nakedjen

That Old Squeaky Wheel

Philadelphia 1987

That May night, I danced hard. Without shoes. There were never shoes. My tiny feet were black, sparkles of street detritus glinting upwards as I whirled in endless circles determined for my heart, my head, to connect with some distant promised spark in a galaxy far away. 

The air was pungent with burning ganja and opiates and the sweat of other gyrating souls. They all pressed against me, took up too much space, hugged me like an overbearing and ugly uncle and made it much too difficult to breathe. 

I knew I was going to pass out. That this would all end badly.  I also really believed that as long as the notes found me, as long as I kept on spinning, as long as I kept on moving, there was no other reason to be alive.

You're either on the bus or you're not on the bus.  If you miss the bus, you can find it again.

Sometimes, you just need one more show.

 

Philadelphia 2012

This night, that same air is thick with the sweat of a thousand souls with eyes silently watching. Some stand in lines outside soup kitchen doors that will not open until tomorrow morning.  There's kindness and company in the waiting.

There are black souls astride curbs with carts and plastic bags stuffed with plastic bags, and others standing sentry in doorways, perfectly still, guards of the abandoned lives that once occupied all the rooms inside. 

The air presses into water droplets and rolls into my eyes, blurring my vision with outside tears, washing the colors, giving everything a gaussian neon glow.

My professor has brought me here. 

I'm wearing cool shoes and walking in straight lines and sharing stories with academics inside the cool comfort of airconditioned rooms in convention gatherings.

My head spins wildly, searching for words and sparks of brilliance, while I stand smiling, pefectly still. 

I have to remember that I can still breathe and this will not end badly.

 

(I am still, and always will be, on the bus).

 

 

My Horn Itches

I was going to tell you a horrific story about a urinary tract infection.  However, my professor has saved you all from that tale.  You all should be quite grateful.

He's about to start writing his next book.  Actually, he was busy today working on the acknowledgements for his current book.  He was trying to squeeze me in there.  I don't get squeezed in anywhere, as we know.  It just isn't possible.  I may be small, but you can't squash me.

So I told him to just leave me out.  I also told him that if he was wise he would actually put NAKEDJEN in the acknowledgements because, you know, it would actually allow him to perhaps sell more than seven copies.

Ahem.

Here's his drafted dedication for his next book.  I love this man.  In mad and crazy ways.  So do my little ponies.  Every.single.one.

"I owe more gratitude than I can shake my mane at to the Pony Up, Bitch! Foundation for generous support while I wrote this book. I was able to fund release time from teaching as well as biweekly excursions to the Monterey Bay beach house we share, where I invited all the authors I needed to talk to for book material. While in Salt Lake City, I was able to pursue rooftop arugula farming and raise extra funds driving the arugula to the Farmers' Market using our fleet of electric Civia bicycles and pickup trucks made out of bamboo.

And I owe personal thanks to nakedjen herself (www.richnakedchickwithplasticponies.com) for her fierce love, honesty, and generosity. Jen graciously fed me raw beet/garlic/cashew pizza while I wrote, which is why I started the book at age 40 and am now 27. As for jen, even though the calendar says she was born in 1964, she does naked better than I could describe. I'll just put it this way: while I needed support while writing the book, she's in no need of "support," herself, if you know what I mean ;)"

That really was MUCH BETTER than my tale of urinary woe.  I promise. ❦

How Does Your Garden Grow?

You show one naked breast and the whole world stops.  I sincerely thought we were way beyond this by now? But, perhaps we are not.

Here, have two more, plus a nice garden shrub!

Happy Naked Friday. I'm going to encourage all of us to be kind and gentle with each other.  We're all human, we all share the same skin. ❦

 

Everybody's beautiful in their own way.

I know you're all very astute and extremely smart people.  So, I'm not going to recap the important news events of this week for you, the events that I know each and every one of you followed and that I know may have appalled you just as much as they appalled me.

What you may not know, though, is that my professor is a son of Fayetteville, North Carolina.  That he grew up there.  That the pews and preachers and choirs of the Baptist churches of Fayetteville were actually a very large and important part of his childhood.

