How long does it take to become ambidextrous?

It hurts when I brush my teeth.  My SUPER SPINATUS (Rotator Cuff) has betrayed me.  I'm not brushing my teeth particularly violently or anything.  I think it's just those wee little movements at that particular angle.  I start the day off wincing.  And what's really depressing is that it's not from having had twisty-bouncy sex the night before. 'Cause that kind of wincing is always accompanied by that satisfied smirk on your face.  You forgive the pain, because what went on before, was so freaking great.

I've decided that I need to stop using my right arm and become proficient with my left.  How long do you figure it will take?  Instinctively I high five people or reach for things or lean on that arm, so I need to abandon it, strap it down and begin using the other one.  I tried brushing my teeth with my left hand this morning and it didn't go well.  Water and toothpaste everywhere.  My spaz factor was at 11.  I wounded my gums.

I've got some great ambidextrous inspirations: Michelangelo, Einstein, Tesla, Leonardo da Vinci.  Very arty and sciency dudes.  And I'm not 100% sure, but if Escher wanted to his ability kept secret, he shouldn't have given us things like this:

M.C. Escher 1948

Plus?  I'm pretty sure that I could become a superhero if I were ambidextrous.  Less than 1% of the population is ambidextrous - which if we had accurate statistics on superheroes would probably reflect EXACTLY the same percentage!!  Or is that super models?  Me becoming a super model would take a bit more time and money I'm thinking.  The recuperation time alone from adding extra 3 inches to my torso and legs would be at least a couple of months.   Probably not as much fun as being a super hero either.  But step one is definitely the ambidextrous thing, regardless.  Which, seeing as I've already achieved mad touch typing skills, I'm well on my way!

Warming up before the bouncy-bouncy...

WARNING: This post is about sex

I never thought there would come a day where I would have to stretch before having sex.  Honest to God, it's not like we're particularly athletic about it.  I'm not doing a handstand against the wall or anything.  We're not suspended from a chandelier.  I'm just lying on my back with my legs in the air - you know propped open for... ahem... action. (bown-wown-chicka-wown-wown)

I think I'm in one position too long.  I remember those days when you'd get so het up that the barest of touches could set you off.  None of this 15 - 20 minutes before the big finale.  That's why my poor arthritic hips give me grief. The day after sex, I feel like I'm 70.  My frickin' joints are shot to hell - it's what comes of nearly a decade of gymnastics.

Thing is?  When the urge hits - you want to go with it, you want to let it happen.  Nothing ruins a good frisson of sexual tension like stopping to stretch out your quads and triceps (you gotta stretch the triceps too - you know for when you're holding onto the headboard too tight). 

"Do you want to... waggle of eyebrows... STRETCH?"

"Oh baby, I'll STRETCH with you.  You just get down here and we'll do that partner GROIN STRETCH..."

We'll strip seductively, NOT getting caught up in any of our clothing as it comes off, because my 'go-to' if I ever get stuck in my sweater, is to do a clown routine which generally shifts the mood from sex to slapstick.  No longer aroused, we are now amused, and crossing back over that particular divide takes work.  When you find yourself giggling madly after sex, it's incredibly therapeutic, but it really puts the kibosh on the kink in the early stages.

In the early stages, you can't get too distracticated.  "Oooooh, look, something shiny!!"  Gone are the days where it's Wham Bam Thank You (insert appropriate pronoun).  If you start to get tingly, you've got to jump onto that horse and ride it into Coitus Land, do not stop, do not wash that last plate in the sink - GO HAVE SEX!  You want to be in good shape, ALL THE TIME.  So that, at a moment's notice, if your partner gives you the come hither look, you can drop everything, take those stairs 2 at a time up to the bedroom, abandon civility and get down to it. 

Basically, Adult Yoga = Flexible Sex.  It's a win-win.  And not only will the sex be better, but you're going to be in better shape so you'll be able to do other activities.  Though let's face it, being an octagenarian who can do reverse cowgirl and survive?  Great incentive.

I don't remember buying this hairsuit.

WARNING:  Adult language in this post

I never used to be this hairy.  I mean sure, I had the pubes, I had the pits - I shaved - below the knee - because my mother had warned me against above the knee shaving as if it could end civilization as we know it. Taking my hands in hers, eyes so serious, "You don't want to have stubbly knees Heather." 

