Eat the Damn Cake

Kate: Have you ever been made fun of?

Maggie: When I was homeschooled I never knew that people made fun of other people. Admittedly, I went to school when I was younger than you – I started packing my lunch and walking to the local middle school in 6th grade – and I was still very oblivious to the fact that people can be catty, immature, and downright mean.

One memory that sticks with me is from that first year in school. My math teacher pulled me aside and gently informed me that my fly was down. I don’t know if others were making fun of me (remember, I was oblivious) or if she noticed before the kids did, but I’m grateful – both for my ignorance and her kindness. If the kids were snickering I didn’t notice and I’m glad for that. Continue Reading »

If you feel like reading a post you’ve already read, but at a much more impressive web-location, check out my post about ugliness that got republished on Jezebel. When I read it there, far from the comfortable little layout of my own little blog, it struck me as decidedly poorly done, obvious, and sort of as though it had been written by a chimp that had been laboring under the tutelage of an extremely patient linguistic researcher for the past several years and had finally, but just barely, learned to put words other than “banana” and “hungry” together in sentences. I mean, it’s very, very exciting that the chimp has come so far, and the researcher is going to publish her book on the experience shortly, but come on, at the end of the day, it’s a chimp, and we all know a six-year-old could do it better. Even if the six-year-old happened to mention a banana.

I had, just before this, made the mistake of glancing over the comments on my recent article in the Huffington Post (which I am not linking here, because it feels unrelated), and several hundred people had decided that they absolutely must inform me that I am stupid beyond any reasonable level of stupidity they have ever before witnessed or imagined. It is shocking how stupid I can manage to be, while still functioning on a basic level. They have met chimps much, MUCH more intelligent. Someone actually wrote in saying that he refused to even READ my article because the title itself was so stupid.

I was sitting around, feeling like I might in fact be unforgivably stupid, when I checked my email and read a message from a friend. Continue Reading »

Maggie: If I told you “you’re pretty,” what would you say?

Kate: I’d say, “Thanks, Maggie! You’re the best. You’re so pretty!”

This blog post from Healthy Girl made me think a lot about arrogance. OK, well, maybe not a lot, because I’m actually bad at thinking a lot. My thinking occurs in short bursts, and in between I have to eat a snack and check Facebook. Not even exaggerating. Maybe understating slightly. People need to be more upfront about different ways to be smart. It’s time to take back our own brains! Say no to the narrow, stereotypical portrayal of the intellectual! I’m here, I have a short attention span, and I’m proud! That could have been catchier.

Right.

So, arrogance.

Healthy Girl feels weird when a random guy compliments her legs. Not because he is totally creepy. But because she feels like her legs are just not that complimentable. (It’s a word now. You don’t need to look it up, just trust me.) I know what she’s talking about. It’s ridiculous. Yesterday these two guys walked by me as I was turning a corner onto 81^st between Amsterdam and Broadway, and they both started calling things at me. I didn’t look at them, I just kept walking, but I responded internally to everything (that I could understand) that they said. Continue Reading »

Maggie– I’ll answer your next question tomorrow, but first I want to talk about dating nerds and some other stuff.

Thanks to the commenters on yesterday’s post for the lively discussion/debate about gender, biology, and attraction! I really believe that conversations like these are the kind that will keep happening, no matter what. The terms change a little, but we’re always talking about sexuality. Kind of like we always talk about spirituality or God. There are just some subjects that people can’t get enough of. This is why I studied religion and sexuality in college and grad school. Because I am totally human, and I’m not even trying to fight it. My younger brothers tease me about it a lot. When people asked what their sister was studying they said, “God and sex” (or more explicit versions of this), just for the subsequent troubled expressions.

Yesterday’s conversation about attraction got me thinking about relationships, and then, because I’m ridiculously self-centered, I thought about my own relationships with guys (I never actually got around to kissing a girl at any point). And, because I try to stick at least mostly to the body image theme (we’ll see how long I can keep it up! No sex pun intended!), I thought about how my understanding of myself as attractive or unattractive has been influenced by romantic relationships. Continue Reading »

Maggie: Do you think people are either attractive or unattractive?

Kate: My mother was on the phone last night, saying, “You have to stop putting yourself down. You sound ridiculous.” I was saying, “But I feel bad sometimes. I’m just being honest.”

She wasn’t buying it. She is a staunch defender of my awesomeness. I definitely plan on being the same way with my eventual children. My fiancé likes to tease me by saying, “But what if they’re actually ugly?” We have this little debate. I say, “They won’t be to me. Or to other people who love them.”

“But what if you can just tell that they’re objectively ugly?” Continue Reading »

Maggie: Do you think there’s still a problem with being smart and pretty?

Kate: Are being smart and being pretty two things that can’t go together? Ha! That’s ridiculous! Angelina Jolie is an ambassador of some sort, right? I had this really gorgeous professor undergrad. There’s Michelle Obama, who’s totally rocking her own unique look.

As a homeschooler, I thought I was positive extremes across the board. I was definitely smart. I was definitely beautiful. I was definitely awesome. I was definitely going to rule the world some day. In college, I felt suddenly dorky. I began to pick up on all these subtle rules. Like: If a heavy girl talks too much in class, she’s annoying and obnoxious. If a thin girl talks too much about gender in class she’s a lesbian feminist. If she’s really pretty, then she’s a little less annoying. Continue Reading »