FEVER BLISTERS AND EX BOYFRIENDS

Picture this:  I’m about to see my college boyfriend for the first time in 15 years.  I’m flying into his town for a book talk and will be staying at his house.  That’s right.  With his wife and kids.  He’s picking me up at the airport now and we’re triangulating where to meet via cell phone. 

 

Background:   This isn’t some prom date kind of boyfriend.  This was my first serious college relationship, my first adult love, the kind of solid, healthy relationship I’d wish for all of my daughters.

 

Disclosure:  We’ve remained in touch for years, and my husband loves him.  I love his wife.  The four of us lived in Northern California back when they first met and before we had kids.  So, if you imagined me starving myself for two months to get down to some kind of skinny jeans fighting weight, it’s not like that. This is a guy who lovingly cleaned my meatloaf splattered vomit off his record collection (and my face) after my 20th birthday celebration.   This is a good guy, the kind of guy that has prompted my husband to regularly remark “You had good taste.”  I’d like to think I still do.

 

Regardless, 15 years without seeing someone and you might be hankering to put your best foot--- or face—forward.   But here was the thing.  A few days earlier I had booked a facial laser treatment, to scrub off all those pre-cancerous sun spots and hope for some new collagen and a more youthful visage. Clearly, I had not thought through the timing of the recovery.

 

So, sit back for a moment and imagine meeting your old love.  Now imagine your face, red and puffy like a broiled tomato, two small, hard, raisin eyes.  If the swelling and the irritation weren’t bad enough, somewhere on the flight across the country my immune system had begun to respond to the procedure the way it does to an extreme sun burn, by forming a fever blister. Except that my face thought this was Armageddon.


This was no one little boo boo.  This was a blooming beard of blisters, a veritable Fu Manchu of herpes tattooed around my lips like a ring of fire.  Have I traumatized you enough yet?  Because let me just lay on the last visual.  The top layer of my skin had begun to peel, which was the desired result of the treatment. But don’t picture tiny little flakes off the bridge of a nose.  I want you to imagine a full Komodo dragon molting, big patches of dry skin hitting the ground with leper colony speed.  Yes, you are probably thinking, these are not optimal conditions under which to see your old boyfriend?  All that was missing was a dowager’s hump and a black tooth.

 

Naturally, I was quick to explain.  Luckily, he is a doctor.  So he was somewhat sympathetic to my plight. At the very least he understood the human body.  I did tell him that I’d been considering an eyelid lift for some time and if he knew anyone in Denver maybe we could book it right now and I could get all the ugly healing drama over with at once.  Adding insult to injury, envision how desperate you have to be to ask your old boyfriend to write you a prescription for cold sore meds.  Did I mention the swollen, burned face and oozing blisters were uncomfortable?  Did I mention it was actually his wife who kindly called it in and drove me to the pharmacy to pick it up?  Did I also mention how much I like her?

  

All of the above either takes a giant pair of stones or a total lack of vanity, neither of which are particularly desirable qualities in a woman.  So I’m not quite sure what this story really says about me. The visual alone is unsettling.

 

If it seems odd to be in that kind of touch with an old boyfriend, I’m in the camp who believes it’s a gift to know people from your past.  Yes, yes, if your ex turned out to be a serial rapist or an Internet porn king, you might want to cut ties.  But I’ve actually kept up with a number of old boyfriends.  There was a solid reason I was attracted to them in the first place and in most cases those reasons are still valid.

 

Listen, I get it.  I understand why people don’t keep in touch.  I know there are sickos and stalkers and people who change dramatically or never get past high school.  I’ve seen those movies.  Lord knows I dated a few ratfinks.  But for the most part, I’m happy to have kept in contact with the good eggs.


We move on, we grow up; we begin to define ourselves and figure out what we want and need in a partner. And all of the people we meet along the way are part of that process of discovery.  There is a sweet nostalgia in connecting with the people we used to be, that freer, younger, less encumbered version of our present selves.  People from our past help us to do that, in admittedly both positive and sometimes negative ways.  Old loves helped to bring us to the place we are now.  My sister calls past boyfriends “the first pancake” – the one you cook and then throw out, the one you use to temper the skillet for the real breakfast.

