In which I put the "hot" in "hot tub".

This weekend, Brad and I were lucky enough to spend some time out in the Hamptons with a few dear friends, a hot tub, and fridge full of grillable meats. We sat on the beach, we lazed by the pool, we ate at least ten different kinds of animal, and it was lovely.

Not so lovely, however, was waking up yesterday to discover that I had returned from the Hamptons not just with a terrific tan, but also with a new friend.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Hot Tub Rash.

Note: The above is a WebMD photo, not a picture of my actual skin, because even I have some limits, goddamnit.

Apparently, hot tubs are more than just a bubbly recreational plaything that serve as the preferred hookup location for Jersey Shore residents and Bachelor contestants alike; they are readymade incubators for a very special bacteria, a bacteria that wants nothing more than to attach itself to your epidermis and chew on it until it looks like it belongs to a 17 year-old boy with a raging case of cystic acne.

Which is to say, guess what I look like right now.

Of course, it took me awhile to get to this point. At first, I had no fucking clue what was going on, which led me to spend the morning doing google image searches for "red spots all over body", which is not an activity I would recommend to anyone who wants to maintain a firm grip on his appetite, and which also led me to freak out when I decided that the thing my spots most resembled was not hives, and not bug bites, but boils.

Boils!

Dear readers, if you ever want to feel really bad about yourself, I cannot recommend enough deciding that you might have boils -- which not only means learning that the preferred treatment method is a technique called "lancing and draining", otherwise known as "stabbing the boil with a pointy stick", but also reading a series of painfully gentle suggestions that you avoid future boils by "attempting to practice good hygiene."

Because basically, if you've got boils, it's because you're a filthy motherfucker who doesn't bathe. No wonder they want to stab you.

Fortunately, a few more tumbles down the google-search rabbit hole led me to the truth: I don't have boils. I do, however, have Hot Tub Rash, which is not exactly better. Especially since, even though it's apparently insanely freaking common, there's no treatment for it.

"Don't worry!" the websites say, as you desperately scroll to the subheader marked Treatment. "In most cases, hot tub rash will clear on its own within 7-10 days."

Yes, that's right kids, only seven to ten days! That's great, right? I mean, you weren't doing anything this weekend anyway, were you?

Of course, that didn't stop me from going to the doctor -- which is really the only place you can go when your entire face is covered in something that looks like nuclear chickenpox. And of course, the doctor had never heard of hot tub rash and was convinced that there was some other explanation.

Doctor: You haven't had any changes to your diet?
Me: No.
Doctor: Allergies?
Me: No.
Doctor: Spider bites?
Me: I'm not the most observant person in the world, but I think even I would have noticed if at some point this weekend my entire body was covered in spiders.
Doctor: It could have been one big spider.
Me: Fuck spiders! HOW MUCH LONGER AM I GOING TO LOOK LIKE THIS?!
Doctor: I'll give you some Cipro.

And she did.

But still, chances are that I'll be confined to my apartment for the next week and a half while my skin does its best impression of a pizza. Which is great, really, because not only have I always wanted to spend my wedding anniversary covered in nuclear pustules, but because it'll give me ample time to participate in my new favorite activity of lying on the floor, in the fetal position, in a puddle made up of equal parts cortisone cream and my own tears.

Also, if anyone knows of any good movies currently available on Netflix instant, now would be an excellent time to share.

Chop chop

Normally I'd preface this post with some kind of story. A nice big chunk of text, fun and full of words, so that you would feel that I'd given this blog the full weight of my writerly efforts, and I would be able to tell myself that I haven't turned into the world's most boring human being. (Which I totally have.)

Normally, there would be background info. Like, maybe I would remind you guys about the horrible things that happened the last time I went to a salon.

Or maybe I'd tell you about the time I was watching "Rosemary's Baby" and, despite the fact that there were a bunch of people having naked, nasty devilsex right in front of me, all I could think about was how adorable Mia Farrow's hair looked.

Or maybe I'd show you a Kat-through-the-years pictorial to illustrate that -- apart from a brief and regrettable blonde phase during college -- I am such a style-related sissypants that I've pretty much had the same haircut since 1989, and it was high time to stop dicking around.

But in this case, there's kind of no point. Because no matter what I say, this is one of those times when no amount of elegant verbiage can make the point better than this....

...followed by this.


Yep, that's right: IT'S ALL GONE. And this week, Locks of Love will be receiving an envelope containing sixteen inches of my hair. (Sixteen inches of love, y'all -- because size does matter.)

