Angie Kinghorn

The dangers of exercise

I nearly died last night while exercising in my living room.
I was using Time Warner Cable’s Exercise TV on Demand (FREE!), and thought it would be fun to do the “sexy chair workout.”  My husband was out playing basketball with the guys, and I thought it would be a good time to get my own workout in and perhaps have the added bonus of a special routine to show him when he got home.
An aside: I am clumsy and ridiculously accident-prone.  Sunbeams trip me up, and I’m no match for a cracked sidewalk.  In one six month period of time I fell up the stairs and sprained my wrist two separate times.  Somewhere, a group of Japanese tourists is still laughing at their fabulous snapshots of me falling down the stairs of the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.  I nearly amputated my finger because it got stuck in the hinge side of a fire door in England.  It’s not unheard of for me to fall out of chairs or fall down while walking.  My body is usually covered in bruises because I’m constantly slamming into walls, tables, and any other furniture brave enough to stand in my path.  My father called me Grace, and would bust out into “Oooh ooh oooh Miss Grace …” each time he saw me drop something or trip.
Despite these facts, there are days when my denial is particularly strong, and on those days I labor under the misconception that I can do things just as well as other people.  Hence, my choice of the sexy chair workout.
The sexy chair workout requires a chair, so I pulled one of the kitchen chairs in front of our flatscreen and commenced to swivel my hips and plié along with the blonde young chickadee hosting this show.   The chair might as well have been a pole.  Clearly, “fitness trainer” was not the only recent job description on her resume.
Chickadee was bouncy and energetic, and while the music was bland, it was fun to be dancing with a chair.  Until she got to the “let your hair fly, girls!” portion of the program.
When did it become verboten to pull your hair back to exercise?  All the people I see doing anything exercise-like on television (dancing, cheerleading, actually exercising, etc.) have long hair flying at all times.  My guess is that some male TV exec deemed that there should be hairography (thank you, “Glee,” for the term), and so now all scrunchies are relegated to the depths of the gym bag.
Where were we?  Oh, yes, how I almost killed myself doing the sexy chair dance. 
Chickadee moved on from hip shaking, pliés, and chair circling, to the choreographed portion of the program done whilst sitting in the chair.  On the very edge of the chair.  There was a lot of flinging one’s legs open, then flinging one’s head down and back up and opening and shutting of the legs, and maybe some shoulder rolls, but I’m not sure because I was having a devil of a time trying to watch Chickadee’s instruction through all my hair.  (Her hair, btw, stayed miraculously off her face the entire time).
After the shoulder rolls, she instructed us to come to a seated “V.”  This was basically Pilates on a chair.  The position had me sitting sideways, one hand along the back of the chair, knees up in the air.  Then Chickadee instructed us to commence to kicking our legs, while still bent in a “V.”  Just try to picture this.  The only body parts in contact with the chair are your butt and your right hand on the chair back.  Fun, yes.  Stable, no.
“Ok, let’s put this together, sexy ladies!  I wanna see some hair moving!”  Chickadee chirped.  I was really getting into this, thinking that maybe hubby would enjoy it when  he got home, and then we got to the kicking part, and we were doing it at tempo, and suddenly I felt slightly off kilter … and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I fell, ass over teakettle, not even off my chair, but with my chair.  The chair and I toppled right over backwards.  My head landed about two inches from the marble hearth in front of the fireplace.  And then I busted a gut laughing, as Chickadee kicked merrily away on the TV, chirping, “Remember, this is a hard move, so be careful with your balance.  If you’re a beginner, you may want to take it down a notch.”
Thanks.
*Image credit to rocket ship on flickr. 

Ridiculously specific specification, or, does this post make my butt look big?

