crackers and milk---that it’s you putting the thought in my head. Your little,"Hello, my girl. My Laura."

When I cry, like now, I think of you watching me.

“I’m sorry you’ll have to miss me,” you told me once.

Are you standing by me now, sad that I am sad?

“You’ll feel me holding your hand,” you said.

I search my palm for you.

My husband, FDR

It's embarrassing how impressed I am with myself.

But let's be honest, Dan is responsible for most of the artistry.

The formative stage:

Indeed, this is the heath bar cake I made for Dan's birthday a couple of years back.   He brought it in to work today so I had nary a bite but he said it all went before the end of the day despite the array of leftover treats that others brought in.  I won!  I won!

I'm glad not to be one of those people whose mood plummeted after the Patriots screwed the pootch.  Let' be clear, I didn't miss a Pats game all season.  I have deep and abiding go-to pocket fantasies about many of the players.  But I'm not batshit---it's just football.  Still, the Super Bowl is a big whoop in our household and the reason extends beyond the binging which transpires in its honor.  When I was a kid I was the only one in my household of six females and one male who cared at all about football. (I would argue that my dad cared even less than any of my sisters and they cared about it not one bit.) My mom knew I liked it though, so each year when the Super Bowl came around she would make it a special night for me.  She'd buy all my favorite snacks---pepperoni slices topped with chunks of cheddar, a plate of nachos just for me, Hostess cupcakes---and set me up with a tray table in the family room where I was able to watch the game without interruption.  I love this little memory now because I see it as her way of celebrating my individuality---not an easy thing to do with five kids.

So it reminds me of her now, Super Bowl Sunday.  And in her honor, we celebrated.  And ate.

And drank:

Classy bitch with my plastic minis of red, eh? Dan picked them up because I never seem to finish a bottle of wine before it goes bad. (For all my talk, I'm really not a very accomplished drinker.) I'll give a bottle two nights and then I'm sketched out and afraid that because I have such an unsophisticated palate I won't know if it's bad or just wine. So Dan picked up these little guys and you know what?  Not bad.

Kick-off apps:

Dan makes the best guacamole this side of Mexico.  The beer---Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat with an orange wedge, my fave.  

Then, on to the main course:

Meatball subs and pulled pork sandwiches. Dan and I couldn't decide which sandwich we wanted so we had a half of each. Note beer number two: a Shock Top Belgian White

Those are my mama's meatballs. With some help from GiG in the kitchen yesterday, I stirred up some of her homemade tomato sauce and fried up some of her meatballs. Just a few months before she died, she walked me through making them. It was the same day she came out of the bathroom crying and said, "Okay, Laura, I'm starting to lose my hair. I need you to hug me." And in the middle of the kitchen I held my mom as tightly as I could and smoothed her hair and told her that I loved her and loved her and loved her.

And somehow we ended up laughing.

And then we made meatballs.

 At first she was in the kitchen next to me, guiding me through the sauce. But then she felt tired and I started rolling up the meatballs as she offered instruction from the couch. Even though I had watched my mom roll meatballs my whole life , I brought them to her in the family room to be sure they met her approval. Yesterday it was like I spent the whole morning with her. I felt her with me offering warm encouragement, warning me not to be too be too perfectionistic (as she knew I can be), and gently nudging me to not overwork the meat. While not quite GiG's meatballs, I'm getting there. I could feel my hands becoming hers as I made them.

The star of the day, however, was Dan's pulled pork. I don't think he'll mind if I post the Anne Burrell recipe  he worked from. (We're big Anne Burrell fans in this household mostly because we love the way she growls a deep and throaty "BIG MEAT!"  every time she works with a slab.) You guys...you guys.  Wowza.  Good stuff.  Dan tinkered around with the sauce a bit, cutting it with more tomato paste (and some this-and-that) to diminish some of the apple cider vinegar's potency, but otherwise he stuck to the recipe.  Do yourself a favor and get up on this pulled pork.  Fair warning---you will be dealing with a piece of meat that looks remarkably like an actual pig, skin and all.  Would you believe it?  A pig!

Dessert:

Much hoopla has been made over Dan's fudge and of course his peanut butter balls. I'm hear to tell you that his brownies take the cake.  


Okay, there's actually nothing finer than the first three pieces of the season's fudge enjoyed with a glass of red wine.  (After three though, your sugar buzz turns into a crash that will leave you feverish and scratching your arms up 'til your next next fix.) Still, his brownies are fantasmo and this from a person who normally would not look twice at stupid fucking brownies no matter how prominently they are featured on the dessert table.  They're usually dry and flavorless and burned and so disappointing that a pouty, "stupid fucking brownies," always follows my trying them.  But with Dan's, it's a different story. All I know is that there are fudge packets involved plus a healthy portion of chocolate chips. And he bakes them for the perfect amount of time---a numeric figure that he must  have gone all Good Will Hunting to figure out ("Whatever it says on the box," he's told me)---so that they come out rich and moist and chewy and not remotely resembling a charcoal briquette. We ate them with vanilla ice cream and then I thanked Gawd for inventing brownies and inventing Dan.

