Everything About Me Is Fake . . . And I'm Perfect (7 page)

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Have a role model.
In my case, I
still want to be like Jackie O. I want the dark sunglasses, the basic shift
dresses, the hunky Secret Service detail, and a man named Onassis who will take
care of me in ways I only dream of at night.

               
Get a dog.
Taking care of another
living creature—like my dogs Winston, Carly, and the late Bruno—can be good for
your outlook on life and your physical health. (And remember: having to walk
your dog means you have to walk your ass, too.)

               
Stop underestimating yourself.
You
are adaptable. You are flexible. You can change. Quit tricking yourself into
thinking you can’t do yoga. You will
Calvin Klein—eat your heart out.

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                learn the moves. You will find a class you
love, in a studio that doesn’t reek of curry. You will give yourself a few
months to learn, stretch, and grow. Yoga also “opens the chakras,” which means
letting energy flow through your body uninterrupted. Try it. Trust me.
OTHER
UNCATEGORIZABLE WISDOM FROM JANICE

               
Find a trainer who doesn’t smell.
Once
I had this guy who smelled like garlic. He’d stand right over me while I did
sit-ups, and it’s a fucking miracle I didn’t pass out on the spot. So find
someone who makes you feel comfortable—and brushes his or her teeth.
Sleep
with bag balm on your feet.
It’s the stuff they put on cows’ udders. Fill
your socks with this stuff, slip them on, and I promise you’ll wake up in the
morning with totally soft footsies.

               
Don’t let your knees look like dried-out
piles of hay.
Using aloe vera gel, stand upright and let the aloe
properties seep into every pore of your body—especially the rough spots like
knees and elbows. It’s nourishing and hydrating.
Make an avocado mask.
Add
a little lemon—just make sure you keep it out of your eyes because it will
burn. But a mask like this is worth the trouble: it will keep your face, and
your hair, smooth and soft.
Have at least one full-length mirror in your
house.
It might be the only thing around that tells you the truth. Take
your clothes off right now, stand in front of the mirror, and examine yourself.
Do it in morning or noon light—

                the harshest light possible. Be tough on
yourself. Suck in your stomach and turn sideways. Write down what you want to
change about your body because having a written record of it helps. I, for
example, hate my saddlebags on the side, my inner thighs, and my lower abdomen.
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                examination, I tend to go right out and take
a good long walk uphill—because I’ve suddenly been reminded why I need to
sweat. You do the same: remember that image you see in the mirror, and live,
eat, breathe, and sweat it till you are where you want to be.

               
Get on all fours
and do those leg
lifts you’ve hated for the past decade. I hate them, too, but I do them. Do
side leg lifts if you hate your thighs. If you need to tighten up your lower
abs, do those breathing exercises.
Remember: you’re not just doing this for
a guy.
Ideally, you’re doing this to feel better about yourself. In the
real world, we women all know that we also dress up more for our girlfriends
than for the hunk spooning us at night—right? Whatever the case, remember that
guys (even the hotties) don’t rule the world.

               
Remember: some of your imperfections aren’t
your fault at all.
Your genes are one culprit; gravity’s another. Gravity,
especially, sucks. (That’s why I’m into surgery, as previously noted.) Call me
shallow and vain, but I want to look and feel as young as possible for as long
as possible, and I don’t see what the hell is so wrong with that.

               
Give yourself an egg-white facial.
Separate
the yokes and beat up the whites. Lather it on your face until it dries, which
should take twenty minutes or so; then rinse off the mixture. Follow by washing
your face with that plain white yogurt to wash away any leftover impurities.

               
Old makeup brushes begone.
If a
makeup artist (on a shoot or in a mall) tries to use one on you, slap it right
out of their hand and just say no. Who knows where that brush has been?
Hands-off is my policy, so that brush better be brand-spanking-new—especially
the mascara and the eye shadow applicators. Eye infections are ugly and gross,
and don’t even get near my mug with that used powder puff unless you’re
prepared to throw down. E V E R Y T H I N G A B O U T M E I S F A K E . . . A N
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Learn how to walk like you’re on a
runway.
How, Janice? Listen and learn: STEP 1: Eyes straight ahead. Don’t
ever look down. STEP 2: Project quiet confidence.

                STEP 3: Don’t do too much fancy footwork,
just long strides. STEP 4: Don’t move too fast.

                STEP 5: Keep your chest at a normal level;
don’t jut it out. Remember, you’re not a dancer—and you’re not posing for
Playboy, either. STEP 6: Think about keeping yourself centered.

                STEP 7: Relax. Tell yourself: I’m not
uptight. I’m not stiff. STEP 8: Walk like something is for sale that very few
can afford. The best beauty tip of all: Remember, we need to impress ourselves.
Everyone else? Fuck ’em.

                23.

               
Emotions in Motion

                There are times in any girl’s life—good or
bad—when things just get under your skin. Especially guys. And sometimes, if I’m
stressed, those men in my life get an earful from me. Emotional self-control
was never my strong suit.

                In the old days, when things got tough, all
I thought I needed was a nice bottle of wine, some coke, or a combination of
the two. I spent the better part of two decades de-stressing with booze and
drugs, which was par for the course in the modeling world in those days. It was
a codependent world, where beautiful beings congratulated one another on their
mutual addictions.

