365 Nights Read online

  I can’t be sure that I read it in a magazine, but I remember once reading that it takes twenty-eight days of doing something to get into a habit. Is that true? I wondered. If so, what kind of habit? I mean, taking a vitamin every day requires you only to remember to take it, and boom, you’re done. Leave the bottle on the counter at night and it’s a visual reminder. Now this could hold true for sex. Brad is certainly a visual reminder that I should have sex with him every day. I could just picture him walking around with a sign slapped across this forehead: TAKE ME DAILY FOR INCREASED HAPPINESS. ABSOLUTELY NO MARITAL SIDE EFFECTS! Could this catch on as a habit that I do every day, like brushing my teeth and taking a shower? But geez, having sex every day— surely it’s a different equation? It seems like time-consuming habits (i.e., something that takes more than two minutes)—like sex, exercise, blowing out your new haircut as well as your fabulous hairdresser does, or anything that requires significant time and concentration (which a good blow dry does, by the way) can be really hard to integrate into your daily routine.

  I don’t know if anyone noticed a change in me . . . or noticed that I was no longer a standard fixture at every girls’ night out. But I noticed something. Brad and I flowed better as a couple. We were happier (yes, I was happier having sex every day, but it was only July). Our house ran better because we were both more agreeable, more helpful, more solicitous to each other. And our time together was truly about us, not the promise of special date-night sex. I told my best friend about the arrangement. Not because she was interested in the sordid details of my sex life but because we share with our best friends the stuff that’s going on in our lives, especially the good stuff or the surprising stuff or the stuff you never counted on. Like the fact that I was really digging this daily intimacy thing.

  I told my best friend that, for sure, I was going to keep going . . . at least through August.

  AUGUST

  Bikini Daze

  “Hon, this sex every day thing would appeal to every husband in America, right?”

  “I don’t know . . . I guess it would depend . . .”

  “On what?” I asked.

  “On whether you liked your spouse, and were attracted to her enough to want to have sex with her every day,”

  “You mean, if you’re married and you weren’t attracted to your spouse, you couldn’t have tons of sex with her?”

  “Absolutely not. I couldn’t have done this if I wasn’t attracted to you.”

  Well, that was nice to hear. I just assumed that if you’re married and you’re a guy, you’re happy to have sex any way you slice it. And if that slice is sweet, skinny, and cute, great. And if it isn’t, so what, you’re still getting some lovin’. Brad was surprised at my surprise. In fact, he was a little disappointed that I didn’t think more of him and his gender. He claims that to do it every day requires a certain amount of attraction—physical and emotional—to your spouse. So score one for this girl in her thirty-ninth year—I am still attractive to my husband! Apparently this is better news than even I thought—because the reality is that, on average, after three years of being “together,” attraction can wane between couples, especially sexual attraction. We’ve been together for a decade and we’re throwing off the curve—good news.

  Attraction is an interesting topic to me, because I’ve never known what it feels like to be the prettiest girl in the room. (Brad disagrees; isn’t that the best?) I’ve come to be okay with that. And while my husband is never going to be on the cover as People’s Sexiest Man Alive, he’s a great guy, despite the stuff that makes us human. Like when he first wakes up in the morning rubbing his belly and breathing dragon breath; but hey, morning is not my best time either. Every couple has a laundry list of spousal irritants that run the gamut from snoring to losing the remote to making snarky comments about one’s mother-in-law (none of those apply to us, of course). I remember a friend once telling me that on some days she wakes up and looks at her husband and thinks, “Mmmm, I could just eat him with a spoon.” And on other days she wakes up and looks at this same man and recoils in horror, wondering, “What on earth was I thinking?” And then she remembers that he probably does the same thing. And I guess that is the chronic balancing act of marriage—some days are great and some days just aren’t—but here we are.

  Attraction is not just about physical appearance; it’s about an amalgamation of things, really. Depending on the occasion, I can be witty, fun, decently dressed, and a really good friend; now that I’ve decided to make it a priority, I’m also a pretty sexy wife! And while there are a million ways to look, feel, and act sexy—for me, sexy is feeling confident. Clichéd, but true. And since my little project has taken off so nicely and Brad and I are genuinely making time for each other, what’s not to love?