I remember lots of food.  I remember lots of drinks.  I remembers Madonna's soldiers and the Pats blowing it. After that, my friends, it's all a little hazy.

Apparently Dan was alert enough to keep tabs...at least he didn't draw on my face.  

How could I possibly say no?

Left on my computer this morning by Dan...

Does it kind of look like I'm inviting you to our clothing optional reading party tomorrow morning? (And did I ever tell you about the time I was propositioned by the female half of a couple whom I knew to be swingers to join them some Sunday morning to read the paper in the nude on their patio?) (The gall! Newsprint smudges!) While I'm not inviting you (you can exhale now), I do encourage you to have your own reading party. Here's how it works: books, coffee, bed, waffles (optional) until noon (the earliest). If you have kids, skip soccer practice and let 'em join the party! (Clothing is not optional in this scenario*.)

Is there any better way to spend a Saturday morning?

*Lola Mellowsky Enterprises strongly discourages nakedness as a general practice and is not responsible for any life scarring and/or mental health issues that result from naked family reading parties. Please do not be naked in front of your kids ever. And if you choose to, at least put on some clothes first.

My Name is Lola and I Beat my Husband

I punched Dan in my sleep the other night. Like, a real punch. I know how to punch. I’ve never actually used this skill for anything other than dead-arms but I can duck and jab in a pinch. When I was a kid, my dad taught me how to extend just so from my bicep to snap a real punch. It’s not as exaggerated and sweeping as it looks in movies, a real punch. It is quick and hard. And a real punch is what I gave Dan. With my right hand. On which sits an awfully spiky ring---my mom’s engagement ring which has three protruding tines that could cut a bitch. And it hurt him. And it hurt me. The ring, not the punch. A proper punch should not inflict pain on the puncher though, as I said, I’ve never thrown a battle punch and imagine that connecting with a face---no matter how precise you land it in order to break the punchee’s nose (also proper technique)---would hurt your damn hand.

The worst part is that I was dreaming about punching Dan as opposed to some hulking dream bully---so it didn’t feel entirely innocent. In fact, as I punched him---I awoke mid-punch---I apologized, knowing exactly what I had done because I was dreaming about doing it. (Actually, in my dream I had thrown a few frustrating hits that got me nowhere, which is what I think led me to reach across my own body to connect with his arm as he slept peacefully to my left.) Normally there’s some lag time between whatever slumber crime I am committing and my realization that I am doing so. Dan has had to wake me before. I yell a lot. I get in big fights with whomever I am too scared to confront in real life (where I am so articulate and quick-tongued that So And So better watch it!). Sometimes I am defending and covering myself. Sometimes I cry. Rarely do I punch. Though, while I can’t remember the details, I know have done it before.

I’m not proud of it (but Dan and I have always been mildly amused by my antics.)

Now, it’s possible that I went to bed mad despite that stupid adage which warns against doing so. Gasp! Going to bed mad! What’s next, heavy sighing? Resentfully stomping around the house, making as much noise as possible while hanging up Dan's coat, putting away his shoes and picking his pants up off the bedroom floor because apparently HITTING THE FUCKING HAMPER TWO FEET AWAY IS FAR TOO LABORIOUS! So, yes, it’s possible I went to bed mad about some mundanity that pissed me off just enough to require my sleeping it off versus arguing. In fact, I know I did. I don’t think this is a recipe for disaster. I’ve fallen asleep mid-fight before as has Dan (can you imagine how much that pissed me off!) and that doesn’t seem like a better alternative to having a little anger in your heart upon falling asleep.

Was I mad enough on this particular night to hit him? No. Was I frustrated enough to shake him? Yes. But I wouldn’t and didn’t. Although Slumber Lola apparently couldn’t help herself. For the record, I apologized profusely post-hit, then again in the morning and again when he got home from work the next day. I would not have felt half as guilty were the dream punches not directed at him in the first place. But as he was the intended victim, and the crime was actually committed, it feels as though my subconscious and conscious worlds had a little too much overlap for comfort.

I’m kind of wondering if I’m an abusive spouse. Sometimes Dan will hurt me. Now, he doesn’t mean to do it. For years I’ve called him Lennie from Of Mice and Men because all he wants to do is “tend the rabbits” yet he is sometimes unaware that he is bigger than I am and thus ends up snapping my neck. Or just accidentally pulling my hair or shoving me a bit harder than he means to when he is trying to give a playful hipcheck as we are walking down the street together. But it’s my reaction to this that so concerns me. I hit him back. In the arm. I can’t help it. It’s not exactly reflex though, which is something Dan is always quick to point out. It’s not like he hits me and---BOOM!---my arm extends like some Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robot. No, I get mad first. I get injured, which quickly turns to a flame of anger ignited by this wrongdoing (accidental as it may be), and then I injure him in return. It’s a tinily premeditated act of revenge. It occurs in a matter of seconds this chain reaction of pain-anger-violence, but it happens. And Dan always laughs at me, not because he is amused by the punch (he agrees that I know what I’m doing), but for the hesitation which precedes this violence. That quick moment he observes of my boiling.

