Everything looks better in Spanish doesn’t it? And what that means is “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels”, and one week ago I was getting ready to perform my first show there. How time flies. It’s all gone by so quickly – the stress that no one would come to the show, that I would forget my lines and embarrass myself, that if anyone came and if I managed not to forget then they would hate the show anyway. And then before you know it – it’s over and I am back home.
I know most of my New York friends have nothing nice to say about LA but I came back with a love hangover. I have had a crush on LA for years. Being a huge fan of Hollywood and movies like ‘LA Confidential’, and ‘Chinatown’, as well as of shows like “Six Feet Under’ and ‘Entourage’ I just love the way the city looks.
We stayed in the Melrose district where the Spanish-Colonial (thanks Diggi!) style of architecture dominates. Each house is unique in terms of both design and color – and while the cars parked outside are clearly of this century I look at it and imagine that things haven’t changed that much since those homes were first built. And because i feel like the history of LA (as I know it, in my limited capacity) is not that far behind it’s easy to slip in to one’s version of the past.
Before I got there I thought that I would appreciate the weather, and possibly the beach. Turns out it’s neither. What I love about LA is what it stands for – the movies. OK, calm down – of course there is much more. A cute Mexican came to my show – he works with kids, disabled ones. I know. But to me those four days were all my imagination, fueled by the movies and TV shows I had seen all my life. There is this sexy Hollywood haze that hangs heavy over the city, giving me the feeling that at any moment I could run in to someone famous, some people call this smog, screw them.
LA is a huge, multi-cultural, warm city. It’s the kind of city that puts you in the mood for romance – my specific image involved a younger Jack Nicholson (in any film), or Russell Crowe (not from ‘The Insider’). But the best part of the city – like any fabulous city anywhere – are it’s people. They are all uniformly attractive – some may have taken a step too far but so what? You dye your roots don’t you?
Anyway – the point is GO TO LA! And while you are there definitely:
Stay: do yourselves a fave and live like a local, possibly with a local www.airbnb.com
Eat: at Pampas Grill in the Farmers Market on Fairfax, and fish and pork tacos anywhere.
Drive: through Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive. The Hollywood Hills are beautiful, take a moment at the vista points (I sound like my mother) – you can view the valley on one side and downtown LA on the other. Carry a barf bag if you tend to get carsick – the roads are windey as fucking hell. Take a picture of the Hollywood sign. I did not and am annoyed. Also drive through Beverly Hills and Bel Air and glare disdainfully at other tourists doing the same shameful thing, in the same shameful mustang convertible (the most hideous, basic version that only a Belarussian and North Indian would select). Admire the Beverly Hills Hotel.
And here are some pictures from the trip.
My entourage. How fucking depressing are these two?
Our back yard.
Our Ride. Just kidding - this was parked across the street from us.
After the first show. With Ms. Jolly. Fellow actor and short-haired fellow.
After second night. With Rockstar Matty P and Katherine.
Last night! Sexy Lady Audience Members.
And some Unladies.
It's over bitch - no need to be nice any more!
Morning after. At Farmers Market with Chriselle Almieda, fellow actor and NY transplant.
Boys from LA, Girls from NY.
Santa Monica. It's like a suburb. But with sexy people.
And as the sun sets on my trip to LA...
...I go 'Hollywood' and learn that I look like an ass with my sunglasses on indoors.
You know those people who always surprise you with their age because they look so much younger than they really are? I am not one of those people. I am 38, in a month I will be 39, and so far everyone believes me when I tell them this, and so I have never been tempted to lie about my age. But I am amazed at the vast number of people who do.
Having been raised in India I never thought being old was a bad thing. If you were old everyone listened to you because they had to, and you basically got away with saying any damn thing and doing any damn thing. My dad smoked, drank and swore as much as he pleased because he could – it was a privilege he had earned. From my perspective, being older seemed like a major advantage. But in the west old age is not part of life, it’s an embarrassing disease that no one wants to admit to. It freaks us out. It scares us. And so we all run around spouting idiotic nonsense like ’40 is the new 30’ but secretly we want to be 20 and look 16.