What we've had in our house this week was nothing short of shock and awe in reaction to the hate speech that was issued from the pulpit in North Carolina.

Yes, hate speech.

I don't care what color frock you're wearing or what agenda you may be claiming you're hiding behind, Pastor Harris.  Or if you say your congregation knows you were joking.  The beating of children for any reason, the berating of children to be more like a man or to smell like a girl, the encouragement to teach our children to hate themselves for being anything other than who they already are is absolutely hate speech.

Sean E. Harris is our very worst kind of bully. 

I've spent all week hugging my professor.

I've also spent all week trying to sort out how we, as a people, can find ourselves in this place when I know, I really do, that people are really and truly good at heart.  Deep-rooted fears and deep-rooted beliefs can often get in the way of understanding that we're all standing on the same ground.

The very same ground. 

Your god may not be my god or his god or her god, but it does not matter because they're all good and they're all right. 

They're also all wrong!  

I love every one of you, anyway.  Whatever god you've chosen.  Right or wrong. Up or down.  Black or white or purple.  I will not, though, accept hate speech.  In any form.  Ever. 

I'm not going to say love is the answer.  However, I am prepared to say that love for each other, real compassion for our brothers and sisters, acceptance for those who are different, patience and a generous spirit to share our collective good just might help.  A little bit.

Our children deserve at least that much from every one of us. 

This is their world, too. 

No matter whom they choose to love.

Spotlights That Gave an Occasional Moment's Glitter

i. It's 'lilsalty's Spring Break. My professor is quite conscientious about making certain that I do not fill the babysitter role or even feel as if I am looked at as the default person who would take care of his son when he is not available to do so on the weeks we get to share our lives with his son, however Spring Break presents a challenge given that my professor is, truly, a real professor who actually does teach at the University and has all those obligations that require him to actually be there during the day. 

On this particular day, a day during the Spring Break, I have volunteered to have 'lilSalty spend the day with me.  I tell him that morning that we'll be going to a film.  That we're going to walk to the theatre, which is nearby.  That the film we're going to see is in 3D and that it was nominated for BEST PICTURE for the Academy Awards.

Immediately, because 'lilsalty is one very precocious and curious seven year old, I am peppered with questions:

"What are the Academy Awards?" "Did it win?" "Why didn't it win?" "Who decides who wins?" "Was the person who made this film sad that he didn't win?" "Why are we going to see it if it didn't win?" "Was it a book?" "I like movies that were books!"

I answered all of his questions, of course.  I'm always answering all his questions.  Sometimes, perhaps, with too much information, but I'm nothing if not honest and direct!

We walked that day to the theatre from our house and on the way there I impressed upon him that it wasn't going to be like watching a film at home.  That there were going to be other people in the theatre with us and that I needed him to really sit quietly, not talk or sing (oh the child loves to sing!) and if he really got bored to just let me know and we would leave rather than ruin the film experience for everyone else.

So, with the ground rules set, we stopped at the Whole Foods next to the theatre and chose some healthy snacks and then got our tickets and were off to the movies! 

'Lilsalty was totally enchanted with Hugo.   Completely.  He never moved and barely even breathed during the entire film.  It was magical for me to watch that film with him. 

I go to films every single week.  Lots of films.  I haven't shared a film with a small child in such a long while that I have forgotten that when you do, when you're lucky enough to get that chance, your film experience becomes just that much more special. 

Together, as we walked home, we dissected the film and all its various parts and while I already knew it, I realized how very blessed I am to be trusted to share my life with this amazing kid.  He can't wait for our next movie date. 

I can't either.

 

ii. We're at the celebration for my mother's 70th birthday and 'lilsalty is telling the entire table of gathered guests that you should never go to Jimmy John's because they have HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! 

Emily Gilmore gasps, looks at him and says, "But it's one of my favorite spots for a sandwich!" and he then looks at her and says very seriously, "You have to stop going there!"

While all other conversation stops, 'lilsalty tells the tale.

