I Got a Mud Bath, and it was Traumatizing.

After day 5 of my romantic Napa vacation with my brother and parents, I decided (rightfully so) that I needed to take a little me time. So I booked myself a couples mud bath, for one, at the hotel spa.


When I arrived (early, mind you, which NEVER happens), I was not-so-politely informed that the spa operates "15 minutes behind" the rest of the world. I'm sorry... what? Is that allowed? And isn't that something you mention to someone, especially if they, I don't know... have a very important wine tasting to get to immediately after their treatment? Needless to say, I was irritated.

Current Mood.

The cucumber water and plush terrycloth robe they offered me while I waited helped, but only a little.

After a quarter of an hour of sitting in the spa lobby and watching (with pleasure) customers freak out one by one as they checked in and were told of the "15 minutes behind" rule, it was finally time for me to enter the mud room.

I was escorted to the back of the building by an enormous European woman (you know the stereotypically terrifying waxer-lady they have in chick flicks and Sex and the City episodes? She was definitely modeled after this gal.) and immediately knew that I had made a mistake.

Instead of the relaxingly romantic, vineyard-viewing mud baths with happy couples in them that were advertised in the brochure, it was a steamy, windowless stone room, filled with large naked women covered in mud.

"Strip off your robe," my spirit guide demanded of me. Hesitantly (so much so that she had to yell at me again to get naked) I shed my robe, and was promptly thrown into a "shower" where Olga (what we'll call her from here forward) poured buckets of freezing cold water on my head. It took everything in me not to cry and run out the door, but I'd paid a lot of money for the experience and wanted to see it through. Plus, the mud bath was supposed to be "detoxifying," which I really needed after all of the wine I'd been consuming.

Next, I was put in a stone tub (#3 in a row of 15 stone tubs, where all of the other large naked women had settled in) and Olga poured SCALDING hot mud all over my body. And I do mean ALL. OVER. MY. BODY.  It was on my face, in my hair and everywhere else you can think of. And we're talking real mud, with like.... dirt and grass and pebbles. Plus, it was so hot and so, so heavy that I couldn't breathe. Instead of relaxing (which, again, the brochure promised and did NOT deliver) I started to have a full blown panic attack. It was awful.

After 20 minutes of laying in the mud and trying not to cry, I was put back in the shower and more cold water was dumped on me. Then, they put me in another uncomfortably HOT bathtub — again, between two other naked women, who somehow seemed to be enjoying themselves — where I had to beg for iced cubes to rub on my face to keep myself from passing out from a heat stroke. At this point, my heart was pounding so hard I genuinely thought I was going to faint and potentially drown in the bathtub. But, again, I'd already paid, so I soldiered on.

Next, I was brought into a sauna with 8 other people that was the size of my closet in my Manhattan apartment (read: TINY) and smelled like rotten eggs. I lasted 45 seconds and decided I'd had it. I stumbled out of the "room" (it is VERY generous to call it that), coughing the rotten eggs smell out of my lungs, and asked Olga if she could please take me to the room for my massage — the one part of the whole experience I knew would at least be enjoyable and make it even a little bit worth the money.

"No, no, there is no massage. Sauna is end. You get dressed now."

What I Expected: 

What I Got: 

An Ode to My Belly Button Ring

The week after my mom’s 50th birthday, she picked me up from school and told me she had a surprise for me. “Is it a dog?!” I pleaded (I was 11 at the time, so this seemed like the only option worthy of the enthusiasm she was projecting). “Nope! I got my belly button pierced!” She exclaimed, lifting her  shirt halfway to show off the the rhinestone that newly adorned her naval. I was mortified.

My mom is one of those “doesn’t quite look her age” women, who often reminds people of Amy Poehler’s character in Mean Girls. I won’t deny it– as far as mom’s go, she’s a total hottie, and I can only pray that someday I will look as good as she did at 50. That said, at the time, even though it looked great, the thought of her with a bellybutton ring was tacky and embarrassing. When we went to the beach, I could feel people staring and judging– thinking “why does that middle aged woman think she can pull off a belly button ring?” I begged her to take it out, to wear a one piece, anything to spare me the embarrassment of having a mom who looked like she was going through a midlife crisis.

The Summer after my junior year of high school, I took extreme measures. During a particularly bored and rebellious afternoon, I let a man with gauges in his ears stick a huge needle through my stomach and got a piercing identical to the one my mom had. Admittedly, I did it to shock her. I wanted her to take hers out, and figured that the best way to get her to do it was to give her a taste of her own medicine. But the truth was, I loved it.  

For the next five years, I took pride in my bedazzled belly button. It made me feel sexy and cool, and I loved it when people at pool parties would say things like “wow! I didn’t know you had that!” or “that looks awesome on you!” After college, it let me hold onto that young, rebellious part of myself that was quickly being diminished as I started to become an adult. Yes, I had to pay rent and work 60 hours a week, and my mom had made me throw out all of my “going out tops” from college, but at least I could still pull off a bellybutton ring. 