When did we start pandering to this whole ’40 is the new 30’ shit? And do we seriously even believe it? If 40 is the new 30, then I am guessing that 50 is the new 40, and so on, until being dead is actually being alive for 10 more years. None of this makes any sense and it just pisses me off! I am angry because the ONLY reason for the existence of phrases like ’40 is the new 30’ is simply to make people who are aging feel better about themselves, because aging by definition is supposed to be the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
The obsession with youth is an epidemic, it’s not just stupid it’s embarrassing, and with all the plastic that we can now inject and implant it is getting bizarre. The medical community has practically banded together to provide us with a million and one ways to physically cling to an age in our lives that we think looks good. If you have some money and no fear of needles or blood you can fool yourself into believing anything.
Being older doesn’t bother me. I mean sure, I wish I had used more sun-block, I wish I hadn’t smoked a single cigarette, and I wish I had listened when someone once casually mentioned that if I didn’t watch it my c*&t would sag, but that’s just me whinging over spilt milk. Overall it’s not so bad, for one thing I am still around – isn’t that nice to think about sometimes? And, I am now officially old enough to make excuses for myself based on age.
“Look how high his ass is!”
“Oh please he’s 20! Lets see what that ass looks like when he’s MY age.”
“She just ran the Boston marathon, sub 3.”
“Oh please, she’s 12, lets see what happens when she’s MY age.”
Oh yes, I like using my age – it’s mine and I’ll do as I please with it. Which is why I don’t dye my hair. I am too tired to add one more thing to my stress list. People notice my grey hair and some of them cannot believe I would walk around with this much of it and not try to hide it, but if I were a man my hair would be sexy! Salt and pepper! Isn’t that something ladies?!
“Well I suppose we have George Clooney to thank for that” were my friend Vish’s words of wisdom when I brought this to his attention. And indeed he and his ilk do owe handsome George quite a lot. But what about us? Where are those ’40 is the new 30’ women? Where are our role models?
Yesterday on the subway I saw what looked like a 4 year old with her very hip looking mommy. I couldn’t tell how old the mother was but I could tell a few things. Her hair was colored, her lips had been plumped, and there was plenty of evidence that Botox had been used liberally. I imagine that this woman will continue to add to her face as the years go by and that is her business, the way my grey hair is mine, but I wonder if she cares about the message she is sending her daughter. I may be wrong but she struck me as the type of mother who would never be caught dead with a ciggie in front of her kid, but big balloon lips in the name of youth – I guess that is OK.
Thanksgiving is the most American of American holidays. It is a 4-day long weekend that skillfully combines food, football and family, and ever since my first year in America, as a Teacher’s assistant in Syracuse, NY it has been a dream of mine to be invited to a Thanksgiving weekend in the home of an American family, preferably one with a fireplace to sit by and enjoy hot cocoa (even though I am lactose intolerant and would probably fart the family in to oblivion).
But after moving to New York 10 years ago I gave up on my dream. Why? Because my New York friends, American or not, are, without exception, New York Orphans (henceforth to be referred to as NYOs). NYOs are people who have no family in the tri-state area that they can spend four whole days with, let alone bring their Indian friend and her husband to. Some of them zip home on Thursday morning via the Metro North, eat with their family, and then zip back the same evening or the next day. The rest don’t even have that option, America is a big country and families live too far away.
So instead I would celebrate Thanksgiving with other NYOs. The Sethis, The Bilbys, The Kojics/Poliacks, The Talwalkars, The List Is A Long One. These gatherings are usually a pretty casual affair, and to prove it here is a sample of an invitation I got from friend and fellow NYO Keith Nealon, I have not edited it, this is exactly what I got in my email:
“Hey…thanksgiving?…put you down for drink n anal?”
And so it went. Until this year when the director of my show Brock Savage asked me and my husband to spend Thanksgiving with him and his family in Standish, Maine! His sister (Tammy) and brother-in-law (Shaun) have a vacation home on a lake, and every year the family gets together to spend the weekend there. I could not say no to that so I said yes please!
Because I haven’t the talent to be pithy, and because my allotted time for writing the blog this week is up, I have not described my Maine experience in detail. Instead here are some important stats and some pictures from one of the best the weekends I have ever had ever!
