Wilson - Wreckage of My Presence : Essays

FOR MY BROTHER, FLETCHER

I am a bed person.

When my husband and I were buying furniture for our new house and weighing various options, my questions were always, Could the couch be deeper? Could we add an L to that? Could it be a chaise? Could the chairs recline like a JetBlue Mint seat? My husband finally stopped me and said that in a perfect world, Id want every piece of furniture to be a California king and our house would resemble a meth den. He tells people that if I could Id walk around with two mattresses strapped to my front and back so I could flop down at any moment.

Hes not wrong. And this is because, Im a bed person. Its a label Im alarmingly comfortable withmaybe too comfortableand one I consider both a state of mind and a way of being.

A bed person is someone who wants to recline at all times. When lying down is not an option, we will find a way to remain seated, preferably at an angle, and if we have to stand you will never not find us in a deep lean.

Ill stretch out anywhere. If Im out for drinks, Ill hunch over the bar with my face almost grazing the wood. At parties Ill dance from my stool, waist up, going after it but too tired to get vertical and bring my moves to the dance floor. I favor Pilates classes that let me work out while lying down on a Reformer. I meditate lying down because doing it seated feels like an assault on my skeleton. I prefer movie theaters where I can pay double for the privilege of reclining in the seat so that, if the movie is bad, I have the option to sleep. (Lets be honest, Im really going for the candy and a nap. And the two go hand in hand, because if you buy enough concessions, theyll shut down your system when the freight of sugar hits your bloodstream.) One of my key criteria for judging a movie is: Is it too loud to sleep through? I hate when directors dont take into consideration that some of us might only be watching in order to not watch and, in fact, sleep. When will movie studios keep my brethren and me in mind and make the proper aural accommodations?!

And when Im in front of the camera and were blocking out the choreography of a scene, you bet your sweet tush Im pitching for the character to take a load off, no matter the setting or situation. As Im sure Meryl Streep and all the greats do.

For such an energetic person, the truth is Im so very tired. Maybe its my medication, maybe its my Taurus moon, or, as I like to tell myself, maybe its because I give so very much. This truth is disturbing to parent-friends who often ask, Can you stay awake during this playdate? Not really, no. I want to respond, Could YOU try and keep me awake with a tidbit of conversation that contains one iota, one kernel of hot goss? SOMETHING ONE MIGHT WANT TO STAY AWAKE FOR?? Keeping me awake is as much the other persons job as it is mine. If you spy me catching some winks and long blinks, thats on you.

I once read an article about famed Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers and how she did everything from bed: took meetings from bed, received friends in bed, hosted parties from bed, and ate, smoked, and drank in bedall while wearing a caftan and oversize sunglasses. Her image has been cut out and pasted on the vision board of my dreams.

Like Sue, my husband, David, and I eat many of our meals (definitely all our dinners) in bed. Im dismayed to report that weve taken to silently unfolding a large beach towel and placing it over our white duvet before digging in. We keep small salt and pepper shakers on our nightstands at all times, and a ketchup bottle often lives there as well. This horrifies some of our friends. Wait, you mean you eat the occasional postdinner snack in bed... ? they ask hopefully.

I have to break it to them. No... well cut into a chicken Parm or a filet in bed.

Once in a while?? they plead. Only on the weekends?

No. Every night.

We have two children under the age of six, and by the time we feed them and get them to sleep its all we can do to collapse into bed with our dinner. On a really ambitious night, one of us will throw our take-out boxes just outside our bedroom door, as though we think a room service captain will be trawling our halls to clear empty trays.

I am also a bath person. Most bed people are. Bed people and bath people go together like Dr Pepper and Goobers.

Nonbath people dont get it. Theyre always saying inane things like, Dont you feel like youre just sitting in your own filth?? Or, Dont you get bored in there? I want to ask, Did YOU get bored in the womb?

From a purely organizational standpoint, most people underestimate the amount of multitasking you can do in a tub. Being submerged in water doesnt have to limit your productivity a bit. I can read, or take calls, and when good friends come over, I have no problem asking them if we can take things to the tub. Ever the hostess, Ill pull out a tiny pop-up seat, the kind I use on the rare occasion when my sons are in the bath and Im not in it with them, and my friends and I will chat away. If anything, I think I could be doing more in there. My friend June strips down, pops in her earbuds, and does her therapy from the bath. I read that actress Rachel Bloom uses a caddy to hold her laptop so she can work from the bath. I salute these trailblazers.

If you havent guessed, I never rely on bubbles to cover me for modesty, and I think this type of behavior goes hand in hand with someone who prances about a locker room nude. Which I do. Its not that I think I look so goodGod noits that I cant be bothered to care at all. Which can be problematic. After the births of both of my kids, I spirited away tons of pairs of the mesh undies Cedars-Sinai offers up to new mothers. I wore them long after I needed them. They were comfortable! They made me feel held and safe. To ease the transition back into my sexy nude sports thongs, I took a pit stop in enormous nude-colored Hanes briefs that went up past my belly button. I WANTED TO BE COMFORTABLE !!

(A word on nude panties in general: while I dont normally care about what men want in the bedroom, I will advise THEY DONT LIKE NUDE UNDIES . Nude is not an alluring color. And while were circling the drain on this one, though my husband would most likely prefer me to wax even a skoshnever asked him!the one time I did, it was so painful that I left halfway through the procedure with one side done, one side... unkempt. David is a very attractive man, and the thought seizes me every so often in the middle of the night that I should maybe step it up. Its usually when I am wearing my favorite nightshirt, an oversize, off-the-shoulder Adele T-shirt I got at her concert. David says it most likely only came in one size: eating-ice-cream-and-crying size. The perfect size. I wear it proudly while doing both those things, and I like to imagine my fellow sisters across the globe wearing theirs, too.)

One is not born a bed or bath person. Though genetics clearly play a role, I believe its learned behavior. When I was in middle school, on Fridays my mom would pick up my girlfriends and me from school and drive us straight to 7Eleven. She allowed us to buy as much candy and soda as we wanted from Sev Lev, provided she didnt have to get out of the car. Then wed head to Blockbuster and rent a movie (usually Terms of Endearment), go to our house, immediately order Dominos and then run upstairs and all get into my parents waterbed. Together. This lasted until tenth, eleventh grade. None of my girlfriends found this odd, or if they did, they politely never said anything.

In the waterbed wed play Girlfriends, a game that consisted of my mom talking to us in a baby voice and us responding in kind. Its a hard voice to convey through the written word, so if you are so inclined, Id like to offer you the opportunity to hear me do it in a recording. Simply visit: hc.com/caseywilson.