                What I finally realized, though, was that
with drugs and alcohol I couldn’t handle the most important job in my life,
which was being a good mother. By the 1990s I knew I had to clean up my own
act. Getting sober wasn’t easy. I did it with therapy, and by devoting myself
to the life-saving, amazing twelve-step program in AA. After many years trying
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                program stick. Part of it was my own stupid
pride. I’d go to a group therapy session, look around, and couldn’t help but
think, “I’m better than all of these losers.” Finally my good friend Tony Peck
suggested that I might try a twelve-step program. He took me to an Alcoholics
Anonymous meeting, and I felt sure that everything would fall into place. Like
many lifelong addicts, I thought that once I “got myself together again,” it
would be smooth sailing and happy trails. I wish. After cleaning up my own mess
I was sober, but still completely unhappy—never mind that I was living in this
huge mansion in Bel Air with my two children, two dogs, a closet full of
Valentino and Versace, a nanny, a career, and the type of functioning lifestyle
I had never thought possible. And yet I still had the urge every night to
drink, drink, drink. This killed me because I had devoted myself to kicking
booze and drugs, and here I was on the verge of slipping again. It would have
been so easy just to pick up that bottle and say, “What the hell? It worked for
me all those other years.” I’ve managed to fight off the thirst for years now.
But even today, in my darkest moments, I want to drink so badly my entire body
is screaming.

                Here’s what made the difference: a few years
ago I picked up a pen and decided to write down my feelings about the abuses I’d
suffered as a child, and the life issues I’ve suffered since. It cost me
nothing . . . and everything, all at the same time.

                Now, this was a means of recovery I liked. I
could purge it all in a healthy way. I knew there was no pulling the wool over
this puppy’s face anymore. At first I didn’t intend to share these feelings
with anyone, but all this writing eventually (with the help of my wonderful
publisher, Judith Regan) became my first book, No Lifeguard on Duty. I slowly
realized why I’m here: to share my story, which is a cautionary tale. And I
know how lucky I am to be here at all.

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                When you’re no longer an addict, dealing
with the traffic patterns in your brain gets even trickier because you can’t
fall on those easy fixes. The only thing you have to fall back on is yourself.
I’m not always such an easy companion. There are days when my mind screams, You’re
nothing but a hideous piece of shit. And there’s no mute button to push those
moments away. On those days when I’m completely overwhelmed, I go into my
bedroom, close the door, and tell the committee inside my head to shut the fuck
up. This group that lives inside my brain gangs up on me and screams, Janice,
you’re no good. You’re less than everyone else. You’re not going to get a job,
economic doom is around the bend, your kids hate you, and you’ll never find
anyone to love you.

                Those little damn voices are relentless. But
here’s the good news: they all work for me. So when things get bad, I just
scream: You’re all fired, so get the hell out!

                Janice, honey, you might be wondering, have
you ever talked this over with a shrink?

                I live in California—what do you think?

                “Perhaps you have multiple personalities,” a
Beverly Hills head doc once told me. And when I got done laughing in his
well-lifted face, I said, “Me and all my personalities would like to tell you
that’s bullshit.”

                Sure, there are plenty of voices in my head.
And when they’re all speaking up, I silence them by simply asking the Divine
Light within me,

                “Please, let the strongest part of me
prevail.”

                I also tell myself, I love you. Then I try
to take a deep breath, calm down, and meditate for twenty minutes. When I can,
I’ll actually leave the house afterward, instead of marinating in my misery.
There’s one thing I find I can always do: Just keep going. You can, too. Models
aren’t the only victims of stress. (No kidding!) Check out what happened to me
the other day:

                I was cruising down Beverly Glen Boulevard
after a relaxing two-hour yoga class, feeling fantastic. As I made my way down
the pavement, I lightly E V E R Y T H I N G A B O U T M E I S F A K E . . . A N
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                tapped the horn because some guy was
standing up, half out of his car, in the middle of the road, with his door wide
open. He looked up and screamed, “Bitch!” Then he jumped in the car, gunned it,
and pulled out in front of me, nearly causing a massive accident. Suddenly all
those good yoga vibes were gone . . . and Ninja Janice was back.

                “You have no idea what kind of bitch I am!”
I screamed. I tailed him; I almost rammed him. I even forced the guy off the
road. At that point he began to scream, “You’re chemically imbalanced!” (Only
in Beverly Hills.) Photograph not available for

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                How did he know?

                “You don’t know who I am!” he shouted at me.
“You’ll never work in this town again!”

                Now this one I couldn’t resist. “Honey, you’re
not the first person who said that—and certainly not the best-looking.” Deep
down, I kept thinking, Janice, enough. Enough!

                The real victory, of course, was that I didn’t
race home and jump into a bottle of pills or booze. I got it out verbally, and
that felt pretty damn good. But deep inside I felt like a little girl again,
with all the disapproving eyes in the world on her. I started to remember how
my father would yell at me and send me to bed without dinner. I would have to
sneak downstairs later just to scam a glass of juice. I’d stuff the stress
down, sneak out the window late at night, and then wander aimlessly around the
neighborhood in the dark, figuring that nothing worse could happen to me
outside than could happen to me in my own parents’ house. (See? Even then I
knew that walking was a really good way to get rid of what was bothering me.)