Family members at gathering:
Mom and Dad Savage, Tammy and Shaun, Catlyn (Brock’s niece) Donahue, Brock, and us. Or as Brock called it, “ Three couples, the ingénue, and the old maid”.
Total amount of Food/drink items consumed over the Thankgiving weekend by me alone:
Own body weight in Banana Cream Pie with whipped topping.
Husband’s body weight in corn bread and sausage stuffing.
40 kilograms turkey (with TGing meal and in sandwiches).
39 kilograms assorted pies (apple, apple crisp, strawberry rhubarb) a la mode.
1 whoopie pie (for the ignorant this is two slabs of rich, fudgey chocolate cake, with a thick layer of frosting holding them together).
65 kilograms of roasted pecans (eaten plain by shoving a handful at a time in to my gob, or on top of banana cream pie, on top of assorted pie and whoopie pie, and liberally sprinkled in the very small salad I force fed myself out of guilt).
Wine, bubbley, rum and hot water (I did not bother to record quantities because liquids are hard to keep track of).
Total hours dedicated to football viewing:
Zero.
PHOTOS!
The House on The Lake: Thanks to the fact that Deepak was in-charge of the camera, we have no pictures of the house we stayed in. But we do have pictures of some other houses that I have included to give you a feel for the place. We also have no pictures of the fireplace.
The Lake: We (thankfully) have some pictures of the lake from the Donahue deck.
Lake by sunset (ish).
L.L.Bean: This is a major shop in Maine. The boot in the photograph is their most famous product. While at L.L.Bean I purchased green rain boots, also known as ‘wellingtons’, ‘galoshes’ or, and in my opinion most charmingly, ‘shit kickers’. And that is our host, Shaun Donahue, being his normal self.
Dead Moose: To me a moose signifies majesty and mystique. Here he is, sadly robbed of both, in the hunting section at L.L. Bean.
Inbreeding: I was told there was a little brother-sister love going on in some parts of Maine, but putting up signs like this is just mean. (Brock and I go for a walk).
Sock Monkey: A Sock Monkey is a monkey made of socks. Tammy Craft Genius Donahue made TWO of them right in front of me, here is proof.
My own Sock Monkey: I got to keep the ‘trial monkey’ – and that’s him back in NY with the orphans!
One fine night after dinner as I wrestled a large Pyrex dish into the dishwasher my husband turned to me and cheerfully asked,
“Do you want to watch some porn before we do it?”
His suggestion did not surprise me, clearly he had run out of imaginary sexual situations with which to fantasize, but it did make me a little uncomfortable.
Don’t get me wrong, I like porn, but I am old school in my consumption of it. I prefer to be alone in a partially lit room with my pants around my ankles and a hot-water bottle between my knees. The last time I watched porn with other people I was as a 16 year old, the other people were my girlfriends and afterwards we didn’t have to have sex with one another, we went back to our respective parents homes and locked ourselves in the bathroom for several hours, so naturally I had a few of questions.
As we ladies know, beauty, grace, and feminine dignity are an illusion. For if they were not an illusion, and it were in fact possible for us to achieve this ideal of the ‘fairer sex’ then tell me this, why is it that our biology is capable of the astonishing, inexplicable, and quite frankly unnecessary vaginal flatulence (in the show I call it by it’s colloquial names i.e Pussy Fart and Queef – but somehow in writing ‘vaginal flatulence’ had a nice medical ring to it).
I was introduced to this physical phenomenon at the tender age of 11. (more…)
This past week was dedicated to a family wedding. My sisterfriend Ruch got hitched and I was there to drink all the free alcohol. As a bride she was flawless, she had every base covered as far as style went thus reminding me of my own wedding several years before – and how I managed to make one bad decision after another when it came to figuring out my ‘look’. Here now is the story of the biggest fashion fuck up committed by me on my wedding day:
In 2004 I was successfully able to manipulate a man in to marrying me. Now all I had to worry about was what I was going to wear for the actual wedding ceremony. This was a major decision, not just because I wanted to look my best on my wedding day, but because I had no clue where to begin. I am Goan Christian on my dad’s side, although the last time I saw the inside of a church was in New York at Limelight which happens to be an old church converted in to a night club, and on my mothers side I am part Coorg and part Andhra Pradeshi. Having been raised minus a cultural affinity to any part of my heritage I was going to have to come up with a bridal outfit all on my own.
