3rd Quarter Phenomena

Warning: For those who felt badly for me when my kid told me I looked like a gorilla should stop reading now. More honest self-deprecation lies ahead. If you choose to read on, remember that personal style is a choice, and I am quite comfortable with mine. No need for affirming and encouraging words about how I look. I am all set. Really.

Having attended a few New England Patriots football games at Gillette Stadium, I am beginning to see some fan patterns. First off, the biggest and most rare treat is a trip to the bathroom. There is little or no line in the women’s room, even at halftime. The line for the men’s room is always long. Women can get in and out of the bathroom before the commercial break ends. Bonus!

There is an odd shift in the crowd towards the end of 3rd quarter. Some men in jerseys who have been drinking for hours before and during the game enter a whole different mental zone. When a player on the field has a big play, these guys wearing that player’s jersey seem to get the idea that they are actually responsible for the play. With the help of a lot of beer, they have become the player. They stand up, turn to the crowd and display the jersey while soaking up the cheers from the people in the stands who happen to be watching the game looking in their direction. Each section seems to have one of these boneheads who swaggers and points towards his number with exaggerated nodding to acknowledge what a badass he is for getting a first down or making a big tackle.

It is confusing for these fellas when someone tells them to sit down because, in their mind, they are making it happen down there on the field. Reality and fantasy have merged. It is funny the first two times, but then it gets old. The problem is that the initial reaction of our laughter combined with their impaired judgment encourages them to bask in all the cheering. They get pissed when everyone turns on them and yells to get out of the way. Sometimes this leads to a fight and sometimes removal by the authorities, which is always a relief until the next hero of the game gets rolling. And there is always another hero.

A walk to the bathroom during the late 3^rd quarter brings a whole new light to beer goggles. Even though I walk all around the tailgating scene before games and around the stadium unnoticed by guys, suddenly I am treated like a super model. At the New York Jets game this year, I had not showered and had bags under my eyes. I was wearing a Patriots baseball cap, an oversized men’s Jerod Mayo jersey, a scrappy long skort, and dirty running shoes, yet I had developed some kind of 3^rd quarter magnetism. The  crowd of guys who were packed together watching the game on the Jumbotron had bleary eyes and sheeny skin after a big day of partying. I guess guys who buy a ticket to watch the game on a screen with their backs to the actual game would leer at a woman like me as if I was hot, steamy and naked, rather than a scrappy middle-aged regular gal in a baseball cap who had once been compared to Snape. It was not just a couple of guys staring. My instinct was to hock a lugie of snot on the ground which an excellent way to repel unwanted attention from lecherous men, but I did not want to defile my church. It is a little scary to realize that any woman who walked by felt like an appetizer on a tray. And there weren’t many of us walking around; probably for this reason.

There is a ratio phenomenon that occurs in groups of men. Having spent my life playing sports with guys and then becoming a ski coach, it didn’t take long to figure this out. When there are very few women in a dominantly male environment, we all look pretty good. This is especially true if the group is drinking, trapped in a small town way up in the mountains away from civilization for days on end, or at a football game with mostly male fans. Once the group moves to a bar or away from the stadium where a more balanced population hangs out, women like me groove right back under the radar, which is actually a much-underrated place to be.

Next time I go to a game, I will bring one of my diapers to put on at halftime so I don’t have to leave my seat. Or maybe I will wear the diaper to the game under my clothes. During 3^rd quarter, I will crinkle by the sheeny boys and give them a little peak at the band of my Depends. That should sober them up.

My Rooster Scares the Piss Out of Me

The rooster we have is very pesky. Everyone loves him, except me. His name is Puff Puff. He was named as a baby chick when we all wished he would grow to be a laying hen. When the chicks grew up, seven of them exhibited rooster traits and started crowing. Puff Puff was colorful but didn’t have any male features. He didn’t crow for the three weeks, during which we observed them to see who was going to end up in the freezer.