 

Still, I have a hard time understanding people who are jealous of their spouse’s past relationships, especially the people who predated them.  I am grateful for my husband’s former experiences, his old loves.   He got some great practice time in the field.  The way I think of it is – I won the prize.  I got the ring.  Relax; I want to say to the haters.   But I guess I’m not a very jealous person by nature and neither is he.

 

Recently, I was reminded that my kumbaya approach to the past is not shared by all.  I agreed to meet an old high school and family friend (note= not a boyfriend) for a quick drink during his business trip to New York.   My husband knew where I was, but it was obvious the next morning that he and his wife didn’t share the same level of open communication.

 

I woke up to a series of psycho emails, the Internet equivalent of a jealous woman scrawling lipstick threats on your mirror.  She had clearly been reading his email and monitoring our back and forth as we chose a restaurant location and bantered around some stupid inside jokes from high school.   As I opened each email I read with growing dread the comments she had edited into our correspondence, phrases like “don’t you know he’s married?”  or “isn’t this cute that you are meeting.”  Cue the Hitchcock soundtrack.

 

The level of crazy was so preposterous for a harmless 45-minute beer that at first I was convinced my friend was playing a joke on me.  And then I realized this was dead serious.  Radio silence from my friend.  He may still be tied up in a basement bomb shelter somewhere with a pillowcase over his head. Suffice it to say that kind of behavior was a good reason to cut ties with the past.

 

After I returned from the Denver trip, still slightly swollen but with the fever blisters medicated down to milk moustache size, my friend’s wife sent a copy of what their youngest daughter had written as an exercise in school that next day. “…then I swimmed at the pools and ate S’mores and then we had to go home and see my Dad’s girlfriend Lee.”

 

I can still picture it now, the look of astonishment on his daughters’ sweet faces as I walked in their house, hot sauce-red face, squinting like Popeye minus the corn cob pipe.  I could see their young brains processing how in the world their beloved father had ever given this raggedy assed woman a second look, let alone dated her for two years.  Perhaps it was an act of grace, his eldest daughter must have concluded.  Like a “Make a Wish” foundation experience.

 

And as three sets of eyes flicked between their mother, and me I could almost see the cartoon bubbles above their beautiful heads…. “Thank Heavens Dad picked Mom.”


www.leewoodruff.com   facebook.com/leemwoodruff   twitter@LeeMWoodruff 

Call Me...Maybe?

I hate the phone.  Let me just put that right out there.  Oh sure, I call my sisters and girlfriends to chat, usually when I’m driving or cruising the grocery store aisles.   I like a good old catch-up convo as much as the next gal.  But when expediency is called for, the phone can suck time like a black hole. 


Set aside my skepticism at clutching a mobile device to our brains or the loony appearance of those blinking Vulcan blue earpieces.  What I hate about the phone when conducting business is the socially required chitchat, the lubrication, the “how are the kids” banter that doesn’t allow for cutting to the chase.  Wasn’t this precisely why Al Gore created the Internet --- so we could all be more efficient?


But lately it seems that even email is failing me.  I’m drowning in the sheer volume, suffocating in the volleys. Some conversations and decisions seem to require so many back and forths, so much cc-ing and reply-all-ing, that my knickers are twisted.  We are a society of over- communicators.  We text while we paint our toenails, we tweet while we’re getting frisky.  We feel a sense of rising panic if we haven’t responded to someone in 24 hours.

Good old-fashioned email can plunge you into hot water, if you’re not careful.   The written word lacks tone or inflection, there’s no indication that you are joshing (other than that silly smiley face symbol). Even a well-intentioned breezy missive can sound like you are dead serious, and a serious email can read as if a razor is poised at your wrist.  


Ooops.  It seems I’ve just offended someone with my sloppily dashed email.  But OMG, WTF?  I’d used LOL, added a smiley face and plenty of exclamation marks to lighten it all up.  Sigh.  More time spent on clarification, apologies and back–pedaling.  Now a phone call to hear our voices, palpate the hurt, define the intentions and un-do the damage.  And finally, are we good?  We’re good. OK. Thumbs up.  We like each other on Facebook again. 

Suddenly I’m nostalgic for my old black cord phone, the one I pulled into my childhood bedroom to whisper about cute boys.   A phone call back then had weight, carried a certain importance.  It was almost the equivalent of a written letter now, as quaint as composing your Santa list from the Sears & Roebuck catalogue. 