Nakedjen and I were going to get pedicures.  Well, she was getting one.  I was just going to sit in the massage chair, but then she did paint my toes with glitter polish because it helps you fly better as a fairy. 

We stopped at Jimmy John's to get a sandwich for me because I was hungry.  I'm hungry a lot because I'm growing, you know?  All I wanted was a ham sandwich.  So she asked them to make me a ham sandwich with just ham.  And mayonnaise.  That's all.  None of that other stuff.  They told her no!  She said she would pay them whatever they wanted, just make me the sandwich.  They said no! 

Nakedjen has trouble with sandwich people.  Did you know that?  She does.  The sandwich lady at Whole Foods HATES her.  She won't even make her a sandwich.

So, Nakedjen grabbed my hand and we left.  And she told me we were NEVER EATING THERE AGAIN! She even told the Internet. 

Then we went across the street to Gadalfo's.  Guess what?  They made me a sandwich exactly the way I wanted it!  With chips. And Mountain Dew! 

So, you know, just don't bother with Jimmy John's.  They have HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. You can't even get a ham sandwich!

My brother-in-law smirked, looked at my professor and asked, "Are you sure you want him hanging out with Nakedjen alone?  It might be time for a FILTER!"

 

iii. 'LilSalty sighs deeply, looks me right in the eyes and says, "You know, sometimes you are really difficult to live with!"

It's been an adjustment for all of us.  Perhaps larger and deeper than any one of us could have imagined.

We're still sorting it out.  I also know it is not easy. 

I purposely did not have children of my own because I never imagined that I would be a good mother.  I still am not certain that I can be and so I haven't embraced that role with 'lilsalty, but I am an adult in his life, his father's partner, a woman who loves his son in ways that go far beyond just the occasional babysitter or even a distant aunt. 

Love multiplies every day if you let it.  And every day is all there is. 

This boy is changing my life.  In unimaginable and incredible and heart blowing ways.

I'm doing my very best to make sure I am part of the love he remembers most in his childhood.

Bears Behind Bars

My mother, the esteemed Emily Gilmore, is 70 and smashing today.  I've written lots of words about my mother here and you have read them or you've not read them, I have no idea what you've done, honestly, perhaps you've just rolled your eyes and thought things about the two of us and how we probably deserved one another given that she is, after all, Emily Gilmore and I am the daughter who makes her sigh often and say, "That is not how I raised you!"

No, of course not.  That is never how she raised me.  I do know how to set a table properly and how to greet an ambassador and how to write a proper thank you note and that showing up at the White House with shocking pink hair might cause the Secret Service to pat me down extra carefully.   Still, as she sighs heavily while standing behind me during the pat down, she also knows that I rather enjoy the attention and that it is precisely because she also told me that I could absolutely BE anything and anyone I wanted to be and that there was NOTHING THAT I COULD NOT DO that I am the very person that I am.  Just like her.

One thing Emily Gilmore does not do is throw anything away.  Ever.  Emily Gilmore moved here to Utah over two years ago, but there are lots of unpacked boxes hidden in the bowels of NeverNakedBeth's basement from Emily's home in Washington, D.C. holding state secrets just waiting to some day be unearthed.  Stuffed into one of the boxes was her personal Guest Book, the spine cracked with age, the ancient pages yellow and stinky, where she has documented, with autographs from the dignitaries who have visited in her home, all the events of her life since the very beginning of time. No really, I think Jesus signed it.  Certainly, Mr. Nixon (gasp!) and his wife, Patricia.  All those DAR ladies who show up for tea with white gloves.  Ahem.  My sister, NeverNakedBeth, shrieked with delight and decided that we had to wrap it up and present it to her, her life revisited in decades of parties and callers and the chairing of fundraisers for political causes!

There are also photographs. Boxes and boxes of photographs of every event in duplicate and triplicate and professional studio portraits of every child and every pet from every year of our lives.  Our lives, if not in words, have been extremely well documented in film.  As I said, she never throws a single thing away. 

