GIGI GOES GAGA

TEN YEARS AGO

It was 10 years ago this month that my ex-husband and I decided to divorce. Our marriage lasted five years, and I've been married to my (second) husband for about six-and-a-half years now. The numbers don't really mean anything because it seems as though the passage of time has always depended on how much I paid attention to it. Those five years, let me tell you, were the longest period of my life. I'm sure my ex felt the same.

But going back to those days and weeks a decade ago. For a while there I was walking around in a daze; I can't describe it still, it was like being trapped in fog with zero visibility and trying to find my way to the clear with numb hands. Despite this being my decision, one I initiated with so much clarity and finality, I was so hopelessly lost after the fact. I don't think anyone really intends to get divorced, much less make plans for it the way you would prepare for your own passing, even if both are about death in a way. Or at least the end of a life as you know it.

I remember one afternoon lying in bed in our guest room as I often did then, staring outside the window at the pool, at the ceiling, and at the hallway just outside the door that divided us now. The phone rang and it was my friend Eleanor. Well, she and I knew each other because we had mutual friends, but we'd never really exchanged confidences or even had dinner out together, the way friends normally do. But she called me anyway because our friend Meg asked her to. El had gone through her own painful divorce a few years before and was doing great now, and our friend thought she might be able to put me on solid footing. As my friends know, I tend to withdraw into myself when I probably need them the most; I've just never learned how to ask for help.

The details of our conversation are hazy now, but I remember thinking immediately afterwards: I can do this -- even if she didn't candy-coat anything at all. She gave me the stark truth of the fight I was in for, but more importantly she gave me strength and hope. All the doubts I still harbored started to fade away, and certainly the guilt along with it. After we hung up, I got out of bed. I bought a few books regarding getting a divorce in California and started looking around for a lawyer to draw up the paperwork.

My ex-husband and I never did fight during our divorce proceedings. I was done fighting by then and all I wanted was my peace; my guess is that he felt the same, too. So I finally got my peace, which I've had for the last 10 years, the fastest-flying 10 years that I've ever known.

AND THE SHOE DROPS

A few weeks ago I went for Happy Hour with a friend I used to work with. She'd just broken up with her boyfriend and was still smarting from the events leading up to the end, and I wanted to hear all about it.

I remember when they had first started seeing each other. She told me about their first few dates as we hustled stocking racks and racks of newly-baked bread onto shelves early one morning and she was still feeling both scared and exhilarated, as many people are during the early stages of any relationship. None of her previous ones had really worked out well for her, and she was afraid it would be the same this time around again.

"Don't agonize over it," I kept saying. "This is the time you simply enjoy the ride and have fun." Almost every relationship often goes through the same trajectory: at first it simply soars upwards while the couple is still giddy over the newness of each other. Then it hits a few bumps when issues arise and then it dawdles a bit, sometimes even loses a bit of momentum. If the couple decides it's worth the work, they give it another strong push and off it goes again. Eventually, hopefully, it hits its stride and moves along at a steady pace, occasionally interrupted by bumps and stops and thrusts and jumps. But the beginning is always the stuff love songs and poems are made of, and should be enjoyed to the hilt.

Not that I always thought so myself. I was just talking to another girlfriend this morning, someone I haven't seen in more than a decade. She had just exchanged email messages with this guy I once had a short-lived relationship with a long time ago and she was telling me all about it. "Why did it end again?" she asked out of the blue.

"Eh, it didn't last too long anyway," I said dismissively.

"Yeah, I remember that," she replied. "But it seemed really intense while it lasted. You guys used to make me sick."

"I don't know about that," I quickly disagreed. "There were always so many girls in his life, you know. I thought I was just another."

"Nope," she said. "He used to tell me that he loved you. I told him he was joking because he never talked like that about anyone, but he said he really did."

"I never knew that," I said quietly, and then added,"Bastard cheated on me, remember? So I dumped him quick."

"Yeah," she said. Then after a slight pause: "But I also remember something was wrong, he said. You got cold, it was like you weren't in it all the way."

"I wasn't," I admitted. "I decided to be really careful because I didn't want to get hurt. I knew there were always girls in and out of his life so I guess I was always just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

And so it did.

DOWNSIZING

I don't know anyone who hasn't been hit by these tough economic times. Of course, I don't know any insanely rich people who probably have no idea on how much they spend on groceries monthly or what they actually pay the gardeners (though part of me figures they must be affected somehow, too).