Or so I thought. 

One day, last year, it came up among a group of my colleagues that I still had my piercing. “But you’re 23,” said one of them judgmentally, “that should have come out like, three years ago.” 

Once again, I was mortified. Had I turned into my mom? Was I too old to be rocking a piercing? Were people looking at me the way they used to look at her?  Defeated, I went home that night and took it out. It left behind a gross, gaping hole, which a year later still hasn’t totally closed up, and serves as a constant reminder of what had been there before.

And honestly? It bugs me.

Unlike my mom, I let someone else decide what was appropriate for my body, and shame me into changing something I had, up until that point, liked about myself. I would have liked to have enjoyed at least another Summer showing off my belly bling, and was annoyed that someone had made me believe that  I shouldn’t (sorry for torturing you all those years, mom). 

So here’s what I learned from the whole experience: until you feel too old to be doing something, whether it be rocking a piercing or staying out until 4 in the morning, let yourself enjoy it. Because eventually, you will feel like you’re past the point in your life that it’s appropriate, and you’ll have to let it go. It is for this reason that I donated all of my bandage skirts and Forever 21 crop tops after my 22nd birthday, and why my friends and I have all agreed never to go back to the bars we used to frequent as interns. Getting older is hard enough as it is- if you want to do it with a rhinestone in your belly button, go for it. 

I Went on a Three Week Trip to California and all I got was this Stupid Poncho

It is very, very rare that my family is able to be in one place at the same time. Between school, work, kids and my active social life (.... the only thing I have going on right now) we are all constantly trying, and failing, to figure out ways to spend time together. 

This Summer, with my brother having just graduated from college and me quitting my job very prematurely before starting school, we found ourselves for the first time in years with a whole lot of free time to fill. The timing of this serendipitously coincided with my parents 25th wedding anniversary, and we decided that the four of us were going to do a big family trip to celebrated the "next phases of our lives." 

We talked about going to Africa, Tahiti, Thailand, Vietnam, Peru, Argentina, Portugal, the Mediterranean Islands, Israel, the South of France... all places that none of us had ever been

After months and months of back and forth disagreement, we settled on.... California. 

Because I really tried to limit myself on how much I was allowed to Instagram from the trip (and how much I was allowed to complain in a public forum about how bananas my family can sometimes be), here is a series of highlights from our trip.

1. We went to Alcatraz, and I went into a jail cell. My brother offered to pay the guy to leave me there for the night. I wore socks and sandals because San Francisco is apparently cold and no one told me.

2. We ate pork rinds and drank 75million tequila shots at a rooftop bar in The Mission District. My dad, who doesn't drinks, took 6 in a row and told me it was fine because since they were "little drinks" they didn't have that much alcohol in them

I fell asleep at the table like this:

3. My dad and I went to an Oxygen bar to nurse the tequila hangover, and a stranger tried to get me to join his cult. I thought about it, but ultimately decided to stick with family vacation (This was only day two- had he asked me on day 5, I may have had a different answer.) 

4. We watched this cute little lady make fortune cookies for a full hour. My fortune was "Try your best to get along with the people around you, they are far wiser than you realize." I lied and told my mom it said something about the moon. 

5. I MET MOTHERFKING SEALIONS

6. I also met Leonardo Dicaprio, and asked if there was any hope of a future together because apparently he's into Georgetown girls these days

7. We went to Haight Ashbury (where the hippie movement apparently started) where my mom talked about how she used to be a hippie and my dad took a homeless man out to lunch, only to discover he was not, in fact, homeless, simply SUPER high and very dirty looking.

8. I drank wine for 76 hours straight on a couples vacation in Napa with my brother

9. We went to dinner at The French Laundry, and my mom sent back 3 of the 9 courses. The experience was traumatically embarrassing, so there is no photo evidence. 

10. We met Dave Franco at the pool and took this romantic picture with him and his famous girlfriend. When they told my parents they were actors, my dad asked them both what they'd been in and whether or not they knew Michelle Kwan personally.

11. To solidify the experience as worthy of the plot of the next "Griswold Family Vacation" movie, my mom bought us all matching "Baja Sweaters" and demanded we wear them to lunch at the Pebble Beach Golf Club. 

12.  I rode a horse on the beach and looked incredibly chic doing it in aforementioned Baja jacket.

13. I ALSO MET MTHRFKING ELEPHANT SEALS (I was really into aquatic mammals this trip) who weigh 5,000 pounds and get so tired after moving 10-15 feet that they need to sleep for the rest of the day. We stumbled across this random beach covered with hundreds of them right off of the highway. I am fairly sure they are my spirit animal 

After 3 weeks, 5 cities and 800+ miles, we somehow still managed to look this happy with one another on the last night of the trip. To my family- thank you for a fantastic vacation and for not making me drive a single mile of the trip.