A Journey into the Furry Depths of Stardom and Yearning
Bringing back a favorite from the archives.
In the heart of the Muppetverse, amidst a tapestry of vibrant characters and whimsical narratives, stands a beacon of childlike wonder and boundless optimism, a giant whose iconic blue exterior conceals a tale of profound transformation and existential introspection. Few in Hollywood have the talent and range to achieve a level of stardom where one name suffices:
A few weeks ago, I picked up my daughter from sports practice at a neighboring town’s park, which is very much like our town’s park, except with different geese. This is a public park, which means the public is allowed in. That is the problem with public parks.
I had to intervene when a pack tween twerps cheered on as one kid had another kid in a headlock. The second boy’s face was red, his eyes were streaming, and he was silent, which, if you know children, is a sure sign that something isn’t fun. Oh, hello, Trouble. There you are.
It was an easy read.
My “Hey!” stopped almost all of them.
One prepubescent Cobra Kai decided to test his standing with the gods and said to me, “Bro, this is none of your business.”
“Bro” is apparently a word that activates me like some sort of verbose sleeper agent. You can imagine how things went for all of them after that.
It was over quickly, but the kid in the headlock had enough time to walk away, which was really the main thing here.
No tween twerps were harmed in this interaction.
Joke’s on me, though (when isn’t it?) because little did I know that August was warming up in the corner, waiting to see if it could take my household two falls out of three.
All of that was once a Facebook post I left up for an hour before deleting, presumably to protect national security or because I pressed the wrong button. I tried to find it later (deleted posts, archived posts, etc.) but couldn’t. Alas, it’s gone, filed somewhere in the Cloud, or the shelf in Space Force’s Lost and Found where they store embarrassing mom anecdotes. I recreated it here, with slightly more effort than the 0.2 seconds I give most Facebook posts.
I had planned a proper post this week as I’ve been trying to post weekly, but then everyone in the house got sick. Like really sick, where after a few days you think you’re okay-ish then you lie down and wake up 5 hours later feeling groggy and not much better, if not a little worse.
Then I got sick. Which was technically covered under “everyone,” but I tend to assume “everyone” means “everyone else.” I usually avoid household contagion, possibly because I move through life in the equivalent of John Travolta’s bubble in that film. Except my bubble is made of grumpiness.
Here’s how I’m doing: for 5 minutes just now, I was trying to remember that actor’s name. Couldn’t retrieve “John Travolta” but pulled up “Vinnie Babarino” like a coin from behind your ear. I had to Google “Who played Vinnie Barbarino?” to complete a joke that, in retrospect, did not warrant the effort.
Everything’s fine.
Now we’re digging out, staggering toward the end of summer with what feels like 100% potential energy, in the physics sense, like we’re all little balls in a slingshot (Google Search: “What is that v-shaped thing made with sticks you pull back and shoot a ball out of?”)
Big Moves are on my to-do list, meaning working on building community and also giving myself ample space and big chunks of time to work on my novel.
I am mildly loath to get back to it all — the hustle and/or the bustle — because “big chunks of time to work on my writing” is an idea the universe finds particularly hilarious.
Also, can one be mildly loath? MAYBE. You know who could probably pull off being “mildly loath?” John Travolta, but only in his role in Pulp Fiction (Google Search: “What was that movie where the dude who played Vinnie Barbarino played a gangster” — which, incidentally, first pulled up Gotti, and that dude was not mildly anything.)
*EXTREME CARRIE BRADSHAW VOICEOVER* And just like that, this August was much like that tween headlock situation: too hot, too loud, the geese are unfamiliar, somebody’s turning red, and the only thing you can do is yell ‘Hey!’ and hope everyone walks away in one piece with a modicum of dignity.
Bro.
Hopefully, a new piece next week.
Anyway, please accept this in lieu of structural integrity this week:
I have hunted lions. I have watched the sun rise on days when I was certain the world was ending and drunk enough whiskey to be sure of it. I have fought against the marlin, an enormous wet metaphor for my masculinity.
All of it was nothing compared to perimenopause.
I am a man, a matter of some regret in this context. I have observed and made notes. They are incomplete, as all honest accounts are.
It is unknowable, this Red Ledger of Womanhood, but I will explain it anyway.
Perimenopause, a word with too many vowels, is from the Latin for “the threshold between fertility and glorious cronehood.” It is a time when ovaries, like exhausted grenadiers, abandon their post and estrogen evaporates. Much like absinthe, for which it is also time.
Don’t bother deciphering if it’s happening or not happening. Most things halfway happen. You will know when you find yourself crying inexplicably in the grocery store as “Landslide” plays.
Having set down my credentials plainly, it remains only to tell you how it is in the borderlands between the era of spring-loaded hormones and the years that follow, which are less buoyant by degrees.
These are the things that must be endured:
Insomnia: The nights are the first to betray you. You will lie awake counting your regrets and your nemeses as a fisherman counts his catch, except you will throw nothing back. In the mornings you will feel like you’ve been hollowed out with a grapefruit spoon.
Bleeding: It will happen without pattern or mercy. It will lull you into complacency, then strike with malice. Like when you’re on your boss’s white office sofa. Do not speak of it to your boss. They can only pretend not to notice, and the awkwardness is yours alone. Soon enough, you will get to not miss this.
Hot flashes: A traitorous inner furnace ignites when you least expect it, which is to say, always. You will feel a powerful urge to strip naked in public and become visibly furious at the air. There is no dignified way to do this.
Moods: They will rise and fall like monsoon squalls. You will slam doors, then return and apologize. You will disassociate as the dermatologist removes questionable moles. You will bellow at the toaster if its settings are untrue. Know you are not hurtling toward operatic collapse. Probably.
Carousel of Other Indignities: Everything negative and mysterious you experience from now on is perimenopause. Physical discomfort. Metabolic chaos. That asshole who cut you off in traffic. Thinning hair. Itchy earlobes. People telling you to “let that sink in.” The betrayal of your bladder when you sneeze. Chi-Chi’s vague promise to reopen. Anything that causes the urge to hurl a shoe at someone indiscreetly.
You will seek a system to manage it all. It will fail because everything happens anyway. You will be tempted to try yoga, catalogue your ordeals in a leather-bound journal, or fill your online shopping cart with items terrible and proud.
Do none of this. If you must, cry behind a rack of discounted shapewear at T.J. Maxx. They’ve seen it all at T.J. Maxx. Just do not purchase the waist cincher. You will despise it.
Steel your resolve and proceed.
I hope to leave you with something other than recommendations to age gracefully. Perhaps punch a sandbag and, as you enter this season of dissolving composure, remember: it will pass.
When? A few months. A decade. Maybe longer than Friends, certainly not longer than Grey’s Anatomy. Don’t try to track it. Uncertainty is part of the process.
I warn you so you won’t be startled when chin hairs sprout like a cursed harvest. Fortunately, the forgetting will also begin, and you’ll be left holding tweezers. You will tweeze nothing. You will remember again when you touch your chin and wonder when you became late 1970s Barry Gibb. Those colorless bastards will be nearly impossible to remove. Your eyesight will also have gone to shit.
The point is, this is not the end of all things. Soon enough you will be alone with your pulse and the knowledge that no part of you was ever permanent except that tattoo you got one ill-fated evening with a guy known only as “Little Bowser.”
Perimenopause is natural. Also intolerable. This is the paradox you will ponder as you cry under the Zombie Wasteland Sewer Tunnel at any given Spirit Halloween.
That is the sum of it.
Now go and swoop through the world like a hormonally-imbalanced falcon, taking sweaty dominion over it all.
Jackie Pick 