The day after we slaughtered the roosters, suddenly Puff Puff got some swagger on. It became clear Puff Puff was a male when he stood taller and started crowing. It even seemed that his tail had a few more feathers spouting off his backside. Having cheated death by hanging low with the ladies, he did not have much respect from his coop of hens. They pecked at him and attacked him every time he tried to crow. With a few missing feathers and a bad limp, he had to work hard to gain position as the alpha male.

Having grown up with nasty roosters who killed each other off, I was ready to stuff Puff Puff into the cone and take his head off, but the family loved his beauty and poise. Our youngest understood my side after being attacked a few times. When Puff Puff saved the hens from a dog attack as well as an animal attack, he earned more time and respect from everyone but me. I had lingering issues with my childhood rooster experience, and Puff Puff knew it. That dude could smell my fear.

Several times, Puff Puff chased me down and attacked me using his beak, talons and 1.5-inch spurs. Each time, I freaked out and frantically responded with an uncharacteristic threat of violence with a rake, ski pole or shovel. Needless to say, we don’t have a good relationship. Recently, I poured out several containers of leftover food scraps on the ground for them, which usually occupies them for hours. As I walked away, I heard pounding foot steps. When I turned, Puff Puff was flying into the air, spurs out and ready to take me down. I screamed and yelled waving a blue one-liter Pyrex lid to defend myself. Thankfully, the dog showed up and took the rooster on while I scrambled to safety.

One morning after sleeping late in our family tree house, I descended the ladder with my book in a shoulder bag and a large yogurt container full of pee with a lid on it. As I was heading down the path, I stopped short because Puff Puff was in my path. I waited for him to move along, but he was ready for a tussle. Lucky for me, I reached over to my left and pulled out a big gnarly pine branch with spiky twigs to help encourage him to move him along. He puffed up his chest, gave a crow and then did his little threatening jig that felt like a coiled snake move to me. I was feeling pretty badass with my big stick, so I wielded it with a threatening jive. He was having none of this and came towards me until I gave a more aggressive shove to get him off the path. He didn’t move much.

I held onto the stick in one hand and the pee container in the other as I walked around him. Just to be sure, I turned the face him walking backwards towards the house. When I got about 20 yards from him, I was feeling safe and was about to drop the stick when a few of the hens came clucking into view far off to my left. I turned my head ever so slightly to look at them and saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. When I turned back, Puff Puff was in a full agitated sprint coming right for me. He launched into the air, and I instinctively swung the spiky pine branch at him in self-defense with a shrieking F-bomb. He retreated, and I was left completely wet. When I lurched back to my senses, I realized in my fit of panic, I squeezed the yogurt container so hard that the lid popped off and my pee flew in the air then covered me from chin to ankles. Bruce ran out to find me soaking wet, with an empty yogurt container, a handbag on my shoulder and wielding a stick. He told me I deserved it.

Clinging to Snape Like a Life Raft

One spring morning in 2005, I was out enjoying the post-winter warmth on a run. I was feeling terrific. My friend, with her five year-old in the back seat, stopped her car to chat. She mentioned how she had read an article in the paper about an upcoming show I was performing locally. We had some laughs about some of the details, as well as laughed about the picture of me making one of my usual facial expressions.

Suddenly her son leaned forward in his car seat and said with a big grin, “You look like Snape!” My friend’s smile disappeared and her eyes widened as she attempted to shush him to sit back in his car seat. I burst out laughing, and told him he was right. The picture of me in The Valley News with my arms above my head making a long face looked a lot like Snape, the evil professor and Harry Potter’s nemesis. I love the honest feedback of children.

