keeping score

Count: 3 successfully picked ingrown hairs

Bridget Jones counted cigarettes ("fags") and food pertaining to her diet. Every day of my life is a struggle with my weight so I don't feel any need to make a special effort to contain my overeating. I revel in it. But I do figure I should count something as a means of separating the days from each other. And today was the longest day of my life. I didn't even mention the 30 hairs I tried to pick or the 12 I made up or the 5 I left bloody and unsuccessful because I couldn't retrieve the stranded hair.

I wish I could ask Bridget Jones what she would do if her baby put all his/her toys in the toilet while she was in the shower. I think I'd like her answer. I thought about keeping in theme with the title of this blog and theorizing what Gwyneth would have done had Apple done the same, but we all know what she would do: buy more toys.

Which leads me to the following thought: maybe it's more boring on a daily basis to be rich. I mean, when you have people to do everything for you, what do you do when you're bored?

Nah. Whom am I kidding?

The Collection

Mary Lindsay is one of the funniest people I know. Before you knock the southern double name, at least remember to knock me, too, since I preferred a double name until I got married and declined to have a dodecasyllabic name. (Figure that one out, etymology nerds.)

So Mary Lindsay ... when we were in college, she used to make "business calls" to Tokyo on a banana that would leave both tables of sorority girls who had a sense of a humor reeling for hours. She kindled a non-relationsihp with a homeless man named P-Nut for at least two years. And she flirted with some man whose only worldly possession was a Walkman in front of the No Name Bar on a beach in Jamaica just because the Red Stripe and jerk whatever-it-was (some say the meat was canine) wasn't enough entertainment. Needless to say with Mary Lindsay on a beach chair next to me, I had all the entertainment I needed.

One night sophomore year I stopped by ML's room in Spencer dorm to meet up for some big night out. Probably the theme was "Monday." Dollar Night at Molly's. Or was that Tuesdays? For all I know we were planning a trip to the Deke house, which I had probably convinced myself was home to one of my crushes, though we all know good and damn well at this juncture that really I just wanted an excuse to seek free booze. Preferably bourbon. My parents were so generous that they paid my tuition, books, room and board AND gave me 75 pitchers a week worth of spending money (75 pitchers at Bub's on Tuesdays anyway), but how was I supposed to eat out? I had to get some free booze somewhere to free up money for eating, clearly an activity secondary to drinking.

So I was late getting to ML's room (total role reversal) and instead of berating me for being late, which would have been hypocritical anyway, she was dancing around to some nauseatingly familiar 80s music.

"Oh my god!" she said. "We can't go yet. The best one's coming up. You've gotta see this." And she proceded to perform a somewhat choreographed dance to "Lucky Star" or some other song from what I would end up realizing was a Madonna greatest hits album.

Of course I can't remember a step to the dance. But with Mary Lindsay there was always plenty of hip shaking, hands in the air and no fewer than six moves per song that ended with her on her knees and shimmying her shoulders down until her tummy was on the floor. Or so I remember these danced interpretations, much like home videos.

Though I was shocked and thrilled akin to witnessing a train wreck, my mind was elsewhere: intoxication. Mary Lindsay could read the impatience on my face, if I didn't say it verbally, which is very likely. "Wait," Mary pled. "One more." Pretty sure it was "True Blue." Ironic since that original video was a home video. But I admit it: I love that song.

So more dancing around, both of us in our obligatory black pants, I'm sure; me watching her make a total fool out of herself; she willingly and exhilirated ... and then it was time to go.

Or not. I know I watched at least five total train wrecks from beginning to end before we left to go to [?] that night. But you understand what I don't remember about that night. And what I do.

And now the hidden camera is turned on me. In London's world of 24/7 closed circuit television, I have to hope, pathetically, that someone out there has planted a camera in this temporary flat so that he/she can watch me get dressed up every evening around 5:00 in my black pants, spiked heels, skimpy tops and mascara for the only two people (of whom I'm aware) who get to witness this parade right now: my husband and my daughter.

And only my daughter, in all her 11 months, gets to see me dance around and sing indie rock into the cheapeast glass of wine even my mother never had. Mary Lindsay would be so proud.