True Blond

One of the reasons I chose to do my surgery rotation at the county hospital was because I heard that you could “get lost” there; meaning, the doctors were so busy, and there was so much going on, that as a medical student, you could just hang out all day and not be missed. “They don’t even notice you’re gone,” the upperclassmen told me. Perfect! I thought. Surgery does not interest me in the least; I looked forward to showing up for a quick surgery, and then leaving early like everyone else.

“WHERE’S BLONDIE?” I heard my attending doctor bellow as I hustled down the hallway, late for evening rounds.

“I’m right here Dr. Barkley, the ENT clinic ran late, I’m sorry.”

“Well I’m glad you decided to grace us with your presence, we’ve been standing around waiting for you.” I glanced around at the surgery team. Besides the residents, only one other student was there; six were AWOL.

“Why is he always on my case? He never asks about the others…” I whispered to my one friend resident, a tall, handsome man with golden curls, who I would imagine the angel Gabriel to look like.

“The blondies can’t hide!” Gabriel whispered back with a wink. I felt momentarily comforted by these words of understanding from a fellow blond.

I have never had the privilege of being inconspicuous, not even for a moment. I must mention that I not only blond, but platinum blond—a result of Nordic heritage mixed with God’s idea of some genetic fun. Since I was an infant, people have been commenting on my hair. My mom tells me strangers would reach into my stroller to pet my head, before she learned to snap at them not to.

“Is that your real hair color?!” Yes.

“Do you know how much people would pay for that?” Not really…

“Wow, you’re soooo blond!!”

“Yes…” Smile and shrug.

“Can I touch it?” No, but I see that you’re going to anyway.

These are the daily questions and comments but I’ve heard the gamut. Yet for some reason, despite twenty-five years of attention, I still feel awkward and slightly embarrassed receiving it. My usual response to a compliment is simply, “Thank you,” a phrase that is far underrated.

I’m sure some of my awkwardness regarding hair color was born around the time of puberty, when there was nothing cute about having glasses, braces, and being pale as a ghost. Growing up, I had to endure Casper comments or kids asking if I bleached my hair (ironically, by girls who now bleach their own hair in their twenties). One boy who sat behind me in my ninth grade math class used to whisper “soft cornsilk” into my ear, and occasionally would stroke his fat fingers around a lock of my hair before I flung myself forward, out of reach.

I remember praying to God to give me brown hair. Around puberty, I started losing huge amounts of hair. I would shower or comb my hair and handfuls would come out. My hair was all over the house. Then I started finding random dark brown hairs in my scalp. I panicked. God was replacing all my blond hair with brown hair! “Dear God, please, please, I changed my mind! I want to stay blond! Please let me stay blond!” I pleaded pathetically. I now know that the variations in my hair color was simply from hormones and growing, but it took an event like that for me to start appreciating what I had.

Thankfully, I have outgrown that wretched stage, but as any ugly duckling (or self-perceived ugly duckling) can attest too, the self- consciousness that developed during youth dies, but never truly disappears. Today, I am at peace with having platinum blond hair. The truth is, now I love being blond! It suits my personality and style. Not that I have much experience having dark hair.

I dyed my hair once, before embarking on a six month teaching stint in Qatar. “You’re a target, Cece.” My mother has been drilling this phrase into my head since the age of twelve, when I first started going to Manhattan alone with friends. In some ways she was right; I walk down any city street and I hear countless men call out, “Hey Blondie, wassup?” “Blondie, where you goin’?” “I’ll carry that bag for you, Blondie!” I’ve learned to handle this, however. All a girl has to do is wave and smile. Assault/mugging averted. I’m probably the only girl you’ll see smiling at bums and drug dealers, but I assure you, it is all in self preservation! So, to avoid being a “target” in an Arab country, where women don head to toe black abayas, I dyed my hair brunette. Well, it was more of a honey color. “You’ve made yourself worse!” my mother lamented. Although the hair color was pretty, I did not feel like myself. I was happy when the color started fading out. It was also fun seeing the reaction of my Arabic friends as my hair became lighter and lighter as the weeks went on. The lighter my hair got, the more free things I seemed to receive—coffee at Starbucks, VIP tables at clubs, invitations on random princes’ yachts… As it turns out, the Middle East may treat blonds better than anywhere else on earth!

My hair color may even have saved my live once. I was three years old, and we were visiting family friends out on the East End. They lived on a farm, with endless fields of cabbage. My mom lost sight of me for a few minutes, and I disappeared into the fields. (Later, I informed my parents I was searching for the Cabbage Patch Kids.) If it were not for the reflection of the sun on my head, my mom may never have found me, already a far distance away!

