In case you read yesterday's Birmingham News and were wondering what topics other than Facebook, my love life, why I always lose my car keys and how much I should spend on foundation and eye liner that I like to grossly over-think and over-analyze, pro wrestling happens to be one of them. (P.S. This is not really a kid-friendly post.)
I hope you all had a lovely weekend!
Be prepared. It may be hard to respect me after reading this list. (If you had any respect for me to begin with.)
1. Bought Swim Goggles
Since I was going to spend most of the July 4th weekend in the pool, it only seemed logical for the SO and I to pick up some pool toys. We bought floats (or really one float because I had a deflated one back at my house). I got an air pump because I don't like to blow up floats (and blowing up floats seems beyond the extent of the SO's love for me). Then, we grabbed some goggles because after awhile that chlorine really irritates my eyes, and if I can't see underwater, I run into walls. The choices are few and far between.
Unfortunately, this purchase only reminded me of the same lesson I learned in a much more painful setting almost 20 years ago -- no woman, adolescent or grown, looks good in a pair of swim goggles. I don't know how anyone held back the laughter.
I'm sure many of you are wondering what became of my pole-aerobics class. (Or, you're not, either way, you're getting the answer.) I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this, but I only made it through half of my stripper classes. I could build an elaborate argument about feminist principles or coming to some incredible revelation about female politics and my body, whether or not women should embrace or reject their own objectification, etc.
However, the truth as to why I had to give it all up is as simple as this: bruises.
At one point, my knees were black. Bruises ran from the arches of my feet to my inner thighs. I was wearing long pants constantly to hide all of the marks on my legs. (This is not an easy thing to do in the Alabama summers. It wasn't quite as bad as the August I had to wear mock turtlenecks to class because of an unfortunate hickey, but it was uncomfortable.) Even three weeks after my last attempt at the pole, I found the remnants of a pale brown bruise running along my thigh.
Of course, there were a few other factors -- a lot of them having to do with the fact that I sucked at the exercise. When asked to climb the pole, I couldn't even get on the pole, much less move my body once I was wrapped around it. I had hoped for rock hard arms in time for my sister's wedding. Instead, I was facing a black and blue body and the very real chance that I would never lift my arms above my shoulders again. Eventually, I had to decide -- pain and visible injury or perfecting the c-stand.
I picked the former.
In all of my musings about Camp McDowell
We covered that I’m not the
greatest swimmer. (I do love the water though, I’m just more of a lazy
river/"let’s float this one out with a cocktail" kind of gal.) Well, I also happen to have a
little trouble with heights. I think it began when I broke both of my arms
falling out of a tree house, but with the anxiety in this brain of mine, it’s
entirely possible the phobia would have come about regardless.
(Technically speaking, I think I have what is known as
obsessive bad thoughts rather than a phobia. I can be in high spaces – I didn’t
miss out on the top of the Hancock building when I spent the summer in Chicago,
but all I think about when I’m too far off the ground is falling. It’s pretty
much the only notion/image that runs through my head once I’m more than 10 feet
off the ground. Once I saw Clueless, even the third floor of the mall could
make me a little sick to my stomach. Am I the only person in
But, you know, I’ve done a lot of work to understand myself better in the past few months. I turned 30. I have a prescription for Xanax. Surely, I thought, I can handle the high dive now.
I was not a child who wanted to learn how to swim.
In the first swimming classes my mother ever took me to, every time they made us put our heads under the water, I would go under for about a second, immediately raise my head back up, climb out of the pool and rush towards the nearest dry towel to wipe all of the water off of my face.
(If I had grown up in a time like today when they toss two-year-olds into the pool assuming their natural instincts will take over and cause them to swim or at least dog paddle, I probably would have sunk, at best, and drowned, at worst. Nothing about me was interested in swimming.)
This isn't to say that I didn't like the pool. I just preferred the baby pool, water wings, floaties and any other space in which my feet could be placed firmly on the ground while my head remained free to breathe as much oxygen as I pleased.
Truthfully, I didn't even like the ball pit at Showbiz because I was always a little afraid I might be able to drown in that, too. (What if I became trapped under all those colorful balls and no one could hear my cries for help?) I would walk the perimeter of the ball pit to get to the slide rather than going straight through. On the day I did finally fall in, there were a few minutes of flailing until I realized that I could touch the bottom of that space, too. I calmed down and eventually started to act like something of a normal kid in that token and ticket extravaganza. (You can only imagine what a growing up moment that was for me.)