Imagine the horror and embarrassment my friend was feeling as she scrambled to find words. Howling with genuine laughter, I pointed out my Snape-like features to her son. Reminding her that I am the perfect person for this situation, I could see she wasn’t recovering from the cringe-worthy moment. I felt badly for her as she drove away knowing their conversation was about filtering thoughts before you blurt them out because they might hurt someone’s feelings. By the time she reached the end of our road, I am sure she came to her senses and realized that they had averted disaster by having Ole Snape Pierce be the catalyst for the talk about what you say and don’t say, even if it is true. We have all been there with our kids pointing out the pregnant person in the crowd who is clearly not pregnant because the person is elderly or a man.

The most fortunate thing is that I was compared to Snape because most women I know would have a hard time getting over that. As the Low Maintenance Queen, the Conscious Fashion Enemy, and the Righteous Imperfectionist, I can take it and spin it into material. Receiving feedback on my low maintenance style has been going for most of my life.. Droves of girls and women have given me hairstyle opinions, make-up suggestions and fashion tips. I trained under my mother who got the same tips her whole life. She and I joke about how we kindly refrain from giving these women our perspective and suggestions. In my world, when you get behind what you are, life is a lot more fun wearing less constricting clothes, letting my face breathe and understanding that I am too old NOT to have gray hair. Snape was almost the perfect call for me, but he doesn’t have gray hair.

Years have gone by since the initial Snape comment, and I am getting more Snape-like with age. People tell me I look just like my brothers all the time. This should be a compliment, being that they are all handsome guys. However, my brothers don’t have a hint of femininity in their appearance. I keep right up with them as feature creatures– bushy eyebrows, very present nose, beady eyes and a masculine jaw. Over the years, people have said to me, “You look just like your brother. If you were a man, you would be so handsome.” I always thank them with a chuckle to myself. The decades of unsolicited feedback helped me develop tough skin, get darn comfortable with myself and prepare for the next level of feedback from my own kid.

My kids have been feasting on the Snape story for years and share it with their friends regularly. A poor visiting friend is often asked, “Don’t you think my mom looks like Snape?” Even the most outgoing kid goes instantly mute and nervous in such a situation. Sometimes I wonder if I am too resilient to feedback, and fear that my kids won’t develop a sense of limit for what can be said to others outside our family.

One summer day while in the thick of a busy innkeeping stretch, I took a break to slouch on the couch. My 11 year-old daughter was sitting across the room scrutinizing me. “Mom, you look like an old….” There was a pause during which I was getting ready to hear “old woman” but had a flash of wisdom realizing she might just say “old man,” which would be right in line with the way my life had rolled up until that point. My daughter tilted her head, scrunched her eyes and said, “…like an old gorilla.” Just call me Snape. Please.

Where is the Pubic Hair?

This article sheds some light on how our culture got to the trend of taking it all off. Interesting perspective.

http://freq.uenci.es/2011/10/14/disappearance/

NYC Marathon: A Feast of an Experience

Finishing the NY Marathon with my body and sanity in tact was a lifetime achievement. I felt joy for the first 15 miles, moderately strong for another 9 miles and quite uncomfortable for the last 2.2. The cocktail of Gatorade and shot blocks with a cliff bar at mile 19 may have contributed to the less than excellent feelings in the birth canal of that run, but it was worth it.

The international presence in that marathon was very cool. 47,000 people from all over the world launched in three waves. It was like a cattle drive for causes; I learned all about amazing foundations and organizations by reading 100s of tee-shirts all along the way. It was inspiring. I was so proud to have raised over $5000 for Grassroot Soccer.

It was a beautiful day. My potentially pesky calf and knee felt great. The crowd of racers was not as daunting as expected. As I got into the last 6 miles feeling proud of myself, it was humbling to see people in outrageous costumes pounding out the miles. A guy wearing a full John Travolta polyester white disco suit busting chops blew me away – imagine the chaff. I came upon another man in a full mink overcoat down to his calves with a fedora, glittery sunglasses and carrying a cane – imagine the sweat. And a Wonder Woman costume for 26.2 miles! These people were game. Here I was lathered in Bodyglide, wearing carefully chosen non-chaffing comfortable running clothes and strapped into my five barbell rated Last Resort Bra. How pathetic that my biggest personal concern was losing a toenail. Those people were managing costumes along with the challenge of a very long run.

