Bright Lights, Big Ass Part 3

"I see all that time with the thesaurus has really paid off." Oh! Straight to the heart! He sees I look stricken and his voice softens. "Listen, I'll make you a deal-I've got to get this crucial part done. But I'll talk to you when I finish, okay?"

"I guess so."

"See you in a while."

I continue to hover next to him. He scoots down one barstool to get away from me. "For now, you have to find something else to do. Maybe talk to your imaginary online friends."

I cross the room to lie upside down on the couch and begin to kick my feet against the wall. It is Time to Whine. "They aren't make-belieeeeeve. Besides, I already did that. Now I'm booored. If you won't talk to me-which I'm pretty sure is a violation of those marriage vows that guy in the casino made us repeat-then help me find stuff to doooo."

Because we're on a budget, I haven't really left the house for a while. And since I've not been out in the world having new experiences, I've got almost nothing to say. I'm bored and uninspired. I feel like I did in grade school during our vocabulary tests when I forgot a definition-I could write the equivalent of "The girl could not think of a way to use 'acrimonious' in a sentence," but I imagine that would please my editor as much as it did my fourth-grade teacher. Which is not at all.

"Watch some TV."

"There's nothing on but sports and soap operas. Blah."

He throws his hands up and gestures at me in disgust. "You realize this"-he taps the counter with his pointer finger-"this right here is why we aren't having children." We plan to remain child-free not because we hate them but because we fear what our combined genetics may create. We think our kid would be some sort of supervillain, or at the very least have the kind of sarcastic mouth that would ensure he or she would never date and would thus live with us forever. (However, we reserve the right to adopt a kid from a foreign country if we ever have a big yard and no riding mower.) I throw another pillow at him.

"Okay, okay, you obviously aren't going to get out of my hair until you find something to do. Why don't you go to the gym?"

I sit up straight. "I'll never be that bored."

"I don't know then, um, how about...make dinner?"

"We don't have any food."

Fletch rests his face in his hands. "I don't know, maybe read a book?"

"I read them all." The problem is I go through books like tissues. I pretty much inhale them in one or two sittings because I read so fast. Generally this is good, except occasionally I end up missing important details, and thus, the entire point. For example, in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, I glossed over the bit on the first page where it mentions Jake Barnes has a weird war injury and has been rendered impotent. So, instead of spending my time with the book marveling at everything that makes Hemingway an American treasure-the majesty of his phrasing, his ability to paint a complex picture with an economy of words, the way every tale turns both epic and tragic, yet ultimately uplifting-I interpreted his story as though it were a pink-jacketed, shoe-covered bit of chick lit. I scratched my head over why Jake and that Brett girl from the cool crowd didn't just do it already and cheered him on from the sidelines with my helpful suggestions, like "Dude! She totally likes you!" and "You're way funny and cute-you should so go for it."

(As soon as you're done calling me a philistine, I'll continue.) Anyway, now that I think about it, reading sounds like kind of a good idea. I mean, maybe the new Sedaris will inspire me? "Okay, yeah," I tell Fletch, "yeah, I'll do that. Thanks for the suggestion! But I'll need to get some new books. Can I have two hundred dollars? I want to restock my bookshelves."

"Sure. Of course, if I give you two hundred dollars, we can't buy groceries. But going hungry would almost be worth it to get you out of the house."

"Then how am I supposed to get something to read?"

"You can either spend less than two hundred dollars or go to the library."

"Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at the Palatine Public Library confiscated my card after they found out I'd moved out of town almost a decade ago. Sucks, too, because it was a really good library. Didja ever see their mystery section? Stacks and stacks of books, far as the eye can see."

He closes his laptop and begins to gather his folders. "And...this is why I drink. Do me a favor and go to one of the Chicago Public Libraries. Not only are there branches in every neighborhood, but the one downtown takes up two city blocks and is nine stories tall. Surely they will have something you like. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish this proposal so I, you know, don't get fired."