In my household, we've made adjustments to our lifestyle because we've had to. Fortunately years ago we decided not to buy a larger house when interest rates were absurdly low. Part of the reason we didn't, however, had to do with sheer laziness (and maybe a bit of luck). My husband didn't want to deal with endless, continuous waiting lists to even try to buy a house; I was too lazy to work on a household budget so we could handle increased mortgage payments. There was no motivation to push ourselves to have more: we were spending less for a home of our own than what apartment rentals were going for, and little enough so that we were secure in our knowledge that we could well afford it. Anyway, with only two persons and a cat who's usually rolled up in a ball fast asleep all day, we figured we didn't really need a lot of space. We were happy just having enough.

But with increased prices of -- well -- everything these days, and with so many people losing their jobs here, it does feel like things are crashing down around us and we're feeling a bit frightened, or at least not as secure. We've had to redefine what we used to think was enough; now we're trying to live with as little as we can and I have this nagging sense that we're going to keep finding out how little we actually need.

For instance, my husband and I carpool every day. We discuss what we need to do for the week and see if we can arrange our schedules so we can do as little driving as possible. We walk to the grocery store at night when we only have a few things to pick up. We cook more and eat out less. When we do eat out, it has to be at a restaurant where we know the food is better than we can make it at home and where the prices won't make our teeth hurt. Our planned kitchen renovation has been put on indefinite hold, but also because everything in it is working anyway. We have only basic cable -- no HBO or Showtime, and especially not TFC because there were only two shows I watched regularly anyway. I'm also trying to grow more edibles in my garden -- which takes up time I'd otherwise spend on watching television.

Despite all the clearance sales in stores and online, I've resisted shopping (though I did buy just a couple of items from Bobbi Brown's and Nars' Fall 2008 makeup collections. Baby steps, peeples!). I'm finding more things in my closet to fall in love with again so I don't have to love something new. Before I actually buy anything, I first try to talk myself out of it. I've only had one facial this year and my weekly manicures are every three weeks now. I'm fast becoming a stranger to my hairstylist and my eyebrows have become much bushier (thank heavens it's actually the trend these days). My skincare products no longer look so pretty inside my medicine cabinet and can be found in any major drugstore (even my local health food store); the best weapons I have against aging now are sun protection, moisturizer, more sleep, and lots of water.

I haven't used a cleaning service in ages; I've had to figure out how to find time to keep things sparkling around here. I no longer pay for a fitness trainer -- I have to push myself to move now and try not to accept my own excuses. I rarely go to the dry cleaners anymore; I wear mostly washable clothing these days and with what can't be immersed in water I've learned how to keep clean and fresh for much longer.

Many of the changes we've made will most likely remain permanent even after we feel financially secure again because we realize they were better choices to begin with. Having to make do with less has only made me realize what is actually essential -- which is always a good thing to learn, even if one can afford all the luxuries in life. And not having almost everything I want has only made me appreciate what I do already have so much more.

My friend Cathy emailed me a collection of funny "Only in the Philippines" images and one of them -- while awfully cheesy -- just gave me a new perspective on the more basic lifestyle I'm trying to get used to now.

 

Since I'm hardly miserable and definitely surrounded by love, I'm smiling for sure. Pissed off at the people who let things get this bad, but smiling. And especially so after I cast my vote this November, and when these folks are finally gone. Like I say, there's always something better to look forward to.

JUST GOT LUCKY

My husband and I have dinner once a week at this neighborhood Italian restaurant near home. They serve delicious Milano-style food at fair prices, and I can't wait to try items in their ever-changing seasonal menus (although I always order the polenta appetizer with brown butter, fontina, and sage).

Tonight's meal was especially good and as we hopped back into the car, I smiled at him and said, "You know I'm really glad we decided to give this place a try. You know how picky I am about Italian food." And I am, really. Now I've never been to Italy and don't know how Italians prefer their food to be prepared, seasoned, and cooked -- but I know what I like. I don't like tomato-based sauces that are too bitter or too sweet, for starters. And I don't like cream-based sauces that are either runny and bland or too rich and thick. I also like my pasta al dente, and not too soft. All reasonable requests, surely -- but not so easy to find around here unfortunately.

"You're picky only about Italian food? Ha!" my husband laughed in my face, mocking me.

"OK maybe not just Italian food," I gave in, perhaps a bit too easily. "But especially Italian food is what I meant." And then I thought I'd say something sweet, just to knock him off his feet a little. "I'm also picky about husbands," I purred.

"No -- you just got lucky with me," he said flatly.

Gah, sometimes I hate it when he's right.

EX

I helped my friend move into her new apartment many years ago, long before we ever thought we'd settle down in any one place long enough to unpack completely. She shared the space with two girls, and I hit it off with one of them immediately. She was a real character, and such a babe – feisty, flirty, funny, and oh-so fierce. She wore the shortest skirts and the teensiest tops, and to prove that she always dressed this way she opened up her closet for us to see. Not one thing, I swear, was more than 17 inches long. At first glance it looked like she had hung nothing but baby clothes because there was so much space between the rod and the floor.