One of my favorite Nora Ephron essays is “The Six Stages of E-Mail.”  In the first stage she describes her excitement and infatuation at the new method of communication.  This gives way to her confusion over excessive spam for retail and personal growth opportunities like penis enlargement.  Note - my husband once changed his email address for this reason and let’s not go into the understandable insecurities this can breed when you’re a male recipient.  In the next stage, Ephron is overwhelmed by her email and finally the last section is simply entitled “Call Me.” 

 

 

Clicking on my email icon is like powering up a ball machine on a tennis court.  My returns are faster and the replies now shorter.  Anyone who emails me has to live with the fact that I don’t take the time to spell check. It’s my tiny stab at insurrection, a minimal but important time saving device.  To me, email is the written equivalent of a verbal response.  Of course there are exceptions, but you know you’re a friend if you have to read my messages fone- et-i- call-ee.

Sadly, from the looks of my inbox, email is here to stay.  And after years of attempting to be a nice, polite girl, dutifully answering even unsolicited emails, I’m getting ruthless.  I’m teaching myself to resist UFR (unnecessary further response) and to press delete when I see the FNOD’s (Forward to ten friends Now - Or Die a mysterious death within 24 hours).  I no longer send replies that say “great”, “OK,” “done,”  “thank you” or “really?” It’s liberating.  And frankly, do these people even remember they had the last word?  Did they care?  And don’t get me started on RAA (reply-all abuse).  Emailing someone is like accessing porn on the Internet.  Even a child can do it.  

I’m not sure exactly how I’ll solve this.  It’s unrealistic to assume I can throw my devices out the car window and walk away from the burning wreckage.  But I’m working on a healthier balance. 

But the next time we’re trying to set up a lunch date and its taking seven replies, don’t be surprised if you hear the phone ring.  That will be me— and please don’t be offended if I fail to enquire about your parent’s health. 




www.leewoodruff.com   facebook.com/leemwoodruff   twitter@LeeMWoodruff 

GIVING THEM THE BIRD

Most folks are eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving, talking nostalgically about family recipes and pumpkin pie. But I just can’t get excited about the turkey.  This is not simply because I have to prepare it.  It’s because I hate turkey.   Frankly, there must be a bunch of us, secret turkey subversives, who just nod and keep our faces even when folks salivate about the big bird on its sacred day.

If Ben Franklin had gotten his way, and the turkey had been selected as our national symbol, gracing coins and crests, maybe it would have been off limits as a food group.  No one I’m aware of eats American eagle. But somehow the turkey has become the edible symbol of our most fundamental American holiday. 

I’m daydreaming of assembling a holiday dinner this week that would be an all-inclusive, anti-turkey Thanksgiving.  What could be more America in the 2000’s than a melting pot meal?  A little sushi appetizer, some Chicken Tiki Masala (now practically the national dish of Great Britain), rice and beans… you get the picture.  Shouldn’t we create something that better reflects the cuisine of our country’s present demographics rather than retreading what some starving immigrants trash picked one late November in Massachusetts?

Sure, go ahead and toss your recipes at me, your turkey deep fryer, your perfectly browned breast draped with bacon, your whole garlic clove in the cavity.  You won’t convince me.   These Band-Aids are the equivalent of throwing a little KY jelly (or better yet Zestra) at the real problem; beneath that sultry skin, turkey is a mostly dry bird.  Even the alleged juicy brown drumstick mostly disappoints.

 

Maybe I dislike turkey because it’s the kissing cousin to chicken, which was forever ruined for me by my mother’s weekly skinless boneless breast dinners, incinerated and dehydrated under the broiler with a dab of margarine.   And then, if I had any hope of reconciliation with chicken as an adult, it has been beaten out of me by the countless frozen breasts with fake tattooed BBQ stripes that rest on lumps of rice or lettuce at every ballroom event lunch, banquet or conference meal.  Chicken is the go-to entre, the little black dress of mass meals.  

