Eat the Damn Cake

I know intellectually that there is a baby in there somewhere, a very tiny one, but my brain mostly interprets the pregnancy as illness. An ongoing, relentless illness that crushes me into bed and sits on my stomach and won’t let me up except to vomit. And vomiting isn’t a relief. You think it will be, for the few minutes afterward, when your body remembers that it used to be, when you were normal-sick with a stomach bug. But this isn’t a bug, it’s an infestation. No, it’s a baby. It’s a baby.

I had to cancel everything.

The people I had to tell said, “Well, it’s good preparation for motherhood. You don’t have control!”

But I was going to use these months, I thought feebly. I have so much to do. I’m supposed to finish a book. I’m supposed to get a book deal before I have this sudden baby, so that I can feel satisfied about having done something big with my career before everything is different. The impending baby sometimes looms large, like a loss or a magical, unknowable portal that I am headed straight for. Like knowing if you keep going that way you’ll drive off the bridge, but your hands are glued to the wheel. What was I thinking? I think, on the toilet for an hour because I can’t poop, crying and humiliated even though I’m alone. But then I’m so exhausted and weak that I can’t remember my own ambition. What was it that I thought I wanted to do with my life? Why did I care?

(since I spend so much time with it these days, I kinda wish mine was nicer. source)

“Did you have morning sickness?” I ask desperately, when I talk to relatives.

“Not really! I felt good!”

And then I have nothing to say to them. I am afraid of how I will sound. Self-centered. Wimpy.

Someone said to me, “I was sick, but I didn’t focus on it. Maybe you’re focusing on it too much.”

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I used to think that if I could change something about myself it’d be my nose. I’d give myself this straight, fine, elfin nose that authors are always ascribing to the faces of graceful women characters. The kind of women who look good even when they’re really tired.

And then I thought that it would be my neck. To be a graceful woman, you need a long, slender neck, according to so many movies. I have watched too many movies, probably. I probably care too much about grace.

And then, later, I thought, no, I need my legs to be different—longer, leaner, more coltish. Coltish because we women are always basing our beauty on very young things.

But right now, I don’t really care about any of that. If I could change something, it would be inside my head. I would change this strange fragility. This dangling blown glass orb of my mind that catches the light and spills tiny rainbows everywhere, but that is always waiting for the fall. That shudders at being brushed against, spinning, bobbing, set into frantic motion.

(source)

Of course I’m a writer, I think sometimes, when I’m angry at my mind. Writers are classically depressed, stereotypically anxious. Writers dance along the thin line of sanity, slipping eloquently over sometimes, describing it in all the right adjectives.

Writers are often a little unhinged.

Or maybe they just tell us about it.

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I can’t stop reading mystery novels. All I want to do is read murder mysteries, especially if they are set in England (Scotland is also good) and people have parlors and there are words I’ve never seen before but I can chalk them up to me not being British and still feel good about myself. I prefer my murder mysteries to sound vaguely old-fashioned, even if they were written in the 90s. I prefer the characters to believe firmly in the proper protocol, even if they have to break it.

But even if a book has to be set in America, and the detective has to be all swashbuckling and rebellious, I’ll still read it, as long as it’s a mystery.

(source)

Right now I’m reading a book by Elizabeth George (thank you, people on Twitter, for the recommendation! This post is dedicated to you!), and I am in love with her ugly woman detective. Her name is Barbara Havers. I am only on the second book of a long series, so I don’t know what will become of her and how her ugliness will factor into her fate, and I don’t know how the class difference between her and the dashing, high born detective she works with (in a supportive position) will play out. But I do know that I really like that she’s ugly. And I really like that she’s angry about being ugly. And I really like that she’s at the center of the books anyway.

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This piece appeared originally in Thought Catalog, but I wanted to share it here in full, because I told you guys I was going to apply, and I was all excited about it, and here is the sad ending to that little story about me trying for a second to be a good person. 

I am good with children. And I’m not just saying that — there’s real evidence. I ran a summer camp for little kids when I was fifteen. I tutored 12-year-olds at my synagogue for seven years, and once I overheard one of them in the hall saying to her friend, “Kate is the coolest teacher. You’ll see, when you get her next year.” I felt like I’d just won a gold medal for being awesome at life. Or, you know, teaching.

I like kids. I want to have them one day. Sometimes I feel strangely confident when I think about being a mother. More confident than I feel when I’m faced with something like weird colored water coming out of the shower or the question of which recycling bin to put the egg carton in. Raising an entire child? Bring it.

But something just happened to me that has shaken my confidence and tested my faith. Big Brothers Big Sisters rejected me.

(I want to! I want to start something! And I can play a couple chords on the guitar!! I have stuff to offer!)

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I used to think it was cool to be tough. I still think that, a little. I used to want to be described as “fiery,” and “stubborn,” and even “difficult,” because that sounded like someone who might disguise herself as a boy and train to be a knight in the king’s court, or tame dragons, or, even in this world, be pretty kickass.

(um, yes! That armor might be a little tight on me, but I could definitely do the cloak)

The last thing I wanted to be described as was “nice.” And the last thing I wanted to do was cry.

It turns out, I’m pretty nice. At least, as far as I can tell. And I cry all the time these days.

Crying has always felt like quitting, to me. Crying happens at the very end, when all else fails. It’s sort of shameful.

Crying is girly, and girly didn’t feel like me.

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I want to write something fantastic today, but honestly, I’m sitting here staring into the yawning mouth of my ancient printer, wondering about the meaning of life. In other words: I just got a rejection letter.

I get rejection letters all the time. I’m a writer. This one hurt in particular because the editor had written to me first, rather than the other way around. She requested a specific piece. She named an amount of money that was larger than any amount of money I’ve ever been offered for anything I’ve written. And she suggested that the process to publication would be smooth.

Nothing had been signed. Nothing was formally formalized, but she sounded so certain that I felt so certain that I did the thing I shouldn’t have done: I told my parents.

Look how well I’m doing! This big deal magazine came to ME!

We were in the kitchen, at their house. They were so excited for me. They said a lot of things about how things are finally coming together for me. How my hard work is paying off.

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First I go on Facebook. I always look at the same three people’s profiles. I disagree with their life choices. I shake my head and sigh and roll my eyes and feel superior. Seriously? You call that a status update? Are you insane? But I can’t stop checking. I know the inner working of these people’s lives better than I know anything about the way my own country’s government functions. Better than I know how to bake cookies. Better than I understand basic biology. Not as well as I know New York real estate, or grilled cheeses, or the game SET, but pretty close.

(they may call it a “family game,” but there’s nothing familial about the way I play it. I am ruthless. I take no prisoners. source)

Then I check Twitter. Two more people have followed me. That’s good. I think I have a reasonable number of followers. I’m not sure it’s the right amount. I check to see how many followers The Bloggess has. Holy shit. 215,301. I click over to her blog. She is being funny, in this sort of complicated, dry, extremely clever way. How does she keep doing it, all the time? Who else is a famous blogger? I locate a few. Damn, here’s a post with three-hundred comments under it. THREE-HUNDRED.

Who else is famous in general? There’s always some really young writer whose book just got an incredibly favorable review in the Times. I check out the review. Really? “Frolicking, phantasmic prose”? Can that be a thing? God. I am so lazy. My prose almost never frolics. I don’t have a chance, do I? Probably not.

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