Which I am telling you not because I want you to think I'm a wonderful person, but because I'm hoping it'll distract you from my ham-fisted attempt to skew opinion in favor of the new haircut by posting a "before" shot that makes me look like the bastard child of Jack Nicholson's Joker and the demonic television-dwelling ghost from The Ring.

It didn't work, did it.

Tour de Brooklyn, Tour de France.

On Friday afternoon, after a day spent pecking at my keyboard in a lethargic, pajama-clad funk, I finally mustered the energy to pull on a skirt and ride my bike to the grocery store in order to get dinner ingredients. The store was blessedly cool, I was supremely hungry, and before long I'd loaded up an awful lot of stuff: pound of crabmeat, various vegetables, several pints of blackberries, a big new bottle of olive oil, and an assortment of items in cans.

In short, a bit too much stuff for a basket-less bike to accomodate. Wobbling away with the unwieldy bounty -- it weighed at least twenty pounds -- slung lumpily onto my back, I felt top-heavy and disturbingly off-balance. (I have no idea if Quasimodo ever wanted a bike during his tenure at Notre Dame -- between all the lust and death and ringing of bells, Victor Hugo never mentioned whether his misshapen protagonist had a secret, secondary yearning for a Peugeot -- but if he gave it a try and then decided against it, I think I understand why.)

And then, right when the straps of the bag were starting to bruise and the bike was wheezing along and I had decided that it might be better to just get off and walk it, my shoelace suddenly came untied, caught in the pedal, and yanked my whole center over hard to one side.

WELL.
I want you to know right now that I did not tip over.
Again, I did not. Tip. Over.

Instead, I executed the most brilliant grocery-laden cycling save in the history of Brooklyn, and possibly the world:




Needless to say, I was pretty effing pleased with myself. And even moreso when, after successfully tucking my shoelaces in without so much as hitting the brakes, I heard the sound of applause coming from the sidewalk, looked up, and discovered that a group of production guys from one of the nearby film stages had been watching the whole exercise, and were now giving me a standing ovation.

Hell yes, I thought, grinning from ear to ear. How great is that? How GREAT? Is THAT?! How often does a person manage to unsnag their shoelaces from a bicycle apparatus, while in motion, while carrying twenty-five pounds of groceries in a sack, and actually have an entire horde of dudely dudes witness the awesomeness? How! Great! Is! That!

WELL.
Understandably, I thought it was VERY GREAT INDEED.

I thought it was so great, in fact, that I made it almost all the way home before the thrill wore off enough for me to realize that the round of applause probably had very little to do with sincere appreciation for my impeccable awesomeness.

And a lot to do with the fact that, with one ankle propped up on the crossbar, there is very little question that they all had a multi-second-long, totally unobstructed, super premium view of my crotch.

A series of semi-significant events, Part II

July 7th: Brooklyn.
With just a scant week-and-a-bit remaining before Brad returned to the working world, the two of us commenced a sort of half-assed stay-cation in Brooklyn. In the morning, I would hurriedly bang out the day's advice column; in the afternoon, we wandered out of our apartment in search of adventure.

Sometimes, we found it.


Above: A ride at Coney Island.

Not pictured: My husband and I, a.k.a. two purported adults, clinging to each other in terror after foolishly opting to get into a "swingy" car on the landmark Wonder Wheel.

Also not pictured: The look on the face of the ride operator who turned to us and said, "Do you guys want to swing?", after which I guffawed so loudly that it scared a pigeon into flight. Suffice to say that I did not know it was possible for a person to roll his eyes so completely without actually removing them from his head and tossing them down the street.

But more often, it was just too goddamned hot for adventure, and so we would turn around to run back inside before our butts could turn into fleshy sweat swamps, and then we would watch old episodes of LOST and eat potato chips until one or both of us fell asleep.

Until, finally, it was time to get on a plane.

July 14th: Raleigh.
Because we had already visited my parents during Brad's hiatus from work, it was only fair that we also visit his for an equal period of time. Unfortunately, said visit involved a) getting on a plane, at b) La Guardia, which is c) an airport which seems to have achieved a special designation on the space-time continuum as "That Place Where Nothing Will Ever Go Right, and Also, Where You Will Inevitably End Up Drunk Before Noon." Our flight was delayed by several hours, during which I got tipsy at the airport bar and (unsuccessfully) attempted to photograph a bottle of rum which I swear was called "IOCANE".

Above: A close approximation of the face I made when Brad tried to tell me that what I thought was the letters "IO" was actually the number "10". Also, I am not sure I believe him -- even typed out here, they look almost totally the same. Inconceivable!

