Lisa Gerardy's Blog

My heart hurts, but not in the call 911 way.

Before anyone sends me to urgent care, let me clarify.

I am not having a heart attack.
Trust me, I am the daughter of a man who died of one at 47, so I basically have an honorary WebMD degree in cardiac panic.

It is not the organ in my chest that is hurting.
It is the other heart. The Valentine’s Day one. The emotional one.

The one Prozac usually keeps bubble wrapped and safely offline.

Last night, I felt feelings.
Full-bodied, emotional, inconvenient feelings.
They kept me awake; ev...

Scary Potter and the Case of the Haunted Pot Roast

Heinz, our big brown house pony, is afraid of approximately… everyone. Except Chris and me. If you are not us, congratulations, you are officially terrifying.

Recently, a family friend moved in, which means Heinz has upgraded from mild suspicion to full growl, bark, and lunge mode. It is like living with a furry, four-legged bouncer who does not want anyone on the guest list.

This morning, Chris tried to feed him, but Heinz refused. That is his signature move when stressed. Nothing says “d...

Spoiler Alert: I kept “IT”

“You can get the vitamins on your way out if you’re keeping it.”

That was the first thing the scrawny lab tech at my OB/GYN’s office said to me after confirming what I already kind of suspected: I was pregnant. At this point I was two weeks late and lashing out at neighbors who dared to speak to me. It was like PMS times 200.

“Of course I’m keeping him,” I said, without hesitation. No ultrasound, no gender test—just a gut feeling that the tiny creature making me hot, tired, and irrationall...

A Crime Against Joe Walsh

Dear Joe Walsh,

I was in yoga the other day, minding my own business, trying to stretch my hamstrings without dislocating anything, when the unthinkable happened.

It started out fine—AC was on (a rare gift from the yoga gods), the new instructor was fantastic, the playlist was solid. She played “Come Undone” by Duran Duran and “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil. I was impressed.

Then, just as I’m settling into child’s pose, I hear:

“They say I’m crazy, but I have a good time…”

Joe...

The Dread in My Head

It starts the moment I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, squinting past sleep and hope. The Arizona sun might be blazing outside, but inside my brain, the weather is unseasonably grim. There’s a gray cloud parked directly over my head—and it’s not moving anytime soon.

The first thought, before I’ve had coffee, before I’ve had time to armor up, is cruel and quiet:

I hate my body.

No one says it out loud. No one has to. It’s stitched into my skin like a label I never asked...

Perimenopause: The Hormonal Circus No One Warned Me About (Starring… My Ovaries!)

Wednesday night. I’m dead asleep, dreaming about something amazing—possibly sex, possibly cheese, possibly Chris dressed as cheese, I don’t know—when suddenly… dream pain.

That low, dull ache in my lower abdomen.

Ladies, you already know.

The ovaries were staging a protest. Again.

I figured I’d wake up and it’d be gone, like those dreams where Paul Rudd and I are dating and raising emotionally secure dogs together. But no. I woke up Thursday morning and the pain was still there. Not ...

Paul the Pack Rat Is Going to Die, and It’s Not What You Think

Let me back up before you call 911 and start a true crime podcast called Murder in the Desert: The Paul Chronicles.

About four months ago, our dogs started getting real interested in one particular bush in our backyard. And by “backyard,” I mean a patch of Arizona that someone tried to tame with concrete and decorative rocks, then threw in a couple of bushes so it wouldn’t look entirely like a prison yard.

Now, because this is Arizona, land of the free and home of the venomous, my first th...

Trading Xanax with Crackhead Shelly: A Comedy Club Cautionary Tale

I had some ISSUES in the early oughts.

Back when I was still willing to leave the house after 7 p.m., I spent a lot of time at a little comedy club that smelled like desperation, bleach, and Axe body spray. I was doing stand-up back then, trying to make people laugh while quietly unraveling inside. That’s where I met Crackhead Shelly.

Well, to be clear, she wasn’t Crackhead Shelly at first. She was just Shelly. A bartender, a mom with two kids, and a wife pulling a second job to keep the l...

Publix Girl and the Back That Still Bites

When I was sixteen, I had one of those classic first jobs that teaches you more about capitalism than calculus. I was a cashier at Publix. In the 1980s, this was a solid teenage gig. You wore the polyester green uniform, smiled like it was your job—because it was—and never let a customer lift their own bag. Publix was known for customer service that bordered on spiritual devotion.

One day, a customer had a bag filled with four two-liter bottles of soda. I picked it up to place it in their...

The Big Fight with Fran

It was a humid morning in May, the kind where your skin sticks to your clothes before you’ve made it past the mailbox. I had walked four blocks with baby Sergio in his stroller to Fran’s house, something I did often without thinking. I didn’t call first. I never had to. Fran had always been my safe place, my honorary aunt, my other mother. That morning, though, I wasn’t walking into comfort. I was walking straight into a storm.

Fran answered the door flushed and sweating, her eyes already lit...