THERE. Satisfied? I’M A DAMN MALL WALKER.

It’s too icy and sidewalk-buried-y to take my usual outside routes, and let us not even speak of that torture device known as The Elliptical in the Basement. So I’ve moved to the mall, earlyish in the morning on preschool days. It’s just me, the darkened stores, and more senior citizens than any of you will see in your entire life, and potentially your entire death.

In a way, it’s very peaceful. My iPod blocks out most everything, although
the swish of nearby houndstooth polyester pants do sometimes make it through the headphones, along with the occasional whine of a maladjusted hearing aid.

It’s also very good for the old confidence, as I lap one retiree after another, nearly a blur as I whip by The Gap (authentic denim is back!), Victoria’s Secret (sale on push-up bras!), Sears (snowblower BLOWOUT!). I sweat my way past a silent Stride Rite, huff and puff by shuttered Pillow Pet kiosks, pound up the escalators.

A couple of weeks ago I started leaving the shame behind. So what if I was walking in a mall? So what if my main competition was on her third grandchild and smelled faintly of Polident? It’s still exercise. It’s still better than doing nothing. SHUT UP. IT IS.

Then yesterday happened.

I was hitting my stride, just about to round the second-floor northeast curve near Famous Footwear. All of a sudden a mall cop swooped out of nowhere on his Segway, dressed head-to-toe in full Mall Cop regalia: helmet with the lightning-bolt decal, black pants, honest-to-God combat boots. It was only the last-minute instinct to press myself against the window of the nearest store (Bath and Body Works; new Hawaii Coconut scent looks promising, if perhaps a little overly toothsome) that saved me from certain and grave injury.

As the mall cop whizzed away, no doubt in hot pursuit of the criminals that plague malls before they open, I suddenly saw What Could Have Been flash before my eyes.

SCENE

Me: [prone on ground, dewy with sweat but oddly alluring]

Elderly #1: Oh! Oh! Did you see what happened? That whippersnapper riding that what’s-it just knocked this girl to the ground! Quick, someone call 911!

Elderly #2: Here, I have my cellular telephone right here. 9…1….1…wait. How do you make the call go through again? Is it the Talk button or the Send button? I can never remember with all these dadgum gadgets! [throws phone to ground in exasperation, narrowly missing my dewy, unconscious arm]

Elderly #3: I don’t like the way she is lying there. My wife once fell and was on the ground like that and it turned out her hip was broken.

Elderly #1: Oh, I know all about that. My sister, Alma? She broke her hip and it took months of therapy until she was on the road to recovery. Now she has one of those mini-elevator thingies that hook to the banister, just to go up and down the stairs. It’s heartbreaking, really.

Elderly #3: Exactly! Once you experience a fall like this, it’s really all over.

[All Elderlies begin walking in the direction of the food court (Dunkin' Donuts, all coffee $1.25 with senior discount), where they continue their conversation about foregone orthopedic conclusions. In the meantime, I die.]

[P.S. The End.]

[P.P.S. Planning to go back to the elliptical tomorrow.]

But then the father of a kid in another classroom at Aura’s preschool came in with a very exotic-looking guitar and played it for all the kids. To hear Aura tell it, his performance was very well received. Perhaps not as well-received as that of the mother who was a dentist and came in to demonstrate how cavities form via a full-on puppet show, but still. The guitar was exotic. I’d say it was a didgeridoo, except I know that a didgeridoo is not a guitar, EVEN IF IT SHOULD BE.

It totally could have been a didgeridoo.

Anyway, the form was sent home again this week and I’ll be damned if we’re not filling it out this time. Except all I seem to like to do these days is read. And eat. Neither of those seems like a preschool showstopper, unless I could learn to eat books, in which case I am CERTAINLY not wasting that skill on a bunch of four-year-olds.

Tonight, frustrated by my talentless existence, I stomped into the living room to blame Adam, a strategy that has never failed me in the past. “Aura’s school wants us to share our talents,” I announced, leaning on the arm of the sofa. “So what do you want to share?”

“Hmmm?” Adam answered, eyes still glued to the television.

“YOU. A TALENT. GIVE ME ONE.” I snapped, the stress of having none myself beginning to gnaw at me.

Adam finally looked away from the screen, turning to look in my direction. “Why do I have to share a talent? I’m at work all day, anyway. You should share a talent.”

“Well,” I said, trying to buy time. “Well, I can’t seem to think of just one at the moment.”

“Let’s see,” Adam said, starting to really get into it. “You could tell the kids how you like to…huh.” Breaking eye contact, he started picking at a loose string on the sofa arm.

“Yes?” I replied icily, giving him the same look I gave him when he bought me a pregnancy pillow for our first wedding anniversary and told me it was a romantic thing to do and then used the pillow himself for the subsequent seven months.

“Uh! Hmm!” Adam went into full-on panic mode, frantically running his fingers over the TiVo remote as if tapping out a certain code would transport him anywhere but the living room. Then he looked back up at me. “I know! You can tell them all about reading!”

I stared.

“You know, reading! How to do it, and…how to do it even better!” Adam smiled, obviously pleased with himself.