At mile 23, I was a jolly runner when I went by my friend and support crew Sarah Callaway. By the next mile marker, I went into an instant funk. I was irritable, tired and started to do involuntary Lamaze breathing, which I didn’t even do when I birthed any of my kids. It just started. My friend/guide John Griesemer had poetically described the last miles as “Crossing a border to a place, a location, a region. You will be there by yourself. It’s a weird place.” I was clearly in that place. I remembered that he also said, “The weird can be wonderful. It can be heartbreaking. Anything can happen. You have to be open to it all. That’s the law of land in that region. You must obey it.”  He was right. My body was doing things I didn’t plan or couldn’t control. At one point, I tried to have my mind take over the breathing scenario, and I couldn’t register if I was actually breathing in at all. It took about 50 feet to convince myself that breath intake must be occurring or I would not still be running.

While in The Place, the two miles felt like they were taking hours to get through. Endless. I knew I was in Central Park, but my tunnel vision caused me to lose logic. I just wanted to get there. People were walking, crying and bent over vomiting. People were done and ready to quit. I wove through the crowd wanting to claw out of that scene and off that course and be done. I wanted to get cozy somewhere, anywhere without my running shoes on. At one point, I saw a sign up ahead that said 80 ft. I smiled out loud and jaunted with a little gusto. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was 800 feet. I yelled, “FUCK!” and went back to the Place. It seemed like hours. I would have preferred birth at that point. The heat shield and medal they promised at the finish seemed ridiculous. I wanted a baby out of this effort. The signs with number of feet were showing up what seemed like every few hours. Then I saw the finish. I did not pick up the pace, but I smiled out loud again and shimmied across.

The heat shield felt like a gift from the heavens, mostly because I was walking rather than running. The medal felt like a new baby. The promise of a port-a-potty was music to my churning bowels. The feedbag concept was repulsive, but the water bottle in it was a delight. The genuine handshake and congratulations from the volunteer brought tears of joy to my eyes, and I told him so. He staggered with a laugh of understanding and gave me the most comforting pat. He was a highlight of the day.

I walked many blocks north to get my bag and believed the volunteers who said toilets were not much farther. I put on my cozies and got back under my heat shield. I exited the park heading north then west towards those lusty port-a-potties. The police shuffled us farther west for a block or two before we could get south. No toilet was visible, and I had many more blocks to walk back southeast towards my hotel. I was sure I would get a cab at some point. No chance and not enough $ for a horse buggy. I ended up walking at least 50 blocks after I ran 26.2 miles. This was strangely hilarious to me.

Finding my gang at the hotel made me forget the long walk. It was such joy to hunker in with niece Rachel who had also run, nephew Jamie, friend SCal and Rachel’s fan club. The comfort of my people and gummi bears and stories was the gift of completing a lifetime achievement.

 

The Solo Red Bra Cup

A couple months ago, I was out for a run and came upon a single, red bra cup on the side of the road near an old farm. It was jusone sheeny B-cup fading in the sun on the side of my road. In fact, it was close to the color of a newt passing by the cup on its way towards the woods.

The oddness of the lone cup struck me and made me wonder what circumstances led one cup of a sassy bra to make its way to a rural road in Etna, NH. Over the years, I have run across a lot of discarded, soiled underwear and a few socks, but I have never seen a bra – much less one cup of a bra. I posted my sighting on Facebook, and the responses were clever and hilarious. They went on for days. I laughed a lot.

