This Scooting Life

It's finally happened: Kim Kardashian and I are on common ground! We're both navigating the world on knee scooters, aka accessibility vehicles.

Having such an esteemed cohort (Kim is my cohort!) makes the scooting life easier to tolerate. I imagine what she's going through as I adapt to life in a kneeling position.

Basically, I can do very little. I can't drive, so I'm mostly at home. Around the house, my activities are circumscribed. For example: since the handlebar cuts at my midsection, anything that requires extending my arms out front--i.e., loading the dishwasher, getting food in and out of the refrigerator, vacuuming--demands strategic planning. I can't reach clothing on high racks. If I somehow manage to get a garment down from a closet shelf, I can't put it back. I mop spilled liquids with a paper towel under my good foot.

Internet photos show Kim attending events (a concert!) around LA and New York with her broken foot on a scooter. Kim, in a plunging white cut-out dress, surrounded by her entourage at the launch of her Skims flagship store in Manhattan. Kim, in a sleeveless red satin gown that drapes over the wheels. Kim, zipping along in leather pants, her glamourous life seemingly intact.

Leather pants might be our only shared attire. Mine, like all my clothes, are oversize and worn for warmth and comfort. Evening dress is the farthest thing from my mind, with a heavy black boot strapped to my left leg.

My scooter determines everything I do. When I awoke on the morning of November 9th, it sat at my bedside. My jaunty green Knee Rover would mediate my every action for the next several weeks after surgery.

First thing in the morning, Rover takes me to the bathroom and then to my lumpy recliner in the living room. I wonder how Kim gets into her chair. Does someone help her, or does she use my method, of parking nearby and then swiveling as I hop on my good foot while aiming my rear end--my much less ample posterior--for the seat? Probably not. And if she forgets her phone or the TV remote, I'll bet she doesn't have to haul herself up, circle onto the scooter and travel across the room or down the hallway to wherever she left it.

I've read Kim likes her morning cappuccino perfectly foamed. Coffee is important to me too, and making it is a deliberate routine that can take upward of twenty minutes, if I need to grind beans. The scooter barely fits my narrow kitchen--Kim's no doubt has islands she can circle--and I move back and forth along the counters and cabinets to set up the Chemex, the filter, the grounds, the half and half. Once the coffee is ready, I scoot backward a couple feet and place it on the counter behind me. Then I go back another few feet until I approach the dining room. I reach over my shoulder to place the coffee on the table and yank the scooter a 180 into the alcove. Then, facing forward, I take the coffee in one hand and gingerly steer with the other to the end table beside my chair. I do things in stages.

I wonder if Kim pays closer attention to the details of everyday life. My focus has become granular, to avoid impediments to forward movement. Too-long pants are treachery. But Kim has all those nice Skims outfits so that probably isn't an issue for her.

From the photos I've seen, Kim's house is open and spacious, with stone floors where a scooter can really pick up speed. Unlike me, she does not have transoms that catch the front wheel at a 90-degree angle. She does not stand on one leg and drag the scooter over the top and place it down on the other side of the doorway. Doing this a hundred times a day is a form of exercise, let me tell you. Pushing open doors requires a conscious effort aided by the basket in front. But doors open for Kim.

Nor do I think she has rooms that are too small for the scooter, like my front bath. I park the scooter next to the door and hop inside. I brush my teeth, blow-dry my hair, and apply makeup while standing on my right leg. Does Kim do that? My other bathroom can fit the scooter but only at an angle; the open shower door anchors the wheels so I can aim for the shower chair while rotating and lifting my leg, encased in protective plastic, onto the knee rest.

Still, there is satisfaction in executing these Rube Goldberg-esque challenges. Like transporting a huge bouquet of flowers, sent by my youngest son, from the front door to the coffee table. The heavy vase came wrapped in Saran Wrap that was starting to leak. I scooted to the kitchen and grabbed a large soup pot. Tightness (think Skims) is all: the vase, nestled in the pot, wedged within the basket, slowly made its way across the living room to the coffee table. Voila.