“I can’t help it!” I tell him. “It’s instinct!”

“It’s not instinct!” he argues back, laughing. “There’s a pause! There’s a pause! You get mad and then you do it.”

And I know he’s right. He’s totally right. The recognition that I’ve been harmed comes over me (and let’s be clear, I have been wounded), and then a wave of anger at the injustice and then, well, revenge.

Do you see why I’m scared to have kids? What if I beat them in my dreams too?

And then there’s Dan. I’d come home and he’d be all---

"I’d pet ‘em, and pretty soon they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead—because they was so little.”

Two diaphragms tonight. Two.

One more try...I didn't know how much I loved you.

Does anyone besides me remember that song? To my ear, it's the early 90s and middle school dances and peppermint-flavored tongue kisses (a term I don't enjoy but which is really quite fitting for the awkward oral jamming that went down). None of this, however, has anything to do with this blog entry so let's move on. (But, here's the link in case you need to go there with me. Silky, right? If I'm being honest, it may have lent itself to a little hand-on-butt action.) Onward...

Oh, 2012, you little bitch.

That’s where I stand 31 days into this hairy ass crack of a year. I came into it new year’s resolutions a blazing; clearing some muck, my soul’s only yen.

But it’s been a yeast infection of a January with the promise of gonorrhea’s imminent arrival. (STD metaphors---Class. Act.)

In other words---I’m GREAT how are you?

I’m sorry to be all Negative Nancy on you guys. (And I’m sorry to Machestaaa whose first name, Nancy, it may seem I’m besmirching here---no connection, I just like alliteration.) But I gotta keep it real, yo. I couldn’t explain my absence here without at least proffering some explanation, though what I’ve written thus far will really be the extent of the details. I’m sorry for being so cryptic but it’s the call to be made. You just gotta believe that 2012 is a cranky little douche and go with me on it. I can tell you I’m writing this in a curtains-drawn bedroom still PJed up---a sexy combo from the 2012 winter line consisting of Dan’s boxer shorts and a t-shirt; all this indicative of depression having settled in for a mid-winter stay.

I know I sound whiny---I KNOW---but, well, fuck...it’s been a buttfuck of a year so far.

Perhaps you’re thinking---But Lola, I thought you were taking medication to stave off this type of thing. And I am. But, you know, the meds don’t make me Samba around our living room or jump on the couch in uncontainable glee. (But the wine does!) From what I’ve observed, anti-depressants only ever bring me to a place of “even”---where I am sometimes capable of taking a walk or otherwise participating in my own stretch for mental health. And only sometimes. I’m just never really sure if the drugs are working, which makes me think they may not be.

I have had some interesting side effects though, most notable among them being an inability to urinate. Oh, how strange and distressing to down a pot of coffee only to realize that there is a brain to bladder communication gap. Another fun one was not being able to “finish” what I started in the boudoir, if you know what I’m saying. With the latest med though, I am side effect free. And also possibly benefit free.

Who knows? Maybe I would be crying into my bowl of cereal (okay, three bowls of cereal in a row) were I completely unmedicated. And nothing is helped by the fact that I’ve been waking up at 3:30 every night. Like, for the day---just up and at ‘em in the quiet darkness of those ungodly hours, reading or trying to count my inhalations in an effort to fall back to sleep. Sometimes I pray, ”Mom, please help me fall back to sleep tonight. Please help my brain rest,” to no avail.

I know I’ll bounce back. I’m fortunate that I even know this; not all with depression do and the hopelessness is sometimes the biggest mind fuck of all of it. But it’s snowing out (I’ve opened the blinds) and the gratitude I feel for such a simple beauty tells me I’m not as far down as I was. Also, I’m back---at least today---to the page. Writing, like exercise, is a key to my sanity so when the words aren’t flowing---when my brain and body are too exhausted to work in tandem long enough to at least empty The Spew---I fall deeper.

Maybe this entry will mark the start of my ascent. There are fits and starts though so I never know if I’m climbing until I’m further up the mountain. And of course the aforementioned gonorrhea that looks to be sweeping in could set me off course again. (I am not proud of this crass and nonsensical mixed metaphor.)

But for now, "even" seems attainable which is all I can ask for.

I know it’s neither uplifting nor perhaps particularly interesting to read about a person’s trudge through depression but it’s fuh real and it’s here and it’s why I’ve been gone. Now hopefully we can push on through this and get back to a little laughin'...or at least chattin'. That is, if the itchy redness abates.