0451471075 (N) (12 page)

We find Not Spike Lee again. “Hi, I’m looking for a sheepskin cover for my bike seat,” I say.

“I’m sorry, you want a what?” he asks, squinting at us as though deeply confused.

“Something to make my bike seat squishier,” I explain. “I see a few pads, but none of them will fit.”

“She essentially has a tractor seat,” Fletch explains.

“A tractor seat?” he asks.

“It’s a three-wheeled bike so the seat is bigger,” I explain.

“No, it’s an adult tricycle,” Fletch says.

“Honey, you’re gonna have to let that go eventually,” I reply.

Not Spike Lee gawps at me from behind his massive horn-rim glasses and states the obvious. “You have an adult tricycle.”

He’s looking at me as though I’m speaking gibberish. “Um, yes? That’s not weird, right? I’m sure you sell a bunch of them.”

Not Spike Lee is vehement, his eyes swimmy behind his huge lenses. “No, not one, not ever. We don’t carry them. I didn’t even know they existed.”

Fletch smirks. “Trust me, they’re real.”

I add, “You can buy anything on Amazon.”

He’s trying to process what I’m saying but it all seems to be too overwhelming. “You have a bike with three wheels.”

I nod. “Yep.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeat.

“Why?”

“Um, for balance, I guess.”

“Can you not ride a regular bike?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been on one for thirty-plus years.”

“You haven’t been on a bike for thirty-plus years? How have you not been on a bike in thirty-plus years?”

Although this seems like a point where I’d normally ball my fists, ready to punch out some lights, the kid isn’t trying to mock me. Instead, he’s genuinely flummoxed and dismayed. Couple that with the fact that he works in a place where every single customer lives to ride and I can understand his attitude; thus I remain calm.

“Because I’m forty-six. I started driving thirty years ago and I didn’t need a bike.”

“Wow, forty-six.”

“Wow, forty-six indeed.”

Now
I might be ready to punch him.

Fletch chimes in, “I keep telling her that she’d be happier on two wheels.”

“I doubt that I could stay upright,” I say, imagining myself looking like a Russian circus bear on a moped. But truth be told, I’m getting a wee bit tired of lugging all those pounds of steel around, even if they are painted a snappy cherry-cola-red. And a couple of times on the bike trail when I’ve run into the semipro riders, I sort of felt like a little kid pushing his bubble mower behind his daddy with the real Lawn-Boy.

Is it possible that riding an actual bike should be my ultimate goal?

“Have you even tried?” Not Spike Lee asks.

“Have I even tried?” I reply. “No, when would I try?”

“I dunno,” he offers. “Now?”

Somehow over the course of the next five minutes, I am badgered, bullied, and browbeaten into test-driving a two-wheeled bike. And by badgered, bullied, and browbeaten, I mean I can’t come up with anything to counter Not Spike Lee’s rather pointed question, “Why not?”

The easiest thing here would just be to get on a stupid two-wheel bike, give it a half-assed attempt, pick myself up off the pavement, explaining why it won’t work using terms like “circus bear” and “moped,” and find an old towel in the laundry room. Problem solved.

Except . . . the problem really isn’t solved.

Because apparently . . .
I can actually ride a two-wheeled bike!!

Did not see that coming.

When we went outside, Not Spike Lee ran along beside me like a doting parent, keeping me propped up on my full-sized cruiser bike until I could make it down the sidewalk by myself. I closed my eyes and braced for an impact that never came. Instead, I was flying and I couldn’t believe how well the bike handled. How unencumbered I was without a third wheel! I made swooping figure eights in the alley behind the store, each time amazed at my ability to stay upright.

I felt fast and free, finally.

Not Spike Lee doubled back to grab a banana-seated kid’s model to ride behind me.

He pulled up, asking me what I thought.

I stopped in my tracks. “Whoa, is the one with a banana seat an option?” I asked, admiring the lines of his Stingray-type model while we pause by the Dumpsters in back of the store.

“No. You’re forty-six. You can’t ride kids’ bikes.”

“Did my husband tell you to say that?”

“Yes.” He adjusted his glasses. “But I would have said it anyway.”

•   •   •

So, now we’re a family who rolls exclusively on two wheels. You’ve never seen a man whip out a credit card faster than Fletch did when I admitted that I didn’t hate the bicycle.

I guess you could say I decided to Do the Right Thing.

When Fletch heard that our friend’s special-needs daughter had learned to ride an adult tricycle, he dropped everything to disassemble Big Red and put her in the car so that we could give her away.

I haven’t named the new bike yet because this one doesn’t inspire the same kind of passion that my three-wheeled bike did. But having an appropriate name isn’t nearly as important as actually succeeding at something I assumed I was destined to fail.

Because I can now ride a bike, my world is a wee bit larger and that’s an incredible feeling. Conversely, my backseat is a wee bit smaller. That’s nice, too.

Since I’ve been biking, I’ve discovered all kinds of pretty paths by my house, and I’m awed by the lovely things I’ve witnessed. One day, I got thisclose to a herd of deer hanging out next to the trail and later I had to brake for a family of ducks waddling across my path. I do take my phone with me when I ride, but not to monitor Facebook responses. Instead, I use it to track my mileage.

