Overboard

THE CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE Overboard is my bible.

When I am feeling untethered in life, I go to church … the church of Goldie Hawn. I love her so much I named my dog after her, if I had a daughter I would have named her Goldie too or “Goldie two.”

Ever since I was a little girl I have watched and worshiped her.

Wildcats, Private Benjamin, Housesitter, and obviously — Overboard.

If you haven’t seen it, you were likely born after the nineteen hundreds and have never been so hungover in your twenties crossing your fingers and toes, praying that basic cable would send you a win that day by showing you a young Kurt Russell in overalls and a tool belt.

Feel free to stop reading and go watch it on whatever streaming service you subscribe to. I think I’ll join you.

Ok, I’m back …

Wasn’t that incredible?

Now if you’re going to come at me with some new age nonsense like …

“But Candy, he kidnaps her,” or “He’s taking advantage of a woman with amnesia,” or “This is a crazy thing to ask your children to do.”

Let me just stop you right there — we do not mess with Overboard.

Kurt Russell is seventy-five years old and I would let him bonk me on the head and drag me back to his house any day, willingly — very willingly.

We don’t need to ruin every piece of media because it isn’t woke or whatever the kids are saying these days.

I hate mean spirited comedy at the expense of something someone can’t change, but if it’s not putting anyone down or marginalizing the already marginalized, it’s fair game. Let’s not be so serious all the time, you guys.

Kidnap someone, make them your wife, force them to cook, clean, and raise your children for you.

Life’s short! Have Fun!

Listen, manifesting is real and you have to be very specific. For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be Joanna Stayton: rich, beautiful, mean. But somewhere along the way I accidentally manifested the Annie Proffitt version: a rough around the edges, angry stay-at-home mom, confused about how on earth she got here.

I ended up with the contractor husband, the dilapidated house, the broken down cars in the yard, and the rowdy boys (I only have one child but there’s always a few other kids or exes hanging around) calling me “Mom.”

I’m hopeful one day I will embody the “It’s mine, the boat, the money, everything, it’s all mine,” Goldie.

Maybe not a yacht but a few more paid subscribers on here and I can definitely afford a dinghy.

When I moved back in with JC a couple years ago the experience was humbling on every level. We’d been separated for nearly a decade, during which I was under the influence of a devil man — think Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick, but six-foot-five and blue-eyed — when that fell apart as everyone (but me) knew it would, a Rube Goldberg series of events landed me back here, back on my estranged husband’s front steps. The steps that still had the nail protruding from them that I’d asked him to pound in a million times while we were married.

We agreed I’d stay three months … three years ago.

At this point I’m not sure who’s holding who hostage anymore. We are in a Stockholm Syndrome stalemate currently. Which I suppose isn’t unlike most traditional marriages.

Life at JC’s is akin to life at Dean Proffitt’s (Kurt Russell’s character).

I didn’t grow up with money by any means but that didn’t mean I didn’t know what it would feel like to live with means. That was a feeling I was forever chasing. I started working when I was twelve to save up money for dELiA*s boots and MAC cosmetics. I knew the best of the best and the best was what I wanted, and that’s what I got … for myself.

When I worked at Nordstrom it was not unusual to watch people drop thousands of dollars in a blink of an eye, without blinking an eye. I wanted that, I wanted to be married to that … at least I thought I wanted that. Not long ago I was seeing someone who had money, lots of money and what he wanted was to marry me.

The thing about money is, it’s not everything, it’s not even anything.

I couldn’t make myself love someone solely based on the life they could afford me. I’m stubborn, and possibly stupid, but I want to be the one giving myself that life, so until then I am here, writing from the piece of shit patio set JC picked up off the side of the road.

“After the summer I am throwing this fucking thing on the burn pile,” I say to JC while we sit outside getting eaten alive by mosquitoes “every time anyone sits on a chair a piece of wood breaks off it.”

“No you are not! I’m gonna fix it up!” JC says elbow deep in the Yeti fishing for another Rainier.