But, look, you say, look at all the fab accompaniments there are for turkey!  There are sauces and gravies, herbs and cranberry goop and citrus reductions.  Save your breath.  These only mask the issue, like feminine deodorant spray.  Be honest, a basic slice off the breast is like chewing through gypsum board.  The only possible way I enjoy turkey is a Thanksgiving leftover dark meat sandwich with fresh bread and lots of mayo (my husband would argue here for Miracle Whip.)

I don’t like picturing the farm to table journey of my bird.  We Americans don’t fancy the idea of getting a gander at where our food really comes from.  We’re more comfortable with the concept of shrink-wrap, dry aged, butchered cuts or ground meat.  But with a turkey, you can’t avoid imagining the living animal, even though by the time it gets to you, it more resembles an open casket viewing.  There it is, nude and embarrassed, hunched in forgiveness on your platter, minus a few extremities.  A turkey on the table is so… whole…. so intact. 

We all grew up with illustrations of hatchet-wielding pilgrims clomping around in those buckled shoes after the turkey.  As a child I was scarred by the tale of my mother’s family cook in Arkansas who wrung the chicken’s neck bare handed or chopped it off on a block while the rest of it flopped around a few seconds longer before collapsing.   I think of this image when I pull that old candy-cane neck out of the bird’s body cavity, where its been stuffed like some mafia message from “The Godfather.” And where do the feet go? What the hell happens to the feet?  Do they get shipped to China where they are considered a delicacy? Forget I asked, I don’t want to know.   And I don’t want to contemplate the image of mechanized plucking. Turkey feathers must be the poultry equivalent of a woman’s unwanted facial hair. 

 

Rolling my cart down the grocery aisle during the holidays, I am both repelled and drawn to the jumbled cases of plastic wrapped white skinned turkeys of varying weights, their knees drawn up in a yoga child’s pose. They look like a horror version of those Anne Geddes photographs and greeting cards, the ones with the naked babies in groups or dressed as single flowers and ladybugs.  Unlike the babies, the turkey skin has a mottled, bluish cast, all pimpled and dimpled.  It’s when I reach into the case and see the tiny pool of blood in the packaging that I ask myself what’s wrong with stuffed shells for a change of pace?  Why not honor the contribution of Italian Americans this Thanksgiving season?  Anyone?

By most accounts, the turkey is a mean, ugly bird.  And dumb as a stone.  Maybe anything that dumb deserves to die.  Evolution and natural selection haven’t helped it out any.  We have a pack of wild turkeys in my suburban NY town that claimed the median of a highway strip as their “hang turf” last year.  A hundred yards further and they could have had a nice little stretch of woodland to themselves. But no, these dimwits spent months playing chicken (pardon the pun) with the cars as they exited the interstate.   About every other week there would be a mound of feathery road kill on the off-ramp.   Honestly, any animal whose cry is “gobble gobble” is asking for trouble.

But like the turkey, I’m a big talker.  I dream about a turkey-free Thanksgiving, but I’ll never really take action.  My family wouldn’t allow it.  If it were my call, I’d eliminate the other colorless foods that have become a tradition in our family, my mother-in-law’s corn and oysters casserole, the stuffing and mashed potatoes, which will sit like wallpaper paste in our stomachs, the rutabaga, the white rolls and then the gravy made with parts that have been sitting inside the turkey’s ass in a bag (don’t get me started about the word “gizzards.”)  Once it’s been cooked to perfection it all looks like nursing home steam table food.  No teeth required. 

 

In the end it’s the ritual.  It’s about all of us coming together.  It’s about tradition, no matter how much I might daydream about a more sumptuous menu.  And regardless of the time invested to plan, shop and prep, my loved ones will clean their plates in roughly 20 minutes following the word “Amen.”

They will stand up, groan and stretch and return to their touch football game, their headphones and texting, their X-box war game or their custom couch indentation in front of the flat screen TV.  We sisters will clear and soak, load and dry, and lay out dessert, as unquestioning of the routine as the wives in the Bin Laden complex.

 

 

But none of us complain.  We love one another’s company, the addition of a displaced person at the table, the stray college buddy, the big city boyfriend, the sense of completion that all of our chickees are back in the nest for this long weekend and we get to mother the whole lot.  And for one day, at least, turkey and all, the world feels in its place.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

www.leewoodruff.com   facebook.com/leemwoodruff   twitter@LeeMWoodruff