Nothing my parents could say would get me in the big pool.
Continue reading "In Which Laurel Refuses to Leave the Baby Pool" »
I think most little girls go through a phase when they're obsessed with horses. I'm not sure what it is about horses that's so fascinating when you have two X chromosomes and are under the age of 10, but there you have it.
At five, my favorite show to watch after school was Black Beauty. (At least, I think that's what it was called. There was a horse. It was black. It may or may not have been the main character, but it came on after Today's Special, and that's what I called it.) I had many My Little Ponies in addition to a score of off-brand plastic horses that I also liked to gallop across the living room floor. I even did my own horse impersonation that involved neighing. (I can only imagine now how annoying that must have been.)
A few years later, my horse obsession still strong but no longer My-Little-Pony-focused, I was a dedicated viewer or Mr. Ed on Nick at Nite. I watched that crazy talking horse every single night, and every single night, I hoped for Wilbur's sake that someone else would just hear that horse talk. Oh, that wily Mr. Ed -- he was a stinker.
Continue reading "A Horse is a Horse, Of Course, Of Course" »
For those of you anxiously awaiting an update on the Pole Yourself Thin/Stripper Aerobics class, here it comes:
1. I cannot wear shorts or skirts because there are bruises that run from my feet all the way up my thighs. I have bruises on my biceps and forearms. If the SO didn't look like such a sweetheart, I worry people would assume he's been beating me. Maybe the near-translucently-pale aren't meant for this line of work. Maybe someone should invent a foam floor. It could be like that memory foam mattress stuff. I'm just saying ... I'd want one even if I wasn't into pole dancing. It just sounds so pleasant.
2. My upper body has no desire to support the weight of my lower body whatsoever. There's a move called the "cartwheel" in which you use your arms to pull your legs up and over to the other side of the pole. My feet want to stay planted just where they are, and my arms want it that way, too. Neither half is willing to give, and neither half listens to a single message sent by my brain.
For the first time ever, I accused the SO of thievery the other day.
"Did you hide my black pants," I said, hands on hips and a very stern look on my face. For more than a week now, my favorite yoga pants have been missing (not that I actually practice yoga in them -- they just happen to have the perfect amount of stretch). When they first went missing, I just assumed there was a load of laundry I had misplaced. Four days in, I began to suspect more sinister motives.
I thought that I might have broken the SO. Maybe a man can only see his partner in so many pairs of velour pants, sweats and clothes with drawstring waists before he has to take action. Before he has to destroy.
"I did not get rid of your freelance pants," he said. "Freelance pants" is a term he stole from a local paper's cartoon to describe the lounge wear that became much more prominent once I started primarily working from home.
Last night, I finally tried what was probably the hottest exercise trend of 2006 -- stripper aerobics. (I'm only four years behind. If you saw the cell phone I carry, you'd think it was far, far worse.)
In many ways, I feel guilty even talking or writing about my "Pole Yourself Thin" class. I'm pretty sure my father has spent the last 30+ years of his life doing everything in his power to keep me away from anything even remotely resembling a stripper pole, and yet, here I am, paying a woman to teach me moves likes the "seahorse," "pole push off" and "stripper legs."
(In my defense, it was a girlfriend's idea, and it seemed like a fun way to work out in addition to the possible makings of a good story. I'll do a lot for a good story. Plus, you wear normal workout clothes, so no one needs to get too carried away out there.)
When we first arrived, we chose stage names for class, so for two hours yesterday, I was Lola Luscious. ("Lola" is also a name my younger, drunken self enjoyed going by after two a.m. This is really something that probably should not be spoken of, so I'll move on.)
The Mills are a competitive bunch.
We pull out rule books when there's a question of awarding points in board games, we do not believe in do-overs and we never, ever let anyone win. In general, it makes us a tough, formidable lot when it comes to a game of Balderdash or charades. It does not, however, always make it fun to be a kid in our family.
When I say that we don't let anyone win, I really mean anyone. It does not matter if you are three or thirty, if there's a chance to take you in tic-tac-toe, Scrabble or even Candy Land, we seize it. Once during a game of bocce on my great aunt's lawn, I thought that maybe I should change my throws a little so one of the children could win. (I was twenty-eight to their five, six and eight after all. And, yes, they all probably could have taken me on their own, since this particular game did involve throwing and sports stuff, but let's leave that off the table for now.) Then I looked over and realized that my cousin had just knocked his own son's ball out of the competition, and I figured it was our usual "no holds barred" approach to all gaming.
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