  These days, a pretty standard routine to feeling sexy takes place once the sitter has arrived, usually at 6. I take a glass of wine to the bedroom, turn on some music, and spend forty-five minutes showering and getting ready. I put on perfume (which is rare), I wear mascara (also rare), and I iron my clothes (very, very rare). Why does this feel sexy? Because now that I’m a mom, I rarely have forty-five minutes to spend on myself during the day. A mom’s day is full of making sure her kids look presentable, but there’s precious little time to make herself presentable. It’s pure pleasure to take the time to make myself look pretty, uninterrupted. After all, getting pretty can lead to feeling pretty and then I walk into the den and Brad stands up and says, “Wow, you look great! Let’s go.” He takes my hand and we kiss our precious children good-bye and we go. Alone, or with others, it doesn’t matter. We’re out, I am made up and freshly pressed, I am with my husband, and I’m feeling a little sexy . . . a walking cliché.

  Thinking of all the variables when it comes to long-term couples wanting sex, desiring sex, and ultimately getting sex, I was kind of stumped. What comes first—sex or sexy? It’s just one more tired spin on the chicken-and-egg theory—does having sex make you feel sexy or does feeling sexy make you want to have sex? Since we had a time line on this daily arrangement, I didn’t really have the chance to probe this conundrum, because we just jumped right into daily intimacy.

  I didn’t run out and have a makeover before Brad’s birthday. There were no coy little games, no cloying love notes. No flowers. No special lingerie. Just the basics. I guess I didn’t feel particularly sexy when we started our daily dalliances. Nor did I feel unsexy. And it was okay. There was a practicality to this gift that was difficult to get around—and the fact that Brad and I had been together a decade. But once we got in a groove and I realized how much Brad was really, really enjoying this gift, I did feel good, better, and yes, even sexy.

  To be honest, my moments of feeling sexy and pretty were restricted to home and when I was going out with Brad. Sadly and rarely were these feelings transferring to my time at the swimming pool this summer. Insecure is what I feel at the pool, surrounded by half-naked people, most of whom look better than I do in a swimsuit. But from the relatively safe viewpoint on my lounge chair, beneath my broad-brimmed hat and knock-off sunglasses, I realize that the pool is a giant fishbowl of attitudes about what it is to be a woman stripped down. We apply vats of sunscreen to our bodies, avoiding premature aging, and the kids run and scream and jump in the water. The children wonder why the pool is always empty during “adult swim”; meanwhile on the lounge chairs there is assessing, gossiping, admiring, wishing, showboating, or skulking in and out of the water.

  I wonder as I look around—who is getting some good loving? Is it the knockout women or the regular moms—like me? All shapes and sizes are represented here—women in bikinis with killer abs and gorgeous legs (some of whom I still allow to be my friends) and women in skirted tankinis and T-shirts (some of whom are also my friends). Looks can be deceiving, can’t they? Because the truth is we don’t know who has a dynamite sex life and who doesn’t. It’s hard to hide cellulite and a baby belly at the pool, but it’s quite possible to camouflage a flound
ering sex life. People do it every day, regardless of what they’re wearing. And I’m not sure on whom to place my bets because, sixty days ago, I would have never bet on Brad and me to be a benchmark for an active sex life.

  The pool landscape looked so different when I was a kid. Back then, you arrived at the pool at 10 A.M. sharp and stayed until dinnertime. I used to enjoy a Grape NeHi and Nabs while sitting on a tall brick wall watching teenagers play Ping-Pong. The Little Board and the High Dive Board loomed over the pool, and it was the ultimate rite of passage to graduate to the ten-foot-high board. The pool was in its heyday.

  I vividly remember a neighbor who was always at the pool and whose dad had run over him with a riding mower (by accident, of course). He had an artificial leg below the knee, but he was freakishly athletic. At the pool, he looked like a bird sailing off that High Dive. Half gainers, two-and-a-half flips. It was beautiful to watch and probably dangerous to do. Today, there are no teenagers at the pool unless they’re working there. If I had to pinpoint the demographic shift at the pool, it would have to be with the decline of the High Dive. Today, pools are nice and sterile and safe—to the point of boredom. No High Dive, no diving in the shallow end, no foosball, no unsupervised activities. Just kids and toddlers coated in sunscreen, and parents who trail after them.