Because I was marrying a Jaat, and because they were hosting the actual wedding ceremony, I figured I would go ethnic, it would be more I in keeping with their sensibilities than a dress, plus not being all that virginal I thought a white gown would be a little much. From past experience I knew it would have to be a sari because many trials and several errors have shown me that with my body type a salwaar/chudidar kameez makes me look like a dude and a ghagra-choli makes me look like a cross-dressing dude . As far as color was concerned I wanted red, that being the color of passion and all, plus it’s the one color that doesn’t bring out the yellow in my skin tone. With these elements in place all I had to do was decide on the overall look of my ensemble.
What did I want to be on my wedding day? Traditional or contemporary? Sexy or conservative? Flashy or low-key? This was important to consider because hair, make-up and jewelry would be dictated entirely by this choice. After much consideration I went with tradition, and having none of my own I went the whole hog, I would wear a South Indian Temple sari. My mother was given this brief via email and dispatched to do her worst.
In preparation for the sari I began to grow out my AnnieLenox style do, my plan was to attach a whole heap of false hair to it so I could have a bun. My blouse was to be a tasteful, bright red, half-sleeved affair, with a plunging back that did not permit the use of a brassiere; it was the only bit of sex appeal I would allow myself that day. To round it all off I had arranged to borrow my friend Anuli’s wedding jewelry because it was beautiful, traditional, and free.
The week before the wedding I was introduced to the groom’s family. My mother-in-law, who had only ever seen me in my regular clothes, was a little concerned, with good reason, about what it is I would wear. I explained my south-Indian themed costume and assured her that the sari in question was ‘very heavy’ which seemed to put her mind at ease. I then proceeded to inform her that south-Indian brides did not cover their heads and hence I would be following suite. I won’t lie, I thought my decision was rather feminist and brave, especially given that telling this to a Jaat mother-in-law was like telling Jesus that you didn’t believe in God.
On the day of the wedding my mother and I rose early and made our way to a ‘beauty parlor’ called Madonna where I was to have my false hair attached. Waiting for me at Madonna was Rajkumar (name changed because I don’t recall what it really was). Rajkumar was a middle-aged, rotund, and slightly effeminate South-Indian man. I was a little afraid of having a man do my hair but his borderline homosexuality made me feel a little better. I stopped feeling better and started feeling worse when his assistant Dorai (name changed because I don’t recall what it really was) marched in with a basket of rather dead looking jasmine flowers and a truck-load of really dead looking false hair. After I made a fuss about the flowers Dorai was dispatched to find more alive looking ones while Rajkumar surveyed me and my stringy hair. I could tell he wasn’t pleased with what he had to work with.
“How you want it?”
“I want a bun”, I answered nervously, “keep it low, on the nape of my neck and then attach the flowers in a circle.” I was hoping that my explanation would suffice, and was kicking myself for not having carried the picture of Feroze Gujral in a jewelry advertisement, which was what I was modeling my hairstyle on.
Rajkumar then went to work. He used what must have been 400 pins to secure what must have been 400 pounds of hair to my head. He weaved, braided, and gelled every lock of hair in to submission. I could not see what was going on behind me but I could feel my head getting heavier. An hour later he was done when in waltzed Dorai with his less dead flowers that were promptly attached to my head. He then stood back, presented me with a hand mirror, and with a flourish swiveled me around to admire his handiwork.
It was a disaster. Attached to the back of my skull was not a graceful little bun as I had envisioned but a gigantic French loaf wreathed in what can only be described as a garland of less dead jasmines.
“It’s very big.” I stammered.
“Actually it looks very nice, very traditional.” This was my mother. Here was a woman who knew that she had one hour to get me back to the hotel and that undoing Rajkumar’s creation was not an option.
With Rajkumar, Dorai and my mother silently pressuring me to let it go I reluctantly gave up the fight, and balancing my head that now weighed several pounds more than usual, stalked out of Madonna. Never to return.
