Dearest P,

As much as I'd like to celebrate R's courage, I now feel the need to confess my own narcissistic obsession with beauty details.  While her feat can potentially be viewed as a radical empowerment of her own slightly aging self, I fear I made a cosmetic decision that may keep me from any additional intimate relationships if hubby decides to cast me into the darkness. 

You see, my friend, I took elective laser hair removal to its less than obvious conclusion and now sport so little hair "down there" that I may not ever be fit company for anyone who has reached puberty.  Worse yet, I think I require one more treatment for my dear little "pussy cat" to avoid looking like someone suffering the aftereffects of chemotherapy or radiation.  Oh sure, she's sleek and beach ready but do you think any man other than hubby is really into this scene? 

I suppose, in some ways, R has a similar predicament–how many men named Horace are there who might appreciate his name stamped on her all too sleek hipbone?  Perhaps both of us, while seeking female liberation, really only managed to once again shackle ourselves further to the demands of the patriarchy we so long to escape.  Or, maybe, and perhaps more rationally, it's just one more way we can blame the loves of our lives for oppressing us in ways they never could have imagined. 

C.

Dear C,

Apologies for the prolonged hiatus in our correspondence.  For the last couple of months, I have been stricken by a mysterious form of abdominal pain which simply refuses to lend itself to any form of diagnosis, apart from malingering. Naturally, I relished the opportunity to down tools and abandon all pretense of leading a productive and fulfilling existence, and have spent the intervening weeks engaged in much soul-searching – OK, web-browsing – from a prostrate position in bed. As a result, I now know more about gallbladders, gout and other terminally unsexy topics of conversation than any nubile young graduate fresh out of med school, and have developed a more than a little unnatural pleasure in being poked and prodded down there by the above-mentioned – all the while claiming to the oldballandchain that I am in far too much pain to contemplate any actual sex, you understand. Oh, and the new bed linens, towels and matching drapes I have ordered from Overstock.com look fabulous, too.

Do be aware that in the event of my demise, dear C, I am entrusting you with the sacred duty of ensuring I am buried in a coffin the width of an iPod Nano. Wouldn’t want my recent weight-loss to go unnoticed at the funeral after-all. Hair extensions may also be in order, as in my weakened state, I made the mistake of allowing my hairstylist to try something new and ‘spunky’, which turns out to be shorthand for German soccer player with rat tails. Please God, don’t let me die with this haircut!

As for your good self, don’t think I have been unaware of the flurry of activity taking place Chez C recently. What with the armies of plumbers, landscape architects and interior decorators I watch repeatedly entering and exiting your premises from behind my new curtains these days, I can tell that hubby has either prevailed over the mighty corporations of the Midwest in his latest class action claim, or that you have finally got tired of waiting, and decided to take matters (and workmen) into your own hands.

Either way, I hope to live long enough to see you at least one more time before you, hubby and the entire C. brood decide you’ve finally outgrown the petty bourgeois environs of the Village, and up sticks for that mansion in Potomac.

Yours faithfully, in sickness and in wealth,

P.

P,

You’ve been ill?  I’d just begun to reflect upon what comment I’d made in the last couple of months that had finally forced you to end our relationship–the final nail in my own proverbial "always fatter than yours" coffin.  Am a bit relieved to know it’s only your own physical pain that’s kept you from me and mine. 

Can’t say your precious goddaughter hasn’t noticed your absence as she’s been forced to learn how sheers and drapes work together instead of learning her abc’s with you.  Who knows, it may serve her better in the long run as she’ll be a real contender on the inevitable toddler interior design reality show.

Anyhoo, I’d love to prattle on about your possible diagnosis but have two workmen breathing down my neck as I write this.  If only hubby were this persistent, he might find my attention less likely to wander.

Faithfully, again,

C. 

C,

Still bent double from our early morning encounter with yoga yesterday, although having BS telling me to ‘open up, like a flower’ while he pressed down on my inner thighs during corpse pose made it all worthwhile.  Nevertheless, as part of my new resolve to a better parent – or at least appear to be one – I managed to hobble down to the bus-stop in time for the pre-work cocktail hour.  As a private school parent, you may not be familiar with this 15-30 minute time-slot during which working parents gather to discuss burning issues of the day, and otherwise postpone the moment when they must inevitably depart for work.  (Stay-at-home parents, of course, are generally far too busy to hang around.)

Anyway, one of the topics under discussion today appeared to be what kind and how many after-school activities are considered appropriate for a child between the ages of say, 0 and 11 – peak formative years for Harvard, you understand. When I mentioned that I was hesitating about whether or not to sign my offspring up for soccer, on the grounds that their once weekly gym class would serve as more than enough fun for one week, one mother, in particular, turned to me in horror.  ‘Fun, it seems, is absolutely not the point in life: not now, not ever.  Our children are to be moulded into a race of super-humans, ready to take over the world at a moment’s notice, thanks to all the hours of extra-curricular tuition in ancient Sanskrit, Mandarin Chinese and Russian, not to mention figure-skating training for the 2010 Winter Olumpics, all of which are apparently critical for successful world domination.

Mother Superior made it quite clear that she regards my lax stay-at-home mothering and moronic offspring as objects of pity, to be left in the dust, no doubt, the minute her second child is admitted to Squidwell. Silly me, I thought the point of life was to be happy!  It seems that Mother Superior has not only read every parenting book under the sun (indeed, she may have mentioned writing some of them), but she is able somehow to schedule all these activities for her children, and singlehandedly run the Department of  Labor at the same time – or so she implied.

I was tempted to point out that while Mother Superior may indeed be smarter, better educated and WAY more successful than yours truly, she certainly doesn’t know s*** about fashion.  The fetching silk shirt she had on looked like it had recently been ironed – by the wheels of a bus – while she appears to be allowing her hair – gasp! – to gray naturally.  I would offer my considerable skills as a makeover artist, honed during many extracurricular hours’ careful study of Us Weekly, but I fear that would only serve to make her attractive, as well as insufferable.

Instead, I returned chastened to apply my weekly face-mask in my humble abode.  I may not rule the world, but at least my pores won’t resemble the craters on the face of the moon.

Faithfully,

P.

P,

What you may not know about Mother Superior, whom I used to pity until I realized she harbored the same emotion for me, is two well-kept secrets, one of which I know b/c I too work such long hours outside the home: 1) her desk job is a terrifically useful perch for scheduling her children to do so many things, all you understand, executed and chauffered by others; and 2) she has, perhaps, three sticks of furniture in her home, two of which may be laundry baskets turned upside down for sitting. 

I must confess a certain envy of someone who clearly cares so little about what others think and spends her time doing exactly what she believes is important (even if her own childhood was shaped by an incident involving duct tape and a calculus book).  My envy, however, has turned to pure hate as MS recently made explicit that I was wasting my own few and precious I.Q. points (and those of my cherubs) by trying to decide upon a dining room set while I could be aiding eldest cherub in researching his science fair project.  Now, of course, it’s war.  It is, to be sure, a covert operation.  Whenever the chance presents, I simply offer her darlings a chance to watch Cops or play dodgeball in our front yard, activities which will  never enhance their resumes.

Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I have started luring your little ones into an enforced reading period when they come round.  They just seem to crave the structure, frankly.  Simply reinforces the notion that it really does take a village, doesn’t it P?   

Faithfully,

C.