Fortunately, the delayed flight meant that we were able to meet my in-laws upon landing and proceed immediately to a sprawling restaurant full of steaks, where all the light fixtures were made out of animal parts and dinner was eaten under the watchful eyes of several stuffed heads.

Above: "I use antlers in all of my deeeeeee-co-rating!"

July 15th: Winston-Salem
My in-laws live on a farm in a rural area that borders the city of Winston-Salem, and this is where we spent the following day.

The most noteworthy part of this visit was probably the moment when, while playing scrabble and drinking wine with Brad's parents, a determined horsefly catapulted his giant, buzzing body over the bustline of my strapless sundress and lodged himself in my cleavage, where he proceeded to bite the crap out of my boobs. Yes, this is noteworthy. You cannot possibly imagine the minute angles, complex flight arc, and pure jolt of random bad luck which had to all coexist within the same split-second in order to make it possible for a horsefly -- which is an indescribably stupid creature even by insect standards -- to find its way into the scant indentation of my motherfucking A cups. I've played it over in my head since then and I'm pretty sure that the little bastard actually broke at least TEN UNBREAKABLE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Also noteworthy: Despite the immense pain of being repeatedly bitten on the tit by a physics-defying horsefly, I somehow managed to stand up, walk three steps, and face AWAY from my father-in-law before yanking my dress down around my waist while screaming extremely loudly.

Not pictured: Any of that, and for good goddamn reason.

July 16th: Kiawah.
The morning of July 16th, we rented a car and drove the 300 miles from Winston to Kiawah Island in South Carolina, where a group of Brad's friends had gathered to celebrate the wedding of a friend who'd gotten married overseas this spring. We stopped only once to pee... and of course, to purchase a six-pack of SMIRNOFF ICE.

Scene: A grocery checkout counter just outside of Charleston.
Teenage Checkout Girl: (brandishing Ice) Can I see some I.D. for this?
Me: (handing over license) Sure.
Other Guy In Line: Hahaha! That's funny, because you two look like you're exactly the same age!
Justifiably Enraged Teenage Checkout Girl: Um, she's more than ten years older than me. And I'm not even old enough to drink.
Impossibly Dense Guy: HA HA HA! That's even FUNNIER!
Me: If it makes you feel any better, a horsefly nearly chewed off my right boob yesterday.


Above: Beautiful Kiawah, as seen from the seat of the dorkiest bike in the world.
Not pictured: The dorkiest bike in the world.


Above: Icing in silhouette.


Above: Brad and I, looking (if I do say so myself) like a pair of daaaaamn fine party-going specimens.

Not pictured: Anything else, because that is the end. Also, because I am tired and need to go put on deodorant.

And that just about catches us up, y'all. Thank you, and goodnight. And I promise, my next post will not be a whole month coming.

At least, I really, really hope not.

A series of semi-significant events, Part I

Oh, hi there.

So let me just say right now, before anybody starts making speculative suggestions about the reasons behind my long absence from blogging and/or the title of this post, that I am not pregnant. Not. Pregnant.

Okay? Okay.

Also, I apologize in advance for what is bound to be a disjointed and boring bit of updatery. Please bear with me, as it is very hot and I have had a headache for five days. That said, this has been quite the month, and so I've broken it down -- as I like to do with my more long-winded posts -- into a two-part series.

(Or maybe three, depending on whether or not I still have a headache tomorrow.)

(I hate my head.)

Ready? Here we go!

June 20th: In which Brad gets a new job.
Brad, as you may have guessed due to the oh-so-subtle hint dropped in the previous line, has gotten a new job. More specifically, he has been hired into the ranks of suit-wearing finance folk and left just this morning for his first day of work.

However, because this blog is not about him, I'll just say that a) this news was so exciting and wonderful that it very nearly caused me to give spontaneous birth to a litter of kittens, and b) it threw our whole household into complete chaos. Prior plans for a lazy summer went up in flames, replaced by an impromptu two-week crammer of a vacation during the gap between Brad's last day at Old Job and his first day at New Job. It began on the morning of July 4th and lasted up until last night, when we stumbled into our obscenely hot apartment and noted, with alarm, the unmistakable aroma of a forgotten trash bag on the kitchen floor.

Whoops.


July 2nd: In which we travel north.
Prior plans for a cute fourth up north became an extended five-day stay at my family's house upstate. My brother came, too.

On the first day, we iced him.

