Eat the Damn Cake

I went to the ballet last night. Sleeping Beauty. It’d been a long time since I’d gone. We were sitting up really high, and I could see the way all of the tutus complemented each other. It was a little like an aerial view of a city block in the rain—so many umbrellas. Except the umbrellas would have to be mostly pale pink. That seems to be the favorite color. And they’d have to have sparkles on them. Sparkles are critical. Without sparkles…Well, it’s hard to imagine ballet without sparkles. And tutus. And pale pink. The evil character, the dark fairy, is always rushing in accompanied by billows of smoke. When Princess Aurora falls down in a death-like faint after touching the tip of the spindle, the fairy throws back her arms and head in what looks like an evil belly laugh, or at least a cackle. But no sound comes out. Ballet does not require sound. It forbids it, in fact. The evil fairy could do little more than wave her arms in evil frustration. I felt sorry for her.

I used to take ballet classes, up until I was eight or so. I was horrendously bad at the whole thing. I don’t even have any idea why I did it. I didn’t have a single friend in most of the classes, because no one wanted to talk to me. There were a few reasons for this. As far as I can tell, they go like this:

1. My underwear always showed. I hadn’t figured out that you weren’t supposed to wear any
2. My hair was never brushed and it wasn’t long enough to go up in a bun with a pink satin ribbon around it
3. I was terrible at every single move they taught us, and usually obviously out of breath
4. When the instructor asked us who would like to play a tree in an upcoming performance, I yelled, “ME!!! MEEEEE!!” while all of the other little girls gracefully raised their hands. (Homeschooled)

Oh, and once I came to class with two upside down naked trolls drawn on my thighs. They were explicitly naked, with the correct male and female genitalia. I had been telling my four-year-old brother a story about a family of trolls, and, in an effort to illustrate what the mother and father looked like, had grabbed a marker and drawn on the first surface available to me. And then gone off to ballet class. The tights didn’t help. The naked trolls were clearly visible. Continue Reading »

I’m looking for an apartment. It could be anywhere in the city. Right now we’re living in a tiny studio apartment with no dishwasher. The floorboards sink when you step on certain ones (I’ve memorized their locations and can walk to the bathroom in the dark like a pro). The bathroom will never be clean. It just can’t be. Ancient grime has bound itself on a molecular level to the caulk between the tiles. Sometimes something amusing will happen, like I’ll open a cabinet and everything will fall on my head. Things I didn’t know I owned will hit me in the face. Or I’ll turn on the light and there will be a hard popping sound, an explosion, and then darkness. That actually happens a lot. And then I have to wait for the super to install new bulbs, because he needs to bring a latter. And the super has not taken a shower in about three years. I wish I could tell you that that is a dramatic embellishment, but it’s not. His smell lingers in the elevator when he’s been in it within the last several hours. The elevator itself, while I’m on the topic, is frightening. I’m used to it now, but when people visit they always have to say something about the enthusiastic way it bounces up and down a few times upon reaching a floor. The super, a colossal, round man who lumbers rather than walks, once opened his door totally naked and confronted me about recycling as I walked into the “lobby.” He was sort of leaning around the door, so maybe he wasn’t completely naked, but –just a guess—he definitely was.

All that said, I’ve actually been really happy here. This apartment has seen some of my most difficult and most blissful times. It has great windows, the better to see me with. I don’t know why I just tossed that Little Red Riding Hood reference in there. Moving on. I moved here when I started grad school, and I felt completely out of my element and unsuccessful and painfully stupid. All I ate was bagels for a while. Continue Reading »

I’ve technically been old enough to have a baby since I was like fourteen. But I wasn’t exactly doing anything that could cause that to happen. And by “not exactly,” I mean, “not at all.” When my friends and I started having sex, we were all completely terrified of getting pregnant, as most girls, I’d assume, are.

And when I say terrified….You know the way your mind can start mapping out possible paths sperm might take to your uterus? It calculates that they can get there from improbable distances, over nearly insurmountable obstacles. Much like salmon, really. Those salmon, leaping and leaping until they clear the waterfall, swimming upstream.