I noticed my first chin hair when I was in high school.  I remember being in typing class - in between time trials - and feeling the prickliness of that single hair, underneath my chin - embedded, it seemed, in my chin scar.  The scar was the result of a childhood injury with a springy horse at the playground when I was two, a good place to have one's first scar - conveniently obscured underneath the shelf of your jawbone.

I didn't even really notice the other hairy bits emerging until my Dad made primate noises when I appeared in my bathing suit in my late teens.    "OOOOH!  OOH!  OOH!"  Deep throaty noises to trumpet the arrival of longer and darker hair on the backs of my thighs.  Back of your thigh hair is impossible to really pay attention to unless you spend a lot of time feeling yourself up or trying to wrap your own legs around your head.  So I blithely went around for years, unaware of my Zorba-esque rear view.  I was befuddled.  I knew about the "if you shave it will come back darker and hairier" threat, but I hadn't shaved there!  Not since the first time when I was 11 and hadn't yet been advised against such insanity.  The lag time was incredible!  That back of my thigh hair was what prompted the  purchase of my first epilady to tear the offending colour and texture off those legs.

That epilady is now used to tear hair from the backs of my thighs, the fronts of my thighs, my inner thighs, my bikini line, the tops of my feet - HOLY FUCK!  I'VE BECOME A FREAKING HOBBIT!!! - the tops of my big toes.  It'd be used on my neck and my chin hairs if I weren't terrified that I might catch the not-quite-as-taut-as-it-used-to-be neck flesh in it's tweezing clutches.  The chicken skin behind my knees has suffered from that mistake and it hurts like fuck.

The denuding never happens as often as it should, usually before I know David and I will have sex or I'm having my physical or a massage.  Which is why it generally ends up being a rushed affair with imperfect results.  Days later, I'll be having that last nude before-bed-pee and look down and notice entire swaths of hair that I had missed.  The next quarter of an hour is spent with me shivering on the toilet, obsessively ripping the offending hairs from my person.

One day.  One day I shall have unlimited wealth and I shall have a team of strong young men (all ex-Olympic swimmers) to take care of my hair... scratch that.  They'd have to see me all hairy and orangutan-like.  Not going to happen.  Better to have the Eastern European Aesthetician wax me or - I'll save up the big bucks and have laser hair removal.  And then I will have that team of strong young men massage my smooth and hairless thighs - front and back and as far up the inside as I can, before it costs the extra bucks.

Anyone else's kid do this?

"If you had a fake laugh what would it be?"  Rissa asks as we're walking to her dance studio. (We have one car, David takes it to school, if David's late at work, we have to figure transportation shit out.  Rissa opted for the walking option instead of biking.  This happened half way through our 15 minute walk.)

"Beg your pardon?"

"We all need a fake laugh!  You know, if you had to pretend that you thought something was funny, when you didn't really think it was funny - what kind of laugh would you have?  Would it be... you know...  (she trills) "Heee-heeee-heeee-heeee-heeee...  or... (she brays)  "AW-HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW..." or  (she snorts) "Giggle-giggle-snort-giggle..." or (she blarts) "Huh! HUUUUUUHH!  Huh-huh-huh..." or... (she machine guns) "Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh..."

I shoot her a look.

"My brain just thinks of these things. Sometimes I even confuse myself.   I'm saying this because so and so's brother laughed and I honestly thought it was a fake laugh.  I laughed because his laugh was so ridiculous. And that got me to thinking.  You have to have a fake laugh.  Just in case.  You know, for emergencies."

"I'd have to go for the Katharine Hepburn/Philadelphia Story  laugh."

She looked dumbfounded.  Dear GOD, she didn't know who Katharine Hepburn was.  I had failed her as a parent.  She'd never seen The Philadelphia Story.  She didn't understand the brilliance of casting Cary Grant, Jimmy Steward and Katharine Hepburn as the three corners in a near-perfect screwball comedy triangle.   It was then I made a solemn vow to educate her, as we should all educate our children in classic cinema - we shall batten down the hatches and make a weekend of it.

I'm too old for this S*&t!

 

I get Detective Murtaugh now.  I couldn't before, but now that I'm 45, I completely understand him.  Plus, I think he must have been some kind of super human.  How could he possibly do all he did with Martin Riggs, a man a good 15 years his junior, and not DIE from it?   How did he not actually DIE?   I can't even pull an all-nighter - without teetering on death.  I used to have an amazing bounce back rate... when I was 22.  Cripes, last night I stayed up until 11:30 p.m. and when I dragged my sorry ass out of bed at 7:25 this morning, I thought I might die.  Stuck in the middle of a sleep cycle, my brain needed a major reboot.