As we sorted and unpacked, my friend whispered to me a secret. Her new roommate in the tight outfit was actually a he, or at least used to be. She didn't know for certain if she had undergone sex reassignment surgery, but the tattletale who in turn had told her this didn't think so. The only thing they knew for sure was that she took hormone medication regularly.  There was nothing overtly masculine about her except her lithe boyish figure and perhaps a hint of an Adam’s apple (only if you were really looking). Otherwise, she truly was all-woman.

That evening the guy I was seeing came over to pick me up. When the doorbell rang, the roommate let him in because the rest of us were moving stuff around in the bedroom. At first we heard stunned silence and then loud expressions of delighted surprise. When I walked over to the living room the two were locked in a warm, friendly embrace.

And that was the day I met my guy’s ex.

If I didn't know what I had just discovered, I might have been a bit jealous; now I was only perplexed. Nothing made sense to me at first, then eventually some of it did. Although my man was a charmer with rock-hard abs and muscles in all the right places, I’d highly suspected that his tales of sexual conquests were nothing but mere boasts. Once he told me about an ex-girlfriend whom he discarded simply because none of his friends approved of the match. He didn’t tell me what exactly they didn’t like about her except they believed she wasn't right for him and certainly not good enough. He also said she had been devastated by his betrayal and that he felt sorry for what he had done. But perhaps sensing my alarm he explained that he was young and immature then and added that despite his feelings of regret he had no intentions of going back to her and that was that. Later he also revealed that she was his “first" and tossed in a few details I really didn't want to hear at the time, and certainly not since the day I met her.

So now as we all stood around I looked at my new acquaintance, the girl he had hurt once – the girly-girl who wasn’t always so – and closed my mind to the torrent of new questions and all the too-obvious, too-vivid visuals that begged for some kind of explanation. I never told him what I knew after we left the apartment, nor ever asked him to explain how certain things could have happened between them as he said they had -- not for his sake, but for hers. You see, not too long afterwards I found myself in the living room of that same apartment again, bonding with my new friend over stories of how our guy turned out to be such a jerk after all. And we talked like two girls conspiring and giggling, just like girls often do. Just like we were after all.

MY NEW FAVORITE PLACE: MILK+HONEY (COSTA MESA, CA)

I have a soft spot for Costa Mesa, not just because of South Coast Plaza (my version of Disneyland), but also that area west of it with the Japanese groceries and restaurants, as well as The Lab and The Camp. After living in Orange County for nine years now, I still miss Los Angeles and often think of moving back to my old stomping grounds, when just stepping outside my door brought a promise of some kind of adventure.

But for now, Costa Mesa is the nearest thing to what I miss about LA. It's young and hip, sometimes edgy; it's multi-ethnic and even has stirrings of culture, thanks to the new Orange County Performing Arts Center. And now it has one of my favorite hangouts this summer -- Milk + Honey, located in the aforementioned Camp center. It's this little oasis on an otherwise ugly corner of Bristol and Baker. It's pretty as a postcard thanks to its artsy yet homey decor and friendly, attractive staff. There's not much seating inside -- just a few barstools and a cozy spot for two beside the counter. But there's no reason to stay indoors when just a few steps away is a lovely, absolutely charming outdoor patio I could spend all afternoon in, complete with crunchy gravel flooring, a relaxing wall fountain, and well-chosen potted plants and vines eager to trail along the walls and iron frames.

But wait. It's the shaved ice that keeps me coming back. Based on the Japanese frozen treat Kakigori, Milk+Honey offers yummy flavors like strawberry, passionfruit, lime, and mango, for starters. Their modern version is sweetened with a bit of milk and honey, and for cents more you can add toppings like a variety of fruits and nuts or even carob or yogurt chips, and cookie dough or cheesecake bits. I'm addicted to the current shaved ice special: it starts off with a couple of dollops of frozen yogurt, then strawberry syrup is poured over the ice, and finally it's generously topped with slices of strawberries, bananas, kiwis, and bits of mochi balls and red azuki bean. All my favorite things in a cup for less than five bucks -- how can I resist?

I love this concoction so much that I haven't yet tried the store's other offerings: frozen yogurt, organic teas and coffees, blended drinks like java and tea coolers and fruit smoothies. For hungrier customers there are also brownie and blondie bars, as well as a variety of scones and other pastries. I could seriously wrap my arms around this tiny oasis of delights and stick it in my pocket. Each visit so far has been an adventure for my senses, and always a pleasant, refreshing experience.

Milk + Honey
2981 Bristol St # B6 (inside The Camp)
Costa Mesa, CA 92628
(714) 708-0092

*Photo courtesy of Yelp.com.