Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On Page 6

  I never did understand the women who are in denial about their men cheating. If your husband is gone most weekends and he smells like perfume, wake up! Now, on the other hand, I also know some women who cheat. We aren’t all angels either, but I can tell you it doesn’t happen as often as with men. I know about ten married men who cheat and I know one married woman who does. Either way it’s still wrong. If you don’t have trust in your partner, what’s the point of being married?

  So remember to wear that miniskirt if it makes you feel good. Just let him know that he has nothing to worry about. But just a little warning to your husbands from me: What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, because I’ll be watching!!!

  Are We Our Parents?

  I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “You married your father.” I hate that phrase simply because it sounds gross, but the older I get the more I understand and agree with the meaning behind it.

  My mother and father met in beauty school. This is what my dad did with his GI money after Vietnam. When I asked him, “Why beauty school?” he replied, “That’s where the pretty girls were.” My dad wasn’t stupid. He definitely had the charm that would attract babes—but most important, the hottest babe in the school, my mom. My dad put a perm solution on an old woman’s head and then left for lunch. My mom was always paying attention to what he was doing and noticed that this little grandma had the solution on her head for over an hour. So she quickly poured water over the lady’s head and all of her hair fell out with the perm rods still attached. My dad walked into class with ketchup still on his upper lip from lunch and was kicked out of beauty school. That, of course, didn’t stop them from pursuing their love.

  Like most Irish Catholic couples couples back in the day, they started their family at a very young age. I still think the reason was that celibacy was a real thing back then, and if men didn’t force themselves to walk down the aisle they would have died of blue balls. Marriage for men meant sex, and they were excited for it. So excited that their wives spat out children, at least one child every two years. There are four girls in my family, and we are all two years apart. I would definitely say my parents got it ON.

  As the years went by, my childhood seemed almost perfect. I had friends on the block to play with, my dad would come home from work and hug us and even coach some of our softball leagues, and my mom was our lunch mom at school. My sisters and I always felt safe and loved. My parents seemed to be doing everything right. However, behind closed doors, things sometimes weren’t as shiny as they might have appeared. My parents fought on occasion—no hitting, but loud angry fights.

  The negative thing I copied from my parents’ marriage was the ability to brush things under the carpet. When the storm was over my mom quickly shoved it under the rug so her baby girls could see that today was a brand-new day and it was all behind us now. Yeah, until…the next time. We never really dealt with anything.

  My sister would watch the Brady Bunch episodes and ask if we could have Brady Bunch meetings like they did. Now, I think that was the most genius thing ever. There should be Brady Bunch family meetings once a week in every home to put the shit on the table and deal with it. I still fight by running from the situation rather than by dealing with it. I’m slowly getting better, but it’s still gonna be a while.

  My parents wound up divorcing when I was twenty-one. I was sad for probably a week until I realized how much more happiness came into the family when they went their separate ways. I think they stayed together for the children longer than if there hadn’t been any. I think that is the wrong thing to do. Children aren’t stupid. They feel negativity and pick up bad traits, especially when Mom is hiding the yucky to make everything appear to be great.

  If you haven’t taken an honest look at your own parents’ relationship and how it affected you, I highly suggest doing so. You might be surprised to see that you have picked up some things along the way that are holding you back from making your home life the best it can be.

  Honey, Would You Mind Picking Up My Breasts? They Fell Off the Bed Again

  I hate that men age sexy! It’s so unfair. They get that salt-and-pepper hair, and the crow’s-feet around their eyes make them look more rugged. Like a cowboy. I dated an older guy when I was twenty-one. He looked really good for his age, and he kept up with my young energetic self. But even with all that, he was still old. He would listen to the oldies station and wore comfortable shoes. When your man starts buying clothes just because they’re comfortable, you’re in trouble.

  One thing I always wondered about was whether or not your pubic hair turns gray. It’s got to. Okay, I just called my mom and asked her if that happens and she said yes. But she made it clear to me that it hasn’t happened to her yet. That seems crazy to me. Can you dye it if you hate it? And what happens to your vagina? Does that age, too? Is that why grannies wear granny panties? Because their vaginas now need extra support? And what about dryness? Holy shit. I’m scaring myself. I’m going to call my mom again.

  Don’t even get me started on boobs. Since I had my baby, they’ve headed south of the border. I used to do the pencil test. I would put a pencil under my boobs and they were so perky the pencil had nowhere to rest. Now I can stick a toaster under my boob and you wouldn’t be able to find it. Recently I noticed a couple of hairs on my nipple. What the hell is up with that? And I swear to God I haven’t had sex without wearing a bra in the past three years. The one time I didn’t wear a bra my boobs got sort of soupy and slithered past my arms. They didn’t bounce around like they do in porno—they just looked like pancakes being angrily slapped.