The other day in clinic, as I presented a patient to Dr. Barkley, a resident interrupted to ask the doctor a question. “Excuse me!” Dr. Barkley yelled. “I’m talkin’ to Blondie here!” Dr. Barkley stared at me, distracted by the interruption. (Face reddening begins.) “You’re a true blond, I can tell. Do you know how you can tell if a girl is a true blond?” he asked the audience of residents. (Face now catching fire.) Dr. Barkley has a reputation for being extremely inappropriate, and is probably the most chauvinistic person I have met. I feared the worst, and memories of being cornered in a frat house and being asked if the “curtains matched the carpet” came flooding back.

“She has no roots.” Oh thank you Jesus.

Dr. Barkley slapped me with a medical question. Mercifully, the answer reflexively came to me. (If I think too hard about something, sometimes the answer escapes me!)
“So perhaps, the old saying about blonds being dumb may be proving to be false…” Dr. Barkley concluded. Perhaps…

I guess the lesson in all this is to own up to who you are, no hiding, no shrinking away. And being different has its perks—people can find you in a crowd, or even in a cabbage patch.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

There comes a time in a young professional’s life when she must switch career paths or U-Haul it out of Manhattan. I chose to move. Having heard and answered the call of teaching and then skipping through graduate school in fourteen months, my only option was to move from my two-bedroom (shared three ways) on the Upper West Side and venture outward. To the boroughs. Teaching may have fed my soul but it wasn’t filling my pockets, and there’s only so much scrimping a girl is capable of when all the boutiques along Columbus Avenue know her name and everyone’s glad she came—with the happiest of them all being her credit card company.

I spent my last Sunday morning as a city girl camped out at one of those coffee shops that’s too cool for coffee and has now moved into the realm of exotic teas and gluten free baked goods, reading the Sunday Styles and phrasing my own wedding announcement. “Ms. Finley, who will keep her name, wed Mr. Whitman last night at some magnificent waterside soiree.” I may not have been able to afford the croissants and cabs of New York City anymore, but the tradeoff was having some money tucked away for monogrammed napkins and a honeymoon next summer. I could deal with that.

And so I began making the negotiations betrothed people make. I (begrudgingly) traded in the bustle of Manhattan for the bustle of a Nicole Miller gown, and decided to head east. With Curtis working on Long Island and me teaching in the city, we battled it out in a mean game of Tug of War. Curtis would heave the red taped-off center on our rope toward Huntington, then I would yank it back near Brooklyn. Both tired and ready to let the real negotiations begin, the rope started to hover over Queens. I neatly packed up my books, stuffed animals, and college photo albums, and off I inched—watching the rows of brownstones and parade of hipsters fade behind the horizon—hoping LL Cool J was right when he sang, Queens got the vets, Queens be the best.

Far from my best-laid plan, I went apartment hunting with my mom. Curtis, knowing all too well the impulsive decisions we would soon make, wisely instructed, “Don’t sign anything.” After researching the address of some buildings near the 7 line, my mom and I hopped into her Honda and hightailed it for a day of looking and thinking... Oh, who were we kidding? We were signing.

I can picture my first impression now: whitewashed arched doorframe and quaint walkway, two gleaming, marble fireplaces in the lobby, and a staircase that cleaved left and right. In my pathetic attempt to play it cool, I just smiled and exchanged this-is-it looks with my mom, all while jumping up and down. Smooth. (As we’ve always said, we could never work for the CIA.) Then I saw my potential home sweet home, a corner apartment on the sixth floor, cattycornered to the floor’s garbage disposal. All the closer to throw my garbage out with. The level of delusion still frightens me when I think about it. I’ve been told I see the world through rose-colored glasses, but let’s be honest—it’s more like I take intermittent, frenetic glances from behind a satin eye mask.

“Great door! So cute!” I chirped.

“Mmm-hmm!” mom smiled back.

Goners, the broker cackled to himself. “And this is the kitchen,” Mr. Broker explained. And luckily he did, because the sterile white room sans cabinetry or appliances that we were staring into could have gone one for one against a psychiatric holding room. I appreciated the clarification.

“And this is the living room,” Mr. Broker pointed out as we continued the tour, or rather, herding of sheep. “And the bathroom...” Mr. Broker trailed off. OK, so it had a hole in either corner of the room, marking the place the toilet and bathtub would one day be affixed to. My gut told me I needed that apartment, and beyond that my gut was also telling me that it was the last apartment left in Queens. What is that, gut? The last apartment ever? Oh no, I better sign. What’s that, gut? You think I should sign immediately? You’re probably right, gut. (I ate Indian food the night before and I realize now that I might have misread that message from my gut. Either that, or I was high off veneer and paint fumes.)

Why the deranged obsession with a frighteningly unfinished apartment? Why the need to move into that apartment right then? This is where I’m reminded of sage advice I received in a fortune cookie years ago, a fortune I’ve saved and framed: A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning. Full of knowledge, there was no room left for common sense. I ended up signing the lease because it resided in Sunnyside. Yes, I chose my future home based on my attachment to the song "Stay on the Sunnyside," a song Curtis put on a mix tape for me while we were dating.