Including, it seems an entire large Garfinkle's shopping bag filled to overflowing of instamatic photos.  As I dug through them, sorting and searching for any gems we might share with her at her celebratory party, all I kept finding were photo after photo after photo of the same bears, the exact same brown and black bears, behind bars.  Blurry bears behind bars!  Awful, sideways, bear butts.  A smudged bear nose poking through the bars.  In triplicate!  Was that a close-up of his ear?  It was difficult to tell because a chubby three year old finger was mostly blocking the lens.

There were over five hundred photos of the bears in the zoo in that bag.  Not a single one in focus.  Not a single one worth saving.  At first I wondered if my mother, Emily Gilmore, was John Irving's accomplice in Setting Free the Bears?  But I knew better.  I knew that this, this bag of bad photos, was the physical evidence of a mother's real love for her three children.

As little girls, we spent many weekends at the Washington Zoo.  We also were encouraged to be artistic and exploratory and each of us had small Kodak instamatic cameras of our own.  Obviously, it was the bears behind bars, Smokey most likely, who enchanted us the most.  And it was our mother, Emily Gilmore, who developed every single roll of film and saved every single photo as if we were each Frans Lanting and they were worthy of National Geographic.

She loves us.  Her three little bears.  I know she at times wished she could put each of us behind bars just to breathe a bit easier, to know we were safe, to keep that soaring spirit she instilled in each of us from flying too close to the sun, but she always kept the door ajar instead.

Love and fortitude and a whole lot of laughter got her to 70.  She really is full of everything smashing.

 

Naked Pitch

Pitches. We all get them. I know we do. This one actually happened to me. Today. I usually just hit delete and move right along, but something compelled me to write back today. I suppose it was because I am me.  Or that I really want to get NAKED at City Creek.  (It will horrify NeverNakedBeth and I will admit that I spent part of today plotting exactly HOW to make it happen...) 

I'm so glad I did write back.  Really, if I can't be naked for everyone, including the PR guy, then why am I doing this?

xo

City Creek Center is open for business

Inbox

x

Chris 12:24 PM (9 hours ago) to me Hi I thought that you and the readers of Nakedjen would be interested in learning about a brand new indoor-outdoor destination that just opened in Salt Lake City. City Creek Center features 18-foot waterfalls, a 1,200-foot long re-creation of the City Creek waterway, retractable glass roof, heated snow melt system, nearly 100 stores and restaurants, and three choreographed fire and water fountains from the designers of the Bellagio fountains in Vegas. Even better, City Creek was built using 80% recycled and reused materials, much of which came from the two former shopping malls. I've collected everything you need into one informational page you're welcome to check out and share: http://shopcitycreekcenter.com/cccnews If you’re able to post, tweet or pin, please let me know, I'd love to share it with my team. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help. Cheers, Chris -- Chris XXXXXXXXX (on behalf of City Creek Center) nakedjen 12:10 PM (9 hours ago) to Chris Hi Chris, I am absolutely certain that everyone who reads Nakedjen and follows me on Twitter would love to know more about City Creek, especially that so much of it was built using recycled and reused materials from the two former shopping malls.  They care a lot about the planet, just like I do.  I'm also pretty sure they'd enjoy hearing about the terrific shopping opportunities that now are available to them (I am personally really happy that LUSH is finally here!) and that they can even take UTA TRAX to get there, thus eliminating the need for a car and helping to help with our air quality issues here in Salt Lake City!  We can all breathe a little better and shop Tiffany's and Nordstrom and even enjoy a delicious healthy meal at Blue Lemon.  What is not to love? My readers know that one thing I love to do is celebrate Fridays by getting "naked" in open spaces in Salt Lake City.  So to really celebrate the opening of City Creek, I think the best way to do this would be a Naked Friday photo in center of those choreographed fountains.  Any Friday will work for me.  I know it will definitely make a huge splash. Let me know what you think? Best, Nakedjen Chris 12:24 PM (9 hours ago) to me Oh Jen! Were it as simple as saying yes to this! :)  But I really cannot endorse that sort of playful behavior because I am sure it would result in much trouble for everyone involved! But your email made my day! :) nakedjen 12:26 PM (9 hours ago) to Chris Well done, Chris.  What kinds of playful behavior CAN you endorse?  xo Chris 12:28 PM (9 hours ago) to me Let me ask my team where the line is drawn, OK? :) nakedjen 12:32 PM (9 hours ago) to Chris You are a really good sport, Chris.  I mean that, sincerely.  I want you to know that you've also made my day. Chris 12:33 PM (9 hours ago) to me I guarantee you that if I didn't grow up ashamed of my body I would be right there with you! :) nakedjen 12:44 PM (9 hours ago) to Chris Ahhh.  Well, Chris, City Creek aside, if you read any of the bits and parts of my blog, you'll find that we all have bodies that we need to truly celebrate.  Love.  Because loving our bodies only allows us to love everyone else that much more.  It starts with us and within us.  I want you to know that your body, the one that carries you through the day, is perfect and beautiful and worth loving just as it is.  It absolutely is and it should be cherished.  I know this just as well as I know myself.  Remember that.  Love your body.  It is the only one you've got and if you love it, I promise it will LOVE you back.