Waiting for us in our room was Anandi and Ruch, my two friends who were in-charge of my make-up and over all state of mind, and my dad.
“Doesn’t her hair look great?” trilled my mother in an effort to pre-empt any sort of cock-up in the form of an honest opinion.
While my dad sat there trying to rearrange his facial features to read neutral rather than horror, my girlfriends, the professional liars that they are, went on and on about how fantastic I looked, and that yes it was a little big but so what, and no it was not utterly ridiculous.
At this point I excused myself and went to the toilet to have a good look at the thing. On the up-side it was so heavy that it had pulled my face back thus acting like a facelift, on the downside however, it wasn’t big, it was enormous – the damn thing was practically the size of my own head. I was devastated, sure I had lived through an 1980’s mullet/AnilKapoorStyle and a plethora of really crappy hair days but did I have to endure one today! But the show had to go on and so I flushed the toilet after my pretend pee and went back outside hoping that Anandi would transform me, and my two heads in to a vision of beauty and glamour.
It is a fact that good foundation and red lipstick will brighten the worst day, and my sari was fantastic. The overall effect made me forget about the calamity on my scalp so when I heard my to-be-husband talking loudly to some friends in the corridor I foolishly decided to get his opinion on how lovely I looked. I rushed out to find him standing there dressed in his wedding finery, turban, sword and all.
“What do you think?”
With the look of someone searching for the least awful thing to say he responded, “You look like a Bharatnatayam dancer.”
I fled back to my room and yelled at my mother, father and both friends. I dared not cry because Anandi had done a rather artistic job of my eyes. Once I was done ranting and raving I calmed down and thought – screw it, at least it’s traditional, now all I have to make sure of is that the photographer doesn’t get any pictures of me in profile.
I needn’t have worried my now over-sized head about that.
When the ceremony began I made my way to the mandap. As I seated myself in front of the ancient pujari, who looked in dire need of a nap, or a drink, or both, my mother-in-law swooped down and threw a spectacular, bejeweled chunni over my head. As far as she was concerned I could take my feminist ideas and shove them where the sun didn’t shine. Or maybe, just maybe she was trying to cover up Rajkumar’s ruin.
As a married woman I am sometimes asked, “how do you know that he is the one?” Well the truth is that you never really know, but there are some clues that you may have made your final selection. Married or not here are some helpful hints that you have turned in to a wife:
1. You start using the pronoun ‘our’ for stuff that clearly belongs to him.
2. You develop laser like vision out of the back of your head. For example, you are at a party, your husband is standing in another room, yet you know exactly when he is chit-chatting (in his idiot way) with a woman more attractive than you are.
3. You also develop a scanner, like the ones they have in super-markets, and when your man comes home from a boys night out you can scan him for any trace of activities that you had previously forbidden.
4. You hack in to his e-mail, Blackberry, Facebook, and bank account without fear or guilt.
5. His minor hangovers mean that he is an alcoholic. Like that uncle of his twice removed.
6. You stop caring about being too hairy.
7. You constantly insult his parents, his siblings and his friends. Yet he is not allowed to say one word about yours.
8. You sound annoyed when you speak to him.
9. You realize his taste in everything is deplorable.
10. And in some rare and extreme situations of wifeyness you fart, announce you are off to take a crap, and afterwards do not bother with lighting matches, lighting candles, cleaning the whole bathroom or taking a shower to disguise the stench. In fact you are quite happy to leave a skid mark just to show you were there.
‘I think I may be close to failing my squat’, I moaned to Coach Margie Lempert, a strength coach at my gym. For those of you who do not lift weights, ‘failure’ is the inability to move a particular weight and it happens to everyone at some point.
Margie listened politely and then simply said, “You know what – you’re strong, you’re just timid.” I was too shocked to ask for an explanation, and then her client arrived and she had to go, leaving me on the training platform with the bar and my insecurities.
A few days later – and totally unrelated to my fitness regimen – I read about a phenomenon called SlutWalk. For the uninitiated, SlutWalk is a protest march that originated in Toronto, Canada. The impetus for this movement stemmed from the words of a male police officer, who during a talk on safety uttered these words, “…women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized…”. Instead of blaming SHITTY law enforcement, the officer blamed the victim, and instead of lying back and taking it a group of women got together and decided that they were going to dress like ‘sluts’ and march in protest of this blatant BULLSHIT.
