Eat the Damn Cake

You know that moment in the movie where the nerd girl takes off her glasses and pulls down her ponytail and steps into a fitted, sparkly dress? She is transformed. She timidly makes her way down the stairs, and the guy at the bottom stares up, open-mouthed, seeing her as though for the very first time. Who is this sudden goddess? It is probably Aphrodite.

That has never happened to me.

Not even close.

Actually, when I was trying on wedding gowns at Macy’s, I was a little surprised at the extent to which that didn’t happen. The saleswoman was pretty sure it would.

“If you need to cry, just do it,” she said. “It’s overwhelming, seeing yourself like this for the first time.”

I blinked hard. I looked at myself in the mirror. I leaned forward, gazing deeply, cushioned by billows of shimmering white gown. It was true. One of my eyebrows really was a little higher up than the other. Weird. And my face looked saggy. Saggy? Seriously? I was twenty-four! How was this possible? The face did not match the gown. I looked stupid.

“It’s OK,” said the saleswoman. “I know it can be very emotional.”

“Can you get me out of this dress, please?” I said.

I do not clean up good. Well. I do not clean up well. I do not transition smoothly into a fairy princess. Instead, in fancy clothes, I look a little confused– like my hair didn’t get the memo. Like my face wasn’t made for elegant parties. Like I should work on my posture. In other words, I look like myself– but wearing something nicer.

It’s disappointing. Some women (including many of my friends) are full of womanly mystery. In their street clothes, they are lovely, but their loveliness hints at some greater potential. They might spring into full stunning gorgeousness at any moment, given the right shoulder-baring dress, eye makeup, and hair stylist. Not me. What you see is definitely what you get. And what you get looks like it should be wearing overalls with paint splatters on them.

(oooh, sexy…)

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This is the continuing saga of the cat. Remember her? The little orange and white thing that was destroying my marriage? Recap: my cousin found her. She was a stray, being beaten up by bigger, meaner cats who excluded her just because they could, and taunted her about the bump on her nose. She really does have a tiny bump, and it’s adorable. So I agreed to foster her, but I didn’t ask Bear. Because up until then, we’d just agreed about everything, like in a fairytale about a relationship.

Apparently, the cat was where the fairytale ended. Because Bear was not happy. And he was even less happy when I decided that we had to keep the cat. How could we let her go? She was tiny and orange and purred ALL the time. He was fine with letting her go. She shed all over the place, jumped up on the counter constantly, and ran around like an insane thing all night long, meowing and knocking things over.

“You aren’t being respectful of me,” he said.

Those were big, important words.

This is after the recap, by the way.

It’s been a couple months. But only about two weeks since the final straw. Minute, the cat, wanted to be in our bedroom at night. She was meowing at the door. I opened it. Bear chased her out and closed it. I opened it again. The poor kitten was afraid!

We had a fight. And this isn’t bragging, it’s confusion: it was one of the only fights we’ve ever had.

“This is not about the cat,” said Bear. “This is about you not listening to me. This is about you making big decisions without me, like you don’t care what I think.”

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The young woman took off her bathrobe. She was completely naked. She dropped the robe. The music swelled.

She had glorious ankles. A plush, gentle, welcoming body, a proud, striking face. She was beautiful. In time to the music, she slowly, slowly began to get dressed, stockings first.

My friend, the blogger Rachel Rabbit White, and I were at a burlesque show on the Upper West Side. We were watching Lucida Sans (stage name), the founder of Rhinestone Gorilla, a burlesque troupe that began in college at SUNY New Paltz, perform a backwards striptease. We were impressed.

(Lucida Sans, photo by Linus Gelber)

I am not a particularly daring person. I have never even been drunk. Going to a burlesque show feels like kind of a big deal to me. I’m not one of those cool New Yorkers who have seen it all. I have barely seen any of it, and I know it.

But this was not my first time watching women undress on stage. It was my second. I was back for more, because the first time made me feel so good.

(Gemma Stone in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, photo by Linus Gelber)

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So I had this job interview thing back in the town I went to college in. It was the first time in years that I’d been back there.