  Back in the day, my mom would line up her chaise with her girlfriends, pull out her oil, and proceed to smoke, gossip, play an occasional hand of cards, and sunbathe until dusk.

  She paid just enough attention to my brother and me to ensure we didn’t drown, which we didn’t. She rarely played with us in the pool. Playing in the pool with your kids was counter to the concept of the pool back then. You brought your kids to the pool to play with other people, not you. She occasionally came in the water, but only to cool off and she never, ever got her hair wet. None of the moms did—it could really mess up those stylish dos from the swinging seventies. I do remember she wore a bikini the color of an orange Creamsicle, which popped nicely against her tanned, caramel-colored skin.

  When I was growing up, I thought my mom was gorgeous. She personified for me what it was like to be an attractive woman. And when she signed up to be a room mother at school, I thought I would nearly die from pride when she came to my classroom. I grew up in a town with an unusually large Greek population (and great diners), and every school year you were bound to have a Zourzoukis, Tsiros, or Apostolopoulous in your class. Which meant that you would have the most awesome Greek pastries at all classroom events because those mothers also signed up to be room moms. But what my mom couldn’t do in the kitchen (which wasn’t that much, really) as a room mom she made up for in style. There was always some Greek mother handing out souvlaki that would melt in your mouth, but it was my mom in some hip poly-blend pantsuit, wildly fab hair, and giant sunglasses who stole the show (at least in my memory).

  To make things even more fantastic, she smelled great. This was because of her signature scent, available only at your local drugstore—“Charlie.” She thought it was so campy that she wore a scent with the same name as my dad that she did it for far too many years. I remember wondering if I would be lucky enough to marry a man named after a perfume fragrance (Calvin? Halston? Ralph?). My mother spritzed Charlie on her wrist and neck every Friday and Saturday night before she and her Charlie sashayed out the door. I remember lying on her powder blue sateen bedspread watching Hee Haw and The Lawrence Welk Show, while she sat at her bureau and primped. Lipstick, earrings, lots of hairspray, and Charlie (both of them)—let the evening begin. Perhaps our primping rituals are something we inherit from our mothers—proof that taking time to feel pretty and sexy is, on occasion, a worthy endeavor.

  Mom would be horrified to know that nobody is kicking back at the neighborhood pool anymore. Life, like the pool, takes work. Before leaving to go to the pool, I can’t just throw on a suit and some sandals and go. Well, I guess I could, but I won’t for pride’s sake, as I’m knocking on forty’s door. I have to shave and pluck, put on some lip gloss and moisturize. I have to find towels, goggles, snacks, and a beach bag. I have to track down spare change for the vending machine and snack bar, and make sure I grab my cell phone, too. Once there, I have to position myself so I can keep a keen eye on my kids and make sure they don’t drown. No, the moms at the pool aren’t smoking, drinking, or playing cards, although those aren’t bad ideas. Instead we’re coating ourselves in designer sunscreen, drinking bottled water, and making sure our kids haven’t lost their eighth pair of goggles of the season.

  And there is nothing less relaxing than if you get conned into helping out with the kids’ swim team. It was a hell like I have never known. It must have been payback for something I did to someone—I don’t know what and I don’t know whom. But I was being punished for some unpardonable sin. There could be no other reason why I was put in charge of the bullpen at my children’s first swim meet of the very first season of our family’s very short-lived swim team career.

  For those of you unfamiliar with the swim team bullpen, as I was until five minutes before I was thrust into the flaming throes of this inferno, it’s an area where you assemble, coordinate, and line up, ohhhhh, say, 185 swimmers before each heat. There were hundreds of kids, and I was supposed to corral them into the appropriate lane at the appropriate time to swim the appropriate heat. There were approximately fifty races over a three-hour period. Perdition, my friends, there is no other word for it.