The idea caught like wildfire with SlutWalks being hosted all over the world, and I was delighted to learn that a young Indian woman had organized a version of SlutWalk in our nation’s capital. With one of the highest rape stats on the planet I truly believed that this would be a good thing – our girls were taking matters in to their own hands and actually doing something about it. I was truly proud to be an Indian woman. And then, just like that, I read something that infuriated me – there was opposition to SlutWalk in India!
Sure I expected it, but I also expected the objectors to be men, old ones on their way out! But instead I came across these gems on the Internet, spouted by, of all people, Ms. Shobha De – a woman, and an educated woman at that: “Naming the protest ‘slut walk’ degrades women even if it has shock value,” AND “It’s a campaign driven by women in the West. It does not connect with women in the Indian context.”
Let me deal with this CRAP one turd at a time.
The fact that Ms. De is being so literal about the word ‘slut’ is just embarrassingly OLD-fashioned. That she lives in a world where the word degrades women tells me that she is out of touch. It is laughable that she thinks ‘slut’ has shock-value! What year are we in again? I for one have been using the word ‘slut’ as a compliment for ages and am pleased to report I am not alone. By doing so I do believe we devalue it as an insult. The way we did with the word ‘bitch’. But I am guessing Ms. De isn’t aware of that either.
She then has the nerve to tell us that it’s a campaign driven by the west and that we Indian women won’t connect to it. Here is what I would like to know – Ms. De, what are you smoking and might I have some? There is nothing western about the fear of rape, it seems like a very eastern concern if you ask me. The only people who can’t relate are the rich who live in safe zones that only money can buy. And seriously – if you have your La Perla undies in such a wad over SlutWalk, then come up with a better idea than just a half-arsed critique of this one.
But it isn’t just Ms. De. It’s a bunch of other people I have spoken to since then. Many think that we ladies are up in arms over nothing, and that there are ‘bigger’ problems for us to deal with. Really? There is a bigger problem than basic safety for HALF our population? Like it or not India is a country where a woman has to worry about what she wears, because if she doesn’t she might end up with the wrong kind of attention. And until our women are safe it is not an equal society.
Margie was right, timidity will get us nowhere. Being good, nice little girls who do the ‘right’ thing will get us nowhere. Worrying about what people think of us will get us nowhere. I applaud Ms. Sabarwal for having the balls to organize this protest in the face of all the opposition. Regardless of the outcome it shows me that young Indian women are no longer willing put up with a corrupt, inept police system and instead, like their Canadian sisters, are staging a fight for their BASIC rights.
SlutWalk may not be the answer to all our problems but it certainly got a reaction. And that’s a start. As for me, well, I did fail my squat. But I’m going back tomorrow and this time I won’t be afraid.
I had given up on ever visiting Hawaii, there were too many reasons to not go. It was a 10-hour flight, if we had to go that far then we would have to stay for at least 10 days, and if you work in America then you know that this means you can’t really go anywhere else for the rest of the year, and then how on earth would we go to India and visit all our friends and family members who we see every single year, and it was bloody expensive.
So we lived in America for 10 long years without ever considering Hawaii as a serious holiday destination. Until our friends Vish and Carolina moved to Honolulu.
Within five months of their move we were waiting in line to clear security at Newark International Airport, congratulating ourselves on what a great idea it was to visit Hawaii. It was after all the perfect vacation spot, a mere 10 hour flight, which was nothing in comparison to the 17 hours to India, the islands had micro-climates (I had read) and we had better have a peek at those before global warming ended it all – so the relatives could wait, and most important of all we would be sponging off Vish and Caro’s goodwill.
Our plan was to spend half the holiday in Honolulu and the other half in Maui. Honolulu would be the ‘active vacation time’ – snorkeling, SCUBA, horseback riding, hiking and all the adventurous things we fancied ourselves to be ‘in to’. Maui would be laid back, ‘relaxed vacation time’ – my husband could continue with his active life-style and I would get stoned and lie on the beach for four days. Now that’s what I call balance.