JC takes a swig of his beer and goes back to untangling a ball of Christmas lights.

“Are you taking those down or putting them up?” I snark.

“Down,” JC snaps back.

“It’s August you know,” I say.

“Should I just leave them up then?” JC asks as he drops the icicle lights into an old orange milk crate.

“What I would really like you to do is finish painting the house,” I tell him while unscrewing the cap from my white wine and refilling my glass, “it’s embarrassing how it’s two different colors, J.”

“Are you crazy?! If the house is one solid color it will look too nice and they’ll raise the taxes on me,” he scoffs “you’re lucky I haven’t painted it, otherwise I couldn’t afford to have you living here.”

“The dryer won’t turn off again,” I add, knowing he hates it when I pile things on. “it tumbled the clothes around all night and they’re still soaking wet.”

“Jesus Christ, what did you do to it this time?” he raises his voice at me in a jokey way.

“Oh I don’t know, your laundry that you never put the fuck away after it’s folded!” I say remembering how the other night when I was mad at him, I walked into his room and straight armed all his neatly folded clothes off the top of his dresser like you would clear a desk you’re about to have sex on.

This was more satisfying than sex for me.

JC laughed from the toilet, where he was sitting with the door wide open, watching me in my fit of rage.

He picked up his clothes off the floor and put them back on the dresser instead of in the dresser where they belong.

I walked by five minutes later and did it again.

“If you need to use the dryer you have to turn it off and on at the 220 breaker outside, the heating element is shot though so it will only cold dry your clothes.” JC said gathering up his fishing lures to go out on the water for the seventh day in a row “Or you can hang things outside on the deck railing.” The deck that is falling apart with rotten boards for handrails.

“I’ll go tomorrow to get a new dryer,” he said as I rolled my eyes.

“New?”

“Gah, you’re spoiled, yes new! The scratch and dent warehouse has one nicer than anything you’ve ever seen.”

JC got into one of his many old trucks in the front yard and started to back out of the driveway.

“Can we please get rid of some of these vehicles,” I yell to him from the front porch where I’m stood, barefoot, in my pajamas.

“Sure, yours!”

Gravel flew from behind his wheels and a wayward rock dinged the back window of my car as he sped away.

As if we would get rid of my 4runner, it’s the only one that’s been manufactured in the 2000’s.

I pick up a hammer from a pile of rusty tools and bang the nail in myself.

“I didn’t marry very well, did I?” I say to myself as I walk back into the house.

The couch adorned with multi-colored blankets, the coffee table made out of plywood, the wood burning stove collecting dust since our last winter fire, every flat surface covered in Seahawks memorabilia, heaps of puzzles and board games, pictures of my son scattered around here and there, the wall where we’ve measured all the heights of every guest we’ve ever had over, plants lining the windowsills that were grown from seeds, a basket of Goldie’s old dog toys we can’t bring ourselves to part with since she died, a fridge covered in magnets from all the places we’ve been, freezers stocked with wild salmon caught this week, coolers of ice chilling any drink you could imagine, strands of warm Edison bulbs hung over the rickety old patio table that’s sat on a rug he picked up off the side of the road, neighbors honking and waving as they drive by, stopping to chat over the fence for a while, a life that’s richer than any number in a bank account.

This might not be the champagne and caviar life I had once dreamed up for myself, not even close. The woodshed has a beam connected to it that is holding up a fence post. I do my e.l.f. makeup behind the front door on a shoe rack made of oak, not cedar … oak. It doesn’t even rotate by the way.

The refurbished vacuum dies every few months and I beg JC for one that is new, not off eBay.

He scoffs every time I ask him if we’re “poor.”

He tells me we wouldn’t be if I got a real job, I tell him I am a stay-at-home mom, he reminds me that the kid is sixteen, and I remind him that one day I will be a famous author selling millions of books about this time in our lives, he says hurry up and write … so I do.