I assumed that some perma-Green Up Day neighbor would pass by and pick it up like a piece of litter, but it hung around for weeks and weeks. Because I am training for a marathon, I see the cup on my way home most days whether I am on a four-mile run or a fourteen-mile run. With a little extra time to think about any thought that passes through my head with all the training, it became the official marker of 1 ¾ of a mile left until I got home. I rely on the cup to provide me with a mental victory of getting over the hurdle and to keep clipping along towards home.

I imagined the cup getting pushed by the first snowplow to the side of the road and surfacing in April when the snow melted. I was so attached to my visits, I named her Victoria. I was actually hoping she would be around when I started running the next spring. My dependency on seeing Victoria started to grow. Edie, my running buddy had been injured, therefore Victoria had become my training partner. It seemed harmless at first, but one day I realized my mind may have tipped a little into a quirky or even sketchy range.

I was getting a bit like the Tom Hanks character in the movie Castaway who was attached to Wilson the volleyball. This became startlingly apparent the day I could not find Victoria. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked all around. I thought I had forgotten where she hung out, so I backtracked to no avail. I was feeling a little gripped and oddly abandoned. I was also aware enough to mark this reaction as a possible red flag for my state of mental health. Just as I was starting to talk myself into a more rational state, I spotted her off the road in the grass out of the corner of my eye, and I was back in Wilson territory full throttle. Relief filled me up. Perhaps I had been running just a few too many miles to keep perspective. I promised I would let this go soon.

She was safe in the long grass. I wondered if someone threw her there or if the wind wafted her there but the chances of her being around through my marathon training were looking good. A few days later, I noticed her tucked in to some read leaves. On my first run with Edie back from her injury, I introduced her to my new friend. Edie wasn’t threatened and refrained from openly judging the oddness of this thing. Victoria’s chances of staying put throughout the fall were looking even better. Little did I know that before Halloween, a snowstorm would hit. Victoria is now protected for a little while under the snow.

On the day of my last long run. I was on mile 11 of 13. I glanced to her spot and didn’t see her. It didn’t seem wise to stop for anything to lose my gusto for the last 1 ¾ mile, but I had invested too much to not investigate. I paced a bit but didn’t see her. I used my usual landmarks to dial into her hangout, but she was nowhere to be found. By this time, I was in the wet grass searching with my feet and hands. Pathetic, I know. Weird indeed, but Victoria had been my beacon. As I stepped out of the grass, I spotted her by chance. I almost picked her up and brought her home to hang above my computer for safe keeping until I had run the marathon, but I resisted. If Victoria makes it until the marathon, I will bring the lass home and give her a proper display. After all, she has done so much for me.

Dumbass in Diapers

It is hard to imagine what leads to a 46-year-old woman like me to be sitting in an extra large adult diaper watching Patriots news. Fate is actually the thing that got me here. I am now convinced that the Universe aligns to bring such occasions into my life. I had a pretty long stretch of incident-free living, but now it is official that I can’t really help myself. The poison sumac or oak that I ended up wiping myself with, was destined to find me.

It is the third time I have had some sort of reaction to poisonous vegetation in my crotch. When I was about ten, I wiped myself with poison ivy out in the woods. One would think I learned my lesson, but I managed to squat in poison ivy for a pee at age 25. Those were two major and memorable times of severe discomfort in my life. I learned to identify poison ivy and have stayed clear of it for a couple decades. Clearly it should never have happened again.

As part of my training for the New York Marathon, I ran about 17 miles last Sunday. On my many pit stops, I carefully selected leaves that looked friendly. I am usually a fern girl, but some of my faves had gone brown and crusty during the last cold spell. While there was plenty of foliage to work with, somehow I got a hold of something sketchy. A couple days later when I landed in Pennsylvania to speak to Bucknell students, the discomfort started to show up.

Before my workout in the little gym at the Lewisburg Hampton Inn, I had some itchiness to contend with before I got on the treadmill. I hoped there were no hidden cameras. I thought it was just a wedgie. It didn’t seem like a beasty yeasty infection, but something was going on. By the end of my workout, my vulvic territory was on fire.