I’ve taken a pregnancy test a few times, mostly out of paranoia, and each time, it’s the tensest minute ever. For a second, when the little minus sign forms, I think it’s a plus—OH MY GOD. NO. THIS ISN’T HAPPENING. Oh. Wait. It really isn’t happening. Yay! Sheesh, what the hell was I worried about? I’m obviously not pregnant. Continue Reading »

Where do you want to be right now? What do you want to be doing? I’d like to be…In an endless enchanted forest, by a pure blue spring, eating strawberry rhubarb pie and sipping on a giant chocolate milk. With some mozzarella sticks on the side.

What would you look like? I’d have long, cascading auburn hair, perfectly round breasts that stood up on their own, and….

Alright, forget that.

It seems like wherever you are in your life, you can imagine yourself being somewhere else. Looking like someone else. Or at least an “improved” version of yourself. Actually, isn’t that a big part of what motivates us to keep going? We’re always trying to get to a better place. Right now I know exactly what I’d change.

I’d be living in a bigger apartment, higher up, with a view of the river and a lot of the city. I’d be a famous writer. They’d be making a movie of a book I’d written (preferably one that included a battle scene involving at least three different types of mythical beasts, for the sweet CGI). My nose would be smaller and thinner. With more definition. With less presence. My eyes would be larger and set farther apart. My breasts would be—well, I’m not sure I want perfectly round ones that stand up on their own—but they’d be fuller. Honestly, I could go on all day with this list.

But I just remembered this game I made up a while ago. You can try it almost anywhere. Unless you’re operating heavy machinery. Or you’re an on-duty air traffic controller. Or a neurosurgeon in the middle of surgery. Or on a tightrope. Ok, so you can’t really try it anywhere. It’s still great, though. Here’s how you play: Continue Reading »

My friend and I were sitting on a bench by the river next to the Boat Basin Café. Lots of ambitious and health-conscious New Yorkers jogged by in coordinated jogging outfits. A flock of luxury boats like colossal mutant swans bobbed on the murky surface of the water. It was warm.

I said, “I think that guy just checked you out.”

She said, “What guy?”

“The one who just ran by. In the jogging shorts.”

She glanced towards him. “Oh yeah? Was he cute?”

“Not really. But youngish.”

“Ok.”

We went back to our conversation about people who own yachts and whether or not they clean their own yacht bathrooms. But soon my friend said, “I think that guy just checked you out.”

It turned out that pretty much every guy who went by was looking at us. There wasn’t an age limit. There wasn’t any kind of limit. We started paying attention. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong, like a tree about to fall on our heads or bird poop in some inopportune place. It’s not as though either one of us has never been checked out, but this was ridiculous. We tried to figure out why.

“It’s the dresses.”

“Yeah, kinda low cut.”

“But I’m flat.”

“Me too.”

“Still…Maybe they’re checking just in case.”

“Probably.” Continue Reading »

(click here for image source)

We were walking through the city last night, and my friend said, “I don’t think I can be standardly pretty, because my face is too surprising from certain angles.” I said, “What?” And she said, “I mean, I think that’s what prevents someone from being typically attractive. There’s something surprising about their appearance. My profile is surprising. It doesn’t match the way my face looks from the front.”

I thought about that for a second. How much of beauty is about consistency? Probably a lot.

It’s a little lazy, isn’t it? Like only watching movies that have neat, expected conclusions. Like only listening to music that hovers around the same pitches and rests on the same, familiar, comfortingly major chords. We do that too.

Well, maybe my face is a little violent. Maybe it has a twist. Maybe my body has dissonant chords and uneven transitions and an unfamiliar melody. That’s how art evolves. Beauty evolves, too, like anything. Continue Reading »

(Beyonce knows what’s what. Click here for designer. My amazing blogger friend Elizabeth from Plus-Size Models Unite sent me these shots. Thanks, Elizabeth!)

Thanks for all the amazing comments on yesterday’s post! It makes me want to talk more about happiness. But before I do that, I’m going to talk about this:

A lot of people say that the trick to looking good is mastering your own look. You know, understanding your particular brand of beauty and working with it. Your hair is red, so rather than wearing the same shade of pink everyone else (including all of your guy friends) wear, you try a jewel blue. BAM. There. Now you’re perfect. You have an ethnic look, so you mix skinny jeans with bangled jewelry from your culture. Viola! You’re a beauty success story.

Not really. It’s a little more complicated. Most people wear clothing that other people wear. Somewhere, all the way down the line, there’s someone who started it. Probably someone really thin, and possibly twelve-years-old. Continue Reading »