On day one, Vish decided we would go snorkeling to Hanauma Bay. The rental shop told us that the bay was rather choppy that day and suggested an alternate, equally beautiful venue. Vish decided that these professionals had no idea what they were talking about and chose to ignore their advice, and we, following along like sheep, agreed. We arrived at Hanuma Bay ready for a day of underwater discovery. Because the bay was declared a protected marine life conservation area, we were shown a short film, instructing us to please, for the love of God, not step on, touch or steal any of the coral. The film also told us that sunscreen would damage the coral and wasn’t great for the fish.
We hit the beach, and out of respect for the Hawaiian people and their island, I abstained from using sunscreen until I had finished snorkeling. My plan was to spend at least an hour in the water. I strapped on my flippers and mask and waded in to the water. It was clear with good visibility, good thing we hadn’t listened to those twits at the rental store.
Less than 5 minutes later I was wishing we had. The water was rough and with my minimal swimming skills I was being flopped about like a rag doll. I decided to get back to the beach and reassess the situation. On my way back (I had a total of maybe 20 meters to go) I got shoved by wave, instead of calmly floating along with it I panicked and tried to stand up thus pounding my knee in to a jagged piece of coral. It was frightfully painful but I was more concerned I might be arrested by the coral police.
I didn’t think it was possible until it happened – I fell ashore, with my arse in the air, my face in the sand, one hand uselessly grabbing at the beach lest I be pulled back in to the water, the other desperately gripping my bikini bottom, lest it get dragged out to sea without me in it. Once I had salvaged my dignity I inspected the gash on my knee. It was more a deep scratch but it stung and bled like no-one’s business. Good thing I got out of the water – I may have been eaten by sharks.
I hobbled back to where we had left our things, dried off, discovered I had already sustained mild sunburn, slathered on the sun block and stayed put for the rest of the day, loudly letting my hosts and husband know that I was merely warming up and that I would be more active the next day.
Day two was dedicated to SCUBA diving. Vish had already booked us on a trip out of Waikiki. Traditionally, I have had to douse myself with anti-seasickness meds before embarking on such projects, but for some reason, I thought I was over that sort of thing. Assuming that positive thinking was all it would take to keep nausea at bay I sallied forth. I was green around the gills halfway to the dive point, but I kept this to myself, thinking that once I was in the water, I would feel better. Unfortunately if you are sick the last thing that will make you feel good is salt-water, and I ingested a whole lot of it during a mask-clearing and regulator recovery exercise.
It took every scrap of my positive thinking to appreciate the few fish we saw. All I wanted to do was get back on dry land. I saw our guide give us the ‘thumbs up’ sign, which, in SCUBA lingo, means we were re-surfacing. I was over-joyed – until I re-surfaced. The water is much jerkier the higher you go, and as I waited my turn to be hauled on to the boat, I started to feel queasy all over again. The next thing I know, I am vomiting INTO my regulator, taking it out of my mouth wasn’t an option because I was still semi-underwater and would have drowned. It was more disgusting than you can imagine but damn it felt GREAT!
After feeding the fish (as vomiting is politely referred to by the diving community), I refrained from the second dive. I wrapped myself in towels, and with my water bottle in one hand, the other clinging to the railing of the boat, I stayed put, my eyes on Waikiki beach – a static object I couldn’t wait to walk upon.
As I sat there, praying for this wretched day to end, I made up my mind – I wasn’t going to be engaging my carcass in any activity that did not involve solid ground, and my two feet as the mode of transport. I wasn’t cut out for this. I am a drama-nerd/couch potato, not a jock, and there was no shame in owning that.
On day three, the activity was horseback riding. I stuck to my guns and declined participation. I was happy to accompany my hyper-adventurous friends and spouse to Waimanalo (another breathtakingly gorgeous part of Oahu), but that was it. I wore a sarong to the ranch, so there was absolutely no way I could be talked in to it once we got there.
By this time my husband was in his element. He had not gotten seasick, had seen giant sea turtles, had snorkeled without a major injury, and in comparison to my sissy-girl turn, I could see his machismo was peaking.