I decided to drop into CVS to acquire some itch relief in the “feminine product” aisle. As the time for my presentation to students got closer, it got worse. I took one last visit to apply some product before I got on stage in front of 500 students. I had some outrageous attacks of itchiness during my talk, which somehow struck me as ironic since I was talking about vaginal respect, pride and health throughout the talk. I found a way to rest on one leg to position the seam of my pants to give me a little itch, but that only made me want to really give it a go with ferocious scratching.  The response to my talk was the best I have received despite the distraction of my itchy undercarriage.

On the way back to the hotel, I stopped into a pharmacy to get some Monostat just in case it was a yeast infection. It was late and dark. I pulled in and immediately started to itch. Before I knew it, I was at it with a vengeance and could not be stopped. There was no relief, but I could not keep my hand away for more than two seconds before I would be grinding in there to battle the heinous sITCHuation. I pulled myself together, went in the store and washed up in the bathroom before I went shopping. I ran into the Bucknell Director of Women and Gender, which gave me a good chuckle.

That night, I had very little sleep and crazed itching fits between catnaps. Hideous. By then, catastrophic thoughts were brewing: cancer, toxic shock syndrome, some peri-menopausal disease that makes your bits drop off, bed bugs, STD contracted from the sheets that may not have been changed before I arrived.

My products and I were close buddies all the way back home to NH. Bathing, creams, mindfulness and and deep breathing could not make the itch subside. My youngest kid got word from Bruce about my situation. He announced to his sister when they picked her up at soccer, “Mom has a YEAST INFECTION on her vagina.” I hadn’t seen my kids in three days, and they burst through the door quizzing me on my itchy vagina situation. Privacy isn’t a strong suit in our family.

When the rash moved around my thighs and lower abdomen, I finally remembered all the leaves I was working on that long run. Clearly I had chosen the wrong plant. Facebook yielded many great suggestions: cortisone shots, over the counter power creams, oatmeal paddies and the inside of banana peels. Being an earthy gal, I decided to start with the natural approaches. The banana peels gave some short stretches of relief, but sitting on a plate of cooked oatmeal in the bathtub felt great. However, I had a lot to get done around the house.

Of course I ran into several friends in CVS. I explained the situation to a couple of them, and I just let the rest guess at why I was buying big girl diapers. I attempted to run my idea about putting the oatmeal in the diaper by the woman who was helping me. She had no words for me. Not one word came out of her mouth. I was on my own with this plan. She was so undone, she didn’t advise me to get the right size and didn’t ask me for my CVS card. I paid an extra $3 for X-large diapers without realizing it.

My kids almost dropped to the floor when I pulled out the first diaper. These babies would fit Vince Wilfork, the 325-pound nose tackle for the New England Patriots. My daughter insisted on putting one on over her clothes for a photo. Once I had a half patty of cooled oatmeal lined up in there and the sides rolled down for a snugger fit, my world changed. I was doing laundry, cooking a meal and comfortably planted on a stool watching Comcast Sports Tonight, and it was a delight.

I made it through the difficult days. Some itch remains, but it is bearable thanks to oatmeal. My kids refused to snuggle me when I was toting oatmeal, and they insisted that the diapers be put away when their friends came over. Fair request. Years ago, I had told them that there would be a day when I would be in diapers. I don’t think any of us expected it this soon. For me, it was good training for the future. I know the aisle well at CVS, and I am now tuned into appropriate sizing. For those of you storming along in your years like I am, do not fear diapers. I even saw an ad for men’s gray Depends in Sports Illustrated. Not only are they darn comfy, but they are also getting sleeker and more stylish.

Note: I will be running the NYC Marathon to benefit Grassroot Soccer. If you are inclined (and only if you are inclined!) to donate to GRS on my behalf, go to this link:  http://www.crowdrise.com/teamgrassrootsoccer/fundraiser/CindyPierce/2