"Hmm, the Chicago library, you say? This intrigues me. But I don't have a library card. What do I-hey, hey, hey! Where are you going?"

As I watch Fletch climb the stairs, I make a decision.

The library it is.

As soon as I figure out how to get a card.

Here's an interesting lesson-when you call the library with an important question, talk to the librarian, not one of the little thugs who's there doing community service.

Why?

Because the librarian will give you accurate information about obtaining a library card, and won't just blithely agree when you ask if it's necessary to bring in a utility bill with your name on it in order to prove residency.

And thus, you won't make the mistake of canceling your husband's natural gas account and opening a new one in your name in order to do so.

And this won't give the local gas monopoly the option to claim they have no idea about swapping out an established account for a new one, and so they simply disconnect your husband's service, per his9 request.

And then you won't have to go fourteen days without natural gas until the whole mess gets sorted out because their technicians are busy and if you're the kind of dumba.s.s who accidentally cancels service based solely on the advice of a juvenile delinquent, then it's not really an emergency on their part.

The nice thing is, if you have to lose a utility, gas is the best.10 Having no electric service is pretty traumatic, especially if you've just stocked the freezer with a Costco pork-chop run. And not only can't you operate the AC or keep your wine chilled, you can't watch TV or vacuum...unless you figure out how to burrow under your deck and over the fence with an extension cord and tap into your neighbor's power supply. Which I do not recommend, unless the circ.u.mstances are dire.11 Losing phone service is no big deal because I couldn't care less if I never called anyone again. I'm generally loath to chat on the phone, and rarely answer it when it rings. I figure if I need to talk to someone, then I'll simply e-mail to arrange a lunch. However, our DSL runs through the phone line and I need Internet access like I need a heartbeat. Ditto on satellite, because, really, why would Jack Bauer bother to save the world if I'm not watching?

Gas provides our heat, but we barely need it because this place is a three-story brick sweatbox. Until the thermometer dipped below forty degrees outside, we had to run the air conditioner. It's in the high thirties outside right now, yet it's a balmy seventy-two degrees in my office.

The bonus to our not having gas is I'm no longer forced to yell at Fletch for cranking up the thermostat when he thinks I'm not looking. Good G.o.d, you'd think the man was a reptile or something-he won't be happy 'til he has a steaming hot rock to lie on in the baking desert sun.

I wonder, though, if I'm simply insensitive to the cold? After Fletch moved in with me in college, he kept complaining about how the apartment was freezing. Except for the ice on the wall of the shower, I didn't see a problem, even after living there two and a half years. One day he couldn't take the cold or my stubborn streak anymore and he brought home a thermometer. We found the temperature was a consistent forty-five degrees. I suggested he borrow my L.L. Bean Norwegian sweater (cozy!) and he suggested we get it fixed. But once I thought about it, I became angry on principle at the apartment being cold, considering I paid for heat as part of my rent. A couple of quick calls-first to my landlord, and then to Action News-and the situation was resolved.12 Anyway, our stove is gas, and without the benefit of burners I can't cook those elaborate pork-chop dinners that have definitely become my least favorite part of the Fletch Works a Real Job While I Stay Home and Attempt to Write deal. However, I'm still in charge of meals, so I have to get creative after Fletch complains about all the microwave soup and hot dogs I try to force on him. The subsequent All McDonald's, All the Time episode does not go well either, regardless of how it may have worked out for Morgan Spurlock. So I buy six kinds of freshly sliced meat and three interesting cheeses from the deli and get in touch with my Inner Sandwich. I also give the George Foreman grill a whirl, with mixed results.13 However, this week I've discovered the easiest-to-prepare, most satisfying meal yet. You may now address me as Jen, Queen of the Crock Pot! I throw meat, vegetables, and some dry soup mix in the crock around nine a.m., stir a couple of times throughout the day, and by six p.m., voil! Dinner is served. Fletch picked out the recipes, so he's happy, too.