Fraggle Friday

First there was a trip to Vegas.  And this happened.

I was there just long enough to create all kinds of trouble, find out that I've been wearing the wrong bra size since I was twelve (who knew that my boobs are NOT a 34 B?!?) and see my own sister, the ever pious NEVERNAKEDBETH get so high on sugar that she literally cleared a public restroom of all the ladies of the evening who were in there primping and preening.  The two of us were a heap of tears and laughter on the sidewalk and my own niece was horrified at our utter display of uncontrolled drunken behavior.  Let that be a lesson to all of you who may attempt to eat one of Serendipity 3's BIG FAT SUNDAE's all by yourself.  NeverNakedBeth attempted it.  She bumper car(ed) her way all the way back to our hotel and does not really remember getting home. 

Sugar, it's the new cocaine for the masses.

I came home to find that my dear Professor had planted a FARM for me.  Of beets and arugula, of course.  And lots of other green delectables and there's a variety of garlic and onions and herbs and strawberries and enough herbs to feed the entire neighborhood.  There will also be heirloom tomatoes.  I kept asking for a farmer in a tutu.  It is amazing to me, still, that the universe delivered one who also writes books and speaks to me in such beautiful and lovely complete sentences.  Did I mention that he cooks for me, too?  He does.  Nearly every single night.  It's fantastic that he invited me and the dogs and the cat to move into the house with him, but I hope he realizes that we will never, ever be leaving.  How could I possibly go and set up camp under a bridge now?

So it is Friday. Usually, of the naked sort. However, my professor had the afternoon free from the kinds of meetings with students and grading of papers and administrative duties that seem to fill the hours of his day while he makes the doughnuts and invited me for a date.  I suppose I could I have insisted that we spend the afternoon completely naked and doing the sorts of things two people who are naked might do like planting more beets and carrots and fixing the fence to keep the dogs from wandering the neighborhood, but instead I put on CLOTHES (I know, I know!!) and we actually went out and about in our city and mixed it up with the other people who also seemed to decide that a random Friday afternoon in the middle of April was the perfect afternoon for a date, as well.  Especially those people who happen to have small children.  I think there are a proliferation of those kinds of people in this city where we dwell.  It's a good thing we've planted all those extra carrots and peas and green things.  I have mouths to feed!

In an obvious departure from the usual naked Friday, here's a what I wore Friday.  You'll notice that my hair is back to its usual messy mop of unkempt wild stuck my finger in an electrical socket madness.  Emily Gilmore wishes it was otherwise, but sadly, this is just my hair when left to its own devices. 

The clothes I am wearing are all courtesy of our local Deseret Industries.  My entire ensemble cost less than the coffee I drink each morning from my beloved Coffee Garden.  I'm especially fond of that Fraggle Rock pink vest.  It's going to the Oregon Country Fair this summer.  Oh, yes.  I've got special plans for it!

Total cost for that outfit: $4.00  (Polo, the cat, came as part of my moving in with the Professor!)