Now, I'm looking for my quick fix.  The bag of real coffee in the cupboard is calling to me.  Its siren voice had me stumbling towards it, before I remembered that caffeine is terrible for peri-menopausal women and I don't want to fall into its deliciously invigorating trap.  'Cept it'd be so much easier than coming out of this on my own.

I'm rehearsing for a play.  I've had to beg the other production members to reschedule end times of rehearsals - that is how pathetic I am.   "I can barely function after 9:00 p.m. Please, I am begging you, can we start at 7:00 p.m. and just go to 10:00?!?  PLEASE?"  And even now, if you were to take pictures of me during the last 45 minutes of rehearsal, you would find me in various states of yawn.

I used to laugh at my Mom when she would try to read a book in her Lazy-Boy.  It seemed like all she had to do was lift the book and crack its spine  before she was zonko.

"Do you want me to just wave it over your head Mom?  Might accomplish the same thing."

"You watch it!  This'll come back to bite you!"

Last night?  As I was struggling to study my lines?  The seconds between blinks grew longer and longer until I dropped the play on my face. ON MY FREAKING FACE!!!  Yet another thing I can't do in bed like I used to!

IT'S OCTOBER 1ST!!!!

Yellls Rissa as she flops down beside me in bed this morning.  She is VERY excited.

I stifle a yawn, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

"October 1st, huh?"

"YES!!!"

"And October is a good month?"

"It's the BEST month!!!  First off, there's TURKEY DAY (Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up in approx 12 days).  Then, there's the day AFTER Turkey Day where you get to make TURKEY SANDWICHES!!  Then the new book in the Divergent series - ALLEGIANT - comes out!!  Then there is the DANCE STUDIO HALLOWEEN PARTY and then... (she can barely contain herself) ...

IT'S HALLOWEEN!!!!

She leaps out of bed, skipping and singing, continuing her morning.

I turn to David.  "October is VERY exciting!"

"Apparently."

I think I might have to report my cat to Interpol...

Lola is a cat burglar. I mean literally. Our smallest black cat... burgles. She has a penchant for jewelry.  She must be part magpie. Which is a cute little quirk generally, except that a while back she stole one of my most adored pieces of jewelery - a pendant from my friend Shannon. I'm pretty sure Lola's stashed it in her secret cat cache of stolen goods. I'm hoping I'll be able to find it before she puts it on the black market.

And because she, like the other cats in the house, can't actually talk, she won't tell me where this secret cache is.  I've been looking under beds and dressers, carpets.  I've pleaded with her, tears have been shed, but to no avail.

Thing is?  This particular piece of jewelery is one of the last presents that my friend Shan gave to me before she died. I've been using it as a talisman - a memento amicus as it were. I would feel the roundness of the blown glass against my throat and it would calm me, I'd feel better, feel closer to her, the pain would disperse just that little bit. And you need that when you've lost a friend so young in life.  She was only 41. I desperately needed that object I could palm in my hand and think She touched this too.  She chose this with love.

I keep thinking, Maybe it'll be here, in the bottom of this bag. I'll step on something under a rug and my heart will leap, Is this it?? And it never is. And it's now been months and when I reach for it in my jewelery box there are mornings I'm near tears with its loss.

So I'm going to find another one; or have it made... whatever the case, I will have a pendant of the same shape, size and colour and I will imbue it with all my best memories of her. It is, after all, just an object. Shannon was not that piece of turquoise and lavender glass. But in my mind somehow, this object had become that tie to her. My attempts to describe her would probably sound corny and clichéd.  But those clichés become what they are because there is that truth in them, that truth to them.

Shannon was a fierce friend. Shannon's smile could power the Eastern Seaboard in a blackout. Shannon had this ridiculous vaudeville-esque finger magic trick, that wasn't her trick at all, but rather her version of her father's trick, that always made me laugh. Shannon would sing to you because the lyrics of that particular song were perfect for the moment and would bring you solace. I haven't beatified her in death. I didn't have to. She was pretty damned perfect on her own. Which is why instead of bemoaning my lost tie to her, I'm making another one that I can hold and take comfort in. And if that disappears into the ether, I'll create another. Its tangible weight in my hand will give me strength. Just as she did.

Love you Shan.

ps. How bad days become brilliant...