  Face-lifts are something I’m all for. I would love to say that I think I’m going to grow old gracefully like Lauren Bacall, but I know I’m not. I’m going to end up looking like Joan Rivers with bigger boobs. I’ve been getting BOTOX in my forehead and I kind of dig it. I had to stop getting it around my eyes, though, because the area was so frozen that in pictures it looked like I had smelled a bad fart instead of smiling. I think if I lived in a city other than Los Angeles I wouldn’t care as much about aging, but when you constantly see older men leaving their wives for twenty-year-old “poontango” you care.

  Which brings me to the major change that men go through…THE MIDLIFE CRISIS. I’ve recently renamed it the “Tom Cruise Crisis” after I saw the infamous Oprah episode and Tom express his desire for twenty-year-old girls. Tom’s midlife crisis proved to be the biggest public display of one we’ve seen in a while. I’ve heard that it starts with your husband caring more about his appearance. All of a sudden you will catch him out of the corner of your eye staring at himself in the mirror. He might even start using face products and toners for his skin. He might change his style of clothes because it looks “cooler.” This is also the time he might want to trade in the SUV for a sports car. In L.A., for some reason, it’s the Ferrari. IT’S SO STUPID. I just want to scream out the window, “WE ALL KNOW YOU HAVE GRAY PUBIC HAIR!”

  Try not to make fun of your guy during this time. If you need to laugh, go in the pantry and let out a good chuckle. If he really wants a car during his “Tom Cruise Crisis,” let him get it. I would much rather have my husband get inside a sports car than get inside a twenty-year-old’s “poontango.”

  Now, if God makes women go through the saggy boob experience as we age, at least He gave men the saggy balls experience. You know you might have to tell him to start wearing tighty whities if you’re having sex and his saggy balls start flying through the air, hitting your body while you’re doing it. And why do men’s noses get bigger and why does hair start growing out of their ears? Screw the saying that he’s got potatoes in his ears—he’s got a freaking front lawn. It might be time for the Sharper Image nose-and-ear-hair clippers for Christmas. GROSS!

  The bittersweetness in aging is that you and your guy can go through it together. You can look at each other’s faces and see the years and memories that surround every wrinkle. I just hope someday down the road, instead of turning
into Joan Rivers, I’ll be able to look past my cracking skin and thick toenails and see the cute Jenny I was when I was twenty-five. Yeah, right, this is L.A. My husband will be in a yellow Ferrari, and I’ll be at my hairdresser’s dyeing my pubes. Hey, there is nothing wrong with dreaming!

  The Seven-Year Itch

  I used to think the Seven-Year Itch was a myth or for old people who didn’t know how to live it up or for couples who maybe never had the magic to begin with. That is, of course, until I was going on my seventh year of marriage. One morning I rolled over in bed and saw a nose with hair sticking out that was snoring with some pretty bad morning breath. That was the day I began to itch.

  I’ve talked to other couples who have confirmed this as a real thing. It’s almost like a virus: You either fight it and get past it or die with the rest of the bacteria. God, I wish there was a cream for it. Rub it on and your marriage becomes shiny and new again.

  Marriage is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. For two people to live together for so long under the same roof is a big accomplishment. Fifty-year anniversaries are becoming extinct, yet again proving that long marriages deserve awards and praise. Sometimes I see old people in restaurants sitting together eating their meals and I watch them. Sometimes it makes me sad. They don’t even talk. Is it because they have nothing else to say, or can they simply read each other’s mind by now? I wonder if, forty-three years ago, their Seven-Year Itch went untreated and they stayed together despite their itchiness.

  The good news is, I have seen really old couples who still hold hands, not just to help each other walk but because they really want to. I love seeing that. It gives me such great hope. Those are the couples who found the medicine for their itch and managed to move forward. But how? When I close my eyes I can definitely see me with some old fart sitting at a restaurant drooling at each other. It makes me giggle and at the same time it makes me scared. I so desperately don’t want to be in a marriage that starts to feel like a brother-and-sister relationship. You know what I mean? I want love, sex, excitement for years to come.

  I think the medicine for the itch comes with time. Something happens that ignites the fire again even if it goes out quicker than you had hoped. At least you can see it working. The memories you both share together in your lifetime, like watching your baby’s first steps, watching him stare at you naked out of the corner of your eye, are all things you shouldn’t take for granted. Let those moments touch you again and then maybe you can see through new eyes. Because, really, that’s all it is—looking at things from a new perspective. My girlfriend said she so desperately wanted to look at her husband again and say, “God, it’s so cute the way he…” It had been a while since she’d said anything like that because, after so many years, all those cute things turned into annoying things. Which is completely normal in my eyes. When you cohabitate long enough, you get used to shit. So she desperately wanted to fill in the blank. “God, it’s so cute the way he…?” So one day, she decided to eavesdrop on her husband taking a shower. He was doing a dance as he was scrubbing his butt cheeks. She said it wasn’t sexy, by any means, but it was really cute. CUTE! There it was. She said to me, “God, it’s so cute the way he scrubs his butt cheeks.” She was so excited to fill in her blank. She said even though it was something as simple as that, it made her smile to know that her man has a cute butt-scrubbing dance.

