Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? by Jen Lancaster Page A
Authors: Jen Lancaster
Tags: Humor, Fiction, General, Humorous, Humorous fiction, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Essay/s, Authors; American, Women, City and Town Life, Form, 21st Century, Chicago (Ill.), Jeanne, Lancaster; Jen, Authors; American - 21st century, Chicago (Ill.) - Social life and customs
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clean down to my very soul.
Since I’m here, I may as well give my pores a treat, so I leave the tub and enter the sauna. I grab a cold drink and lay down my towel before ladling water over the hot rocks. The stones hiss and pop and the room practically reverberates with heat. I take a washcloth filled with icy water and wipe all the toxins off my face. I squeeze it over my shoulders and the water evaporates before it even hits the wooden bench.
The great irony here is I hit the cold-water-plunge shower between services, and it’s the exact same temperature as the water I’m paying $20 to avoid at home.
The heavily scented steam room is a soppy slice of paradise. I breathe in as deeply as I can, and I can practically feel the little bitty alveoli widening. When I was in sixth grade I had to be hospitalized for a severe case of pneumonia—ever since then, my lungs have felt tight. But today after spending so much time in the steam room, air trapped since the Carter administration comes out when I exhale.
Even the plain old shower is plain old terrific with all the water pressure and fine assortment of scented body products. And yet the experience is just shy of ecstasy.
Why?
Too much naked!
Everywhere I look there’s, gah!—more exposed flesh. And I am just not a naked person. I’ll happily wear a bathing suit on the world’s most crowded beach and feel okay about myself, so it’s not so much a body image thing. Pretty much it’s an uncomfortable-with-naked thing. Also, I’d prefer to avoid your cooties, 17 and the best way to do that is to keep as many layers of spandex between us as possible. Point? If I glance up from my book and notice your Brazilian wax headed toward me, don’t be surprised when I fucking fly out of the hot tub. Because, really? I can live a long, happy life without ever knowing you’ve shaved your pubic hair into a clever shape. And your * shudder * piercings? Well, those should be between you, your physician, and the guy who works the metal detector at the airport. (I’ve adopted a strict Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and For God’s Sake, Don’t Show policy.)
I can’t help it—I’m extremely modest. When I was a kid, I’d put on a bathing suit to play with Barbies in the tub. As an adult, nary a single Vegas hotel Jacuzzi has seen my pasty white rear end, even when I’m staying alone. (Yes, room service thinks it’s hilarious when I tell them “Come in” and I’m floating in the giant tub wearing a one-piece. But I don’t want to drip on the floor or slip on the marble and that wine’s not going to serve itself.) (Shut up. I tip well.) Even during my most trash-can-punch-soaked sorority days, I never crowded in an open fraternity bathroom and peed in tandem with all my sisters.
I think spas are supposed to have a bit of an “Amazons at Paradise Island” vibe to them and that’s all right, I guess. 18 And I totally see how someone would prefer not to sweat all over her $125 Miraclesuit while sitting in the steam room—considering all the struts and trusses they contain, they’d probably rust. I even get that there’s something incredibly liberating and primordial about floating nude in the hot tub, yet there’s still no way I’m going to do it, so please don’t give me the “it’s perfectly natural” speech. Bowel movements are also perfectly natural, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to take one in the center of Nordstrom’s shoe department.
But these women who are walking from one service to the next without benefit of a towel? Un! Comfortable! I grudgingly understand if you want to scoot from the hot tub to the sauna without dampening your robe. Personally, I wouldn’t do it; however, this is totally appropriate behavior. You know, naked now, nice warm, dry robe later. So I would probably get in trouble for violating everyone’s calm if I were to yell, “Cover your shame, damn it!” And yet the temptation is large.
I feel about as clean as I
Since I’m here, I may as well give my pores a treat, so I leave the tub and enter the sauna. I grab a cold drink and lay down my towel before ladling water over the hot rocks. The stones hiss and pop and the room practically reverberates with heat. I take a washcloth filled with icy water and wipe all the toxins off my face. I squeeze it over my shoulders and the water evaporates before it even hits the wooden bench.
The great irony here is I hit the cold-water-plunge shower between services, and it’s the exact same temperature as the water I’m paying $20 to avoid at home.
The heavily scented steam room is a soppy slice of paradise. I breathe in as deeply as I can, and I can practically feel the little bitty alveoli widening. When I was in sixth grade I had to be hospitalized for a severe case of pneumonia—ever since then, my lungs have felt tight. But today after spending so much time in the steam room, air trapped since the Carter administration comes out when I exhale.
Even the plain old shower is plain old terrific with all the water pressure and fine assortment of scented body products. And yet the experience is just shy of ecstasy.
Why?
Too much naked!
Everywhere I look there’s, gah!—more exposed flesh. And I am just not a naked person. I’ll happily wear a bathing suit on the world’s most crowded beach and feel okay about myself, so it’s not so much a body image thing. Pretty much it’s an uncomfortable-with-naked thing. Also, I’d prefer to avoid your cooties, 17 and the best way to do that is to keep as many layers of spandex between us as possible. Point? If I glance up from my book and notice your Brazilian wax headed toward me, don’t be surprised when I fucking fly out of the hot tub. Because, really? I can live a long, happy life without ever knowing you’ve shaved your pubic hair into a clever shape. And your * shudder * piercings? Well, those should be between you, your physician, and the guy who works the metal detector at the airport. (I’ve adopted a strict Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and For God’s Sake, Don’t Show policy.)
I can’t help it—I’m extremely modest. When I was a kid, I’d put on a bathing suit to play with Barbies in the tub. As an adult, nary a single Vegas hotel Jacuzzi has seen my pasty white rear end, even when I’m staying alone. (Yes, room service thinks it’s hilarious when I tell them “Come in” and I’m floating in the giant tub wearing a one-piece. But I don’t want to drip on the floor or slip on the marble and that wine’s not going to serve itself.) (Shut up. I tip well.) Even during my most trash-can-punch-soaked sorority days, I never crowded in an open fraternity bathroom and peed in tandem with all my sisters.
I think spas are supposed to have a bit of an “Amazons at Paradise Island” vibe to them and that’s all right, I guess. 18 And I totally see how someone would prefer not to sweat all over her $125 Miraclesuit while sitting in the steam room—considering all the struts and trusses they contain, they’d probably rust. I even get that there’s something incredibly liberating and primordial about floating nude in the hot tub, yet there’s still no way I’m going to do it, so please don’t give me the “it’s perfectly natural” speech. Bowel movements are also perfectly natural, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to take one in the center of Nordstrom’s shoe department.
But these women who are walking from one service to the next without benefit of a towel? Un! Comfortable! I grudgingly understand if you want to scoot from the hot tub to the sauna without dampening your robe. Personally, I wouldn’t do it; however, this is totally appropriate behavior. You know, naked now, nice warm, dry robe later. So I would probably get in trouble for violating everyone’s calm if I were to yell, “Cover your shame, damn it!” And yet the temptation is large.
I feel about as clean as I
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