The name was a sign.

The name was all I needed.

The name turned out to be the best part of the whole place.

***

A few weeks after moving in, I woke up to a familiar scene for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or any other creature living in the sewers. Green-tinged water trailed down my bedroom wall and pooled on the increasingly warped wooden floor. The ancient heating system released enough scorching steam at night to press my shirts or power an engine, and it was definitely hot enough to create a mirage. I prayed for a mirage, or at least a reflection from another building. I tiptoed out of my bed, toward the slimy cascade, wiping beads of sweat from my hairline. I slid my fingers down the shellacked mess and I realized it was no illusion. The walls were leaking and quickly turning into mold. Overnight. My rose-colored glasses and eye masks gathering dust in the corner, I was quickly settling into life in Sunnyside.

There was no live-in Super, so it was nearly a week before I contacted a human being at the leasing office, then another few days before they arranged for someone to come check out the "eledged" mold, and from that timeframe I estimated it would be about a year or so before it was cleaned up.

Yet clean it up they did. But of course, it had to be before 4:00, and since I’m with students everyday until at least 3:40, I hailed a cab faster than you can say, “Spores are killing me!” Thank goodness I made it home in time to watch the barely functioning employee douse my wall with bleach, mop up the floor, and extend his hand for a tip. Here’s a tip: Fix the leak!

He assured me it was, “All better, all better,” and left me seething with clenched teeth. By the end of that week I started to notice bubbles popping out of the bathroom wall. My adolescent walls (that cried at night and sprouted acne by day) needed obvious and immediate repair. Yet before I had time to dwell on what might be inside the bubbles, one of said bubbles grew an arm! Upon closer inspection, the protrusion wasn’t an arm as much as, with God as my witness, a mushroom. And unfortunately, the only mood altering this mushroom produced was agitation.

Getting dressed the morning of the fungi finding, I mindlessly outfitted myself in my teacher uniform of cardigan and khakis. With each button I fastened, I silenced my gut that kept whispering, "I might have been wrong. Sorry, Alice. Apparently this ain’t no Wonderland."

I scratched my neck and cursed the heater for sucking all moisture from my skin. As luck would have it, the defunct heating system averaged the perfect temperature to not only farm mushrooms, but also bake my skin. As I slammed my front door closed, I saw a flyer posted on it with the word ATTENTION: MEETING RE. BUILDING LAWSUIT. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn my apartment was condemned, but it was just a friendly reminder regarding the building meeting later that night. My first thought was, “If it starts at 5:00, how soon do I need to come home to avoid the meeting and how quiet do I need to be in order to pretend not to be home yet?” Despite the strong tug of my desire to avoid all things group, the tug of why the fuck is this building involved in legal matters won out.

Skip to quarter past five that evening, upon tripping over some disgarded furniture in front of my building, I flew through the lobby doors and took my place among the we’re-fed-up-and-we’re-not-going-to-take-it-anymore crowd goers.

“It’s been a few months since we last gathered to discuss the legal proceedings against Vantage Management,” the Tenant Advisory Board chairwoman said. “But before we catch everyone up, does anyone have new concerns or issues with their apartment?”

“My rat problem has gotten out of control! Now I’m trapping about one a week. They keep finding their way through that sliver of space between the pipes and the floor,” one neighbor complained.

“Try stuffing that space with Brillo pads and then covering it with caulk. Worked for us, so far,” offered a fellow friend.

“Well, I have roaches all over my kitchen,” voiced a third person. “No matter how well I seal bags and containers, they keep finding their way into my cabinets!”

“Have you tried sealing bags and boxes with tape and then enclosing them in Ziploc bags?” suggested another member of the masses.

I thought I had it bad with mold, a radiator that seemed to be housing a prisoner trapped inside clanging to come out at 5:30 every morning, and a toilet that sporadically went on strike. Maybe I had broken out in hives over the last few months, but who wouldn’t have a visceral reaction to a crumbling apartment and foreclosed dreams? I was starting to realize that I had it easy and that I would take the path of least engagement; nod and look fed up, then scurry like a good little mouse up into my apartment and count the days until Curtis moved in. Why deal with it when you can ignore it? So that’s exactly what I did. Hives making my woolen sweaters unwearable, I soldiered into the winter months warmed by the knowledge I would soon live with my husband-to-be. Staying on the sunny side would be markedly easier with him next to me.

When moving day finally came the weekend after Valentine’s Day and our six-year anniversary, it seemed as though all the loose ends swirling around my head were neatly weaving together into a cuddly cashmere knit. In preparation for our imminent cohabitation, we treated ourselves to a modern day marriage bed. Foregoing one strewn with hand-dyed fabrics and rose petals, we opted for the current mark of a couple’s switch from single life to commitment: a pillow-top mattress and box spring set from Sleepys, and a massive mahogany sleigh bed from Pottery Barn. Those two components were also the last to be moved in from Curtis’s truck, and at the end of a day serving as a painful test of patience and love, we were approaching the finish line. I could see the Gatorade and the shiny medal awarding us Best Couple Ever. Bring it on, mold! Bring it on, busted radiator and plumbing!