I’m really delighted to legitimately be able to cross off
learn to ride a bike
because it speaks to an accomplishment, minor though it may be. But, it’s mine and I earned it and that is enough.

I’m still not buying bike shorts, though.

9.

L
IVING
L
A
V
IDA
M
ARTHA

The year 2011 blew goats.

Yes, I just made a
Wayne’s World
reference because I’m all about the classics.

To keep 2012 from following suit, I came up with a yearlong project in which I decided to live my life via Martha Stewart’s dictates, spanning the domestic spectrum from cooking to crafting to cleaning. From apple cider vinegar to zucchini fritters, I quickly discovered that there’s nothing Martha hasn’t mastered, at least under the roof of one’s house. My theory was that if I could whip my home life into shape, I would be a happier person.

Spoiler alert: Despite an almost pathological need to derail myself, my plan worked, but that’s a whole different memoir.

In April of 2012, I’d barely scratched the surface of the Martha Universe, having tackled only some minor closet organization and one disastrous Easter party at that point, which had culminated in a couple of visits to the emergency room.

(Sidebar: Sometimes my learning curve looks more like a learning roller coaster.)

One of the reasons I was so damn crabby in 2011 was my frustration over not having had any traction in Hollywood. (What’s my favorite wine? “But aaaaaaaall my friends have moooooovie deals.”) In the very beginning of my writing career, I spent an entire day at my temp job fielding calls from film studios.

That was surreal.

There I was in a corporate real estate office, making twelve dollars an hour, sitting at a desk that wasn’t even officially mine. I was just assigned there until the real assistant who was out having knee surgery could come back. I spent my days looking at framed pictures of her family, using her stapler, and trying not to eat all the M&M’S in her jar. (Failed, FYI.) Yet for a very brief period, I also was using that full-time employee’s phone (having been too broke for my own cell phone) to talk with producers who asked me questions such as whether I preferred to work with Reese or Jennifer.

Um, wait, which Jennifer? Aniston or Garner?

Guess what?

NOT PICKY.

Another spoiler alert? Nothing ever happened.

In terms of bucket list items, selling a book to Hollywood would have been at the very top of mine for many years, because I assumed that was my segue into wealth and power, or at least out of taking the bus to work. Yes, I liked the idea of cashing a Tinseltown check and finally bringing all my past-dues current, plus who wouldn’t want to sit in a dark theater and see their name on the screen.

(Sidebar: If so doing happened to get back to everyone who went to my high school and called me a drama nerd? In your face, A-list. In your face.)

Every morning back then, I’d wake up with the lines to The The’s song “This Is The Day” in my head while I showered. I
would hope against hope that this really would be the day that my life would truly change, and that this would be the last time I’d have to answer phones and schedule meetings for anyone other than myself.

I quickly learned that Hollywood operates on the basis of whatever is new is best, so I was the flavor not of the month but of the minute. I spent two more years fetching coffee and making copies as I built my writing career to the point I could quit taking temp gigs and write full-time.

I kept writing while waiting for Hollywood to call.

They never did.

So, when my film agent Tiffany called me out of the blue in April 2012, shortly into my
Tao of Martha
experiment, I never expected to hear her ask, “How do you feel about doing a show with Martha Stewart? Is that something you’d want?”

What kind of question is that?

She may as well have asked, “Would you like to have your high school waistline back?” or “Is it okay if Channing Tatum gives you a foot massage?”

Yes, yes, and hell, yes.

Tiffany had me write up a summary of the whole project, which began with what Fletch dubbed The Drawer of Shame, given that it was filled to capacity with free-range antacids, old dental floss, and broken hair bands. I also catalogued each and every Easter disaster, from the science behind what happens to a Reese’s Cup left to incubate for three hours in a plastic egg in eighty-degree sunshine to my best tips for cleaning exploded yolks off the ceiling.

Over the next few months, Tiffany tried to entice Martha’s team to come on board, and meanwhile she hooked me up with a talented screenwriter named Austin. Austin took the concept of the
Tao of Martha
and turned it into a sitcom, using portions of my life for inspiration.

He showed his first draft to his production team and they loved the idea of someone trying to improve her life by living via Martha’s rules. Unfortunately, they
hated
everything about the condescending, egomaniacal, self-centered, smart-ass protagonist, so he had to change the “Jen” character into a single mother who was younger, thinner, and nicer than me, with bonus bigger boobs, and who was not named Jen.

Again, in theory this was fantastic, but I had other things on my mind.

In September, two significant events occurred. First, we lost Maisy, and such was my love for this dog, I thought my heart would never mend. I’ll always look to Martha as being a sort of salvation at that time. Not only did throwing myself into Martha-type projects help me manage my grief, but in the second stunning turn of events, Martha herself agreed to
costar
in the sitcom.

(Sidebar: We also adopted Hambone in September. This is significant in that her arrival marks the last day of my ever having clean carpeting.)

What happened next was so surreal that to this day it feels like a dream. Within a couple of days of Martha agreeing to be part of the show, meetings were scheduled with the heads of all the networks. And on the day Tiffany, Austin, Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment, and Martha herself were going from ABC to NBC to CBS to FOX to pitch the
Tao
, I was . . . picking up Hambone’s poop in the dining room.

That night, I learned both NBC and FOX wanted to buy the show.

If there was a better word for surreal, I’d use it here.