I'm sure you all can tell.  Still, at least I didn't get us arrested.  That surely would have been FAR more expensive.  Happy Friday!  Maybe the rest of you are naked?! Yes??

 

I love all of you. I have far more to say.
Once I recover from the madness that was Las Vegas.
I need lots of roots.
Lots of them.
xo

One Sequin at a Time

Fashion?  Fashion?  Seriously??

I can hear all of you now.  I mean, let's face it.  If anything, this blog is the antithesis of a fashion blog.  I am the girl who encourages all of us to not wear anything at all and celebrate our bodies no matter what size or shape they may be.  To eschew the images that the media keeps force feeding us and to celebrate, yes CELEBRATE, our bodies right this very minute and love them because they are OUR BODIES and the ones that carry us through the trials and tribulations and beautiful moments of all our days and if we can't love our own bodies, well, than how can we possibly love anyone else?

Every single one of you knows this much.  I know that you do.  That is why I give you absolute permission to roll your eyes, sigh heavily and say "REALLY?" as loud as any teenager and even stomp from the room.

Go on.  You can leave now. 

First, my hair.

Emily Gilmore decided that my hair was nearing a disaster of EPIC PROPORTIONS and that if she didn't call in the calvary otherwise known as AVEDA, there might be a death in the family.  Hers or mine we were not sure, but since it was also the Professor's birthday she decided she'd couch the entire covert operation as a PRESENT for HIM.  She can be clever, that Emily Gilmore.

I will share that I do not own a single utensil meant for the care of hair.  Not a one.  Other than fingers, if those count?  The curls on my head are natural.  The colors on my head are not.  Emily Gilmore took one look at the conglomeration of current colors atop my head and decided that the Professor couldn't possibly like waking up to THAT every morning, but more importantly she didn't want to look at it, either, or have the conservative population of Salt Lake City wondering whose daughter I might be. 

So she sent me off to the Aveda Salon to have them please fix it.  Pronto.  As a birthday present for The Professor. It took nearly an entire day.  Lots of products and potions and utensils that I do not own.  I will share that the gods of the universe were with me because my stylist who was randomly chosen for me just happened to grow up on a BEET FARM IN OREGON (you can not make that up) and she absolutely spoke Nakedjen. 

I went from THIS:

to this:

Besides the blow-out (which all stylists seem to think is such a great idea even though I will never replicate it) she did manage to even out all those mixed-up colors in my hair and cut off three very awful dead inches.  I promised Stevie (my new best friend at AVEDA) that I'll let her be in charge now.  I mean she grew up on a Beet Farm.  It's like I'm putting my hair and heart into the very talented and slightly deranged hands of Dwight Schrute.  What can possibly go wrong?

Speaking of slightly deranged, I am.  Over these sunglasses.  I don't even wear sunglasses if we're going to be truthful and honest about it.  I can't stand having things on my face.  So I won't wear them despite having blue eyes and hearing over and over and over and over again that those of us who have these blue eyes are supposed to wear sunglasses because of possible cataract damage.  I know.  I hear the warnings.  As the seven year old who currently shares my life with me will tell you, "You never follow the laws."

I can't stop obsessing over these, though.  It's that moon and stars, especially, I think.  Something about those that make them seem especially alluring.  To me.  The girl who likes to imagine she might have fallen from the stars to this planet.  I know?!!  As my grandmother would say, "Jennifer, I'm sending you right back to whatever planet you came from!"

Dreamy.  I've got far more important things, though, on which to spend the dollars that happen to come my way.  Like dog food.  And health insurance.  Oh, and kombucha.  You know, the little things. 

 

Did I mention the shoes? I did buy these. Because, you know, a girl, even a naked one, can never have too much glitter. Especially in Utah.  They make me VERY TALL.  I think they're perfect for an Easter parade.  No matter what you're wearing with them.  Or perhaps even if you're wearing nothing else at all.  I happen to know a certain professor who would actually like that little bunny outfit very much.  Ahem.

And how are all of you?!