Since my old mattress cost about a hundred dollars Memorial Day weekend two years prior, it weighed about as much as a hundred dollar bill. Its lack of cushioning and back support had greatly impeded my hours of rest, but it made the last step of moving day incredibly easy. We lifted it off the metal frame, turned it over, and each let out of breathy gasp.

“Is that… Is that a… stain?” I asked.

“It’s moving. I’ve never seen a stain move. Have you?”

“Look! There’s like five of them. What’s all this black stuff in the corner over here?”

Our eyes met, our faces blanched with realization, and we uttered the words that have left an indelible mark on our lives and bedding. Bed bugs.

Writing this now I am itching the nape of my neck and the back of my leg, worried for a moment that they’re back. I dream about them, so much so that last week I woke up clawing at my forearm. I then wandered into the medicine cabinet, and applied hydrocortisone, all because I thought they had started climbing over my body and left blistery welts in their wake. I generally come to around the time in the nightmare that someone, usually my mom, consoles me by saying, "It's only a mild case. I won't tell anyone."

As soon as we uncovered the fully functioning micropolis living under my nose -- a civilization I had unknowingly fueled with my own blood -- we looked left, toward the plush, pristine pillow-top that peered out from the hallway, shrink-wrapped and untouched. It seemed so wrong to bring such innocence into such filth. Then Curtis and I turned our heads to the right toward the solid wooden bed frame, ready to cradle our hopes and dreams. Little did the sleigh bed know the only thing it would soon provide would be impossible-to-raid hiding places for our little illegal immigrants.

Then, one by one, oddities of the past few months started making sense. I pulled up my sleeves and stared at my mottled arms, red dots blazing on my pale skin. Those were no hives! And the heater might have caused dry patches, but that itch resulted from a far smaller, sneakier villain. My own bed mates! And all those mattresses, side tables, couches, and bed frames that had increasingly piled up on the curb, they weren’t the unlucky cast offs of interior makeovers—they were testimony to a home infested. The peculiarities I had previously shrugged off began to slap me in the face, or, rather, bite me in the ass.

Having no clue where to begin and already overwhelmed by the enormity and minutia of it all, we popped our collars, slipped on sunglasses, and ducked into the hardware store. We were in desperate need of some Grade A juice, some real hard stuff.

“Psst. Hey, Larry. Yea, what’s good for killing bed bugs, really knocking them out. We need the good stuff.”

Larry winced and shook his head. “Nothin’ kills ‘em. They’re out of control, man. But your best bet is to spray them with this,” he said, holding up a white plastic bottle that I could already picture in my pest killing holsters. “Then, you’re gonna’ want to fill any holes in your floors and walls with this,” and he took a machine gun-looking caulking tool off the shelf. Armed with sprays, covers and caulks, we sped home to unleash guerilla warfare. Tools and weapons gave me back glimpses of the power and control sucked dry by the enemy.

We washed all of our sheets and towels, and all the clothing we stored in our bedroom. That was a solid nine loads right there. I still cringe upon opening our linen closet when I eye each tightly folded piece of cotton, crammed onto each shelf, towering four feet above my head. I think, "What if?" as memories of my laundry abyss take over. During the raid, we had to wash the curtains and circular rugs—but we decided just to toss those. We sprayed down each of our expertly restored antique dressers with the magic liquid in the white bottles, heretofore known as White Magic, zapping a few bugs here and there. Once the furniture had been cleaned out and sprayed and all the clothes washed, we began the caulking of the floors and walls. It seemed like no two pieces of wood connected and we found ourselves all but refinishing the floors with the gloppy white mess. There went Saturday and Sunday. Not sure which of my bites were old and which were recent, I figured they would all disappear, give or take a week, after our chemical laden raid. I was practically developing DNA mutations as a result of all the shit we unleashed into the air.

But the red, itchy, welts emerged like clockwork, averaging two a night. They would glow strong in my morning shower, either on the back of my calf, or forearm, or thigh, even on my shamed cheek. I was becoming my own version that doll whose make-up appears after you put hot water on her face—a wave of the “magic wand” and she had her face on, ready for a night of debauchery and tomfoolery. Yet, the only thing hot water revealed on me were marks of disgrace and defeat that were growing harder to cover up as the warmer months approached.

So, we tried Boric acid under each foot of furniture in our apartment. Larry said that might work—except it didn’t.

We also pulled each staple out of our box spring, the place the most bugs tended to burrow, and one by one the metal fasteners fell to the floor with a tinny sound—resonating in our fabric-free room, reminding us that despite all our efforts and might we were steadily losing the battles and it was becoming clear we were losing the war.