On our arrival at the ranch the owner, the lovely horsewoman Elizabeth, asked Vish, Caro and Deepak to give her an idea of their riding skills so that she could assign them the appropriate horse. Carolina admitted she was a novice, and wanted a ride with a calm demeanor. Vish (a tad blustery, I thought) said he was ‘fairly experienced’, and Deepak announced, that while he hadn’t ridden in a while, he had ‘grown up around horses’. I grabbed a beer, and hung out with the stray cats.
Because Elizabeth doesn’t have any help at the ranch Vish and Deepak did the decent thing and offered their assistance in getting the horses ready.
“Hey Elizabeth, how can we help?” asked Vish, as he and Deepak swaggered up to her.
“Hmmm, how about you guys saddle up those two horses.” She suggested.
I was silently impressed with the confidence both men exhibited at getting this job done. They grabbed the blanket, saddle, reins and some other horse-related items. My husband threw the saddle over the horses back (let’s call the horse Percy). They then had to strap the saddle to Percy, but something seemed the matter and they couldn’t figure it out. Percy stood there benignly while Deepak and Vish both walked around him several times, scratching their heads, peering under Percy and whispering to each other, it was obvious they had no clue. I watched this Mutt and Jeff show from a safe distance.
After saddling two steeds, Liz walked over and discovered that Deepak, the man who had grown up around horses, and Vish, the man who was fairly experienced, had combined their limited intelligence and flung the saddle on to Percy back to front. I was delighted with this. I had been feeling a right loser – and while I was still no Indiana Jones at least I wasn’t alone.
The following day we left for Maui, where I was to connect with my friend Orli and her family. “Rad”, Orli said on the phone, “just to be clear, I like to stay put in one place, once I am on the beach I won’t move.”
Finally! Something I knew I would be good at.
PS: Go to Hawaii. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.
Last week a friend of mine asked me, “Do you feel pressure from other people to be funny all the time?”
I lied and said “Absolutely not.” This is rubbish obviously. I do feel pressure to be funny at all times, in the shower, at the gym, at work, on stage, at the Chiropractors office, and later this week on the flight to Hawaii I know I will, at some point, feel the need to entertain a fellow traveler, or flight attendant. However, I have learnt over time that this pressure doesn’t come from other people, it comes from within.
This need to make others laugh is primal. It gives me a bigger kick than almost anything else I can hope to experience with my panties on. I am willing to say pretty much anything for a laugh and when I am drunk I will DO pretty much anything. This flaw/trait/annoying habit is hard to live with 24/7, and many people feel sorry for my husband. I don’t because I know that he will find peace with all this eventually.
Thanks to audience feedback (both actual theatre audiences and unsuspecting people in my life) I am well aware that there are many people who don’t find me funny (which is why I am forced to end many stories with the line ‘it was funny at the time’). This is terrible for my ego but an excellent life lesson. The lesson being ‘you can’t please all the motherfuckers all the time’. But I live by the leave-no-stone-unturned’ rule and so I will usually try until I am absolutely certain they want to hit me.
I am most likely to make, and laugh at, jokes about bodily functions and incest. And I feel sorry for people who think this is lame and/or puerile. My comedy colleague Billy once told a story about a dream he had where he and his dad were taking a walk and they saw a dead bird and his dad suddenly picked the bird up and started fucking it. I thought this was hilarious. I was the only person in the club that did. I also find regular sex jokes funny but not as funny as incest-ridden sex jokes. I keep thinking of making a list of stuff I don’t find funny but I can’t commit to anything just yet. Let’s say I’m pretty open-minded.
What made me like this? Was it the many years spent as an unattractive teenager desperate for attention, or is it the only-child-syndrome, or am I genetically predisposed to this condition of needing to make a spectacle of myself for other people’s amusement?
I think it is because I have no other skill. Some people can do math in their head, others can sing, and still others have big tits.
For better, but mainly for worse, I need to make you laugh.
PS: My show ‘Unladylike: The pitfalls of propriety’ is back onstage June 16 @ 8pm. The Producers Club 358 W 44th Street (b/w 8th & 9th Ave). Tickets at www.unladylike.eventbrite.com