  Now, if your itch is very bad and you can’t find a cream for it, maybe it’s time to reexamine the relationship. Sometimes I think marriage licenses should be like driver’s licenses. They expire after a number of years, and in order to keep going you have to renew. Wouldn’t that be kind of genius? It would force you both to look at the relationship, and if it’s not working, the marriage would expire so you could go on your merry way, or on the positive side of it, you could look at each other and say we really want to renew. What a way to keep it fresh!!

  So, as the years progress, don’t forget to pay attention to the little things that do make you smile. Those are the creams you’ll need to keep that itch under control for years to come!

  Bleaching Your Asshole??

  What is the world coming to? Even I was shocked when I heard that the latest new thing going on was to bleach your asshole. If you live in small-town U.S.A. and you’re completely repulsed, just wait. L.A. starts these weird things and then in about five years it will be available at your local bank after a nice deposit.

  I didn’t really understand why a girl would need to do this. Yes, large logs do pass through, but doesn’t toilet paper do the job of cleaning things up? I was informed by women who have had this procedure done that a girl wouldn’t bleach it for sanitary reasons, but because some people have a darker circle around that area. This was totally new to me because I had never really checked mine out. I mean, I’ve stopped in the mirror to squeeze my fat or look at some cellulite, but to bend over and spread the cheeks to see how things look in the asshole department? I don’t think so.

  Later that week I was having sex with John and was reminded about the topic as he flipped me over into the doggy-style position. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking down into a dark donut around my butt hole. So I faked a few orgasms, got him to the finish line, and then plopped down. I was dying to ask him but didn’t know how. I finally just said it the only way I could.

  “Do I have ring around the asshole?”

  He looked at me weirdly and replied with, “Do you mean that dark circle around your ass?”

  I leaped off the bed and started screaming and flailing around the room.

  “What do you mean, that dark circle around my ass? Is there really one there?”

  I couldn’t believe he’d replied so quickly and confidently about it. “Yes, there is.”

  I started screaming and flailing around the room again. “How come you never told me?”

  He replied with “Because I like your ass no matter what.”

  I said, “Do YOU have ring around the asshole?”

  He said, “I don’t think so.”

  With that cocky response I made him stand up, bend over, and spread ’em. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had a perfect butt hole! Not even a dingleberry. I charged into my bathroom, turned on all the overhead lighting, bent over, and spread ’em!

  “DAMN IT!!!”

  He was right. I started to call my friends and ask them if they had this also. Half did and half didn’t and a few of them were so weirded out that I still haven’t heard back from them. I know it’s not the end of the world, but it freaks me out when I hear or find out something that I knew nothing about and then realize I’ve been living with this ring-around-the-asshole for thirty-three years.

  Now, what’s a girl to do? I’m still embarrassed to go to the gyno, let alone go to the nail salon and ask for some ass bleaching. After about five minutes of really considering it, I let go of the dream of the perfect asshole. I figured after blowing out my vagina from childbirth those ailments far outweigh the other. And if any guy has a problem with my loose vagina and C-section scar, then he can kiss my ring-around-the-asshole!

  So go ahead and check out yours. You know you were going to after reading this anyway. And if you turn out to be one of the unlucky ones, don’t fret. Just know that you’re got a famous friend in Hollywood who has the same ring-around-the-asshole as you.

  To Shave His Balls or Not to Shave His Balls

  All right, if we women have to keep up with the times by bleaching our asses, then the men can get down and do a little upkeep themselves. Ryan Seacrest started the metrosexual trend and it’s taken off more than I ever thought it would. College boys began feeling the need to get manicures and pedicures, and I knew at that moment we were headed into a new era. The “can-I-borrow-your-hair-gel?” man!

  The one nice thing about this new trend is that men can relate now to some of what women have to go through to maintain their appearance.

  There are a couple of negative side effects that do come with a we
ll-groomed man. One is the fact that now he takes longer than you do to get ready. It’s amazing that women can make dinner, take a shower, put the baby to bed, and be in a dress with an updo standing at the front door and our men are still coiffing their hair in the mirror. This is the perfect example again of how we can multitask yet men can’t…. resulting in the Mr. Potato Headsyndrome!