Next, the sleigh bed fell victim. Upon dismantling each slat we realized the pieces formed a tightly knit breeding ground for the bugs. The fact alone that it was wood made the bed frame a likely candidate for the enemy to usurp. We placed the sections along our bedroom wall and commenced our habitual spraying down of all things contaminated with White Magic. As winter slowly turned to spring, and snow melted away to reveal new growth and promises of dormant life, so too had our bedroom been exposed. Our unmasking, however, stripped the room of the trappings of comfort and safety, leaving us to sleep on a distressed mattress on a floor sprinkled with Boric acid and crumbling caulk. The scene, resembling an installation at the MoMA, was as follows: walls lined with the one time formidable headboard and footboard, a dejected boxspring, and rows of empty spray bottles. Title: Psychological Warfare. Each night that Curtis and I surrendered to our bed, he would hold me and whisper, “I’m so sorry I can’t stop them from biting you. I’m so sorry they’re still here… somewhere. Those little fuckers.” I would sigh and leave an understanding kiss on his cheek before rolling over to retrieve the bottle of Skin So Soft and begin my nightly ritual: Spray sheets and pillow, spray arms and then legs, tuck pants into socks and shirt into elastic waistband. Curtis, watching me prepare for a fitful night of sleep, looking on while I geared up to battle during my rest, had ironically enough never felt the sting of our pests. Apparently, he wasn’t as sweet. What he was pedaling was of no interest to the little bloodsuckers, making the abuse I continued to endure all the more unfair and senseless. Whenever he did discover a rouge bug, he would drop it into a clear film canister filled with the chemicals used in the daily dousing of our mattress. Sometimes I’d find him holding the bottle of captured terrorists up to his face, just staring at their upturned bodies lifelessly floating atop the sea of toxins. I think it gave him some sense of victory, of valor, proof that he had at least saved me from these creepy crawlers and that yes, we were infested, even though eyeing culprits were hard to come by as the altitudinous emotional damage mounted.

By this point we stopped inviting people over. We had also stopped going to the movies, what with the upholstered theater chairs and thickly carpeted aisles striking fear in our damaged minds and all. We couldn’t risk it. Netflix became our main connector to the outside world, allowing us to appreciate new stories and interesting people with the security of a plasma screen between us. Our wedding was quickly approaching and our nightly visitors continued to mark me with thick, rough bumps, so I decided once school let out to hide at my mom’s house until the big day. Wearing my strapless, sweetheart gown that put my arms, shoulders, and back on display would be the first little snitch to reveal my dirty secret. Camping out in my old twin bed at mom’s was my only option. Curtis, free of bites, continued to battle it out behind closed doors—defending my honor with every squirt of White Magic and caulking of open spaces.

Once we were hitched—the rice settled, cake eaten, and champagne sipped—we left for our honeymoon. Each night we held each other close, close enough to whisper sweet nothings.

Curtis: You’re beautiful. I love you. Did you check the mattress for bugs?

Me: I’m so happy. I love you. Yes, I checked the mattress. Did you check our luggage?

Curtis: I checked, and I think we’re fine. I can’t wait to go to sleep.

Me: I know! I dreamt about being in bed with you all day.

Curtis: Me too! Mmm… Good night!

Me: Good night! Sleep tight—

Curtis: Don’t even think about it.


The week slipped by in a blur created with five parts rum and three parts blazing sun, and before we sobered up on our second day our joie de vivre had awakened and reminded us of how restful sleep and thread-count sheets truly were. Restored and refueled, we flew home ten days later, emotionally prepared to finish the job we started months earlier.

Tattered white flag in hand, we finished the job by surrendering to the reality that we were fighting a battle best suited for Sisyphus. We put down the gimmicks, tools, and hope, and signed a new lease quite a ways down Queens Boulevard, whistling while we packed. Even though each item (frame, votive, book) had to be doused and quickly loaded into cardboard boxes, and each box then had to be placed into black garbage bags and stacked in the foyer (since the bugs could easily and relentlessly hitchhike on the cardboard), the tedium paid off. We pulled up anchor and set sail.

Dozens of boxes encased in bags later, we speedily figured out what to do with the furniture. In the manner of glossy magazine spreads that informed me at the start of each season what to keep, store, and toss, we determined the future of our furniture. Mattress: keep (after careful chemical treatment by exterminators and encasement in microfiber slipcover). Sleigh bed: store (in mom’s garage while wrapped in plastic). Couch: toss (without thinking twice).

“It’s Moving Day! We’re leaving, we’re leaving! Get me the hell outta here!” I sang as I jumped out of bed (read: mattress on floor). Curtis oversaw the moving out and I managed the moving in. The exterminators showered our new place with chemicals that killed any existing bugs and chemicals that nuked any visitors that decided to welcome us to Rego Park. Rego Park. Not as sugary sweet sounding and sentiment inducing as Sunnyside, but sentimental is so last year.