I'd almost be tempted to not get the gas turned back on, especially because I'm so terrified of explosions. Seriously, it seems like every week you see some idiot standing outside next to a gaping hole that used to be his bungalow, saying, "Yeah, I kinda smelled gas, but I didn't think nothin' of it." Granted, I have a lot of irrational fears, such as opening the toilet lid and finding a severed head, drinking a can of soda and swallowing the fingertip or hypodermic needle floating inside, and being killed by a gigantic falling icicle. But this last one actually happens every year! I used to save the newspaper >clippings about the incidents until Fletch found them and laughed at me.

The only problem is no gas equals no hot water and our tap water is cold. Like fresh from a mountain stream in a beer commercial cold. Like, "h.e.l.lo, hypothermia, nice to meet you!" cold. While we wait for the gas servicemen to get around to us, Fletch has been showering at his gym. He told me I could get a temporary members.h.i.+p, but I'm not sure I want to run on a treadmill solely to make it look like I'm not there just to use their shower. Until I take that plunge,14 I've come up with an in-house ablution solution.

I fill the tub halfway with freezing tap water and I let it come up to room temperature. Then I dump in pots of boiling water I've heated in the microwave and the electric kettle. The upside is all the heating and pouring makes me feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder in her Little Condo on the Prairie, but the downside is it takes a good two hours of pouring and dumping and I can only get tiny s.n.a.t.c.hes of writing done between boil cycles.

But so far, it's still better than going to the gym.

The gas man cometh tomorrow, which is good because if I have to fill that G.o.dd.a.m.ned tub one more time, something very bad is going to happen, like me going to a cardio funk cla.s.s. I haven't felt fully clean in almost two weeks. Yes, I normally love baths and I take them all the time, but for reasons more literary than hygienic.15 I will actually shower after sitting in the tub because I hate the idea of rinsing in dirty water. At present, I feel all filmy and oily and I'd be willing to commit a felony for five minutes of hot running water.

I'm almost ready to brave step aerobics when I remember a place on Belmont Ave. Back when I consumed spa services like coffee and Prada bags, I had a bead on every good facility in the city. I'd heard tons of enthusiastic praise about Thousand Waves Spa for Women on Belmont, although I'd never gone. Their specialties were herbal wraps and ma.s.sages, whereas I was more of a facial and pedicure kind of girl. I never got comfortable with the idea of people touching me and not accomplis.h.i.+ng anything (for example, sloughing off excess skin), and now the idea of a ma.s.sage makes me a bit squeamish. (It goes without saying whatever service I purchased entailed wearing a full set of underwear.) However, I also remembered this place sold spa pa.s.ses, and for $20 you got to indulge in their Jacuzzi, redwood sauna, eucalyptus steam room, lockers, beauty products, new age tea, and shower facilities, exactly what I need today. With a quick phone call I verify this information. Confirmed, I shove my swimsuit in a bag, and off I go.

I'm greeted at the door of this j.a.panese-style spa and leave my shoes next to all the others lined up against the wall. The receptionist talks about how this place is a calm oasis and their goal is to help me relax and find balance. They ask that I respect the other patrons by refraining from cell-phone use and keeping my voice down. "No problem!" I heartily agree before clamping my hand over my too-loud mouth. "Sorry!" I whisper.

I make my way down the long hall and am greeted by the most wonderful fragrances-fruity floral body wash, clean linen-scented candles, tangy, sinus-opening eucalyptus, smoky wood warmed by the sauna, and the chemical bite of the hot tub's chlorine. To most people, chlorine's kind of a repulsive smell, but for those of us who spent their summers submerged, it's as pleasant as a sunny day when your only ch.o.r.e is to lie on a raft until you feel like riding your bike to the pro shop to buy a new Izod.16 After an extra-soapy preliminary shower, I ease myself into the hundred-and-twenty-degree Jacuzzi, wallowing up to my ears. I bring the book Wicked with me as it's already misshapen from too many spills into the bath. The Jacuzzi is huge and I'm able to float in the very center, spreading my arms wide, without touching any of the sides. I look like the Vitruvian Man-if he were wearing a pink-and-black Miraclesuit, that is. As the bubbles begin to buffer me against the sides, I feel clean down to my very soul.