The other day I was in the mall when a miracle happened.  I found two bathing suits that I really liked.  Not just on the hanger, but on my body.  Two suits in which I would be comfortable walking out on the beach or by the pool. 
Two suits that, combined, ran approximately $280.
This is normal for swimsuit-land, but not for my wallet.  If I’m spending $280 on something, I’d like it to be a cocktail dress, a really nice handbag, or something I’ll use for more than a couple of days each summer.  Of course, one’s self esteem is never more fragile than those few hours one is wedged into the least fabric it is ever deemed decent to wear in public, so perhaps a premium for comfort of mind as well as body is appropriate.
Then again, maybe not.
My doubts led me to Marshall’s, where I found three more acceptable swimsuits.  Each of them has a check or two on the “con” list, but all three of them combined were cheaper than the bottom half of one mall tankini.
Naturally, I turned to my husband for advice about which suits to keep.  I told him we were having a fashion show, and that I desperately needed his input.  (Note to self: next time this happens, force him to at least mute the NBA game on the TV).
So I put on all five swimsuits.  Just so you can get a mental picture:
  1. A Kenneth Cole Reaction tankini in turquoise, with a ruched skirted bottom and halter top with ruffles and tons of cleavage.
  2. A Kenneth Cole Reaction tankini in a blue, turquoise, and white print, with a ruched skirted bottom and bandeau tankini top with ruching down the sides.  Numbers 1 and 2 can be mixed and matched.
  3. Becca tankini with bandeau tankini top, halter tie, floral print.  Bottom is a skirted bottom, but much shorter than #s 1 and 2.  To be honest, the suit is probably a bit on the small side, but it’s designer and I got it super-cheap, and hubby seemed to like it.
  4. DKNY retro one-piece, heavily ruched to look like something Marilyn Monroe would have worn back in the day.  Depending on how you pull the ruching, it can be the length of a (very short) cocktail dress, or the length of a semi-skirted bottom.  The top has a halter strap.  The big con is that the suit is off-white.  It seems pretty heavily lined, but still, it’s basically white.  But again, this is a $125 suit I snagged for $29.
  5. Green tankini with white polka dots.  Bottom has lots of coverage and side ties, top has small bow in center and white straps.  Cost a whopping $16 and the material feels like burlap’s second cousin.  However, it looks really cute.
Hubby watched me try on all the suits and then proceeded to have virtually no opinion as to which suits I should keep and which I should take back.  He did say they all looked good and it was up to me. 
Maybe it’s because I’m hormonal, but if I go through the anguish of bathing suit shopping two separate times and manage to find FIVE suits that are even contenders, and then take the time to put on said suits, scratchy tags, hygienic film and all, at 11 pm on a school night … if I do all that, I damn well want some feedback.
“That’s great you like them all,” I said.  “But which ones make you want to jump me?”
“They all do.  I told you, I like them all,” he said.
“So which ones should I keep?” I asked.
“Honey, you look great in all of them, and they’re all so different.  I can’t tell you which ones to keep.”
“So you don’t care?”
“No, I just like them all.”
“But, in terms of a hotness scale, with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue on one end and the Land’s End catalogue on the other, where would you rank them?”
“You’re asking me if they make you look like Brooklyn Decker?” he asked.
“No!  I’m well aware I look nothing like Brooklyn Decker.  I just want to know which of them makes me look attractive to you.”
“They all do.  But you know what is not attractive?  A woman asking the same question over and over and over when I’ve been trying to answer it for fifteen minutes.”
“But you haven’t answered it at all!  I just want to know which ones you like the best!”
“I said they all look equally great and flattering and that I can’t really differentiate based on hotness, that I like them all.  And you said, ‘Ok, so you hate them all.’”
“No, I said, ‘Ok, so you don’t care.’” 
“It’s like freaking babelfish.com!  I say something in English, and it comes out of you in Woman!”
“What?”
“I’m not talking any more.”
“That’s not healthy.  What is babelfish?  And you didn’t answer the question!  Is this just because they all look so different that I’m basically asking you to compare bananas to kiwis?”
“Babelfish.com.  It’s like where you go to enter text to translate from like, Hindi to Mandarin.”
“And Woman is a language option?”
“It is in your world.”
Huh.  Men really are from Mars.  This morning, I figured it out, though.  I should have been more specific, “Honey, which of these suits makes the girls look the biggest and perkiest and my buns look the smallest?” 
I said this to hubs, and he said, “You didn’t ask me that!  You asked me which ones looked the best!” 
I am dumbfounded.  Could ridiculously specific specification solve the communications gap between Mars and Venus?  Note to self: in future, word all inquires to lawyer hubby as if writing a discovery request.  That’s the language he speaks.
Post script:
This morning over coffee, I showed this post to my husband and asked for his reaction.
His response?  “Celtics won.  Looks like they might sweep the series.”

What’s that smell? Oh, wait, it’s me.