College was not an amazing experience for me. It wasn’t a really bad experience either. I have some really fond memories of sitting in my dorm, with the white cinderblock walls covered in print-out photos I’d taken of flowers and boys and my friends, writing music and eating dining hall takeout. I didn’t have one of those epic college experiences that people seem to always be having, where I made the best friends I’ll ever make, got so drunk that hilarious things happened, found myself, discovered what inspired me most, and earned the right to forever reference all that as the “best time of my life.” Which I think is good, really. Because it would be sad to get the best time of my life out of my system so young.

In college, I was pretty sure I’d like whatever came next better. I couldn’t wait to be out in the world. I knew I’d like it. And I was right. There was only ever one thing that I missed about college:

Fat sandwiches.

(source)

I can’t get them out of my head. Actually, this is my second post about them. Because they are that amazing. They are the extreme sport version of the regular sandwich. I’m bad at analogies today. They are gross. They have everything you can imagine on them. I build my own– with cheesesteak, mozzarella sticks, french fries, lettuce, gyro, hot sauce, and white sauce. I am not ashamed. I am not exactly proud, either, because I think that makes me sound like I’m trying to kill myself.

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(Note: Scroll down to the bottom of this post for new cake shots from readers! They continue to be amazing)

I’ve been depressed for the last two days. The kind of depressed where Bear is like, “What’s wrong?” and I’m like “Nothing.” Because everything feels wrong, even the tiniest, most stupidly meaningless things, and it would be impossible to describe and I don’t understand anything and “nothing” is the only word I can even remember how to say.

“But seriously, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” My mind is a black hole. It’s amazing, really, that this word has surfaced from the depths. Good job, mind. Someone should give me a prize. Someone should put me back in front of the TV so I can watch yet another episode of Terra Nova and continue to wonder vaguely why everyone in the future is white. Except for the evil tribal leader who lives out in the jungle. She’s black.

I was going out last night. I had a thing at 7:00. So I decided to get serious. To stare the black hole in its black hole face. I went out and bought some red lipstain. Yeah. I did.

So now you know that I didn’t have any before. I had red lipstick, but that always ends up on my teeth.

It cost nine dollars. Isn’t that a lot? I always think that makeup is way more expensive than it should be.

I  felt like I looked stupid buying it. I was depressed. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that had something to do with football that I’d stolen from my dad. My dad is a very broad, muscular man. I am not. I felt like the woman behind the counter was judging me. She might have been thinking, “Seriously, honey? Good luck with  that…”

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I just read a book by Diana Joseph called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way. It made me feel better about myself. There was a chapter about being slutty, and that was my favorite one. I read it aloud to Bear. Then I tried not to cry. It would’ve been really embarrassing if I cried. The thing is, I feel guilty about boys. I wish I hadn’t been the way I was. I feel like I shouldn’t talk about the way I was. It’s a dark, slimy secret.

I have always liked boys. Once, I had a pretty serious crush on another girl, but mostly it’s been boys. Even though the first time I kissed a boy, and excitedly shared the secret with my mom, she panicked and told me he was going to try to get me to take my clothes off, probably, I still thought there was nothing wrong with kissing. Or with taking my clothes off, even though at that point I was twelve, and I couldn’t see why I would want to take any clothes off, and I was pretty sure the boy I’d kissed didn’t want me to.

He didn’t. He was scared of me. I was the one who’d made us kiss. I had cleverly tricked him into it.

In fact, I cleverly tricked several boys into similar situations. Kissing was thrilling. I had all the power.

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I asked Bear how his day was.

He thought about it for a second. He said, “Somewhat so so.”

Somewhat so so? Is that even a thing? Is that a state of being? The next step down is “Entirely so so.” The next step up is “Partially OK.”

I found this really embarrassing Word document from a long time ago, before I moved to NYC. In it, I’m describing the guy I’m definitely going to meet there. The guy I’m going to marry. The first thing I say about him is that he writes these absolutely lovely songs on guitar. His lyrics are heartfelt, subtle, and clever. They’re about things that matter. His finger picking is impressively accurate.

He is a passionate guy.

My mom always said I needed a passionate guy.

(source)

Once I had this dream about a herd of white horses running through a shallow river. I was waiting on the bank. Then a black stallion came tearing down the hill on the other side and splashed mightily up to me, and I jumped on his back. Someone should analyze that dream.

My mom did. She said it meant I needed a passionate man.

My grandma said it meant I should be careful. Very careful.

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