I'm not one of the beautiful people, but I try. I too have minions--really, only one, the young doorman coming off the overnight shift who spots me in the gym while I lift weights. And I get outside every day for fresh air. Like many NYC neighborhoods, mine is a patchwork of bumpy and broken sidewalks. Kim doesn't have to worry about her scooter catching a crack and stopping short; her world doesn't have sidewalks. For me, it's a victory to cross two intersections en route to the little shopping center with a cafe. If my eyes wander from the surface in front, I can lose my balance. Catching on a spot of uneven pavement, like the ski slope that is Broadway near Zabar's, or on a too-large pebble or piece of rock salt, the wheels can go into that 90-degree spin. Those bumpy metal safety patches designed to slow pedestrians are like fucking cobblestones. Most diabolical are the spiky brown balls that fall from trees. I'm sure Kim doesn't have to deal with such pesky things.

Still, I've made forays. One recent afternoon, I took a Lyft to the hair salon for a dose of the elixir of youth. Afterward, emboldened by fresh color, I twirled up and down the hallway and impressed other patrons with my multi-point turns. Out on Madison Avenue, I sailed along the smooth sidewalks. Yes, sidewalks are better on Madison Avenue.

The buzz died when I returned home and confronted the laundry. I can do small loads by carrying the detergent in the basket while balancing the dirty clothes bag behind the handlebar. But it's onerous to load the machine and to remove the wet wash (that front-arm limitation again). Same with the drier; cleaning the lint tray requires bending over, so that's a nonstarter. When I get the dry clothes upstairs, it's another exertion to fold and put them away.

Given that tasks now take two to three times longer than they once did, a much larger share of my time is devoted to housework. I did not anticipate this consequence of foot surgery. Nor did I expect that my available supply of energy would be so depleted. Tasks that were slotted into spaces between other commitments now occupy large blocks of time. Suddenly a day is over, and the kitchen still isn't clean. My life is kind of a mess.

Kim's kitchen is always spotless, because that's who she is, up there on Mount Olympus. Teams of personnel swing into action, tidying and scrubbing, thereby releasing Kim to her core functions, like running Skims and promoting her personal brand. Which is the source of Skims and all the rest.

What is this brand? Ultimate sex appeal, ultimate impeccability, ultimate self-confidence. A picture-perfect goddess of herself. There are no blips or rough edges; even unposed shots are spun into self-promotion. Adore me, she dares. Imitate me. I have a few products that can help.

I check out the clothes on the Skims ad pages. Women of all shapes and sizes model silky, skin-tight and often see-through pieces of lingerie and underwear. Everything is sexy, even the less-revealing lounge garments and gym clothes.

The brand, so it seems, is female beauty as a form of self-pleasure. The range of physiques and skin tones suggest that the pleasure is egalitarian. Beauty for Everywoman! The ads are an invitation, a come-hither to the potential buyer to imagine the goddess life in figure-hugging underwear.

The photos promise an alluring escape. But the reality is the gap between my world and Kim's: If I buy a piece of lingerie, at some point it will end up in my laundry basket, not decorate a palace like hers. I'll still have my worries, my mad juggling of priorities and the stretch marks commemorating pregnancies years ago.

I click off the page. Rather than empowered (sigh), I feel lesser, somehow puny and older by comparison. Owning Skims will make me poorer, not rich and sexy like Kim.

Then again: being sexy must be a burden. The dark side of Kim world is the Schadenfreude, the snark of the haters that proliferates on the internet. Below the Instagram photos of the Skims event, a troll posted that Kim looked--quel horreur--old. Maybe they see a little strain on her face, the effect of having to haul a heavy scooter wherever she goes while pretending to be as hip and gorgeous as ever. Maybe a whiff of reality, a flash of the concern she must have about having to keep her foot safe so it heals and the exhaustion of recovery. The idea of struggle beneath the surface, even in Kim world, reminds me we are on common ground, after all.

I thank the man who holds the door so I can scoot outside. Helpers are all around: strangers who lend a hand, loved ones who show up with groceries and rides to the doctor. And make meals: of lasagna and salad, pots of chicken soup--and slip Ziplocs of salmon and veggies into the freezer for a week from now. A friend arrives with the last bagels from Absolute on 109th and Broadway before she assembles my shower chair.

I head out into the dusk of the early winter sunset. I know these roads, the bumps and cracks that challenge my navigation home. Today, I savor the bracing air on my face and the rapturous shade of pinky gray velvet that is the sky. The beauty and pleasure in my life don't come from a slinky undergarment--but maybe that was the joke all along.