Scene: Brad, Brother Noah, and I return from the local driving range and pull into the driveway. We are covered with mosquito bites and Brad is bleeding from an unfortunate encounter with a fickle lawn chair (which was the subject of immediate retaliation and which is probably still lying in pieces out near route 9W.) Noah opens the trunk of the car to retrieve his golf clubs and discovers... a Smirnoff ice.
Brad: You've been ICED!
Me: Whooooooo! Bros icing bros!
Noah: (looking confusedly from us to the Ice and back) What?
Brad: C'mon, dude. You got iced, fair and square. Quit stalling.
Noah: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Me: (getting impatient) Yes you do! You've been ICED! Now take a knee and drink that!
Noah: (even more confused) What? Why? I have to... wait, what???

(pause)

Brad: You have no idea what "icing" is, do you.
Noah: No.
Me: How can that be possible? You're like the ultimate BRO! If anyone knows about icing, it should be you!
Noah: Uh... you guys do know that I've been out of college for more than a year, right?

(pause)

Brad: Well, shit.

(pause)

Noah: Oh for the love of... alright, give it to me.



And there was much rejoicing.

There were also dogs...


...and sailing...



...and the world's best treehouse...


...and a miraculous feast...




July 4th: And then, there was MORE icing.

Scene: Brad and Noah return from a supermarket run. They are giggling like fiends. Brad produces this from behind his back.



Brad: You've been ICED!
My dad: Kat, you don't have to do this.
Me: YES I DO.

Which is to say, I tried...

...but was forced to abandon the whole thing when it became clear that my choices were to a) continue drinking, and vomit, or b) stop drinking, and allow my shame to be tempered with relief at not having vomited.

And then, there was this:

July 5th: A mystery with a quick, albeit disturbing, resolution.

Me: Where'd that Smirnoff Ice go?
My mom: Oh, your father drank it.
Me: What? Did someone... you know, ice him?
My mom: No. He just... drank it.

* * * * *

And so concludes Part I. Come back later this week for a ferris wheel, a plane trip, porch-sitting for a spell, and, yes, still more icing.

The answer is blowin' in the wind.

In order for you to fully understand the ramifications of this story, I need to tell you about Barry.

Barry is our down-the-street neighbor. But more than that, he's a local fixture -- as integral to the character of the neighborhood as the bodega-cum-underground-gambling-den on the corner, the smell of baking bread that wafts down the street in the early morning, the constant undercurrent whoosh of traffic from the nearby BQE, or the group of Polish-speaking alcoholics in our local park (who, in addition to character, also provide the neighborhood with an endless supply of empty Smirnoff bottles and the rare but inimitable pleasure of seeing a middle-aged man lying in the bushes with no pants on.)

Barry has lived in Greenpoint for approximately 300 years. He has spindly legs, a pendulous gut, and a sparse, unruly beard that he shaves once per year. (For two to three weeks after this annual event, we inevitably walk past him on the street without recognizing him at least once.) His profession is a mystery; together, Brad and I have worked out that he's some sort of super for a building on our block, but he spends most of his time hanging out in the park with his two dogs -- a musclebound pair of chow-chow mixes named Zeus and Mysterio, who love Barry more than life itself and follow him wherever he goes. But the two things you most need to know about Barry are as follows:

1. Barry is old school. He calls me "young lady", apologizes for cursing in front of me, and tells raunchy, obscenely detailed, hilarious stories about catching people having sex on the sidewalk outside our building... but only to Brad, and always with the explanation that he "didn't want to say anything in front of your wife."

2. Barry is everywhere. I see him almost every day, sometimes multiple times per day. Basically, Barry is an unavoidable part of life in my neighborhood.

Not that I wanted to avoid him.
Before.

And so, on a hot, breezy afternoon last week, I took Hurley out for a walk... and ran into Barry on the way to the park.

At first, it was a typical exchange. We said our hellos and chatted briefly about the weather (humid) and the stray cat situation in the alley behind our respective buildings (catty), and then Barry stepped off the sidewalk and into the space between two cars -- holding Mysterio, who doesn't like other dogs -- so that we could pass by. I thanked him, and continued down the sidewalk...

... until, several seconds and about five yards later, a sudden stray gust of wind came rushing down the street, richocheted off a recessed doorway, and blew my skirt clear up to my ribcage.

It happened so quickly that I had no recourse -- no time to plunge my hands onto my crotch, Marilyn Monroe-style; no time to even flail hysterically in the direction of my hemline before it rose up even with my eyeballs -- and then it was over. And I was alone, clutching the dog's leash in one hand and my now-deflated skirt in the other. Alone, and reeling from the unforgettable sensation of having just had my entire ass -- both cheeks in totality, my brain helpfully reminded me, because I was wearing a thong -- waving about in the open air.