  And to think that just minutes before I had walked into the meet with a chair, my sunglasses, and a chilled bottle of Fiji Water, ready to relax and watch my talented offspring compete. Instead, I watched my seasoned swim meet friends sit in chairs, relax, and watch their children compete and look knowingly my way, tsk-tsking with sympathy. Poor Charla, she got the bullpen her first time out.

  But what doesn’t kill you (or cause you to kill others) does make you stronger. Being responsible for the bullpen made me realize some important things. For example, daily intimacy is way easier—and much less stressful—than working the bullpen at a swim meet. This is valuable on the occasional day when I could take or leave sex—days when either work or a long time outside in the heat by the pool causes me to crave sleep over sex. Then I can remind myself that at least I’m not working the bullpen.

  I also learned I have severe personal space issues. The mob mentality of seven- and eight-year-old kids as they form a tight circle around you, pressing, pressing, pressing in on you to determine if they’re swimming in the butterfly relay and then asking you again, again, and again . . . and yet again if it was lane 4 or 5 . . . well, it’s cause for hyperventilation, I tell you. And all kids look alike when they have on a swim cap, goggles, and matching swimsuits. Telling them apart is like telling apart seagulls at the beach—you can’t. You can only stay out of their way as they descend on you for food and hope that the poop doesn’t land on you. And I learned that my keen sense of humor and sardonic optimism have strict time limits. After approximately two hours—poof!—they are gone and I become cranky and surly. And I am not remotely placated when the “mom in charge” flies by and gives me a squeeze, a smile, and tells me, “You’re doing a fantastic job.” Which is also further testament to the fact that I did not miss my calling to be a second-grade teacher. Not that I ever felt a calling to be a second-grade teacher, but I can now retire for good any thoughts of the sort.

  That afternoon I left the swimming pool sweaty, frazzled, and stressed out. Not the vision of my mother at the pool— relaxed, rested, and blissed out. In fact, I later saw photos from the swim meet and I was squinting at this vaguely familiar figure in the background of one . . . Wow, who is that poor woman, I thought. It couldn’t possibly be me, now could it? But it was, it was sadly, really me and let me tell you that working the bullpen at a swim meet does not make for an attractive look.

  What is it that turned the pool from a place of pleasure and respite into such a spectator sport (and I don’t mean a swim meet). Fun, boredom, vanity perhaps? M
en do it, too, but women have made an art of it. There is not a more vulnerable part of the poolside day—at least for me—than when my kids whine, “When are you getting in the pool, Mommy? Please get in the pool.” Then I sigh, slip off my cover-up, and plow into the water. At this point, it’s good to remind myself that while I’m self-conscious in the water with my kids, my husband is attracted to me. Still.

  I’m a bit of a realist about some things (not all, mind you, but some), including body image: You see, I’m a sturdy girl. There, I said it. I know it’s true, so don’t think I’m fishing for you to tell me I’m not. And I know it’s not a good thing. And I could be healthier and I could exercise more, and blah, blah, blah. Weight has been an issue for me since . . . well, let’s just say for a long time. I remember walking down a street in Manhattan in my twenties and passing two women discussing bathing suits, and which kind looked good on them. And one said to the other, “Honey, my bikini days are over !” And I thought to myself, “Me too, hon, me too.”

  In fact, I haven’t worn a bikini since the age of five. That was the one summer when my mother dressed us both in matching leopard-print bikinis (she does have fantastic style, remember). After that, I took control of my wardrobe and I knew that leopard -print bikini was my last. It remains a fond memory for my mother, though, perhaps because it was the last time she, too, wore a bikini. Just to test the bikini waters for the last time, I did purchase a bikini in high school—it had a little flouncy bottom and a floral top. I didn’t look bad in it, I just didn’t look good in it. Therefore, it never saw the light of day, or knew the smell of chlorine. I resolved that the one-piece suit was where it was at for me. So it was, so it shall be forever more.

  Post-kids, body image gets even worse. Few women can pull off a bikini after pregnancy—our bodies have betrayed us in ways we never thought possible. This they should teach in sex ed class, and the teenagers with the super-fit physiques would run screaming for the woods. I’m talking wrecked belly buttons.