I threw the form at him so hard that I think I gave him a paper cut, or at least I hope so, since that is definitely what I was aiming for. Then I Googled didgeridoo lessons, found a local teacher, and signed him up.

Sucker.

I shook my own head, swiping at my sweaty brow with the clean (I think) end of the dustcloth. “Notice?” I hissed. “Adam, this is a BOOK club. These people read BOOKS. They know about mouldings.” I paused for breath. “THEY ARE READERS.” Then I brought him the stepstool and instructed him to dust the blades of the ceiling fan.

The cleanest moulding ever.

Truth be told, this was my first time hosting the group and it had to Go Well, lest I somehow be kicked out of what I have decided is the best book club ever. When it was formed last year, the founding members declared that we would read only enjoyable books, not the depressing tomes of social woe so beloved by previous book clubs. Besides one ill-fated misstep involving a Liberian memoir, we have remained true to the mission, indulging in the fluffier New York Times bestsellers and the random hey-the-cover-just-LOOKED-good selection. We shrink from pretension. We avoid any plots revolving around inherited disease or rapid descents into poverty. We positively shudder at book reviews that mention “literary irony.” Or ”heartbreakingly devastating.” That one’s the worst.

Truth be told again, we don’t actually talk about books all that much. Those of us with husbands complain about them. Those of us with children then complain about them. And then the single women in the group regale us with dating stories and we all wish we were single again. Well, except for the single women. But you get my drift.

The best meeting ever took place this past fall. In October, lubricated with wine and fresh off a rousing conversation about eyebrow waxing, we discovered we all shared a common if completely age-inappropriate love of the Twilight series. Then someone suggested that we forgo a book in November and instead meet at the movie theater for a viewing of New Moon. There was a moment of silence while we considered if this was too lighthearted a move to make, even for the World’s Most Lightheartedest Book Club.

“Well, New Moon was a book,” one member said.

“Yes! With complete sentences and everything,” someone else chimed in.

“Don’t forget the plot,” another cried. “It had one!”

Another moment of silence. Then someone whipped out the big guns.

“Yes, it definitely had an interesting plot,” she said softly. “In fact, some might call it devastating.”

That pretty much sealed the deal. We met, we bought popcorn, we catcalled. When Jacob/Taylor Lautner took off his shirt, we made comments so unsuitable that my ears burn to recall them.

IT WAS GREAT.

And so, in the spirit of book clubs and the books they may or may not read, I offer this giveaway: Leave a comment by next Tuesday night (4/6) and automatically be in the running for a $20 Amazon gift card. You could buy a book! A movie! A VAMPIRE!

Actually, I just learned vampires cost $29.99. Eh, you can scrape up that extra $10 on your own. I have werewolves to save for, myself.

I wish I had someone to blame for my blatant dullness and the fact that my life is beginning to toe the line of downright insipid. I suppose I could nod suggestively in Aura’s direction, since this parenting thing doesn’t leave a lot of room for leisure. Or I could point a subtle finger at Adam, whose life is rich with hobbies, all of which consume massive amounts of space and bank balances and therefore might suffocate my own creative impulses. But no. Though it pains me to admit it, I am fully responsible.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I do have interests. I like to bake. I love to read. I take great pleasure from long walks.  And these are all perfectly acceptable activities, particularly if you are 75 years old. I can’t help thinking that at 32, I could ratchet things up a notch or twenty. 

It’s not as if I haven’t tried. For instance! During a good chunk of our childless years, Adam and I would try a new restaurant at least once a week, spending piles of money to earn the title of “foodies.”  But then Aura came along and there were no babysitters and it dawned on me that I hate the word foodie almost as much as I despise the word playdate. Also, in retrospect, I am not sure that eating is a hobby.

Oh! There was also the knitting class. A few years ago, this adorable little crafting studio/store opened a few blocks down from our apartment. I dropped in for a quick look-see, breathing in the scent of overpriced scrapbooking paper and imported yarn and make-it-yourself chandelier-earring kits with something like hope. Flushed with the possibilities, I rushed home to tell Adam that I was going to take up knitting, detailing labyrinthine plans for scarves and sweaters and perhaps even tea cozies.

So he signed me up for a beginner’s knitting class. And it was awful. It was like the ballet lessons, but about a MILLION BILLION TIMES WORSE.  I will say that I managed to get the hang of casting. But then…nothing. I don’t know if it was the fact that the teacher was too far down the table or if it’s just that I lacked the ability to conceptualize what was supposed to be taking place on my needles.  All I know is that by the end of the two-hour class, the other women were knitting and purling like they were fresh off 10 years in some kind of wooly, yarn-heavy sweatshop, while I had to be taken aside by the teacher no less than five times for extra help. 

After that, baking and reading seemed better. Nice and safe and private. And rarely humiliating, with the exception of one Boston Cream Pie gone very awry.

But it’s time.  The clock is ticking for New Year’s resolutions and all that crap, so I’m game. In 2010, I will research, identify, and develop a hobby. Indoor rock climbing? (Might hurt.) Organic gardening? (Might be dirty.) Playing acoustic guitar? (Might produce calluses.)  I’m just not sure. 

Please: I’m all for suggestions.