Since I'm here, I may as well give my pores a treat, so I leave the tub and enter the sauna. I grab a cold drink and lay down my towel before ladling water over the hot rocks. The stones hiss and pop and the room practically reverberates with heat. I take a washcloth filled with icy water and wipe all the toxins off my face. I squeeze it over my shoulders and the water evaporates before it even hits the wooden bench.

The great irony here is I hit the cold-water-plunge shower between services, and it's the exact same temperature as the water I'm paying $20 to avoid at home.

The heavily scented steam room is a soppy slice of paradise. I breathe in as deeply as I can, and I can practically feel the little bitty alveoli widening. When I was in sixth grade I had to be hospitalized for a severe case of pneumonia-ever since then, my lungs have felt tight. But today after spending so much time in the steam room, air trapped since the Carter administration comes out when I exhale.

Even the plain old shower is plain old terrific with all the water pressure and fine a.s.sortment of scented body products. And yet the experience is just shy of ecstasy.

Why?

Too much naked!

Everywhere I look there's, gah!-more exposed flesh. And I am just not a naked person. I'll happily wear a bathing suit on the world's most crowded beach and feel okay about myself, so it's not so much a body image thing. Pretty much it's an uncomfortable-with-naked thing. Also, I'd prefer to avoid your cooties,17 and the best way to do that is to keep as many layers of spandex between us as possible. Point? If I glance up from my book and notice your Brazilian wax headed toward me, don't be surprised when I f.u.c.king fly out of the hot tub. Because, really? I can live a long, happy life without ever knowing you've shaved your pubic hair into a clever shape. And your *shudder* piercings? Well, those should be between you, your physician, and the guy who works the metal detector at the airport. (I've adopted a strict Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and For G.o.d's Sake, Don't Show policy.) I can't help it-I'm extremely modest. When I was a kid, I'd put on a bathing suit to play with Barbies in the tub. As an adult, nary a single Vegas hotel Jacuzzi has seen my pasty white rear end, even when I'm staying alone. (Yes, room service thinks it's hilarious when I tell them "Come in" and I'm floating in the giant tub wearing a one-piece. But I don't want to drip on the floor or slip on the marble and that wine's not going to serve itself.) (Shut up. I tip well.) Even during my most trash-can-punch-soaked sorority days, I never crowded in an open fraternity bathroom and peed in tandem with all my sisters.

I think spas are supposed to have a bit of an "Amazons at Paradise Island" vibe to them and that's all right, I guess.18And I totally see how someone would prefer not to sweat all over her $125 Miraclesuit while sitting in the steam room-considering all the struts and trusses they contain, they'd probably rust. I even get that there's something incredibly liberating and primordial about floating nude in the hot tub, yet there's still no way I'm going to do it, so please don't give me the "it's perfectly natural" speech. Bowel movements are also perfectly natural, but you'll forgive me if I don't want to take one in the center of Nordstrom's shoe department.

But these women who are walking from one service to the next without benefit of a towel? Un! Comfortable! I grudgingly understand if you want to scoot from the hot tub to the sauna without dampening your robe. Personally, I wouldn't do it; however, this is totally appropriate behavior. You know, naked now, nice warm, dry robe later. So I would probably get in trouble for violating everyone's calm if I were to yell, "Cover your shame, d.a.m.n it!" And yet the temptation is large.