My skin is pale.  Casper the ghost pale.  Most of my foundations have names like “alabaster,” “porcelain,” or the ever-popular “01.”
But don’t think for a minute that I’m Nicole Kidman’s doppelganger.  Her visage is truly perfect, porcelain (perhaps fondant?), blemish-less, freckle-less, and smooth.  Nope.  Not what’s going on here at all. 
Here there be freckles galore, and their bigger cousins, moles, or, as my dermatologist prefers to call them, “sun damage.”  My family has a history of melanoma, and I’ve lost count of how many moles I’ve had removed because they looked suspicious.  So far, my luck has held and they’ve only looked suspicious.
The problem is that I love the look of a tan.  In the late nineties, I went through a tanning bed phase.  It was wonderful.  I got evenly tan, no bathing suit lines, it helped my acne, and best of all, it was guilt-free, because my dermatologist told me to do it.  Yes, you read that correctly.  My dermatologist recommended that I use tanning beds to get a solid base tan so I wouldn’t burn.  He said it was far healthier than getting tanned or burned by the real sun. 
[Time out for a litigious interruption: Dr. X (I’ll withhold your name for now), if one of my moles ever ends up being more than suspicious, I’m breaking my rule about not suing doctors and coming after you with a vengeance.]
Predictably, my combo of pale skin, concerned (new) dermatologist, and love for the tan look has led me to explore the world of sunless tanners.  I’ve tried creams, lotions, sprays, gradual moisturizing tanners, and tan towelettes.  I’ve ended up streaked, patchy, orange, and downright stanky.
But my worst experience by far happened this morning. 
As we were gearing up for church, I decided today would be a fine time to apply my new Laura Mercier Body Bronzing Makeup.  Now, this is not a self-tanner.  As the name suggests, it’s a makeup.  Bronzer in a lotion form for your body, to be exact. You simply apply it wherever you want to look tan.  After ten or so minutes, it dries and becomes non-transferable to clothing (ha!), and you’re left with a gorgeous bronze glow.
The make-up-artist at Sephora who introduced me to this little gem assured me it stayed put.  She wore it to her own wedding and didn’t get so much as a smidge on her white strapless dress, she assured me.
I’m calling a big fat BS on that one.
In the store, I noticed that the body bronzer had a slight coconut smell, but it was nice and beachy, and the small amount I’d tried on my hand was not overwhelming.  This morning, I stood in our bathroom and laboriously slathered the stuff on my legs, arms, décolleté, and neck.  It took a lot longer than I’d thought to get even coverage, and just like a self-tanner, my knees, ankles, and elbows immediately turned several shades darker than the rest of me.  But overall, I had a nice (and immediate) golden brown glow.  Then there was the first sign of trouble.
“Honey?” my husband called from downstairs.  “Are you making piña coladas up there?  What the hell is that smell?”
“It’s my new body lotion,” I called back.  “And if you can smell it from down there, then you need to come up here and tell me whether I can go to church or not.”  I glanced in the mirror.  Hmm.  I was darker than I’d thought.  “And also whether I look like an Oompa Loompa.”
Hubby came trooping up the stairs, chortling all the way. 
“Whaddya think?” I asked, twirling around for his inspection.
“It’s very … tropical,” he said, smirking.
“Seriously, how bad is the smell?  Can I go to church?  Do you think perfume would help?”
“It’s fine.”
“You wouldn’t have yelled from all the way downstairs about it if it were fine.  Do you think perfume would help or not?” I asked, digging through my stash.
“What kind of perfume?” he asked, warily.
“My usual stuff,” I said.  My usual stuff is Estée Lauder’s Beautiful.  I’ve worn it since the ninth grade.  I love it because it doesn’t give me migraines.  How’s that for a reason to have a signature scent?
“You might want to consider something more in the pineapple category,” hubby said, laughing. 
I sprayed on some Beautiful anyway, and he conceded that the combo wasn’t bad.  “Kinda like a piña colada with flowers,” he said.   
I spent the whole ride to church noticing how my skin was glittering á la Cullen in the sun.  And how my arms sported giant smudges of brown that weren’t blended properly.  And how the bruises on my legs seemed to be accented rather than hidden by the tan.  And, oddly, craving rum.
During Sunday school, I tried to pretend the heads that turned in my direction were admiring my dress, rather than wondering at the source of eau de coconut.  That illusion was shattered when the guy sitting behind me left abruptly, only halfway through the lesson. 
Of course, when I’m anxious about something (for instance, about smelling like an alcoholic frozen beverage while in the house of God), I sweat.  Not normally a problem, given my close friendship with Lady Mitchum, but today, when I felt beads of sweat forming on my chest, I looked down and saw that my tan was literally melting down my front and onto my bra. 
Never in my life have I been so relieved to leave church.  But our house isn’t much better.  The bronzer’s scent seems to glom on to everything it touches, and instead of fading, it may actually intensify over time.  My dress may have to be burned, and our house smells like a tourist bar in the Bahamas.
So without further ado, Laura freaking Mercier, I give your product an F.  If there were anything lower than an F, I’d go with that.  I never imagined I’d bronze a bra, but thanks to you, today, I did.  Perhaps I can display it next to my bronzed baby shoes.  At any rate, I’ll be sending you the bill later this week.