Recently, Curtis and I took an impromptu stroll through Forest Hills, and my boots clicked against the cobblestones while my neck craned up toward the pre-war buildings. We felt like we had stumbled upon the brick road leading us to Oz. “Maybe, when our lease is up next summer, we can think about buying a place here. I mean, could you imagine? The train, the subway, the restaurants—the young people!”

“It’s certainly younger than the Eastern European retirement community of Rego Park!” Curtis smiled.

“Could you just die?! Dartmouth Street!”

And as much as the idyllic town tugged at our hearts, causing Rego Park to feel increasingly like the USSR and us to feel increasingly strange in it, Curtis squeezed my hand, and pausing in the middle of the road, he leaned his forehead against mine and said, “We may live in Little Russia, with no young people for miles. We may still rent, and we may be far from Manhattan… But tonight we can go home, curl up in our clean bed and know we’re the only two things there. That's about all I need right now. I'm good.”

At the end of the day, all anyone really needs are people we love, people to share our lives with—people to help us fight our battles and help us rebuild when the spray settles. And if you’re lucky enough to find someone who will hold you close at night even when your bed is plagued with bed bugs, well, then that person is someone you can trust will hold you close for years to come. Because let’s face it, you both know each other’s deepest, dirtiest secret and that right there is enough blackmail to bond you for all eternity.

Golden Girl

I have a lot of grandma tendencies. From a penchant for cardigans and anything free, to being prematurely gray, I have become the grandma I’ve always wanted. Yes, I can throw back quite a few ounces of whiskey, party to Britney classics including ‘I’m A Slave 4 U,’ all while squeezed into a onesie from American Apparel, but I’ll always be home before 1:00. Chances are that this geriatric aspect of my identity stems from never having met my mom’s parents and growing up with only my Nanny, my dad’s rough and tough Irish Catholic mom. In first grade when kids talked about how their fit and fabulous Nonas and Pop Pops and Bubbies and Babas had them over for sleepovers and took them to Boca, all I could think was, “Oh shit. Nanny is seventy-six! What’s the chance she’ll live to see me get to second grade?!”

But live, she did. And she kept on living, despite repetitive threats during Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners she’d soon “be in the box” (read: bite the dust). She went on living until the dignified age of ninety-three. Nanny was not the woman I would necessarily pluck out of a line up of potential family members, however. She was the woman who told me at my fifth birthday (which she reluctantly attended in her polyester party dress and visible slip) that I shouldn’t smile. “Don’t smile, you have an ugly smile.”

Thanks for coming to my party, Grams!

Things definitely improved in the years since my five year old fete, but she never swaddled me in a hand-croqueted blanket, begged me to tell her about all the boys I liked in school, or gingerly braided my hair. The usual scene from my middle school years went something like this:

Nanny: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph you’re bigger! You’re bigger than the last time I saw you!

Me: Yea, I grew actually, but taller. Now I even wear a size 9 shoe. I grew two inches this month.

Nanny: Oh that was like Billy! Ah! He had those growing bumps in his knees and was in bed for two weeks! Ah!

Me: Yea, I know, I have those “growing bumps” too. They’re really painfu—

Nanny: I saw the Mets play today. Awful! Tisk, tisk, tisk. What’s with their pitcher? Oh, and I read something about them today in the paper. Goddammit where is that paper? (Cue the incessant shuffling of papers on the kitchen table in attempt to find the list or article or coupon she needed. The rearranging continued for the duration of our visit and could only be paused during a break for Entenmann’s crumb cake and coffee.)

End scene.

So unlike my friends who would call their grandparents to share exciting news and moments of glory, I accepted my Nanny for what she was—someone doing her best, even though her best erred on morbid and depressing—and I set off to be my own grandmother.

Genetic predispositions helped this effort tremendously. Sprouting my first gray hair at age seventeen captivated me in the way I was enthralled by my first period: I knew it was the mark of a new era in my life, but I had no idea what a complete pain in the ass it was going to be. So I oohed and ahhed over my startlingly early color change, and set out to buy Loreal, dark brown 4H.

A few years later, during another stint at being athletic (“And really this time, I’m going to run everyday, and that will mean I’ll need new stretch pants... Oh this is exciting!”) I returned from trotting around the block only to feel a shock of pain sear through my knee.

“I can’t look! You look!” I dramatically pleaded to my mom. “It feels like something’s popped out! I can’t look! Ow ow ow!” Then I cried.

“Oh no! Oh no! Sit down, roll up your pant leg, sit down. Oh no, what if you broke something!” (My mom is not the person I should go to when I’m panicked about something. She is the frayed wire to my stack of nearby papers: One false move and everything goes up in flames.)