I feel about as clean as I can get without actually shucking off a layer of epidermis, so I decide to spend my last half hour in the Quiet Room. Yeah, I'd like to remain in the Jacuzzi, but I just can't take any more naked because, really, how do you not look? As compet.i.tive as I am, I've been comparing myself to everyone else here and so far I am not happy with the results. I do have a better figure than that one chick, but it's only because she's at least seventy and had a mastectomy. Yep, you may have beat cancer, but I beat you!19 I towel off and put on my underwear before wrapping my robe tightly around me. I walk down the stairs to the dim, serene Quiet Room, where everyone is delightfully covered in layers of white terry cloth. Wicker chairs with big squashy cus.h.i.+ons are scattered throughout the large room, with lots of s.p.a.ce between them in order to foster peace and serenity. I grab an Us Weekly from the magazine rack and a cup of organic green tea, swirling in lots of honey. Save for a faint bit of whale music, the room is so still I can practically hear my heartbeat.

Magazine unopened, I sit and sip the scalding tea. As I silently reflect on the day, I have to laugh at myself. G.o.d, how did I ever get so uptight? I mean, I really need to (a) relax, and, barring that, at least (b) learn to mind my own business. What right do I have to be uncomfortable if someone decides to shed her clothing before getting in a well-chlorinated, single-s.e.x hot tub? This place isn't exactly a set for Girls Gone Wild, so it's not like anything untoward is going to happen once people have derobed. Grandma is not about to shake her remaining breast at the camera. And who died and made me the Clothing-Always Police? No one here's done a thing wrong, yet I have the nerve to sit in judgment based on my own ridiculous prejudices. It's not fair and it's not right and I recognize that. And I'm more than a little ashamed of myself.

Resolved: Naked is a natural state and totally appropriate in a spa setting.

And I am fine with that.

For you.

I sit back and enjoy my tea, pleased at the idea of possibly being a better person.

However, when some random girl, naked as a jaybird, strolls into the Quiet Room of the Thousand Waves Spa and spends ten minutes bent over right in front of me with her little brown starfish waving h.e.l.lo to G.o.d and everyone while she paws through the magazine rack in search of the most current issue of the New Yorker, please know the line between "appropriate spa behavior" and "graphic peep show" has been crossed.

And if the air disturbed by my resulting scream causes yet another Indonesian tidal wave, well...I'm sorry.

But it's totally Fletch's fault.

To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work From: Subject: more tales from a terrible wife Setting: Skybox at Wrigley Field, last Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

Fletch: Our wives are going to die when they find out who we met.

Jeff: They'll go apes.h.i.+t. My wife watches every week.

Fletch: Jen watches a lot, too.

Jeff: You know what we should do? Let's not tell them-we'll wait until they see the pictures.

Fletch: Good idea. I'm sure Jen's reaction will be priceless.

Fast-forward to today at the Costco photo booth, 4:30 p.m.

Me: These pictures are very nice, sweetie.

Fletch: (picking one out of the stack) And what do you think of this one?

Me: Your s.h.i.+rt is cute.

Fletch: (trying to suppress a smile) Uh-huh? And?

Me: And what?

Fletch: Anything else you want to say?

Me: Your hair looks nice.

Fletch: And?

Me: Um, you aren't quite as bloated as those photos from the Bears game where it looks like you swallowed a whole keg?

Fletch: And??

Me: (glancing at the photo again) Who's the little guy? Is he one of your clients, too?

Fletch: Does he look familiar?

Me: Kind of. Wait, is that...is that...Ferris? My old boss from when I worked at that bar in college?

Fletch: No. Look and think. You know him.

Me: Errr...one of your account managers? Although it seems like if he were entertaining clients, he should have dressed a bit more professionally.

Fletch: (exasperated) No, it's James Denton.

(silence) Fletch: From Desperate Housewives?

(silence) Fletch: Which I know you watch because you make me watch it with you?

(silence) Fletch: The plumber??

Me: Oh, okay. I didn't recognize him without Teri Hatcher attached to his face. Yeah, I see it now.

Fletch: That's it? That's all you have to say?

Me: I guess I didn't realize he was scrawny. No wonder those housewives are so desperate.