Writer’s Workshop: Where were my shoes? Who knows, they wouldn’t have fit, anyway.

2.) Where were your shoes?  Write about an interesting time when you happened to be barefoot.  Begin and end your writing with a description of your feet.


At the end of my pregnancy, I couldn’t see my feet.
Before this, whenever I’d heard pregnant women say they couldn’t see their feet, I’d laughed.  Just lean over, or look to the side around the belly.  How hard could it be?
And then I found myself in the third trimester of a twin pregnancy and found out exactly how hard it could be.  Impossible.  My belly measured 10 weeks ahead, so I was the size of someone who was roughly 2 ½ months further along.  At 30 weeks, I looked full term.  At 35 weeks and 6 days, which is when this little incident occurred, I looked like an over-inflated balloon meant for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Like the rest of me, my feet swelled during my pregnancy.  By the time I got to borderline preeclampsia, my cankles went all the way up past my knees.  I gained 20 pounds of fluid in one week.  No bones were visible pretty much anywhere on my body, but especially not in my feet.  When my husband tried to massage them to give me some relief, I could actually feel the fluid move around.  His hands left indentations on the tops of my feet like dimples in rising bread dough.
But I was focused on the truly important things in life, and at 35 weeks and 6 days into my pregnancy, I knew that my OB appointment the next day was likely to lead to a delivery or at the very least, another hospital stay.
Clearly, my toes had to be painted.
Any sane person would have simply removed her old polish (or left it) and been done with it, but am I sane?  Hell, no.  My toenails have sported red polish for most of my adult life.  Having red toenails and blonde hair makes me feel better about the state of the world.
It’s only in retrospect I can see how addled my brain must have been.  There I was, roughly the size of a young killer whale, swollen so much that if I sat down on the floor I had to have help getting up, having foregone such niceties as leg-shaving and bikini line maintenance months prior, worried about what the doctors and nurses would think of my freaking toenails, when my feet were too swollen to fit in any of my shoes.
A pedicure was out of the question because I was on bed rest, therefore I took it upon myself the day before my appointment to remove my old polish and paint my toes.
Unfortunately, I neglected to consider that not only could I not see my toes, I couldn’t even reach my toes.
But it didn’t stop me.  It took several hours and many rest breaks and some really amazingly stupid contortion and bolstering of various body parts with pillows, but those toes got painted.
Good thing, too, because the next day my doc sent me straight over to the hospital to have the twins.  At 36 weeks on the nose.
Hours and many doses of morphine later, flat on my back in the recovery room after my c-section, I noticed that I could actually see my toes.  This hadn’t happened in months.  I started chirping to everyone who would listen, “Look, I’m thin!  I can see my feet!  I’m skinny!  I’m positively svelte!”  To his credit, my husband didn’t laugh, but the nurses sure did.
It wasn’t until the next day that I got a clear picture of what I’d done.  At first, without my glasses, I glanced down and thought my feet were covered in blood.  Which honestly would not have surprised me all that much at that point.  But after donning my specs, I got the picture.  There were my feet, even more swollen than before the birth.  And there was smeared, dark red polish, splashed all over my toes, nails, cuticles and all.  I can’t remember the actual name of the polish I used (“I’m not really a waitress,” perhaps?), but I’ve got a few suggestions for OPI the next time they go naming a dark red polish: “I’m not really a manicurist.”  Or “Texas chainsaw massacre.”  Or “Shot with a hospistol.”  Or “You give blood a bad name.”