“What do you see? Now you’re making me nervous!”

“Phew! Nothing here but a little swelling. You look fine. Oh, except... for... this... What is this?” She poked at a bulging vein in my leg. “Looks like you should get this checked out.”

“Oh no, what if I have leg cancer?” You see, ever since my dad died when I was eleven, every affliction I’ve had since has been some (usually rare) form of cancer. Got my first period: Bladder cancer. Develop a canker sore: Cheek cancer. No cancer is too rare.

Even though I’m always sure I have some fatal and complicated disease, thinking about going to the doctor makes me feel even more undone. And without fail, I slowly belay myself back down Cancer Mountain, and the mind work goes something like this (Note the gross misunderstanding of actual medical knowledge):

What if it’s something worse than I expected? The vein is pulsing, it feels like it’s about to break. Yes, it’s going to break. I should stop running—for sure! What if it’s that thing that woman had from last week’s episode of Mystery Diagnosis? (Insert quick Web MD research here.) Looks like I have deep vein thrombosis. Oh wow! That’s serious! What if I need invasive surgery? Oh fuck. Just what I need right now. How will I be able to take off from work? Now I’m really anxious. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s feeling better. It’s probably fine. I’ll ice it. Yea, no more running, I’ll be fine. Just in case, it says to wear a compression stocking. Wearing this knee brace would probably do the same thing. (Slip knee brace on.) OK, this is uncomfortable. Whatever, I’ll just slap it a few times and ice it.

Well, turns out the knee brace didn’t do the trick, and that’s how I found myself waiting in the Weill Cornell Vein & Vascular Center. After a few scans and pokes, I was ushered into the doctor’s office where he scanned my records and said, “Oh, you’re only twenty-two! You’re young…”

“Thank you?”

(Oh but he wasn’t finished.) “… to have varicose veins! Hmm. It’s only going to get worse when you get pregnant. Yup, a valve in the vein seems to have shut down. It’s called an incompetent valve.”

Fuck. I’d spent my whole life over-achieving and my own body was betraying me! Incompetent valve? Thanks, old body.

I’d like to note that just because I’ve always tended to act like a grandma and really, really want a grandma, doesn’t mean I like to hear I’m aging. There’s a fine distinction between feeling old and looking old, and the latter is something that frightens me. And so it wasn’t when the doctor informed me that a catheter was to be inserted in my calf and moved up into my groin, collapsing the problem vein along the way, that I started hyperventilating: It was when he said I had to wear a thigh-high compression stocking for two weeks straight and then after every time I work out. I realize now that was just the universe’s way of telling me I should stay put on the couch and save running for some younger, more able bodied sap.

Believe it or not, I was quite the trooper when the time came for the big surgery. I was awake for the procedure and only received anesthesia in my leg, one needle at a time all the way up from my knee. I did, however, get extremely clammy, nauseas, and green. I kept saying, in a loud monotone fashion, “I’M GETTING REALLY HOT. IS IT HOT IN HERE? I’M FINE. AREN’T YOU WARM? I’M FINE.” After all was collapsed and stitched, two nurses shoved my leg into the compression stocking and sent me on my way.

Back in my apartment, my oblivious and impossibly self-important roommates both asked, “Why are you home early today? Are you sick?” No, bitches, I had massive surgery and I’m lucky to be alive but it’s OK that you forgot after I’ve told you about thirty times. Wrapped in a blanket and sucking back green tea with honey, I pictured my legs during my ninth month of pregnancy and the image was that of a topographic map. “Now I’m old, ugly, and getting worse,” I indulged myself. And just like that, Ethan called.

Our moms were best friends and we spent all of our summers together on the shores of Long Island. Ethan, the funniest person I know, is my panacea for all things troubling. His timing was impeccable. Instead of slipping into the looming depression coming on, I flung off my blanketed encasement and busily prepared my outfit.

No heels—bad for the vein. No dress—can see the stocking. Pants then. I smacked some make up on my ashen face and slicked my sad hair back with a headband. It was the best I could do. Ethan arrived, with open arms, and we set out for an adventure. While giving him the dramatic play-by-play of the day’s events, Ethan was most taken by the stocking aspect. “Let me see it!”

I inched up my pant leg, and revealed the thickest, oddest flesh colored nylon one has ever seen. And with that, Ethan gripped his stomach, flung his head back with a verging-on-evil laugh, and screamed, “Oh my God! You’re Blanche from the ‘Golden Girls’!”

“Shut up! You’re an asshole! ... But you’re right.”

I was bearing the cross, or nylon, of my incompetent body, all while fabulously dressed and up for a night of dirty martinis. And if I do have to be my own grandmother, I might as well be Blanche—the coolest grandma of them all. She too had lived with a bunch of egocentric gals, never let her glamorous guard down, was a favorite with the guys, and leaned toward the dramatic side of life. She made her uncharted Mecca to Florida and invented the rules as she went. If Blanche could do, so could I. Now if only I could get in touch with my podiatrist for some new inserts…

I vote for me

“I challenge this voter!”