Alone... except that, of course, I wasn't alone. Because behind me, right where I'd left him only moments before, was Barry.

Just keep walking, my brain advised. He was probably still between those cars, he probably had his back turned, he was probably distracted by his dog, it's okay!

Still clutching my skirt, I took a few tentative steps toward the park.

That's good, said my brain, as I quickened my pace and the pounding rush of humiliation stopped beating quite so insistently at my temples. That's good. You're good. Barry did not just see your ass.

I kept walking.

And even if he did, my brain continued, he would never say anything. He's old school, remember? He'd just pretend like it never happened! So just keep on walking, and don't worry, because Barry will never, ever, ever mention this agai--

"Young lady!" came a voice from behind me. "I saw that!"

I turned around.
Down the street, right where I'd left him, stood Barry -- lips stretched into a lunatic grin under his beard, finger extended and ecstatically pointing.

Pointing at my ass.

My brain, temporarily muted by the shock of what had just happened, suddenly sprang back to life and began screaming, NOOOOOOOOO!

I turned and ran into the park. My brain continued to scream. Ten minutes later, Barry and his dogs entered the park and walked in the opposite direction. I pretended not to see them.

That was three days ago.

It's not that I'm looking for a solution, here. There is nothing I can do about this. Despite desperately wanting to avoid him, Barry remains an unavoidable part of our neighborhood, and we can't afford to move.

It's just this: Barry is old-school. And if Barry's censored and restrained reaction to seeing my entire ass is to let me know, in no uncertain terms, that he saw my entire ass, I'm left wondering what the unrestrained, not-in-the-presence-of-a-lady version of this story will involve.

More likely than not, he's probably in the park right now, telling everyone that we had sex.

Saved by the skin of my teeth

This morning, Brad and I headed up to Columbus Circle for back-to-back husband-and-wife appointments with the dentist.

Yeah, I know. Waaaaaay too much togetherness, right? I have no idea if other couples go and get their teeth cleaned together -- I'm guessing most don't, if only because schedules don't allow for it -- but I have to admit that it's the sort of thing which, if someone had mentioned it to me a few years ago, I would have probably responded to by laughing derisively and then pretending to vomit in my purse.

So, consider this my mea culpa: as it turns out, it's actually kind of nice to do this thing -- since we would have to do it anyway -- with each other. And our dentist, an incredibly charming and avuncular guy who won my heart at our first visit when he told me that it's totally okay not to floss, seems to get a kick out of us showing up together.

Today's visit was no big deal -- no cavities for either of us, a basic cleaning for me, and for Brad, just a few minor cosmetic adjustments to his front teeth (the goal being to upgrade his status from that of "a very handsome man" to "The Most Handsome Man in New York Unless James McAvoy Happens to Be Visiting".) I went first, then sat in the waiting room and skimmed through a World Cup preview article while Brad took his turn.

About ten minutes had passed, when I heard Dr. S. take a break from what had been an uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness monologue about golfing (because when your customers spend most of their visit with a spit-sucking tube and various scraping implements in their mouths, singlehandedly keeping up the conversation is a very important skill) and say, "Is Kat still here?"

I called back, "Yes?"
"Come here, let's see what you think!"

In the exam room, Brad turned in his chair and grinned at me.
"So," said the dentist, "as you can see, I've just done some temporary bonding here and here, to see how you guys like it."
"Okay," I said.
"And by 'you guys'," he continued, "I mean Kat, because I know it's the wife who makes the decisions about this sort of thing."
Everyone laughed.
"Sounds good," said Brad.

The dentist nodded.
"So, I'll do this for today, and then you can go home and decide whether it looks good. And if you change your mind, or you want something else. we can adjust it. Like, if after a week you feel like it's not long enough..."

Brad snorted.

"...or if you're saying, 'You know, I think it could be a little bigger', we can..."

I snorted, then started giggling. Brad laughed harder and mouthed the words long enough at me behind the dentist's back. I began to wheeze.
Dr. S. stopped talking and stared at us.

"I'm sorry," gasped Brad.
"It's just," I giggled.
The dentist held up his hands. "No, no! It's fine. Whatever you have going on in your personal lives, I don't need to know about it."


Which is probably a good thing, because what I had been about to say -- and what, given the context, would have resulted in a horrific misunderstanding that would put an immediate, embarrassing end to our marital-bonding-via-dentist-visit -- was:

"It's just that we're like a couple of twelve year-old boys."

Because even after the hurried explanation that oh no, I just meant that we have shared sense of humor, I wouldn't have blamed the dentist if he never wanted to have anything to do with either of our mouths ever again.