Oh great.

“How am I supposed to know that this woman—“(Mind you, I’m standing right there, listening to this disgruntled voting booth worker question not only my identity, but from the sound of it, my gender…) “—is who she says she is?!”

I wanted to lean into him—while he sat behind his little plastic table and one inch thick glasses—sneer down on his little bald head, and yell, “And how am I supposed to know that you’re mentally stable?” But that would not have gotten me into the voting booth any faster. In fact, that would probably have ended with me being handcuffed and kicking my legs in the air, all while being escorted outside.

“Well, check under Whitman then,” I suggested, after Mr. Happy paged through the Rolodex of A-L and had not found me registered under my maiden name of Finley. And that’s how this whole song and dance started.

I might as well have told Mr. Happy I was planning to tar and feather the voting booths when I admitted I wasn’t quite sure what name I was registered under. It was then he threw his arms up and shouted, “Oh no! She can’t vote today! She doesn’t even know what her name is!”

Luckily, I was smart enough to stay calm and not throw my arms up too and stamp my feet. That is what I would have done in the past. Not this time! This time I made calculated and measured remarks. I explained, “Well, you see, I haven’t changed all of my identification over to my married name yet. We just got married last year and—“

“Last year? So what name do you go by?” Mr. Happy yell-asked me.

I felt like saying, "That's a great question, Mr. Happy! A question I don't really know the answer to. You see, I go by Ms. Finley during the day, but by Mrs. Whitman in my personal matters. My mail comes to Whitman but I love being a Finley... I'm so happy you asked! I'm just so confused about that." But obviously, I didn't explore that bit of irony with him in the moment.

In actuality, I said, "Yes, I was married last year, but not all of my information has been changed yet. I live here, in Queens, with my husband,” I smiled, and turned to point to Curtis, only to see that he was trying to stand off to the side, hide by the voting booth, and let me talk my way out of this mess I had so innocently gotten myself into. All I had to do was look at him to hear what he was thinking: “The only advice the clerk at Town Hall gave you when getting our marriage license was to be consistent. And here we are, not sure what our name is. I’m just sayin’…”

Ugh, I knew he was right. Not only does my driver’s license have my maiden name on it but it also has my mother’s home address—the place I officially moved out of upon going to college seven years ago. Oops! But c’mon, who wants to go to the DMV?

Just when I thought all hope was lost and that Mr. Happy would be sending me packing, three very lovely fellow volunteers swooped in and saved me! “Let’s read the manual, it has every answer to any question you could ever have,” a lovely 80 year-old Irishman informed Mr. Happy.

“What does it matter anyway, what name her driver’s license says? She voted in the Presidential election last year under Whitman. Just let her vote again under her married name!” a maternal 73 year-old vowed for me. I really had the urge at that moment to call her Grandma. I get very emotional and attached during intense moments. And anyone willing to stand up for me always and immediately becomes my best friend in my book.

“C’mon, Mr. Happy. Don’t you remember what it’s like to be a newlywed? You’re changing your life, you’re starting new, and there’s so much to do! And besides, I don’t think this lovely lady is pretending to be someone else,” my third defender chimed in.

Thanks, guys!

The four of us, standing together, creating a pretty solid case for my right to vote, was an impressive sight. Even though I was completely mortified, experiencing stomach palpitations, and compulsively eyeing the exit door, I didn’t back down. I stood my ground and knew I was going to vote for mayor and city comptroller even if it killed me—I was becoming a political activist right before my eyes! Having just come from the gym and running one very terrifying 14 minute mile, I was full of all sorts of emotions: Runner’s high, empowerment, embarrassment, excitement… The feeling was akin to what it would be like if while I led a riot and started setting buildings on fire, someone screams out, "You look so thin and impossibly fresh!" I was unstoppable. I was high.

“Fine, she can vote. Tell her she can go in the booth,” Mr. Happy informed the volunteer standing next to me.

I don’t actually remember for sure, but I felt like we all high-fived and jumped into the air and then freeze-framed. However, I think I just winked at Grandma and slunk behind the black curtain into the booth, mindful that I had caused quite a scene and should just stay mum.

But Mr. Happy touched on a nerve. Yes, I always like a good “fight for my rights” moment, but I wondered: If I don’t know what my name is, then who am I? Maybe I’ve kept my driver’s license true to my college self and in doing so preserved that time in my life. Why haven’t I just marched to the DMV and updated my license to match my new identity? Mr. Happy might be a miserable son of a gun, but he had a point…Hmm.

Yet, even if I haven’t quite navigated this limbo of names I’m in, I do know I’m the kind of person who will ultimately stand tall along the lines of injustice. And in the voting booth of life, isn't that all that really counts?